I wanted to take a moment to sketch out what’s still upcoming for the resolution of the Hextech Revolution storyline. After that, I’ll map out Intermission a bit more.
Hextech Revolution
Here’s what needs to be done. I’ve sort of been taking a break, but I’m going to do my best to get this all wrapped up soonish, maybe within the next week.
- Voidpocalypse lore update. We’ll be writing up a lore update to describe the averting of the Voidpocalypse.
- Battle of Shurima aftermath. We’ll also put up a final post summarizing the political fallout of the Battle of Shurima. Here’s what we have so far:
- Demacia: The League is posting sentries on Demacia’s borders. Demacia is forbidden from deploying its army without League approval. This effectively prevents a Demacian surprise attack. Its research rate was also reduced for the final research rolls.
- Piltover and Bandle City: They didn’t get that much pyrikhos access. This lowered their BoP modifier for their final research rolls.
- Demacia, Piltover, and Bandle City will be forced to help repair the damage done to Zaun’s army and mining facilities, slowing down their own recovery.
- Zaun: Zaun won the dispute, and per their request the League will largely refrain from policing pyrikhos use. However, the Voidpocalypse situation has added a caveat: the League is going to be auditing Zaunite megacorps periodically, and might slow down their riskier research projects. (Some megacorps will surely try to dodge these inspections, which might lead to them being shut down entirely if/when it comes out. Spying on Zaun and ratting out their dangerous projects will be an espionage option going forward.)
- All four factions are going to be in the doghouse for the next arc or so. They won’t have much heft with the League, and will be pushed around by League officials somewhat more harshly than usual. We might formalize this with a Politics or Diplomacy system.
- The Atlanteans. Bandle City completed its Atlanteans project. We’re writing up some lore for this. We’d like to write an epilogue concerning the Atlanteans and the Marai, and some others. We’ll be giving Bandle City some neat stuff as compensation, and this will be an ongoing plot thread. (Finally, Nami gets to move her story forward!) It should tie in nicely with the next arc.
- Demacian tournament prize. Demacia is going to get a prize for winning the tournament. We’re thinking of giving them a choice of NPC ally. We’ll couple this with a survey for Zaun to select their new Solar Codex research. (We might even give Piltover/Bandle City some kind of poll concerning Nami and Fizz, wrapping up the arc with one final lore event.)
- Summoner’s Herald. We are going to be publishing a new edition of the Summoner’s Herald soon. Want to write something? Send in a pitch! DarkbreakerEx wants your stories.
Part VI: The Isle of Cupcakes (name subject to change)
Here are the major discussions and design elements pending for the sixth arc.
- Tournament/Featured Match Rules. I’ve been revising the draft based on comments. I hope to have a semi-final version posted up onto LeagueFactions.net in the next couple days.
- New Storyline. We have a big staff GDoc going. I think it’s starting to come together. I’m drafting up a new version which I’ll send around for staff commentary. Basically, it’s going to involve the discovery of a new continent to explore. A lot of the ideas from the discussion thread will fit into this framework.
- Factions Poll. Once we have the basics hammered out, we can post up a prompt and construct a proper faction selection poll. We know Bilgewater is in. What we’ll then do is list other available factions. For each, we’ll provide a summary of what they want to accomplish, an overview of their strengths/weaknesses as a faction (e.g. military, research), and a three-tiered Champion list. Each faction will have core Champions (Champions who will almost certainly be on their starting roster), secondary Champions (Champions who will be regularly available for pickup, maybe one or two per month), and tertiary Champions (quirky “bonus” Champions for whom the factions will have to fight to bring them onto the roster.)
- World Systems. We’re going to rework the world systems of Factions — e.g. military and research — and add some new ones in. More on this later. I’m going to draft something up in consultation with staff and then post it for community review.
- Community. Another discussion that needs to happen is how we can promote positive conduct and deter negative conduct.
- Another General Discussion. We will hopefully also be able to have one more “so what else do we need to add/remove/change?” thread. All major issues should be resolved before the next arc starts, so we can spend less time arguing about rules and more time fighting for the fate of Runeterra.
- New Skill Adjust System. I will gather up some more datasets, along with results from balance-testing matches, and do some proper statistical analysis to try to improve our skill-adjust algorithm for the next arc’s scoreboard.
- Staff. We’ll continue hiring staff until every department is amply staffed and everyone knows what their responsibilities are for the next arc.
Intermission Funtimes
Finally, here are some more intermission funtimes reminders.
- Intermission Tournaments. I need to post the signups for the next round (draft a faction) tonight. There’ll also be a Community vs. Staff tournament, and (perhaps) a Factions Grudge Matches tournament (for Noxus vs. Ionia and such).
- Balance-Testing Matches. Go play some!
So, anyway, there you go!
—CupcakeTrap
Caitlyn, you monster.
FACTIONS 
•Demacia, Piltover, and Bandle City will be forced to help repair the damage done to Zaun’s army and mining facilities, slowing down their own recovery.
uh yeah, fuck that noise. we were RIGHT, and we already had a sanction in the form of getting our Research bonuses chopped in half. especially after the whole arc was given to them, I really cant be surprised anymore.
well lot of the damage was done by the void especialy to the mine itself since we never gone too inside because of the voidlings so yea it seems a bit a much bu yea thats sanctions for you
i guess its to just give us smthing to do while we are on the bench, but considering that the research sanction single handedly stopped the underwater city it seems a bit much especialy considering that zaun got off light, since they stopped doing the hardball researches. On the other hand it isnt specified what that helping out means, so it would be kinda stupid talk about that more without the specifics
Need I remind you that CCT gave a warning to Demacia, Piltover, AND BC that attacking Zaun would let Zaun push for (and most likely receive) heavy (I repeat, HEAVY) sanctions against the attacking nations. He never said ‘And if you fail, you will get a slap on the wrist and sail off into the sunset, after demonstrating the might of your belief.’ You were warned, decided to attack instead of bothering to negotiate or talk (even if that option wasn’t presented, you could have asked CCT if you were allowed to). You were still allowed phyrikos instead of Zaun seizing literally every speck, and we haven’t been allowed to devastate your capital cities with only your garrison to defend it. Think of Germany after WW1- they were forced to pay for ALL of the Allies’ damages, and their own recovery was so far gone that the Nazi party was able to take control of the country through a few charitable donations and pretty words.
funny thing is u guys are germany but america(league) decided that it doesnt realy bother with u so you guys won. and the VERY heavy sanctions would have been there if there would be no void invasion or anything, and there was a near apocalyptic size of event sooo… On the otherhand im not sure zaun wants the other citys to build them their army. you know hidden killswitches and maybe military secrets and stuff. And again zaun acting like they can just go kill everyone off.. hell they werent even harshly sanctioned when they bombed piltover. And again when we finish a military research we get hold back because we dont want too advanced stuff in the system, that i can understand but somehow this doesnt apply to zaun. It is just boring. And the most boring thing is that zaunite summoners act like its natural that they can pwn every other faction on their whim.
sidenote: even if the military system didnt make it so, you guys should have lost shittons of force against the void in that battle since only u guys lost the void featured match
Being heroic sometimes has a cost. If Demacia hadn’t done anything, most likely the corporations running the mines would have kept it all covered up until it blew. To keep things honest, I used a random roll to decide whether Ceruleana was right, and if so how right she was. There was a broad spectrum of possible outcomes, conditional upon both Summoner decisions and randomness. Where did we end up on those axes? Well, there really was going to be a massive Voidpocalypse, and without Demacia’s help Zaun and Noxus likely would not have been able to fight their way through the Void swarms to get at the portal.
What determines how bad the sanctions are going to be?
The fact that there was a Voidpocalypse looming, and that Demacia’s help was essential to preventing it, works to lessen the political fallout. On the other hand, Demacia’s army is kind of wrecked now, which leaves the geopolitics of Runeterra pretty lopsided. (Before, it was lopsided in that Demacia was the only major military state left, and Noxus was in shambles. Now it’s swung the other way.) The League doesn’t really like any of this: the ideal League situation is a bunch of roughly evenly matched nations, who as a result depend upon the League to keep things together. Any faction (or alliance) growing so powerful that it could in theory just defy the League and do its own thing, like Demacia did, is very dangerous.
What does the League want?
The League wants to assert its power by publicly shaming Demacia, EVEN in these extraordinary circumstances: the idea being “so Demacia got busted even when there was a world-ending catastrophe to avert; think of what they’d do to us if we did it over someone getting assassinated.” Demacia is committed to the League and willing to play along, hence Jarvan voluntarily turning himself over and recognizing the League as the lawful authority. The League doesn’t want to crush Demacia, however, or else it’ll be looking at a Zaun/Noxus hegemony.
When I say “the League”, I really mean “the people in the League who are committed to the League itself.” The League is also full of representatives from member-states. Noxus and Zaun have a lot of power, and they’d like to use the League’s machinery to hammer Demacia down and secure their own dominance. (At least Noxus does; it’s not entirely clear for Zaun. That might go into a final lore event to cap things off.) But they’re somewhat vulnerable themselves, ideologically: it’s pretty clear that Zaun is partially to blame for the near-Voidpocalypse, and scapegoating a few corporate types isn’t going to cut it this time.
In short: it’s a tense, complicated situation. Emotions are running high, but there’s also some nasty realpolitik going on. All in all, the sanctions on Demacia and its allies are going to be noticeably lighter than they would have been if, say, it turned out there was no Voidpocalypse.
The price of heroism
It bears further emphasis that the Voidpocalypse was averted, but almost surely would not have been without Demacia’s sacrifice. Believe me, I had some pretty detailed and nasty plans for what would have happened if they’d failed. (No, Runeterra would not have actually been destroyed, but it would have been horrible nonetheless.) Demacia is coming out of this battered, bruised, and humiliated. But it saved the world, even if the world seems awfully ungrateful. To me, that’s part of what makes Demacia Demacia: while everyone else scraps for advantage, they’re willing to lead the charge and fight for the greater good, which in the end is what matters to them. The politicians and the schemers will try to outmaneuver you; they’ll stab you in the back if they can; they’ll take any advantage they can get. But no matter how much mud they sling at you, or how many cheap shots they take, you’re a hero and they’re a bunch of selfish scoundrels. It’s nice to be hailed as a hero, and you believe that in the end good will triumph, but you don’t do what you do out of love for fame, and even if you knew it was hopeless you’d still fight the good fight, because that’s who you are.
Maybe Piltovians and yordles are less inclined to take such a view.
(And of course Zaun is entitled to a different view, that Demacia is a bunch of arrogant, self-righteous fanatics. I don’t officially endorse either side’s view of the other: it depends on where you’re coming from and what you think matters.)
i think i got lore withdrawal, when i am just happy to see cct writing a wall of text to us o.O