Characters / League of Legends: Fiddlesticks

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Fiddlesticks, the Ancient Fear

"Feeeeaaaaar..."

Voiced by:
Kellen Goff (English, Surprise Party Fiddlesticks)
Roberto Encinas (European Spanish)
Marcos Duarte (Mexican Spanish)
Yoshihisa Kawahara (Japanese)
César Marchetti (Brazilian Portuguese)
Gu-In Go (Korean)
Nikita Prozorovsky (Russian)

"It's hunting us. It knows what we're afraid of."

—Unknown Victim

Something has awoken in Runeterra. Something ancient. Something terrible. The ageless horror known as Fiddlesticks stalks the edges of mortal society, drawn to areas thick with paranoia where it feeds upon terrorized victims. Wielding a jagged scythe, the haggard, makeshift creature reaps fear itself, shattering the minds of those unlucky enough to survive in its wake. Beware the sounding of the crow, or the whispering of the shape that appears almost human... Fiddlesticks has returned.

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Fiddlesticks is a Specialist champion that enjoys instilling absolute terror in its opponents, surprising them by bursting out of nowhere and reaping through multiple enemies at once.

• Its passive, A Harmless Scarecrow, replaces Fiddlesticks' trinket with Scarecrow Effigies, which look identical to an idle Fiddlesticks, grant vision like wards and, when approached by an enemy champion, fake a random action (such as attacking or using an ability) before disappearing. From level six onwards, they also reveal nearby wards and enemies for a few seconds when placed.
• Its first ability, Terrify, passively empowers Fiddlestick's next ability used when out of combat and unseen by enemies, or when standing idle and pretending to be a Scarecrow Effigy, causing it to fear enemies it damages, briefly forcing them to flee from Fiddlesticks; the same enemy can't be feared more than once every few seconds. When activated, Fiddlesticks shrieks at a nearby enemy, damaging them based on their current health and fearing them. If they have already been feared recently, they instead take double damage.
• Its second ability, Bountiful Harvest, makes Fiddlesticks channel in place for a few seconds as it drains the souls of nearby enemies, continuously damaging them and healing itself by a percentage of the damage dealt. The final instance of damage deals additional damage based on the target's missing health.
• With its third ability, Reap, Fiddlesticks swings its scythe in an arc at a target location, damaging and slowing enemies inside. Enemies hit in the center of the arc are silenced and applied a stronger slow.
• With its ultimate ability, Crowstorm, Fiddlesticks briefly channels before teleporting to a target location, summoning a murder of crows around itself that continuously damages nearby enemies for a few seconds.

Fiddlestick's alternate skins include Spectral Fiddlesticks, Union Jack Fiddlesticks, Bandito Fiddlesticks, Pumpkinhead Fiddlesticks, Fiddle Me Timbers, Surprise Party Fiddlesticks, Dark Candy Fiddlesticks, Risen Fiddlesticks, Praetorian Fiddlesticks, Star Nemesis Fiddlesticks, and Blood Moon Fiddlesticks.

In season 5 of Teamfight Tactics, Fiddlesticks was added in the Dawn of Heroes mid-set update as a Tier 4 Abomination Revenant Mystic. Its ability, Crowstorm, teleports Fiddlesticks behind its target after a brief channel and summons a murder of crows around itself that damages all enemies in the area. Enemies that die within the area extend the ability's duration and restore a percentage Fiddlesticks' missing health. It was removed in season 6, returning in season 8 using its Star Nemesis Fiddlesticks skin as a Tier 5 Corrupted Threat. Its Corrupted origin is a unique trait that causes Fiddlesticks to begin each round of combat in a dormant state, gaining ability power for each ally that dies that round. Once all allies have died or Fiddlesticks falls below 60% health, it awakens and immediately casts its Dark Harvest ability, teleporting Fiddlesticks into the largest cluster of enemies and briefly fearing them. For the next few seconds afterward, Fiddlesticks gains increased movement speed and continuously deals magic damage to all nearby enemies, healing itself for a percentage of the damage dealt.

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Fiddlesticks has two main incarnations that have existed, its original version from 2009, and its Visual-Gameplay Update from 2020. Both versions will have respective folders with tropes specific to them.

In General

• Ascended Meme: The concept for Surprise Party Fiddlesticks originated on the official forums, where it gained massive popularity. It was released on League of Legends second anniversary.
• Anchors Away : Fiddle Me Timbers replaces the scythe with an anchor, fitting its pirate theme.
  Yar har, fiddle-dee-dee.
• Ax-Crazy: Despite its enigmatic nature, one of the things that Fiddlesticks does show is the sheer sadistic joy it takes in toying with and killing its prey. Even pre-rework, it would chase people down and sic crows on them, which doesn't really imply a peaceful nature.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: Leave it to the ancient, predatory demon to weaponize its victims' fears as its power.
• Chekhov's Gun: A quiet example; In Fiddlestick's earlier splash arts◊, he was seen wearing a key around his neck, which disappeared when it was updated in 2016◊, but could instead be found on Zoe's belt◊. As of the 2020 redesign, Fiddlesticks can now be seen wearing a couple of keys around its neck◊, with Riot confirming that Zoe "borrowed" hers, though as to what it unlocks, it's "probably best we never find out..."
  Surprise Party Fiddlesticks: Nice key you got there, Twilight! Didn't steal it from someone dangerous, did you?
• Comedic Sociopathy: Surprise Party Fiddlesticks, while still being just as murder-hungry as his canon version, has a very sick sense of humor akin to The Joker or Pennywise, and he's clearly having the time of his life with it.
  I used to think life was a comedy. Now I know... it's a horror show!
• Creepy Crows: It's entirely themed around this trope. Terrify projects a crow-shaped projectile that stuns enemies with fear; it occasionally makes creepy impressions of a crow call, along with any other country animals it's slaughtered; and its ultimate has a whirlwind of deadly crows circling around it, dealing massive damage.
  I hear crows.
  • In "Twist of Fate", Fiddlesticks alerts Twisted Fate to its presence on a dark night by sending waves of crows after the gambler.
• Difficult, but Awesome: It's a uniquely fragile and very ability reliant champion that takes a while to get rolling. Once you've mastered its early game though, it becomes one of the best gankers in the game, with an ultimate that can make or break teamfights.
• Emotion Bomb: Fiddle can literally wield fear like a weapon, as seen in Terrify which forces enemies into an uncontrollable state of fear.
• Flash Step: Crowstorm will teleport Fiddle a short distance in the direction of the cast, making it look like it's just appeared out of thin air.
• Fluffy the Terrible: It's unknown if the demon itself has a real name, but Runeterra opts to call this spooky scarecrow-shaped monstrosity Fiddlesticks. This name has its in-universe origins from folk tales used to scare children, but even as it's grown into something much worse, the name still persists.
• Glacier Waif: It's not particularly fast, nor do any of its abilities affect its mobility. It's balanced out by Fiddle's powerful damage, crowd control, and sustainability.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Originally it's eyes glowed a spectral green. As of its VGU, it now has a single red eye visible underneath the cloth on its face, and it's bright enough to be seen in the dark.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Crowstorm covers a massive field of range, enough that entire teams have to watch out in case they're all grouped too close. Whatever you do, never facecheck a brush while Fiddlesticks is mis-CAWCAWCAWCAWCAWCAW.
• Hillbilly Horrors: Invoked; it's based on the scarecrows of American farmlands and is spoken of through cryptic folk tales. Even its Mysterious Past taps into the kind of storytelling used for cryptids and folklore told in rural America. Currently Fiddlesticks roams a small part of the Demacian farmlands, taking the form of a crude and monstrous scarecrow to terrorize and kill the locals; its theme makes use of folk instruments as well.
• Humanoid Abomination: Emphasis on the "humanoid". Fiddlesticks is a demon, which by Runeterra's rules means it's a pure distillation of a dark emotion (in this case fear) who forged its own physicality to feast on said emotion in the mortal realm. Unlike its present contemporaries like Tahm Kench or Evelynn, however, Fiddlesticks has zero interest in making itself look remotely endearing, and it only does the barest minimum it requires for its primal needs: it makes its appearance that of a monstrous, scarecrow-like thinginvoked to terrify and chase down its victims, and the only way it speaks is by raggedly repeating the terrified words of its former prey. Riot considers Fiddlesticks so divorced from "humanity" that unlike its pre-rework self, they refuse to dignify it with a gendered pronoun.
• Jump Scare: Using surprise and fear isn't just Fiddlesticks' MO in lore, it's also a gameplay mechanic! Its Terrify passive causes its abilities to debuff enemies with fear (forcing them to walk away from Fiddlesticks at reduced speed) when out of vision. When combined with A Harmless Scarecrow's ability to negate vision past level 6 and Crowstorm's ability to have Fiddlesticks bursting from of the fog of war with a screaming flock of murderous crows (or with Surprise Party Fiddlesticks, an equally sudden blaring of party squeakers and a storm of confetti), surprise is among its greatest weapons.
• Laughably Evil:
  • Its original version is said to have been a bringer of dark times, yet had the design direction and campiness of a Nightmare Before Christmas character. The new Fiddlesticks meanwhile is not something to be laughed at.
  • Surprise Party Fiddlesticks is a gleefully sadistic Monster Clown full of cheeky one-liners and hammy taunts.
    Kills a champion: Here's your nose and rainbow wig; you earned them!
    Must've caught something. I've been feeling a little... funny lately! (laughter)
    (Responding to a joke) Unless you've got some deeply creative clown puns, I'm not interested.
• Life Drain: Its bread-and-butter whether it's jungling or in lane. The original version drains from a single enemy, while the updated version will drain from any enemy in its vicinity, and deal a huge chunk of missing-health damage as a finisher; unless you outnumber it or you have some truly high damage, you'll probably come out of the exchange with more HP lost overall.
• Magikarp Power: A trait shared across its iterations; Fiddlesticks starts quite fragile and has to rely on its Life Drain and Terrify abilities to stay alive while jungling or laning. But once it reaches level 6, Fiddlestick becomes slightly less fragile, but wholly more powerful thanks to Crowstorm, its ultimate. Immense range, heavy damage, flexible positioning and excellent surprise attack and teamfight potential all make Crowstorm a horrific monster of an ultimate - but only if Fiddlesticks lives long enough to use it.
• Monster Clown: Surprise Party Fiddlesticks takes heavy inspiration from the likes of Pennywise, taking abject glee in terrifying its "guests" before killing them.
  Surprise Party Fiddlesticks: Is it a demon? Is it a clown? Let's try a bit of both!
• Multiple-Choice Past: This is a trait present all the way back in 2009 and incorporated into its revised lore; it's unclear if they were formerly unrelated and shared similar narrative patterns and purpose only by coincidence, or if they were rooted in an actual entity that manifested itself in different ways, but Fiddlesticks has been given multiple speculated pasts by different cultures. The major story its biography calls attention to is one where it was summoned then sealed by a foolish young mage in a forgotten seaside tower, but every other Runeterran faction has their own regional variants.
  In the Freljord, children frighten each other around the fire with tales of a monster that raises itself from untended graves in the ice, its body a shambling mass of helmets, bucklers, furs, and wood. In Bilgewater, drunken sailors trade accounts of something standing alone on a tiny, distant atoll from which no one has ever returned. An old Targonian legend speaks of how a child of twilight stole the only joy from a ragged, whispering horror, while veteran Noxian soldiers prefer the fable of a lonely farmhand who was blamed for a poor harvest and fed to the crows, later returning to the world as a demon.

  The Ancient Fear
• Pirate: Fiddle Me Timbers is some kind of pirate... thing.
• Retcon: As one of the game's oldest champions, Fiddlesticks has gone through a few significant lore rewrites:
  • In his very first iteration during the game's Alpha phase, Fiddlesticks was a champion summoned by an unnamed witch in the now-nonexistent "Tempest Flats", born of several souls she bound to scarecrows, and commanded to spread chaos around the world as a warning of her eventual return, hence his title as the "Harbinger of Doom". During this phase, Tempest Flats was later replaced with Shurima.
  • Following the game's release, his lore went the Mysterious Past route, with many unclear of his origins, guesses ranging from "a monster coming from the Shadow Isles," "summoned by a vengeful witch in the Howling Marsh," "created by a Mad Scientist in Zaun," to "a primordial evil that even Noxus couldn't contain." Whichever way, he fell into the hands of the Institute of War, serving as another vague warning of "doom" to come.
  • A later rewrite changed his conceit again: Fiddlesticks became a legitimately extraplanar and alien being (implied to be of a different type than The Void) after a forbidden summoning at the Institute of War went horribly awry, ensorcelled to serve as the Institute's executioner.
  • After the global Continuity Reboot and exclusion of the Institute of War, Fiddlesticks was given a more modest rebuilding, now becoming a mortal who was left to die by a murder of crows, but was then mysteriously resurrected into his current form.
  • Its VGU in 2020 opted to amalgamate a few of these revisions into its current characterization. The "Was Once a Man" aspects were merged into one of its many speculated backstories, as was the backstory of a foolish mage summoning it into the world, returning it into being an inexplicable Spook. This current version also adds that it is in fact an ancient demon that feeds off of the fear it causes.
• Scary Scarecrows: How to make a walking scarecrow scarier? How about making it a demon that feasts on fear and can summon a storm of crows out of nowhere?
• Signature Move: Crowstorm shapes Fiddlesticks' fantasy as a jump-scaring horror monster, having the power to single-handedly turn fights around in its team's favor thanks to its immense damage and gank potential. It was considered vital to retain this ability when redesinging the champ.
  Blake 'Squad5' Smith: "Crowstorm is such an iconic spell that we wanted to have the rest of the kit support what that ability tells Fiddle to do. That pushed us toward the idea of Fiddle being one of, if not the best, “ambush” character in the game."

  Champion Development Blog
• Silliness Switch: Surprise Party Fiddlesticks is still a creepy Monster Clown, but he's much more coherent than the base skin and its voice lines lean heavily into Comedic Sociopathy, on top of having much more colorful attacks and animations.
• Sinister Scythe: It carries a menacing scythe. Interestingly, Fiddlesticks rarely uses it for physical attacks, usually opting to auto-attack with its bare claws (for ranged autos, Fiddlesticks chucks out magical projectiles; the updated version throws small globs of its demonic body). The major time it sees any use is with the Reap ability, which shreds through enemies in a line. When using other skins, the scythe gets swapped out for similar weapons like an anchor (Fiddle me Timbers), a pinwheel (Surprise Party), a Christmas ornament (Dark Candy), and a scepter (Risen).
• Squishy Wizard: A very unorthodox case of this as rather than being built around directly combating enemy champions, Fiddlesticks is far more suited to the jungle. Its low health and mobility make it easy to punish, but its self-healing and farming power are near-completely interconnected, and combined with its fear-based arsenal, it can roam the map, raze down monster camps, then can proceed to raze enemy champions in lane.
• Was Once a Man: Its old lore indicates it was a human loner who was tied up in his own field and left to the crows. This outdated bio is referenced as one of many possible explanations as to why it exists.

Modern Fiddlesticks (Post-VGU)

• Adaptational Gender Identity: While referred to with he/him pronouns pre-VGU, Fiddlesticks is no longer referred to in-canon with gendered pronouns, instead being referred to as "it", since it's a being that predates humanity and any concept of gender. Notably, Star Nemesis Fiddlesticks, due to the origin given, is the closest one to a feminine version of the champion, with the voice over altered slightly in pitch to sound as such.
• Ancient Evil: Fiddlesticks is so old that the most anybody knows about it anymore comes from wives tales and folklore, and aptly enough its title is "The Ancient Fear". Rioters say that it's even older than the likes of Nocturne, Evelynn and Tahm Kench, Runeterra's other resident demons, and its biography backs that claim up, referring to it as "a demon before demons were known".
• Anthropomorphic Personification: With one of the "ten demons" being confirmed to be Ashlesh, the primordial demon of joy, it is safe to assume that Fiddlesticks is fear itself.
• Art Evolution:
  • Fiddle used to look a lot more goofy, being a cartoony scarecrow with green glowing eyes and a rather silly voice over, clashing with League's modern lore which took itself more seriously. The new Fiddlesticks is deliberately aimed at being terrifying; it's now a monstrous scarecrow strewn together with jagged metal and loose farm equipment, puppeted by a demon emitting a red aura and shadowy tendrils from the scarecrow's back.
  • Animation-wise, it used to be very jumpy in motion with cartoonish posing and little interpolation. Its new animations are much more ragged and unnatural, working with the notion that the demon is controlling the scarecrow. Also worth mentioning is how it attacks more violently than before to reflect its new bloodlust.
  • It's VFX replaces the spectral green effects from before with sharp black and red energy that make its actions look significantly more violent.
• Balance Buff: For years after Fiddle was first released (in turn, when League of Legends itself was first released), it had a rather quirky reputation of having abilities with little to no individual synergy with each other (a targeted stun, a single-target life drain that renders Fiddlesticks prone while active, a targeted Pinball Projectile that silenced enemy on impact, and Crowstorm), but somehow managing to work within the confines of jungling. With Fiddlesticks' 2020 VGU, all of the individual abilities were largely preserved, but modernized to properly cohere together while still retaining their identities (it still has fear-inducing crowd control, life drain, a damage/silence ability, etc.), giving Fiddlesticks a modern sheen and proper tools to enact a powerful Jump Scare-inducing gameplay style.
  • Bountiful Harvest retains the Life Drain effect of... well, Drain, though while the latter was single-target, the new version will drain from all enemies around Fiddlesticks, and in turn deal more overall damage and steal more life away. It also has the nifty bonus of dealing a burst of damage at the end scaling with the target's missing health, making for a strong Finishing Move.
• Break Them by Talking: It's not enough to just kill its victims; what it does is screech back at them their greatest fears and regrets for some good old emotional torment. This video explains them.
• Cat Scare: Weaponized; Fiddlesticks can place up to two Scarecrow Effigies at a time. Since they're designed to look like it, they'll play a random animation when first discovered before falling apart mockingly.
• Creepily Long Arms: It's right arm drags behind it everywhere it goes, followed by a trail of scratch marks from its claw. It also makes its striking animations very ragdoll-like with how it flails the arm around.
• Creepy Asymmetry: It clearly doesn't understand what humans look like; one arm is clawed and drags along the ground, its face is made with an off-kilter bear trap for a mouth, and its torso is hunched over from all the uneven weight distribution. It's inhuman, doll-like movements accentuate it's unnatural appearance further.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Applying Fear onto enemies will make Terrify deal bonus damage, making it better to save after Fiddlesticks' other abilities have been used, especially Reap and Crowstorm which reach over long distances.
• Darker and Edgier: The original Fiddlesticks was intentionally spooky, but skewed towards a goofy and comical demeanor that became more evident as the rest of Runeterra became more serious. With its 2020 relaunch, Riot wanted to revamp him into becoming the most terrifying champion in the game, removing nearly all of his silliness and making it into a full-on monster deeply rooted in exploiting visceral fears.
• Demonic Possession: Fiddlesticks isn't the scarecrow, but instead the demon inside the cage in the scarecrow's chest. When it dies, the demon escapes and seeks out a new vessel.
• Disposable Decoy Doppelgänger: A Harmless Scarecrow allows it to place effigies of itself at a nearby location. In addition to acting like wards, the effigies can fake attacks and ability against enemies who see and attack them. True to its fear-themed skillset, this is tailor-made to play mind games with the enemy. See it in a bush? It could be Fiddlesticks. Or it might not. And it may be charging up Crowstorm just out of sight...
• The Dreaded: Fiddlesticks has been in the back of people's minds for as long as civilization has existed. Every region in Runeterra has stories about some... thing that lurks at night and preys on fear.
  Demacia, Ixtal, Piltover, Ionia, Shurima. In every corner of Runeterra, these myths persist—reshaped, respun, and passed down by countless generations of storytellers. Stories of a thing that looks almost human and stalks places thick with fear.

  The Ancient Fear
• Eldritch Abomination: Unlike other demons, Fiddlesticks doesn't even bother to attempt to put up a veneer of humanity. It's more of a rampaging beast that only ever thinks about killing, and only communicates using the last words of its victims (or in some cases, mimicking the worst fears of its current prey), single words, or animalistic grunts. The only acknowledgment it gives to any other demons (or traces of them in Swain's case) is calling them out by their name or what they represent, and it doesn't have any qualms with killing any of them. Even worse is that Rioters confirmed that Fiddlesticks isn't of the same "breed" of demons as Tahm Kench, Nocturne or Evelynn, being perhaps even more ancient and terrible than them. One of its lines troublingly implies its not the only one of its kind...
  Fid-dle-sticks, first of ten!
  • Star Nemesis Fiddlesticks, an homage to cosmic horrors the likes of Madoka Magica, is a being born from the corruption of a star guardian.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Delivers its lines in a croaky, inhuman rasp. Even as it tries to replicate casual whistling (which you'll occasionally hear while respawning), it still sounds like it's strained and in pain, and its laugh emote sounds less like a laugh and more like something choking or retching. Its voice actor achieved this sound by breathing intensely inward while speaking, which is just as uncomfortable, potentially dangerous, and ugly as it sounds.
• Horror Hunger: One of its voice lines is simply "Hungry..." as it prowls for someone to terrify and murder.
• Irony: The point of a scarecrow is to reduce the number of crows in an area. Fiddlesticks is built around doing the exact opposite.
• It Can Think: It's known for performing awful imitations of different things said to it or said in moments of trauma, as if it's an animal imitating calls just to draw in prey. However, it not only seems to consciously select what phrases it uses, but even knows details about other primordial beings, like the names of most demons and even The Kindred's original self offhandedly.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Riot officially refers to Fiddlesticks as an "it". Note how virtually every other supernatural champion in the game, even other demons and Voidborn, are referred to with gendered pronouns; Fiddlesticks is so utterly inhuman and primal a force of nature that they don't even consider it worth personifying in that way.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Like Thresh, Fiddle now comes with a creepy, lullaby-like Villain Song. But unlike Thresh, its song warns of a dangerous quiet.
  When fields lie calm and wind stands still
  run home, run home
• Kick the Dog: Fiddlesticks is a monster of little words, and those it chooses are cruel, terrifying, and seemingly done with the intent of breaking its opponents before it kills them. It taunts Miss Fortune, Yasuo, Vayne, and Annie with the horrified words of their loved ones before they died, and shrieks out guilt at those with regret like Riven, Garen, Lux, and even Jinx.
  • It's specific words to Jinx: "Jinx! All your fault! All your fault!" could be interpreted as it not referring to her name, but calling her A jinx, just like what Vi, who had previously defended her sister, called Powder in a fit of rage after Powder accidentally killed their adopted family.
• Made of Evil: Like all Runeterran demons, Fiddlesticks is a manifestation of negative emotions and states that seeks to reap even more of it. One document in its Universe page, strongly suggested to be a rough demonology tree, lists fear at the top of sub-states beneath it (one of which is nightmares, which is Nocturne's specific domain), which greatly implies that Fiddlesticks is of a more "pure" form of negativity.
• Marionette Motion: The actual demon appears to be the red and black essence inside the scarecrow rather than the scarecrow itself, with many of its movements appearing to be based on manual commands rather than natural locomotion, no doubt a factor into why it looks so creepy. With its dance animation, dark "strings" appear to pull its arms around to make it "dance" like actual marionette, and it's just as unsettling.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Fiddle doesn't have regular stealth wards like other champs do. Instead its wards are substituted for its Scarecrow Effigies which disappear if an enemy champ walks into them. They become essential for vision control though as after level 6, they disable all nearby wards and trinkets, allowing Fiddle to better set up for ganks and objectives.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: It's mouth is comprised of rows of jagged metal teeth, looking like it was repurposed from an old bear trap.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Fiddlesticks' scarecrow body has two arms, but usually it has an extra one or two comprised of demonic energy sprouting randomly.
• Must Be Invited: Fiddlesticks skirts around this rule a bit. Demons can only target people with at least a hint of whatever emotion they intend to feast on, which for demons like Tahm Kench and Evelynn means they need to reach an agreement feeding into their addiction and lust before they go in for the kill. All Fiddlesticks has to do, however, is merely make its prey afraid, which is not at all difficult for it to do.
• Mythology Gag: Its bio has a reference to its pre-VGU lore and backstory as a farmhand who was left for dead in the form of a story told by Noxian soldiers.
• Not Quite Dead: While its body can be destroyed, which happens in game even, the demon inside will simply fly away in search of a new vessel.
• Not the Intended Use: Boy howdy did it get hit with this after its rework. While it works just fine in its intended role as a full AP jungler, it often sees play as a solo laner now thanks to Bountiful Harvest, which lets it clear minion waves reliably and heal for ridiculous amounts of health, while on a very low cooldown. By extension, it then went on to see play as a tank instead of a Squishy Wizard, as Spirit Visage makes its healing even more absurd while Rylai's Crystal Scepter turns its ultimate into a massive area slow, further compounded by it being able to mass fear enemies if its out of sight, turning him into an excellent initiator.
• Overly-Long Tongue: An unnaturally long one to add to his terrifying appearance. It is especially visible in his standing still animation and in some of the splash arts of his alternate skins.
• Production Foreshadowing: When it was revamped in 2020, it was given a unique interaction with Jinx: "Jinx! All your fault! All your fault!" One year later, we find out exactly what it was referring to.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Its current design comes with a black and red motif to its spells.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Like you'd ever want to fight the scarecrow with glowing red eyes. In its teaser trailer, this is the last sign the POV character gets before Fiddle charges at him and the screen cuts to black.
• Red Is Violent: What better to communicate bloodthirst than to have all of its abilities produce blood-red magic effects.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Periodically Fiddle will recite old poems and folk songs about it, describing dreaful details about itself.
  High above the rotten rows. Cloth and metal. Teeth and crows.
  Through the field. Down the lane. Voices never heard again!
  Fid-dle-sticks. End of men. Fid-dle-sticks. First of ten!
• Running on All Fours: When exiting base or using its ultimate, Fiddlesticks drops to all fours and even spawns extra limbs to crawl toward its enemies. In other words, when it's unleashing the most power, it's at its most inhuman.
• Shrouded in Myth: Even more than other demons; Fiddlesticks manages to have an inexplicably high presence across Runeterra — referenced in folk stories from almost every culture — yet is extremely elusive in its more recent acts of spreading fear and death. How long has it existed? Where did it come from? Why is it suddenly real? Who knows?
• The Spook: Runeterra has no concrete answer on why it exists. It just does.
• Stealth Expert: Fiddlesticks is a champ that really wants to stay out of sight, allowing for its fear ailment to activate every time it ambushes you. It also has the innate ability to shut down enemy vision, a crucial component to macro play and what makes ganking lanes easier.
• Super-Persistent Predator: It's chased its victims through corn fields, broken into their homes, and shrugs off most damage in order to kill its prey. Not even destroying it does much because the demon inside can always create a new vessel to continue its spree.
• Tempting Fate: From the sound of it, a lot of its victims never assumed a murder scarecrow was coming for them.
  Don't be scared. It can't hurt you.
  See? It's just a scarecrow.
  Fiddlesticks is just a fable. A story to scare children.
• Time Abyss: It's so impossibly ancient that it's practically omnipresent. To put this into context, other demons like Tahm Kench and Evelynn were only spoken of long after civilization began (Evelynn's current form said to originate specifically from the Rune Wars). Fiddlesticks predates all of that.
• Tulpa: Fiddlesticks is described as ancient as an incorporeal entity, but its biography speculates that its current presence in the physical realm is attributed to rising fear and paranoia in the world, especially in the mage-fearing Demacia.
• Uncanny Valley: Invoked; Fiddlesticks is just human-looking enough to only register as a monster deliberately but crudely trying to appear human to lure out prey. The end result is incredibly creepy.
• Villain Song: Its champion theme is a creepy, drawn-out lullaby warning all who hear to hide as fast as possible. The song eventually devolves into nightmarish screams and orchestral hits.
  Run home... run home...
• Voice Changeling: Fiddlesticks attempts to replicate human speech as a means to mislead and lure out its prey, but it fails greatly as not only is its voice utterly wrecked and inhuman, but the only dialogue it knows to replicate are that of people terrified out of their minds.
• Why Won't You Die?: From some of its voice lines, it's apparently been brought down before, only to get back up and keep coming.
  It won't die!
  It's not dead.
• Would Hurt a Child: Its characterization puts a subtle spotlight on this. Given how it was originally seen as a folk monster used to scare kids with, it's not surprising that it would come to target them, but the fact it seems to remember their fear in specific is especially disturbing.
  I'm lost. Won't anybody help me?

Old Fiddlesticks (Pre-VGU)

Fiddlesticks, the Harbinger of Doom

Your bidding, master!

Voiced by:
Micha Berman (English)
Roberto Encinas (European Spanish)
Raúl Anaya (Mexican Spanish)
Philippe Maia (Brazilian Portuguese)

"No weapon cuts deeper than fear."

Fiddlesticks is a ghastly, living scarecrow who stalks the darkness, wielding a cruel scythe and preying upon the unwary. Once a lonely man accused of bringing famine to his village, he was tied up and left to starve in his own barren field. Resurrected by the savage murder of crows that fed on his remains, Fiddlesticks now relishes terrorizing his victims before claiming their lives amid a flurry of feathers and blood-splattered beaks.

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Fiddlesticks is a Specialist champion with a quirky set of skills based around powerful self-healing and strong multi-target damage.

• His passive, Dread, grants him a burst of movement speed after remaining still for a brief moment.
• His first ability, Terrify, engulfs an enemy with fear, forcing them to flee from Fiddlesticks at reduced movement speed for a few seconds.
• His second ability, Drain, makes Fiddlesticks root in place as he tethers himself to a nearby enemy, repeatedly damaging the target and healing himself for a percentage of the damage dealt until the channel ends or the enemy moves away and breaks the tether.
• With his third ability, Dark Wind, Fiddlesticks sends a crow towards an enemy that bounces up to five times to other nearby targets, damaging and briefly silencing all of them.
• With his ultimate ability, Crowstorm, Fiddlesticks briefly channels and then teleports to a nearby location, summoning a frenzied murder of crows that deals heavy damage to all enemies in a large area around him for a few seconds.

Fiddlestick's alternate skins include Spectral Fiddlesticks, Union Jack Fiddlesticks, Bandito Fiddlesticks, Pumpkinhead Fiddlesticks, Fiddle Me Timbers, Surprise Party Fiddlesticks, Dark Candy Fiddlesticks, Risen Fiddlesticks, and Praetorian Fiddlesticks.

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• Cardboard Prison: Back when the League was still canon, The Institute of War "imprisoned" him in their dungeons. It's implied he could easily get out if he wanted to and was instead biding his time for the right moment.
• Came Back Wrong: In one lore rewrite, Fiddlesticks was a simple mortal man once, killed by his fellow villagers in superstitious hysteria. Now he’s something terrifyingly powerful and completely insane, and all too happy to show both of these traits in equal measure to anybody he encounters.
• Combos: Fiddlesticks depended on using Terrify and/or Dark Wind before Drain to ensure that his victim staid put long enough for Drain to leech a decent amount of life. Doing this during his Crowstorm to some poor sod was probably enough to ruin their day.
• Create Your Own Villain: He used to be a lonely man who was lynched under superstitious pretenses. Then he stalked the countryside at night, terrorizing and killing anyone he came across.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: An old bio implies that it was brought into the world by a power-hungry sorcerer. That sorcerer got more than he bargained for.
• Evil Laugh: Indulged in a good laugh after casting Crowstorm.
• The Grim Reaper: While not the incarnation of death, he certainly gave off this vibe with his scythe and being the "Harbinger of Doom".
• Mook Horror Show: We get to see what Crowstorm looks like to the average person in To Our End. It's not pretty.
• Pinball Projectile: Dark Wind bounces between enemies, usually either the enemy team or jungle camps.
• Sickly Green Glow: Prior to its VGU, Fiddlesticks had spectral green instead of red, but Riot decided to change it since green had become more associated with the Shadow Isles, and not only was red better at signifying its new demonic status, it just looks much more threatening.
• Silly Walk: He never walked so much as hop around foot-to-foot erratically.
• Slasher Smile: He always had a big grin (or the approximation of one) to convey his villainous nature.