GinkyGotBack
A Very Good Boy
Premise
Okay, the most important thing to keep in mind is that this is 100% still a work in progress. This isn't so much a recruitment thread as it is a genuine interest check thread. I'm throwing this out here mostly just to see if anyone would actually be interested in it. I know people are really into D&D 5e around here, like, really into it, but I haven't seen any interest in League of Legends on this site as of late. So anyway, if this is something you'd find yourself interested in, just let me know down below so I don't feel so lonely in my love of Runeterra and its lore. Also, if you have any ideas on things to add such as race or class options or questions, or if you just feel like geeking out with me don't hesitate!
My ultimate goal is to make it so that the campaign is accessible to everyone! You won't need to have any experience in one medium or the other to be able to join the campaign. If you're a D&D veteran with no experience with LoL, flaunt your knowledge of the system and help new players to learn the rules! If you're an LoL lore aficionado, lord your encyclopedic mind and educate the ignorant mortals of the lore of the land at every twist and turn! Just be nice about it, okay? If you're not a LoL fan, a lot of the stuff below isn't going to make a whole lot of sense, but just bear with me, okay?
So, I guess the first thing I'll talk about is what I have accomplished so far and the things I've yet to get done:
Firstly, we'll talk about characters and character creation as it's arguably one of the most important aspects of D&D. For race options, I have a sadly limited selection of only five playable races as of yet. Most of them are simply reskins of preexisting races, while others have been kept as is.
Races
Starting us off, we have Humans that are 100% alike to their normal D&D 5e counterparts. I guess that doesn't really make them counterparts if they're exactly the same, but whatever. You can choose between your standard Human that gives you +1 to all stat scores and the Variant Human that we all know and love. No big surprise there. Examples of Human champions are... well, there are a lot of them. Most of them are humans.
Next, we have Golems! Golems were the latest addition to the race options as I wasn't even sure how I could make them as a playable race. Luckily, the Warforged exist! So that's what they are! Golems use the same stats and racial features as Warforged as they are no doubt as close as you can get to playing an automaton in D&D 5e. No matter what kind of Golem you play, be it a steam golem like Blitzcrank, a petricite golem like Galio, an elemental golem like Malphite, or a technological one like Orianna, they will all use the racial features from the official Eberron: Rising from the Last War sourcebook. If you want to be a more independent golem like Orianna or a more robot-like construct like Blitzcrank would be entirely up to you!
After that, we have Minotaurs! We didn't see much of them in LoL lore besides our purple buddy Alistar, but now with the release of Legends of Runeterra, it seems like we're getting to see more and more of them in-universe! I've pilfered their racial features straight from an Unearthed Arcana source, though I took it upon myself to remove their Labyrinthine Recall and Sea Reaver features as they didn't seem to fit what Minotaurs are in this particular setting. So, instead of proficiency with navigator's tools (yawn) and sea vehicles (boring), they get proficiency in Intimidation! They're big, muscle cow people, so it would make sense for them to be naturally good at scaring the wits out of people, especially since most of them live in the Noxus empire now.
Coming up we have Vastayans! Everyone's favorite race that all of League's animal-like champions are apart of now! Ahri, Rengar, Nami, Xayah, Rakan, Wukong, Neeko, and my main Sett are all examples of Vastayans! My first problem when trying to decide how to deal with Vastayan's was how was I going to let people customize their own human/animal hybrid person? Of course, there was Simic Hybrid from the Ravnica book, but there really wasn't a lot of options available to really make your Vastayan whatever you wanted them to be. So, I turned to the internet and found a homemade variant which you can check out here. This definitely gives you a lot of room to play around and make your mole, duck, lizard, bird, scorpion, or whatever Vastayan. You can even make it weird and combine different aspects of animals like a carapace as well as a pair of wings! Vastayans like Xayah and Rakan seem like a mixture of cat and bird, so it would make sense for other Vastayans to be mixtures of different animals, I think!
Finally, we have the cute and cuddly Yordles! At first, I was going to make it so that the different subraces of Yordles were halflings, goblins, and gnomes respectively, but in the end, I decided to just stick with Halflings as their template. So, you've got your Lightfoot Yordles (like Teemo, Ziggs, Tristana, the squishier, fuzzier looking ones) and the Stout Yordles (like Kled, Poppy, and even the Yordle from the Chump Wump card in LoR, all the big, beefier fellas essentially). I was going to add Amphibious Yordles as well, but I figured it would probably make sense for Fizz to be the only one for now.
Now, let's move on to things that I could not or haven't found out how to implement for races.
At first, I wanted to make Ascended a race option and I thought that I could just reskin Aasimar to fit that bill, but they are really just such a varied race that it would be really hard to fit them all under one banner, so to speak. Not to mention, Aspects (a type of Ascended of Targon origin; Kayle, Pantheon, Taric) when they die, their entire concept/ideal that they're based on (Justice, War, Protection) completely cease to exist or change drastically. That seems like a lot of consequence to come out of a single PC death, plus it gives them a lot of power as well. Perhaps players could choose to be Shuriman Ascended and use the stat blocks for Tabaxi, Lizardfolk, Loxodon, and other animal-like races, but that would have to mean that their characters are very old and/or very powerful. That seems like something that I and the player who chooses to be some kind of Ascended would have to take up. Maybe a Hexblade Warlock could be like a darkin or something, I don't know.
Trolls would naturally be considered a Large race, but I mean, so are Minotaurs and they (kinda) got their own race (albeit they got downsized to Medium). Maybe I'll add them in later, we'll see.
I also had the idea of making void-altered human (like Kai'Sai) a possible race or a subrace for Human, but since I can't find a fitting race to simply reskin I'll have to make my own if I decide to implement it.
Classes
Moving onto classes, I'd say just about any official class option is up for grabs, as well as a handful of UA options. I think that the class and class archetype you pick will essentially dictate your 'powers' as a 'champion' or 'legend' of Runeterra. Rather than take the literal definition of what makes each class, we'll essentially rewrite it to fit your character's own backstory! So basically, every class option (including Rune Scribe) on this page will be available for selection.
I may also hunt down some other homebrew options for players who want a more custom champion. Things like Revenant (Kalista, Pyke), Shaman, Gunslinger (Fighter subclass), Blood Hunter, Gambler (Rogue subclass), Bound Spirit, Lich, Lycanthrope, and potentially Vampire would be available for selection at your discretion. You could also suggest other homebrew class options, which I'll likely agree on so long as you sent it to me before finished with your character sheet. Even being a spirit/ghost could be a class option with Matt Mercer's 'Lingering Soul' class! Make your Champion your way, I say!
Story
For the most part, the overarching story will be centered around the player characters, rather than the events going on around them. Sure, they might get pulled into a feud or some cataclysmic event every now and then, but it will serve to progress their own legend, not any pre-existing Champion's. So, most of the campaign will be centered around the characters' backstories, goals, and relationships. Where we go in the story will be completely up to them, which is why I had the idea to start everything off in Piltover & Zaun! It's basically like the center of Runeterra, you can get to almost anywhere from there! Want to go to Shurima? Just go south. Demacia, Noxus, Frejlord? Go north. Bilgewater, Shadow Isles (bad idea), charter a vessel!
So far, I've been having some trouble thinking up what would make a good starting quest, though I've made some homebrew monsters for Piltover and Zaun to provide ahopefully interesting first fight for the party. If I can't think of anything by the time I actually make a recruitment thread for this, if I do it at all, I'll most likely just base the first adventure off of one of the player character's backstories or goals.
If a player would like their character to be associated with an existing champion, that's alright by me. Rather than change that champion's backstory, however, interactions between characters and the champion in question would be limited to either having happened after their current point in the existing LoL lore, or they (the character) would play a small, non-life changing role in that champion's backstory. For instance, someone's family could have been slain by Darius, but of course, you're not going to have brutally wounded him in battle for revenge. Basically, the Champions will have a bigger impact on the character's lives than they will on them. That is until the game actually starts. Then you can screw with Gangplank or hang out with Ryze all you want, assuming you meet them. If you want to avenge your dead family and kick the crap out of Darius, you'll have to do it in the present, not the past.
Potential Mechanics
At some point, a character might decide to split off from the group, either permanently or temporarily. To journey alone comes with great risk, but it may yield potential awards. If for whatever reason a character decides to go off on their ownand make the story all about them they could gain some awesome power from surviving Hard or Deadly encounters. Once they've earned enough, they can choose a Boon from the Dungeon Master's Guide as a reward. However, since these are normally only awarded to 20th level characters, they would only ever be able to earn one until/if they reach that point. It would represent a defining moment in their legend where they surpassed all odds and came out on top! Of course, the comes with the risk of having your character die. If your character were to die during this Legendary moment and were to be brought to life by their companions or some other plot device, they would be unable to try again until they have proven themselves worthy of another shot at Legendary status.
That's all I've got for now. I'll continue to post updates as I add or remove things and as I eventually get closer to finalizing this daunting project. If you have character ideas, story ideas, rules ideas, queries, concerns, opinions, or funny jokes, post them down below and I'll give them a readassuming they are worthy of my attention!
Okay, the most important thing to keep in mind is that this is 100% still a work in progress. This isn't so much a recruitment thread as it is a genuine interest check thread. I'm throwing this out here mostly just to see if anyone would actually be interested in it. I know people are really into D&D 5e around here, like, really into it, but I haven't seen any interest in League of Legends on this site as of late. So anyway, if this is something you'd find yourself interested in, just let me know down below so I don't feel so lonely in my love of Runeterra and its lore. Also, if you have any ideas on things to add such as race or class options or questions, or if you just feel like geeking out with me don't hesitate!
My ultimate goal is to make it so that the campaign is accessible to everyone! You won't need to have any experience in one medium or the other to be able to join the campaign. If you're a D&D veteran with no experience with LoL, flaunt your knowledge of the system and help new players to learn the rules! If you're an LoL lore aficionado, lord your encyclopedic mind and educate the ignorant mortals of the lore of the land at every twist and turn! Just be nice about it, okay? If you're not a LoL fan, a lot of the stuff below isn't going to make a whole lot of sense, but just bear with me, okay?
So, I guess the first thing I'll talk about is what I have accomplished so far and the things I've yet to get done:
Firstly, we'll talk about characters and character creation as it's arguably one of the most important aspects of D&D. For race options, I have a sadly limited selection of only five playable races as of yet. Most of them are simply reskins of preexisting races, while others have been kept as is.
Races
Starting us off, we have Humans that are 100% alike to their normal D&D 5e counterparts. I guess that doesn't really make them counterparts if they're exactly the same, but whatever. You can choose between your standard Human that gives you +1 to all stat scores and the Variant Human that we all know and love. No big surprise there. Examples of Human champions are... well, there are a lot of them. Most of them are humans.
Next, we have Golems! Golems were the latest addition to the race options as I wasn't even sure how I could make them as a playable race. Luckily, the Warforged exist! So that's what they are! Golems use the same stats and racial features as Warforged as they are no doubt as close as you can get to playing an automaton in D&D 5e. No matter what kind of Golem you play, be it a steam golem like Blitzcrank, a petricite golem like Galio, an elemental golem like Malphite, or a technological one like Orianna, they will all use the racial features from the official Eberron: Rising from the Last War sourcebook. If you want to be a more independent golem like Orianna or a more robot-like construct like Blitzcrank would be entirely up to you!
After that, we have Minotaurs! We didn't see much of them in LoL lore besides our purple buddy Alistar, but now with the release of Legends of Runeterra, it seems like we're getting to see more and more of them in-universe! I've pilfered their racial features straight from an Unearthed Arcana source, though I took it upon myself to remove their Labyrinthine Recall and Sea Reaver features as they didn't seem to fit what Minotaurs are in this particular setting. So, instead of proficiency with navigator's tools (yawn) and sea vehicles (boring), they get proficiency in Intimidation! They're big, muscle cow people, so it would make sense for them to be naturally good at scaring the wits out of people, especially since most of them live in the Noxus empire now.
Coming up we have Vastayans! Everyone's favorite race that all of League's animal-like champions are apart of now! Ahri, Rengar, Nami, Xayah, Rakan, Wukong, Neeko, and my main Sett are all examples of Vastayans! My first problem when trying to decide how to deal with Vastayan's was how was I going to let people customize their own human/animal hybrid person? Of course, there was Simic Hybrid from the Ravnica book, but there really wasn't a lot of options available to really make your Vastayan whatever you wanted them to be. So, I turned to the internet and found a homemade variant which you can check out here. This definitely gives you a lot of room to play around and make your mole, duck, lizard, bird, scorpion, or whatever Vastayan. You can even make it weird and combine different aspects of animals like a carapace as well as a pair of wings! Vastayans like Xayah and Rakan seem like a mixture of cat and bird, so it would make sense for other Vastayans to be mixtures of different animals, I think!
Finally, we have the cute and cuddly Yordles! At first, I was going to make it so that the different subraces of Yordles were halflings, goblins, and gnomes respectively, but in the end, I decided to just stick with Halflings as their template. So, you've got your Lightfoot Yordles (like Teemo, Ziggs, Tristana, the squishier, fuzzier looking ones) and the Stout Yordles (like Kled, Poppy, and even the Yordle from the Chump Wump card in LoR, all the big, beefier fellas essentially). I was going to add Amphibious Yordles as well, but I figured it would probably make sense for Fizz to be the only one for now.
Now, let's move on to things that I could not or haven't found out how to implement for races.
At first, I wanted to make Ascended a race option and I thought that I could just reskin Aasimar to fit that bill, but they are really just such a varied race that it would be really hard to fit them all under one banner, so to speak. Not to mention, Aspects (a type of Ascended of Targon origin; Kayle, Pantheon, Taric) when they die, their entire concept/ideal that they're based on (Justice, War, Protection) completely cease to exist or change drastically. That seems like a lot of consequence to come out of a single PC death, plus it gives them a lot of power as well. Perhaps players could choose to be Shuriman Ascended and use the stat blocks for Tabaxi, Lizardfolk, Loxodon, and other animal-like races, but that would have to mean that their characters are very old and/or very powerful. That seems like something that I and the player who chooses to be some kind of Ascended would have to take up. Maybe a Hexblade Warlock could be like a darkin or something, I don't know.
Trolls would naturally be considered a Large race, but I mean, so are Minotaurs and they (kinda) got their own race (albeit they got downsized to Medium). Maybe I'll add them in later, we'll see.
I also had the idea of making void-altered human (like Kai'Sai) a possible race or a subrace for Human, but since I can't find a fitting race to simply reskin I'll have to make my own if I decide to implement it.
Classes
Moving onto classes, I'd say just about any official class option is up for grabs, as well as a handful of UA options. I think that the class and class archetype you pick will essentially dictate your 'powers' as a 'champion' or 'legend' of Runeterra. Rather than take the literal definition of what makes each class, we'll essentially rewrite it to fit your character's own backstory! So basically, every class option (including Rune Scribe) on this page will be available for selection.
I may also hunt down some other homebrew options for players who want a more custom champion. Things like Revenant (Kalista, Pyke), Shaman, Gunslinger (Fighter subclass), Blood Hunter, Gambler (Rogue subclass), Bound Spirit, Lich, Lycanthrope, and potentially Vampire would be available for selection at your discretion. You could also suggest other homebrew class options, which I'll likely agree on so long as you sent it to me before finished with your character sheet. Even being a spirit/ghost could be a class option with Matt Mercer's 'Lingering Soul' class! Make your Champion your way, I say!
Story
For the most part, the overarching story will be centered around the player characters, rather than the events going on around them. Sure, they might get pulled into a feud or some cataclysmic event every now and then, but it will serve to progress their own legend, not any pre-existing Champion's. So, most of the campaign will be centered around the characters' backstories, goals, and relationships. Where we go in the story will be completely up to them, which is why I had the idea to start everything off in Piltover & Zaun! It's basically like the center of Runeterra, you can get to almost anywhere from there! Want to go to Shurima? Just go south. Demacia, Noxus, Frejlord? Go north. Bilgewater, Shadow Isles (bad idea), charter a vessel!
So far, I've been having some trouble thinking up what would make a good starting quest, though I've made some homebrew monsters for Piltover and Zaun to provide a
If a player would like their character to be associated with an existing champion, that's alright by me. Rather than change that champion's backstory, however, interactions between characters and the champion in question would be limited to either having happened after their current point in the existing LoL lore, or they (the character) would play a small, non-life changing role in that champion's backstory. For instance, someone's family could have been slain by Darius, but of course, you're not going to have brutally wounded him in battle for revenge. Basically, the Champions will have a bigger impact on the character's lives than they will on them. That is until the game actually starts. Then you can screw with Gangplank or hang out with Ryze all you want, assuming you meet them. If you want to avenge your dead family and kick the crap out of Darius, you'll have to do it in the present, not the past.
Potential Mechanics
At some point, a character might decide to split off from the group, either permanently or temporarily. To journey alone comes with great risk, but it may yield potential awards. If for whatever reason a character decides to go off on their own
That's all I've got for now. I'll continue to post updates as I add or remove things and as I eventually get closer to finalizing this daunting project. If you have character ideas, story ideas, rules ideas, queries, concerns, opinions, or funny jokes, post them down below and I'll give them a read
