The story of LoL briefly explained – So that fans of Arcane have an overview

League of Legends has become known as a PvP game with the same map over and over again, but has a deep and very interesting background story. With the new Netflix series Arcane, interest in exactly this story has now increased significantly. We at MeinMMO would therefore like to summarize the most important events for you.

What kind of article is this and where does the information come from? In this article we want to summarize the big cornerstones of the history of LoL and Runeterra in general. This is only a rough overview, because the cart goes very deep.

We first talk about the most formative events in the game world, then about the content of the new Arcane series and finally about the Hextech magic in general.

The information comes from the short stories by Riot Games themselves, but mostly from the book “The Realms of Runeterra,” which has an accurate timeline of the world.

The Story of Runeterra – From Its Creation to Today

It all started with the watchers fighting against reality

Where does the story begin? The story of LoL starts with nothing. After nothing, the Void, in German the void, formed a force of insatiable hunger that wants to devour everything. The watchers lived in it, but they saw and heard nothing. They weren’t even aware of their existence themselves.

But then reality formed and produced light, which the watchers were not at all enthusiastic about.

In reality, the first creatures such as Bard and Aurelion Sol formed. It was also Aurelion Sol who created the first stars. These creatures lived in Targon, a beautiful city made of silver and gold.

The watchers observed the goings-on of these “Celestials” and made plans to destroy the reality that was a thorn in their side. From this arose the conflict between reality and the void that still exists today.

The creation of Runeterra: Runeterra is a planet that did not come into being by chance. The Celestials, including Soraka, created the planet and filled it with life.

In this context it is speculated that an army should be deliberately bred on Runeterra in order to be able to fight against the Watchers, although this is not mentioned in the official canon.

However, the Celestials lost the so-called world runes with which the planet was created, somewhere on Runeterra. That is supposed to be one of the reasons the magic is so strong on the planet.

The watchers, in turn, repeatedly tore holes in the reality we know today as the so-called Void Rifts.

The division of the world: Runeterra is divided into different continents:

• Valoran in the north
• Shurima in the south
• Ionia to the east
• Oceanic in general waters

There are different nations within these continents, which we will discuss in more detail throughout history. These nations are not tied to a specific people, so that, for example, the small yordles have a home in Bilgewater (Fizz), in Piltover (Heimerdinger) or in Ionia (Kennen).

There are 13 nations in the here and now, most of which you can find on the world map. All that are missing are Bandle, the home of all yordles, Ixtal, a nation in Shurima, and the Void.

The time before 0 and many wild wars

Runeterra is based on the calendar of the people of Noxus. Accordingly, there are the years before and after Noxus, similar to our time before and after Christ.

The three sisters war: 9,000 years before Noxus the war of the three sisters broke out, in which Lissandra fought against Avarosa and Serylda. The war started because the Watchers had influenced Lissandra.

However, Lissandra recognized her mistake and the three sisters locked the watchers together in the Howling Abyss in the Eternal Ice. Howling Abyss is now the place where the ARAM matches in LoL take place.

The outbreak of the void: 2,500 years before Noxus, there was a battle between Icathia and Shurima, two ancient civilizations. The Icathia unleashed the Void to win the war in one last, desperate effort. However, their capital was destroyed and their country destroyed beyond recognition.

Several other problems followed from this action, such as the collapse of the Shuriman Empire. The Ascended, who had actually fought for them, were perverted by meeting the Void and turned away from the Empire.

In addition, there was a deception by Xerath on the Shuriman emperor Azir, who then stole the solar disk from the empire, which had given the Shurima a special power.

The Runic Wars: A particularly dramatic experience in the history of Runeterra was the destruction of the city of Helia, which tore a hole in the world of ghosts after a horrific accident. The place was now known as the shadow island. This happened 25 years before Noxus.

With the fall of Helia, dangerous magical artifacts – the world runes – fell into the wrong hands. It came to the Runic Wars, in whose first cruel battle Ryze took part as an apprentice of the famous magician Tire. The images of that war burned themselves forever on Ryze’s mind.

The whole world was threatened with destruction and the chaos could only be stopped because the two characters Mihira and Kilam climbed Mount Targon and chose from the aspects. This is how Kayle and Morgana were created.

Ryze, in turn, began to collect all rune artifacts in the world and lock them away.

The Runic Wars wreaked havoc on Runeterra. Various Noxii peoples locked themselves in an immortal bastion and thus survived the gruesome events.

They then united to one people: Noxus. This marks the beginning of the year 0 of the calendar.

Noxus wants to unite the world under one banner

In the years after the Runic Wars, several new nations were formed, including Demacia. Demacia describes itself as a “refuge from magic”.

Noxus becomes an imperial power: In the years that followed, Noxus set out to unite the entire world of Runeterra under one banner and nation. The chief leader of the military for countless years was General Boram Darkwill, who was probably kept alive longer by necromancy than was usual for a human being.

In the years 787 to 892 Noxus succeeded in conquering large parts of the continent of Valoran. Then they tried to attack the Demacia Empire and General Sion succeeded in killing King Jarvan I of Demacia. For this success, Sion was honored with a special grave after his death.

Subsequently, however, Demacia attacked Noxus and freed more and more nations in Valoran. Boram Darkwill then resorted to dark magic to revive Sion. With him at their side, Noxus then succeeded in driving Demacia out of their own lands.

In 984, Noxus marched towards Ionia. However, General Swain, who was actually dishonorably dismissed from the military by Noxus, managed a rebellion against Boram Darkwill and murdered him from behind.

Swain then seized power and ended the siege of Ionia. This happened in the year 989. We are currently around the year 997, when the overthrown King Viego returned.

Zaun, Piltover and the events in Arcane

What about the nations from Arcane? Zaun and Piltover are two separate city-states. According to the series, Piltover is right above Zaun, in other reports of the lorry they are right next to each other. What is certain, however, is that they jointly control a transition between the continents of Valoran in the north and Shurima in the south and thus an important hub in trade in the world of Runeterra.

Both cities live in strong competition with each other because they both produce talented inventors and also experimented a lot. In Zaun, however, there were quite a few accidents with chems, which made it a more dangerous place and encouraged crime.

Piltover, on the other hand, is more respected in the world of Runeterra, which is why the academy is located there, where the brightest minds of many nations are trained.

When do the Arcane events take place? So far, we have not been able to make out a specific period, but we do know that the characters from the series such as Jayce, Caitlyn and Vi were born around the years 960 to 970 after Noxus and thus almost 25 to 30 years before the here and now.

In Act 2 the characters are older. So we should be relatively close to the here and now.

The hextech magic

The blue crystals from Arcane: Strange blue crystals play an important role in the history of Arcane. It is an important part of the brackers, an ancient race of creatures made of crystals. Skarner is one of these.

The crystal contains its own personality and feelings, so that brackers perceive the world in a completely different way and can use magic. If a Brackern dies, the crystal waits for a new host, but retains the experience of the previous creature. So such a crystal is constantly evolving.

The crystals communicate via a kind of song, which can also be heard in the Arcane series. This singing is also used by the champion Seraphine for their concerts, which has already brought the champion some criticism.

The crystals become hextech magic: During the Runic Wars, the Brackers went to sleep, hoping that the mortal races would wipe each other out with magic.

However, they were later surprisingly awakened by their crystals when mortal thieves tried to steal the blue crystals and use them for their magical purposes. Instead of destroying each other, they emerged from the wars with stronger weapons and armor.

The Ferros family from Piltover, which includes the champion Camille, built a monopoly with these blue crystals, which they called Hex-Crystals.

They also later succeeded in producing synthetic Hextech crystals via Chem-Tech, which, however, were very unstable. Since Piltover rejected magic, they produced in Zaun, but brought the profits over to their nation.

It was only with Jayce and Viktor that they succeeded in stabilizing the crystals they produced themselves to such an extent that they could be used in tools or weapons, for example. In League of Legends, that’s one of the reasons some weapons are so powerful, like Jayce’s hammer, and so much magic is used.

LoL in the here and now

How will the story continue? The League of Legends lore is constantly expanding and even in the “current year” there are many conflicts taking place, such as the rebellion that Sylas is instigating.

But this story and the many other activities currently taking place are not important to understand the previous content around the Arcane series. Should that change with the coming files, we will expand the article accordingly.

However, it can be very interesting to take a closer look at the individual characters in the series. That’s exactly what we did in this article:

Arcane: All 9 characters from LoL and all completely new ones