User blog comment:Emptylord/Custom Champion - Nighthawk the Winged Fury (2013)/@comment-26815373-20160512044828/@comment-3974211-20160520042009

I briefly discussed Vesper in the Development section for my custom champion, Titan, coincidentally - since creating a savage Yordle was Titan's starting point.

As someone who really wants a savage/feral/monstrous Yordle, I personally dislike Vesper's visual design because I cannot get over the impression that it's a "yordle in a costume". He doesn't look monstrous - he just looks like a generic assassin with a vampire motif who also happens to be a yordle. Given Riot's current trend of making really cohesive champions - there has to be a reason that Vesper is an assassin and why he's got a fetish for vampires, and I really don't want a lame Batman origin story.

Now sure, if I pretend it's not a costume and that Vesper was actually naked and just wholly bat-like - not bad. But I'm still not sold on why it's a Yordle, when it could just be an unexplained race like Rengar. It raises the question of "is Rengar actually an angry yordle?" and "are all animals just yordles?" I think it's out-dated to say that yordles can just have any animal features - they have a pretty cohesive biology these days and being bat-like is not part of that (nor is it cat-like, sorry Rengar).

The lore you describe with suppressed shapeshifting abilities is definitely interesting - but I personally don't like it. I don't like that it's trying to explain Gnar by saying all other yordles we know about are suppression it (knowingly or not). It seems like a really bad retcon to explain one champion who could otherwise be explained by "it's magic". I don't exactly have my image of what yordle lore is, but when I read tidbits like the interaction between Yordles and Tahm Kench - I don't want to believe that the "inner demons" that yordles are prone to suffering with are literal demons, even if that would be clever. It just feels like something we should have heard about already; and raises the question of why didn't Rumble "trigger" since his entire personally is about overcoming bullying.

@Echo Location - This champion was created before Sweeping Lens and Rek'Sai existed. The prospect of "sonar" was a pipedream that in my youth I believed would be impossible to code and something Riot would never implement. For example, I imagine Warwick's Blood Scent would be amazing with Sweeping Lens' "detection". The effect proposed above is currently, but I definitely prefer the alternatives.

@One Fell Sweep - Interesting direction. Would that be instead of the Apex Predator passive? So it'd be sort of like Rek'Sai's Burrow and grant an alternate kit, except it'd be "Perch"? You've actually inspired me to pursue this even if it's not what you meant. It would mean I'd need a new passive, though.

And to think - Nighthawk was previously in the Completed Champions section of my profile.