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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.

Milio's story began generations ago with his grandmother, Lupé, and her twin sister, Luné—two elemental masters who wove their respective earth and fire axioms together to overcome the Vidalion’s trials and join the Yun Tal. But after Luné was caught plotting against the Yun Tal, both sisters were convicted of her crime and punished as twins. Lupé was banished to the farthest reaches of Ixtal and Luné all but vanished, taking with her the last of Lupé's trust.

By the time Milio was born, his family had done all they could to make the best of their new lives. He knew only love and laughter, and to him, life in the village was paradise—what more could they ever need?

When Milio was old enough, Lupé tried to teach her grandson the axiomata. Where the rest of her family had failed her, Milio showed promise and took to the elements naturally, but struggled to grasp the rules and rigidity of the discipline. Disappointed, Lupé gave up hope, abandoning Milio's teachings.

Milio, however, continued to learn on his own. Away from the guidance of his grandmother, he abandoned the restrictions she had tried to impose on him. Studying nature itself, he intuited his own set of rules and eventually mastered fire—the one axiom his grandmother wouldn't teach him.

But something bothered Milio about fire. Did it have to be so destructive, especially when he saw the potential for it to do more?

The answer revealed itself one night while Milio was chasing the glow of summer fireflies. They led him to one of the village’s hunters who was injured and unable to move. Milio tried to keep her stable with his fire axiom, but it wasn't enough. Knowing the village healer was too far, he tried desperately to adapt the axiom into a force that could heal.

As he placed his hands on the hunter's stomach to support her wound, he felt a flicker of warmth.. It was so familiar and soothing, like he was touching her soul. Her inner flame. Then Milio began to feel that same flame within himself. He could feel it within the trees, within the leaves—as if each part of the jungle was coming to life like a cozy bonfire.

Focusing all of his energy into that feeling, he used what nature had taught him to manifest that fire. What emerged was a creature—small and timid with wide, friendly eyes. Milio placed it on the hunter's wound and felt the creature—his inner flame—heal her from the inside out.

That night, he’d discovered an entirely new axiom, which he affectionately named “soothing fire.”

Milio ran home to show his family what he'd done. Before their eyes, he manifested another soothing flame that danced happily in the palm of his hand—his "fuemigo"—and his family celebrated.

Grandmother Lupé, however, was unsettled by this achievement.

Seeing Milio’s mastery of the axiomata at such a young age, Lupé knew that her grandson had done what the rest of her family failed to do. With his abilities, he could finally end their exile and restore them to their rightful place among Ixtal's ruling caste. However, she was troubled by his fascination with fire and how his burgeoning skills went against the traditional teachings of the axiomata.

Despite this, Lupé threw everything into her last chance at redemption. Milio became her sole focus as she nurtured and shaped his abilities, preparing him to leave home, travel to Ixaocan, and finally free her from the burden of her sister's failures. Milio felt this weight upon his shoulders, and the thought of leaving home on his own terrified him. But because Milio loved his family more than anything, he would find the courage if it meant ensuring their happiness.

In preparation for the journey, he and his grandmother fashioned a special backpack that Milio called his "furnasita," inside of which he could keep his ever-burning fuemigo. Then, with a heavy heart and a wide smile, Milio—at only twelve years old—left his village behind, outfitted with only his trusty furnasita and some new clothes made by his family.

He traveled the entirety of Ixtal, forging his way through the jungle, camping underneath the stars, and making friends along the way, all while sending frequent letters home that detailed his exciting adventures. After a long journey, Milio finally made it to Ixaocan, where he's since begun his training to challenge the Vidalion.

"The boy with the soothing flames" has caught the eye of more than a few—including Luné, currently imprisoned beneath the city and biding her time. Even Milio notices the whispering that accompanies him around the city, but his focus is on joining the Yun Tal and making his family proud.

As a child, Yasuo often believed what the others in his village said of him: on the best days, his very existence was an error in judgement; on the worst, he was a mistake that could never be undone.

Like most pain, there was some truth to it. His mother was a widow already raising a young son, when the man who would be Yasuo’s father blew into her life like an autumn wind. And, just like that lonely season, he was gone again before the blanket of Ionian winter settled over the small family.

Even though Yasuo’s older half-brother, Yone, was everything Yasuo was not—respectful, cautious, conscientious—the two were inseparable. When other children teased Yasuo, Yone was there to defend him. But what Yasuo lacked in patience, he made up for in determination. When Yone began his apprenticeship at the village’s renowned sword school, a young Yasuo followed, waiting outside in monsoon rain, until the teachers relented and opened the gates.

Much to the annoyance of his new peers, Yasuo showed natural talent, and became the only student to catch the attention of Elder Souma, last master of the legendary wind technique. The old man saw Yasuo’s potential, but the impulsive pupil refused his tutelage, remaining unbridled like a whirlwind. Yone pleaded with his brother to set aside his arrogance, gifting him a maple seed, the school’s highest lesson in humility. The next morning, Yasuo accepted the position as Souma’s apprentice, and personal bodyguard.

When word of the Noxian invasion reached the school, some were inspired by the great stand that had been taken at the Placidium of Navori, and soon the village was bled of the able bodied. Yasuo longed to add his sword to the cause, but even as his classmates and brother left to fight, he was ordered to remain and protect the elders.

The invasion became a war. Finally, one rain-slicked night, the drums of a Noxian march could be heard in the next valley over. Yasuo abandoned his post, foolishly believing he could turn the tide.

But he found no battle—only a raw grave for hundreds of Noxian and Ionian corpses. Something terrible and unnatural had happened here, something that no single blade could have stopped. The land itself seemed tainted by it.

Sobered, Yasuo returned to the school the next day, only to be surrounded by the remaining students, their swords drawn. Elder Souma was dead, and Yasuo found himself accused not only of dereliction, but of murder. He realized the true killer would go unpunished if he did not act quickly, so he fought his way free, though he knew this would all but confirm his apparent guilt.

Now a fugitive in war-torn Ionia, Yasuo sought any clue that might lead him to the murderer. All the while, he was hunted by his former allies, continually forced to fight or die. This was a price he was willing to pay, until he was tracked down by the one he dreaded most—his own brother, Yone.

Bound by honor, they circled each other. When their swords finally met, Yasuo’s wind magic overcame Yone’s dual blades, and with a single flash of steel, the outcast cut his brother down.

He begged forgiveness, but Yone’s dying words were of the wind techniques responsible for Elder Souma’s death, and that his brother was the only one who could have known them. Then he fell silent, passing on before he could grant any absolution.

Without master or brother, Yasuo roamed the mountains distraught, drinking away the pain of war and loss, a sword without a sheath. There in the snow, he met Taliyah, a young Shuriman stone mage who had fled the Noxian military. In her, Yasuo saw an unlikely student, and in himself, an even more unlikely teacher. He trained her in the ways of elemental magic, wind shaping stone, embracing at last the teachings of Elder Souma.

Their world changed with rumors of a risen Shuriman god-emperor. Yasuo and Taliyah parted ways, though he gifted her the treasured maple seed, its lesson now learned. As she returned to her native desert sands, Yasuo set out for his own village, determined to put right his mistakes and find his old master’s true killer.

Within the stone walls of the council hall, Elder Souma’s death was revealed to have been an accident, one brought about by the Noxian exile known as Riven—and one for which she felt deep remorse. Even so, Yasuo still could not absolve himself of the choice he had made to abandon his master or, worse yet, how that choice had ultimately led to Yone’s death.

Yasuo eventually journeyed to the spirit blossom festival in Weh’le, though he held little hope that its healing rituals would ease his heart. It was there he encountered a demonic creature that sought to devour him, an azakana that fed on his pain and regret.

Yet a masked intruder intervened, striking down the creature with righteous fury, and Yasuo realized he knew this man—it was Yone.

Fully expecting his brother to take vengeance, Yasuo was surprised when Yone let him go with little more than a bitter blessing.

With nothing left for him in the First Lands, Yasuo has embarked on a new adventure, though he knows not where it will lead, his sense of guilt the only thing weighing down the free wind.

“Listen to me,” I tell the little girl who found me here, beside the pit. “I need you to hear me. There isn’t much time.”

She leans forward, without a hint of fear in her eyes. “Tell me what to do.”

I like her. A slight smile breaks across my face, for the first time in what seems like… forever. “Not this,” I say, gesturing to the arrow gripped in her hand. She holds it like a spear.

I was only a child when the Void took me from my family, so I didn’t know any better either. But the rest of them, they were so careless. Sacrifices, offerings, tributes—whatever you want to call them, they were never going to work. It isn’t some god, appeased by gifts and prayers. It just wants to devour everything.

“You want to kill it? You want to destroy it?” I ask her.

She nods.

“Then starve it.”

The sensation of needles on my flesh grows stronger, as if in response to these words. The threatening presence is closing in around us, and my second skin constricts, pulling taut as a bow. I take one last deep breath before they come.

The sand begins to shift, puckering and falling away, like in an hourglass. Eerie pulses of light filter into the sky, as the construct-creatures heave themselves up into the Shuriman night, screeching and drooling. I steady myself, charging the energy inside my shoulder pods.

I grit my teeth, and release it.

Bright blooms of heat and pain find their targets quickly, raining down, stopping the creatures in their tracks, flinging them aside. The air is filled with an acid reek, and the hiss of melting chitin.

Soon there is nothing left of them. I wait for the needles’ itch to stop, but it doesn’t.

The girl is crouched beside me, ready. She probably cannot understand what she is seeing.

“Does it hurt?” she whispers, her hand reaching out for the glowing scales on my arm.

I pull back reflexively. She doesn’t even flinch.

“Sometimes,” I confess.

Not too far away, her village sleeps on unaware, for the most part. Curiosity had no doubt gotten the better of this little girl. So many stories, fables both frightening and fantastical. The voidling beasts hunting in the dead of night, calling to one another.

She just wanted to see for herself. See what lurks beyond the rocks, see the thing her people both fear and adore at the same time.

My skin tightens again. The needles, the constant itch…

I blink. “I’m sorry, you didn’t tell me your name.”

She stands up proudly, still brandishing the arrow. “I’m Illi. I came to protect my family from the monster.” She is no more than ten years of age.

“Well, Illi—sometimes running is the best thing to do.”

“But you don’t run,” she says, narrowing her eyes, “do you?”

A clever one, this girl. I shake my head. “Not anymore.”

“Then I won’t either!” Illi proclaims. Brave as well.

She has no idea what they’re dealing with. None of them do. All these things her people have done to rid themselves of the creatures, they were just ringing the dinner bell.

“You need to tell them, Illi. You need to make them understand. No more dancing beneath the new moon. And no more animals tied to stakes. The Void has no mercy to offer—it feeds or it dies.”

The day I came to understand this, was when I knew I had a chance. Maybe that’s why I survive, while so many others perish.

But survival always has its price. Ever since I found my way back, I’ve been paying it.

“Look…” the girl whispers. “They are coming to find us.”

I don’t have to look. I knew they would come. By instinct, the carapace draws over my face. Illi stares up at me.

“Don’t be frightened,” I say to her in a voice now so twisted and monstrous, it could have the opposite meaning.

“Of what?” she asks. I find myself wearing a smile she cannot see.

There are only a handful of people who’ve ever seen me in the flesh, or whatever it is that now covers my body. All but two of them are dead.

Illi’s people appear to be capable hunters. Only the capable live out here. I can see where she got her bravery. Their torches twinkle in the night.

“Papa!” she calls out to the searching villagers, without warning me. “I found her! The girl who came back!”

They’re heading toward us now, weapons at the ready, fire in their eyes. “Illi!” her father yells, nocking an arrow to his bow. “Get away from that... thing!”

She looks up at me again, confused. For every little girl like Illi, there are ten others who would run the other way. Or worse. I know what most people say about me. I’ve seen their fear scrawled across mud walls, scratched into the canyon rocks.

Beware the girl who came back a monster.

They don’t know a thing about me. To them, I’m just something they do not want to face—a living, walking, fighting embodiment of what they fear most. I guess that’s why they added the mark to my name.

Ten years ago, I was only Kaisa—very much like Illi, hopeful about a future as limitless as the stars in the night sky. That future died the day the Void dragged me down.

The needles are back. Illi releases my hand just as my luminous weapons materialize over my arms. “Go to him,” I tell her. “Go to your father.”

“Illi, run!” her father pleads. He draws back his bowstring with trembling hands.

“No!” she yells, turning to me. “I don’t run anymore.”

I usher her forwards, keeping my eyes trained on the villagers. “No, Illi, you were born a fighter. They will need you.”

After a few steps, she turns back. “What do I tell them?”

“Tell them... Tell them to be ready.”

The Void has taken so much from me, but I refuse to let it take everything. These moments, where kindness and humanity shine through, where innocence and trust extinguish fear—they fill me with hope that we can defeat the rivers of timeless poison that flow beneath the world.

The first time I escaped the abyss, I did it for myself.

Maybe one day, it will be for them.

As the Rune Wars raged, Mount Targon stood as a beacon against the oncoming darkness—Kayle and her twin sister Morgana were born beneath that light. Their parents, Mihira and Kilam, began the perilous climb in search of the power to save their tribe from destruction.

Even when Mihira learned she was with child, she pushed onward. At the mountain’s summit, she was chosen as a divine vessel for the Aspect of Justice, wielding a sword that blazed with a fire brighter than the sun.

Not long after, the twins were born. Kayle, the elder by a breath, was as bright as Morgana was dark.

But Mihira had become a fearsome warrior, far greater than any mortal. Kilam began to fear her new divinity, and the sorcerous enemies that were drawn to her light. He resolved to take the girls out of harm’s way, journeying across the Conqueror’s Sea to a settlement where the land itself was said to offer protection against magic.

In their new homeland, Kilam raised the twins, their temperaments growing more different with each passing day. Kayle was precocious, often arguing with the settlement’s leaders about their rules—she had no real memory of her mother’s powers, but knew the laws were meant to keep them all safe. Her father rarely spoke of such things, but Kayle was certain Mihira had saved them by ending the Rune Wars on some distant battlefield.

When the twins were teenagers, a streak of flame split the sky. A sword smoldering with celestial fire struck the ground between Kayle and her sister, breaking in two—Kilam was distraught when he recognized the blade as Mihira’s.

Kayle eagerly snatched up one half of the weapon, feathered wings springing forth from her shoulders, and Morgana cautiously followed her example. In that moment, Kayle felt more connected to her mother than ever, certain that this was a sign she was alive and wanted her daughters to follow the same path as her.

The people of the settlement believed the girls had been blessed by the stars, destined to protect the fledgling nation of Demacia from outsiders. These winged protectors became symbols of light and truth, and were revered by all. Kayle fought in many battles, flying at the head of the growing militia and imbuing the weapons of the worthy with her own sanctified fire… but in time, her pursuit of justice began to consume her. Seeing threats within and without, she founded a judicator order to enforce the law, and hunted down rebels and reavers with equal fervor.

But there was one person she softened her judgment toward. To the dismay of her followers, Kayle allowed Morgana to rehabilitate wrongdoers who appeared humble enough to admit their guilt. Kayle’s protege, Ronas, was the most disapproving of all—he swore to do what Kayle would not, and attempted to imprison Morgana.

Kayle returned to find the people rioting, and Ronas dead. Consumed by rage, she looked down upon the city, and summoned her divine fire to cleanse the city of its sins.

Morgana flew up to meet her, raising her blade. If Kayle was to purge the darkness she saw in mortal hearts, she would have to start with her own sister. The two battled across the heavens, each matching the other’s terrible blows and striking the buildings beneath them to rubble.

Abruptly, the fight was halted by their father’s anguished cry.

Kayle watched Kilam die in her sister’s arms, a senseless victim of the violence that had overtaken the city that day. Then she held the two halves of their mother’s sword in her hands, and vowed she would never again let mortal emotions rule her. As she leapt back into the sky, soaring high above the clouds, she felt she could almost see Mount Targon beyond the horizon, its formidable peak bathed red by the setting sun.

There she would seek perfect, celestial clarity. There she would stand at her mother’s side, and fulfill her legacy to the Aspect of Justice.

Though she has been absent from Demacia for many centuries, Kayle’s legend has inspired much of the kingdom’s culture and law. Grand statues and icons of the Winged Protector give strength to the heart of every warrior who marches to illuminate the night, and banish all shadows from their land.

In times of strife and chaos, there are many who cling to the hope that Kayle might eventually return… and others who pray that such a day will never come.

The moment she thought of the cake store, Zoe dove into the air, surrendering herself to gravity. While falling, she reached out with her consciousness to form a gateway. Instantly, a portal opened beneath her and connected to the other place. She fell into the gate. Her mass collided and imploded as she traveled.

It kinda tickles.

Unfortunately, Zoe did not appear at her intended destination. Instead, she emerged from a second portal only a dozen strides away, propelled through the air by the momentum of her previous fall. Then, after a brief moment of equilibrium, she was pulled back into the second portal. Again, time and space twisted around her—all swooshy-like, as she would describe it—before flopping her back at the starting point. Both portals then folded into space and disappeared.

A powerful magic was distorting Zoe’s ability to travel. It probably related to whatever change she was supposed to herald, and, obviously, she hadn’t succeeded yet. It was a problem, but not an unfamiliar one. She wasn’t really sure what the message was, who it was for, or even what it meant, but, in her experience, those details rarely mattered. The holy mathematics wanted to advance, and the messages generally fell into place shortly after she arrived. Zoe felt that was a pretty cool advantage of being an Aspect.

Of course, there was now the question of what to do while she waited. Zoe glanced around. Beside a nearby tree, she spotted a small, fuzzy creature with a huge tail. It looked similar to a tiny yordle, though Zoe noted how this creature’s connection to the spirit world was comparatively miniscule.

The small animal’s life-pattern flashed in Zoe’s brain. It would live only a dozen rotations before returning its spirit. To her, the brevity of its life made it more adorable. Zoe jumped up and ran toward it.

“So cute!”

The tiny animal scrambled up the tree away from her.

“Hey, come back!” she pouted.

Without slowing her pursuit, Zoe created a time bubble, turning it only half a planet’s rotation, before launching it at the tree. The anomaly bounced before bursting against the tree’s trunk.

For a second, the cute animal’s past merged with the present. The night sky overtook the area, and twilight butterflies pulsed around it. The small creature fell into the tired, restful sleep of the previous evening, as its past’s spiritual and mental state overwhelmed its current consciousness.

Zoe ignored gravity for a moment, floated up into the branches, and came to a stop beside the tiny animal. Her hand hesitated above its downy fur. She knew the moment she touched the creature, her spell would break.

“Zoe is a friend,” she whispered. But when she caressed the tiny animal’s head, it burst awake and dove away from her in a panic.

With a disappointed moan, Zoe floated a bit higher before flipping upside down. She considered visiting Aurelion Sol after she finished here. The dragon didn’t like being petted either. But, she thought, he was easier to catch without harming. This notion vanished as, thanks to her new altitude, Zoe saw past the hills and spotted a village on the horizon.

She willed a portal to the town into existence and dove into it. But, again, Zoe was only able to create a gate to a few yards away. Worse, it collapsed upon itself, as before, and pulled her back to her starting point.

The summer grass did seem inviting, so with no better option, she walked through the forest to the village.

She arrived at the outskirts of the walled town as the sun began to set. Hearing laughter, she dismissed gravity for a second and floated up to one of the village’s rooftops.

In the center courtyard, a half dozen mortals were playing. They were almost exactly Zoe’s size, unlike the children or adults she had encountered more recently in her tour of the planet.

One of the males chased a female around in a circle. Both were laughing. The rules of the game were unclear.

Zoe focused on the girl’s beautiful red dress—wondering if the coloration represented something. Even if it wasn’t a part of the game, Zoe liked it. The girl seemed taller than the other females, and Zoe felt the girl might know things she needed to learn.

The male was also interesting, but in a completely different way. She could tell his current incarnation would be short lived, but Zoe suspected it would be amazing if he chased her. There was something wonderful about his chin and the shape of his lips.

She swallowed nervously. It had, after all, been a very long time since Zoe was a mortal or had even visited this realm. She was strangely worried the group wouldn’t accept her, and she would be left out of whatever they were playing.

Two of the other boys, decidedly less interesting ones, began kicking a ball between themselves. This game, Zoe remembered.

Emboldened by this connection, Zoe swooped down from the rooftop to the middle of the group.

“Hi!” she said, while turning the base of her hair into a color that mimicked the tall female’s dress.

“A spirit,” the interesting boy said with wide eyes. Then he screamed, “Run!”

Zoe felt she should point out she was an Aspect rather than a spirit, but she was uncertain if his cry was part of the other game’s rules.

“Actually, I’m here with a message. But if you wanted to play, I have plenty of time,” she said, as she launched after them.

Then she flew, as casually as she could, alongside the tall girl.

“Your red outfit is so cool! Does the color mean something?” Zoe asked. But her attempt at starting a conversation hardly mattered. As she spoke, the tall girl was pulled into a house by the interesting boy. He then slammed the heavy, wooden door shut, blocking Zoe’s path.

Zoe glanced around, discovering the other mortals had similarly disappeared, but a commotion could be heard coming from a keep near the center of the town.

After a moment, a dozen men in armor came running toward Zoe with spears. They reminded her of Pantheon’s weapon.

Local guardians, she surmised.

Assuming she was a spirit, they screamed warnings, while their leader attempted a banishing spell. It was a very good spell, in Zoe’s opinion, but not one she wanted. She wondered if, perhaps, spirits frequently plagued the town.

When the men began throwing their weapons at Zoe, she manifested an arcane meteor and sent it on a flight path around the keep. Then, the twilight girl created a pair of portals to dodge the guardian’s spears, before finally redirecting the shooting star at her attackers.

The meteor’s impact created an implosion, causing a chain reaction with the small particles it had gathered while flying, which resulted in a secondary explosion that thundered through the guards and their tower—annihilating the area into a fine dust.

“Hello?” Zoe asked as the clouds of destruction whirled around her. She wondered if the tall girl or the interesting boy had run away. It seemed likely.

Momentarily dispirited, Zoe decided to visit a larger mortal settlement next. It seemed like someone might be willing to play with her at that sort of location.

Zoe remembered where a... city had been a few thousand years ago. On instinct and despite her previous failures, she willed a portal to it. And she was pleasantly surprised when a gateway opened to her intended destination.

“Oh cool!” she said, happy to be able to travel again, and eager to deliver her next message.

As Zoe stepped out of reality, she wondered if the new crater would lead some mortals to find the World Rune that was nearby. The tall girl or that interesting boy might even be the ones to discover it.

It would probably be funny if they did, she decided.

As befits her Targonian Aspect’s nature, Zoe did not come to the attention of the celestial realm in any traditional way. She didn’t win a great victory against overwhelming odds, or sacrifice herself for a noble ideal, or overcome the existential trial of climbing Mount Targon. Instead, Zoe was a normal girl, seemingly chosen at random from among the Rakkor.

Her teachers reported Zoe to be an imaginative child, but willful, lazy, mischievous, and easily distracted. One day, as she skipped away from her studies of the holy texts to pursue something “less boring,” she was noticed by the Aspect of Twilight.

It observed as the young girl playfully mocked the angry cries of the scholarly priests chasing her through the village. Then, after an hour-long pursuit, she found herself cornered against the sheer drop of a cliff’s edge. Before Zoe’s teachers could grab her, the Aspect summoned six objects in front of her: a bag of gold coins, a sword, a completed study book, a devotion rug, a silk rope, and a toy ball. Five of these items could have let her flee, or otherwise defuse the situation.

Zoe chose the sixth option.

Unconcerned with escape or forgiveness, she instead grabbed the toy ball, kicked it toward the wall of a nearby house, and sang gleefully as it ricocheted among the humorless priests.

The Aspect hadn’t seen such joyful irreverence in the face of peril since its last host, who heralded the end of the Great Darkin War. Delighted by Zoe’s carefree exuberance, it opened a shimmering portal to the apex of Mount Targon, offering the girl a chance to see the universe. She dived backward into the portal, instantly merging with the Aspect, then stuck her tongue out at her dumbfounded teachers as she disappeared.

This transcendence was unique—in fact, it was unheard of in all the myths and legends of Targon. Yet Zoe did not trouble herself with why the rules that govern Aspects had been changed just for her. She didn’t trouble herself with rules at all. Instead, she journeyed to dimensions of reality at the very edge of mortal comprehension, playing with powers seen by few before or since.

While for Zoe barely a year had passed, she returned home after what had apparently been many centuries in Runeterra. Full of teenage curiosity, she wondered what she had missed while she was away. Fortunately, she could traverse the streams of time with only a thought. Among the events she witnessed were the rise and fall of “the big armored meanie,” Mordekaiser; the destruction of the Blessed Isles in the “Spooky Ghost Party”; the cataclysms of the “War for Sparkly Rocks”; and the founding of a dour new nation near the “No Fun Forest.”

One thing in particular became clear to Zoe—she was not alone. Walking the mortal world were other Aspects, in fact more than ever before. More friends for her to meet! But they brushed her aside time and again, seeming rather preoccupied with whatever it was they were doing in the spaces between realms. Intrigued, Zoe traveled to the stars, where she found the great cosmic dragon, Aurelion Sol.

Although he clearly despised her, as he did all of her kind, Zoe always returned to the dragon’s side, trying to discover what aggrieved him. From his bombastic and self-aggrandizing diatribes, she gleaned that her fellow Aspects had humiliated him, crowning him with a cursed artifact to siphon away his power.

Zoe felt sorry for this poor “space doggy,” and vowed to do what she could to protect him. For his part, Aurelion Sol has at least stopped threatening to destroy her when he eventually takes his long-overdue vengeance.

Whether Zoe’s curious relationship with the Star Forger is due to a mere whim, possessiveness, or her function as a cosmic disrupter, no one can be certain.

For the scholars and mystics of Mount Targon, the emergence of an Aspect is usually a joyous occasion... but Zoe’s unpredictability gives them pause, as not even she knows what her presence could portend. The only certainty is that Runeterra is on the brink of a profound transformation—one that may come at the cost of chaos, destruction, and blood.

Taliyah is a nomadic mage from Shurima who weaves stone with energetic enthusiasm and raw determination. Torn between teenage wonder and adult responsibility, she has crossed nearly all of Valoran on a journey to learn the true nature of her growing powers. Compelled by rumors of the rise of a long-dead emperor, she returns to protect her tribe from dangers uncovered by Shurima’s shifting sands. Some have mistaken her tender heart for weakness and paid the price for their error, for beneath Taliyah’s youthful demeanor is a will strong enough to move mountains, and a spirit fierce enough to make the earth tremble.

Born in the rocky foothills bordering Icathia’s corrupted shadow, Taliyah spent her childhood herding goats with her tribe of nomadic weavers. Where most outsiders see Shurima as a beige and barren waste, her family raised her to be a true daughter of the desert and to see beauty in the rich hues of the land. Taliyah was always fascinated by the stone beneath the dunes. When she was a toddler, she collected colorful rocks as her people followed the seasonal waters. As she grew older, the earth itself seemed drawn to her, arcing and twisting to follow her tracks through the sand.

After her sixth high summer, Taliyah wandered from the caravan in search of a lost goatling that had been placed in her charge. Determined not to disappoint her father—the master shepherd and headman of the tribe—she tracked the young animal into the night. She followed the hoofprints through a dry wash to a box canyon. The little beast had managed to get high up the rock wall, but could not get down.

The sandstone called to her, urging her to pull handholds from the sheer wall. Taliyah laid a tentative palm against the rock, determined to rescue the scared animal. The elemental power she felt was as urgent and overwhelming as a monsoon rain. As soon as she opened herself to the magic, it poured over her, the stone leaping to her fingertips, bringing both the canyon wall and the beast down on top of her.

The next morning, Taliyah’s panicked father tracked the skittish bleats of the goatling. He fell to his knees when he found his daughter unconscious, covered loosely in a blanket of woven stone. Grief-stricken, he returned to the tribe with Taliyah.

Two days later, the girl awoke from fevered dreams in the tent of Babajan, the tribe’s grandmother. Taliyah began to tell the wise woman and her concerned parents of her night in the canyon, of the rock that called to her. Babajan consoled the family, telling them that the patterns of rock were evidence the Great Weaver, the desert tribe’s mythical protector, watched over the girl. In that moment, Taliyah saw her parents’ deep worry and decided to conceal what really happened that night: that she—not the Great Weaver—had pulled at the desert stone.

When children in Taliyah’s tribe were old enough, they performed a dance under the face of the full moon, the manifestation of the Great Weaver herself. The dance celebrated the children’s innate talents and demonstrated the gifts they would bring to the tribe as adults. This was the start of their path to true learning, as those children then became apprenticed to their teachers.

Taliyah continued to hide her growing power, believing the secret she carried was a danger, not a blessing. She watched as her childhood playmates spun wool to keep the tribe warm on cold desert nights, demonstrated their skill with shears and dye, or wove patterns that told the stories of her people. On those nights, she would lie awake long after the coals had burned to ash, tormented by the power she felt stirring within.

The time finally came for Taliyah’s dance beneath the full moon. While she had talent enough to be a capable shepherd like her father, or a pattern mistress like her mother, the young girl dreaded what her dance would truly reveal. As Taliyah took her place on the sand, the tools of her people—the shepherd’s crook, the spindle, and the loom—surrounded her. She tried to concentrate on the task at hand, but it was the distant rocks, the layered colors of the land, that called to her. Taliyah closed her eyes and danced. Overwhelmed by the power flowing through her, she began to spin not thread, but the very earth beneath her feet.

Startled cries from Taliyah’s tribe broke her out of her spell. An imposing braid of sharp rock reached up to the light of the moon. Taliyah looked at the shocked faces of the people who surrounded her. Her will over the stone broken, the earthen tapestry crashed down. Taliyah’s mother ran to her only daughter, to protect her from the falling rock. When the dust finally settled, Taliyah saw the destruction she had woven, the alarm on the faces of her tribe. But it was the small cut across her mother’s face that justified Taliyah’s fear. Though the cut was minor, Taliyah knew in that moment that she was a threat to the people she loved most in this world. She ran into the night, so weighed down by despair that the ground trembled beneath her feet.

It was her father who found her again in the desert. As they sat in the light of the rising sun, Taliyah confessed her secret in choked sobs. In turn, he did the only thing a parent could do: He hugged his daughter tightly. He told her that she couldn’t run from her power, that she must complete her dance and see where her path would take her. Turning her back on the Great Weaver’s gift was the only danger that could truly break his and her mother’s heart.

Taliyah returned with her father to the tribe. She entered the dancer’s circle with her eyes open. This time, she wove a new ribbon of stone, each color and texture a memory of the people surrounding her.

When it was over, the tribe sat in awe. Taliyah waited nervously. It was time for one of her people to stand as her teacher and claim the student. What felt like eons stretched between Taliyah’s hammering heartbeats. She heard gravel shift as her father stood. Next to him, her mother stood. Babajan and the dye mistress and the master spinner stood. In a moment, the whole tribe was on its feet. All of them would stand with the girl who could weave stone.

Taliyah looked at each of them. She knew that a power like hers had not been seen in generations, perhaps longer. They stood with her now, their love and trust surrounding her, but their worry was palpable. None among them heard the earth call as she did. As much as she loved these people, she did not see the one who could show her how to control the elemental magic that coursed within her. She knew that to stay with her tribe was to risk their lives. Though it pained all of them, Taliyah said farewell to her parents and her people, and set off alone into the world.

She journeyed west toward the distant peak of Targon, her natural connection to rock drawing her toward the mountain that brushed the stars. However, at the northern edge of Shurima, it was those who marched beneath the banner of Noxus who discovered her power first. In Noxus, magic like hers was celebrated, they told her; revered, even. They promised her a teacher.

The land had raised Taliyah to be trusting, so she was unprepared for the smooth promises and practiced smiles of Noxian dignitaries. Soon, the desert girl found herself on an unbending path, passing under the many Noxtoraa, the great iron gates that marked the Empire’s claim over a conquered land.

The crush of people and the layers of politics within the capital city were claustrophobic to a girl from the open desert. Taliyah was paraded through the tiers of Noxian magical society. Many took an interest in her power, its potential, but it was a fallen captain who swore to take her to a wild place across the sea, a place where she could hone her abilities without fear, who made the most convincing case. She accepted the young officer’s offer and crossed the sea to Ionia. However, it was made clear as their ship dropped anchor that she was intended as a glorified weapon for a man desperate to regain his place at the highest ranks of the Noxian navy. At dawn, the captain gave her a choice: Bury a sleeping people in their homes, or be discarded in the surf.

Taliyah looked across the bay. The cooking smoke had not yet risen from the village’s sleeping hearths. This was not the lesson she had come so far to learn. Taliyah refused, and the captain threw her overboard to drown.

She escaped the tide and the fighting on the beach and found herself wandering, lost, in the wintry mountains of Ionia. It was there she finally discovered her teacher, a man whose blade harnessed the wind itself, someone who understood the elements and the need for balance. She trained with him for a time and began to find the control she had long sought.

While resting at an isolated inn, Taliyah heard that the Ascended Emperor of Shurima had returned to his desert kingdom. Rumor had it this emperor turned god sought to gather his people, the disparate tribes, back to him as slaves. Even with her training unfinished, there was no other choice; she knew she must return to her family to protect them. Sadly, she and her mentor parted ways.

Taliyah returned home to the sand-swept dunes of Shurima. As the punishing rays of the sun beat down on her, Taliyah pushed farther into the desert, determined to find her people. Hers was a will of stone, and she would do whatever was necessary to protect her family and her tribe from the danger that loomed on the horizon.

Atreus was born on the hostile slopes of Targon, and named after a star in the constellation of War, known as the Pantheon.

From an early age, he knew he was destined for battle. Like many in his tribe, he trained to join the Rakkor’s militant order, the Ra’Horak. Never the strongest or the most skilled warrior, Atreus somehow persevered, standing up, bloodied and bruised, after each bout. In time, he developed a fierce rivalry with a fellow recruit, Pylas—but no matter how often Atreus was cast onto the stones, he stood back up. Pylas was impressed by his unrelenting endurance, and through the blood they spilled in the training circle, a true brotherhood was born.

Atreus and Pylas were among the Rakkor who stumbled across a barbarian incursion, surviving the ambush that left the rest of their patrol dead. When the Aspect of the Sun refused to destroy these trespassers, Atreus and Pylas swore to capture the power of the Aspects themselves by climbing to the peak of Mount Targon.

Like so many before them, they underestimated how arduous the ascent would be, with Pylas shivering his last upon finally reaching the summit. Only Atreus remained as the skies opened, making him host to a divine Aspect, with the power to take revenge.

But it was not a man who returned to the Rakkor afterward, spear and shield gleaming with celestial might. It was the Aspect of War itself, the Pantheon. Judging Atreus unworthy, a warrior who had known only defeat, it had taken control of his body to pursue its own ends—a task it considered too great for mortal men.

Cast into the furthest corners of his own mind, Atreus endured only vague visions as the Aspect scoured the world for Darkin, living weapons created in a bygone age.

Eventually, Pantheon was goaded into battle not far from Mount Targon by the Darkin Aatrox, who sought the mountain’s peak. Their fight raged into the skies, and swept through the armies of men beneath… until the impossible occurred. The Darkin’s god-killing blade was driven into Pantheon’s chest, a blow that carved the constellation of War from the heavens.

But as the Aspect faded, Atreus—the man it had considered weak—awoke once more. Impaled upon Aatrox’s blade, and with the power of the Aspect’s weapons dimming, he took a ragged breath, and spit in the Darkin’s face. Aatrox sneered, and left Atreus to die.

Hours later, as the crows descended, Atreus painfully stood back up, stumbling back to the Rakkor in a trail of blood. After a lifetime of defeat, his will to live, and his anger at betrayal, were enough to stave off the death that had claimed War itself.

Atreus recovered on Pylas’ homestead, nursed back to health by his friend’s widow, Iula. There, Atreus realized he’d spent his life looking to the stars, never considering what lay beneath. Unlike gods, mortals fought because they must, knowing that death lay in wait. It was a resilience he saw in all life, the threats unending.

Indeed, barbarian invaders now threatened the Rakkor’s northern settlements, including Iula’s farm. Though it was months before he could lift a spear, Atreus was determined to end this scourge himself, and eventually set out with the Aspect’s dulled weapons in hand.

Yet, when he arrived, he found his sworn enemies already under siege. He knew from their cries, from the overwhelming stench of blood… they faced Aatrox.

It was Aatrox who had driven the barbarians into Targon, Atreus realized. Though he’d considered them his foes, they were much like the Rakkor—mortals who suffered in the conflicts between greater powers. Atreus felt a cold rage at both the Darkin and the Aspects. They were no different. They were the problem.

Atreus put himself between the barbarians and Aatrox. Recognizing the battered shield and spear of the fallen Aspect, the Darkin mocked him—what hope had Atreus now, without the Pantheon’s power? But even though Aatrox’s blows cast him to his knees, Atreus’ own will reignited the Aspect’s spear, upon hearing the cries of the people around him… and with a mighty leap, he struck a blow that severed the Darkin’s sword arm.

Both blade and Darkin fell to the ground. Only Atreus still stood, and watched his namesake star blaze back to life in the heavens.

Though he often yearns to return to Iula’s farm, Atreus vowed that day to stand against Aspects, Ascended, demons, and any who wield power so great, it can only destroy. Forsaking his own name, he has become a new Pantheon—the Aspect’s weapons fueled by the will to fight that can only exist in the face of death.

For with the divine Pantheon gone, War must be reborn in man.

Thunderclouds rolled off the Argent Mountains, promising pyrotechnics, but delivering none.

From the tower, the advancing mob looked like a child’s mismatched toys—all toothpick spears and tiny torches. The figure at the head of the group was tall, with a splash of grey hair, and a blade belted to her homespun tunic.

Veigar watched as the group started battering the outer gates, incensed by his villainous ways, demanding justice for the terrible acts he had wrought. Finally! He hurried down the stairs to the inner door.

There was a mighty crack as the gates gave way, and villagers tumbled into the courtyard. The leader drew her sword and advanced, picking her way between ungainly limbs, waiting for the rest of the group to find their feet and hold the right end of their spears.

Squinting through the gap in the door, Veigar giggled with anticipation.

The woman’s gaze snapped up.

Veigar clapped a gauntlet over his mouth, but the jig was up. The farmers tripped over themselves to cower behind their leader’s skirts. It was perfect. He stepped back and, barely holding his staff steady with all his booming laughter, blasted open the door with an explosive ball of purple energy.

He strode out to the top of the stone steps as the dust settled. He knew how imposing a figure he must strike—his hat barely clearing the enormous door frame, his iron boots sending up sparks and thunder with each giant step, his gauntlet big enough to crush any fool who might challenge him.

Unfortunately, the cowering villagers hadn’t looked up yet, and holding an intimidating pose this long was starting to feel forced. He let go of the breath he’d been holding, and deflated a little.

“The villain!” shouted the leader, eventually, brandishing her blade in his direction.

In the shadow beneath his hat, Veigar grinned. He drew himself up as intimidatingly as possible as the villagers beheld him.

Then the shouting and wailing began. Delightfully, someone at the back even fainted.

He gathered his sinister magic, gaining an inky nimbus, and causing violet sparks to leap off speartips and belt buckles. The leader stumbled back as a serpentine gash of deepest midnight encircled the villagers, and exploded upwards into an ensnaring cage of sorcery.

“Silence!” Veigar commanded them.

He relished every long stride down the steps toward the trapped mob. Around them, humming walls of violet light stretched between claw-like pillars, forming an eldritch henge. He stopped barely a sword’s length from the leader, glaring at his prisoners through his arcane barrier.

“I can see the fear in your hearts!” he began with a derisive, humorless, snort. “You dare march here to challenge my dread rule? I, Veigar, who has yoked the magic of the universe to my will? Veigar, Great Master of Evil, who has defeated countless arcane foes in my quest for ever greater—”

“Cursed my fields with rat-weevils for two seasons, you have!” an especially cloddish looking farmer cried out, crimson-faced with fury.

Veigar blinked, trying to process this interruption. “Cursed you with what…?”

“And ye turned Dollee lame the week ‘afore harvest!” claimed an outraged tiller, wagging her finger at the increasingly befuddled Great Master of Evil.

With that, the banks broke and the villagers began to make all of their grievances heard. Veigar could only catch snippets of the loudest accusations, the majority featuring soured milk and undersized beets. As he shrunk away from the verbal onslaught, the purple barrier flickered and collapsed, but the villagers didn’t even notice. They shuffled forward, yelling in his face.

He felt the stone banister of the stairs at his back. He was surrounded.

He tried feebly to respond, his voice losing depth with every word. “But I… I am…” They crowded closer, glaring, now eye to eye with him rather than looking up.

Suddenly, a commanding older voice rose over the din. “Stand down. Everyone.”

“But Margaux…” someone began, before the leader’s glare withered their objection. The mob retreated, and Veigar found himself alone with her. She seemed more than twice his height by this point, and radiated confidence.

He hated her.

“Alright, villain,” she spat. “You’ve heard our accusations. Do you plead innocence?”

Veigar felt like he had been slapped. He puffed out his chest, feeling a foot taller. “Innocence? Innocence?!” He turned and began climbing the steps, gaining height on the crowd. “You have the audacity to bring your superstitious bellyachings to my door, and then insult me by asking if I deny them?!”

He glared over his shoulder in their direction.

“I do! I deny every one of them! But do not dare presume that I claim innocence. You accuse me of evildoing—and I am evil! Since I took this arcane tower from its puny owner, I have burned your fields! I have terrorized your warlords, defeating them so thoroughly that they swore never to return!” He took the last two stairs in one great stride. “And I have begun my campaign of terror upon neighboring villainous sorcerers! For none will be permitted to obstruct my path to ultimate magical power! ”

At this, the sky crackled, and magical bolts hurtled from the clouds, exploding around the courtyard. Veigar threw his head back and laughed, reveling in the sheer glory of his own evil. These puny mortals would beg forgiveness in the face of his terrible magnificence!

When he stopped for breath, the villagers were conferring in a huddle, casting appraising glances in his direction. One of them popped her head up. “Did you defeat Vixis the Cruel? The warlord?”

“Of course I did! She failed to exhibit proper deference, and I…”

His words trailed off as the group returned to their earnest whispers. Veigar shifted uncomfortably, straining to hear what they were saying. One by one, the mob nodded to each other, and turned to face him.

They found him coolly admiring the polished gleam of his gauntlet.

The leader, Margaux, strode to the bottom of the steps, awkwardly half-bowing, and addressed him. “Oh, great and mighty… uh… sorcerer…?”

“Wizard!” Veigar corrected her.

“Mighty wizard. We, the residents of the barely-worth-bothering-with village of Boleham—”

“That’s our village!” someone helpfully interjected.

Margaux sighed. “Yes, our village. Well, you see, we’ve come to our senses, and do humbly beg the mighty wizard, Gray Jar—”

“It’s Vay-gar! Veigar!”

“Sorry! Veigar! We humbly beg that you spare us and just, umm, you know… keep doing what you’re doing.”

Veigar narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you know. We’ll just go home, and you keep doing your… reign of terror… thingy. Live and let terrorize, that’s what I say.”

This had to be some kind of trick. And yet, she went on.

“Of course, we’d exhibit the proper, you know, deference. Curse your name in your absence. Spread tales of your vile rampage. Frenk says his cousin down in Glorft heard a rumor of an evil sorcerer, if you’d be interested in, you know…”

“Destroying them! And taking their dread sorceries for my own!” Veigar clenched his gauntleted hand, imagining the sweet triumph of crushing an arcane peer in a wizard battle.

Margaux was watching him carefully. Hopefully, Veigar realized.

Finally, after a long pause, he rolled his eyes and flourished his staff.

“You fools! You thought you could trick me, Veigar, Master of Evil?! Perhaps you hoped I would grant you the mercy of a swift and painless end! Well, I regret to inform you that your lives are simply not worth my time!”

He laughed—a big, booming laugh to match his renewed stature.

“Take yourselves from my sight, insignificant peasants! Return to Boleham, and pray I do not find you worthy of my attention ever again!”

The villagers managed a few half-hearted bows or curtseys, before shuffling back toward the damaged archway. Margaux chanced a quick wink at him, then turned to leave.

“Wait!” he thundered. Her hand snapped to the pommel of her sword.

With as much indifference as he could muster, Veigar edged his way down the steps once more.

“When do you think I could talk to Frenk’s cousin about that other sorcerer?”