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How do you interprete the wording of the Shurima section of the Bard Teaser?

Solideus··4 votes·2,033 views
The wonder above

"A cloud of smoldering destruction hangs in the night sky. This is the Fall of Shurima.

The Ancients groped blindly in the darkness, threatening to unravel the very fabric of creation in their hubris. Noble Shurimans who Ascended found a loose thread in the universe’s tapestry, and pulled upon it. The vulgarity of their ambition consumed thousands of innocent lives and ended a golden age.

Such was the fate of mighty Shurima and of men who would become gods."

Something about the wording feels contradictory, which would imply I'm not understanding it's meaning fully.

  1. Are the Ancients supposed to be some group of ancient humans, the Ascended, or both collectively?

  2. Is The Ancients groped blindly in the darkness, threatening to unravel the very fabric of creation in their hubris. and Noble Shurimans who Ascended found a loose thread in the universe’s tapestry, and pulled upon it. The vulgarity of their ambition consumed thousands of innocent lives and ended a golden age. just two texts describing the same thing, or describing two different things?

  3. Why would they describe the Ascended as both noble and vulgar in the same breath?

  4. What is the darkness and the thread they pulled referring to? The thousands of lost lives and the end of a golden age sounds like what Xerath did, but the rest of the description doesn't quite fit. I assume it might be the void, but you never know. I guess that would give Shurima two separate golden ages that ended. Or Xerath *also *released the void into the world with Ascension. The timeline might not fit well for the latter, though.

  5. The plural description of the Ascended makes me think it was not Azir nor Xerath, as they ascended quite far apart. Neither attempted to pull on the "universe's tapestry" either, as far as I see, unless the act of ascending counts.

That's my initial thoughts. Whats your interpretations?

19 Comments

Sharjo7 votes

Thinking back to the actual fall of Shurima, what actually happened with Xerath is probably unknown to the wider world, with only the likes of Nasus, Renekton, Xerath, Azir and those they would tell the story to knowing the truth.

It's potentially what the world thinks of Shurima; they gained the power of Gods and obtained a golden age for their nation, but like Icarus they flew to high and were burned by it. On the note of the tapestry of the universe though, think about what Xerath says:

Xerath "I see the forces that hold the universe together."

The Ascended are immortal and immensely powerful, especially Xerath, who is raw magic only restricted by the sarcophagus binding him. Nasus and Azir have both mentioned before about the stars and what they see in them:

Nasus "The sky is naught but dying stars."

The night sky was not as Azir remembered it; the stars and the constellations were misaligned. Millennia had passed.

This Ascension gave them knowledge beyond anything humans of the time would have known, I mean how many ancient cultures would actually be able to discern that stars can actually die? It stands to reason that eventually they'd be tempted to grasp for more, and while truth of the events might not be known, the sentiment is what carried through the ages.

Perhaps the world doesn't know that the Ascended were given their powers, they didn't take them, or maybe they did, and knowing that Xerath took the power meant overstepping their bounds and bringing destruction and ruin. There's a lot the world of Runeterra doesn't know about its history.

A Superb Villain2 votes

Actually, I think quite a few civilizations know about the Fall of Shurima, as Lissandra explicitly mentions it, and the Bard (people) are familiar with it, but no one knows the exact details. A nation of the ancient world disappearing overnight is rather hard to miss.

Sharjo3 votes

Yeah that's what I meant; it'd be hard to miss the grand explosion that rippled across the desert, but only four people are alive today who actually witnessed the fall of Shurima at the very center of it all, underneath the Sun Disc.

I still think Freljord's had dealings with Shurima in the past. Hell Shurima probably had dealings with Icathia and Urtistan before their falls, almost like Shurima's golden age came about because it was the last great nation of the south standing.

Kingsgrave2 votes

It seems that the Bardish people, followers of Bard that became Bards from learning his ways after he passed, do not see those who use power in that way as anything less than vulgar even if they were "great" in terms of abilities.

GreenLore1 votes

I guess the destruction is the one caused by xerath,which would make the humans that lived during that time the ancients. They may talk about Xeraths vulgarity,simply counting him as one of the ascended,or the ascension ritual was literally causing harm on a cosmic level,without the ascended realizing this

A Superb Villain1 votes

The Ancients could be referring to civilizations of Valoran's past that met with destruction or are no longer functioning as political entities, such as Icathia (tainted by the Void), Shurima (blew up), and Urtistan (destroyed).

Volt Cruelerz1 votes

Umm... I think you might be misunderstanding Ascension. Ascension that at least some Shurimans were capable of. There are four known ones: Nasus, Renekton, Azir, and Xerath.

  1. The Ancients would probably be referring to the Ascended and those that discovered how to.
  2. Same thing.
  3. Because they were nobility or they were simply the most civilized people at the time. That doesn't mean their actions weren't vulgar though.
  4. The darkness would simply be the deep arcane magic associated with Ascension. Bear in mind that Ascension basically turns you into a god. That's far above and beyond normal magic. Xerath is omnipotent, omniscient, and accidentally Akira'd Shurima. Azir rebuilt Shurima in seconds. Nasus appears to have omniscience, or at least some sort of cosmic intellect. All four are immortal. And these are just the powers we're aware of. It's entirely possible that Xerath created a rift that enabled travel to the Void, but that's not mentioned anywhere, and it's Icathia, not the Shuriman Desert that's tainted with the Void.
  5. Again, there are at least four Ascended. There were quite possibly more, but they may have been destroyed by Xerath. Pulling on the thread is simply a reference to Ascendance.
Solideus1 votes

I got the impression the teaser *might *be referring to two different events; one would be the void (or some other threat) arriving, when Nasus and Renekton are alluded to have ascended, and secondly Xerath's ascension that turned the empire to ruins for a thousand years. The darkness and the universe's tapestry-threads sounds a lot like opening the world to the Void. It might just refer to the latter disaster somehow, of course.

The thought of other ascended is interesting. It isn't impossible Rammus will turn out to be a ancient forgotten ascended, or something silly like an ascended armadillo. I'm *almost *hoping for the latter.

Desmond Law1 votes

It is possible Ascension is linked to the Void similar to The Sentry in Marvel. The stronger or weaker The Sentry is, the stronger his Void (dark side) is.

Gear Kitty1 votes

  1. The ancient Shurimans; Nasus and Renekton are even older than Azir and Xerath. All four are not the only Ascended, and none could Ascend on their own.

  2. Same thing, in my eyes.

  3. To allude to the fact that Ascending was for noble Shurimans and the chosen warriors.

  4. I assume it's the fact that they tied directly into a well of magic and energy to fuel the ascension, leaving normal volunteers severely changed, and Xerath as pure magical power.

  5. All the Ascended warped the universe to fulfill their transformation, but Xerath changed the ritual much in the same way as pulling a certain thread out of a tapestry could greatly change the entire look.

Desmond Law1 votes

The loose thread is reference to the Ascension Ritual. Shurima's mages found out how to become gods and used the Ascension ritual as a way to distill the power of the universe into their emperors. Pulling on the thread was a reference to Xerath's tampering with the Ritual and ending the legacy of Shurima. Noble in this case references high class of money holding citizens, not people who are good of heart. You can be a noble noble or a vulgar noble. Ascended was mentioned in plural as it is mentioned that the Ascension Ritual was practiced before Azir's time as emperor, as a reference to previous emperors before Azir who had Ascended. The Ancients is still a reference to Shurimans, as they are our equivalent of Egyptians, who we consider ancient.

Solideus1 votes

So you think it also refers to history prior to Xerath's Ascension. Where would you say the Void was introduced in all of this, would they be a byproduct of the use of Ascention, appearing early on? Or were the Shurimans not involved in their appearance, just victims of their arrival?

Desmond Law1 votes

Void creatures originate from Icitha, which is Runeterra's link to the Void. The timeline for the first appearance of the Void is hard for me to tell, I don't know if I missed the lore or if it has yet to be reached, but Malzahar is the only link between Shurima and the Void.

Malzahar was born in Shurima (unknown if it was ancient Shurima or modern, but it seems like modern Shurima), and traveled to Icitha where the Void called to him and granted him powers. It is possible that this calling is related to Ascension (Void version) but the lore does not go into detail about it.

Solideus1 votes

There are two other points I that to me suggests a very intimate history between Shurima and the Void. The Void has a very palpable presence in Shurima as shown by Rek'Sai and the Xer'Sai. That is unprecedented anywhere else as far as we know, except maybe for Icathia. Icathia is also very close to Shurima, though. Also, on the Shurima Promo Page , slightly out of view, there is a reference to the circumstance of Nasus' and Renekton's ascension. I tend to assume the mysterious beings mentioned are Void creatures. Of course they *could *be something else. Renekton was shown fighting Rek'Sai on a mural in her teaser though, which lends more credibility to the Void being a threat historically.

Stars Shaper1 votes

It probably means that the ritual of Ascensions is a sort of "bug" in the universe that can be exploited to make humans god-like creatures. Expecially the Ritual that brought Xerath to become what he is has been so extreme that it caused such destruction that even the Shuriman civilization had fallen.

Ancients simply refers to ppl lived eons ago.

Solideus1 votes

A couple of people seem to have misunderstood what the Ancients question was about; What I meant was: did some ancient shurimans screw up and the Ascended came in trying to fix it, or did the Ascended themselves screw up?

Stars Shaper1 votes

The only screwup we came to know about Ascension is what happened with Xerath. It wasn't even a real screw up since Xerath planned for this and went as he thought (imprisonment apart) but I guess other ppl would think it was a mistake.

Desmond Law1 votes

Xerath intended the Ascension ritual to kill Azir, but took the hit instead when Azir freed him. So that did not go as planned and shows how little Shurimans knew about the ritual they had performed for centuries.

Stars Shaper1 votes

Nope, Xerath intended to ascend himself since the begin to show that a slave would become as the gods they admired. Also, he built that ritual in order to become more powerful than others Ascended heroes, the ritual was such that even Azir could ascend after millenia just by being close to Xerath.

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