LoL Universe Indexing and Search

In a previous epoch, the fierce warlord Sahn-Uzal rampaged across the northern wildlands. Driven by dark faith, he crushed every tribe and settlement in his path, forging an empire in blood and death. As his mortal life neared its end, he took great satisfaction in knowing he had doubtless earned a seat at the gods’ table, in the glorious Hall of Bones, for all eternity.

Yet, when he died, he found no halls or glory awaiting him. Instead, Sahn-Uzal stood in an empty, gray wasteland, shrouded by ethereal fog and plagued by discordant whispers. Occasionally, other lost souls drifted nearby—little more than ghostly shapes, wandering their own personal oblivion.

Anger consumed Sahn-Uzal. Had his faith been false? Or was his domination of the world simply not enough to grant him the immortality he craved? Surely this emptiness could not be all there was… yet there seemed no end to it. He watched as the lesser spirits slowly faded into the fog, unmade and lost to time.

But Sahn-Uzal refused to fade.

His will, tempered by rage and torment, held him together. Over time, the unknowable, disembodied whispering in that place crystalized into words he could almost comprehend—this, he learned, was Ochnun, a profane tongue unspoken by any among the living. Slowly, a deceitful plan began to form in what was left of Sahn-Uzal’s mind. He began to whisper temptations across the veil between realms, promising his indomitable strength to any who dared listen.

And, sure enough, the day came when a coven of sorcerers resolved to bring Sahn-Uzal back from the dead. Lacking any flesh or bone, he spurred them to make him stronger than any mortal, binding his spirit-form in dark metal plates wrought in the likeness of his old armor. So he rose, a hulking revenant of iron and hate.

These power-hungry sorcerers had hoped to use him as a weapon in their trivial wars. Instead, he slew them where they stood, their weapons and magic useless against him.

In desperation, they screamed out his name to bind him—but to no avail, for Sahn-Uzal was no more.

With an ethereal rumble, he spoke his spirit-name in Ochnun: Mordekaiser.

Thus began his second conquest of the mortal realm. As before, his ambitions were great, only now empowered by necromantic sorceries he could never have previously imagined. From the fearful, dissipating souls of the sorcerers, Mordekaiser forged a weapon fit for an emperor of death—his brutal mace, Nightfall—and seized control of the army they had raised.

To his foes, it seemed he cared only for massacre and destruction. Entire generations perished under his relentless campaigns.

However, there was far more to Mordekaiser’s plan. He raised the Immortal Bastion at the center of his empire; while most assumed it was merely a seat of power, some came to know the secrets it held. Mordekaiser hungered for all the forbidden knowledge of spirits and death, and a true understanding of the realm… or realms… beyond.

Such tyranny could only bring him enemies. The Iron Revenant was defeated, surprisingly, by an alliance of the Noxii tribes, and betrayal from within his own inner circle. This hidden cabal managed to sever the anchors of his soul from his armor, and sealed the empty iron shell away in a secret place.

And so, Mordekaiser was cast out of the material realm. However, unbeknownst to anyone, he had planned for this—indeed, it was a pivotal part of his design. Domination and deceit had carried him far, but he knew that a destiny far grander than the Hall of Bones awaited him.

There, in the once empty wasteland, all those who had died under his latest reign were waiting. Perverted by dark sorcery, their spirits would never fade. The strongest became his devout, eternal army, bound to his will… but even the weak were given purpose.

From the subtle matter of their souls, Mordekaiser would forge a new empire. They would be the building blocks and mortar of his Afterworld.

Centuries have passed on Runeterra, and another empire has arisen around the Immortal Bastion. Mordekaiser’s name is still whispered in fear and awe by those who study the old histories, and remembered unkindly by the few ancient souls who knew him. For them, the greatest terror would be for Mordekaiser to find his own way to return permanently.

It is something they pray will not come to pass, for they know of no way to stop him.

The battle spilled over like a feast before them. Such delicious life—so many to end, so many to hunt! Wolf paced in the snow while Lamb danced lithely from sword edge to spear tip, the red-blooded butchery never staining her pale coat.

“There is courage and pain here, Wolf. Many will gladly meet their end.” She drew up her bow and let loose an arc of swift finality.

The last breath of a soldier came with a ragged consent as his shield gave way to a heavy axe. Stuck in his heart was a single white arrow, shimmering with ethereal brilliance.

“Courage bores me,” the great black wolf grumbled as he tracked through the snow. “I am hungry and eager to chase.”

“Patience,” she murmured in his shaggy ear. As soon as the words left her, Wolf’s shoulders tensed and his body dropped low to the ground.

“I smell fear,” he said, trembling with excitement.

Across the muddied field of snow, a squire—too young for battle, but with blade in hand, nonetheless—saw that Kindred had marked all in the valley.

“I want the tender-thing. Does it see us, Lamb?”

“Yes, but it must choose. Feed the Wolf, or embrace me.”

The battle turned its steel toward the squire. He now stared at the roiling tide of bravery and desperation coming for him. This would be his last dawn. In that instant, the boy made his choice. He would not go willingly. Until his last breath, he would run.

Wolf snapped in the air and rolled his face in the snow like a new pup.

“Yes, dear Wolf.” Lamb’s voice echoed like a string of pearly bells. “Begin your hunt.”

With that, Wolf bounded across the field after the youth, a howl thundering through the valley. His shadowed body swept over the remains of the newly dead and their useless, shattered weapons.

The squire turned and ran for the woods until thick black trunks passed in a blur. He pressed on, the frozen air burning his lungs. He looked once more for his hunter, but could see nothing but the darkening trees. The shadows closed tightly around him and he suddenly realized there was no escape. It was the black body of Wolf that was everywhere at once. The chase was at its end. Wolf buried his sharp teeth in the squire’s neck, tearing out ribbons of vibrant life.

Wolf reveled in the boy’s scream and crunching bones. Lamb, who had trailed behind, laughed to see such sport. Wolf turned and asked, in a voice more growl than speech, “Is this music, Lamb?”

“It is to you,” she answered.

“Again,” Wolf licked the last drop of the youth’s life from his canine jaws. “I want to chase again, little Lamb.”

“There are always more,” she whispered. “Until the day there is only Kindred.”

“And then will you run from me?”

Lamb turned back to the battle. “I would never run from you, dear Wolf.”

“It was no tempest. It was a spirit,” said the fisherman, still rattled by the shipwreck he’d barely survived two nights ago. The man told of his fishing vessel being sunk by a creature, large as a house and quick as the wind.

Shen listened to the tale, silently weighing the facts as presented.

“Show me where it happened,” said Shen.

The man led him to a beach in the bay, where a team of villagers worked to recover the drowned bodies of the mariners. Shen knelt to examine a piece of wreckage. The gashes in the driftwood were deep and savage, the work of powerful claws.

“How many dead?” he asked.

“All but me… Six,” responded the fisherman.

The spirits are strong, thought Shen, digging through the wreckage for any further evidence.

At last, on the edge of a splintered portion of the hull, he found it: a small tuft of gossamer hair. Most people would overlook it, or if they did see it, they’d never believe a creature that could break a ship in half could leave something so delicate. But Shen had seen hair like this before. Any doubts he’d had about the veracity of the fisherman’s tale faded as he watched the fine, silvery tuft dissolve into nothing at his touch.

“A demon,” Shen remarked. “You must have sailed into its path.”

The fisherman nodded grimly. Spirits of all kinds were known to mingle with the physical world, especially in Ionia, where the barrier between realms was thin and passable. The ethereal and material planes were in constant contact, sliding peacefully past one another like oil atop water.

As the Eye of Twilight, it was Shen’s duty to walk between the worlds, ensuring neither side overwhelmed the other. To humans, he was a ghost, vanishing in the space between breaths to reappear many miles away. To spirits, he was a human, flesh and bone who ought never to venture into ethereal realms.

He knelt on the beach to examine one of the corpses that had been recovered. The man had been torn in half, just below the ribs. What was left of his innards dangled from a pale, bloated torso.

“You need not worry. I shall have the monster before nightfall,” said a voice from behind.

Shen turned to see a holy man sent by the local temple. Several acolytes stood around him, carrying an assortment of mystical trinkets and oils. They were beginning a cleansing ritual to root out any spiritual disturbances in the area. The holy man stared at Shen, as if sizing up his value.

“Can we count on your help, sir?” the man asked.

“Balance will be restored,” said Shen with an assuring nod.

He parted ways with the holy man and continued to follow the faint trail of gossamer hair. He thought of the dead seafarers and the cost he’d need to exact from the demon. The words of his father still rang true: “The hardest part is finding the point of balance in all things.” True neutrality, the precise center of all forces at work in the world - that is what the Eye must be able to distinguish.

Enforcing that equilibrium was its own struggle. For the task, Shen carried two blades on his back. One was an Ionian steel saber that could cleave through a person in one blow. The other was a sword of pure arcane energy. It was used for dealing with spirits, and had been passed down through many generations of Shen’s ancestors. He had slain countless demons, ghosts, wraiths, and sprites with it over the years, and fully expected to take one more before the day was done.

At last, Shen came to a secluded inlet, quiet and devoid of human activity. On a sandbar in the shallows lay the demon, its fine, glossy coat shimmering in the dusk. The creature swelled as it rested, engorged from consuming the mortal essences of its victims. Shen crept through the rushes, silently edging toward the sleeping demon. He could see its massive ribcage expand and contract with deep, restful breaths. When he was but a few paces from the sandbar, he drew his spirit blade, readying his strike.

Suddenly, a distressing sound stayed his hand. It was a shrill, ghastly cry, emanating from the very air itself. It sounded familiar, but before Shen could identify the noise, he heard it again. And again. And again, culminating in a chorus of blood-curdling shrieks. These were the cries of dying spirits. Shen’s eyes darted back to the demon, now beginning to stir from its slumber. Shen took one more look at his spirit blade, calmly weighing his options. He then clasped his hands together, carefully focusing his ki, and disappeared in a vortex of crackling energy, leaving the demon alone on its sandbar.

A moment later, Shen reappeared at the site of the shipwreck.  All around, smoldering pools of black ooze evaporated into the air, coupled with the lingering reek of terror.

Shen counted the dissipating black puddles, each the remains of a slain spirit. His tally was interrupted as the holy man entered the clearing with his acolytes. One of the men held a cord of flax and silver. Tethered to the other end was a smaller spirit - an imp of no significance. It struggled against the choke of its leash. It wailed as it saw the remains of its brethren.

“Would you care to dispose of this one?” the holy man asked Shen, casually, as if offering him a bowl of soup at dinner.

Shen looked at the sticky, smoldering pools that were mighty beings of the otherworld just moments ago. Then he turned his gaze toward the priest and the wailing imp.

“I am sorry for this, Your Holiness,” he said. He placed his spirit blade back into its scabbard and drew his steel saber instead. It was not the sword he had expected to use that day.

The humidity of Tonnika market and the crowd’s fragrant odor usually rushed buyers into hasty decisions, but Hatilly stood transfixed. Her eyes had fallen upon the strange, tangled bud encased with red withered leaves, a specimen she had never seen before.

“You don’t want that,” the old florist said. “It’s a rare Night-Blooming Zychid. Plucked from the southern jungles, where sunlight never touches the forest floor. It’s more for potion brewers or alchemists…”

The merchant directed her gaze to a bouquet of Sapphire Roses. “Now, these are from fair Ionia. Adapted them to our robust Kumangra soil myself… Or perhaps some Pearls of the Moon?”

Hatilly was not swayed. Sapphire Roses and Pearls of the Moon flashed their colors for any eyes to see. This zychid held exotic potential like the Kraken Lilies along the Serpentine Delta, or Parethan Corpse Tulips. Rare flowerings were precisely her and Cazworth’s type of indulgence.

“I’ll take the zychid.”

The florist welcomed the gold pressed into his palm, despite the doubt scrawled across his face. He deftly cradled the bud in a nest of damp silk, and planted the parcel into Hatilly’s waiting hands. She noticed the aerial rootlets clinging to a shard of something hard and chalk-white.

“What’s this?”

“Zychids cling to foreign objects,” the merchant said. “That one’s grafted to a bit of bone.”

Cazworth was bent over his antique desk, scribbling notes in the margins of his ledger by candlelight. He didn’t look up until Hatilly set the ceramic upon his table. The strange zychid, half buried in a mound of wetted soil, already seemed happy, its reds and greens vibrant and slick with life.

“A budding gift for a blooming businessman.” She planted a kiss on Cazworth’s cheek, feeling clever. He smiled and turned to examine the specimen.

“When you said you needed flowers to brighten the place up, I assumed they’d be colorful.” Cazworth jabbed the plant with his quill. “What is this curious fellow?”

“A most extravagant gift to celebrate the opening of the upper Kumangra’s newest trading supplier… Cazworth’s Exotic Goods.”

Cazworth pulled his wife onto his lap.

“Well, if you say this is a rarity indeed, then we are in for a treat.”

He kissed her sweetly. A single petal opened up, unfolding into the darkening room.

“It’s beginning,” Hatilly said. “Will you be up all night?”

“Most likely. There are still several invoices that need rubber stamping—the partners still have concerns about the shipping lanes…”

Hatilly yawned.

“Don’t let me bore you, dear wife. Run along to bed. I’ll wake you when it starts to flower.”

“Thank you, sweet husband.”

Hatilly awoke to a creeping sensation on her ankle.

Infernal skitter-ants were everywhere, this near to the jungle. She kicked it away. Sleepily blinking, she turned to the empty pillow next to her. Cazworth hadn’t come to bed.

The nagging insect was undaunted, and was crawling further up her shin. She flung off the bedsheets and saw that there was no insect, but rather a tendril vine weaving through her toes, entangling her ankle, and twining around her leg.

Panic shoved sleep from her mind.

She kicked but could not get the green and red shoots to release her leg. They tightened, biting into her flesh. She pried them off with her fingernails. Her hands bled from thorny splinters.

The snaking stalks wound a trail from under the bed chamber door, where they sprouted aerial rootlets to climb the bed frame. Her mind immediately flashed to Cazworth.

Armed with a flickering lantern and a pair of sewing shears, Hatilly followed the vines through the hallway of their manse. Their circumference widened the closer she stepped toward its source, which she now saw was in Cazworth’s study.

The door took several tries to open. Hatilly hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t this.

The room was covered, floor to ceiling, with floral growth. A riot of obscene colors danced in her lantern’s flicker. Exotic bulbs dangled from the walls, their finger-like leaves undulating as if drawing breath. Flowers seemed to mock her through the darkness, flashing their rainbow petals like signal fires. All had sprouted from a singular dark nexus: an enormous closed flower bud, which lay on the fainting couch by the fireplace, where Hatilly herself often read while Cazworth worked. Bits of ceramic and soil lay strewn about. The zychid had outgrown its habitat.

All manner of protrusion crept from its pulsating petals. Everything in Hatilly’s mind screamed for her to flee her home, put it to the torch, and burn that hideous bouquet. But not without Cazworth. Vines twisted around the legs of the chair, the legs of the study table, the legs of…

Her husband.

Still sitting in his chair, Cazworth was cocooned from head to toe by a writhing mass of leaves. Hatilly reached his side, bare feet slipping on the foliage underfoot. She cut frantically at the strangling vines, but each snip of the shears only made them tighten their grip and produce little thorns that pierced her and her husband. Blood trickled out. Where the drops landed, zychid blossoms burst forward to feed.

Hatilly freed one of Cazworth’s hands—it was pale, and cold to the touch.

A stench filled the air, like a rotting corpse. With tears in her eyes, she turned her head toward the fainting couch, where the zychid bud was flowering.

The stench grew worse. Hatilly retched. The gargantuan petals peeled backward in colorful layers, revealing oblong petals of striking scarlet and deep green, garlanded in black tips, revealing a woman in place of the stamen. Her hair was red as blood. Her flesh like leaves. Vines and petals wreathed her in deadly beauty. Her eyes opened. They reminded Hatilly of a panther’s—narrow irises seeing only prey.

The woman who blossomed from the flower arose.

Hatilly clutched the shears like a dagger.

“You wish to prune me already?” the thing said, its deep voice ensnaring Hatilly.

“What are you?”

“The bloom you longed to witness.”

The stench turned. Gone was the reek of death.

Hatilly inhaled sweet fragrances—orange blossoms, the aroma of Sapphire Roses, the fruity scent of Kraken Lilies, the musk of Pearls of the Moon, the delicate hints of wisteria. There were more, secret flowers, but she somehow knew their names—they smelled of colors her eyes never saw. A name formed in Hatilly’s mind…

Zyra.

“Thank you for the lovely garden,” Zyra said, nodding toward Cazworth’s remains. “You tended me well, but we need more sustenance. To make the soil here more… fertile.”

Hatilly saw visions of a world covered by a bouquet of colorful death. It was a beautiful riot of hues, soft and fluttering, choking cities. There were no graves, no war, no money… Hatilly was breathless. She didn’t even feel the vines pull her down, nor the thorns bury themselves in her flesh, rending her skin, spilling her blood.

“Step into the garden that ever grows…” Zyra whispered through the stems and petals. “Death blossoms, and you don’t want to miss the colors, do you?”

Hatilly did not respond, for she was with the flowers.

Zyra’s memory is long, and runs as deep as the roots of the earth. Her kind was young when the Rune Wars raged, when mortal armies fought one another for the very keys of creation.

Hidden in the jungles south of Kumungu, somewhere between the great rivers that divide eastern Shurima, lay the fabled Gardens of Zyr. Elemental magics had turned the soil there in strange and unpredictable ways, giving rise to fierce, carnivorous plants that preyed upon any creature that strayed within reach. They infested and they devoured, caring nothing for the squabbles of mortals, content merely to coil their vines through the forests and swamplands. In their own way, they were all Zyra… and nourishment was plentiful, even in the midst of war.

A small company of soldiers, their allegiance long since lost to time, advanced through those lands in search of some now-forgotten prize. They were led by an ambitious sorceress—but they were far from home, bound to succumb to the noxious fumes and spores of that accursed place.

The denizens of the Gardens set upon them, spined tendrils lashing through armor and flesh with sadistic ease. Though they fought valiantly, the warriors knew they could not hold out long, and turned to their sorceress to save them. Gathering her powers, she wrought a mighty blast. The air burned with runic symbols, casting their eerie light even as the thorny overgrowth closed in.

In that very instant, a rogue spark ignited the gases of the swamp, and the resulting magical explosion obliterated every living thing for miles around. Of the scattered survivors of the Rune Wars, none would ever know what fate had befallen the Gardens of Zyr.

Centuries passed. The land where the battle had been fought lay empty and lifeless above ground… but in the depths, something stirred. Long had the energies that were unleashed there settled, and curdled, nourished by the fallout. A seedpod bulged, pulsing with unnatural life, until a creature clawed its way free, gasping and confused.

It beheld a broken and changed world, brimming with new vitality and new ideas. Its mind was a puzzle of conflicting memories, drawn from the loamy earth and forced into its fledgling consciousness. It could recall the warmth of the sun, the taste of rain, words of power, and the agony of a hundred mortal deaths.

It—she—called herself Zyra, without quite understanding why.

As she ventured out into the wildlands beyond her birthplace, Zyra knew she was different from other creatures she encountered. Mortals were fearful and unpleasant things, while more ethereal entities tended to be capricious, or arrogant. None of them seemed to respect the realms they inhabited, despoiling everything with their mere presence, and that filled Zyra with rage and contempt. Almost unbidden, new life sprang up in her footsteps—voracious plant forms that changed and evolved beneath her gaze, hurling poisonous barbs or sprouting fresh tendrils at an alarming rate.

Unrooted and free to wander, Zyra and her deadly progeny feed, and grow, strangling all other life from the world. She has blighted farmland, overrun entire settlements, and crushed those warriors brave or foolish enough to confront her, always leaving a menagerie of botanical horrors in her wake.

As the rivers of Shurima begin to run anew, strange flora has been sighted on their banks, spreading slowly westward with each passing season. Whether pulled from the earth or purged by fire, the growth does not seem to be slowing…

Over a century past, the brutal warlord Sion rose to prominence, slaughtering all who dared stand in his way. Greatly feared by friend and foe alike, he was the last of a proud warrior culture that had been part of Noxus since its founding. Sion had sworn oaths to his ancestors to never take a backward step in battle, and to die a proud warrior’s death when his time came.

While not noted for his subtlety or strategic acumen, Sion’s methods were ruthlessly effective, and he won many vicious triumphs for Noxus. The empire’s might was at a peak not seen for hundreds of years, and so it took the generals of high command by surprise when a nation from the west first resisted, then began pushing back their steady advance. These Demacians drove the Noxian warbands eastward, harrying them back behind the walls of Hvardis. Sion, who had been campaigning in the Argent Mountains, now turned south, filled with fury.

He arrived at the city to find the Demacians on the horizon. They had no intention of besieging Hvardis—having driven the Noxians from the lands neighboring their own, they were preparing to return home. Sion readied his troops, determined to punish these upstarts for their impudence. The Noxian commander at Hvardis, however, had already suffered several defeats to the enemy, and was content to hide behind the city walls and let them leave unscathed.

It had been Sion and his warriors who had paid the claim to the land now lost in blood; outraged, he hurled the commander from the city walls, and ordered the attack.

Sion tore straight through the Demacian lines, seeking out their leader—King Jarvan the First. But while his own warband charged with him, fearless of death, those who had been cowering in Hvardis were weak. Their spirit broke, and they retreated back to the city, leaving Sion and his trusted few surrounded. One by one, they fell, but Sion ploughed on.

Alone, pierced by a dozen swords and a score of crossbow bolts, he finally reached Jarvan. The fight was brutal, and it was the Demacian who delivered the killing blow. Sion dropped his axe and, with a final burst of strength, tore the king’s crown from his head with one hand, clamping the other around his throat. Jarvan’s guards stabbed Sion again and again, but his grip did not loosen.

Only when the enemy king was slain did Sion allow death to claim him.

His body was recovered—along with the Demacian king’s crown, still in his grip—and borne back to the Immortal Bastion in honor. Noxus mourned Sion’s passing, and his corpse was interred within a towering monument constructed to honor him for all time.

Half a century passed before Sion’s tomb was reopened.

Noxian dominance had waned in the years since Sion’s death, and the ruling Grand General of the empire, Boram Darkwill, was willing to pay almost any price to restore its lost glory. Darkwill’s allies, a mysterious cabal known as the Black Rose, reanimated the long-dead hero using forbidden magics, and presented him to the Grand General.

He could not refuse this gift, and so Sion returned to life, driven by unnatural bloodlust and utterly inured to pain.

He hurled himself like a living battering ram against the enemies of Noxus, destroying all he faced. More so than before his death, the victories Sion brought were costly. He was uncontrollable, killing friend and foe without remorse, and those forced to fight alongside him began to desert. Finally, Darkwill ordered Sion reinterred.

Hundreds of warriors died trying to restrain him before he was finally bound in chains and dragged back to the Immortal Bastion. Without slaughter, the blood magic that sustained him quickly engulfed his mind in an all-consuming rage. His roars finally fell silent as he was sealed in beneath his giant statue.

There he languished for many years, neither alive nor truly dead. When his tomb opened once more, it was to a very different empire. Darkwill was gone, overthrown by the general Jericho Swain—but Sion cared little, roaring and pulling against his bindings in a frenzy that could only be sated in battle.

Chained within an iron cage, he returned to Hvardis, which had broken away from Noxian rule under Darkwill’s reign; Sion was the new Grand General’s punishment for their rebellion.

He butchered the defenders of Hvardis and leveled the city, laughing as he ripped its towers apart with his bare hands. Other regions that had abandoned Noxus soon bent the knee, fearing the undead juggernaut would be unleashed upon them next.

When harsh daylight floods his opening tomb, Sion now welcomes it… for with it comes the chance to shed his chains and sate his hunger for bloodshed, to briefly silence the screaming madness drowning out all thought of rest.

Sion remembers only fragments of his life, and less of the times since, but one truth has remained as stark as on the day of his death—now, as then, the world trembles before him.

A headstrong young vastaya of the seas, Nami uses her mystical Tidecaller staff to reshape the tides and defend her fellow Marai from danger. The first of her kind to leave the ocean and venture onto dry land, Nami faces the unthinkable with grit, determination, and daring mettle.

In the seas to the west of Mount Targon dwells a tribe of vastaya known as the Marai. Long ago, these mermadic creatures discovered a rift in the depths. The rift bore a horrible, creeping darkness which sought to exterminate all forms of life.

At the center of their village, the Marai placed a glowing rock known as a moonstone, which is said to be infused with the celestial magic of the heavens. Its haunting, ethereal light protects the Marai from the creatures that crawl from the abyss. Every hundred years or so, the moonstone’s light begins to dim. At that moment, the tribe chooses their fiercest warrior and bestows upon them the title of Tidecaller.

The Tidecaller must plunge into the icy darkness of the rift, survive the horrors within and retrieve an abyssal pearl. If successful, the Tidecaller rises to shore where a luminous wanderer from Targon’s peak awaits with a moonstone to trade for the pearl. It is an arduous ritual that holds the fate of many in its illusive hands, but the exchange has kept the creatures of the dark contained. In the past, the Marai had sent troops of their most elite warriors to collect the pearl, but they learned the more forces they sent into the rift, the stronger the monsters became, as if it fed on their energy. While an army would be annihilated by the abominations below, a single scout – armed with a legendary Marai staff capable of controlling the tides – could potentially elude the dangers of the deep long enough to escape with the pearl.

Nami had always wanted to be the Tidecaller, but she was impulsive and young. A fierce fighter, she was known amongst the Marai for her stubborn determination, which often got her in trouble. In Nami’s adolescence, the moonstone once again dimmed for the first time in a century. Nami attempted the trial of the Tidecaller. Due to her impulsiveness, however, the elders chose Rasho, a prudent warrior known for his level head in battle, as their Tidecaller.

Rasho dove into the depths of the abyss. A week passed, then another. An entire month the Marai waited for their Tidecaller’s return, but there was no sign of Rasho. No Tidecaller had ever failed to return.

The elders waited and argued while the moonstone grew faint, but Nami knew SOMEONE had to take up the mantle of Tidecaller soon, or all would be lost.

It might as well be her.

Nami grabbed her mother’s bathystaff and plunged into the abyss. After several days, she returned with the pearl, the fallen Tidecaller’s staff, and a look of quiet horror in her eyes. Though furious at her impertinence, the village elders nonetheless admired Nami’s bravery and officially designated her Tidecaller. Nami ascended to the surface and rode the tide to shore to meet the landwalker.

The stonebearer, however, was nowhere to be found. Instead, an elderly woman waited on the beach.

The woman, whose grandparents bore witness to the last Tidecaller exchange, explained that there was no moonstone. The Aspect of the Moon was the only being who could conjure a moonstone, but she had fled Targon.

Nami was unwilling to accept this. She vowed to find the Aspect and retrieve the moonstone. The lives of her people depended on it.

Using the power of the mystical Tidecaller staff to summon a perpetual pool of moving water beneath her fins, Nami took to land to continue her quest.

Determined, the Tidecaller swam into a brand new world.

Neeko was born on a remote and largely unknown island, far to the east, where the last members of an ancient vastayan tribe remained isolated from the rest of the world. They were called the Oovi-Kat, and could trace their lineage generation by generation back to the legendary Vastayashai’rei—the ancestors of all vastaya.

The Oovi-Kat were peaceful beings, of unrivaled potential. Their harmonious society blended seamlessly with the spirit realm, so that their sho’ma—their spiritual essence—could intermingle with other beings through mere proximity, and even help them mimic other physical forms. No secrets existed between the Oovi-Kat, but few were as curious, resilient, or energetic as young Neeko.

She developed a fondness for games, hiding trinkets and thoughts to see if others could find them. Her inquisitive nature knew no bounds, and she was pure and innocent in her charmed existence.

But it was not to last. Cataclysm loomed on the horizon.

Thanks to the quick thinking and self-sacrifice of the Oovi-Kat elders, Neeko escaped the death of her homeland. She clumsily took the form of a bird, and fled the smoldering destruction, feeling the screams of her people fading into the ethereal gulf between realms.

Days later, desperate and exhausted, Neeko plummeted into the sea. She clung to driftwood, entirely at the mercy of the currents, until an odd silhouette rose into view. She could hear voices carrying over the waves, and so she swam toward the strange structure.

With the last of her strength, she crept aboard what turned out to be a mercantile vessel destined for Harelport. Neeko rested where she could, calling out into the spirit realm for her lost tribe. She felt only scattered, sad echoes in response, and images of towering, dead trees that lay somewhere over a fragile horizon…

When Neeko emerged from the ship into the city, it was a strange and unfamiliar new world. All her senses tingled. Many a creature, even another Oovi-Kat, might be afraid in that situation—but not Neeko. The society bustled with unique personalities, strangers with a vast array of motives and shapes. This was a place of countless stories and experiences, and it entranced her completely.

Before she could get far, she was spotted by a vastayan sailor named Krete. Neeko could not understand all his words, but he demanded to know which tribe she belonged to. Neeko reached out with her sho’ma, mimicking his face and expression to make her peaceful intentions understood, but Krete did not seem to like this at all. Overwhelmed by his darkening thoughts, Neeko fled into the crowd, altering her shape many times until she escaped.

Surrounded by lush, tropical greenery in the hinterlands beyond Harelport, Neeko grappled with her recent experiences. She simply could not understand how anyone might rely solely on words as their singular form of communication. It seemed so… limiting?

Seeking solace, she took on the shape of the sleek jungle cats she encountered among the trees, and tried to run with them. Neeko loved being fast and agile, and their bright, keen eyes reminded her of home—until, quite unexpectedly, the leader transformed into a beautiful, strong, dark-haired woman. After a tense standoff, she introduced herself as Nidalee, and reluctantly accepted Neeko into the group.

Neeko hesitated to entrust the truths of the Oovi-Kat to others, but she felt a deep kinship with Nidalee, because she suspected this bestial huntress might share some forgotten connection with the vastayan race. Their friendship blossomed, and for many months they roamed the wilds together.

But the towns and cities, with all their flaws, still called to Neeko. Her ancestors came to her in dreams, showing her the pale branches of those dead trees, over and over. The trees needed color, to bloom again—of that much, Neeko was certain. She asked her friend to join her on this new journey, but Nidalee could not be persuaded.

Crestfallen, but determined, Neeko set out alone.

Her old life among the Oovi-Kat may be lost forever, but Neeko envisions a magical future—a larger tribe of like-hearted vastaya, yordles, humans, and whatever other creatures might share her dream. As far as she is concerned, everyone has the potential to find a place in her new tribe. She has pledged to seek these souls out, to befriend them, and defend their sho’ma with her life.

To know Neeko is to love Neeko, and to love Neeko is to be Neeko.

The sword-wife stood amid the burnt out ruin of her home. Everything and everyone that mattered to her was gone, and she was filled with fathomless grief... and hate. Hate was now all that compelled her.

She saw again the smile on his face as he gave the order. He was meant to be their protector, but he’d spat upon his vows. Hers was not the only family shattered by the oath-breaker.

The desire to go after him was strong. She wanted nothing more than to plant her sword in his chest and watch the life drain from his eyes... but she knew she would never be able to get close enough to him. He was guarded day and night, and she was but one warrior. She would never be able to fight her way through his battalion alone. Such a death would serve no purpose.

She took a shuddering breath, knowing there was no coming back.

A crude effigy of a man, formed of sticks and twine, lay upon a fire-blackened dresser. Its body was wrapped in a scrap of cloth torn from the cloak of the betrayer. She’d pried it from her husband’s dead grasp. Alongside it was a hammer and three rusted nails.

She gathered everything up and moved to the threshold. The door itself was gone, smashed to splinters in the attack. Beyond, lit by moonlight, lay the empty, darkened fields.

Reaching up, the sword-wife pressed the stick-effigy to the hardwood lintel.

“I invoke thee, Lady of Vengeance,” she said, her voice low, trembling with the depth of her fury. “From beyond the veil, hear my plea. Come forth. Let justice be done.”

She readied her hammer and the first of the nails.

“I name my betrayer once,” she said, and spoke his name aloud. As she did so, she placed the tip of the first nail to the chest of the stick-figure. With a single strike, she hammered it in deep, pinning it to the hardwood door frame.

The sword-wife shivered. The room had become markedly colder. Or had she imagined it?

“I name him twice,” she said, and she did so, hammering the second nail alongside the first.

Her gaze dropped, and she jolted in shock. A dark figure stood out in the moonlit field, a hundred yards in the distance. It was utterly motionless. Breathing quicker, the sword-wife returned her attention to the unfinished task.

“I name him thrice,” she said, speaking again the name of the murderer of her husband and children, before hammering home the final nail.

An ancient spirit of vengeance stood before her, filling the doorway, and the sword-wife staggered back, gasping involuntarily.

The otherworldly being was clad in archaic armor, her flesh translucent and glowing with spectral un-light. Black Mist coiled around her like a living shroud.

With a squeal of tortured metal, the spectral figure drew forth the blackened spear protruding from her breastplate — the ancient weapon that had ended her life.

She threw it to the ground before the sword-wife. No words were spoken; there was no need. The sword-wife knew what was being offered to her — vengeance — and knew its terrible cost: her soul.

The spirit watched on, her face impassive and her eyes burning with an unrelenting cold fury, as the sword-wife picked up the treacherous weapon.

“I pledge myself to vengeance,” said the sword-wife, her voice quivering. She reversed the spear, aiming the tip inward, towards her heart. “I pledge it with my blood. I pledge it with my soul.”

She paused. Her husband would have pleaded for her to turn away from this path. He would have begged her not to condemn her soul for theirs. A moment of doubt gnawed at her. The undying specter watched on.

The sword-wife’s eyes narrowed as she thought of her husband lying dead, cut down by swords and axes. She thought again of her children, sprawled upon the ground, and her resolve hardened like a cold stone in her heart. Her grip tightened upon the spear.

“Help me,” she implored, her decision made. “Please, help me kill him.”

She rammed the spear into her chest, driving it in deep.

The sword-wife’s eyes widened and she dropped to her knees. She tried to speak, but only blood bubbled from her lips.

The ghostly apparition watched her die, her expression impassive.

As the last of the lifeblood ran from her body, the shade of the sword-wife climbed to her feet. She looked down at her insubstantial hands in wonder, then at her own corpse lying dead-eyed in a growing pool of blood upon the floor. The shade’s expression hardened, and a ghostly sword appeared in her hand.

An ethereal tether, little more than a wisp of light, linked the newly formed shade to the avenging spirit she had summoned. Through their bond, the sword-wife saw her differently, glimpsing the noble warrior she had been in life: tall and proud, her armor gleaming. Her posture was confident, yet without arrogance; a born leader, a born soldier. This was a commander the sword-wife would have willingly bled for.

Behind the spirit’s anger, she sensed her empathy — recognition of their shared pain of betrayal.

“Your cause is our cause,” said Kalista, the Spear of Vengeance. Her voice was grave cold. “We walk the path of vengeance as one, now.”

The sword-wife nodded.

With that, the avenging spirit and the shade of the sword-wife stepped into the darkness and were gone.