Tales of Runeterra is a series of promotional animations produced by Riot Games and animated by Axis Studios to market the League of Legends franchise.
A majority of the shorts are all based on specific regions of Runeterra, the fictional setting of the League universe, and spotlight champions from those different areas. The initial episodes all coincided with the release of Legends of Runeterra, but the official playlist
includes subsequent cinematic trailers for latter expansions, and later shorts also spotlight developments in other titles like League Of Legends Wild Rift
List of Shorts
2020- Demacia: Before Glory
- Freljord: The Raid
- Shadow Isles: None Escape
- Noxus: After Victory
- Piltover & Zaun: True Genius
- Ionia: The Lesson
- Bilgewater: Double-Double Cross
- Targon: The Vaulted Road
Tropes:
- Asshole Victim: In "A Night at the Inn", the inn's proprietor and most of the customers spend the whole time making life hell for Bort who just wants to be a good waiter. Thresh goes ahead and steals all of their souls, which Bort then torments as payback for all the abuse he put up with.
- The Caligula: The unnamed king in After Victory that Darius confronts is a delusional, narcissistic, and needlessly cruel ruler who cares little for the lives of his soldiers and servants.
- A Day in the Limelight:
- "Before Glory" focuses on two Demacian children that aspired to be like Garen and Fiora, respectively. Interestingly, the dragon that appeared in the short resembles the Screeching Dragon that was added in the Call of the Mountain expansion, long after the short was released.
- "The Raid" focuses on Braum protecting a tribe from a Frostguard raid.
- "None Escape" focuses on a Buhru priestess and her acolyte son who ventured into the Shadow Isles to renew the ward, only for the acolyte to wander too far from safety and is preyed upon by Thresh.
- "After Victory" focuses on Darius's conquest of Urtis, a kingdom at the Noxian frontier and likely bordering Freljord, accompanied by Captain Farron. The slave girl that joined the Noxian army became known as the Trifarian Gloryseeker.
- "True Genius" focuses on Heimerdinger and the Amateur Aeronaut, who invented a Hextech core generator which ended up in the hands of Jinx then Ekko before it would be used to power the Aeronaut's flying machine.
- "The Lesson" focuses on Shen teaching Akali about the balance of Ionia, when a woodcutter was attacked by nature itself for disturbing it.
- "Double-Double Cross," released to promote the Rising Tide expansion, features Miss Fortune making a trap for Twisted Fate and Graves.
- "The Vaulted Road" short that promotes the "Call of the Mountain'' expansion focuses on a Lunari girl and her Solari lover as they try to leave the mountain as both Leona and Diana cross path when the Solari hunted the two down. The two characters are featured in the card game as the Lunari Shadestalker and the Solari Soldier, respectively.
- "Don't Mess With Yordles", released to promote the Yordle expansion on Wild Rift, features Tristana working with Lulu and Corki to rescue a captured Teemo from Graves.
- "Thresh Unbound: A Night At The Inn", released to celebrate Thresh's addition to Wild Rift, features the Chain Warden visiting a local inn in Noxus, where he encounters a cursed waiter there named Bort.
- Deal with the Devil: Thresh's deal with Bort: in exchange for his soul working for Thresh, Bort gets his arm restored and revenge on his tormentors. He accepts.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- In "The Lesson" despite her absolute hatred for the Noxian invaders Akali isn't going to just let a kid be killed for a dumb mistake.
- Miss Fortune in "Double-Double Cross" has no problem selling off Twisted Fate and Graves in exchange for her crew mate, but draws the line at letting them be tortured for a thousand years, so she slips them one of TF's cards to escape. .
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: "After Victory" shows Noxus's dark but well-intentioned side. Even though they've invaded and conquered yet another nation, its tyrannical king is now dead and his slave girl was liberated and given the opportunity to become something better under Noxian rule than she would have otherwise.
- Forced Transformation:
- Poor Graves suffers this at the hands of Lulu.
- Bort the waiter tried to pick pocket a mage, and had his right arm turned into a lobster claw he can't control as a result.
- Hope Spot: In "None Escape" just as the son makes it to his mother's boat and seemingly home free he bounces off her shield, a shield that only works on spirits, revealing the boy died a ways back just as Thresh sucks up his soul.
- How We Got Here: The color story "Destiny And Fate" serves as an explanatory lead-up to "Double-Double Cross", explaining why Miss Fortune captured TF and who the mysterious shaman woman is.
- Ironic Echo: In "A Night at The Inn", when Thresh is threatening the inn owner, he claims his treatment of Bort is "just a little ribbing between friends". After Bort makes a Deal with the Devil to have payback and his arm restored, he tells his former tormentors to "don't mind the whip! Just a little ribbing between friends!"
- I Warned You: Throughout "Don't Mess With Yordles", TF warns Graves that messing with yordles is a bad idea, only to be ignored and proven right at the end.
- Painted CGI: uses a painted style, with visible brushstrokes and block colors, plus select flat effects, such as smoke and explosion flashes being drawn as solid colors.
- The Shadow Knows: During "Thresh Unbound: A Night at The Inn", the titular character's shadow shows as his original self for a brief moment.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: "The Vaulted Road" features a Lunari Girl and a Solari Boy who desire to be together even though they are from opposite factions. It also shows that Diana and Leona are something of a mirror for these two lovers, while Diana and Leona love one another they won't leave their factions unlike the two lovers who choose each other.
- Tempting Fate: While captured by Miss Fortune, Twisted Fate states Graves isn't dumb enough to walk into a very obvious trap. Cue Graves breaking in at that exact moment.
- Underestimating Badassery: Graves hatches an ill-conceived scheme to capture some yordles and sell them off for bounty money, but their unpredictable magic and guerrilla tactics prove too much for him to handle. By the end, Lulu turns him into a frog.
