One of my major objectives for this arc has been to have some exciting lore events. To that end, I’ve spent the past several days churning through ideas, trying to come up with something with dramatic potential. Thanks to some great community ideas, I think I’ve finally come up with something worth posting.
Polls will close early Saturday morning, before the FMs—because I’ll need to do some rolls to determine the difficulty of the FMs. We’ll be using a “reverse” approach here. In the past, we’ve had FMs and then used the outcomes as modifiers for the ultimate WS dice rolls. Here, I’ve flipped that around. The WS rolls (driven in part by chance, in part by Balance of Power standing from pickup matches) will determine the difficulty of the FMs, but it’s the final FM standing (e.g. 3-0, 2-1) that will decide how this plays out. To me, it seems most appropriate to put the heavy emphasis on the matches, rather than the clatter of dice.
Demacia faces a classic Demacian dilemma: punish the wicked, or defend the innocent? Sometimes, you have to decide what kind of Big Damn Hero you want to be.
Demacia suspects that the Black Winter was not simply a natural event, and that the forces driving it are to be found in the Freljord. But just as Demacia was preparing to deploy its forces to the Freljord to hunt down these evildoers, its ally Piltover came under attack. Alchemical zombies clawed their way up from the depths, and a necrotic plague spread through the bright streets of the City of Progress.
Ionia overcame the Noxian occupation through international involvement, particularly with the League of Legends. Karma subsequently unified the warring clans of Ionia by convincing them that they had more to gain by presenting a unified front to the League than by squabbling over petty advantages. More so than any other nation in the League, perhaps, Ionia has defined itself through international policy. It is often a mediating force that serves to maintain the delicate balance of power in Valoran. But this commitment to internationalism has limits, and those limits are being tested.
The war dead of Shon-Xan, mutilated and poisoned, do not rest easy in their mass graves. In the Black Winter, they have risen up, to claim the living. Ionia’s newest recruit, Syndra, has come to the aid of panicked local leaders. For millennia, Ionia has spurned the “dishonored dead”—warlords, conquerors, tyrants. Syndra has questioned their exclusion, and established shrines in the names of these powerful ancestors. And it seems to be working. Local leaders are aware that this is Syndra they’re dealing with, and it doesn’t take the smartest Ionian ever to sense potential Noxian involvement in Syndra calling on everyone to worship dead warmongers. But without an alternative, local leaders say they have little choice but to follow Syndra’s lead. She can protect them. Can Karma?
Ionia is faced with a competing international priority. Ionia has been granted primary authority over Nyroth ever since the Nyrothian dispute. Now, Neritum and Daeyux have joined forces to invade the Nyrothian mainland. The mainland, particularly the northern states that are particularly aligned with Ionia, are in dire need of assistance.
Discussion
If you’d like to discuss the lore event, ask questions, etc., you can try this general thread.
Spooky Scary Skeletons
Send shivers down your spine.
Shrieking skulls will shock your soul—seal your doom tonight.
However you vote, I encourage you to show up for the FMs this weekend. Things are getting spooky!
Resolution
While the lore is being written up, you can access the “raw” results in this GDoc. The tl;dr: is that Demacia gets the easiest possible FM setup, while Ionia gets the hardest setup.
The final outcomes, however, will depend on how the factions fare in the Featured Matches.
—CupcakeTrap
Caitlyn, you monster.
FACTIONS 
Leave a Reply