The full timeline of Runeterra, from the shaping of the world to the present day: every cinematic, short story, comic and milestone Riot has published, placed in in-world order with the regions and champions each one belongs to.
Runeterra's calendar counts outward from the founding of the modern nations — BN for the years before it, AN for the years after. The eras below run in that order, and each moment links to the story it comes from in the Archive of Runeterra. 146 moments are placed across 14 eras, from the shaping of the world to the present day.
Before Runeterra existed, celestial beings and cosmic forces shaped the fabric of reality.
The instrumental login-screen theme released with Aurelion Sol's March 2016 debut, scoring the Star Forger — the ancient cosmic dragon who kindled Runeterra's stars — with vast, choir-lit orchestral grandeur. It has no narrative or dialogue; the piece establishes his celestial scale and imperious pride by mood alone.
The animated login screen and theme for Kindred, Runeterra's twin embodiment of death — the gentle Lamb with her bow and the ravenous Wolf — set to a mournful, ambient melody with no dialogue or plot.
The world was shaped by titanic forces. The World Runes were scattered, and primordial beings walked the land.
Targon is a colossal, mystical mountain at the southern edge of Runeterra where mortals ascend to be judged by the stars and, if worthy, become vessels for the Aspects — celestial beings of immense power tied to the constellations above.
Soraka is a celestial wanderer from the realm beyond Mount Targon who surrendered her immortality to protect the mortal races, spreading compassion and healing across Runeterra from her home in Targon's westernmost peaks.
The demigod sisters of the Freljord fought alongside and against the ancient titans.
A short story framed as the field journal of Eduard Santangelo, a Piltovan explorer who catalogues Ionia's vastaya — the chimeric descendants of the shapeshifting Vastayashai'rei and humans — including his infamous encounter with the fox-woman Ahri.
Ornn, the reclusive firstborn demigod of the Freljord, labors in solitude in the lava caverns beneath the dormant volcano Hearth-Home, forging tools of legendary quality — some even claim Braum's shield was his work. The biography's central tragedy is the catastrophic night his brother Volibear battled him at the mountain's peak: a storm of fire, ash, and lightning that reduced Hearth-Home to a smoldering caldera and annihilated the Hearthblood, the long-lost culture of smiths, architects, and brewmasters who had gathered to follow his example.
Lissandra, the immortal Ice Witch, communed with the Watchers—ancient Void beings—and pledged to prepare Runeterra for them in exchange for near-immortality. Seeing their true nature as they breached into the world, she betrayed them, sacrificing her Iceborn sisters and armies to entomb the Watchers beneath the Freljord in True Ice, then rewrote history to bury her guilt.
A montage cinematic introducing the Freljord's three rival tribes and their leaders as they clash for control of the frozen north: Ashe of the Avarosan, Sejuani of the Winter's Claw riding her boar, and Lissandra of the Frostguard, who rises to raise the ice at the trailer's climax. It served as the launch cinematic for Lissandra.
The full account of Lissandra's deal with the Void. The Watchers — entities from beyond creation, disturbed by the 'noise' of existence — offered Lissandra and her sisters power to conquer the Freljord. In exchange, Lissandra would open a gateway for the Watchers to enter Runeterra and silence all life. When the Watchers finally emerged, Lissandra realized the true cost: they did not want to rule the world, they wanted to unmake it. She turned on her patrons, using True Ice and her sisters' lives to freeze the Watchers in the Howling Abyss — a prison she must maintain forever.
A cycle of Freljordian folk tales about Ornn, the firstborn god and ram-horned smith, recounting how he shaped the frozen land and waged an eight-day war against his brother Volibear that leveled his Hearth-Home and wiped out the Hearthblood craftspeople. His sister Anivia also features, having accidentally burned down his first home, Horn Hall, when a feather made him sneeze a gout of flame.
The biography of Ivern Bramblefoot, once the Freljordian warrior Ivern the Cruel, who led a raid into Ionia and cut down the sacred God-Willow at the heart of the spirit realm — only to be flooded with its life-essence and reborn as the gentle, life-giving Green Father.
A Piltovan explorer documents the origin of the vastaya — tracing them to an ancient pairing of human refugees fleeing the Great Void War with a tribe of intelligent shapeshifting creatures deeply attuned to Ionia's natural magic. The resulting offspring diversified across Runeterra, from the winged humanoids of Ionia to the sandshufflers of Shurima. The journal reveals that vastayan blood can be diluted through generations, producing humans with latent shapeshifting abilities — and hints at the fox-like vastaya Ahri.
The Shuriman Empire rose to unparalleled power through the Ascension ritual.
Once the greatest empire in Runeterra, Shurima was ruled by Ascended god-warriors beneath the Sun Disc until Emperor Azir's Ascension ritual — sabotaged by his magus Xerath — destroyed the capital and buried the empire beneath the desert sands.
The official Shurima theme composed for the 2014 Ascension event — an orchestral, choir-driven anthem that plays as Azir's login theme and evokes the resurrected grandeur of Shurima's Ascended empire. It has no plot; it is a mood piece scoring the fallen desert kingdom's rise.
A whimsical, storybook-style animated music video retelling the folktale of Amumu, the cursed mummy boy who wanders Valoran searching for a friend only to drive everyone he touches away, ending alone in a sorrowful tantrum. The toy-box town is populated with cameos of champions including Annie, Ashe, Teemo, Nunu & Willump, Sivir, and Soraka.
Icathia's desperate rebellion against Shurima unleashed the Void upon the world.
Narrated by the young Icathian Kohari archer Axamuk, this short story recounts the last days of Icathia and its doomed rebellion against Shurima. When Icathia's priests unleash the Void from beneath the earth to shatter Shurima's Ascended host, the weapon devours Icathia itself and erases its people along with the memory of the land. Fighting among the Kohari is Saijax Cail-Rynx Kohari Icath'un — the warrior who would one day be known as Jax. It is the story that reintroduced Icathia and the Void into League canon.
Five hundred years after the Void scarred the Ascended Host, Emperor Azir attempts his own Ascension. His trusted slave and confidant Xerath — secretly a mage of terrifying power — sabotages the ritual at the moment of transformation, seizing the Sun Disc's energy for himself. The magical detonation obliterates the capital. Renekton, realizing Xerath cannot be killed, drags him into the Tomb of the Emperors and begs his brother Nasus to seal the door. Azir dissolves into dust. Xerath and Renekton are trapped in darkness for 3,000 years — Renekton slowly driven insane by Xerath's whispers.
The corrupted Ascended waged devastating wars across Runeterra until the Aspects intervened.
A minute-long 2018 teaser that reintroduced Aatrox as a Darkin. On a fog-choked battlefield, his blade whirls unattended through the slaughter before the red-winged god-warrior rises with a roar — an ominous reveal of his reworked identity, with no plot beyond the threat itself.
On a fog-choked battlefield a spent mortal warrior takes up the Darkin Blade and is consumed by it, his flesh remade into the towering World Ender Aatrox, who then annihilates the soldiers around him. No other champions appear.
Mennas, a Shuriman stonemason in the desert town of Xolan, helps Arch-Mason Nouria restore a colossal cliff-carved statue of the fallen Ascended god-warrior Xolaani — until the town's sacred lake drains to reveal a buried Void horror that erupts and devours the settlement. The story reintroduces Xolaani in lore and foreshadows the Void's incursion into Shurima.
A first-person short story narrated by Aatrox himself: after losing control in battle and gorging on mortal flesh, the darkin lies paralyzed and entombed in darkness until a fleeing soldier's touch lets him seize the body and drag himself back onto a Shuriman battlefield, despairing at how far the once-radiant God-Warrior has fallen.
At the ruins of Nerimazeth in Shurima, the Ascended Ta'anari and his servant Myisha—secretly the Aspect of Twilight—gather the surviving god-warriors and reveal Setaka's long-lost Chalicar. Ta'anari uses the Chalicar to channel forbidden moon magic that reverses Ascension, vaporizing most of the darkin before Myisha claims his heart, which—together with the Chalicar's absorbed essence—will let mortal weaponsmiths forge the weapons that one day seal the rest.
The warlord Sahn-Uzal conquered death itself, returning as the iron-clad revenant Mordekaiser.
A visual retelling of Mordekaiser's origin: the ancient Noxii warlord Sahn-Uzal conquers the wildlands and defeats the demon Atakhan, enslaving it, but upon death finds not the promised Hall of Bones — only an empty gray death realm where souls wander and fade. Refusing oblivion, he claws back as the Iron Revenant, slaying the cult of sorcerers who tried to bind him and forging their souls into the mace Nightfall, then raises a shadow army to build his own kingdom of the dead.
The year 400 BN marks the birth of the Iron Revenant. In the Grey Realm, the spirit of Sahn-Uzal refused to dissipate. He mastered Ochnun — the language of the dead — discovering that words have weight in the Spirit Realm, functioning as tools to shape formless fog. He forgot his mortal name, replacing it with "Mordekaiser," a self-bestowed Ochnun title meaning Iron Emperor that functions as a magical anchor. He whispered across the veil to a coven of mortal sorcerers who forged an iron suit to bind his soul — expecting a servant. Instead, they resurrected a tyrant. Mordekaiser slaughtered his summoners, binding their souls into his mace Nightfall. The Immortal Bastion began construction immediately — not merely a fortress, but a battery for necromantic energy and the primary conduit between realms.
Veigar's biography: an enthusiastic, curious yordle sorcerer from Bandle City whose thirst for celestial magic was corrupted after Mordekaiser bound him to the physical realm and enslaved him in the Immortal Bastion, where decades of torment shattered his mind and reforged him into the melodramatic "master of evil" he is today.
The disillusioned Noxian general Brannin Granth is lured into the forbidden depths beneath the Immortal Bastion, where LeBlanc — the mistress of the Bastion — unveils Mordekaiser's lifeless husk of armor suspended above the well of souls as the ancient source of Noxian power that the Black Rose secretly commands, and inducts Granth into the cabal to undermine the "usurper" Swain.
The "Bringer of Ruin" motion comic recounts how the Noxii warlord Sahn-Uzal defeated the demon Atakhan and, through a dark ritual, bound it into the helm of his loyal general Khatash-Li — enslaving it as his "Bringer of Ruin" to fuel his conquest. Sahn-Uzal later died, was resurrected, and returned as the undead revenant Mordekaiser, raising the Immortal Bastion and founding the Noxus empire. In time, LeBlanc and Vladimir of the Black Rose conspired to seal Mordekaiser away, seizing Atakhan's helm and binding the demon to the Black Rose's own service.
Mordekaiser completes Mitna Rachnun, the Afterworld he raises through necromancy so that every soul will be bound to his dominion for eternity, never to fade. The story frames his renewed reign against memories of his mortal life as the warlord Sahn-Uzal.
The Blessed Isles fell to the Ruination, and the Rune Wars reshaped continents.
Chapter 1 of the RUINATION: Kalista's Odyssey motion comic (League of Legends: Wild Rift, April 2024). It opens the retelling of the Shadow Isles' origin: after Queen Isolde is struck by a poisoned blade meant for King Viego, his general Kalista sets sail with Hecarim toward the Blessed Isles to seek a cure for the dying queen — the doomed voyage that will end in the Ruination.
The second installment of Wild Rift's RUINATION: Kalista's Odyssey animated visual novel, following Kalista's doomed march to the Blessed Isles alongside King Viego and Hecarim in a desperate bid to save the dying queen Isolde with the Waters of Life.
Hecarim manipulates Kalista into revealing the path. The Iron Order invades Helia, slaughtering the Fellowship of Light. Thresh, a bitter vault warden, guides Viego past the final wards. When Viego submerges Isolde's corpse in the Waters of Life, the magical paradox shatters the barrier between realms. The Black Mist erupts, transforming the paradise into the Shadow Isles. Viego becomes the Ruined King. Kalista is betrayed. Every soul on the Isles is trapped forever.
At the Blessed Isles, King Viego commands Kalista to cut down the Helian keepers who deny him the Waters of Life. When she and her lover Ledros defy the order, Hecarim and the Iron Order drive their spears into their backs, killing both and slaughtering her loyal soldiers — the treachery on the day the Blessed Isles fall and are cursed into the Shadow Isles.
Kegan Rodhe, a scorned Freljordian outcast from Rygann's Reach, is taken as an apprentice by the wandering mage Ryze; when the two uncover a World Rune fragment, Kegan's greed lets its power consume him, reforging him as the living inferno known as Brand.
Ryze travels across Runeterra to gather and secure the World Runes before others can claim their power, aided by Miss Fortune in Bilgewater, Nasus in Shurima, and Sona in Demacia, while battling Trundle in the Freljord and confronting Vel'Koz of the Void.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden's short story recounts how Kegan Rodhe, a Freljordian outcast taken in and trained by the mage Ryze, seizes one of the World Runes against his mentor's warnings and is consumed by its fire, becoming the elemental being known as Brand.
From the ashes of the Rune Wars, new nations arose.
The Noxii tribes unite under a common banner within the Immortal Bastion — the fortress of their former oppressor Mordekaiser. Forged in the trauma of the Rune Wars, their creed is simple: united we conquer, divided we die. This marks the start of the Noxian calendar and the birth of a civilization that values strength above all.
Told in Kled's own cantankerous voice, this color story finds the Yordle warlord and his cowardly drakalops mount Skaarl defending their patch of the harsh Northern Steppes when soldiers arrive claiming the land for Lord Vakhul by order of the Noxian High Command. Kled answers that the only law a true Noxian respects is strength, provoking a clash that captures both his belligerence and his fractious bond with Skaarl.
While Noxus sharpened its blades, the refugees of the west built a shield. Orlon discovers the petricite forests — fossilized wood with magic-dampening properties — and founds Demacia as a sanctuary from the arcane. The kingdom is built on the ideal of protecting the innocent, defining itself as the antithesis of Noxus: laws over conquest, walls over frontiers.
Entrusted by the dying Orlon with the Hammer of Demacia, the yordle Poppy spends centuries searching for a 'hero' worthy of wielding it — blind to the fact that she is the protector the kingdom needs. Her journey reveals Demacia's obsession with paragons and the 'Great Man' theory of history, while the true hero walks unrecognized among them.
With the fall of the Drakkengate, Noxus declares itself an Empire. The capital is firmly established at the Immortal Bastion and centralized institutions emerge: military logistics, uniform integration of conquered peoples, and the Principles of Strength. It takes 350 years of imperial consolidation to build a war machine capable of challenging Demacia.
The Merchant Clans of Oshra Va'Zaun use chem-tech explosives to blast through the isthmus, seeking to create a sea passage. The miscalculated detonation triggers earthquakes that sink the port districts into fissures — creating the Undercity (Zaun) — while the wealthy districts on the cliffs become Piltover. The resulting Sun Gates create a global trade artery, making Piltover fabulously wealthy and funding the technological marvels of the future.
Fifteen years after the Sun Gates open, the seas fill with merchant ships carrying immense wealth through a predictable chokepoint. Refugees, outcasts, and pirates settle the Serpent Isles to prey on this trade, establishing the lawless port city of Bilgewater. It is the inevitable shadow of Piltover — a parasitic organism feeding on the arteries of commerce.
The immovable object meets the unstoppable force. 900 years of Noxian expansion collide with 600 years of Demacian fortification. At the Argent Mountains, the juggernaut Sion charges the enemy commander, crushing the life out of King Jarvan I — but dies in the act. The war ends, but the cost defines the modern era: Noxus lost its champion, Demacia gained a generational vendetta.
The first great war between Demacia and Noxus culminated in a legendary duel. The Noxian war-hero Sion killed King Jarvan I of Demacia with his bare hands — but at the cost of his own life, impaled on the king's spear. Centuries later, Noxian dark magic would resurrect Sion as a mindless engine of destruction, a hollow shell of the warrior he once was. His death marked the end of Noxus's golden age of conquest and the beginning of a long decline.
Champions emerge, old conflicts reignite, and the balance of power shifts.
The reworked Warwick — Singed's engineered chembeast — hunts two Zaunite criminals through the undercity, mauling one and running the other down by tearing his mechanical arm through their escape pod. The scent of the survivor's fresh blood floods his chem-tanks and drives him into a killing frenzy.
The animated 2015 teaser introduces Ekko, the Boy Who Shattered Time, in the undercity of Zaun, demonstrating how his self-built Z-Drive lets him rewind seconds to reshape a dangerous moment. It is a wordless, music-driven reveal set to the instrumental track "Seconds" — no other champions appear.
During the Noxian Invasion of Ionia, Noxian soldiers storm a mountain village hunting a celestial artifact; when the villagers unleash its power and cleave the mountain in two, the cosmic caretaker Bard descends amid the clashing armies, carries the artifact to the peak, and ascends with it into the celestial realm, leaving a three-pointed constellation that names the mountain in his honor.
An abstract champion teaser introducing Jhin, the Virtuoso — an Ionian serial killer who frames murder as performance art. The stylized montage lingers on his masked figure and his four-shot "masterpiece" rather than telling a linear story; no other champion is definitively featured on-screen.
Ambessa Medarda's character theme from the Arcane Season 2 soundtrack, performed by Sheryl Lee Ralph. The animated video, tied to the "Chosen of the Wolf" skin line, dramatizes the near-death vision from Ambessa's champion lore: gravely wounded by an arrow while pregnant at her family's ancestral seat of Rokrund in Noxus, she is met by the Wolf — a harbinger of Kindred, the twin embodiment of death — and drawn into a death-realm trial where she is asked to give up what is most dear (a golden lamb) before being offered the choice to return to life and claim her destiny through blood and sacrifice. She battles the Aspect of War (Pantheon) in the vision, with brief cameos by fellow Noxians Swain and Katarina.
Narrated as a sung ballad by Tahm Kench himself, this champion teaser follows the "Handsome Gambler," a desperate youth drowning in debt in a sunken town, who is lured by the monstrous river demon's song and offered a bargain to change his luck. Tahm Kench is the only champion who appears; the Gambler is a non-champion human.
Noxus invades the First Lands in 984 AN. Three years of brutal warfare culminate in 986 AN at the Battle of the Placidium, where a young dancer named Irelia rallies a militia and severs Jericho Swain's arm. The Noxian retreat leaves Ionia scarred by Singed's chemical weapons and the land itself corrupted.
Xayah and Rakan defend an Ionian grove's wild magic from Zed and his Order of Shadow, who are draining the forest to fuel their shadow craft. Xayah cuts down Zed and breaks the Order's hold, restoring the grove.
Annie the Dark Child's origin. At the Hastur family home in the dark forests of the Ironspike Mountains, on Noxus's northern frontier, young Annie's untamed fire magic and her toy bear Tibbers unsettle the family. Her step-sister Daisy, terrified of the animated bear, drowns in a river; when her grieving stepmother Leanna turns on her, Annie's terror ignites her latent pyromancy and burns the house to the ground, and her father Gregori dies carrying her to safety, leaving Annie orphaned and alone.
Neeko's animated login screen, released alongside her December 2018 launch, presenting the last of the Oovi-Kat amid lush foliage and set to her instrumental champion theme. It is a mood piece with no narrative — only Neeko appears.
Disgraced after Ionia and maimed, Swain explores the depths of the Immortal Bastion where he forms a pact with the demon of secrets, Raum. Empowered by demonic vision, he executes Emperor Boram Darkwill and establishes the Trifarix — the Rule of Three: Vision (Swain), Might (Darius), and Guile (the Faceless). A new era of calculated expansion begins.
The Spirit of Ionia is tested. A Noxian occupation force at the fortress of Fae'lor inadvertently awakens Syndra from her magical slumber. She destroys the fortress and rips it from the earth, raising it into the sky as her floating citadel. Syndra's awakening at the climax of the Noxian invasion demonstrates how Ionia's suppressed magical nature violently reasserts itself when pushed too far.
Vi and Jinx find themselves on opposite sides of a brewing war between Piltover and its oppressed undercity, Zaun. Jayce and Viktor invent Hextech — technology that stabilizes magic for civilian use — creating a golden age of progress above and toxic disparity below. Jinx's attack on the Piltover Council shatters the fragile peace.
The official instrumental champion theme for Renata Glasc, Zaun's wealthiest chem-baron, released with her February 2022 debut. It has no narrative, pairing her key art with a score that fuses corporate refinement and Zaunite industrial menace.
Cassiopeia hires the mercenary Sivir to lead her into the Tomb of the Emperors, then betrays her and uses Sivir's blade as a key, awakening the guardian's curse. Sivir's spilled blood — the last of Azir's bloodline — resurrects the emperor Azir as the Sun Disc's Ascended, while the imprisoned Renekton and the vengeful Xerath break free of the tomb.
Narrated by Nasus, the cinematic opens on the mercenary Sivir left betrayed and dying in an ancient Shuriman tomb; as her blood — the last of Azir's bloodline — soaks into the sand, the long-dead emperor Azir is resurrected as an Ascended and chooses to save his descendant rather than reclaim his empire.
A Riot Forge webtoon comic series serving as a prologue to The Mageseeker. As Sylas's mage rebellion throws Demacia into chaos, the Noxian assassin Katarina exploits the turmoil to carry out a deadly mission, crossing paths with her adopted brother Talon and, in later issues, the Demacian warrior Garen.
The young Iceborn Ashe inherits the title of Warmother and discovers the True Ice bow of her ancestor Avarosa. Unlike the brutal 'survival of the fittest' philosophy of the Winter's Claw, Ashe preaches unification and agriculture, building an alliance that threatens the traditional raider culture of the Freljord.
After the death of her adoptive father, Shyvana — a half-dragon born from a stolen egg of the Elder Dragon Yvva — discovers a wounded Prince Jarvan IV in the wildlands. She carries him to the Demacian outpost of Wrenwall, but Yvva pursues them to reclaim her lost offspring. When the dragon descends on the garrison, Shyvana reveals her true nature: she leaps from the battlements, transforms mid-air, and challenges her brood-mother in the skies above the castle. She grapples Yvva to the ground and breaks the creature's neck. Jarvan IV, moved by her courage, brings Shyvana to the Great City of Demacia as his sworn protector, hiding her dragon identity from the Mageseekers.
Miss Fortune orchestrates the downfall of Gangplank, Bilgewater's pirate king, luring him to his flagship and detonating the powder stores. The explosion destroys the Dead Pool and ends his reign — but the power vacuum plunges the port into a chaotic civil war between rival captains fighting for control.
The chaos in Bilgewater draws a massive Harrowing — the Black Mist descends on the port. Miss Fortune rallies the pirates while Lucian and Illaoi provide the spiritual power to fight Thresh and Hecarim. Gangplank is revealed to have survived, tested by the goddess Nagakabouros. Bilgewater is left locked in a three-way struggle.
The Freljord's three warring tribes clash in the frozen north: Ashe of the Avarosan, Sejuani charging into battle on her boar Bristle for the Winter's Claw, and the Iceborn sorceress Lissandra of the Frostguard.
Two Demacian watchmen on edge after the "Fossbarrow incident" are stalked in the dark by Fiddlesticks, the Ancient Fear, which mimics one man's cries for help to lure the other to his death.
The music video that accompanied Varus's 2017 lore retelling, depicting the Ionian lovers Valmar and Kai fusing with the sealed Darkin bow amid the Noxian invasion to become the three-souled being Varus.
Tensions between nations reach a breaking point. Noxus invades Ionia, Demacia cracks down on mages.
Teaser for Arcane's final season: in the aftermath of Jinx's rocket destroying the Piltover Council, Ambessa demands vengeance and Caitlyn leads a strike team into Zaun to hunt Jinx down, forcing Vi to confront the sister she can no longer save.
Lux secretly visits the imprisoned mage Sylas to learn to control her emerging light magic, hiding her power from her brother Garen and her aunt Tianna. When the meetings are exposed, Sylas is sentenced to death and Lux's marriage is arranged, setting up Sylas's rebellion against Demacia.
Sylas escapes execution and builds a rebellion in the hinterlands of Demacia. He discovers the dark truth of Demacia's history with Morgana and confronts the Mageseekers. This bridges the Lux comic to the Warriors cinematic.
Nunu and Willump trek across the Freljord to find the Heart of the Blue. They encounter the demigods and discover the truth of Lissandra's vigil over the Watchers. Establishes the current state of the Freljord.
The shaman Udyr resists Sejuani's plan to invoke the Volibear and its savage Ursine to break a siege and feed the starving Winter's Claw, but the Warmother proceeds anyway—and the bear-god's bloodlust devastates a Freljordian river city while its influence threatens to consume Sejuani herself.
Ornn's champion reveal introduces the reclusive Freljordian demigod of the forge, who dwells beneath an ancient volcano crafting items of unsurpassed quality as he senses divine beings once again meddling in mortal affairs on the eve of war.
In the aftermath of Noxus's failed invasion of Ionia, the exiled swordbearer Riven is put on trial for the death of the elder Souma — the killing long blamed on Yasuo. Testimony and a shattered blade reveal that Riven's broken runic sword, not Yasuo's wind technique, took the elder's life.
A Noxian party — the runesmith Tifalenji, the blade squire Erath, and three veteran huntresses (Arrel, Marit, and Teneff) who once served alongside her — hunts the deserter Riven, now living on an Ionian farm with her adoptive father Asa. Across the three parts, Riven is forced to kill her former sister Marit and agrees to return to Noxus in chains, setting up her cinematic "Awaken."
Zed and Shen clash with the serial killer Jhin, who has returned to terrorize Ionia. Jhin eventually moves on to Piltover, setting up his appearance in the Awaken cinematic where Camille hunts him through the city.
Fleeing Demacia, the escaped mage Sylas trudges into the Freljord in search of power and collapses from exposure to the biting cold, where he is found by a Winter's Claw raiding party — the shaman Thorva ("Sister of Frost"), Scarmother Vrynna, and the Iceborn warrior Brokvar Ironfist. Sylas survives by draining Brokvar's true-ice magic mid-fight, becoming momentarily Iceborn himself, and strikes a bargain: knowledge of secret paths into Demacia in exchange for an army. Thorva translates his words as a blessing from the Three Sisters to win the wary Vrynna over, and the story ends with Vrynna declaring "We raid."
A montage cinematic set to Valerie Broussard's anthem, framed around the Noxian invasion of Ionia: Irelia leads the Ionian resistance alongside Karma, Akali, Kennen, and Yasuo, while Noxus fields Draven in the Reckoning arena, the reanimated Sion, and the exile Riven. Parallel vignettes show Jhin freed from his cell and Camille of Clan Ferros on the hunt in Piltover.
Riot's Season 2020 cinematic, a choral remake of the 2014 "Warriors" anthem by 2WEI and Edda Hayes, intercuts three battles: Garen, Lux, and Galio defending a snowbound Demacian fortress from the escaped mage Sylas and his warband; Ezreal and Kai'Sa fighting off a swarm of Voidlings amid desert ruins; and Caitlyn and Vi moving to contain the freed Dreadnought Urgot in Piltover.
Yone hunts down his younger brother Yasuo, blaming him for the death of their master Elder Souma; the two brothers duel and Yasuo's wind technique kills Yone. The cinematic's second act jumps to a Spirit Blossom festival, where Yasuo tries to commune with the dead brother he cannot forgive himself for killing, and his guilt manifests as a demon. Yone, returned from the spirit realm as a masked spirit-hunter, fights alongside Yasuo to destroy it, then refuses the revenge Yasuo offers him: "You might deserve death, but not by my hand."
Taliyah's 2016 champion teaser: the young Shuriman stoneweaver rides waves of rock across the desert toward her homeland and arrives to find the Great City of Shurima risen from the sand, the old legends made real. Only Taliyah appears; her sparse narration carries the piece.
Before the walls of the Demacian capital, the ideals of duty and justice are tested. Garen and Lux face the cost of their kingdom's unyielding stance against magic.
In the arena of Noxus, strength is everything. Darius and Draven embody the empire's brutal meritocracy, where only the strong survive to lead.
In the aftermath of the Noxian invasion, Ionia is divided. Zed's shadow order and Shen's Kinkou walk different paths to protect their homeland, each believing their way is right.
In the frozen wastes, the tribes of the Freljord struggle against the land and each other. Braum, Tryndamere, and Ashe fight to unite their people against the coming darkness.
In Bilgewater, fortune favors the bold and the cunning. Miss Fortune, Twisted Fate, and Graves navigate the treacherous politics of the pirate port.
The twin cities of progress and pollution — Piltover gleams above while Zaun festers below. Vi and Jinx stand on opposite sides of a divide that threatens to tear both cities apart.
The Black Mist creeps from the Shadow Isles, and those who dare enter rarely return. Thresh, the Chain Warden, hunts for souls while Lucian and Senna fight to keep the darkness at bay.
Atop Mount Targon, the Solari and the Lunari clash over ancient truths. Diana and Leona, once friends, find themselves on opposite sides of a divine conflict.
The origin of the Ruined King. The novel chronicles Viego's obsessive love for Isolde, the fall of Camavor, Kalista's search for the Blessed Isles, Thresh's betrayal, and the catastrophic first Ruination that created the Shadow Isles. Essential context for every event that follows.
In the ages after the Ruination, the wraith Ledros — who loved Kalista in life — struggles to rekindle her lost memories and ultimately sacrifices himself to free her spirit from the Black Mist, as Thresh looks on and Hecarim, the cavalry captain who dealt her death blow, endures as her eternal foe.
Chasing Gangplank out of Bilgewater, Miss Fortune, Illaoi, Braum, Yasuo, Ahri, and Pyke are dragged into the Black Mist and sail for the Shadow Isles, where the risen Ruined King Viego and the manipulative chain warden Thresh await. The party's uneasy alliance drives the story of Riot Forge's turn-based RPG.
The Black Mist engulfs the world as the Ruined King's power reaches its zenith.
In the aftermath of Viego's Ruination assault on Bilgewater, Illaoi, Sarah Fortune, and the gravekeeper Yorick escort an amulet holding the Ruined King's trapped soul to the volcanic Shadow Isles cay of Scardover to destroy it, only for Viego's servant Bartek to hijack their ship and seize the amulet.
Racing to reach Bilgewater, Senna is dragged into Thresh's lantern, where she finally confronts the unnamed spirit that saved her from the Black Mist as a child and learns the true threat is the Ruined King, not Thresh. She wakes in Lucian's arms, and the two Sentinels set sail.
A color story by John O'Bryan in which Vex, the gloom-loving yordle who fled Bandle City for the Shadow Isles, wallows in the despair of the Black Mist while her Uncle Milty tries to coax her back home through a magical gateway. Vex counters his cheer with a nihilistic monologue about death and yordle immortality, and refuses to leave. Viego does not appear.
Viego, the Ruined King, confronts Senna and Lucian to tear his queen Isolde's soul from Senna, unleashing the Black Mist across Runeterra. Karma is possessed in Ionia, Darius falls to the Mist in Noxus before Samira frees him, and Poppy and Vayne stand against the corruption in Demacia.
An atmospheric teaser for the 2021 Ruination event: the pristine halls of Demacia are swallowed by Viego's green Black Mist and corrupted into a ruined husk, and the kingdom is declared the first region to fall. No champions appear on screen; the piece is pure environment and mood.
Gwen, the living doll animated by the love and magic of the seamstress Isolde, uses her Hallowed Mist to shield a family's children from the Black Mist of the Shadow Isles, coming to understand that her creator's true magic was love.
Grieving his slain Sentinel mentor Shadya, Akshan tracks her stolen jewelry across a Shuriman city to the warlord who ordered her death and kills him, but finds true peace only when he returns the jewelry to a poor girl, honoring Shadya's creed, "Give all, and all may live."
Viego's Black Mist engulfs Demacia and Vayne battles the undead alone until the Sentinels Lucian and Senna intervene. Together they fight the Ruined dragon Shyvana, and Vayne is recruited as a new Sentinel of Light.
A retelling of the Rise of the Sentinels story: as the Ruined King Viego unleashes the Ruination and the Black Mist spreads from the Shadow Isles, the reborn Sentinels of Light — led by Senna and Lucian — recruit allies such as Vayne, Irelia, Riven, and Akshan to stand against him. The comic mirrors Lucian and Senna's devotion against Viego's doomed love for his lost queen Isolde, whose death by an assassin's poisoned blade — meant for Viego — set the Ruination in motion, aided by the Chain Warden Thresh.
A narrated "story so far" recap of the Sentinels of Light event: Viego's forbidden attempt to revive his dead queen Isolde unleashed the Ruination and created the Shadow Isles; centuries later Lucian frees Senna from Thresh's lantern, only for the restored, youthful Ruined King to spread the Black Mist and hunt her, forcing the pair to rally more Sentinels of Light.
On the Shadow Isles, Viego finally resurrects his long-dead queen Isolde, but she recoils from the monster his obsession has made him. As the Sentinels — Senna, Lucian, Gwen, Akshan, Vayne, Graves, and Pantheon — assail him and Akshan intervenes with his Absolver, Isolde rejects Viego and unmakes the ruinous power his grief had wrought.
Freed from the Black Mist and wearing the guise of a genteel traveler, Thresh arrives at a remote inn in southern Noxus, drops his human disguise to reveal his skeletal form, and harvests the souls of the fleeing patrons and innkeeper. He then strikes a bargain with Bort, a cursed servant, trading release from his affliction for eternal servitude.
Ancient horrors emerge. The Void presses harder against reality.
Kai'Sa follows a strange passage out of the Void and emerges into a chasm beneath Shurima swarming with voidlings. Taliyah, who is shepherding a group of survivors away from the spreading Void creatures, uses her stone-weaving to raise footholds so Kai'Sa can climb free. The two outcasts team up, set the survivors on a safe course, and resolve to follow the tunnel toward Xolan, a rumored place of safety, to learn why the Void is spreading.
Ornn forges weapons of war as three simultaneous battles rage across Runeterra: Sejuani and Olaf clash with the demigod Volibear in a Freljord blizzard, Pantheon ascends Mount Targon to face Leona the Aspect of the Sun, and Kai'Sa and Taliyah fight in Shurima as Rek'Sai erupts from the Void.
In the Void's nightmarish Lavender Sea, the newborn empress Bel'Veth confronts Kai'Sa, unfurling her titanic wings to reveal her monstrous true form and making plain her intent to devour and remake all of Runeterra in her image.
A paradigm shift for the Void. Bel'Veth is not entropy—she desires to exist. She consumes cities to archive and reconstitute them into a 'Lavender Sea.' Where Xolaani seeks control through blood, Bel'Veth seeks replacement through consumption. Both impose order, contrasting with the chaos of Runeterra's past villains.
A broken, powerless Atreus—once the host of the celestial Aspect of War—takes shelter with Iula, the widow of his fallen comrade Pylas, on a remote Rakkor farmstead beneath Mount Targon. When he seeks her blessing to abandon the fight, she refuses and rebukes him, driving him to reclaim his duty.
K'Sante, the Pride of Nazumah, shares a quiet farewell meal with his former partner Tope, and the two reconcile old wounds from their broken relationship as Tope prepares to wed a new love and their separate lives pull them further apart.
The official champion theme for K'Sante's 2022 release, a purely instrumental musical portrait of Nazumah — the independent oasis city of Shurima whose people built their own culture of monster-hunters apart from the Ascended-ruled Shuriman empire. It has no narrative or lyrics; the piece evokes the pride, warmth, and resilience of K'Sante's homeland.
In a rundown Bilgewater oyster bar, the ever-smiling Kathkan warrior Nilah corners the gunslinger Graves to learn about Viego and the sentinels who sealed him, then effortlessly cuts down a band of mercenaries and their sea beast before parting with Graves as a "fellow hero."
Nilah's animated champion trailer, set on the storm-lit docks of Bilgewater. The joy-bound warrior calls on the demon bound within her, carves through foes with a whip of living water, and squares off against a towering sea monster rising from the harbor.
Naafiri's champion reveal trailer. Set in the Shuriman desert, the Darkin — bound to a pack of dune hounds rather than a single host — runs down her prey across the dunes while narrating her collective predatory philosophy entirely in a chorus of "we."
The official instrumental champion theme for Briar, the Restrained Hunger, a hemomantic living weapon created by the Black Rose in Noxus. The track has no lyrics or plot; it musically portrays the tension between her childlike curiosity and the frenzied bloodlust her restraints hold in check.
The narrative singularity. Xolaani breaks free fully, possesses Jun (a Wuju master), absorbs the Aspect of Justice Mihira, and transforms into a celestial-Darkin hybrid. Aatrox leads a Darkin horde against her—not to save the world, but to end it. Ryze is forced to use the World Runes themselves to halt the apocalypse.
Amidst the global chaos, Hwei chases Jhin through an Ionia that is burning. His magic reacts to the emotional turmoil of the world. The 'monsters' are not just physical—trauma and obsession are equally destructive forces in this era.
Aurora arrives at Ornn's hidden forge of Hearth-Home in the eastern Freljord, seeking the reclusive demigod of the forge's help for her ailing spirit companion Haestryr. After she wins Ornn over by tidying his neglected halls, he apologizes for his brusqueness, points her toward answers about Haestryr, and forges her a wand that lets her open portals, and the two become unlikely friends.
A Vastayan spirit walker who can slip between the material and spirit realms. Aurora seeks to reunite the fragmented Vastayan tribes of the frozen north. Her ability to traverse realms hints at the next era's crisis—the collapse of the veil between the Spirit Realm and Material Realm.
Across present, past, and future, Tryndamere is cornered by Kindred but refuses to die, and Ashe intervenes to cut down his attackers and cheat death. Interwoven vignettes show Kayle and Morgana battling the Darkin Aatrox in early Demacia and an aged Yasuo overwhelmed by arrows.
A gameplay champion spotlight introducing Smolder, the last hatchling of Camavor's imperial dragon lineage, whose scaling marksman kit mirrors his lore: a harmless fledgling who grows into a late-game inferno. Only Smolder appears.
The present day and future of Runeterra. Noxus expands its borders.
The Star Forger Aurelion Sol, long bound by a crown the Aspects of Targon tricked him into wearing, shatters his shackles piece by piece and rages that no mortal power can tame him. He vows to be unleashed and taunts Targon directly as its grip on him fails.
Defiance. Sacrifice. Triumph. These are our legacy.
LeBlanc has plotted for centuries. Now her dark conspiracy blooms.
Freed after more than a thousand years of imprisonment, the demon Atakhan is lured to a card game by a stranger who is revealed to be LeBlanc herself; having controlled it all along, she defeats and interrogates it about a hidden Darkin weapon while Vladimir looks on.
LeBlanc and Vladimir free the demon Atakhan from the helm in which Sahn-Uzal — the mortal Mordekaiser — bound it a thousand years earlier. Disguised as a wounded stranger, LeBlanc reunites the demon's fractured memories over a card game and subjugates it in ethereal chains, claiming the Bringer of Ruin for the Black Rose.
Ambessa brings her daughter Mel to the Noxidi Reckoner arena to teach the Noxian virtue of sacrifice, forcing her to watch the enslaved minotaur Alistar crush his opponents. Mel recoils from the blood sport, quietly rejecting her mother's brutal doctrine of greatness.
In a hidden Noxian lair, LeBlanc and Vladimir interrogate the shackled ancient entity Atakhan, wringing from it the location of the darkin weapons hidden in Ionia. With their host lost and Grand General Swain unwilling to renew the Ionian campaign, the Black Rose turns to whispers over armies and sets its sights on the First Lands.
League's 2025 season-opening cinematic, animated by Fortiche and scored to TEYA's "Bite Marks." A music-driven showcase of Noxus set to the empire's creed of strength, it follows Mel's arrival on Noxian shores after Arcane and cuts between Darius's duel with Trundle, Katarina's masquerade assassination and clash with Elise, and Vladimir and LeBlanc scheming for the Black Rose.
A motion comic recounting the origin myth of Yunara, a Kinkou-raised shrine maiden who, during the War of the False Kanmei, fought alongside the benevolent Darkin Zaahen against corrupted god-warriors disguised as Kanmei, then chose exile in the Spirit Realm to guard Zaahen's sealed glaive in the Temple of Twilight for more than a thousand years, until the thinning Spirit Blossom veil returns her to a changed Ionia. Yunara and Zaahen star as the shrine maiden and the mighty spirit of the fable; Xin Zhao and Kennen appear in the present-day framing, and the Darkin Varus and Rhaast are depicted among the sealed pretenders.
Xin Zhao, the Seneschal of Demacia and former Noxian pit fighter of the Fleshing, returns to his Ionian birthplace for the first time since the Ionian-Noxian war to understand why the Spirit Bloom first stirred in Demacia. Beginning at the Temple of Koeshin, he fights alongside Kennen and the Kinkou warrior Yunara against demons led by a false Grovemother as the material and spirit worlds bleed together. A canon Ionian motion comic and the first League comic narrated by its own champions.
During the Kinkou's spirit-realm trials, Xin Zhao relives his Noxian gladiator past aboard the scuttled ship Viscero — confronting his lost crewmate Bo Yang — and a corrupted vision of his Demacian oath, before Yunara wakes him. Both realize the Darkin Zaahen's voice reached them through the darkness, warning Xin Zhao away from the Darkin weapons and hinting he may yet bring about the world's end.
At the Kinkou temple of Koeshin, Xin Zhao demands the truth behind the dark visions plaguing him, and Yunara recounts the real history of the Great Darkin War: how the benevolent Darkin Zaahen allied with the Kinkou Order to bind his fallen kin, then asked to be sealed himself within the Temple of Twilight. Now the azakana are working to free him, and Xin Zhao, Yunara, and Master Kennen race to stop it.
Sealed within the Spirit Realm, Yunara releases spirit blossoms into Ionia during the Spirit Blossom festival while Xin Zhao returns home; the two become aware of one another across the veil between the Spirit and Material Realms. Champions including Ashe, Shen, Irelia, Lux, Morgana, and Nidalee appear amid the festival.
The animated trailer for Koeshin's Crossing, the new Spirit Blossom-themed ARAM map in Spirit Blossom Beyond (2025). Animated by THE LINE Studio as a continuation of the season's cinematic "Here, Tomorrow" and set to a track from the season's soundtrack, it returns to a festival-lit, mythic Ionia where the veil between the mortal world and the Spirit Realm thins, and reveals Yunara, the season's new champion. As part of the Spirit Blossom alternate universe, it is not canonical Runeterra history.
The veil between the Spirit Realm and the physical world shatters. Restless spirits threaten Ionia. The myth behind the devoted shrine maiden Yunara is revealed.
The 2025 Season 3 launch cinematic "Beginning of the End": stranded in Ionia, Xin Zhao is gripped by a vision of the Demacian throne overrun by darkin as the Black Rose (LeBlanc) taunts him as a pawn in her game. A Fortiche-animated teaser bridging the Spirit Blossom season into the darkin conflict, with Garen, Jarvan IV, the darkin Zaahen, and the demon Atakhan appearing.
Dreaming far from home in Ionia, Xin Zhao is gripped by a nightmarish vision of Demacia's fall, with Garen and Jarvan IV succumbing to the Darkin Zaahen's corruption while LeBlanc watches the nightmare unfold, reflected in her eyes. The wordless Fortiche teaser opens League's 2025 Trials of Twilight season.
At Ionia's Temple of Twilight, Xin Zhao and the temple guardian Yunara fail to stop Atakhan and the Black Rose from seizing the glaive that imprisons the Darkin Zaahen. Xin Zhao sacrifices himself to become Zaahen's host and defeats Atakhan, but the Black Rose (LeBlanc and Vladimir) learns the secret to killing demons.
The state funeral Twilight's End made inevitable. Under open sky in the Hall of Valor, Demacia honors Xin Zhao — Shinja of Reichon, the Ionian cabin boy who became Seneschal. King Jarvan III presides; Jarvan IV is still in the field.
The For Demacia chapter that doesn't get a statue. Garen delivers eulogies for the rank-and-file vanguards killed in the same campaign that took the king and the Maven of the Strings, and hears for the first time how hollow Demacian script sounds over the graves it didn't cover.
Jarvan IV takes a junior eagle rider into the Argent Mountains for what looks like a routine scouting flight and walks into a Noxian ambush built around his capture. His mount Eges is killed beneath him. The same theater that took Shinja in Twilight's End almost takes the prince.
Yara of the Kinku Order — the young Ionian the world will come to know as Yunara — arrives at the gates of Demacia carrying Xin Zhao's spear. She has traveled half the world to hand it back, proof that the Seneschal fell against the Darkin Zahan and that his body could not be recovered.
Set to an original Forts song, this "For Demacia" cinematic strings together vignettes of the kingdom's defenders: Garen fends off an ambush by Noxian spies, Shyvana and Quinn bring down a rampaging dragon, and Sona's music holds back an encroaching darkness, while Yunara returns the fallen Xin Zhao's broken spear to Jarvan IV.
Locke, the Ashen Exorcist, tracks down a Vayne who has fallen under the sway of a demonic entity; he fights her one-on-one, banishes the demons afflicting her, and frees her — calling her by her true name, Shauna — after which she coolly warns him that "this doesn't mean we're even."