Arc XII: Mirrorwater Begins April 1

On this first of April, in the year 28 CLE, I am pleased to announce the launch of Arc XII: Mirrorwater!

After reviewing some of the more recent Riot lore, I have decided that it’s time to revisit the original Factions story. The official lore explaining the change should be going up sometime tomorrow. I don’t want to spoil it, but in short, it involves Zilean, a nexus, and an extradimensional summoning gone horribly wrong.

Some may be distressed that this will take the place of the previously planned Arc XII, which was about to launch. That story, involving some sort of underwater city, was certainly promising, and I do appreciate everyone’s time working on it. It was also a shame to cancel it when it was just about to get started. However, after much thought, I decided that this was the right call.

Others may be concerned that returning to the Mirrorwater incident will distort Factions continuity. I assure you that this is not the case. No matter who wins this second iteration of Mirrorwater, the basic story will be the same. For example, let’s say that Noxus wins. This would bring some minor changes:

• There would no longer be a Mirrorwater fortress in the Freljord, and so Ceruleana would not appear between the Freljord and the Shadow Isles.
• Consequently, Demacia would not gain the patronage of the ocean-spirit Ceruleana, and would not distort the cosmic balance with its crusade to bring order to Valoran. Please bear in mind, though, that Demacia would still canonically have a fleet of ships that might appear in future stories.
• Without Demacia’s crusade, the Void rift in Icathia would not open, and there would not be a Void War as such. However, there are plenty of exciting stories to tell about the Void! We’re not pulling the apostrophes out of our keyboards yet!
• As there would be no Void War, there would be no exodus of Noxian refugees to spark the Shon-Xan conflict, and the status quo between Demacia and Noxus would remain one of an even-handed standoff.
• Without the contamination of the Void War, and the Noxian military’s collapse after the war for Shon-Xan, there would be neither the opportunity nor the need for Zaun to use pyrikhos-driven hextech to build up a military power of its own.
• Similarly, Bandle City would not have refueled the Mothership or built a lunar base, and would not have discovered Nyroth. Aside from this, however, the Nyroth storyline would remain thematically the same.
• As there would be no restoration of the Nyrothian nexus to create a leyline-borne manaspike back to Valoran, the nexuses of Shurima would not be supercharged and Azir would not be able to resurrect his Empire.
• Another small change would be to the Divinity arc: without the return of an Ascended-led Shuriman Empire, it is unlikely that the Guardian’s Sea nexus would manifest as a font of divine energy.
• There would also be a change to the Black Winter storyline, as without the return of gods of undeath such as the Ghoul of the Freljord, there would not be a Black Winter as such, though winter would still presumably occur that year.
• Without the stress of the Black Winter, Noxus would probably have not lost control of the city of Qa’hhar to rebels.
• The Kin-Fire would definitely remain a story element, but of course, it would not be lost at sea during the Black Winter. There would probably be some other reason for Ornn to return to Valoran, though.

These changes might throw some people off, but the basic story would of course remain the same.

Anyway, I don’t want to get too caught up in the details! Look for the Arc XII: Mirrorwater signup later tonight.

—CupcakeTrap

About CupcakeTrap

Caitlyn, you monster.