As fans of League of Legends worldwide wait for the eventual release of Arcane, the question is “would Riot make more series if this one goes well?”
I’d certainly hope so. I’ve been playing League of Legends for over a decade, and was a Legends of Runeterra streamer initially, and I always love reading into the marvellous world that Riot have created. I always enjoy listening to people like Necrit discuss what’s going on in Runeterra, and speculate what will happen.
With that being said, if I was a producer at Riot (call me), I’d probably pitch the following 5 stories to be made into full-blown series of their own. I’m not going to delve into the lore too much in each case, but be warned that there will most likely be spoilers ahead.
The Ruination
The story of Viego, the Ruined King, and his quest to reunite with his wife Isolde is what’s currently going on in the lore, and is the current event across both League of Legends and Legends of Runeterra, with even VALORANT receiving some Ruination weapon skins. We’re still waiting for Riot Forge’s The Ruined King, though.
Viego has been a character in the game since 2012 through his blade (Blade of the Ruined King) being an in-game item. However, during their 10 year anniversary, Riot revealed that the legendary figure in the history of Runeterra was becoming a champion, and that the entirety of 2021’s lore events were going to be centred around his story. He was a negligent king who indirectly caused his wife’s death due to a failed attempt on his life, so when he tried to use the magic of the Blessed Isles to revive her, she awoke as a revenant, took his blade, and stabbed him in the confusion, causing the once sacred lands to transform into the Shadow Isles, where he rules with the always encroaching Black Mist. Viego will stop at nothing and destroy all in his path to reunite with his wife.
This would make a fantastic series to watch, because it would include many characters that are already popular (Lucian, Senna, Thresh, Shyvana, etc.), but it would show more info about The Blessed Isles before they fell, a great Suicide Squad style recruitment by the Sentinels of Light to fight off Viego and the Black Mist, and would be a great action series with some genuine heartfelt moments in.
Although Viego is the villain and is characterised as a toxic person to be with, it was clear in his backstory that the love he and Isolde shared was real and powerful. This may have been an obvious one to start with, admittedly, but it would make a great viewing experience.
Sylas and the Mage Rebellion
In terms of colour aesthetic, Demacia is seen as the “good guys”, with their gold/blue/white colour palette, their penchant for justice, and their battle prowess. This is particularly evident when contrasted with Noxus, who are almost entirely red and black, and generally have more brutal ways of dispatching opponents. Breaking convention, Demacia have a sinister side that is arguably one of the worst in the world of Runeterra; the genocide of mages.
Demacia is extremely anti-magic. Their armour is infused with a substance called petricite, which is known to absorb magic, and they have their own secret police called the Mageseekers, who go door-to-door and capture every person able to use magic, imprison them, and force them to drink a petricite solution, which normally results in their death. What’s more horrific than that is that the ability to use magic is inherent in people. They don’t choose to have magical capabilities, they are just born with it. Though the Demacian elite who are able to use magic never get prosecuted for it, this fact is what drove Sylas to have rebellious thoughts.
This story has been explored in Lux, a comic created as a collaboration between Marvel and Riot, but it deserves a big screen tale. Young Sylas was a Mageseeker who saw magical capabilities in everyone, and in trying to save a young girl, he managed to cause the death of almost everyone in the immediate vicinity, thus, he was locked up and shackled in petricite chains. After he breaks out of prison by using the stored magic in petricite, he causes death and destruction before leaving with mages in tow. On the screen, this could easily play out like an X-Men movie.
The Fall of Shurima
Shurima is the desert region of Runeterra, and the fall of the great empire at the hands of Xerath would make an excellent tale on the screen.
Shurima was an empire built on slavery, but was granted the beautiful Sun Disk by Mount Targon, and thus given the magic of Ascension; the process which gave certain individuals the ability to Ascend and become god warriors, as we have seen with Nasus and Renekton.
The story itself begins when Azir becomes the new emperor, and appoints his childhood friend and personal slave Xerath as his trusted attendant and advisor. Xerath, being a slave, tries to drop hints to Azir to abolish slavery, to which the young emperor agrees to, but continuously delays giving the decree in order to get the rich landowners on his side first, but it’s taking too long. What happens next, spells out catastrophe for Azir and all of Shurima.
Xerath suggests that Azir take the Ascension ritual, to which he agrees to do, and he plans to free all of the slaves after he ascends; but he doesn’t tell Xerath this. When the great day comes, Xerath pushes Azir out of the way of the ritual, killing him and absorbing the power for himself. In the ensuing rages, Xerath destroys most of the empire and all its citizens. This causes Nasus and Renekton to seal Xerath away in a tomb, the latter of the two staying with him in there to ensure he can’t escape.
This is one of the more epic stories in the deep lore of League of Legends, and it carried on after this into Azir’s resurrection, where he fully ascends into the being he is now. Though this series would likely have a dour ending, it’s impossible to deny that to see this play out with visuals would be incredible.
The World Runes
These things are Riot’s answer to the Infinity Stones.
The Rune War was arguably the cataclysmic event that set up the state that Runeterra is in now, and the World Runes were the reason that the world was ravaged so much. In the game, these are the runes that you can set to make your character more powerful, but in the lore, they are a corrupting source of power that has the power to end the world. This is what made Demacia detest magic so much.
In the modern day, the heroic mage Ryze is running around all corners of the world and collecting the titular runes in order to secure them away, so no-one can use them ever again. Ryze’s own apprentice, Brand, was corrupted by one of the World Runes and became a being of fire and destruction. With this in mind, it’s pretty easy to see why Ryze wants to get these locked away.
He seals the World Runes inside a vault, beneath the Petricite Forest outside of Demacia, as the material absorbs magic. However, the sheer magical force in these runes makes the trees grow to absurd heights, beyond anything thought possible. Witnessing the full story on screen would be like Avengers meets World War Z; gathering all the stones while travelling all over the world. It would be a super interesting tale to tell on screen.
The Burning Tides
This was the first big lore event that Riot ever did, and everyone still talks about how amazing it is.
This takes place in Bilgewater, the pirate city where law is only an approximate guideline as opposed to a rule. Bounties and plunder happen on the daily, not to mention the sea which is full of horrific creatures, able to swallow entire ships. This story, however, is about the two pirate lords wrestling for control; Gangplank, and Miss Fortune, but also ties in the reunification of the best bromance since JD and Turk; Twisted Fate and Graves.
After both being hired by an unknown employer (Miss Fortune), both Twisted Fate and Graves end up in a warehouse belonging to Gangplank under the captain’s very nose. These former friends have been stitched up to meet and fight, to distract from Miss Fortune’s grander plan of eliminating Gangplank all together. The full thing results in Gangplank’s ship going down, and everyone assuming him dead.
When this happened, Gangplank was temporarily removed from League of Legends as a playable champion, so it felt like Riot were adding more lore elements into the game, which everyone appreciated. This, obviously, didn’t stick, as Gangplank survived with one arm less and many grudges more. Riot used this as a catalyst to rework the champion into something more sinister and cutting, more representative of the evil pirate king he once was.
Pirates, betrayal, friendships, and explosions - these things all make excellent parts of a series that could even rival other movies in terms of depth, complexity, and satisfaction.
Get started on the lore of LoL with the Marvel published comics here.
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