The first tournament of the Divinity dispute was held over Weeks 10 and 11 of that arc.

The Rune of Freedom

During the Age of Divinity, gods and spirits ruled over Runeterra and its mortal inhabitants. The only magic was what came to be called the First Magic, divine invocations that relied upon the will of patron deities for their power. Over time, mortals learned to weave the dilute magic that radiated from leylines into spells. Some gods found this wonderful, others found it amusing, and still others considered it repulsive mimcry of true magic, but none found it threatening. All that changed when mortal mages forged the first runes. These enchantments used mortal magic spellforms to wrench the leylines themselves apart, granting them access to magical power that could rival even that of the divine.

The First Rune War exploded across Runeterra in the year 2751 BLE. Borders dissolved as those nations that did not or could not invoke rune magic were swiftly conquered by the Summoners. Two great alliances formed: the Magelords in the south, and the Protectorate in the north. Only Shurima stood apart, having devised a means of reinforcing leylines into defensive bulwarks that could turn aside even runespells.

Shocked to find they could not simply swat these newly empowered mortals down, the gods of Runeterra were forced to use indirect means to regain control. They channeled their divine power into the leylines that ran across Valoran, reinforcing them with an arcane seal that blocked the use of runes to rend leylines or change their paths. A strict new order was imposed.

In the year 2694 BLE, Summoners from the former Protectorate secretly constructed a new rune that could dispel the divine seal placed over the leylines. They brought it to the region later called the Tempest Flats, where stood the last citadel of the Magelords, now overseen by Koyo, goddess of magic. The Protectorate invoked the rune, empowering a Champion called Amaryth. They had expected to remove only this section of the planet-spanning divine seal, but the Rune of Freedom triggered a cascade that shattered the entire lattice—and broke the power of the gods with it. Entering the citadel, Amaryth found herself face to face with Koyo, now in a twisted demonic guise. Their duel blasted the citadel apart, scattering both armies. The shockwaves amplified with each exchange of blows, until the last clash opened a vortex that pulled in the Rune of Freedom and collapsed them all into a dimensional singularity.

The First Rune War resumed. The Rune of Freedom was lost, along with the expertise needed to craft it, but it proved unnecessary: the power of the gods had been shattered, and the leylines could once again be reshaped or ruptured with runespells. Both the Magelords and the Protectorate expected a new divine intervention, but none came. Priests heard only confused whispers from beyond. The gods had invested far more of their essence into the leyline seal than they had led mortals to believe, and the Rune of Freedom had broken them. The trauma of this clash between gods and mortals tore the fabric of reality, and the otherworldly terrors of the Void began to creep through.

Much later, in the year 24 CLE, the Void rift that opened in Shurima during the Hextech Revolution brought the Tempest Flats singularity into dimensional convergence. A band of Void cultists, inspired by old Icathian accounts of the original battle, tried to stabilize the convergence long enough to reclaim the rune. Ryze defeated them and took the rune. Though fractured, he could find no way to destroy it; though drained of its original power, it had taken on echoes of the banished divine pantheon. Reluctantly, he brought it to the League, and surrendered it to High Councilor Kolminye on the condition that it be sealed deep in the vaults of the Institute. Lest it be snatched up by one side or the other and trigger a new Rune War, it was agreed that both Demacia and Noxus—but only Demacia and Noxus—be informed.

The Void cult that had fought with Ryze upon the Tempest Flats was no more: Ryze’s spells reacted explosively with the unstable Void energy they held inside them, and which resonated with the whirling dimensional vortex  that contained the rune. But nor did Ryze ever determine how they themselves had come to learn of the convergence. It remained a mystery, until the year 26 CLE, when the secrets of the depths were brought to light…

Depths of Divinity

Summary by Summoner Crazed Porcupine, who ran this RP campaign.
Edited by CupcakeTrap.

The emergence of the Guardian’s Sea nexus revealed numerous ruins scattered around the ocean floor. High Summoner Kolminye tasked a group of eight Summoners, two representing each faction, to go and explore one such ruin:

• Summoner Vinnie “ProjectRysa”—Bilgewater, Human Emotional Mage
• Summoner Astrid—Void, Experimental Creature to attempt to create more darkin
• Summoner Roan “Rednaxelakor”—Void, Undead Cybernetic Marai with a temper
• Summoner Cryus “RandomNom”—Bilgewater, a Hextech Minded Teen
• Summoner Rinsu’o “Rinsujo”—Freljord, Yordle from Argyle learning to Summon
• Summoner Cobalt “C Drive”—Bandle City, Human with a set of Hextech Minions
• Summoner Duckles—Bandle City, Summoning Prodigy yordle Child
• Summoner Lionel “Endgame”—Freljord, Demacian Merchant

Upon entering the ruin, it was quickly discovered that it was a sunken temple to Nagakabouros.

The group quickly triggered some of the ancient defenses built, and had to fight against them. Upon reaching a fork, the group split up, half and half. One group headed to the fork that led to an upper floor, where the found a giant Serpent Idol like the one Illaoi carries. Past that, they found the bodies of several individuals in an office. They then found a secret door in the room that led to a giant chamber in which a giant shard of True Ice lay. Summoner Cyrus “RandomNom” also found a journal containing much of the history of the temple.

The other group went to the lower portion of the temple, which contained the living quarters for the priests that once resided in the temple. They found a number of mysterious medallions that were shaped like Void Symbols. The medallions were then found to contain the memories and imprints of Void cultists. This caused friction between the Summoners.

The upper group quickly found themselves outmatched in combat against a giant kraken statue brought to life as a simple construct with no sentience, only orders to follow. Summoner Rinsu’o ran from the bottom floor up to the upper floor after hearing sounds of distress coming from a set of “Walkie-Talkies” that Summoner Cyrus had given the group. Summoner Rinsu’o then sacrificed himself after arriving in the True Ice Chamber to save three of the four summoners in the group, and survived only by virtue of emergency escape runes which warped him out of danger. Down below, Summoner Vinnie “ProjectRysa” was working on containing the Void Cultists. They also found a large sword forged from steel that was contained in an unbreakable soul barrier.

The groups reunited at the Institute of War. There they met with Summoner Synar “CrazedPorcupine”, who gathered up their reports and forwarded them to High Councilor Vessaria Kolminye.

See also: Depths of Divinity (forum thread)

The Tournament

Synar’s Summoners brought High Councilor Kolminye a medallion that encased the spirits of long-dead Void cultists. As soon as the gifted Summoner touched it, she heard voices whispering in Icathian. A chill ran through her as she felt them snatch thoughts from the depths of her most guarded memories, and heard them give voice to these thoughts. To this one thought, which she had locked away within her psyche, sealed with geases and reflective mantras:

Xash’Owjh. Heavenbreaker.

Eb’Sin. Godslayer.

Koz’Dek. The Rune of Freedom.

She dismissed the Summoners with haste and called her senior staff to an urgent session. Within hours, she received reports from Institute investigators in Icathia, that a certain Summoner Rednaxelakor had returned with information about the Rune of Freedom.

There was only one thing to do. She called Crown Prince Jarvan IV and Grand General Swain to the Institute, and gave them the news. The sight of these three individuals entering a sealed conference chamber drew quite the crowd. The deliberations went on for hours, and produced at least one jolt that resonated through the hexproofed walls and rattled the windows on the other side of the corridor.

The trio emerged, looking none too pleased. They announced that there had been an “omission” in the conduct of the present dispute. There was an artifact within the scope of the conflict, and which bore a potentially significant relation to the Guardian’s Sea nexus: the Rune of Freedom, recovered from the Tempest Flats two years ago and kept in the sealed archives for reasons of planetary safety.

Representatives from the four parties-disputant were livid. They demanded that possession of the Rune of Freedom be awarded through conflict upon the Fields of Justice. A grand tournament was hastily scheduled, and each faction sent their finest Summoners and Champions to the Fields to do battle over this mythical artifact.

Outcome

Bilgewater prevailed in the tournament, and the Rune of Freedom was transferred to their custody for the remainder of the dispute. Priests of Nagakabouros brought it to the Guardian’s Sea nexus, which illuminated the faint traces of divine magic etched into its arcane signature. The interaction restored to the lunar pantheon old names, old faces, old selves that they had lost in the tumult of the Rune Wars.

The strengthened lunar pantheon will guard Bilgewater against the Black Mist, granting a bonus equivalent to an Omega-complete (Step III) Quest.

Bandle City took second place, and was allowed to view the ritual. Their clerics caught a glimpse of the Divine Flight Path followed by the Mothership long ago. They use this reference to calibrate and realign some of the Mothership’s distorted maps and charts, and reconstruct fragmented pieces of its database.

The information gathered in this way will give Bandle City an epilogue bonus comparable to that of an Alpha-complete (Step II) Quest.

Original Post

The original info on scheduling, etc. follows.

Alright mi amigos, you’ve waited patiently and now it’s finally here. The first tournament of the arc has been scheduled and announced!

The stakes and story are currently in development, but I wanted to give everyone an early announcement so they can begin preparing for the tournament as soon as possible. I will commit that the story and stakes of the tournament will be finalized and announced on Monday, July 24. It is important to note that tournaments give significant prizes to factions regardless of standing in the arc. First place has a large reward, while second place has a smaller, but still sizable, reward as well.

Updates, sign ups, schedules, and results will be posted here, the tournament page, though I will try to make quick announcement posts whenever updates are posted on here.

The Preliminaries

The preliminaries are the first week of the tournament, featuring lower tier player slots. Generally, this means Silver and Bronze ranked players; however, depending on sign ups I might allow no more than one Gold ranked slot in each game, for practicality’s sake. So, gold players, as well as the usual Silver and Bronze players, should try to be available to play during the preliminaries.

During the preliminaries, allied factions are allowed to freely use each other’s summoners, so long as they are not playing against each other. They are scheduled for the July 30-31 weekend and are organized like Featured Matches with sign ups and a schedule created by staff.

Every faction will play against every other champion one time in a round robin style match up. The faction that comes out in first place of the preliminaries wins a spot in the finals. The second place faction is awarded with automatically winning any ties they are in as part of the semi-finals. Any ties in the preliminaries at the end of the weekend will be decided by their records against each other in the preliminaries; however, a tie involving more than just 2 factions could have no clear winner in their records against each other (for example, factions a, b, and c are tied where a won against b, b won against c, and c won against a). In such a case, the tie will be decided by BoP.

Being scheduled on July 30-31, there is a good amount of time to prepare for the preliminaries beforehand. Sign ups for them will be posted on Monday, July 24, alongside the story and stakes for the tournament. Factions should start trying to set aside time to play that weekend, practice together before then, and recruit players to participate in the tournament. Even if you can’t play, you can have a big impact on how your faction performs by helping them prepare.

Outcome

The factions’ scores from the preliminaries are as follows

• Bilgewater 3-0
• Freljord 2-1
• Icathia 1-2
• Bandle City 0-3

Congrats to Bilgewater in taking first place in the preliminaries. They are locked into the finals and get a buy for the semi-finals. The Freljord took second, so if they are involved in any ties in the semifinals they will win those ties.

For Icathia and Bandle City, while they were unable to take anything out from the preliminaries, all is not lost. They still both more than capable of making it to the finals and winning the tournament; there is still the semifinals where they can show their stuff.

The Semifinals

 

The semi-finals will take place on August 6. The 3 factions that did not win the preliminaries will face off here for the last remaining spot in the finals. Every faction will play against every other faction in the semi-finals on time. The faction that wins the semi-finals gets to advance to the finals. Since there will only be 3 factions competing in the semi-finals, the only possible form of a tie would be a 3-way tie between all the factions involved. In such an event, the faction that got 2nd place in the preliminaries is declared the winner of the semi-finals.

The Semi-Finals use player organized, pre-made teams featuring High tier and Gold rank slots. More precisely the rank match ups for each team is 2 High tier slots, and 3 gold tier slots, or a HHGGG line up. These teams need to be made up from summoners declared for their respective faction; allied factions can not use each other’s summoners.

Match reps from each faction will be asked to organize the team for their faction. If they do not organize a team by August 1, team creation will open up to the other members of the faction (match reps will still, of course, be eligible to organize a team at that point). If multiple teams are submitted for the faction, Match rep teams take priority (going with the ranking of match reps when comparing multiple teams submitted by different match reps). If non of the teams are submitted by match reps, it comes down to a faction vote to decide teams (so long as there is at least 24 hours before the deadline to submit, if not the first compliant team submitted is chosen). If a compliant team is not submitted for a faction by the day before the semi-finals, Friday, August 5, 12:00 pm PDT, the faction is ineligible to participate and disqualified from the tournament. The faction that won the preliminaries and skips the semi-finals submits their team on the same schedule as the other factions and follows the same rules.

The Teams

For Bilgewater: Bilge Bros

• Captain: PONCHOGRANDE            Co-Captain: XalkXolc
• High Tiers: HeavyWeapons Guy, PONCHOGRANDE
• Gold Tiers: Random Nom, Rowena Ravenclaw, Sexy Soraka

For the Freljord: Ice Puns

• Captain: Endgame1125                Co-Captain: Arcade Anivia
• High Tiers: SonOfTill, Arcade Anivia
• Gold Tiers: Animorpherv1, LethalOrange, HeartlessWytche

For Bandle City: Duck Squad

• Captain: tldr am duck               Co-Captain: Silencer Mage
• High Tiers: JDmage, Silencer Mage
• Gold Tiers: AbiwonKenabi, Audible Silence, Xeron Nox

For Icathi-AAAHHHH awwww, OH GOD, MY EYES! What is… ThE vOiD cArEs NoT fOr YoUr ToUrNaMeNt. FiGhT aMoNgSt YoUrseLvEs If YoU wIsH; YoU oNlY wEaKeN yOuRsElvEs FoR yOuR iNeViTaBlE dEmIsE.

Since Icathia did not submit a team, it has been ruled ineligible to participate in the second week of the tournament. So, the semifinals will be a best of 3 matchup between the Ice Puns and Duck Squad. The winner shall face Bilgewater in the Finals (please note the early start time for the Finals on Sunday, the semifinals start at the normal time of 12:30 pm PDT).

The Finals

The finals will take place on Sunday, August 7 between the factions that won the preliminaries and the semi-finals. It is set up with the same teams as the semi-finals, and both factions need to have their teams submitted as the same deadline as the semi-finals.

The format is a faction vs faction, first to win 3 games matchup. This leaves the possibility of up to 5 games for the finals. As a result the finals will begin an hour earlier than normal, 11:30 am PDT, to compensate for the possibility of an extra long day. The winner, once again this is the first faction to win 3 games in the finals, is declared the victor of the tournament and takes first place and the main prize. The loser of the finals takes 2nd place in the tournament.