MY NOTEBOOK
Yorick
A survivor determined to lift the curse. His use of corpses and spirits is unsettling, but his goal is to free the land rather than extend its suffering.
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Runeterra / Lands shrouded by the Black Mist
Lands shrouded by the Black Mist
Shadow Isles
The Black Mist shrouds the ruins of the former Blessed Isles. A landscape shaped by the Ruination.
Inside the story · 2 MIN
Ruination · Black Mist · Unfinished lives
Before the darkness
The Shadow Isles were once the Blessed Isles, home to a learned civilisation that protected knowledge and arcane treasures. The Ruination tore apart the boundary between life and death, transforming that refuge into a place of suffering. Its ruins matter because they retain traces of what was lost: the darkness covers a society with a history, rather than an empty landscape created solely for monsters.
A curse that crosses the sea
The Black Mist drains life and carries restless spirits beyond the islands. Death within its reach may become another form of captivity rather than an ending. The Harrowings connect the Isles to places such as Bilgewater, where supernatural danger interrupts ordinary life. The Mist is not the Void: one is rooted in a catastrophe involving souls and death, the other threatens existence itself.
The dead do not share one purpose
Kalista answers betrayal with vengeance. Thresh deliberately prolongs suffering by imprisoning souls. Yorick uses a frightening power over the dead in pursuit of release for his homeland. Their incompatible motives matter: belonging to the Isles does not make every character an ally of every other, and monstrous appearances do not tell the whole story of a character’s intentions.
Reading the ruins
Sunken streets, broken vaults and the remains of sacred spaces invite two kinds of exploration: reconstructing the civilisation before the catastrophe and following the survivors bound to it. Stories about the Ruined King and the Sentinels develop different stages of that aftermath. Dates and publication context matter when comparing them with the older regional atlas.
RUNETERRA
People who shape the story
Kalista
A spectre who makes vengeance into a terrible bargain. Her story ties the fate of the Isles to loyalty, betrayal and the price of retaliation.
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Thresh
A former custodian of arcane secrets who became a tormentor of souls. His lantern embodies deliberate captivity, not an innocent passage into an afterlife.
Read the biographyFollow the connections
RIOT MMO
From Runeterra to the MMO
These histories explain the world in which Riot is developing its MMORPG. They do not establish a playable people, a class, a starting zone or a confirmed quest. Follow the journal for the distinction between Riot’s announcements and community analysis.
Follow the MMO journalSources & further reading
Original editorial summaries based on Riot’s published atlas and biographies. Older sources may describe earlier stages of an evolving story.