League of Legends

PORO

Edited by VutherA on Dec 11th 2020 at 12:08:10 PM

Looks interesting. I'll probably pick it up.

New cinematic. 2021's story arc kicks off with the return of the Ruined King as the big bad and Senna (and Lucian) in the middle of it. We're also getting three champions this year related to the RK as well as the man himself, who's called Viego and coming in patch 11.2 (and two non-related ones).

Also, WILD Rift promo animation featuring the Yordle crew going on a rescue mission after Graves captures Teemo in Bilgewater.

And finally, Viego's ability reveal. He's a jungle skirmisher (think Master Yi) who can possess enemies he kills and is perfect for building Blade of the Ruined King, which is also the name of his Q.

Edited by Ninety on Jan 8th 2021 at 8:48:24 AM

So the Ruined skinline has been confirmed to be canon by a Riot employee. As in Draven, Karma, and Shyvana have all been Brainwashed and Crazy by Viego.

I can't imagine J4 taking the loss of Shyvana well. The last time he lost someone important to him he started mage genocide. It could even become a Conflict Killer with Sylas if Sylas cares enough about Demacia as a place to want to defend it from The Harrowing, I think.

Personally, I think it might just be the kick in the pants Jarvan needs to get his head out of his ass in regards to mages. Especially if Jarvan's attitude towards magic is in anyway responsible for Shyvana being taken by the Ruined King. Sylas might stop the conflict, but I don't know

My personal guesses about this:

• It won't be permanent. I know this is probably a given, but I want to reemphasize it for myself and others. Shyvana, Karma, and Draven mains don't really have it as a fantasy of theirs to play as the thrall of Viego. That's what Hecarim players may like, but those mains liked their characters being part of their nations and character groups. In addition, all three characters clearly have much more story to tell than to end up solely as the Big Bad's puppets and would likely have reactions to having been possessed like this that are far more worthwhile to explore than to keep them possessed.
• Karma being gone from Ionia is going to force some very awkward alliances between the factions still there to hold Ionia from being destroyed. Like Xayah/Rakan, Shen, Irelia, Sett, Zed, and Lee Sin having to work together (With Xayah glaring at everyone, everyone glaring at Zed, and Sett just being bemused at the fact that his fight pits are being asked to help in a real fight.) If I was writing this (Which is probably a bad thing), the goal in Ionia would be for them to come up with a ritual to reconnect Karma with the Spirit of Ionia to help her break free of Viego. Shen would be the one doing the ritual within the Kinkou temple with Zed, Akali, and Kennen leading the inner defenses while Xayah/Rakan, Irelia, Lee Sin, Sett, Master Yi and such lead the outer defenses (Yone is busy securing Lillia and Ivern's help, Karma is possessed, and Yasuo and Ahri are part of the Squad.) Similar sort of events go down in Demacia and Noxus (Jarvan pulls his head out of his ass and the mages of Demacia help him enter Shyvana's mind and they have their emotional conversation to help Shyvana fight against this control of her. Noxus has Swain doing the bare minimum to help Draven because in truth, his goal is to lure Viego to Noxus and kill him.) The idea being that it explains why Viego isn't killing/mind-controlling the Squad when they reach the Shadow Isles. He's a touch busy putting out the fires in those areas to try and secure his minions.
• Ionia manages to reconnect Karma with some sacrifice (Yi and Zed both die at Viego's hands. Master Yi dies in a 1v5 against Viego while Zed 1v1s Viego to save Shen.) It doesn't free her immediately, but it allows the Squad to free her. Demacia barely manages to get through to Shyvana and Shyvana does most of the work in freeing herself with the Squad really only helping a bit. Noxus is where shit goes down. Basically at one point, Leblanc fears that they will lose to Viego when she sees him fight so she orders Elise to do something very crazy. My own description of it would most likely read like this:
  • "A loud metallic boom echoed through the air. Darius turned away from Viego while Samira and Rell kept him back. It came from the Immortal Bastion. As he stared at it, he saw a black and red shape moving quickly. He squinted before his eyes widened. It was a giant spider running as fast as it could from the Bastion. He could practically feel the uncontrollable fear radiating from it as it moved. Clank. He could hear that reverberating within his very bones. He shuddered. He could see everyone doing so. Even the Ruined King. The spider disappeared into a building, huddling under a table in fear. A shape was emerging from the Bastion's gates. It was massive, like a man made wrong. The chest was far too broad and the sheer size of the weapon in its hands would make it impossible to be a man. Darius knew though. He had seen this image within the halls of the Bastion. Images of a monster that was supposed to never be real again. Looking at his forces, he saw Swain staring with wide eyes as his lips moved. He could just faintly make out the words 'What have they done?' Samira, her lone eye twitching, gently moved Rell behind her as she brought her gun and sword to turn towards it. Down on the ground, half of their forces turned immediately to point their blades towards this new threat. Emilia Leblanc stepped forward and the helmet atop the monster's head turned towards her, seething with violent and horrific emotions. A snarl came from her throat and hatred, true hatred, gleamed in her eyes and dripped from her words. 'Hello, Mordekaiser. It really has not been long enough.'"

• Needless to say, Viego and Mordekaiser come into conflict immediately and the resulting fight can most closely compared to Godzilla and Ghidorah fighting. The humans on the ground are just desperately trying to survive two monsters ripping into each other. It ultimately ends with Viego retreating with severe injuries while Rell gets her one time takedown of Morde. Morde, for his part, is deeply amused because he knows that they now can resurrect him. They'll never be able to destroy the means to restore him because he saved them once from a greater threat, but they will never be safe from him as a result. All it would take is one fool and he will return to reclaim his domain for good. He returns to the afterlife, laughing as he goes. Ultimately all three nations' battles and sacrifices manage to weaken Viego enough to free the enslaved champions and allow the Squad to be able to actually stand toe to toe with Viego.

To be clear, this is just my personal views on where I would be taking the story writing wise if I was handling it. There's a lot more details I didn't hit, but this is basically an essay anyway so... not going to add those. The main things I expect from Canon is that this won't be permanent and that the results of that will result in the three Brainwashed characters having to come to terms with what happened to them. I would like it if they had Demacia, Ionia, and Noxus going toe to toe with Viego to buy time for the Squad unknowingly, but I'll take what I can get.

If I had to guess why Shyvana was open to possession by Viego, I'd actually guess it had to do with J4's betrothal to Lux. It might sound a bit weak compared to mage persecution, and I'm sure that's a factor too, but hear me out- Viego is completely obsessed with love and finding his love. Wouldn't it be interesting to see how he sees the romantic plights of others? Especially since J4 and Shy's story would kind of parallel his and Isolde's a bit since Isolde was also an unsuitable suitor (though due to her common birth, not because she was a half-dragon).

I think you're right that Mordekaiser might come into the spotlight again soon, given that we've been shown the Black Rose's attempt at creating walking Kryptonite to him. I hope Veigar doesn't get dragged back to Mordekaiser's side, let the poor Yordle have some peace. As for the Ionian side of things, I wonder if things will get so bad Syndra will finally act in some capacity. I see her joining Viego if she is brought into the conflict because she wants Ionia dead but maybe there could be some justification for her changing sides.

Oh, I would agree on the love side of things being a factor. I can definitely see Viego comparing himself and Isolde to Jarvan and Shyvana with him essentially trying to make Shyvana like him in order to show that his love is meant to be. Probably would work well with Shyvana breaking out of his control partially with realizing that, no, she isn’t like him and that Jarvan isn’t like Isolde or him either. It probably depends on how much control Viego exerts over his ruined followers. Are they completely brainwashed to the point of mindlessness? Do they have some free will, but are just mentally forced to serve him? Has he somehow persuaded them to “join” him? I’m really interested in seeing how this all plays out. My only fear is that Riot would make their brainwashing permanent. I doubt they would, but just because something is doubtful doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

I mainly put Morde in for that because I wanted them to feel different in my write ups. Ionia uses the Spirit of Ionia and a complex ritual. Demacia uses Shyvana to fight from within as well as Galio and the mages of Demacia. I wanted Noxus to have something different, something that helped emphasize just how dangerous the situation is. Personally I doubt Veigar would get dragged into Morde’s grasp again. It would be a repeat of his story and more likely he’d become the reluctant hero who has to save whoever Morde does have. As for Syndra, my write up had her initially try to join Viego only to be very violently rebuffed and nearly mind-controlled with only averting it because Zed and Shen intervened. She joins forces with the rest of Ionia for some payback as a result and ultimately comes to mildly tolerate her fellow Ionians more. Key word there is mildly.

I do wonder if they'll really write much about Shyvana now considering she's high on the rework queue. I voted for her, anyway.

Honestly I just want something for Veigar advancing his story, but then I remember there's some poor neglected champions that don't even have color stories yet. I'm also curious as to how brainwashed Viego's victims are. I think "forced to comply but are otherwise the same" or maybe even "joined somewhat willingly due to mental manipulation" would be a lot more interesting paths than "mindless", but we'll see what direction Riot goes with them.

It seems like they are going ahead with Shyvana doing something in the lore regardless of rework. If she does win the poll they might do something like Akali or Volibear, where they keep Shyvana's current lore and develop her story further as the result of a rework.

Personally I would suspect they have to write something more for her. If only because she's the one capable of the most damage among the Ruined champions and the one with the most personal connection to other storylines. Karma hasn't done much to be honest and Draven only really has ties to Darius and even then... Darius hasn't been doing that much with him. Shyvana, by contrast, is connected to Jarvan who has gotten multiple plots for himself. If nothing else, we're more likely to get horrified reactions from Jarvan and company than anyone else.

Draven's skin bio says that he, unlike Shyvana and Karma, is extremely similar in personality to his normal self. Of course that might be due to him being much less of a decent person in comparison to the other two so it's not like his personality needed to shift that much to serve Viego. To be honest, I just really hope they don't stay ruined for too long. Them getting to be evil in a story is fun for a bit, but if they're like this for most of the year then it will get annoying. That plus it would seem a tad weird to me for them to have most of their lores appearances be when it is basically not them.

Also who all expects Our Evil Trio to show up as bosses in the Ruined King game? Personally I would be really surprised if they don't. They'd be much more morally ambiguous to fight than the other potential bosses and they would have characters and such. That plus they would provide a dangerous trio to fight together between Dragon Shyvana tanking everything and hitting hard, Draven striking from afar as the glass cannon, and Karma providing shielding and magical explosions. I don't know. I'm probably get too hyped up over all of this.

Agreed that it would SUCK to have them stay Ruined all year and get no more lore than that. People have been waiting to see what Shyvana's been up to for ages and why Demacia lore has been tiptoeing around her only to get Brainwashed and Crazy Shyvana and then nothing more for years? I'd be kind of irritated.

They're definitely going to be Ruined King bosses, but I think individual boss fights are more likely than a team up (unless there's a boss rush or something at the end). Other bosses I can see are Thresh (he'd likely want to see the Ruination continue just because people are suffering or he just wants to troll the protagonists), Hecarim, and Kalista. Maybe even Ledros? I see Isolde possibly being a DLC character later, or a secret unlockable character.

Also, if Ruined King got Graves and Twisted Fate DLC I'd buy it just to play TF.

I hope Ruined King has some of the Legends of Runeterra lore guys on it, they do great work.

Seeing as the Ruined skins are coming out this month and we have the Ruined King game coming out in Oct, I'm willing to suspect that we might be in for a long wait on the Trio's return to good. Unless of course, this is all released in an odd order or they decide not to have the story of the Second Ruination be with the skins. I get a little nervous that Riot might keep one of them this way, but I'm inclined to doubt it because even when Riot has advanced the story before, they have never changed characters that radically. Usually it's just a progression of their character or a redefining of their place in their region, not a complete moral alignment shift and a complete shift in their power and purpose. Likely it's just my anxiety about other bigger things that is bleeding into this. Wouldn't be the first time.

I mainly suggested them as a group together for a boss fight because I imagined it right before the end. Of course they are each faced individually with different reactions by the Squad (Ahri and Yasuo being horrified at Karma, Braum being upset by Shyvana, and MF being annoyed and disturbed by Draven) prior to this. I just imagined it as the scary lead up to the boss fight since they would be able to cover each other's weaknesses and just in general be a hellish boss fight.

I hope so too. Legends of Runeterra has far better lore stuff than it has any right to have and I love it. If Ruined King can also be good on the lore front like that, I will be very happy

SUDDENLY A NETFLIX SERIES.

About time.

Oh shit, I forgot about that. Nice.

Seeing older Jinx gives me some hope we might see Ziggs. And here I thought Arcane was a prequel.

It has Jinx? I'm there.

I hope we get more stuff like this for Lo L.

HEY GUESS WHAT

LEONA/DIANA IS CANON

Oh yeah, good stuff. Reortedly the first of many LGBT focused stories to come

Oh aren't they sisters anymore? Anyway, good thing to have more LGBT+ in the lore.

Pfflol, Russian site restricts that story to just the hymn part, cutting out everything else.

Lmao. An Ask Riot a week ago or so spoke of the problems with adding LGBT content for a game with a massive international audience including countries where it's practically or literally illegal. Essentially, the writers want, most of the higher ups do too, but you can't risk getting censored by the Chinese market (to pick the biggest example). It's still a bit funny when they make such a huge fanfare about itt, but still relegate it to side content most people will never see rather than the actual game.

Of course, when Runaan tried to make Graves and Twisted Fate a married couple, she was mocked and bullied out of the company, but lesbians are hot so they're allowed (like Neeko/Nidalee, which technically precedes this but they're not currently a couple. *shrug*).

I guess I shouldn't be angry about progress, and that was years ago, but it's frustrating as hell. Make Graves/TF canon, you dumb Riot dudebros.

Edited by PhiSat on Jun 18th 2021 at 9:26:12 AM