A Stellacorn Starts Life as a Star
The Solari card says stellacorns are born of stars, and our bestiary puts them at the summit.
The stellacorn is the star-born animal of Mount Targon, the mightiest peak in the world, and every line Riot has written about it describes the same arrangement: people look after the young ones, borrow their healing for a while, and send them back to the sky. Nobody in the canon hunts one. What a stellacorn gives a person is the healing it lends and the luck of seeing it, and nothing taken off its body.
It appears on three cards in Legends of Runeterra, the card game Riot set in this world. Fledgling Stellacorn, the card of a young one, and Resplendent Stellacorn, the card of a grown one, carry most of its story. Solari Stellacorn, the card named for the Solari, the order of sun worshippers on Targon, states where the animal comes from in one line.
Stellacorns are born of stars, with some burning hotter than others.
Flavor text: Solari Stellacorn
Our bestiary entry for the stellacorn puts the animal at the top of the mountain and ties it to Soraka, a wanderer from the celestial realms beyond Targon who gave up her immortality to protect the mortal races.
Endures the thin air at Mount Targon's very summit, where lore ties it to Soraka.
RuneGrove bestiary: Stellacorn
The Young Ones Come Down Onto the Mountain
A fledgling is a star on the ground, and Soraka and Zoe talk to it like a foal.
Not every stellacorn stays in the sky. Fledgling Stellacorn is a young one on the ground, and two of Targon's champions say how it got there when it joins them in Legends of Runeterra. One is Soraka. The other is Zoe, the Aspect of Twilight and Targon's cosmic messenger.
When Fledgling Stellacorn joins them (Legends of Runeterra)
Zoe: “You fell out of the sky and into MY HEART!”
Soraka: “Silly little star.”
Soraka: “Oh! No, don't eat that.”
Quoted as they appear in our Legends of Runeterra voice-line archive.
Zoe says it fell out of the sky. Soraka calls it a little star and tells it not to eat something, the way you talk to a young animal you are minding.
The mountain it lands on is the one in Riot's Mount Targon region galleries, from the homes of the Rakkor, Targon's warrior people, to the routes climbers take toward the peak.
One of those routes is the Vaulted Road, a path up the mountain. Tales of Runeterra, Riot's series of animated shorts about each region, named Targon's short for it, and our page for “The Vaulted Road” has it in full.
Lidari Borrows Their Healing, Then Sends Them Home
The Keeper of the Stars says young stellacorns lend people healing until they can go back to the sky.
Who looks after a fallen one is answered on Resplendent Stellacorn, the card of a grown stellacorn. Its flavor text is spoken by Lidari, a Targonian the card calls Keeper of the Stars:
"See that star moving across the night sky? That's a grown stellacorn. While the young ones lend us their healing magic until they can be returned to the sky, grown stellacorns can wield that power on their own. It is considered very lucky to see one and know it for what it is. Luckier still to care for one."
Lidari, Keeper of the Stars. Flavor text: Resplendent Stellacorn
Lidari describes one life in two stages. The young ones stay with people and lend them their healing magic, and they stay only until they can be returned to the sky. Lend is Lidari's word, so in canon the healing is borrowed and the animal goes home.
Soraka says the same thing to the fledgling directly.
Soraka, when Fledgling Stellacorn joins her (Legends of Runeterra)
Soraka: “Back you go, little one.”
A Grown Stellacorn Heals Without a Keeper
The adult needs nobody, and the most a person gets from one is seeing it.
Lidari's second stage is the adult in the art at the top of this page. Grown stellacorns can wield that power on their own, and the card plays that way: its text reads Play: Heal an ally and your Nexus 3. The Nexus is the crystal each player defends in Legends of Runeterra. The grown one heals the moment it arrives, and nobody is holding it.
Zoe's two lines for the grown card treat it as the same animal, older.
Zoe, when Resplendent Stellacorn joins her (Legends of Runeterra)
Zoe: “Zoe sighs. "You were cuter before.”
Zoe: “I always wanted to ride a shooting star!”
It was cuter as a fledgling, and now it is a shooting star, which is what Lidari says an adult looks like from the ground.
It is considered very lucky to see one and know it for what it is. Luckier still to care for one.
— Lidari, Keeper of the Stars, flavor text on Resplendent Stellacorn, see the card
That is everything canon offers a person who meets an adult: a star moving across the night sky, and luck if you know what it is. The one thing Lidari ranks above seeing one is caring for one, which is the keepers' work with the young.
Origin
Born of stars
Solari Stellacorn: some burn hotter than others.
Young
Falls out of the sky
Zoe, to Fledgling Stellacorn.
Kept
Lends its healing
Lidari: until they can be returned to the sky.
Returned
Back you go, little one
Soraka, to Fledgling Stellacorn.
Grown
Heals on its own
Resplendent Stellacorn: a star moving across the night sky.
What This Means for the Riot MMO
Our read: a stellacorn would be a sighting and a release, and Targon's hunting would run on other animals.
In an open world, a creature in the bestiary usually means a health bar and a drop table. The stellacorn cards leave no room for either, so our read is that a game would have to build it differently.
- A sighting as the rare spawn. Lidari's luck has two parts: seeing a grown stellacorn and knowing it for what it is. That is a rare spawn whose reward is recognising a moving star before it is gone, not a body to loot.
- Brighter adults, still no kill. Solari Stellacorn says some burn hotter than others, which leaves room for rarer, brighter adults that a bestiary logs as sightings.
- A care chain that ends in a release. A fallen fledgling fits a quest where the player minds it, gets its lent healing for a while, and finishes by sending it back to the sky, which is what Lidari and Soraka both describe.
- No stellacorn on a loot table. Canon gives the creature no pelt, horn or meat. A hunting economy on Targon would have to run on the mountain's other animals, which we covered in our read of Targon's valley herds.
Care or Use?
Lidari calls it lending. Judge the arrangement.
Do you think borrowing a young stellacorn’s healing, as Lidari describes it, is care or use?
Read Next
More reads of Runeterra’s creatures and the people who live beside them.
None of this is confirmed. Sources: the Legends of Runeterra cards and voice lines named above and the Mount Targon region galleries, all Riot’s own canon. A RuneGrove lore read.
