User talk:CliffShadow

Hey CliffShadow, this is the guy with whom you were discussing the Sion rework. I came up with a lore. It's about twice as long as is standard, so some serious trimming is needed, but I wanted to run it by you first to see what you think. I am thinking of cutting about 75% of the last paragraph, half of the second, and a few sentences of maybe the first and third. I also supplied two quotes at the end, because I wasn't sure which is better. If you don't have time, don't worry! I just wanted to get an opinion, because it's hard to write material for other people when you are the only one viewing it. I hope this isn't too annoying having a long post on your wall! If it bothers you, I will stop.

Here begins the lore of Sion, Death's Vanguard

''“Ah, my succulent prey, how you all flee before my shadow like a pack of cattle to your holy barns of light. Wahahaha! I look forward to your frail flesh marinating in the despair to come, for as sure as the bell toll heralds dusk, shall you realize ‘ere mortality strikes: Even the light on the brightest of days must succumb to the night.” - Sion, Death's Vanguard''



The holy order of Demacia stretches across green pastures and verdant woods, a beacon of hope and promise of salvation for its citizens. Two devout parents presided as priests over their village’s religious matters, while lovingly watching over their child, Sion. They had high hopes Sion would one day take their place as caretakers of the local church. But fate set forth other plans on one bright, summer afternoon, as a diseased beggar cloaked in a blanket arrived praying for quarter. His feeble pleas died like a whisper in the air; his flesh was covered in boils, and his putrid filth soiled the ground he shambled over. Nevertheless, Sion’s parents charitably offered him solace, for they believed that acts of kindness paved the path to heaven. That night, Sion tossed and turned in a cold sweat, beset by nightmares of murderous torment and brutal human butchery. The next day, the beggar had vanished, and Sion discovered upon waking a pendant resting next to him, a ruby heart clasped in the decrepit fingers of a dull, green hand. Sion felt an insistent tug at his senses he could not explain. Donning it in secret, it lay hot upon his breast, as if it were branding the heart of its new owner. Little did the small child know, he had unwittingly accepted an unholy pact.

Sion never spoke of the pendant to anyone, but no one else seemed to be aware it existed. It was as if the pendant were as invisible as an imaginary friend. As years went by, the formerly peaceful child grew restless. At first, Sion would hear strange murmurs, and his dreams were haunted by horrors he tried his best to forget the next day. By adolescence, each minute had become a steadfast struggle against intrusions into his reality: visions of walking murderers in the daylight and voices laughing at him from dark corners. Sion began having difficulty distinguishing between the real world and what should not have been. His parents noticed it in small steps, when he would burst out in moments of rage, or violently strike another child. They tried their best to curb these new impulses, yet soon resorted to prayers of desperation. For how could they have known of the powerful curse embattling Sion’s young soul, twisting it into madness? Their earthly worries would not trouble them much longer. A villager visited the church one morning to stumble upon the scene of a massacre. A profane collage of blood and gore desecrated the church, an unspeakable passing having befallen Sion’s parents. Sion was nowhere to be found. On this day, Sion sealed his servitude to the fell pendant.

Fleeing wildly through the countryside and sleeping forlornly in the night, Sion felt his world slipping away. The horror of his actions awoke in him a furious denial. He blamed the church for not helping him, he cursed his parents for believing in a God who blinded them to their son’s dilemmas, and he seethed over everyone else living each day so blissfully, unforgivably ignorant of how fragile happiness can be besieged by misery. As the madness swelled, Sion visited destruction upon more churches in retribution for his anger. Rather than sating his appetite for killing, Sion’s blood only boiled hotter for more. Murder served as medicine for his hate; meticulous acts of torture brought him soothing meditation. He began slaughtering entire villages, nourishing himself on the sweet bread of flesh and the intoxicating wine of blood, all to grant him an evening of respite from the torment of being alone with his wracked mind. The further Sion’s soul plunged into darkness, the greater his power ascended—and the brighter his pendant proudly shone. The depths of Sion’s decline blinded him to his physical changes. His flesh began to rot away, even as his soul grew fat on the spirits of the innocent. Like a wraith he stole across the countryside. By the time the Demacian military reacted, it was too late. Sion laughed at the resistance, and executed all opposition in vicious masterpieces of violence. His human reasoning abandoned, Sion had succumbed completely to his insane bloodlust. In a final bid to halt the terror, Jarvan III dispatched the elite Dauntless Vanguard. Sion clashed with the white steel of the Demacian Vanguard in one of the greatest carnages ever witnessed within Demacia’s borders—and the Dauntless Vanguard was brought to its knees, before a combined effort of Garen and Lux Crownguard managed to stave off the ravenous specter.



His body destroyed and his powers waning, Sion fled pursuit to the vile Marshes of Khaladoun on the Eastern border of Demacia. As his knees buckled underneath him and he collapsed to the ground, he heard a familiar, rasping giggle. He could barely lift his head enough to see the repulsive beggar from his youth crouched before him. Sion instinctively reached for the ruby heart on his chest. The beggar’s hoarse chuckle swelled into a maniacal cackle, and in one sudden motion, he threw off his cloak in a twirl to reveal a grinning jester in his place, with a face white as ashes and lips permanently curved in a malicious leer. "Congratulations, Sion, on such a spectacular show," purred the jester, "better even than my wildest expectations. Come now, brother, our master wishes to impart you his blessing." The jester led him through the blighted marshes to an abandoned hideout of a cult of death-worshippers. The walls were adorned in a tapestry of blood, and in the center of a fey symbol on the floor knelt a massive, lifeless creature. Mesmerized by unspoken commands from his pendant, Sion numbly slid a bone knife in a line vertically along its heart, yielding a light ripping noise like cloth, deafening in the echoing silence of the chamber. Licking his knife clean, Sion removed his pendant and placed it within the creature’s empty heart cavity. Sion’s final breath rattled from between cracked lips, and the last remnants of the pride and hope of a pious couple passed away. The dark ritual complete, he reopened his eyes, lids heavier than before. He studied his hands, they were green and monstrous. His two legs creaked like tree trunks as they lifted him with a muscular power he had never experienced. A burgundy glow from the stone heart within his chest pierced through leathery skin, permanently casting his visage in an eerie light. From his side, he hoisted a savage axe the size of a bear. Blessed with a body—no, an instrument—of greater power than ever, Sion embarked upon his most ambitious endeavor yet, a Magnum Opus of bloody battles and ruthless deaths. Such material of the highest quality could only be found in one place: The League of Legends.

Sion released a deep, rumbling laugh. The feeling of being set free of humane compulsions exhilirated him for the first time in years, reminiscient of a fresh breeze on a bright, summer afternoon.





''“When battling a rabid beast, some soldiers seek to empathize with its condition. They naively attempt to protect the creature, to nurture its sickly soul back to health. They are not wrong for treasuring life, but they would do better to remember the fear of death. For these soldiers often become the tasty snacks of a creature unconcerned with altruism; the only relief for a mind ravaged by insanity being a swift and final rest” – Garen Crownguard''

“Some seek to save a demented killer and guide him back to humanity, but a smart soldier recognizes when it’s best to cut one’s losses and put the tormented soul to a peaceful rest” – Garen Crownguard



Note that the lore of Shaco doesn't need to be altered. The jester above may or not be Shaco; Shaco could be a renegade jester and maintain his own lore independent of Sion. The identity of the master isn't revealed. I know this lore is very dark, but Sion is a champion of death, after all. I hoped to create a more interesting character by attributing him a sinister intellect and religious devotion to evil, rather than the bumbling dope he is now, a persona that is about as plausibly threatening as one of Snow White's dwarves.



Blaisem (talk) 04:00, January 15, 2014 (UTC)

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