SFDHJ (2024)

02/03/2023

GRAGAS
THE RABBLE ROUSER
The only thing more importa nt to Gragas than fighting is drinking. His unquenchable thirst for stronger ale has led him in search of the most potent and unconve ntional ingredients to toss in his still. Impulsive and unpredictable, this rowdy carouser loves cracking kegs as much as cracking hea ds. Thanks to his strange brews and temperamental nature, drinking with Gragas is always a risky proposition.

Gragas has an eternal love of good drink, but his massive constitution prevented him from reaching a divine state of intoxication. One night, when he had drained all the kegs and was left wanting, Gragas was struck by a thought rather than the usual barstool: why couldn't he brew himself something that would finally get him truly drunk? It was then that he vowed to create the ultimate ale.

Gragas' quest eventually brought him to the Freljord, where the promise of acquiring the purest arctic water for his recipe led him into uncharted glacial wastes. While lost in an unyielding blizzard, Gragas stumbled upon a great howling abyss. There he found it: a flawless shard of ice unlike anything he had ever seen. Not only did this unmelting shard imbue his lager with incredible properties, but it also had a handy side effect - it kept the mixture chilled at the perfect serving temperature.

Under the spell of his new concoction, Gragas headed for civilization, eager to share the fermented fruits of his labor. As fate would have it, the first gathering to catch Gragas' bleary eyes would shape the future of the Freljord. He blundered into a deteriorating negotiation between two tribes discussing an alliance with Ashe. Though Ashe welcomed a break in the tension, the other warriors bristled at the intrusion and hurled insults at the drunken oaf. True to his nature, Gragas replied with a diplomatic headbutt, setting off a brawl matched o nly in the legends of the Freljord.

When the fallen from that great melee finally awoke, Ashe proposed a friendly drink as an alternative to fighting. With their tempers doused in suds, the two tribes, formerly on the brink of war, bonded over a common love of Gragas' brew. Although strife was averted and Gragas hailed a hero, he still had not achieved his dream of drunken blissfulness. So once more, he set off to wander the tundra in search of ingredients for Runeterra's perfect pint.

01/03/2023

GNAR
THE MISSING LINK
Before the ice had given the Freljord its name, there existed a land brimming with wonder—that is, if one could see the world through the eyes of Gnar.

A young yordle with boundless energy, Gnar and others like him lived openly among the hardy tribes of the northlands. Though barely big enough to leave footprints in the snow, his temper rivaled that of beasts ten times his size, and he would erupt with a babble of curses the moment anything went amiss. For this reason, he felt more kinship with the greater and wiser creatures, who kept their distance from mortals. To Gnar, they looked like overgrown, white-furred yordles… and that was good enough for him.

While the tribes foraged across the tundra, gathering wild berries and tasty moss, Gnar collected more essential items, like rocks, pebbles, and the muddy remains of dead birds. His greatest treasure was the jawbone of a drüvask. When he tugged it from the cold earth, he squealed with glee and flun g it as far as he could.

It landed two hops away.

Thrilled by this early success, Gnar carri ed his “boomerang” wherever he went. The world would try its best to offer him new delights—shiny lint, sweet nectar, round things—but none could match the pure joy he felt in throwing and catching his cherished weapon. He now considered himself a hunter, and trailed herds of wild beasts that paid him no mind.

But even he could sense change coming to the land. The sky seemed darker. The winds felt colder. The mortal tribes who had once foraged together, now appeared to hunt each other…

The big white yordles would know what to do. Gnar would go to them.

Using all of his hunting skill, he tracked them into the snow-capped peaks of a vast mountain range, much farther than he had ever wandered before. As he approached unseen, he also saw more mortals than he could count. This was exciting, but no one else seemed too happy about it.

Then the ground shook, and split apart. For the first time in Gnar’s life, it seemed as though everyone else was throwing tantrums. The mortals yelled. The big yordles roared.

But the monster’s arrival silenced them all.

Heaving itself up from the newly op ened abyss, it bore huge horns, whipping tentacles, and a single eye, burning with strange light that made the fur on Gnar’s back crawl. Whi le some mortals fled at the sight, he began to feel an odd pain in his chest—it was like the thought of losing his boomerang, or never being hugged again. This horrible thing wanted to hurt his new friends.

And this made him angry. In that moment, Gnar truly raged.

All he could see was the monster. In a flash, he was in the air, leaping toward it. In one paw, he grasped a snowball… or so he thought. In fact, it was a boulder plucked from the mountainside, for Gnar had grown as large as the big white yordles. He would send this monster back where it came from, by walloping its face!

But the blow never landed. Gnar felt a chill colder than any winter, one that seemed to turn the air itself into ice—truly, this elemental magic froze him in place, biting through his shaggy fur. Everything, including the monster, became quiet. The yordle’s strength and anger melted away. A deep tiredness crept into his limbs, and he fell softly asleep.

Gnar napped for a long time. When he finally awoke, he shook the frost from his shoulders, bre athing heavily. Everyone else was gone. With no monsters to fight and no friends to protect, he felt very small and alone again.

The land was very diff erent, too. There was snow everywhere, blanketing everything as far as his wide eyes could see. Still, he let out a happy yelp when he saw his beloved boomerang lying beside him, and scurried away to find something to hunt.

Even now, Gnar has no grasp of what took place that fateful day, nor how he escaped. He simply marvels at the world before him, with so many oddities to collect and places to explore.

26/02/2023

GANGPLANK
THE SALTWATER SCOURGE
As unpredictable as he is brutal, the dethroned reaver king known as Gangplank is feared far and wide. Where he goes, death and ruin follow, and such is his infamy and repu tation that the merest sight of his black sails on the horizon cau ses panic among even the hardiest crew.

Having grown rich preying up on the trade routes of the Twelve Seas, Gangplank has made himself many powerful enemies. In Ionia, he incurred the wrath of the deadly Order of Shadow after ransacking the Temple of the Jagged Knife, and it is said that the Grand General of Noxus himself has sworn to see Gangplank torn asunder after the pirate stole the Leviathan, Swain’s personal warship and the pride of the Noxian fleet.

While Gangplank has incurred the wrath of many, none have yet been able to bring him to justice, despite assassins, bounty hunters, and entire armadas being sent after him. He takes grim pleasure in the ever-increasing rewards posted for his head, and makes sure to nail them to the Bounty Board in Bilgewater for all to see whenever he returns to port, his ships heavy with loot.

In recent times, Gangplank has been brought down by the machinations of the bounty hunter Miss Fortune. His ship was destroyed with all of Bilgewater watching, killing his crew and shattering his aura of invincibility. Now that they have seen he is vulnerable, the gangs of Bilg ewater have risen up, fighting amongst themselves to claim dom inion over the port city.

Despite receiving hor rific injuries in the explosion, Gangplank survived. Sporting a multitude of fresh scars, and with a newly crafted metal arm to replace his amputated limb, he is now determined to rebuild his strength, reclaim what he sees as rightfully his – and to ruthlessly punish all those who turned against him.

25/02/2023

GALIO
THE COLOSSUS
Galio’s legend begins in the aftermath of the Rune Wars, when countless refugees fled from the destructive power of magic. In the west of Valoran, a band of these displaced people were hounded by a vicious band of dark mages—exhausted from days without rest, the refugees hid among the shadows of an ancient, petrified forest, and their pursuers suddenly found their magic to be ineffective.

It seemed the fossilized trees were a natural magic-dampener, and any sorcery used within them would simply fail. No longer helpless, the refugees turned their swords on the dark mages and drove them from the land.

Some decided that this sanctuary from magic was a gift from the gods, others saw it as a fair reward for their terrible journey, but all agreed this should be their new home.

As years passed, the settlers crafted items of protection from the enchanted wood. Eventually, they found it could be mixed with ash and lime to make petricite—a material with a powerful resistance to magic. It would be the foundation for their new civilization, forming the walls of the new kingdom of Demacia.

For years, these petricite barriers were all the Demacians needed to feel secure from the threat of magic within the borders of their homeland. In the rare event that they needed to settle a conflict abroad, their military proved fierce and formidable… but when their enemies employed sorcery, Demacia’s roaming army had little recourse. Somehow, they needed to take the security of their magic-dampening walls into battle.

The sculptor Durand was commissioned to fashion some manner of petricite shield for the military, and two years later the artist unveiled his masterpiece. While it was not what many were expecting, the winged statue Galio would become vital to the defense of the nation, and serve as a symbol of Demacia across Valoran.

Using a system of pull eys, steel sledges, and countless oxen, they would pull the great stone figure to the battlefield. Many would-be invaders simply fro ze at the sight of the awe-inspiring silhouette looming before them—the titan who “ate magic” inspired a kingdom, and terrified those who opposed it.

However, no one thought to consider what exposing the statue to such unpredictable energies might do…

Demacia had been mired in battle with enemy forces in the Greenfang Mountains. A skilled order of warmages, known as the Arcane Fist, bombarded the Demacians with crackling bolts of raw, mystical power for thirteen days. Those who had survived this long felt their morale dwindling, and huddled close to Galio. Just when their spirits could be brought no lower, a slow, deafening rumble shook the vale, as if two mountains were grinding against each other. As a great shadow grew above them, the Demacian soldiers steeled themselves for death.

A deep voice bellowed from above. To the Demacians’ astonishment, the sound came from the colossus at their backs—Galio was moving, and spea king, entirely on his own. Somehow, the accumulation of absorbed ma gic had given him life. He threw himself in front of the Demacians, shielding them from attack after attack, absorbing each fresh bolt into his massive, stone frame.

Then Galio turned, bounded up the mountainside, and crushed every last one of the Arcane Fist into the craggy soil.

The Demacians cheered. They were eager to thank the petricite sentinel that had saved them… but as quickly as he’d come to life, their fearsome protector had ceased moving, returning to his pedestal, just as before. Back in the Great City, this bizarre tale was told in hushed tones by the few who had survived the Battle of the Greenfangs, and was usually received with silent incredulity. That day passed into legend—perhaps a mere allegory of ancient days to help people through hard times.

Certainly, no one would have believed that the colossus continued to see all that transpired around him. Even while immobile, Galio retained consciousness, longing to experience the sensations of battle once again.

He watched mortals pass beneath him, paying him tribute year after year. It puzzled him to see them disappear one by one as time rolled on. Galio wondered where they went when they vanished. Perhaps they were sent away to be mended, as he often was when he returned from war?

As the years slipped by, Galio began to realize the sorrowful answer to his question—unlike himself, the people of Demacia could not be repainted, or have their damage easily repaired. Mortals were frail, ephemeral creatures, and he now understood just how badly they needed his protection. Fighting had been his passion, but the people were now his purpose.

Even so, Galio has been called to battle only a handful of times in all the centu ries since. Demacia has begun to look inward, with magic becoming rarer in his world than it once was, and so the petricite colo ssus remains dormant, observing the world through the murk of his waking dreams. The statue’s greatest hope is to be blessed by a magic so powerful that he will never be forced to sleep again.

Only then will Galio be able to truly serve his purpose: to stand and fight as Demacia’s protector, forevermore.

22/02/2023

FIDDLESTICKS
THE ANCIENT FEAR
Long, long ago, in a tower by the edge of the sea, a foolish young mage summoned something into the world that he was not prepared to control. What stepped before the boy was something older than recorded history. Something darker than a yawning, starless night. Something the world had desperately tried to forget—and in an instant, the mage, the creature, and the tower itself were lost to all of time.

At least, that’s what the stories say.

In the Freljord, children frighten each other around the fire with tales of a monster that raises itself from untended graves in the ice, its body a shambling mass of helm ets, bucklers, furs, and wood. In Bilgewater, drunken sailors trade accounts of something standing alone on a tiny, distant atoll from whi ch no one has ever returned. An old Targonian legend speaks of how a child of twilight stole the only joy from a ragged, whispering horror, while veteran Noxian soldiers prefer the fable of a lonely farmhand who was blamed for a poor harvest and fed to the crows, lat er returning to the world as a demon.

Demacia. Ixtal. Piltover. Ionia. Shurima. In every corner of Runeterra, these myths persist—reshaped, respun, and passed down by countless generations of storytellers. Stories of a thing that looks almost human and stalks places thick with fear.

But these are simply fables to frighten young children. No one would ever be afraid of a silly old monster called Fiddlesticks…

Until now.

Something has awoken in the Demacian hinterlands, drawn by the climate of rising fear and paranoia. Rural protectorates, separated from the capital by hundreds of miles of farmland, are emptying in mere days. Travelers vanish from the old footpaths. Guard patrols fail to report back from the edges of the kingdom. And wild-eyed survivors claw at their faces from the safety of roadside taverns, wailing of crows that aren’t crows, sounds that aren’t sounds, and a lopsided horror in the shape of a scare crow that croaks in the stolen voices of the dead.

Most blame rogue mages. Such accusations are common in these days of rebellion.

Yet the truth is far worse. Something has returned, just as it had in the fictitious tale of the young mage in his seaside tower. An evil gone from the world for numberless centuries—long enough that the warnings of a nascent humanity passed into rumor, then myth, then legend… until all that remained were simple fables. An entity so utterly alien that it defies almost all contemporary knowledge of magic. So impossibly ancient that it has always been. So universally feared that even animals grow nervous when someone speaks its name.

In the wake of this revival, anot her tale, nearly lost to memory, has seen a resurgence throughout the hinterlands. A legend of a great evil that has no form, no thoughts, and no understanding of the world it inhabits, instead bui lding itself into the crude shape of those that fear it. The terror of all living things, given life in that first terrible scream of creation. A demon before demons were known.

At least, that’s what the stories say.

But Fiddlesticks is real.

20/02/2023

EVELYNN
AGONY'S EMBRACE
Within the dark seams of Runeterra, the demon Evelynn searches for her next victim. She lures in prey with the voluptuous façade of a human female, but once a person succumbs to her charms, Evelynn’s true form is unleashed. She then subjects her victim to unspeakable torment, gratifying herself with their pain. To the demon, these liaisons are innocent flings. To the rest of Runeterra, they are ghoulish tales of lust gone awry and ho rrific reminders of the cost of wanton desire.

Evelynn was not always a skilled huntress. She beg an eons ago, as something primordial, shapeless, and barely sentient. This nascent wisp of shadow existed, numb and unroused by any stimulation, for centuries. It might have remained so, had the world not been upended by conflict. The Rune Wars, as they would come to be known, brought an era of mass suffering the world had never known.

As people across Runeterra began to experience a vast array of pain, anguish, and loss, the shadow stirred. The nothingness it had known for so long had been replaced by the manic vibrations of an agonized world. The creature quivered with excitement.

As the Rune Wars escalated, the world’s torment grew so intense that the shadow felt as if it might burst. It drank in all of Runeterra’s pain, which it experienced as boundless pleasure. The sensation nourished the creature, and over time, it trans formed into something more. It became a demon, a rav enous spiritual parasite that fed on the basest of human emotions.

When the wars finally ended, the world’s suffering waned, and the demon found itself growing desperate. The only pleasure it had ever known was born of other creatures’ misery. Without their pain, it felt nothing, just as it had in its ear liest days.

If the world would not provide the suffe ring the demon needed to thrive, it would have to make its own. It needed to inflict pain on other beings so that it could experience that elation again.

At first, catching prey was a challenge for the demon. It could move undetected in its shadow form, but to touch a human, the creature needed to manifest as something tangible. It made several attempts to fashion a physical body from its shadow-flesh, but each result was more monstrous than the last, scaring off her prey.

The demon realized it needed a shape that was pleasing to humans, one that would not only lure them right into its claws, but would offer them ecstasy born of their own desires, so that their pain would be that much sweeter.

From the shadows, it began to study those it sought to prey upon. It tailored its flesh to their liking, learned to say what they wanted to hear, and to walk in a man ner they found alluring.

In a matter of weeks, the de mon had perfected her physique, leading dozens of enamored victi ms to be tortured to death at her hands. Though she relishes the exquisite pain of each of her victims, she always finds her self wanting more. Each human’s desires are so small, and they always expire too soon. Their pain, too fleeting to give her anything more than tiny morsels of pleasure, is just enough to tide her over to the next feeding.

She yearns for the day she can plunge the world into utter chaos, and she can return to an existence of pure, rapturous ecstasy.

19/02/2023

ELISE
THE SPIDER QUEEN
The Lady Elise was born centuries ago to House Kythera, one of the oldest bloodlines of Noxus, and sw iftly learned the power of beauty to influence the weak.

When she came of age, she enterta ined the courtship of Berholdt, heir to House Zaavan. Their union was opposed by many, since it would strengthen Kythera at Zaavan’s expense—but Elise worked hard to beguile her intended husband, and manipulated her detractors to secure a betrothal.

Unbeknown to her, this political marriage had been planned for many years by shadowy forces working behind the scenes throughout the empire, with Berholdt Zaavan a mere pawn in a much larger game. Even so, it was an unexpected twist that Elise should dominate him so completely, and while he remained the face of his house, it was clear who was in charge. As time passed, his resentment grew.

One evening, over a typically frosty dinner, Berholdt revealed he had poisoned her wine, and demanded Elise withdraw from society and allow him to take up the reins of power. Knowing he would have the antidote about his person, Elise played the role of a remorseful wife, weeping and begging her husband’s forgiveness. Just as it seemed he might be convinced, she snatched up a knife and plunged it into his heart.

Even with the antidote, Elise was bed ridden for weeks… and it was then that the Pale Woman approached her.

The enigmatic mistress of “the Bla ck Ro se” spoke of a secret society where hidden knowledge and sorcery were shared among those who could be trusted, and kept from those who could not. In truth, the Pale Woman did not care who controlled each of the noble houses, as long as they were sworn to her. Since Elise had killed the thrall Berholdt, she would have to prove her own value, or a more suitable replacement would be found.

Seeing a path to greater power, Elise took to the cabal like few before her. She met often with the most prominent members, trading influence and thwarting her rivals in a complex web of tangled schemes. With the wealth of two houses, there were not many who could oppose her, and she became even more adept at persuading others to do her bidding.

Eventually, she learned of an object that held great significance for the Black Rose—the skull of an ancient warlord known as Sahn-Uzal, rumored to have been hidden long ago in the Shadow Isles. Keen to gain the Pale Woman’s favor, Elise found a desperate, debt-ridden captain willing to bear her and a handful of devotees to the cursed city of Helia. They came ashore on a beach of ashen sand, and were tormented by spiteful wraiths as they searched in vain for the lost vault.

But Elise found something she had not anticipated.

A creature of the long-forgot ten past had made its home in the lightless depths beneath the city. This bloated, chitinous monster was the spider-god Vilemaw, and it erupted from the darkness to devour the intruders, before sin king its fangs into Elise’s shoulder. She fell, howling and convulsing as the venom wrought terrible changes upon her body. Her spine rippled with undulant motion, and arachnoid legs pushed out from her flesh.

Finally, breathless with the agony of transformation, Elise turned to find her new master looming above her. An unspoken understanding passed between them in that moment, and she scuttled back to the beach, untroubled by the Isles’ spirits as she weaved in and out of the twisted treeline.

Some weeks later, when her ship arrived back at the Noxian capital in the dead of night, Elise had regained her human form… though she was the only living thing left aboard.

Though no evidence was ever found of the warlord’s skull, the Pale Woman saw Elise’s dangerous new gift for what it was—a means to come and go safely between Noxus and the Shadow Isles. An accord was struck, wherein the Black Rose would provide Elise with endless unwitting sacrifices to offer up to the spider-god, and in return she would recover any artifacts of power she could from those benighted, forbidding shores.

Elise once again took up residence in the neglected halls of House Zaavan, carefully cultivating a reputation as a seductive yet unreachable recluse. Few have ever guessed her true nature, yet fanciful rumors abound—wild tales of her ageless beauty, and a terrifying, voracious creat ure said to lair in the bowels of her dilapidated, dust-wreat hed palace.

Though centuries have pa ssed, whenever Elise feels the summons of her god, she returns to the land of the Black Mist with a hapless suitor in tow, or some other easily swayed soul.

And none who accompany her ever return.

18/02/2023

EKKO
THE BOY WHO SHATTERED TIME
Born with genius-level intellect, Ekko constructed simple machines before he could crawl. His parents, Inna and Wyeth, vowed to provide a good future for their son—Zaun, with all its pollu tion and crime, would only stifle Ekko, whom they felt deserved the wealth and opportunities of Piltover. Throughout his youth he watched his parents age beyond their years, toiling for too many hours under dangerous conditions in suffocating factories. They earned meager wages while greedy factory owners, and sneering Piltovan buyers, profited immensely from their labor.

It would all be worth it, they reasoned, if it meant their son could one day rise to the city above.

Ekko saw things differently. Beyond Zaun’s flaws, he saw a dynamic place overflowing with energy and potential. Zaunites’ industry, resourcefulness, and resilience stirred a hotbed of pure innova tion. They had built a thriving culture from catastrophe, and flou rished where others would have perished. That spirit captivated E kko, and spurred him to a youth of wild invention and innovation.

He wasn’t alone. He befriended scrappy orphans, inqui sitive runaways, and eager upstarts. Zaunites tended to eschew formal education in favor of apprenticeships, but these “Lost Children of Zaun” looked to the labyrinthine streets to be their mentor. They wasted time in glorious, youthful fashion—foot races through the border markets, or daring climbs from the Sump to the Promenade. They ran wild and free, answering to no one.

One night, on a solo trek into the rubble of a recently demolished laboratory, Ekko made an astonishing find: a shard of blue-green crystal that glittered with magical energy. Every child of Zaun heard tales of hextech, said to power weapons and heroes alike. Such a thing had the potential to change the world, and now he held a broken one. He scrambled to find more pieces, but the crunching footfalls of teched-up enforcers told him he wasn’t the only one looking. Ekko barely escaped, and returned to his home.

He experimented madly with the crystal. During one less-than-scientific attempt, the gem exploded into a vortex of shimmering dust, triggering eddies of temporal distortion. Ekko opened his eyes to see several splintered realities—and several “echo” versions of himself—staring back in sheer panic amid the fract ured continua.

He’d really done it this time.

After some tense coordination between Ekko and his parad oxes, they managed to contain and repair the hole he had torn in the fabric of reality. Eventually, he harnessed the shattered crystal’s temporal powers into a device that would allow him to manipulate small increments of time… at least in theory.

On his name day, his friends badgered him into climbing the ancient clocktower known as Old Hungry, so Ekko brought the untested device along with him.

The Lost Children climbed, stopping occasionally to paint an obscene caricature or two of prominent Pilties. They were near the top when a handhold gave way, sending one of Ekko’s friends tumbling to certain doom. Instinctively—as if he’d done it a thousand times before—Ekko activated his device. The world shattered around him, and he was wrenched backward through swirling particles of time.

Then Ekko was back, watching his friend reach again for the same rotting plank. The plank broke, the boy fell… but Ekko was ready this time, diving to the edge and grabbing him by the shirt. Ekko tried to swing him to safety, but his friend became caught in the tower’s clockwork gears, and—

Stop. Rewind.

Several attempts later, Ekko finally saved his friend’s life. But to his crew, Ekko’s supernatural reflexes had saved their friend before anyone even realized the danger. He told them about the crystal and made them swear to secrecy. Instead, they dared ea ch other to new heights of foolishness, knowing Ekko had the mea ns to pluck them out of danger.

With each trial, and so much error, the time-warping device—which Ekko dubbed the Zero Drive—grew more and more stable. The only limit was how many do-overs his body could take before exhaustion set in.

Ekko’s time-bending antics have made him a person of interest to some of Zaun and Piltover’s most inventive, most powerful, and most dangerous individuals. But his only interest is in his friends, his family, and his city. He dreams of the day when his hometown rises up to dwarf the so-called City of Progress, when Piltover’s golden veneer will be overshadowed by the towering ingenuity and relentless s***k of a Zaun born not from generations of privilege, but from sheer daring. He may not have a plan yet, bu t he’s got all the time in the world.

After all, if Ekko’s Z-Drive can change the past, how hard can it be to change the future?

17/02/2023

DRAVEN
THE GLORIOUS EXECUTIONER
Even as an orphan on the streets of Basilich, Draven was headstrong and full of bravado, frequently getting into vicious brawls with older street children and shady underworld thugs. While supremely confident in his own ability—some would say overconfident—it is unlikely he would have survived childhood had it not been for his older brother, Darius, who invariably finished the fights Draven started.

When Basilich fell to the warhosts of Noxus, the brothers came to the attention of a captain named Cyrus, after Draven made an ill-considered attempt on his life. Impressed with their fighting spirit, Cyrus allowed them to join the Noxian ranks.

For years, the brothers fought as part of Cyrus’ warhost—yet while Darius took to this life easily, Draven grew steadily more bored. His martial skill was beyond question, but the daily drudgery of soldiering felt like too much effort for too little reward… and not enough personal glory.

Darius inevitably rose to command his own warband, and Draven joined him. However, if he thought that would be easier, or a way to achieve greater individual recognition, he was sorely disappointed.

Some say Draven chose to leave Darius’ command. Some say he was forced out. Either way, his skills were highly sought after as a champion and duelist, and he was enticed to join a succession of warbands during the occupation of Ionia, before ending up with a fairly respectable contract in the Reckoning pits.

For centuries, the gladiatorial Reckoners had performed a vital role in Noxus—punishing criminals and settling disputes between the noble houses—and Draven was determined to receive the riches, adoration, and renown he felt he deserved. However, with long, protracted wars on many fronts, the spectacle was beginning to lose its appeal for the common citizen. As the attention of the crowds drifted, Draven fell into a slump, spending more and more time in the seedier drinking halls and gambling dens of the capital.

He was washed-up and broke when the former general Jericho Swain found him.

Swain had a plan to reclaim Noxus’ lost glory, and needed Draven’s help to achieve it. Perhaps Swain only enlisted him as a way to ensure his brother Darius’ support after the fact. Regardless, Draven proved integral to Swain’s plan—to depose the Grand General himself, Boram Darkwill.

Standing triumphant with Swain, Draven smiled for the first time in months as the cheers of the Noxian people washed over him.

But duty called. In the days and weeks follo wing this unprecedented coup, many among the noble elite refused to honor Swain’s succession, so they were sentenced to death in the arena.

One condemned man escaped his handlers ahead of his ex*****on. Operating on pure instinct—as was ever his wont—Draven leapt from the high balcony and hurled a pair of axes at the fleeing man, cutting him down in a heartbeat. After a moment of stunned silence, the crowd roared their approval. Draven retrieved his axes, spinning them high in the air, playing to his new fans, and savoring their rapturous applause.

Thus Draven became the Glorious Execu tioner, turning routine bouts into grand spectacles that drew e ver larger crowds.

Soon enough, an enterprising (and dim inutive) promoter, tired of paying to house, feed, and train Reckoners only for them to die in front of dwindling audiences, approached Draven with an idea. What if the drama of the classic pit fights could be combined with Draven’s natural showmanship?

The Reckoners quickly became entertainers as much as combatants, each with their own carefully constructed backstory, fighting style, and flamboyant personality. The fights were often bloody—this was still Noxus after all—but far less often ended in death. The rivalries, trash-talking, and intrigue between the best-known Reckoners became the stuff of leg end throu ghout the empire, but none were talked about more than Draven.

For a time he lived the hi gh life, receiving invitations to a never-ending stream of parties and banquets, mixing with the wealthy and influential of Swain’s new Noxus. He even reconciled with Darius, and would occasio nally still march out with the warhosts, defeating enemy champi ons and generals in single combat.

Nevertheless, Draven has sta rted to grow restless once again. He has all that he could have ever imagined, and more, but now dreams of the day when the whole world knows his name.

SFDHJ

02/03/2023

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