Ivern/Development

Champion Reveal: Ivern, the Green Father
'''Once, long ago, was called Ivern the Cruel - that was before he tangled with a God-Willow. In the centuries since, Ivern has roamed the forests of Runeterra, cultivating life wherever he goes. Wildflowers bloom in his footsteps as he laughs with trees, plays tricks on rocks, and dines with moss on the sun's delectable rays. When the Green Father traipses into your lane, he brings all the secrets of the forest along with him.'''


 * Abilities

I= Ivern loves jungle monsters and would never harm them. Instead, he sets them free! Clicking on any jungle camp creates a grove using some of Ivern's and. The grove matures over time; when fully grown it can be clicked on again to free the camp's denizens, granting Ivern and. a camp with a grove on it instantly sends the monsters to safety.
 * Friend of the Forest

After level five, the Green Father creates copies of the and the  buffs whenever he frees the  or  - they'll leave behind a sapling which can be picked up by allies.

Ivern shoots out a ropey root that deals and (as you'd expect)  the first enemy it hits. Allies who use a basic attack on the target will automatically dash to get within attack range.
 * -|Q=
 * Rootcaller


 * -|W=
 * Brushmaker
 * When hiding in brush, Ivern's basic attacks have and increased range. This effect lasts for a couple seconds after Ivern leaves the brush.
 * Ivern creates a patch of brush, temporarily the area around it. The amount of brush created is slightly greater if it's placed near a wall or any other brush. The Green Father's grassy patches disappear on their own after a moderate delay.

Ivern places a protective seed onto his ally, granting them a shield. After a short delay the seed explodes, damaging and all nearby enemies.
 * -|E=
 * Triggerseed

Ivern summons, an enormous sentinel who loves hugs. Daisy scampers around joyfully, Ivern's target after a few hits. Ivern can recast this ability to direct his boisterous friend toward new targets. She'll hang around until her hankering for hugs has been satisfied, or until.
 * -|R=
 * Daisy!



Who says supports have to hang in the bot lane? Ivern Bramblefoot is a true support-jungler, arguably the first of his kind. Most supports can't hack it in jungle because they lack the sheer damage output to beat up rascally woodland creatures in a timely manner. Ivern gets around that with his ability to evacuate camps without ever fighting anything - the green man just tends to his  and soon enough the critters go prancing away on their own, happily handing over their juicy XP and gold as they leave.
 * Laning Phase and the Mid-Game

It only takes Ivern a few moments to lay down or harvest his  on camps, so he has access to jungle routes that just aren't an option for those who have to fight and kill their prey. One valid strategy: take and, then go into the enemy jungle and drop a  near an entrance. After sprinting through and gettin'  with all the camps, back to the starting point for another lap to set the whole zoo free.

A more common pattern will see Ivern dropping  on all the camps in his own jungle, then using his remaining free time to prance into a lane for a quick gank. Regardless of whether the gank is successful, Ivern can then stroll back into the jungle to claim his ripe rewards.

Whenever Ivern's ganking,  gives him a thick playbook of ways to sneak into side lanes. His brush doesn't appear on opponents' minimaps, so it's on them to keep a close eye out for any creeping forestry sprouting up around them. The bushes block off vision granted by minions, making it possible for Ivern to create a grassy curtain that'll keep soon-to-be- opponents in the dark.

Once the Green Father gets access to, , he's got a powerful way to disrupt enemy carries and peel for his own backline. In some of those crucial early skirmishes (like for first ) a rampaging hug monster taking an ADC or mage out of the fight can be all your team needs to build a major lead.

Once the teamfight phase hits, Ivern's role couldn't be more clear: he's there to make his team's frontline more deadly. If the droll druid lands a  on an enemy squishy, it grants every teammate within range a free dash toward the rooted target. One root hits, and all at once your friendly 's giving 'em a of, your 's spouting , and your 's in the  zone.
 * Teamfighting and Late-Game

Most of the time, you'll want to save ' for that moment just after you've landed a sick pick with '. Since the root's dash effect is much greater on melee allies, you'll probably want to grant them 's shielding and slowing properties. They can ride the root in, pop some fools with the bursting , then tank any retaliatory hits while the triggering intensifies. While all that's going down, Mr. Bramblefoot is free to spank nearby baddies using the extended auto-attack range he receives while in.

The biggest benefit of Ivern's hobby is its potential to create mind games. Many of us have played on Summoner's Rift for years at this point, and brush locations have been pretty consistent throughout. We unconsciously track our distance from any and all brush, taking pains not to facecheck it. So when you're halfway down bot side's river and find yourself encountering a whole grassy field, it can seriously mess with your mind.

The range on  is crazy big, so Ivern can use it scare opponents into thinking he's somewhere he's not. Stand on one side of the midlane and drop a bunch of brush near the opposite side, just to drive them toward you. Or, just plant some on top of your own carries in the middle of a teamfight to make them untargetable.

Ivern's designer, Blake 'Squad5' Smith, says he once stole a just by filling the pit up with  and hanging out in it. When he the  for the kill, the other team didn't think to check the grassy knoll where he was still hiding. Instead, everyone just wandered off, dejected, and to base. Victory through trickery: the true way of the Green Father.


 * Synergy

Champion Insights: Ivern, the Really Swell Guy
By Ryan 'Cactopus' Rigney



'In League, everybody is trying to kill everybody else. Despite their personalities or backstories, champs are all really on the Rift to do one thing: drain some health bars.'

'So, what if we made a nice guy? One who, no matter where he is, just wants to do something super sweet like save all the animals? Enter, the druid with the heart of gold.'

Most great characters have a goal - an enemy to defeat, or a burning desire to fulfill, or some huge, grueling task ahead of them. Narrative writer Matt 'FauxSchizzle' Dunn realized that, for Ivern to work as a character, he'd need to be a little more carefree. He'd need to be someone who's already fought his battles and overcome his demons: a character near the end of his narrative arc. So FauxSchizzle began sketching out the tale of the Green Father.
 * Forced by Tree Magic to be a Really Swell Guy



"Ivern used to be a man, a long time ago", explains FauxSchizzle. "He was a sort of Freljordian, the first one to discover Ionia." While exploring the Ionian forest, he happened upon a sacred tree called a Godwillow. Back then, Ivern was a miserly, vicious man; seeking the tree's power for himself, he cut the Godwillow down. But as wood cracked and fell, the tree's magic essence lashed out and gripped the Freljordian, reaching deep within him and bonding with his troubled soul. Tree and man became one, and in that moment all of Ivern's violence, selfishness, and cruelty was drained out of him. The void in his heart was replaced with childlike wonder and gentle curiosity. He was filled with a joyful zest for life.



"In the hundreds of years since then, he’s been wandering around the forest taking care of it", says FauxSchizzle. "He cares for all the creatures of the forest, and he has this strange, looming sense in his mind that, if he does his job well, one day he'll earn the right to become the tree he cut down."

We realized that if Ivern was really in the forest for such a long time, he'd probably start to develop pretty weird insights into his natural surrounding. He'd develop relationships with the creatures that live in the forest, some which would stretch back for ages. Ivern has a wild, crazy history with the  and he occasionally references it when he encounters his buff buddy in-game: "It's the Kumungu affair all over again!" he shouts. "Run!"



Ivern's a pacifist, and he loves the animals of the forest. So, an idea struck us: What if he's a jungler who instead of harming them? It would work perfectly on a thematic level, but it'd also open up some really weird design possibilities - namely, we could make him a support-jungler.

We struggled with figuring out a way to communicate that Ivern was 'freeing' the monsters in the jungle, instead of abducting or vaporizing them: in early builds, looked like flowery death machines which sapped the life force away from camps. He'd come prancing over, click on the grove, and the critters would fade away like little ghosts.


 * A Good Bro Wherever He Goes





Any jungler needs three things: mobility, some utility for ganks, and the power to clear out jungle camps. It's this third requirement that makes it nearly impossible for champs like, , or to work in the jungle. Their kits are packed with teamplay-oriented abilities, but they don't do so hot when facing down a pack of. Even if they manage to clear out a few camps, afterward they're unlikely to be in good enough shape to go toe to toe with an invading or an.

Our idea for Ivern was like a loophole we could use to bypass the damage limitations on supports. The Green Father's  gives him all the power he needs to clear camps and level up, without making him oppressively strong in duels. This one ability freed up the design of the rest of his kit, allowing us to focus on abilities he could use to empower his team.

The one really big exception to this is, Ivern's boisterous bestie who comes running whenever he needs her (assuming his timer is off cooldown, obviously) Before we invented , Ivern always needed an ally; he felt nearly useless on his own. To solve this, we landed on the idea of 'a defensive ' - a big, adorable A.I. friend who could lend Ivern some muscle whenever he needs to escape a bad situation.

Unlike the other abilities in Ivern's kit, explicitly harms others instead of buffing Ivern's friends. This is partly a way to preserve Ivern's nice-guy mystique: even when he uses his to crush your backline, it's not really him doing it. It's his big, overexcited buddy!

In early designs, Ivern had no way to to his allies - it's not like he'd be willing to leash it for them. But the whole idea behind the Green Father is that he wants to share the gifts of nature with others. "What are the gifts of the jungle?" asks champ designer Blake 'Squad5' Smith. "Buffs!" The natural solution was to let Ivern create copies of buffs without causing harm to the camps.



We were keenly aware that Ivern isn't the first 'tree guy' in League of Legends. and are the Rift's other nature-magic beings, but they differ from Ivern in a couple of ways. , unlike Ivern, was never actually a man. He's pretty much an angry batch of forestry brought to life. , too, is a sort of thorn monster taking on a human form. Ivern's human origin is the thing that makes him special.
 * This Season's Style Tips for Men Made of Tree Parts



We leaned a lot on our visual designers to capture and communicate little storytelling details that hint at Ivern's former humanity. They gave him a ring hanging from his antler that was probably once a part of his ear - perhaps it stayed hitched into the flesh as it was morphing into wood. He's also still got his little gauntlet he wore when he was a Freljordian adventurer, although now mushrooms have grown all through it.

A big area of concern for our illustrators was Ivern's face. It needed to be human, full of emotion and personality. We realized that he ultimately needed to look like a very old man who's lived a life full of mischief and joy; we gave him a big ol' crooked schnoz and put a kind twinkle in his eyes. "If you were to run into Ivern in the woods", says concept artist Chris 'Skeeziks' Campbell, "how would you feel?" Would you want to A) give him a hug, B) take a picture of him, or C) run?

Smash your taunt button while playing as Ivern, and you'll find he doesn't have too many zingers or insults to throw at other champs in League. Instead, he says nice things to everyone! When he taunts an enemy in-game, he makes a joke about ing as a sassafras at next year's tree con.





In the end, we decided the best design might evoke a little bit of all three reactions. Ivern's a, and when those who will evil toward nature's bounty come around, Ivern is left with no choice. Even nice guys have to fight, sometimes.



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