| Basic | |
|---|---|
| Advanced | |
| Craftable Emblem | |
| Uncraftable Emblem | |
| Radiant | |
| Artifact | |
| Support | |
| Consumable | |
| Removed | |
| Disabled |
Brackern[]
Surrounded around the Shuriman Continent are several clans of Brackern, including clans in the Shuriman desert.
Dormun[]
The Dormun are gigantic, slow-moving creatures protected with large chitinous plates covering their body. In the harsh conditions of Shurima they have evolved to survive the perpetual drought by utilizing an unknown sense to locate hidden reservoirs of water. Incidentally, certain nomadic tribes have built themselves a permanent home upon the backs of these beasts where they clean the creature and hunt any airborne pests who venture near.
Eka'Sul[]
Desert goats that travel in herds.
Mwatis[]
Mwatis are goatlike creatures with large plated casques on their heads. Mwati wool and plate are prised for felting and insulation.
Kmiros[]
Gigantic scarabs that roam in swarms, looking for unfortunate travelers to feed on. They seem to be common prey for 
Rammus.
Outerbeasts[]
- Main article: Voidborn
Beside the Xer'Sai, other creatures from the Void, referred to as 'outerbeasts', can be found in the desert.
- Xer'Sai: Creatures from the Void that plague the southern deserts. They are the size of big dogs on average, but can be smaller or much bigger.
Rek'Sai, as the queen, is by far the largest and most dangerous of her species. Xer'sai burst from their small burrows and ravage anything nearby, to the detriment of desert caravans. Once dead, the Xer'sai decompose at an abnormally rapid rate and become inedible.
Ralsiji[]
Large and aggressive minotaur-like creatures. They are humpbacked quadrupeds with long limbs and thick horns.
Shuriman Camel[]
A breed of camels native to the deserts of Shurima and are used by caravans as well as common folk as primary mode of transportation. Despite being well-suited for lengthy travels in the desert landscape, they are still prey to a many predator such as the Xer'Sai.
Sandswimmers[]
Sandswimmers
Sandswimmers are massive quadrupedal creatures that traverse the Shuriman desert in cyclical patterns. They got their name due to their preferred method of travel. Their narrow bodies and webbed feet are perfectly design for swimming under the sand. They feed on bugs and other small creatures most desert beasts ignore. Scavengers will often memorize the predictable paths these creatures take, and jump onto their backs to ride as far as they wish.
Skallashi[]
The Skallashi are large quadrupedal herbivores. These hardy beasts of burden are common across Shurima, ideally suited to the harsh desert environment. Their key body feature is their long legs. Notoriously bad-tempered, they are nevertheless treated with great reverence. Their brown hides are often painted with sacred symbols of protection, and their horns hung with totems and charms. While these creatures are mostly used for travel and carrying heavy loads, on some larger skallashi people are able to built miniature rooms for more comfortable travel. To own one is often considered a sign of considerable prosperity.
Champion Roadmap: June 2020[]
- Outro
That about covers everything we wanted to talk about today. Sorry we weren’t able to find the new jungler—what a weird experience that was. I'll make sure to keep my wits about me for the roadmap later this year, where we’ll talk about two of the other new champs in development. Tune in next time to hear about a sensational mage and an ultra-heavy tank support, which will round out our goal for releasing one new champ per role each year.
Champion Roadmap: September 2020[]
- WANTED! MUST BE ALIVE FOR REWARD!
Attention!
The empire will pay greatly for the capture and detainment of this runaway criminal. The fugitive is EXTREMELY dangerous, so approach with caution. They are heavily armored and will attack if even slightly provoked. Wear light armor, as reports show warbands have been killed with their heavy gear twisted and shattered, littering the ground around them. The criminal’s been known to mount a quick retreat when cornered, so bringing a highly-trained team is recommended.
If you somehow manage to detain this criminal, please bring them directly to the closest empire building marked with a black rose.
Champion Insights: Rell[]
By Riot Cashmiir[3]
Noxus has a problem. No, it’s not just Demacia’s penchant for spinning nationalists, the creeping threat of the Black Mist, or the ever-increasing number of demons in Runeterra. Their problem is closer to home. And it’s metal as f&^%.
Mordekaiser is inevitable. And Noxus must stop at nothing to defeat him.
But what does that look like? Are they willing to throw aside all morals to construct their ultimate weapon? And what happens when it turns against them?
Rell happens. And Noxus is not prepared.
- Fueled by Rage
When the dev team first started working on Rell, they had two things to go off of: dark support and tank. That’s not quite enough to make a character, so they did what anyone would do: turn to the artist.
“We really loved the idea of creating a tanky support. It’d been a long time since we’d made one—Braum was actually the last,” says senior concept artist Justin “Riot Earp” Albers. “But unlike 
Braum, we wanted her to have a darker past and personality. I explored a few different options, but everyone was really attached to the metal bending concept. After we landed on that, we just had to decide where Rell came from.”
When darkness, strength, and armor are involved, there’s one area of Runeterra that just really works: Noxus. It’s a land of inclusivity, tolerance, and opportunity —at least, to those willing to put aside ethics for a chance at power.
“ The Black Rose , who run Noxus’ clandestine operations, are interested in some horrible things to further the empire’s expansion and power,” explains narrative lead Jared “Carnival Knights” Rosen. “Demon calling, Void magic, resurrecting and controlling dead gods... A little of this, a little of that. And one of the things this group of crappy 1000-year-old aristocrats have discovered is sigil magic, which has the ability to rip the magic out of living things and then forcibly put it into someone else.”
So when the team was looking for a way to explain Rell’s “dark past,” they focused on that dark side of Noxus
Born to an agent of The Black Rose and a ranking Noxian soldier, Rell’s magic manifested at an early age—in the incredibly rare form of ferromancy , or metal manipulation. Perfect for combatting Mordekaiser, a revenant attached to metal. So her parents did what any truly patriotic Noxian would: They sent her to an academy for magical kids, to be turned into weapons for Noxus.
Rell spent years at this facility, forced to fight the other students under the guise of “learning from one another to improve.” And she defeated every single one.
But as she bested the other students and grew increasingly powerful, they began to disappear. Torn from her life, just as the instructors tore the magic from their bodies and implanted it into Rell, their ultimate weapon .
“The magic from the other kids is placed into Rell with the sigil magic, which empowers her own latent powers,” explains Riot Earp. “But the process is incredibly painful, for both Rell and the other students. I focused a lot on adding the sigils to her arms—especially the one that holds her lance—to make sure it’s clear when playing her. I wanted the pain that she underwent to be clear to players, so they understood her past.”
When Rell defeats other students, they either die from their wounds or the staff tears the magic from their bodies to implant into Rell. And that process leaves them null, in a zombie-like state devoid of magic and emotion.
But Rell never signed up for this. She doesn’t want to fight her friends, the only ones who ever showed her compassion and love. And once Rell finds out she’s been lied to and forced into harming others... She’s furious at everyone and everything. And she tears the entire place down.
“Anger is such a hard emotion to empathize with, and we wanted to make sure players could understand where Rell was coming from. All of the pain she’s gone through, the heartbreak,” says narrative editor Elan “Qulani” Stimmel. “It’s also one of the reasons we decided to make Rell young—it’s much easier to understand and relate to a young person’s fury. Most teenagers are filled with angst, and that’s without discovering their life has been fueled by lies.”
This is where we meet Rell. She’s free from the facility. The Black Rose got what they wanted. Noxus’ greatest weapon is finally unleashed.
- Ferromancy Unbound
“I wanted to make Rell the tankiest tank the world has ever seen. I had this idea of a heavily armored character who sunders the ground she walks on, making the earth beneath her collapse from her might,” says game designer Stash “Riot Stashu” Chelluck. “Unfortunately that’s hard to display in League, and I still needed to make sure she thematically felt like she was manipulating metal. I was looking for neat ways to map her ferromantic powers into her gameplay, to really make her feel powerful and hard hitting without feeling like a mage.”
That meant the team needed to understand what exactly ferromancy is. How does it work? What does it look like in League? And how do they make sure Rell feels like a tank, not a metal-slinging mage?
“I wanted to make sure that Rell visually reads as a tank,” says Riot Earp. “When I was designing her armor, which is made from metal from the school, I wanted to make sure it read that she’s incredibly strong and powerful. The metal part of her armor is bulky and dark. So to balance this I gave it a dress-like silhouette.”
Rell crafted her armor using her ferromancy. It acts as a sort of magnetic field that allows her to control latent metal in the ground, metal that touches her directly, or any that comes close to her. What she can’t do is reach hundreds of meters across a battlefield to pick up a single person and crush their bones armor.
“Because Rell needs to be close to her enemies to manipulate their armor, and she plays as a tank, I needed to make sure that her gameplay fit that,” Riot Stashu explains. “Her ultimate became the best way to illustrate that particular tank fantasy. She becomes supercharged with power and enemies in her vicinity get pulled in, but it doesn’t interrupt their casts or channels.”
But that still doesn’t explain what ferromancy looks like in League. How do you make something invisible clear in a game that requires clarity?
“When I started on Rell I didn’t really have any idea how to give ferromancy clear effects. It’s funny, I actually started by looking at magnets,” shares VFX artist Kyle “RiotPrismaPrime” Valentin. “I don’t really understand how they work, but I know that the way they pull is incredibly strong, and it’s often portrayed as distortion in the electron molecules in the air.”
After some tinkering with different effects and forms of light manipulation, RiotPrismaPrime landed on something he felt was uniquely Rell: chromatic aberration. By focusing on color distortion, RiotPrismaPrime made it appear as if light bent differently around Rell when she cast her abilities. And by adding her highlight colors of red and yellow, it added a more earthy, ragey element that demonstrated her personality.
“While ferromancy isn’t a new concept in fantasy or sci-fi, it’s new to Runeterra, and needed to be audibly different from other forms of magic,” explains sound designer Darren “Riot DummerWitz” Lodwick. “And it should be distinguishable from other metal-wielding champions like Mordekaiser and Leona. So I used a bunch of different methods and sources, like grinding metal, dry ice, and a lot of processing to make the metal sound fluid.”
- A Knight and Her Steed
“One of our other goals with Rell was to hit on the ‘armored and mounted knight’ thematic,” says Riot Stashu. “And because I wanted her to be so tanky, I needed to figure out how it’d work with her gameplay. We wanted her to be this unstoppable, slow-moving tank, but that kind of feels bad in League because the game relies heavily on movement, positioning, and dodging. But I couldn’t stop thinking of that idea, and I needed to find a way to make it palatable.”
Because Rell has the ability to manipulate metal to her will, she clearly wouldn’t spend all day walking around, lugging heavy armor everywhere... right? She’d need something that freed her up to move faster.
Finding the right mount for Rell ended up taking more work than the team expected. It couldn’t be too cute, because it’s Rell we’re talking about. She’s on a mission to hunt down the faculty at the academy and slay them where they stand, she’s not going to ride a rainbow unicorn to do that. But anything that was too... otherworldly wouldn’t give the clear “mounted knight” read.
“I explored a few options for the appearance of Rell’s mount,” shares Riot Earp. “I tried a lot early on like abstract metal figures or a basilisk. But none of them worked because they were visually confusing. So I decided to stick to a horse, but make it more metal and hollow. This way it’s clear this isn’t the type of horse you’d feed carrots to.”
Rell’s form swapping let the team explore two very unique gameplay fantasies: the tankiest tank and the mounted knight. Because she can swap between these two forms (on a cooldown, of course) they were free to lean hard into each. When Rell dives the backline and dismounts, she moves incredibly slowly, but has more armor and magic resistance. She’s looking for the fight, and she won’t run from it.
“When Rell makes the decision to enter the fight and dismounts, she’s stuck in that form for a while,” Riot Stashu shares. “The upside is that we made her really tanky, so she can survive for a bit, but she’s not unkillable. She actually got the nickname ‘the int horse’ during playtests. She can get to any fight on her horse, but she’s fully committed to it once she dismounts. But that’s okay. Players will figure it out, and once they do it’ll feel amazing.”
But there was a small hiccup in the mounting fantasy the team wanted to hit. It was hard to animate... Like really hard.
“Making Rell’s mounting animation feel good was really challenging. The horse is the avatar of her rage and magnetic powers, and I wanted it to be this cinematic moment for players so it would match the fantasy of her riding into battle,” says senior animator David “davehelsby” Helsby. “Each individual piece of her armor needed to be animated, and it needed to be visually clear while still delivering on that exciting moment. I spent a lot of time visually lining up each piece of metal from the horse to her biped armored form.”
There’s another reason for wanting Rell to embody the “mounted knight” thematic... Remember the null children from the academy? She certainly does.
“At the end of the day it could be easy to look at Rell and think that she’s just angry, full of hate, or out for revenge... And while I’m not saying that’s not true, her ultimate goal is much softer than that,” says Carnival Knights. “She commiserates with these kids more than she can with anyone else. And she’ll stop at nothing to save them. In many ways she’s a gallant knight. She wants to defend those who can’t, starting with the other kids.”
- The Life Lost
Rell could have been different if anything in her life had changed. If her parents hadn’t handed her over to the Black Rose, if she hadn’t discovered the truth of the school, or if she’d been shown a sliver of love. But that’s not what happened.
And while Rell won’t dwell on the past, that doesn’t mean she can’t find a little joy in the life she has now...
The Midscope Process & Rell[]
By Stephen 'Raptor' Auker and Terra 'Yasuna' Ray[4]
- Midscoping the Iron Maiden
Hello! I’m Riot Raptor, the game designer on Rell’s midscope and I’m here to talk about where everyone’s favorite metalmancer is at in her update process.
We think Rell has an exciting fantasy and playstyle around swapping between mounted and unmounted forms. And while she is a strong champion, she feels overly punished when she misses W. She also doesn’t quite match expectations for what a mounted lancer might do. This means that she didn’t fully capture the audience that might’ve been interested in her. So when evaluating what midscope opportunities were out there, Rell was near the top of the list.
We settled on a few goals to help her live up to her potential:
- Lean into the Mounted/Dismounted fantasy: Let Rell feel fast—like she can charge enemies down while mounted—and let her feel like a formidable fighter while dismounted.
- Increase Play Pattern Variance: Give Rell more options in lane and teamfights besides landing W, and make sure that while she’s dismounted, there are useful things she can do.
- Sand off some QoL issues: We’ve heard your feedback on some of the more frustrating parts of Rell’s kit, so we wanted to help alleviate some of them. We want to smooth out things like poor ward clearing, not being able to use E while alone, and Q having reduced power on subsequent enemies.
The design team has taken a few stabs at a Rell midscope before, but nothing really stuck... except for her new E. That’s right, Rell’s getting a completely new E which was inspired by one of the earlier explorations from Rell’s original designer Stash “Riot Stashu” Chelluck.
In development Rell used to be a lot faster while mounted, and was lovingly called the “int horse” because of it (which was a very fun playstyle). The challenge we ran into during her midscope was how to let her feel fast without turning her into too much of a roamer during laning.
We also tried a bunch of ways to make her dismounted form feel more empowering. In one version, she had a three-hit passive (we are legally required to try this on all champs) that reset her W cooldown, turning her into an infinite pain train constantly dismounting and remounting. This was a lot of fun (for the Rell at least), but ultimately didn’t solve the core issue of making each form feel distinct.
In the end, we found that making Q have a much stronger impact in both forms (it has the original E stun now, which we wanted to preserve but move elsewhere), boosting her dismounted attack speed and range, and softening the self-slow went a long way toward making it a form that you wanted to be in during chaotic fights.
We’re still working on Rell’s finishing touches like VFX, SFX, animations, and fixing bugs. And we’re also exploring her viability in roles outside of support (though this isn’t necessarily one of our goals, and we want to keep her primarily in support). We probably won’t share another update on her progress before she goes live, as we’re eagerly looking forward to her charging onto the Rift at full speed.
With that, I’ll hand things back to Riot Yasuna for some final words!
Media[]
- Related Music
- Related Videos
- Main article: Summoner icon
- Main article: Emotes
Trivia[]
- Rell is voiced by Laya DeLeon Hayes.[5]
- The goal for Rell was to create a darker themed female tank support.[6]
- Rell's codename in development was Int Horse and DarkSupport.[7]
- Rell's placeholder models in development was a recolored Lunar Eclipse Leona for her unmounted form and a recolored High Noon Ashe on her horse for her mounted form.[8]
- Rell originally had a voiceover interaction with Taliyah, but this was scrapped primarily due to the low activation frequency in typical gameplay.[9]
References[]
- ↑ Champion Roadmap: June 2020
- ↑ Champion Roadmap: September 2020
- ↑ Champion Insights: Rell
- ↑ /dev: The Midscope Process & Rell
- ↑ Zimberfly on Rell VA
- ↑ Reav3 on Rell Goal
- ↑ Nekomaru on Rell Codename
- ↑ Reav3 on Rell Temp Models
- ↑ Riot Games Community. (2020, December 1). Riot Report: December 2020 - Rell Lore Live Q&A, Legends of Runeterra Updates, and League Skins Gal Video. Youtube.