| 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 Sneak Peek: Sona, the Maven of the Strings[]
By ByronicHero[2]
If you happen to be one of those people who is a sucker for musical types, you'll be pleased to find out that we've got a musician waiting in the wings. Whether you're longing for a melodious ballad or headed off to a headbanger's ball, it's likely that your heart will flutter as soon as you lay eyes on this little lady. Meet 
Sona, the Maven of the Strings. She'll definitely tug at the old heart strings.
Champion Update: Sona[]
With three big visual updates now 
tinkering, 
poisoning, and 
death-defying their way through the Rift, it's time to take a look at the next of our coming gameplay-oriented updates! We're talking about Sona, a champion whose kit made her one of the most passive champs on the Rift... outside of her game-changing 
ultimate. We'll fully get into the why of the update later, but first here's a rundown of her new abilities and intended play patterns to give you a feeling of how we're updating her.[3]
- Abilities
- Power Chord
- Hymn of Valor
Sona plays a melody that deals magic damage to the nearest two enemies. Additionally, Sona briefly creates an aura around herself that empowers her and her allies, charging their next basic attack with extra magic damage. Tagging an ally with the aura briefly increases its duration.
- Power Chord: Hymn of Valor's Power Chord deals even more magic damage.
- Aria of Perseverance
Sona performs a tune that heals both her and the most wounded nearby allied champion. Additionally, Sona creates an aura around herself that briefly shields her and her allies. Tagging an ally with the aura briefly increases its duration.
- Power Chord: Aria of Perseverance's Power Chord briefly reduces the target's damage output.
- Song of Celerity
Sona plays a song that accelerates her movement speed. Additionally, Sona creates an aura around herself that briefly speeds up all allied units. Tagging an ally with the aura briefly increases her movement speed boost along with the aura's duration.
- Power Chord: Song of Celerity's Power Chord briefly slows the target's movement speed.
- Crescendo
- Passive: Crescendo passively empowers each of Sona's auras, giving Hymn of Valor increased damage, Aria of Perseverance an increased shield, and Song of Celerity increased movement speed.
- Active: Sona fires out an irresistible chord in a broad straight-line skillshot. Enemies caught by the chord take damage and are briefly forced to dance.
- Laning
From the start of the game, Sona works best operating close to her allies. Here her auras help them trade effectively, with 
Hymn of Valor boosting her marksman's attacks while empowering her own poke. 
Aria of Perseverance heals more on low health friends, so while topping off an ally's health is relatively inefficient (particularly with its high mana cost and low base values) saving her heal for later in fights grants markedly more health and makes baiting all the more effective. 
Power Chord offers some tactical options, too: Aria of Perseverance's Power Chord effectively reduces the enemy marksman's attacks when timed correctly, while Sona can chase down fleeing enemies or escape from ganking junglers with the slow from 
Song of Celerity's Power Chord.
- Teamfights
In teamfights, the smaller auras encourage Sona to stay mobile enough to heal, shield, and empower her allies as needed. Song of Celerity gives her plenty of movement speed, and tagging allies with the edge of her aura gives them the same buff while extending the duration of her own. And while she previously relied on 
Flash to position for her ult, her new E's sudden surge of mobility is significant enough to get Sona into position to use Crescendo, which is just as potent and game-changing as before. Once it's been cast, Sona works best healing and shielding her squishier allies with Aria of Perseverance while using Hymn of Valor to amp up her allies' damage.
- Champion Insights
- Sona, designed by Fearless
So, let's get to the why part!
Essentially, we took Sona to the update board because we saw a unique opportunity to make her more rewarding and more fun. She wasn't terribly strong or weak, but her kit clearly lacked high moments and overall satisfaction. We wanted to keep her theme as it was and retain her awesome Crescendo while giving her basic abilities a more visible and tangible impact. Oh, and if we could sneak in some fancy texture updates in the process (and we could!) then all the better.
So what's changed? Well, Sona's gameplay now revolves more around moments of power. Instead of hanging back and winning a war of attrition during laning, Sona's now got the kit to power up her allies and save their lives when a fight turns against them. Auras are smaller and more visible now, so getting the most of them requires great positional awareness for Sona and coordination with her allies. This allows us to reward great play with much more impact for each of her songs. You'll be able to make plays as Sona, earn your team kills and save lives with clutch ability casts and smart positioning. At the same time, the enemy team has larger windows to fight back in thanks to her longer cooldowns, adding in clarity and counterplay to Sona's kit. We can't wait to see what players can do with her update.
That's about it for this update! Give the new Sona a spin and let us know your thoughts below! We'll be back with more news from the champion update team soon. It'll be 
bananas.
Quick Gameplay Thoughts 7/9[]
By Kevin 'Captain Gameplay' Huang[4]
Hi, Captain Gameplay here with an update on upcoming Sona work. If you might recall, Sona was briefly meta as a top laner who took the support item and just harassed and roamed, without really trying to even last hit. While we generally like alternative play styles (ex. camp clearing buffs to allow more champs to jungle, adding more ratios for champs to scale with alternate builds), this playstyle violated a core laning skill test—in lane, someone should be attempting to farm minions and contesting that should be valuable for the opponent. In addition, this strategy was particularly feels-bad, since top laners got endlessly harassed by long ranged attacks and auto-targeted spells.
Last year we made some changes to Sona in order to give us a way to address solo lane Sona without hitting from Bot/Support Sona. We added a mana refund that tied her to sharing auras with allies, and increased her mana costs. Functional, but not very fun: Sona loves to cast lots of spells, and her auras are actually a small amount of the mindshare of each one. Preventing her from casting spells (by running her out of mana) unless she played around an effect she often didn't think about made for a less fun version of Sona.
Well we are now re-visiting Sona to replace this mana refund mechanic with something that Sona players will be more excited about. In place of high mana costs and a mana refund, we are replacing Sona's Ultimate cooldown passive with a stacking mechanic that rewards her for using Q and W in a way that matches the mindshare of those spells. A positive incentive rather than a negative one that doesn't punish her by preventing her from casting future spells will make for a generally more enjoyable experience.
Now, when Sona damages enemy champions with Q - Hymn of Valor or uses W - Aria of Perseverance to heal an injured ally or protect them from damage with the shield (the full base value; a tiny bit of ambient damage won't count), she will permanently gain a stack of Accelerando, granting ability haste for her basic abilities (up to a cap). Striking two different champions with Q will grant two stacks, and W can grant up to 5 stacks if it heals an ally and blocks damage on all four allies. This new passive rewards Sona for using Q and W well in a duo lane, rather than penalizing her like the mana refund did.
After Sona reaches the cap for Accelerando, subsequent stacks will instead refund a bit of R - Crescendo's cooldown. We chose ultimate cooldown refund as a reward here to encourage very exciting, aggressive Crescendo plays.
Sona is currently planned for patch 11.16, which ships next month!
Media[]
- Related Music
| Sona Theme (Unused) |
| File:Sona Unused Login Music.ogg |
| DJ Sona Kinetic Theme |
| File:SonaDJKinetic LoginTheme.ogg |
| DJ Sona Concussive Theme |
| File:SonaDJConcussive LoginTheme.ogg |
| DJ Sona Ethereal Theme |
| File:SonaDJEthereal LoginTheme.ogg |
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