MY NOTEBOOK
Ekko
A young inventor who uses the Z-Drive to explore different possibilities in time. His ingenuity serves the people he cares about, including the Firelights.
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Runeterra / Dual city-states
Dual city-states
Zaun
Beneath Piltover, Zaun’s walkways, industries and ingenuity unfold in a haze of chemical fumes.
Inside the story · 2 MIN
Industry · Mutual aid · The cost of invention
A city with depth
Zaun spreads through the canyons and lower reaches beneath Piltover. Pipes, bridges and industrial structures filter both movement and light. Access to clean air is unequal, and pollution makes geography a matter of health as well as address. Yet the undercity is also full of markets, workshops and communities; describing it only through toxicity misses the lives built there.
Innovation without equal protection
Alchemy, mechanical modification and dangerous research create opportunities alongside exploitation. Work rejected above can find patrons below, but freedom from restrictions does not mean freedom from powerful employers. Renata Glasc’s business empire shows how dependence can become a method of control. The promise of a better body or a better life often comes attached to someone else’s terms.
Defending a home, not escaping a label
Ekko and the Firelights bring community defence into a setting often defined by crime from an outsider’s perspective. Jinx turns personal trauma and improvised technology into upheaval that can inspire others as well as harm them. These are not interchangeable responses to hardship. Their stories make room for solidarity, anger, invention and the desire to decide what the city becomes.
One relationship, many versions
Piltover and Zaun cannot be understood in isolation: trade, pollution, labour and political decisions cross between them. Arcane and updated biographies develop this relationship beyond the older atlas. Rather than imposing one final political status on every story, follow the publication context of each source. The durable tension is between a shared urban system and profoundly unequal power within it.
RUNETERRA
People who shape the story
Renata Glasc
A chem-baron whose wealth rests on binding other people’s interests to her own. Her power reveals how business can govern without a crown.
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Jinx
An inventor of destructive devices whose actions resonate beyond personal revenge. Her story connects private wounds to public upheaval across both cities.
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.