| Barren forbidden wasteland | |
| |
| Governance: | Attitude towards magic: |
| None | None |
| Level of technology: | General environment: |
| Unknown | Barren wasteland |
Icathia is a lost city bordering Shurima in the southeast part of the Southern Continent.
Champions of Icathia
Other Related Champions
Aatrox was one of the Ascended that had fought against the Icathians at the Battle of Icathia.- Cho'Gath's probable point of entry to Runeterra.
- Kai'Sa emerged from the Void near Icathia.
- Kassadin ventured into the Void through Icathia's Void Rift.
- Kog'Maw's probable point of entry to Runeterra.
- Kha'Zix's probable point of entry to Runeterra.
- Malzahar origin of power and location where he ventured into the Void.
- Nasus fought multiple voidborn near Icathia in the past.
- Rek'Sai's probable point of entry to Runeterra.
- Renekton fought multiple voidborn near Icathia in the past.
- Ryze fought his master in Icathia to prevent the use of two World Runes.
- Taliyah's tribe originally lived near the Void rift of Icathia.
- Varus fought multiple voidborn near Icathia in the past.
- Vel'Koz's probable point of entry to Runeterra.
- Yuumi traveled to Icathia to find her Master, Norra.
Lore
A rebellious vassal-state of ancient Shurima, Icathia is now a barren and forbidding wasteland. And yet, amid the ruins, unspeakable horrors of the Void are beginning to stir once more...
History
Shuriman Subjugation
Axamuk, the last of the Mage Kings, was the final ruler to fall before the Shuriman Sun Empress when she led her golden host of men and gods into the kingdom of Icathia. Ever since then over thousands of years Icathia was a vassal state controlled by Shurima, its people subjugated and enslaved. The ruins of its cities walls stood as a reminder to their defeat.
Fall of Icathia
The Fall of Icathia
During the last days of Icathia, the once noble warrior order of Kohari was rebuilt to retake the city. The city had been filled with screams, as baying crowds chased down and murdered every Shuriman official they could find. Resentment for centuries of humiliating laws intended to eradicate Icathian culture—and brutal executions for breaking those laws—came to a head in one blood-filled day of violence. It didn’t matter that most of these people were merely scriveners, merchants and tithe-takers. All servants of the Sun-Emperor were killed.
Sun disc effigies were pulled from rooftops and smashed by cheering crowds. Shuriman scriptwork was burned and their treasuries looted. The statues of dead emperors were desecrated.
A day after the massacre, an army of stonewrights, laborers and thaumaturges were hefting giant blocks of freshly hewn granite into place of the cities ruined walls with windlass mechanisms that crackled with magic. Ten thousand men and women were conscripted to defend the city, clad in armor of boiled leather and armed with axes, picks, and spears. Three blocks of deep-ranked infantry formed the bulk of their line. Shuriman corpses were impaled upon wooden stakes driven into the earth at its base, and flocks of carrion birds circled overhead. A silken pavilion of crimson and indigo had been raised at its summit. Robed priests surrounded it, each one weaving intricate patterns in the air with their star-metal staves.
The Sun Emperor turned his gaze upon this rebellious satrapy and marched east. It's five armies consisted of tens of thousands of men, riders on golden mounted cahriots ahead of the army. Heavy wagons the size of river barques bore strange war-machines that resembled navigational astrolabes; spinning globes orbited by flaming spheres and crackling lightning. Robed priests came with them, each with a flame-topped staff and an entourage of blinded slaves. At the heart of the army were the god-warriors. Nine Ascended (between them 
Nasus, 
Aatrox, Shabeke, Shabaka, Ta'anari and Enakai) lead by their leader Setaka, were armored in bronze and jade.
The battle was long and bloody, the Icathians would have been overrun by Shurimas might of their army and their god-warriors if not for the combined power of their mages. What happened next sealed Icathias fate. The pavilion exploded with forking traceries of light. Arcing loops of purple energy ripped into the sky and lashed down like crashing waves. The force of the blast threw everyone to the ground. The sky, once bright and blue, was now the color of a week-old bruise. Unnatural twilight held sway. A nightmarish light, sickly blue and ugly purple, smothered the world, pressing down from above and blooming up from somewhere far below.
An abyss that bled purple light tore open amid the Shurimans, and Setaka was overcome by whipping cords of matter. She fought to free herself with wild sweeps of her blade, but the power of the Void proved too much for her. The pulsing, glowing light spread over her body like a hideous cocoon. Slick coils rising from the earth, or from the very air itself, to seize the flesh of mortals. Men and women were swept up and enveloped, bodies dissolve as the tendrils of foul energy overwhelmed them.
Aftermath
At the end of the battle the territory where Icathia once stood became a Void taken wasteland from where the forces of the Void attacked every lifeform it encountered. The Shuriman Ascended fought against it for years, many god-warriors and even more mortals died at this war, but though the heroic actions of Horok, who found a way to end Void corruption destroying the Void hearts found far below the ground, where unknowabeastle horrors were hidden, the Ascended were able to seal the greatest rifts.
On a battle to seal an ocean rift on the eastern coast, Sypahx and Ta'anari fought for ten days and nights and were able to drive the Void back after the death of seven thousand Shuriman warriors died on the red shore. Only the Ascended heroes returned alive.
In the great battle to seal the Great Rfit of Icathia, Sabeke and Sabake, twins ravens Ascended had teir minds shattered with a glimpse of the Watchers. Even though those were some of the most affected, all the Sunborn(self given name to the Ascended who survived the war) lost something on that victory. Nightmarish memories of this war would haunt them and reinforce their fall into Darkin.
Locations
Icathia City
A great and terrible battle was fought against the Void before the walls of ancient Icathia. In the aftermath, the lands all around the damned city became deserted wastes, and its very existence was struck from the maps of Shurima. It was hoped, perhaps foolishly, that the horrors unleashed there would eventually be forgotten.
The Rupture
On the outskirts of Icathia lies the Rupture—evidence of the Void itself bursting forth from deep beneath the ground, in an age now lost to history. Though the bold and the curious alike have often sought to learn more, only the most foolhardy explorer would ever dare venture into the dark spaces beneath.
Culture
Icathia itself is considered mythical by most, though those who believe it once existed were certain that the sands had long since devoured whatever remained. The believers generally agree that the lost city was located somewhere in the southern half of Valoran, though details beyond this are almost entirely unreliable hearsay. Many explorers have struck out to discover Icathia, but the only fact their findings universally corroborate is that just about everywhere southeast of Shurima is malevolent, ominous, and spooky.
One of the only two living individuals to have been to Icathia and whose testimony may be considered anything more than mere delusion is 
Kassadin, the Void Walker. It is said that he found his way to the forgotten city following the scant breadcrumbs hidden in ancient texts. Within a decaying cyclopean city, Kassadin found secrets of the kind that he will never share - secrets that made him quake with fear at the visions of things to come that were thrust upon him. The power of the place threatened to consume him forever, but Kassadin took the only route available to him in order to survive - he let the Void inside him. Miraculously, he was able to overcome the alien urges that went with it, and he emerged as something more than human.
Malzahar, the Prophet of the Void. He claims to have traveled there at the urging of an unknown entity that he alone, as a gifted seer, could sense. The main substance of his report of Icathia, besides his demented visions of the yawning chaos and his communion with the entity that beckoned him thence, consists of an alien geometry of a ruined city adorned with bizarre crumbling obelisks and the giant decaying idols of dark and horrific gods. As he looked upon them his eyes, seeing what others cannot, and what none should, were filled with the essence of the Void.
Naming
The Naming conventions of Icathia consists of five elements unique to their culture:
- Birth name
- Mother's name
- Father's name
- Occupation / social standing
- Clan name
Examples of such names are:
- Axamuk Var-Choi Kohari Icath'or,
- Colgrim Avel-Essa Kohari Icath'un,
- Saijax Cail-Rynx Kohari Icath'un.
Government
Icathia was once a magocracy, with free citizens ruled by the Mage-Kings.
Icathian thaumaturges were the "magickers of earth and rock", and were tasked during Icathia's final days to excavate a weapon that would turn the tide in their nation's favour.
This is in stark contrast with Shuriman society, wherein slave labor was quite common, with
slavemasters exploiting their slaves as labourers, foot-soldiers, and occasionally 
advisers.
Kohari
The Kohari order consisted of deadly & dedicated "life-wards" of the Icathian Mage-Kings. However, the order failed to prevent the Shurima Sun Empress from deposing the Mage-Kings: many lost their lives fighting Shuriman invaders while surviving members committed suicide, thus ending the Order.
In a last ditch attempt to overthrow the Shuriman oppression and reinstate another Icathian Mage King, many Icathians adopted the occupational name Kohari, revived the order, and fought besides thaumaturges; unfortunately thaumaturges unleashed the Void, causing the ultimate destruction of Icathia.
Since the destruction, only
one known member of the Kohari has remained alive up to the modern age.Trivia
- Icathia may be based off a lost Arabian city named Iram of the pillars:
- which has been mentioned in the Quran, and later on became a significant subject in H. P. Lovecraft fictional works.
- As such, many void related elements in LoL's lore appears to draw inspiration from Lovecraft. Malzahar finding Icathia parallels with Lovecraftian character Abdul Al'hazred finding Iram.
- The name Icathia resembles:
- which has been mentioned in the Quran, and later on became a significant subject in H. P. Lovecraft fictional works.
Media
See also
References
Template:Places
