League of Legends Progress – April 2018

It’s been a little over a month since I published my post entitled Something New (for me) – League of Legends, in which I set out to start exploring the fiction that exists around Riot Games’ MEGA popular online game. Have a read of that post if you want to catch up on what I talked about, but essentially the plan was to start reading and reviewing short stories that are available to read for free on the League of Legends Universe website. A month (ish) later, I thought it might be interesting to take stock of what the experience has been like so far.

The first few steps
So what have I got up to so far in my exploration of Runeterra then? Well, in that month period I’ve read and reviewed three short stories – one each from Anthony Reynolds, Ariel Lawrence and Graham McNeill – which I’ll talk a bit more about shortly, and I’ve also spent some time checking out the concept artwork and visualisations on the Universe website and generally just starting to get my head around the different locations and settings that are available to explore. Right from the off it’s been an interesting experience, with a certain amount of familiarity built in by virtue of shared influences – that’s inevitable with most fantasy or sci-fi universes.

Beyond that base-level familiarity, however, what’s been really interesting is reading about characters and locations for which I don’t really have a frame of reference. I’ve become accustomed to reading Black Library stories and at least being able to identify most characters by their archetypes – Stormcast, Guardsman, Sister of Battle, Trollslayer, etc. – if not recognise the specifics of their organisation/faction and so on. That’s come from MANY years of being immersed in the worlds of Warhammer and 40k, and it’s meant that picking up the work of a new author or exploring a new location is still a comfortable, easy-to-grasp experience.

Here I don’t have any of that. It’s simultaneously a little bit scary and really exciting to start learning about a whole new IP from scratch, and I feel like I’ve got a sense of what it must be like for new fans getting started with Black Library fiction. Perhaps it isn’t quite comparable – I’m not sure how many years worth of fiction is available for League of Legends but I don’t think it’s anywhere like the sheer volume of stories BL have put out over the years – but I imagine it’s not too dissimilar. Thankfully I’m (so far) taking a fairly structured approach, in that I’m picking relatively newly-published short stories, and then reading up on the wider background related to each one.

Stories one, two and three
Of the stories I’ve read so far, two of them have started to give me a sense for the overall feel of Runeterra, especially as I’ve been able to follow up with a bit of extra information and loads of visual aids on the Universe website. Those two were The Principles of Strength by Anthony Reynolds and Where Icathia Once Stood by Graham McNeill, both authors that I’m already familiar with from their Black Library work. What I liked about both of these stories is the way that they neatly folded in a little bit of history for the people and places involved, without feeling like that was being crowbarred in for the sake of it. They both work really well as standalone stories, and seem to encapsulate core elements of the regions they’re dealing with – the structured essence of Noxus and the dark, hungry Void. I’m already getting a feel for the overall tone of this particular fantasy setting.

I think it definitely helped knowing the authors for both of those stories, as I already had confidence in their abilities and writing styles – and I felt like that helped me relax into the stories really quickly. With Reynolds’ story as well, there’s a fascinating video delving into some of the background of Noxus, which along with the gorgeous concept art really gave me a sense of tone and texture for the region and the type of characters it’s populated with. That was something I hadn’t really experienced before, but helped me feel a little more comfortable with what I’d read about in a similar way to how my existing knowledge of Warhammer and 40k does the same thing. I’d love to see more video content like that accompanying future stories.

The second story I read, after The Principles of Strength, was recommended to me by Ian St. Martin, another Black Library author – Of Rats and Cats and Neon Mice by Ariel Lawrence. Aside from having an AWESOME title that I think I like more every time I see it, this one gave me a very different reading experience to the other two. The main reason for that is…well, it’s a sort of gritty, cyberpunk-esque science fiction story, unlike the others which are firmly in the fantasy genre. I actually stopped reading at one point and headed back to the Universe website to try and read up on the characters involved in the story, and on the region of Piltover, which left me no less confused – all the visual imagery and the description of the places and characters seemed to say steampunk more than cyberpunk…so with I shrug I returned to the story and just enjoyed it.

And yes, it’s a great story – well worth checking out purely for its qualities as a standalone tale. As a part of the wider League of Legends fiction, however, it’s a bit confusing…until you realise – or, in my case, have it pointed out (thanks Laurie) – that it’s set in an alternative League of Legends setting called Project which is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a cyberpunk version of these characters. THAT MAKES WAY MORE SENSE! I assume this would have been obvious (or at least more obvious) to fans of the game, who are presumably aware of the different versions of the setting, but it definitely threw me. What I’m pleased to say, however, is that I genuinely enjoyed the story, and would happily read more Project stories now that I know it’s a thing!

Wouldn’t it be great if…
What’s clear having read these first few stories is that the Universe website is an amazing resource, packed full of depth, detail and texture…but it rewards those who know what they’re looking for. Much like the Black Library website does…funny that. I’m expecting that as I spend more time delving into the content on here, I’ll gradually become more familiar with both the settings/characters and the intricacies of the website, but until then I’m mostly starting at the EXPLORE page and going from there.

There’s already quite a nice taxonomy system on that page, using different icons and colours to reflect the type of content, but I’d love it if that was extended to the different settings as well (i.e. different colours/icons/shapes etc. for Runeterra and Project), and maybe even the different regions. Some of the stories are listed with the name of the character, and if that maybe had the region in brackets – i.e. Swain (Noxus) – then that would be really helpful for someone like me who’s still figuring it all out. I’m sure Riot are working on that sort of thing, and I’ll look forward to seeing any UX improvements as and when they arrive!

What’s next?
The key thing I wanted to work out when starting this journey was whether League of Legends as an IP was something I could get into – and I’m comfortable that the answer is yes, even from just a few stories. I’ve enjoyed the experience so far on different levels – on a pure narrative level (i.e. all three have been cool stories), in terms of getting to know the setting(s) and regions, and also just to enjoy reading fantasy and sci-fi stories in a non-Black Library world. There’s no doubt I read A LOT of BL stuff, and that’s because I’m a huge fan of SF&F even before being a Warhammer fan, so I’m always on the lookout for interesting fiction. I’m very pleased to say that so far that’s exactly what I’ve found here.

Next up I’m going to continue to read the new stories as and when they’re posted on the Universe website, but I also want to do a bit more digging into some of the older content. From what I can see most of the fiction posted before Ant’s The Principles of Strength doesn’t have an author listed (which is fair enough) so I probably won’t review those – but if there’s anything worth talking about I’ll include it in future posts like this. The same with the video content, comics and so on – I’m interested in exploring a bit more widely, but I’ll keep the reviews to the new, named author fiction.

Here’s hoping the next batch of new content is as good as what I’ve explored so far! If you’ve got any comments, questions or general feedback I’d love to hear it, so let me know in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter.