LoL Universe Indexing and Search

The weapons shop looked grimy—just the way Samira liked it. A sign hung askew on the door: Lani & Miel Munitions. Samira heard about this Noxian hole-in-the-wall from Captain Indari, who’d received a tip from one of her old saboteur connections. That and the fact the apprentices here moonlighted as tattoo artists was enough to intrigue Samira. She stepped in, and Indari followed.

The captain didn’t need to tag along, but it wasn’t like Samira could tell her otherwise.

Inside, Samira smelled molten iron and saw tools rarely found in Noxian armories. A chirpy woman with two labret piercings welded Zaunite brass while her partner, a woman built like an ox, cleaned a hexcarbine. Tattooed apprentices helped wherever they could.

“How much coin you wasting today?” Indari asked, adjusting the hand rims of her wooden wheelchair. Her voice carried the strength of many decades in service to the empire. Years ago, her disapproval would’ve stung.

Now, annoying the captain was just a bonus.

“Not nearly as much as I’d like to.” Samira saw two pistols displayed in glass. One had the color of charcoal. The other was a revolver, sleek and silver. Both contained untested Zaunite innovations.

“These as easy on the hands as they are on the eyes?” Samira asked.

“They’re the best we got!” the welder shouted. “Miel and I made ’em with materials imported from back home—my home, that is. Will cost ya a fortune.”

Samira threw a sack of coins on a counter. Behind her, Indari crossed her arms. “That's the whole payout from your last mission!”

Samira smiled. “A woman’s gotta have the right equipment for the job. Besides, the last firearms I had… weren’t that exciting.”

Indari shook her head. “Sam. Even for you, this is reckless.”

Samira beamed. “Just like you taught me.”

The journey into the southern jungles took weeks, and to Samira’s disappointment, not even one person had tried to kill her. Standing near a large stone building, she double-checked the location the captain had marked on her journal—a compound near Qualthala rumored to house a weapon that threatened the empire. Orders were to retrieve the weapon and leave no survivors.

The building, devoid of markings, loomed before her, its wooden doors smashed to pieces.

“Huh,” Samira mused.

She stepped forward, then stopped herself. Lifting up her right boot, she picked off a piece of warped iron stuck to the metal clasp. Strange, she thought, staring at its unnatural shape. Then came rushed footsteps.

Two guards faced her, wielding spears.

“Another intruder!” one shouted. “Don’t let this one get away!”

My kind of welcoming party.

Samira drew her pistols. Sliding to her right, she unloaded a flurry of bullets, executing the guards before they were within spear’s length.

Samira’s brow furrowed. “Not much of a challenge, now, was it?” She pressed on, sprinting loudly past metal debris in the corridors of the compound, figuring this’d be the best way to attract everyone’s attention. Warmasons, alerted to the intrusion, ran toward her.

Round two. Let’s make this fun.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a table shoved against a wall. Samira rushed forward and jumped onto it. Leaping off the tabletop, she spun in a wild circle, mowing down her pursuers in a blaze of gunfire before her feet hit the ground.

Without rest, she hopped over a crushed balcony to land in an open courtyard. Nearby was another building, its doors smashed apart.

Someone must’ve beat me to this weapon, she thought, smirking. Been years since that’s happened.

Samira’s pulse quickened. Hearing the faintest rumble, she spun around, guns pointed forward.

Two massive figures charged into the courtyard. Samira smiled.

Basilisks. Lucky me.

Atop each was an armored soldier wielding a bladed axe. The hair on Samira’s arms rose in excitement.

Looky here—target practice.

“She here for the null kid, too?” one of the soldiers asked.

“Doesn’t matter, kid’s gone. And this one looks nothin’ like the earlier intruder,” said the second soldier, turning to Samira. “What are you?”

Samira raised an eyebrow. “What I am is the last thing you’ll see.”

“Ha! This one’s got a mou—”

A bullet tore into his head.

“What a shame,” Samira said, checking her revolver. “Wasted my last round on him.”

The soldier fell dead to the ground. His basilisk roared, charging headfirst toward Samira, its jaw snapping.

“Come and get it, beast.”

Samira crouched. She felt her heart race, but didn’t move a muscle.

Won’t be as thrilling until…

The basilisk drew close. Samira’s fingers itched.

Just the right moment.

She reared back her arms and chucked her guns at its eyes, dazing the beast for a moment. Turning her back, she leapt into the air, flipping her body in a perfect backward circle before landing on the creature’s saddle. Pulling the reins taut, she jerked her mount to face the remaining soldier.

The soldier growled. “Rell send you to clean up the mess?”

“Nope, never heard of ’em. Noxus sent me,” Samira answered, enjoying her foe’s confusion. “Sometimes, I’m sent to save the strong. Other times,” her eyes locked with the soldier’s, “to cull the weak.”

Enraged, the soldier forced his mount forward.

Samira loosened her grip and whispered, “Go.” Her basilisk lurched forward to meet the other rider. He came at her with his axe held high, aiming for her neck.

Tsk, tsk. Common mistake.

Samira arched her back as her mount met his, dodging his slash and unsheathing her sword in one swift motion. With a crescent swing, she struck her blade at his stomach.

The soldier roared. “That won’t work on this armor!”

“Darling, I don’t work. I slay.”

Samira pumped the slide barrel attached to the dull edge of her blade, and pulled the trigger. Black powder burst out behind her sword, forcing the blade forward to break open the soldier’s armor. With an excited yell, she split his torso apart before leaping off her mount to land on her feet, smoke billowing off her sword.

Both basilisks, now riderless, stood still. Samira cut their saddles off. As the beasts fled to their freedom, she kicked the dead bodies aside, retrieving her empty pistols.

On the other side of the courtyard, a crumbling stairway spiraled downward beyond the building’s smashed doors. Samira followed it to the remains of a stone prison cell, warped pieces of metal scattered everywhere. The front door was destroyed while the back wall was torn asunder, leaving a gaping hole that tunneled out into the jungle.

“What were they keeping in here?”

Samira walked around the space, examining the destruction. Split by jagged shards of metal was a small cot fit for a child. Shrugging, she took a seat, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a flask. With her boots resting on the wreckage, she leaned back and raised the flask high into the air.

“Congratulations, weapon! Whatever—or whoever—you are, you’ve got my attention!”

Weeks later, Samira was back in the weapons shop. A skeptical Indari sat nearby as a burly male apprentice touched up Samira’s tattoos with bronze needles.

“Anything new today?” he asked.

“Nah. Not quite thrilling enough… But something dangerous is on the way, so leave some space.”

Indari rolled her eyes. “So. How were they?”

“Exquisite. I’ll be playing with these for a while.”

“Wow,” Indari said, feigning admiration. “The great Desert Rose… reusing guns.”

“Life’s full of surprises.” Samira placed a handful of coins on the counter before walking out. “Keep the missions coming, captain,” she said with a salute. “You know where to find me.”

Indari wheeled after her. “What do you mean, ‘I know where to find you’? Last time, you were jumping off some remote cliff in Shurima! My scouts nearly died trying to locate you!”

But Samira was already gone.

Frustrated, Indari returned to the shop. “One of these days,” she mumbled under her breath, “she’ll have to fend for herself.”

The tattoo artist, now without the guise of dark sorcery, walked out from the shadows to reveal a woman’s shape, her face pale under the light.

“Captain Indari. You will give her whatever she wants—the empire needs Samira.”

Born into a wealthy and influential merchant clan, Caitlyn Kiramman swiftly learned the social graces of life in Piltover, but preferred to spend her time in the wilder lands outside it. Equally adept at mingling with the moneyed elite of the City of Progress or stalking a deer through the mud of the forest, she could confidently track a bird on the wing over the merchant districts, or put a shot through the eye of a hare at a hundred paces with her father’s repeater musket.

Caitlyn’s greatest assets, however, were her intelligence and willingness to learn from her parents, who reinforced her understanding of right and wrong, even within a life of comfort and privilege. Her mother was one of the highest comptrollers in Clan Kiramman, and would always warn Caitlyn of Piltover’s seductions, and its gilded promises that could harden the kindest heart. At first, Caitlyn paid little heed—to her, Piltover was a place of beauty and order that she cherished after each trip into the wild.

All that was to change one Progress Day, some years later.

Caitlyn returned to find her home ransacked and empty. The family retainers were all dead, and there was no trace of her parents. Caitlyn secured the house, and immediately set out to find them.

Tracking within the confines of a city was very different from hunting in the wild but, one by one, Caitlyn located the thugs who had invaded her family home. The trail eventually led her to a hidden safehouse, where her mother and father were being tortured for information. She rescued them under cover of darkness, and alerted the Piltover Wardens… though not one of the kidnappers they arrested knew the identity of the individual who had hired them—only a proxy with the initial C.

Caitlyn and her parents began to rebuild their lives… but something fundamental had changed. Her mother in particular could no longer face the politics and duplicity of clan life, and gave up her prestigious role, leaving something of a vacuum in the Kiramman leadership. And, though she loved her parents dearly, Caitlyn had no desire to take her mother’s place, nor to learn her father’s trade as an artificer.

Instead, her focus turned toward breaking through the web of intrigue surrounding the mysterious "C". Utilizing her hunting skills, she established herself as a private investigator, and quickly made a name for herself as someone who could find anything or anyone. In recognition of her self-made success, Caitlyn’s parents crafted her a hextech rifle of exquisite artifice, with greater accuracy than any musket. The weapon could take a variety of specialized shells, and be easily modified in the field.

After a particularly traumatic case involving a missing hextech device and a series of child abductions, Caitlyn was summoned by the Wardens.

She had been recommended by one of their number who had also developed something of an affinity for stranger cases—and their battle with a host of rogue chimerics in the employ of a lunatic chem-researcher driven mad by his own concoctions led to her being offered a formal position as a sheriff. At first, Caitlyn refused, but eventually came to realize that the Wardens’ resources could potentially get her closer to discovering the true identity of “C".

Caitlyn has since become a highly respected officer within the ranks of the Wardens, always striving to make the City of Progress a better and safer place. She recently partnered with a new recruit from Zaun, the brash and reckless Vi. How such an unlikely pairing came about—and been proven so effective—is the subject of wild rumor and tavern speculation among their fellow Wardens, as well as those they haul away to jail.

What Caitlyn doesn't know, however, is that "C" is also keeping tabs on her... especially as her investigations bring her ever closer to the truth.

A brilliant yet eccentric yordle scientist, Professor Cecil B. Heimerdinger is lauded as one of the most innovative minds and esteemed inventors Piltover has ever seen. Relentless in his work to the point of neurotic obsession, he is fascinated by mysteries that have confounded his contemporaries for decades, and thrives on answering the universe’s most impenetrable questions. Though his theories often appear opaque and esoteric, Heimerdinger believes knowledge should be shared, and is devoted to teaching all who desire it.

Life had not always been good to Renata Glasc.

Her parents were brilliant alchemists, focused on innovations for the healing arts. Dedicated to their work and their community in Zaun, they gave their care and their cures to anyone in need... regardless of whether their patients could afford them. Renata grew up accustomed to going to bed hungry, resentful of her parents’ ideology, yet powerless to change her circumstances. She dreamed of the ships that sailed through Piltover’s Sun Gate canal, imagining herself taking the wheel and steering her life in a new direction—toward the riches of the world.

When she was old enough to join the family business, it was quickly discerned that Renata had no aptitude for alchemy. She did, however, have ideas about turning a profit. In her first sales pitch, Renata convinced her parents that they wouldn’t need to ask anything more than people could give, if they started treating wealthier Zaunites. With loyal patients extolling the Glascs’ talents to their betters, their charity work was soon paid for by the rates Renata set for the rich.

Instead of living comfortably, however, the Glascs spent that money developing a highly refined chemtech formula to extend the lives of their sickest patients. No matter what they did, the formula always had unwanted side effects—such as making their patients extremely suggestible, or extremely violent—so they continued to try and improve their work. Only Renata, bitter at what her parents chose to do with the money she had earned them, wondered if the formula could be useful as is.

Up in Piltover, the elite clan leaders who had been making money off of Zaunite medical stopgaps heard whispers of the Glasc family’s research. Not willing to let anything threaten their bottom line, they paid off a handful of enforcers to “take care of it.” Renata woke to the sound of her parents’ screams as her home burned down around them. She lost her arm trying—and failing—to save them.

With only her family name and the scraps of research that survived the fire, Renata swore to avoid her parents’ mistake of thankless altruism. Instead, she threw herself into building her meager inheritance into something bigger, something that could give her everything she’d never had, something that would give her money and power and control. An empire.

As the years passed, she became the brains behind several successful small-time operations while building relationships with unsavory, but influential, individuals throughout the city. She’d give people jobs, lend them money, and give them medicine for their sick children—but never for free. If they couldn’t pay in coin, she demanded their loyalty.

Renata quickly realized that genius was the rarest and most lucrative commodity in Zaun and devised a plan to invest in destitute youths with a talent for innovation. She offered a space to work and stability for their families in exchange for their work in perpetuity. The poorest among them couldn’t afford to say no. Renata found herself with plentiful access to new and unique product designs, and novel uses for the chemtech formula that was her parents’ legacy. Profits soared. She then established Glasc Industries after purchasing the first of what would eventually be dozens of factories to manufacture her high-end chemtech products.

Glasc Industries quickly expanded across Zaun—from chemtech mining operations to dance halls to refineries—angering some barons who’d held monopolies over the ventures. But, one by one, Renata persuaded them all to go into business with her. And just like that, Renata quietly managed to become a chem-baron in her own right, and no one could push back for fear of upsetting their own cash flow. While Glasc Industries flourished, Renata herself remained in the shadows, waiting for the right time to make her next move.

That time came after a chemical accident sent poisonous fumes sweeping through the streets of Zaun, leaving the city in its worst state in decades. Amidst the noxious gray clouds, Glasc Industries offered basic breathers and replacement filters to everyone in the city… for free. Now everyone in Zaun knew of Renata Glasc and her benevolence. She had earned Zaun’s loyalty.

Word of her generosity swept through Piltover, as well. For the first time, shopkeepers looked seriously at Renata’s elegant and ultra-refined chemtech designs and soon lined their shelves with her products.

Now, every fashionable Piltovan owns at least one Glasc Industries product, and the wealthiest among them vie to sit beside Renata at novelty galas and the opera house. But Renata’s plan was never to be a chem-baron in Zaun or the corporate darling of Piltover.

No, she aims to take Piltover’s source of financial power for herself—the Sun Gate she had dreamed of so often in her youth. For she who controls the Sun Gate, controls the flow of trade; and she who controls the trade, controls the world. With a secret cache of her parents’ chemtech formula embedded in every Glasc product in both Piltover and Zaun, ready to be released at her command—side effects and all—it’s only a matter of time before everyone works for Renata Glasc.

Many years ago, in a kingdom to the south of the great Elderwood, there lived a good-natured husband and wife who worked as toymakers. They had a young daughter whose name was Rowan, as gentle and pleasant as a child could be, and together they lived quite happily making all manner of playthings from the wood of the forest.

The toys fashioned by Rowan’s parents were greatly desired, even by members of the noble houses, and because of this they became wealthy and well-renowned. The toys were never damaged no matter how roughly children played, and never grew old no matter how much time had passed, and each was a work of art unique in everything but name, never to be made again―for this was the magic of the Elderwood, such as it was back then.

It had been said that Rowan’s great-grandfather had once saved a fledgling spirit, and in return his family had been blessed for one-hundred-and-two years, so that they might harvest a single tree each year and from it make as many creations as they desired. No creature would harm him or his descendants, even the Great Guardian Hecarim, so long as his family never turned against the denizens of the forest, and not more than a single tree was taken on the first day of spring. They must also live away from the walls of the city, to signify the bond of spirit and man, and in return the Elderwood would extend its protection to their kin forevermore.

Rowan’s family did respect the terms of this agreement for one-hundred-and-one years, and they were joyful for it.

On the eve of the one-hundred-and-second year, a nobleman from a foreign land visited Rowan and her parents. His name was Brín, and he fancied himself a king, though in truth his lands were small and his influence was quite minor among the lords and ladies of the kingdoms. As such he was obsessed with baubles giving the appearance of wealth and status, and so mesmerized by these wooden toys that he decided he must have as many as he could, so that in his court they might be considered commonplace.

“Honored toymaker,” he declared, “these treasures are priceless, and yet ye would sell them for such a pittance to the children of this land. Is it not more prudent to create them for a noble such as I? I could pay thee greatly, and fill thy coffers, so thy family may never want again.”

But Rowan’s father refused, as the Elderwood provided all the family needed. “I do not wish to sell my wares for profit, though their fame has blessed me greatly. I strive only to honor my agreement with the great forest, as my father did, and his father before.”

“Honored toymaker,” declared Brín, “thy fame is known throughout the lands, and yet ye would live among the edges of the untamed wilds. Craft these treasures in the name of my house, and I will build ye a great manse upon the riverbank, so ye might be the envy of all other men.”

Again, Rowan’s father refused, as even when they could harvest the trees no further, his family would always have a place among the fair folk of the Elderwood. “I am sorry,” he said, “but ye may purchase any wares within these walls, and bring them back to thy court. They never age or wear, and I am sure that will suffice.”

Now Brín did become furious. “If thou would’st reject such a generous offer, I will burn thy workshop to the ground. The Elderwood does not extend as far as my kingdom, and by the time its children come to thine aid thy life will be spent, and thy family slaughtered. I will take these treasures for my own, and that will be the end of it.”

With this, Rowan’s father relented, and the lord Brín would return one month hence, to claim every toy crafted from the final gifted tree.

“Father,” said Rowan, for she knew much despite her years, “what will we do? Though his lands are few, that man is a lord nonetheless, and might call upon a great many knights.”

“True,” said Rowan’s father, “but in his hubris he disregards the spirits of the wood. Take warm clothes from thy mother, and a bindle of foodstuffs, and go to the place called Copperwood Glade. There, thy eyes will fall upon a great tree as hard as armor plate. Sleep softly at its base, and the spirit that blesses this house will appear in a dream to barter with ye. But beware, for it is not a kind spirit, but a violent one. If thy words are false, or thy offers unfair, or it senses darkness in thy heart, then it will cut thy soul away, and thy body will never wake.”

And so Rowan did take warm clothes from her mother, and a bindle of food, and travel into the Elderwood, as her parents raced to carve toys for the lord Brín, in case her quest failed.

Before long Rowan did stumble upon a quiet glade apart from the forest, at its center an ancient tree whose bark shone like polished copper. Around it were the bones of many people, their tattered belongings covered in deep, green moss. Rowan could not hear the birds or the streams of the whispers of the countless spirits in this place―only silence, as though not even the wind would dare disturb its countless secrets. She felt a great dread here, as though she were being watched, but despite her fear she unpacked her bindle, and buttoned up her warm coat, and rested herself against the base of the copperwood tree as her father had told her to do.

Soon enough, she fell deeply asleep. The sun’s rays danced across her cheeks, and it seemed that these old bones strewn about were barely a bother anymore.

She awoke in the dead of night, to the sound of a hymn.

Now Rowan was brave and kind, but the words creaked and moaned like a beetle-filled log, and rustled like the branches of an old, dead willow, and soon enough her fear returned to her. Her father’s warning did echo in her ears, warning of a vicious thing, and so Rowan cried out, “Art thou the spirit of Copperwood Glade?”

And for a while the hymn continued, as if to answer the question.

Then the logs and the moss and the branches and the trees grew still, and the hymn ceased, and a strange, misshapen apparition did appear at the edges of the glade. Its arms hung low, and ended in sharpened blades, and its head turned unnaturally against its strange wooden body, and it looked at Rowan without expression.

“Hwæt þú gewilnunge mædencild?” said the spirit, its voice creaking like rotten timber.

But this was the old tongue, older by far even than Rowan’s great-grandfather, and she could not understand it.

“Ah,” said the spirit, “it has been many years since thy ancestor lent me his aid. Forgive me, for time does not pass for us as it does for thee, and often I confuse the mortal tongues. I am called Nocturne, and I am the spirit you seek. What dost thou desire, child? I wish to hear thy words. But speak not falsely, or I will cut thy soul away, and thy body will rot in the glade with those others who have aimed to trick a creature such as I.”

Yet the spirit did not draw closer, and Rowan’s fear would not subside.

“O, Nocturne,” she said. “One-hundred-and-one years have passed since ye blessed my house, and this year will be the last. We have always honored thy will, and the will of the Elderwood, and from this we will never falter. But a lord named Brín now threatens us with death, and we entreat thee for protection.”

“Ah,” said Nocturne, drawing closer. Rowan saw that he floated above the ground, and scraped his long blades across it as he went, and the bones beneath them were sliced clean in twain as though they were made from air. “I have heard of this Brín, and his lands to the west, where the air is warm and the forest thin. Should he slay thy family and steal thy treasures, I promise to take his life in return.”

“O, Nocturne,” replied Rowan, “we are unlike spirits of the wood. We have but a single life, and when it is spent go from this world hence, and do not return. Couldst thou act against him now? Would that I could offer something to a spirit such as thee, in payment...”

“Ah,” said Nocturne, drawing closer still. His hands trembled in excitement, and his blades clicked as they cut the stones and armor and paltry belongings scattered before him, and Rowan did feel within him a thirst for violence. “Perhaps if I had something fresh to eat, and something warm to wear, then I could make the journey westward.”

And Rowan did give Nocturne her bindle of foodstuffs, and her warm clothes, despite his body of bark and blades.

“Ah,” said Nocturne, rising up before Rowan, his carved face peering into her eyes. “But are thy words true? I wonder, what is the content of thy heart?”

And he sank a blade deep inside her chest, and raised her body high above his head. Yet Rowan was silent, and resolute, for she knew her fate when she saw the bones scattered about Copperwood Glade, and had accepted it gladly.

Nocturne then lowered Rowan, and placed her before him, and her wounds were healed. “Your words are spoken truly, and your offerings are given freely, and your heart is kind. You will not die upon this day. Go back to your home, and live your life, and the lord Brín will never trouble thee again.”

And Rowan did thank the spirit, and when she awoke she returned to her home at the edge of the Elderwood, and her family went on to take the final tree and then lived happily for many generations until they became one with the forest, as was the agreement they had struck so many years before.

As for Lord Brín, he and his knights were slain by a vicious spirit while they rested, and his kingdom fell into a dark slumber from which it never awakened. The Elderwood grew quickly towards these lands, and consumed them utterly within the year, with nary a soul escaping. One can still find their ruins in the place now known as Somberwood, where it is said the spirit Nocturne visits from time-to-time, to admire his handiwork.

The youngest child in a ruling family, Qiyana grew up believing she would never inherit the high seat of the Yun Tal. As her parents governed Ixaocan, a city-state hidden deep in the jungles of Ixtal, they raised their children to succeed them, schooling them in the proud traditions of their isolated nation. Primed to rule before her, Qiyana’s nine older sisters received most of the attention, and she often longed to find her own meaningful place in the family.

That place became clear the day young Qiyana began to learn the ancient elemental magic of Ixtal. Soon after she took up lessons, she realized she was blessed with extraordinary talent. Though Qiyana was only seven years old, she mastered advanced techniques within weeks, while some of her older sisters had yet to grasp the basics after years of study.

One by one, Qiyana surpassed her sisters in the elemental arts, and the more she progressed, the more resentful she became. Why did her parents waste so much effort grooming her inferior siblings? Each time they were chosen to preside over the grand rituals that shrouded Ixtal from the outside world, Qiyana lashed out in frustration, picking fights to prove her worth. It wasn’t long before Inessa, the eldest sister and immediate successor, became the target for Qiyana’s aggression.

Rather than defusing the conflict, Inessa bristled at the disrespect from her sister, who was twelve years her junior. As both grew older, their words became increasingly heated, culminating in physical threats from Inessa, and a challenge from Qiyana: they should decide who was strongest in ritual combat, for all of Ixaocan to see—and for the right to succeed their parents. Inessa accepted the challenge to teach her sister some much needed humility.

When the contest was over, Inessa was never to walk again, while Qiyana stood unscathed.

She was eager to take her place as the rightful heir, but Qiyana’s parents were furious at her actions. They denied her the prize—tradition decreed that Qiyana would always be tenth in line to inherit the high seat of the Yun Tal. Though the news was bitter, Qiyana soon discovered that the duel had made her elemental prowess known across all of Ixaocan. At last, she had found what had long eluded her: respect.

That respect quickly became an addiction. Qiyana felt a burning need to be recognized for her exceptional skill. In fact, all of Ixaocan should stand proud with her, and put the world in its place with their powerful elemental magic. Instead, they were hiding from foreign explorers, and miners who were uprooting the jungle on their borders.

In her parents’ court, Qiyana laid out her ambitions—to drive off the miners and restore the lands. Qiyana’s parents rejected the idea. Contact with the “outlanders” would bring hatred, war, and disease, jeopardizing what their dynasty had protected for centuries. Qiyana stewed, impatient to prove her strength to the world, and determined to prove her parents wrong.

Acting against their will, Qiyana raided the mining site, killing all the miners but one. As the man’s eyes shone brightly with fear, Qiyana knew he would spread her message—he would tell everyone in his Pilt-over about the grand elementalist who destroyed their mine.

In Ixaocan, Qiyana gladly took credit for the slaughter, infuriating her mother and father. They told her the Piltovan merchants were sending fresh miners and armsmen into the jungle. Qiyana’s parents would not risk their insubordinate daughter drawing even more outlanders toward their borders, and regretfully ordered her imprisoned for her crime.

Just as she was detained, several elementalists of the court came to Qiyana’s defense. The elemental talent displayed in the jungle was unheard of, and they convinced her parents that Qiyana should aid them in powering and defending the city. Qiyana was released, once she swore renewed fealty to her elders, and vowed to never cross paths with an outlander again.

As a growing number of admirers throw their support behind Qiyana, she has finally realized her true place in the world. She holds a power stronger than tradition, and she will climb the ladder of succession by any means necessary.

She is the greatest elementalist the world has ever seen. She is the inevitable ruler of Ixaocan, and the future empress of all Ixtal.

In the black heart of the Shadow Isles, a lone yordle trudges through the spectral fog, content in its murky misery. With an endless supply of malaise and a powerful shadow in tow, Vex shields herself from the pep and happiness of the outside world, and all of the irksome “normies” who occupy it.

Growing up in Bandle City, Vex never felt she belonged. The whimsy and color of the yordle realm was cloying to her. Despite the best efforts of her parents, she never seemed to find her “yordle spirit” or any like-minded friends, and chose to spend most of her time sulking in her room.

There, she found an unlikely soulmate in her own shadow. It was black (her favorite color), and it didn’t talk—the perfect companion for the sullen youth. She learned to entertain herself with the shadow, performing gloomy pantomimes for her own amusement.

Alas, it was just a shadow, incapable of shielding Vex from the loathsome cheerfulness that surrounded her. Surely something more lay in store. Something darker. Something sad. Something just like her.

That something arrived in the form of a Harrowing, thick clouds of Black Mist that billowed through Bandle City, stirring its residents to panic. While most yordles fought valiantly to beat back the Mist, Vex was intrigued by the foul miasma and began to follow it to its source.

When she arrived in the Shadow Isles, Vex couldn’t believe her eyes. Vast tracts of land and sea, devoid of all life and color, stretched out before her. Here, she could finally sulk, unbothered by the laughter and merriment of others.

As the days passed, Vex realized the Black Mist was having a strange effect on her. Her shadow had taken on a new ghostly persona—much more lively and expressive than its host—and her benign yordle magic had transformed into something far more sinister. Vex could now spread her misery far and wide.

“Who made this wonderfully awful place?” she wondered.

Her question was soon answered when the Ruined King, Viego, appeared in the Isles, seeking to spread his Mist to all corners of Runeterra. Upon meeting Vex, Viego realized the yordle had a unique ability to spread despair, making people more vulnerable to his Harrowing. Vex, in turn, was inspired by his vision for a world covered in Black Mist. The two became fast allies and set out to turn the entire world into a harrowed wasteland.

Before Viego’s vision could be fully realized, Vex discovered his ulterior motive: to reclaim the soul of his dead queen Isolde, and reunite with her in matrimonial bliss. She shuddered in disgust, feeling betrayed that the man she had trusted to kill the world’s happiness had, in fact, been seeking it himself. Vex left Viego to be defeated by the Sentinels of Light, his dreams of a matrimonial reunion dashed upon the stones of the Camavoran wreckage. Alone once more, she watched in disappointment as the world returned to the bright, colorful place she had always hated. Finding a lasting melancholy was going to be tougher than she’d thought.

She knew one last place she could go—a surefire way to achieve the misery she craved. She paid a visit to her parents in Bandle City, eager to show them who she had become and bask in their disapproval.

The young yordle watched as her parents turned dumbstruck, still as tree stumps. Their expressions changed from shock, to denial, to reluctant acceptance.

“Honey. We don’t understand... this,” said her mother, motioning with her finger at Vex’s entire being.

“But we love you unconditionally,” said her father. “And if you’re happy, we’re happy for you.”

Rolling her eyes, Vex released a loud, exasperated sigh. “You guys are the worst,” she moaned.

She trudged out of her parents’ living room, anxious to return to the Shadow Isles where she could sulk undisturbed.

Beneath the glare of the Shuriman sun, there have always been those blessed with the power of foresight. The only son of aging trinket peddlers, Malzahar did not realize his gift until his parents had already succumbed to a wasting sickness, leaving the young, traumatized boy to fend for himself on the city streets of Amakra. He read fortunes in the gutter, for a coin or scraps of bread.

As his auguries proved more and more accurate, his reputation grew. He used his second sight to predict who a curious cameleer might marry, or where throwing daggers would land in games of chance at the bazaar. Soon, he began to receive patrons dressed not in dirtied sandals, but jeweled slippers.

However, for all this, Malzahar could never see his own destiny. His future was hidden.

Increasingly disillusioned with his success, he noted the common disparities of wealth, and witnessed those unhappy with their lives acting out in spiteful violence against one another. It was apparent to him that people were bound up in a never-ending cycle of pain, often of their own making, and no hopeful prophecy seemed able to break it. Malzahar himself soon felt nothing but a sense of emptiness, finally relinquishing his mortal possessions and leaving Amakra for good.

For years, he roamed the land, from the trackless wastes of the lesser sai to the ruins of old Shurima. By distancing himself from others, he was alone with his thoughts at last. He divined not just how callous people could be, but also how corrupt the world might yet become. Feverish visions began to plague his waking hours, along with otherworldly whispers of war and strife, and endless suffering.

He wandered far, until the sands turned to salt. He could not know that he had arrived in Icathia, a lost city ravaged in the wars of a bygone age. There, gazing into the depths of a ragged abyss, Malzahar opened his unsteady mind, desperate for understanding.

And the Void answered.

That would have been the end of any other tale, and yet somehow Malzahar endured. What lay in the darkness below brushed against the soul of the broken seer, only for an instant, and yet its strange and unknowable energies saturated his mind completely.

The lone figure that eventually strode out of Icathia was no longer just a man, but something greater. Malzahar had seen in the abyss an end to all the suffering he had witnessed in his mortal lifetime. He realized the future he had believed hidden from him all this time was in fact a vision of his true calling: to accelerate the world toward inevitable oblivion. He had to return to the people, and spread word of the holy nothingness that would gladly embrace them, the willing and non-believers alike. He would become the herald of the world’s salvation.

Among the nomads of the deep desert, he found his first disciples. Before their astonished eyes, he used his new Void-given powers to rend the very earth itself, summoning chittering, nightmarish creatures to carry away any who dared to deny him. Within a matter of months, strange rumors began to travel with the merchant caravans; rumors of men and women gladly sacrificing themselves to unseen powers, and of powerful quakes opening up the bedrock of Shurima in new fault lines hundreds of miles long.

In the years since, Malzahar’s legend has spread even to the northern ports. As followers of “the Prophet” grow in number, nearby settlers are said to experience malefic visions grasping at their hearts, and fear gives rise to superstition—even the hardy villagers of the far wastes now make offerings of livestock to appease the voidling creatures below.

Little do they know, this only helps Malzahar in shepherding the coming of the end.

Ionia has always been a land of wild magic, its vibrant people and powerful spirits seeking to live in harmony… but sometimes this peaceful equilibrium does not come easily. Sometimes it needs to be kept in check.

The Kinkou are the self-appointed keepers of Ionia’s sacred balance. The order’s loyal acolytes walk the spirit and material realms, mediating conflicts between them and, when necessary, intervening by force. Born among their ranks was Akali, daughter of Mayym Jhomen Tethi, the renowned Fist of Shadow. Mayym and her partner Tahno raised their daughter within the Kinkou Order, under the watchful leadership of Great Master Kusho, the Eye of Twilight.

Whenever her parents were called away, other members of the order stepped in as Akali’s surrogate family. Kennen, the Heart of the Tempest, spent many hours with the young girl, teaching her shuriken techniques, and emphasizing speed and agility over strength. Akali was a precocious child, and soaked up the knowledge like a sponge. It became clear to all that she would follow her parents’ path—along with the Great Master’s son and appointed successor Shen, she would lead a new generation dedicated to preserving Ionia’s balance.

But balance can be fleeting. The order found itself divided.

A wayward acolyte named Zed returned, and clashed violently with Kusho, wresting power in a bloody coup. Akali fled into the eastern mountains along with Mayym, Shen, Kennen, and a handful of other acolytes. Sadly, Tahno was not among them.

Zed’s transformation of the Kinkou into the merciless Order of Shadow was almost complete. But, as the new Eye of Twilight, Shen intended to rebuild what had been lost. They would return to the Kinkou’s three fundamental philosophies: the pure impartiality of Watching the Stars, the passage of judgment in Coursing the Sun, and the elimination of imbalance by Pruning the Tree. Even though they were now few, they would train neophytes to restore and grow their numbers once more.

When Akali came of age at fourteen, she formally entered her Kinkou training, determined to succeed her mother as the new Fist of Shadow.

She was a prodigious fighter, and mastered the kama and kunai—a handheld sickle and throwing dagger. Though she did not possess the magical abilities of many of her fellow acolytes, she proved to all she was worthy of the title, in time allowing her mother to step down and help mentor the younger neophytes.

But Akali’s soul was restless, and her eyes were open. Though the Kinkou and the Order of Shadow had come to an uneasy accord in the wake of the Noxian invasion of Ionia, she saw that her homeland continued to suffer. She questioned whether they were truly fulfilling their purpose. Pruning the Tree was meant to eliminate those who threatened the sacred balance... yet Shen would always urge restraint.

He was holding her back. All the mantras and meditations could quiet her spirit, but such platitudes would not defeat their adversaries. Her youthful precociousness turned to outright disobedience. She argued with Shen, she defied him, and she took down Ionia’s enemies her way.

In front of the whole order, she declared the impotence of the Kinkou, all its talk of spiritual balance and patience accomplishing little. Ionians were dying in the material realm, and that was the realm Akali would defend. She was trained as an assassin. She was going to be an assassin. She did not need the order anymore.

Shen let her go without a fight, knowing this was a path that Akali must walk alone. Perhaps that path would bring her back one day, but that would be for her to decide.

Shauna Vayne is a deadly, remorseless monster hunter who has pledged her life to finding and killing the demon who murdered her family. Armed with her wrist-mounted crossbows and a heart full of vengeance, Vayne is only truly happy when she’s slaying practitioners or creations of the dark arts.

As the only child to a wealthy Demacian couple, Vayne enjoyed an upbringing of privilege. She spent most of her childhood indulged in solitary pursuits – reading, learning music, and avidly collecting the various insects found on their manor’s grounds. Her parents had traveled across Runeterra in their youth, but settled in Demacia after Shauna’s birth because more than any place they’d found, Demacians looked out for one another.

Shortly after Vayne’s sixteenth birthday, she returned home from a midsummer banquet and saw something she would never forget.

An unspeakably beautiful, horned woman stood before the bloodied corpses of her parents.

Vayne screamed in agony and terror. Before disappearing, the demon looked down at the young girl and flashed her a terrible, lustful smile.

Vayne tried to brush the bloody hair out of her mother’s eyes, but that haunting smile lingered in her mind, growing and consuming her. Even as she shakily smoothed her father’s eyelids closed – his mouth still agape, frozen in his last horrific moments of confusion – the demon’s smile seeped through her thoughts.

It was a smile that would fill Shauna’s veins with hatred for the rest of her days.

Vayne tried to explain what happened, but no one truly believed her. The thought of a demon on the loose – in the well-defended, magic-averse kingdom of Demacia, of all places – was too far-fetched to consider.

Vayne knew better. She knew from the demon’s smile the enchantress would strike again. Even Demacia’s tall walls couldn’t keep dark magic from creeping through the cracks. It may disguise itself with subtleties or keep to shadowed corners, but Vayne knew it was there.

And she was done being afraid.

Vayne had a heart full of hatred and enough coin to outfit a small army, but where she would go, no army dared follow. She needed to learn everything about dark magic: How to track it. How to stop it. How to kill those who practiced it.

She needed a teacher.

Her parents had told her stories of iceborn warriors who fought against an Ice Witch in the north. For generations, they had defended themselves from her unknowable forces and dark minions. This, Vayne knew, would be where she would find her tutor. She evaded her appointed custodians and booked passage on the next ship to the Freljord.

Shortly after arriving, Vayne set out in search of a monster hunter. She found one, although not in the way she intended. Traversing a frozen ravine, Vayne was ensnared by a cleverly carved icetrap. After tumbling to the bottom of a jagged, crystalline pit, Vayne stared up to see a ravenous ice troll, lips smacking with anticipation as he gazed upon his catch.

His gigantic blue tongue fell limp as a spear whistled through the air, pierced the troll’s skull and planted itself deep in his brain. The giant toppled into the pit and Vayne rolled aside just in time to escape being crushed. A sticky pool of drool and blood collected at her boots.

Vayne’s savior was a grizzled, middle-aged woman named Frey. She bandaged Vayne’s wounds as they clung to the warmth of a campfire that struggled to stay ablaze in the frigid canyon. Frey told Vayne of her life’s work spent fighting the Ice Witch’s minions who had murdered her children. Vayne implored the woman to take her on as a student and teach her to track the dark creatures of the world, but the Freljordian had no interest. Vayne stank of privilege and money, neither of which kept your teeth gritted or your blade sharp through the grueling perseverance of a fight.

Vayne couldn’t accept Frey’s answer and challenged her to a duel: if she won, Frey would train her. If she lost, she’d offer herself as bait to the Ice Witch’s minions, so Frey could ambush them. Vayne had no reason to think she’d win – her training amounted to a single afternoon of studying fencing before she wearied of trying to fight with one hand behind her back – but she refused to back down. To reward Vayne’s mettle, Frey threw snow in Vayne’s eyes and subsequently taught her the first rule of monster hunting: don’t play fair.

Frey saw a determination in Vayne she couldn’t help but respect. The girl had a long way to go as a fighter, but each time Vayne pushed her bruised body up from the dirtied snow to continue the fight, Frey saw a little more of the relentless hunter this girl could become. Beaten in skill, but never in spirit, Vayne beseeched Frey one last time: both of their families were dead. Frey could spend the rest of her days tracking ice trolls until one of them caved her head in, or she could teach Vayne. Together, they could kill twice as many monsters. Together, they could save twice as many families from experiencing the pain that defined them both. Frey saw the same hatred and loss in Vayne’s eyes her own had burned with for years.

Frey agreed to accompany Vayne back to Demacia.

Together they made the journey south, heavily disguising Frey to illude Demacia’s border guards. Once back at Vayne’s estate, the two spent years training. Despite the pageant of suitors who solicited Vayne’s company, Shauna had no interest in anything other than training with Frey. As a result, the two became incredibly close.

Frey taught Vayne the fundamentals of dark magic, conjured beasts, and vile spells. Vayne committed every word of Frey's teachings to heart, but found it slightly unnerving that Frey never explained how she came to know so many specifics of these malefic practices.

Due to the kingdom’s watchful soldiers and antimagic trees, dark creatures were rare within Demacia's walls, so Frey and Vayne would venture into the border forests at night to hunt. Vayne earned her first kill – a bloodthirsty creature who preyed on traveling merchants – at the age of eighteen.

Soaked in the creature’s viscera, something awoke within Vayne: pleasure. The hot flush of vengeance and violence raced through her blood, and she relished in the sensation.

Vayne and Frey spent several years hunting dark creatures, their respect for one another growing with every kill. One day, Vayne realized that she loved Frey like a mother, but her emotions of familial love were so tangled with pain and tainted by trauma, Vayne fought them as she would any beast out to hurt her.

Vayne and Frey traveled Valoran, until tavern tales from the highlands caught their ear, whispering of a demonic horned creature of mesmerizing beauty. According to the stories, the demon had been busy: she’d formed a cult, designed to attract worshippers who would do her bidding. People would walk into the hills, never to be heard from again. It was said the cult’s high priests had a holy grounds near the cliffside, where they’d prepare the demon’s sacrificial offerings. Vayne and Frey immediately set off on the hunt.

As they journeyed into the hills by cover of night, Vayne found herself distracted. For the first time since their partnership began, she felt worried for Frey – worried she might lose her mother figure for a second time. Before she could confess her fear, one of the demon’s priests lunged from the brush, swinging a mace into Vayne’s shoulder.

Vayne was badly wounded. Frey had a brief moment of hesitation, but her eyes steeled with certainty as she apologized to her friend and transformed into a monstrous Freljordian wolf. As Vayne watched in shock, Frey – in her animalistic form – tore the priest’s tendons from his throat with a swift snap of her mighty jaws.

With the priest’s body laid strewn at Vayne’s feet, Frey retook her human form, yet her eyes betrayed the scared animal within. She explained that after the death of her family, she had become a shaman, inviting the curse upon herself in order to gain the power to change shape and fight against the Ice Witch. The ritual that gave her these powers involved dark magic, but she made this sacrifice to protect–

–Vayne put an arrow through Frey’s heart without allowing her another syllable. Whatever affection she had felt for Frey evaporated upon discovering her true nature. A tear formed in Frey’s eye as she collapsed, but Vayne didn’t notice – whatever warmth the two had shared died with Frey.

There were still hours left before dawn, which meant hours left to continue the hunt. Vayne thought only of the demon. The kill that would be hers to savor. And all the kills to come. Runeterra’s underworld would come to fear her, just as she had once feared them.

For the first time since her parents’ death, Vayne smiled.