I do have ideas for others if you want to hear them.
Blitzcrank, for example, I could see being made by the new Hextech Trio as a proof of concept and a way to help improve the under city to some degree. Def something I could see Jayce or Viktor in particular making him.
Dr. Mundo could EASILY be a new experiment made by Singed and then deployed as a new type of muscle for Silco.
Janna, being the Goddess of Clean Air in Zaun offers a great way to explore religion in Zaun. A good opportunity to help flesh out arcane a bit more since religion is kind of a major thing in culture and ESPECIALLY among those with little else to hold to.
Renata Glasc is a literal chem baron and could definitely work as a secondary antagonist or even a potential ally of convenience.
Twitch is almost perfect as a lackey of Silco. His idealogy works well and, if you want to flesh him out, he could work VERY well as a student of singe. Perhaps a supplier of components he gathers or "Acquires".
Urgot is similar and could 100% have a backstory tied with a certain other former Noxian and would work very well as another lackey and powerful enforcer for Silco to use. Potentially he feels a debt to Silco for freeing him and "repairing" him.
Lastly Zac.... Well, when the Chem Barons see Silco with his Chem tech empowered enforcers well, chances are, they'll want to follow the trend. Any one of them could create Zac and he could be very interesting as a character to explore.
As for Piltover....
Chamile works well as the previous Sheriff's replacement and I could see her offering major funding for Hextech. In lol she helped found it but here she could easily become it's major backer looking for any advantage she can give the enforcers.
Ezreal would not be born yet but his parents are both rather familiar with magic and ancient magical devices. I could see one of them teaching in the academy or being brought in to help with working with Hextech. From there I could see Jinx helping to look out for the kid.
And Orianna is singed daughter.... Weirdly if Singed thinks Hextech might hold the key to saving her life I could see him capturing one of the trio (or maybe getting Viktor to help) in order to save her leading to her creation.
While there are plenty of ways I could incorporate additional characters from League into the story, I'm trying to limit myself to adding characters only when they make a significant story contribution. I don't want to pad out the cast list with a bunch of new characters, or I'll outrun my own grasp of them. Seraphine and Lux are characters I already know fairly well, and both had something clear to add to Jinx's story (Lux being a popular Jinx ship, and Seraphine is also a Zaunite living in Piltover trying to reconcile her double identity). I don't want to fall into the trap of references for the sake of references.
Not to mention I'm trying to keep things approachable for people who've only watched Arcane. Given the 170 champions in League and countless additional lore characters it would be easy to drown Arcane-only participants in names and backstories they're not familiar with.
Glasc would be also a great character to add, maybe make her a part of Vander's and silco's original band but one who got injured bad during the bridge attack and also grew to hate vander's Pacificism with Piltover but at the same time think's Silco's a fool who's trying to do things too fast.
The thing about Renata Glasc is that she doesn't care about Zaun at all
Silco already rides the edge of being a revolutionary vs just being straight up crimelord
But he at least sincerely believes in the cause
Renata straight up doesn't care for any notion of uplifting Zaun and never did
Even back before her parents got arsoned, Renata actively resented that they used her alchemical talents to treat needy Zaunites for free and constantly fought to convince them to use it in ways that would better benefit themselves instead
And her reaction to losing them and her arm was to reaffirm to herself that she would never let herself repeat their misguided altruism
To Renata, any belief in something bigger than yourself is idiocy that will get you killed
There is no higher cause than your own power and comfort
Renata is unashamedly in it for herself and does not pretend otherwise
She doesn't want a revolution, she wants an oligarchal business empire with herself at the head
She resents Piltover only as far as she resents not being the one at the top of the capitalist mountain
She doesn't want to tear the system down, she wants to co-opt and rule it herself
That's not to say that Renata Glasc doesn't have any humanity or nuance
There's very much shades of "never let myself be hurt ever again" in her character like with Silco
But she and Silco are not birds of a feather whose only difference is in approach
They are fundamentally ideological enemies
While there are plenty of ways I could incorporate additional characters from League into the story, I'm trying to limit myself to adding characters only when they make a significant story contribution. I don't want to pad out the cast list with a bunch of new characters, or I'll outrun my own grasp of them. Seraphine and Lux are characters I already know fairly well, and both had something clear to add to Jinx's story (Lux being a popular Jinx ship, and Seraphine is also a Zaunite living in Piltover trying to reconcile her double identity). I don't want to fall into the trap of references for the sake of references.
Not to mention I'm trying to keep things approachable for people who've only watched Arcane. Given the 170 champions in League and countless additional lore characters it would be easy to drown Arcane-only participants in names and backstories they're not familiar with.
Np, but all of them could work well as encounters or even to be seen during interludes or the like and, even if the spotlight and focus isn't on them, it can do wonders to help flesh out and expand the story and showcase things going on beyond what we, the players, are seeing.
Silco making moves to get more powerful enforcers, rival chem barons working to make their own forces, new groups on both sides hard at work with their own aims, and our allies in the hextech trio (and other techies in Piltover and Zaun) not being idle while we aren't looking.
Basically this is a world and while the focus of the story may be on powder there are as many other stories going on around her and throughout the two cities as there are people present and even hinting at it (even if it isn't explored) can do wonders to make a world feel more alive and active beyond the player's own actions.
I also would be FOR the occasional Original Character, and expansion of canonical minor characters, things that can help limit "metagaming" are nice especially since we are significantly off-canon, but know most of the story beats / characterization for Champions and canon characters in Arcane.
That said I'd doubt we'll be majorly interacting with new faces soon, given how Jinx is currently.
I also would be FOR the occasional Original Character, and expansion of canonical minor characters, things that can help limit "metagaming" are nice especially since we are significantly off-canon, but know most of the story beats / characterization for Champions and canon characters in Arcane.
That said I'd doubt we'll be majorly interacting with new faces soon, given how Jinx is currently.
I like this idea though I would also like to mention that the QM is not restricted to canon depictions since arcane didn't depict them perfectly to LoL canon.
The QM has a lot of wiggle room for the lore and back stories of each champion
I like this idea though I would also like to mention that the QM is not restricted to canon depictions since arcane didn't depict them perfectly to LoL canon.
The QM has a lot of wiggle room for the lore and back stories of each champion
Pretty much my approach. If I see something from League that has potential to be slotted in (possibly with a few tweaks) I'll use it, but if not I won't stress it. Frex, Zeri could show up if the players want to keep in touch with Ekko and build up the Firelights, because there just aren't many named and fleshed-out members of the Firelights in Arcane.
I don't have much characterization for most LoL characters and have no clue who Lux is. It's too late but Claggor being thrown from the bridge and saving himself by letting the river king in could have been a good twist. Either way, I'm satisfied leaving the world building to Chengar.
Jinx is healing back and getting more stable, extremely slowly, but she is healing a bit. I think next vote we may be able to start focusing on making things go boom. preferably Silco's empire, ideally Silco's face.
Have a random thing I found online that felt appropriate when I was discussing vague plans for how Zeri might get added to the cast. If that happens, it definitely won't be this way. I'm definitely not browsing memes because writing emotionally heavy dialogue of characters mourning death and loss is hard.
I didn't wanna go too far overboard on building my new tech. I had some fun ideas, but I could take my time ironing out the kinks in the designs. There was no harm in being safe about it. If I'd taken a bit more time to worry about safety, maybe Mylo and Claggor and Vi would still be…
Besides, I wanted to spend some more time talking to people. It'd be mean to just completely neglect Seraphine, and Caitlyn had talked about wanting to spend some time with me too. I knew everyone had talked about wanting me to heal and keep moving forward and stuff, so I ought to spend some time with my friends too. Ekko and the undercity weren't gonna vanish if I didn't rush into things as soon as I had a working prototype. I was only eleven, it wasn't like I could take down Silco on my own. Not yet, at least.
That was okay. It gave me time and energy to work on other things. While Viktor was right about me wanting the spray paint to give my inventions some style, that wasn't the only reason I'd asked for it. After all, I had a workshop with four completely blank walls, and that just wouldn't do at all. Two of them were packed with tool racks so decorating them wasn't a top priority, and one was my Big Ideas Board so I didn't want anything too distracting on it, but the last wall was a blank canvas in desperate need of something to spice it up.
I grabbed two cans of spray paint and went to town on it. I knew what I wanted; something to help me remember them. I remembered one time when Benzo and Vander had been talking about the old days and drinking a lot, probably 'cause it was the anniversary of the big bridge battle. Vander'd said something that was stuck in my head now; how he was scared that one day years from then, when he got old, he'd forget everyone's faces.
I got it. Mom and Dad ... there were times when I thought about them, and all I could remember was that day on the bridge. It was like seeing them both dead with Enforcer bullets in their bodies had been so bad it had burned out every other memory I had of them. It wasn't every day, just the really bad ones, but lately I'd been having nothing but bad days. Vander's weird monster face after he'd gotten messed up by that stuff Silco gave him had already shown up in my nightmares too. I didn't wanna remember him that way. Or think about Mylo, Claggor, and Vi being all blown up. I wanted to remember the good parts.
I started painting. I wasn't trying to make some perfect portrait of them, I wasn't good enough to pull that off. It was more about ... I guess you'd call it 'the vibes.' How they made me feel on the days when it didn't feel like everything was dragging me under and part of me wished that I'd died when Powder died, instead of becoming Jinx.
I got really into it. So much that I didn't realize I wasn't alone until Caitlyn tapped my shoulder. "Powd—I mean, Jinx?"
I jumped and whirled around to face her, barely managing to stop myself from blasting her and her fancy clothes with a bunch of spray paint. That wouldn't have been a good way to start any conversation. Though speaking of starting conversations, I should probably do some of that. "Oh, uh, hey."
"Hello." Caitlyn smiled at me, a bit awkwardly. Probably trying to think of what to say, just like I'd been doing. Good thing I'd been in the middle of working on a great big conversation starter on the wall behind me. "I didn't know you were a painter. Do you still call it painting when it's done like that? Or is there some other term that's more accurate? A sprayer? Tagger? Graffiter?"
I shrugged. Maybe there was some fancy term for it, but if there was I'd never heard it. I definitely didn't think of what I was doing as some kinda art. Art was something you showed the world and used to get money and clout. This ... was just for me. I wasn't even sure I wanted anyone else seeing it. I mean, I guess it was inevitable when I was painting on the wall of my workshop, but I didn't want many people coming into my workshop in the first place. The Kirammans were okay since they technically owned the place, Jayce and Viktor had helped set it up, and I guess I wouldn't hate Ekko or some other friends hanging out here, but that was it.
Caitlyn looked the painting over and let out a sad sigh. "Your family?" I couldn't find any words to answer her with, so I just nodded. "I wish I could've met them. I only ever really got a chance to get to know was Violet. I suppose I did technically meet Vander, but being in the same room as him while he negotiated with Mother and Sheriff Grayson hardly counts as a proper meeting. Though even that was more than I can say for your foster brothers or your parents."
She wandered over to the drawing I'd made of Vi, tentatively reaching towards it but not touching it. "Is it ... it seems wrong of me to say this to you of all people—I know it hardly compares to how you must feel, but I miss her too. It's odd. We didn't get along at all while I was supervising her community service. It felt like every time we spoke she was trying to make fun of me or start a fight. And she made up the most ridiculous nicknames just to try to get a rise out of me. Cupcake, honestly, where did she come up with something so ridiculous..."
Caitlyn sighed and shook her head, a wistful smile tugging at her lips. "To be quite honest, at first I thought she was nothing but a street thug, until ... well, one day while I was waiting for her a young gentleman approached me, hoping to win my favor. Naturally I declined but was polite enough about it that he didn't realize his cause was utterly hopeless and persisted. That was when your sister arrived and settled the matter significantly less politely. Some of the metaphors she used were quite colorful and her vocabulary was downright foul, but it got the point across. She spent the rest of the day keeping an eye on me while we worked, like she was poised to make good on her threats if the young man returned."
"Sounds like Vi," I slumped down into one of the chairs, resting my arms on the table and my chin on top of them. "She was always trying to look out for me, even when I didn't want her doing it and was sick of being treated like a little kid. It's just how she was, whenever she saw someone in trouble her first instinct was to try to protect them."
"I wasn't in trouble," Caitlyn shot back. "I could've just told him more plainly that I wasn't interested. Still, the sentiment wasn't unappreciated. I wonder, if things were different, might we have been friends? Even if it's hard to imagine Vi seamlessly blending in with the upper crust of Piltover society." She chuckled and shook her head. "Though that was part of her charm. I'd never met someone as ... direct as her."
"I think you could've been," I told her. "She talked about you a lot." Her face brightened up a bit, so I felt bad when I clarified. "Mostly she was grumbling and complaining about having to deal with you, but that's just how she was. Gotta be a big tough badass and try to hide that deep down she's a total softie. Plus we were teasing her about how much she talked about you, so she probably didn't wanna give us anything more to work with." I felt a shaky smile tugging at my lips as I added. "I thought about teasing you two, saying that one day your parents were gonna catch you trying to sneak her through your bedroom window."
"It was nothing like that," Caitlyn immediately insisted. "I wasn't—well, obviously your sister had a certain rugged charm to her, but that was it. I just thought that despite the way we occasionally butted heads she was pleasant company in her own way, and hoped that she thought similarly about me, and that perhaps even when her mandatory service was over we might be able to spend time with one another and maybe even become friends, and..." She trailed off, slowly sinking into the chair across from me and burying her face in her hands. "Oh. Oh. Oh ... damn it all."
Aw crap. Looks like all that teasing hadn't been completely off the mark, at least for Caitlyn. That ... really sucked. I mean, I'd have made fun of both of them for it, but I liked Caitlyn enough that I probably would've allowed her to date my sister. I hesitantly walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Um ... it's okay if you miss her too."
Next thing I knew, Caitlyn had pulled me into a hug. I'm not sure which one of us started crying first, but before long both of us were. Only figuring out she had a crush on Vi after Vi was dead really didn't seem fair. Nothing about this was fair. But at least when we were both hurting together, it wasn't as bad as hurting all alone.
Two days later Seraphine came to visit. I wound up meeting her in my workshop, since I wasn't sure what time she was gonna come by and wanted to get a bit more work done on my project. I'd never made a real gun before. Well, technically I still hadn't, depending on how you defined what a 'real gun' was. Still, if all the math I'd done and the blueprints I'd come up with in my head panned out, I wouldn't wanna get hit by one of the hex bolts this thing shot out. Pity I couldn't get real bullets, but if they wouldn't even let me have chemfuel I figured ammunition was right out.
Seraphine knocked before coming in, so I had plenty of time to stash my project before inviting her in. As soon as I opened the door she all but tackled me with another hug. I'd been getting a lot of those. A second later she let go of me, tucking a lock of pink hair behind her ear. "Sorry, I just ... I could feel what was going on with your song, and I wanted to try and make it better."
"Oh, right." With everything else that had happened since then, I'd almost forgotten she had weird magical mind-reading powers. Well, not exactly mind reading, but her whole 'hearing people's songs' thing still sounded like it was in the same neighborhood. "Um, thanks, I guess?" Getting hugged by a mind-reader 'cause she could tell I was sad felt a bit weird, but she'd wanted to help. "Sorry, I guess all my... you know..." I waved a hand around my head. "Is probably pretty hard on you too."
Seraphine blinked and immediately shook her head. "What? No! You don't have to apologize for anything. I read in the paper that you lost your family, it's only natural that you'd be sad. I just wish there was something I could do to... I don't know. I'd say make it go away, but that's not right. It's okay to be sad when bad things happen. I don't even need my ... you know, my thing to be able to tell that you're hurting. You're my friend, and I wanna help."
"Thanks." Even if there was nothing she could actually do to fix anything, just knowing there was someone there who wanted to help was good. At first I thought I'd lost everything, but now I was starting to realize how wrong that was. I'd lost a lot, but I still had plenty left. The Kirammans took me in and gave me a whole workshop that Jayce and Viktor helped set up. Caitlyn and Seraphine had both visited to try and help, and Ekko'd taken time to send me a letter even though things back in Zaun were still really rough. Things were bad, but they weren't ... over. I could survive this.
"Can I..." Seraphine reached towards me, and when I nodded she gently placed a hand on my arm. "I wanna try something. It's ... um, it feels like there's something my thing can do, is it okay if I try?"
I frowned and fought the urge to pull away from her. "You wanna do magic on me? You're not gonna turn me into a toad or something are you?"
"No, nothing like that. It's more like your song wants me to..." She closed her eyes for several seconds, and then she started singing.
Do you remember?
When I said I would love you forever,
And you thought it would only last as long as we were together,
Fought the past in the past,
Lost, but it made me better,
Had to feel love to feel loss,
Yeah feel that now more than ever,
You're never gonna be lost,
Your fire burns beneath the frost,
An empire built between my thoughts,
Crisscrossed across the line that can't be crossed,
A million memories in this melody singing to me,
Smile: this is the way it's meant to be
With every breath
I still believe
Even in shoreless seas
You're here with me
With every breath
With every smile
With every sound of my beating heart
Your undying fire burns ever-brighter
In my memories
In the words I speak
You live on
Within the unconditional love in your eyes
I found myself
She'd started off singing softly, almost under her breath, but by the end she was belting it out like a stage performer. Other stuff had been happening along with the song, I could see bits of blue and pink light glistening in the air, and at one point I could swear she was actually hovering in the air. Not that I really registered any of that when her singing had my full attention. It felt like she was pulling the words right out of my heart.
The song was right. Vi and my family might be gone, but a part of them will always live on in me. Not just that, they'd want me to keep working for the things they believed in. Vander and Vi wanted a free Zaun, one without Enforcers running around hurting innocent people, or big jerks like Silco making a bad situation even worse. I had to keep fighting for what they believed in.
Before I could put any of that into words, I heard a loud clatter from the doorway. I looked over, and Mrs. Kiramman was standing there, her mouth hanging open in shock and a platter of sandwiches lying at her feet. "I thought ... you might want ... a snack. What is...?"
Uh-oh. Seraphine had just been hovering and doing a little bit of a light show while she was doing the whole magical singing thing. How much had Mrs. Kiramman just seen? How was I supposed to handle this?
Current Stability: -5
Willpower: 0
Song is Yaad by Bloodywood. Do not watch the video unless you're prepared to cry.
[ ][Seraphine] Deny Everything: What Magic? That Was Just My New Hextech Thing!
[ ][Seraphine] Ask Mrs. Kiramman to keep this secret.
[ ][Seraphine] Challenge the Ethos: They're already changing the law for Hextech, why not include Seraphine?
It Won't Be Long Before Jinx Makes a Move to Help Out Ekko and Benzo. How Does Jinx Sneak Out to Reach the Undercity? If anyone else is being invited, feel free to write-in any arguments Jinx might make to get them to come along.
Just to clarify, is Challenging the Ethos gonna mean we actively work to change the laws for magic at the same time as Hextech? or that we intend to at one point do so?
[x][Seraphine] Challenge the Ethos: They're already changing the law for Hextech, why not include Seraphine?
[x][Undercity] Invite Seraphine and Caitlyn
Going alone is the option if take if we had built weapons but since we focused on social we should bring someone to compensate instead.
Now I'm unsure if Jinx is going to get enforcers to pick up Ekko. If she does then I'd be ok with bring both to help increase bonds but logically if she doesn't have back up Cait is the best option.
Edit: I'm hoping Vi becomes Warwick now. It'd be an interesting redirect since she was sent to Singe half dead and Vander might be completely dead.
Just to clarify, is Challenging the Ethos gonna mean we actively work to change the laws for magic at the same time as Hextech? or that we intend to at one point do so?
Just to clarify, is Challenging the Ethos gonna mean we actively work to change the laws for magic at the same time as Hextech? or that we intend to at one point do so?
Yeah, admitting to Cassandra that Seraphine has magic is not going to end well and challenging the Ethos that much is a non-starter. It's like trying to argue in favor of queer rights to a Catholic cardinal.
[X][Undercity] Invite Seraphine and Caitlyn "Please Caitlyn, I could've snuck out on my own but I really don't want to be alone out there right now. Zaun is my home and I should feel safe there but with everything that's happened..."
"Come on, my new friend. Wanna see your parents' old stomping grounds? It's gonna be fun I promise and I'll introduce you to my best friend Ekko, you'll like him."
hmm, this is a rough one to decide on, but I think... [x] [Seraphine] Challenge the Ethos: They're already changing the law for Hextech, why not include Seraphine?
its dangerous, its bold and confrontational. but...that's Jinx. She's gonna want to make massive changes, create a world and life where she can be happy. and I don't think she'd be happy with one of her friends under constant threat of exile. I don't want us to start a fight for Seraphine right now, let Hextech grow and gain influence, but eventually. Eventually she'll let Seraphine walk freely.
Alright, so having been reminded about how Piltover uses plausible deniability, I think we need to lie badly.
[x] [Seraphine] Deny Everything: What Magic? That Was Just My New Hextech Thing!
I don't quite enjoy it, but it really is what may work best.
[x] [Undercity] Invite Caitlyn
aaaaand taking a complete 180 I don't want to let Seraphine walk freely in Silco's territory. way too risky for her. am I seeing ghosts in shadows? maybe. have I never watched Arcane and thus know barely anything about the setting other than what I read here and what a friend ranted to me about, yes. but from what I've learnt Silco has too many eyes in Zaun and Seraphine seems like she has no combat experience right now.
(Our experience is making things go boom at least and probably biting)
