#'oh god it's the iron maiden! and... a little furry magician?'

[inamindfarfaraway]

Perhaps the funniest League of Legends character interaction that's also highly plausible in-universe, thematically appropriate and emotionally charged is Rell and Veigar teaming up.

They’re both extremely magically strong and skilled. Rell controls metal, a product of the earth from which she can directly rip ore. Veigar draws his celestial magic from the stars.

They both have dark, tragic backstories: because of their magical talent, they were taken into custody by powerful, corrupt Noxian authorities, isolated, abused and forced to use their magic harmfully for a long time, at least relative to their respective lives. This traumatized and broke them so much that they now see inflicting pain as the only thing they’re good at, even capable of. They have no friends. They've never known or have forgotten what it feels like to be loved, joyful or carefree. All they were left with once free was so much guilt and grief and so much power. From that, they have forged new identities - roles to play - built around singular, combative ambitions that they cannot imagine lives or futures beyond. Rell identifies as a gritty, edgy antihero, having noble intentions but using brutal, destructive and downright gruesome methods. Veigar identifies as a villain, but is good at heart despite not comprehending this himself.

They’re both currently roaming around the Noxian countryside in order to find and defeat as many powerful, corrupt Noxian authorities who mistreat people as they can. Rell does this to make the guilty pay for their crimes and liberate and protect the oppressed. Veigar does it to replace the authority and prove that his evil is greater and cooler than theirs, but in practice doesn’t really bother hurting anyone innocent and just ends up making the guilty pay for their crimes and liberating and protecting the oppressed.

They’re both connected to Mordekaiser, and would be primary enemies of him holding personal grudges if his plot about trying to dominate Runeterra is ever developed. Rell was such an important project for the Black Rose because they hoped that she would be able to defeat Mordekaiser. He embodies everything she stands against. Mordekaiser was Veigar’s captor and abuser, responsible for who he is today. Rell can manipulate metal; Veigar wields incredible cosmic magic; and Mordekaiser is a magical suit of armour, so if anyone can finish him off, it’s these two working together.

Rell is practical, pragmatic, cynical and consumed by bloodthirsty, vengeful rage. Veigar clings to and imitates an immature ideal of Villainy, fashioning his outfit after Mordekaiser’s stereotypical fantasy evil overlord aesthetic, his behaviour after all the most theatrical tropes that archetype can be associated with and having very dramatic and flashy magic, but inwardly lacks the cruelty (not to mention dignity) to back that presentation up.

They both want the Noxian people to respect them as a threat. Rell has wanted posters and become widely feared by the elite army less than a year since her escape. Veigar has been ‘conquering’ for centuries and is still not taken seriously.

Their respective magic colours are yellow and purple, and the rest of both of their colour palettes is grey, silver and black.

Everything about Rell is played completely straight. Almost everything about Veigar is played for comedy.

Rell could come across a village that Veigar has seized and accidentally benefitted, like Boleham in his story on the website, and try to challenge him. Or they could both arrive to kill the same tyrannical warlord at the same time. She realizes that he is a) really bad at being bad, b) just a silly little guy and c) an extremely useful asset to her quest.

So she directs him at the Black Rose and they go and utterly fuck Noxis up while helping the downtrodden. There's so much comedy to get out of their contrasting personalities and perspectives. Rell always acts like the protagonist of a grim, action-packed young adult dystopian series and Veigar is standing right next to her emanating campy children's cartoon villain energy; they both think the story is a different genre and the acting and tone should reflect that. This premise is hysterical with the proper execution.

But it isn't just funny! They can genuinely bond and learn, or in Veigar's case remember, what loving and being loved is, and begin to process their trauma and help each other cope with their C-PTSD and be kinder to themselves and have fun and become fulfilled. And then kill Mordekaiser, whose return is one of the subplots. And then live happy, safe, peaceful lives together, because they were never meant for all this violence.

Other subplots besides Mordekaiser include LeBlanc, Rell's mother and the Black Rose's operations; the wider Noxian politics they tie into; Samirah hunting Rell; Annie also wandering around Noxis causing trouble and eventually getting adopted by Rell as a little sister (they deserve it); maybe the story of a Yordle who knew Veigar before and thus can supply some of his backstory that he's forgotten, a 'normal Yordle' foil to him; and generally lots of Noxian and Yordle worldbuilding and lore.

While I'm talking about Veigar, here are my ideas for a redesign of him, because his design is... not that great:

As yordles are generally animalistic or at least furry, he strongly resembles a black cat, with gold eyes with slit pupils and a dark purple nose. Black cats are associated with the supernatural, magical arts and misfortune, they're bad omens to some, but they're also fluffy little babies. He is covered in fur. You want to scratch his checks. You want to kiss his little forehead. He's so adorable and he hates it. His large pointy ears, visible under the brim of his hat, move to signal his emotions for more expressive animation. They both have notches, which help him look pitiable and allude to his past as a prisoner and victim of abuse. He has big 'weathered street cat hissing and growling at you when you try to pet it because it's reflexively afraid of people and shows that through aggression' energy.

@ohnoitstbskyen's idea in his "What's the deal with Veigar?" video that Veigar's face (his cute kitty face!) is never fully in the shadow of his hat despite him trying to look mysterious and ominous is brilliant. He’s very lively, since he acts like a classic cartoon villain who’s so excited and gleeful about being evil, so he has a habit of jostling his hat or lifting his head to reveal his whole face and then hastily pulling the hat back down.

His robe no longer has the spiked metal hem and is of a soft, loose, flowing fabric. It’s dark indigo with silver sparkles all over it like he’s wearing the night sky, in homage to the stars he draws his power from. Except the beautiful pattern is interrupted and partly obscured by a leather belt - not spiked and black, a bolder and more ‘evil’ colour than brown and a Noxian colour - with a tasteless spiky silver buckle that clashes with the stars. I love what TB Skyen said about the armour and spikes working best as a parody of Mordekaiser’s aesthetic, so I want those aspects to look tacked on and out of place. To feel wrong. Inadvertently on Veigar’s part, but deliberately in a meta sense. Between the robe, his big purple wizard hat matching his nose that also makes his body look smaller and cuter and the black cat associations, you’ve got a perfectly good yordle celestial mage design; but the influence of Mordekaiser is intruding on it, corrupting it, even. That is the clear conflict of this design. While the robe is comfortable, the armour doesn’t appear to be. This impression is helped by it all being at least a little oversized, because Noxian armour doesn’t come in yordle size and therefore Veigar has cobbled his together out of scraps he scavenged (I mean, he STOLE, how wicked) and he isn’t really a great blacksmith. His boots aren’t clown shoes or anything, but they’re big enough that his attempt at an imposing villainous stride is awkwardly clunky. They could have black leather straps on them to hold them tighter than their metal fasteners will allow. His spiked pauldrons were cut out of human ones and still jut out too much, one of them having an irregular shape that gives him a dash of Noxian asymmetry and marks him further as a flawed imitation of a fantasy supervillain. The message that he’s incompetent at something and did it anyway out of passion, perhaps not even realizing his mistakes or at least too proud to acknowledge them, makes him come across as comedic and yet an endearingly earnest, hardworking underdog, and adds to the surprise of his genuine incredible cosmic power - he couldn’t learn to smith properly before forging his own armour, but he can command the energy of the stars to smite you? Yeah. That’s Veigar. There’s one silver ring around the base of his hat that has five spikes on it, thick, long and evenly positioned so that from above, they form a star shape. Specifically, an inverted star with one spike pointing directly forward. Symbolism! His belt buckle could also be an inverted star to establish that as a motif of his; it’s spiky, but more personal and iconic than just spikes themselves.

Moving onto Rell... she has her sigils. I don't know why she doesn't in her model or artwork, they're such a crucial part of her character design! Her biography and short story both bring them up. There are even bare sections of her arms, which would only make sense if her sigils were visible in them because it's impractical and she's so averse to vulnerability, but the sigils are missing? What? Why, Riot? So yeah, in my redesign she has sigils right down both her arms. A few more recent ones are on her back (symbolic of her betrayal by her family, the Black Rose and the government). They're always hidden, even in her lighter armour on horseback, as she's deeply uncomfortable around the concept of being exposed and seeing them herself. We and Veigar only see them in dramatic character exploration scenes when a) she feels safe enough to take her armour off, b) she needs to due to injury or to hide her identity or c) someone else damages or removes her armour. Taking TB Skyen's advice again, her outer armour and therefore horse are spikier and less polished and regular, products of her undiluted heartbroken rage in the moment she destroyed the academy. They're highly distinctive, almost organic-feeling and definitely don't look like the work of a smith.