Runeterra, League of Legends’ setting and world, is anything if not multifaceted. Hundreds of factions compete against each other to different degrees and with completely different motivations. From the ground up, League of Legends was never conceived as a game with heroes and villains. From a game design standpoint, it limits how creative you can get with character designs in a MOBA. However, this leads the setting to feel less like a primordial battle between good and evil, and more like a complex web of cause and effect.
There are, however, some otherworldly forces beyond the confines of our morality, whose actions pretty solidly square them into being villains in their own stories.
Viego
The Ruined King of Camavor
Once the ruling king of the kingdom of Camavor, Viego ravaged his country and invaded nations in a mad quest to reverse the death of his wife, Isolde.
When he arrived to the mythical blessed waters of Helia in the shores of the Blessed Isles, he reanimated his wife Isolde as a horrifying wraith, twisted by her husband’s lovestruck obsession. In her anger at being ripped from death, she took Viego’s life, impaling the young king with his own enchanted blade and pinning him to the blessed waters below. The magic of the waters and the ancient sword clashed, creating a rift across the land, known as the Ruination.
The isles were swallowed by this rift, creating a misty wasteland now called the Shadow Isles. Magical, black mist still pours out of the undead king’s chest. Still confined by his unflinching and deranged love, he has doomed all inhabitants of the Isles into an afterlife of aimless wandering through their devastated homeland. The damage Viego caused was so great that the poor souls of the Isles were now permanently incapable of moving on to the spirit realm.
Each year, the mists spread further, draining life from those it touches, attracting tormented spirits, and trapping its victims within the reaches of the Shadow Isles. All to ultimately feed the Ruined King of Camavor, who scours the realm for a way to reanimate Isolde.
Absolution – The Sentinels of Light
Virtually every continent in Runeterra has faced ‘harrowings‘, incidents where the Black Mist originating from the Shadow Isles appears out of nowhere, reaching far from the Isles and accompanying the Ruined King in his exploits.
Over time, a group called the Sentinels of Light arose to control and investigate these events, eventually culminating in their objective of sealing away the Ruined King. Although initially daunted by the Sentinels, he eventually succeeded in reviving his wife. Horrified at her own form once again, Isolde prompted the Sentinels to kill her and Viego both.
The Ruined King currently remains imprisoned in the mist he created, which still slowly creeps through Runeterra like an infection, slowly sprouting powerful and tormented souls into the world.
Viego’s obsession not only destroyed his kingdom, but also permanently scarred the geography and history of Runeterra. His love created a natural disaster that threatens to eventually swallow the world entire, given enough time.
Mordekaiser
Sahn-Uzal
Before his death in a foregone era, Sahn-Uzal was a brutal warlord driven to war by a dark, esoteric faith. He crushed and converted every tribe in his path to his religion. Yet, when he was slain, he did not get the afterlife he expected. Instead of glorious halls of warriors, he saw tepid wastelands full of wandering, miserable souls.
Sahn-Uzal channeled his rage and frustration and whispered between the realms to mortals, promising his strength to any who would restore him to life.
Eventually, a coven of sorcerers would come to reanimate the warlord, binding his enraged soul to a magical suit of armor. A hulking, hating revenant of iron named Mordekaiser rose from the warlord’s soul, who immediately slew the cabal of mages who had resurrected him.
He seized their risen armies of undead, forged their souls into a brutal mace, and set off for conquest once more. He raised the Immortal Bastion at the center of his new empire, and the Iron Revenant journeyed into a glorious campaign, to conquer not only this realm, but the afterlife as well.
Mordekaiser, the Iron Revenant
After decades of unsatiable warmongering, the inner circle formed by the most loyal servants to Mordekaiser would finally come to betray him. An alliance of Noxian tribes called the Black Rose would sever his immortal soul from his armor and seal the empty iron shell in a secret, faraway place, bringing the rule of the Iron Revenant to a halt. This, however, was Mordekaiser’s plan all along.
All those who had died during his undead reign were waiting in the same wasteland, unable to fade away after being slain. He bound those souls into an army within the realm of the dead, and set off on the second part of his conquest, a crusade to reshape the afterlife into another belonging of his dominion.
The Black Rose, centuries after the death of Mordekaiser, still has the express purpose to watch for the Revenant’s return. The new empire of Noxus was formed, and the Immortal Bastion declared its capital. To this day, they do not yet know how to stop him, if he were to find his way back to the material plane in order to reclaim his lands.
The Black Rose
The deceiver and the Crimson Reaper
As mentioned before, the Black Rose’s initial purpose was to stop and contain Mordekaiser. However, after a thousand years of puppeteering the state of Noxus, the Black Rose now mostly exists to further the interests of those capable of wielding the magic hidden within the Immortal Bastion.
Since the years of Mordekaiser, the Black Rose has had their grubby hands on every corner of Runeterra, now forming a shadowy cabal of mages out to only further their own interests. They’ve done human experiments to create magical supersoldiers, dabbled into resurrection and necromancy, and are largely to blame for the phenomenon of blood magic within the Noxian aristocracy.
Vladimir, a mythic fiend with a thirst for human blood, and LeBlanc, a pale and crafty sorceress, spearhead the leadership of the Black Rose, and have been doing so since their service to the Iron Revenant. Although they’re also members of the sect that sealed away Mordekaiser, their dabbling into dark magic, and their complete lack of care on the amount of human flesh required for it, paints them squarely as villains, even when compared to the rest of the Noxian royalty.
At best, Vladimir and LeBlanc have claimed countless lives in their gluttonous pursuit of power, and only defeated Mordekaiser as a power play. At worst, their banishment of the Iron Revenant was merely a facade, and they are now biding their time to resurrect their millennia-dead warlord once he has fully claimed the afterlife as his domain.
Demons
We have established before through Viego’s Ruination and Mordekaiser’s story that Runeterra has at least one “spirit realm” of sorts, if not many. Spirits within these planes are not only born from dead mortals, but also from the feelings of these mortals. And so, demons take form, forged out of the negative thoughts within the material plane.
When powerful enough, some demons can manifest themselves in areas of particular despair to feast. Once materialized, demons chase down these emotions for nourishment, siphoning them out of mortals and killing them.
Notable Demons
Atakhan, the Bringer of Ruin, a demon summoned by the Black Rose who was previously a servant to Mordekaiser
Nocturne, the Demon of Nightmares, a primordial force of pure terror that embodies the collective nightmares of all humanity.
Raum, the Demon of Secrets, who inhabits the arm of Jericho Swain. He appears as a flock of ravens with a myriad of eyes, that follow and serve the Noxian Grand General. Rumors say he (literally) twists Swain’s arm in order to learn and feed upon Noxus’ centuries of secrets.
Fiddlesticks, the Demon of Fear, who is drawn to areas thick with paranoia where it feeds upon terrorized victims. He enjoys mimicking their last, agonized cries for help in order to draw even more mortals to the scene.
Ashlesh, the Demon of Joy, who feeds on primal happiness, such as delirium and obsession. He is currently under the control of the mortal Nilah, who bound the demon to her service. In exchange, the demon doomed her to only be capable of experiencing joy thereafter.
Evelynn, the Demon of Agony, a literal man-eater who disguises herself as attractive human females. She only unleashes her true form to those who fall for her, before subjecting her victim to unspeakable torture and agony.
Tahm Kench, the Demon of Addiction, who travels the waterways of Runeterra feeding his appetite for misery. He’s known for hammering out deals to mortals that always end up with them tied in a spiral of addiction and greed. He eventually collects his part of the deal, devouring the souls of his debtors.
Demons are not unified enough to pose an organized threat to humanity in Runeterra. They are, however, the very personifications of the woes of the human condition. Regardless of who or what might bring about the end of mortal life in Runeterra, you can bet that a demon will be lurking on the fringes, feasting on the world’s corpse like a carrion feeder.
The Watchers and the Void
The Iceborn
The Void is the oldest of the threats to Runeterra. It was birthed in the same moment as the concepts of “knowing” and “not knowing” were. It is a manifestation of the unknowable nothingness that lies beyond that which can be experienced. A realm of insatiable hunger, inhabited by timeless beings known as the Watchers.
The origins of the Watchers is unknown, even to them. However, they are powerful enough to cross the realms into our material plane. The anomaly that was our material world puzzled them, in the vast nothing-canvas that was their universe. In their curious intent of understanding our universe, they reshaped matter within it into conscious drones called the Voidborn. They would eventually grant gifts to the humans of the Freljord, giving them immortality in return for their eternal service. Those who would accept these terms were dubbed “Iceborn”.
Ancient Freljordians conquered in the name of the Watchers, heralding the inevitable destruction they would bring to existence.
The spite for creation grew within the Watchers over time. Some of their iceborn, specifically Avarosa and her sister Lissandra, would eventually start a rebellion against their unknowable masters. This culminated in a long battle across a bridge known as the Howling Abyss, where Lissandra entombed the Watchers, her armies and her own sisters in a glacial prison underneath the bridge.
Fall of Icathia
The constructs of the Watchers were left behind, echoing the consciousness of their creators. From within their prison, the Watchers shaped creatures of the Void to do their bidding and sent them out into the continents. They called mortals to carry out rituals in their name, hoping one day to tear open another rift into existence. They bided their time for millennia, before their chance appeared in a small nation called Icathia.
While looking for a weapon that could deter their Shuriman invaders, the nation of Icathia had stumbled across ancient knowledge underground. When it was used, it ripped the sky apart and lashed down onto Shurimans and Icathians alike.
A strange beast spewed forth, dissolving their forms into energy and absorbing them through its tendrils. The entire city of Icathia was swallowed by earthquakes and chasms, replacing settlements with twisting and unfolding birth-sacs. Whatever had come out of the rift had already started to colonize the region.
The terrain now known as Where Icathia Once Stood, is a living wasteland of cursed matter, where forces of the Void attack all life on sight. Shurima would develop powerful God-Warriors to drive back the Void, destroying the lives of countless Ascended and mortals in a conflict known as the Void War. Eventually, the Shurimans were able to close most of the largest rifts.
The Voidborn still seep out to the surface, and many rumor there to be an entire underground society of them below ground, biding their time to colonize the world once again.
The Darkin
The Great Darkin War
During the Void War in Icathia, the Shurimans used celestial magic to elevate warriors who can channel the magic of celestial entities as their avatars, known as the Ascended or God-Warriors.
The mental scar left in the God-Warriors who survived the Void War, born out of the horrors released by the Watchers, widened over time and infected them with corruption. The Ascended would eventually turn their back on the world they once swore to protect when the empire of Shurima fell.
With the loss of their immortal emperor, Azir, they were left purposeless and set off to aimlessly conquer the world, enslaving mortal races and forcing them to worship them.
The Darkin used their innate knowledge of blood magic to augment their flesh and weapons, clashing with each other when their ambitions ran too grand, resulting in the Great Darkin War. Each of the surviving Darkin would throw their hats onto the ring to see who would be the one living god to rule all mortals.
The celestial beings they once embodied would eventually intervene, aiding the mortals in sealing the Darkin within their own weapons and ending the war. In the centuries since, the Darkin have slowly begun to stir and seek out both ignorant and ambitious vessels alike, to take up their weapons and resume their war.
Notable Darkin
Aatrox, who has possessed so many bodies over the years, that he eventually learned how to feast on his host’s flesh for power. Growing desperate and realizing there is no way to free himself from his weapon, he brings war and death wherever he goes until a worthy opponent brings an end to his misery, or until he has consumed the entire world. Whichever happens first.
Rhaast, wielded by the mortal Kayn in a symbiotic relationship, whom he hopes to manipulate into becoming an ideal host.
Naafiri, a Darkin who has found community in a pack of predatory hounds in the Shuriman desert, becoming a collective consciousness between members of its species.
Varus, who fused the mortals Kai and Valmar in the hopes of creating a new body for himself.
Xolaani, the archnemesis of Aatrox, who would eventually come the closest to threatening the entirety of creation, before he was destroyed by Ryze using the World Runes.
The World Runes
Eventually, it would not be the alien forces of the Void, the war-scarred Darkin or the various undead warlords that conquered the planes that would come the closest to the destruction of Runeterra— the number one spot would actually belong to mortals themselves, through the Rune Wars. A cataclysm so all-encompassing that it defines the history of Runeterra itself.
The Rune Wars
After the fall of the Blessed Isles at the hands of Viego, the mages of the Isles struggled to keep knowledge of the World Runes hidden— powerful artifacts marked in ancient glyphs, rumored to be integral to the creation of the universe itself. It was not long before they were used for warfare, and soon, warfare became their sole purpose.
Political tensions escalated between those nations who controlled a World Rune, erupting an all-out war encompassing the world. Entire nations were glassed and decimated by mages capable of taming the Runes, with its refugees eventually creating new nations such as Demacia, Piltover and Ixaocan.
The Rune Wars never truly ended in a final battle, they only slowly cooled off with the centuries. Every mage who came to control a World Rune would be driven to insanity and eventually burn themselves out, given enough time. The last few cabals of rune-mages left cast off their flesh, taking their power to the spirit realm. The shadows cast by their ambitious use of magic would later lay the foundation for demons to materialize from the collective trauma inflicted by the war.
By the end of the Rune Wars, there were no conquerors or conquered peoples, only survivors. Settlements that hid themselves away from the war, surviving with scars and trauma that would shape their politics and laws for centuries to come.
Conclusion
The setting of Runeterra is plagued by evil magical forces capable of destroying the world. However, they have only ever been able to do so through the actions of the mortals they negotiate with. Without the actions of mortals, many of these threats would have been cast away long ago.
It is not that the mortals of Runeterra are evil, but rather, they all have the capacity to unknowingly fall into evil out of reasonable circumstance, inadvertently becoming the very villains they would once seek to destroy.
Written by:
Selva Moonbell