League of Legends started as a humble MOBA in the footsteps of a Warcraft mod, but the game has expanded to include a huge lore-rich fantasy universe. Riot has managed to curate a very respectable canon supported by cutscenes, novels, comics, and even an Emmy-winning animated show. And if the world of Runeterra isn’t to your liking, Riot hopes to lure you in with one of their many alternate realities and skinlines. It’s a plot sift through, and LeagueThe biggest lore fans explore all of these timelines to figure out how it all fits together and what comes next.
Just like Marvel, there are multiple continuities in the “mainstream” fiction of League. Esoteric is technically an alternate universe in its own right, using the same playing field but tweaking bits of established canon to tell a stronger story. Legends of Runeterra exists in a weird canonical limbo where much of it is speculative, not tied to a specific or experimental timeline. But the skinlines are where things get really weird, turning into a big Gordian knot of mirrors and primordial universes.
For most of League, skins were a fun way to provide an alternate fantasy about a character. What if the Noxian assassin Katarina was actually a pirate? What if Jinx were to survive the zombie apocalypse? What if Sona, the mute musician, was actually a Daft Punk-style DJ? Over time, these fantasies became much more elaborate. What if a group of champions were all part of a K-pop group and released a single?
Image: Riot Games
Skins like Star Guardian Lux started out as one-offs, but their success with the community led to follow-up releases and more elaborate fiction. Riot’s philosophy has changed, and now skin lines are usually associated with entire universes. PROJECT is a high-level cyberpunk dystopia, while Battle Academia is an anime homage that puts champions in a high school for heroes.
Sometimes it’s great fun. This was the case with High Noon, a gothic western universe where beauties and cowboys mingle with fallen angels and ambitious demons on fiery steeds and engage in train heists. Other times, I feel like I’ve been given homework that I don’t really want to do. In Wild Rift, a new Supreme Cells skinline was released with an associated event, and as soon as I saw that each champion had a lore loaded with proper names and deep motivations, I checked. No thanks! Enough of my brain is full of League nonsense, no more please.
Things get really tricky when we approach a certain group of skins associated with space. Both Dark Star and Cosmic reimagine champions as part of a great astral court at war. Odyssey is a space adventure that pays homage to Star Wars, Borderlands and Guardians of the Galaxy. The Star Guardians are magical girls who balance the demands of high school with battling the villains of outer space.
Image: Riot Games
It all started as simple concepts, but Riot hinted that they were connected. For example, Odyssey Kayn is a power-crazed space emperor who uses the power of Dark Star Rhaast to fuel his crusade. Hey, how did a dark star get into my Odyssey? These clues became very explicit during the Star Guardian event, which culminates in Star Guardian Captain Kai’Sa’s confrontation with the Death Star in his dreams. Now we to know there is a crossover, but that immediately raises the question of overlap. Why is there a cosmic Lux and a Star Guardian Lux? A Star Guardian Jinx and an Odyssey Jinx? An Odyssey Kha’Zix and a Dark Star Kha’Zix?
Riot’s new lineup of big skins answers those questions and raises more. Enter the Empyrean, champions who are empowered by the Foreglow and are also very aware that they live in a multiverse. In fact, Empyrean Pyke’s mission is to kill all other Pykes, including those from other skin lines.
Empyrean Pyke not only kills tough, battle-hardened Pykes, but also softer, simpler Pykes. For example, we see a Pyke playing League of Legends in another dimension – which I also have questions about, like is there a Pyke champion in this version of League of Legends? If so, is this guy at all confused as to why Riot Games made a champion out of his name and face?
Empyrean might just be the key to answering all the mysteries set in motion about the Death Star and its role in the greater League multiverse. Or maybe there are no answers, and it’s a “Drink Your Ovaltine” situation where the only real conclusion is that Riot hopes we just think these skins are cool and we should buy them. . Either way, it’s fascinating to watch the multiverse flourish and grow. I just wish we could get a few skin lines that don’t have a massive universe attached; sometimes I just want to dress my dolls, not meditate on the greatest mysteries of the universes.
