#Ekko won first place in an invention competition with his hoverboard and received an investment in its mass production

[lbulldesigns]

Zaun (AITAH Arcane AU Mood board)

The City of Iron and Glass, and revitalisation

Seventy years ago, Zaun, still going by the moniker of the Undercity, was in a constant state of desperation.

The mining colony turned city, was no stranger to hardships. From unsafe mining conditions to unsafe working conditions within the factories jammed packed within the city, to unsafe living conditions due to poor maintenance to residental structure and over pollution brought on my the factories and the toxic gases from the deep mines being compressed within the underground city.

All of this was due to the conscious negligence of Piltover. Whose one and only concern was image and wealth. To them Zaun was an eyesore but they refused to acknowledge that this was due to them.

They preferred the image of being righteous and a city of academics and kept their well-shoed foot to Zaun's throat by unleashing their Enforcers upon them who dealt their "justice" in brutal fashion.

This continuous abuse and oppression had to come to an abrupt end, however.

In 1954 Piltover and its Enforcers had stepped on Zaun and Janna's (Goddess of the Wind) final nerve.

When during an arrest of a factory worker voicing his outrage for being unfairly fired, an officer took liberation to bludgeon a 12-year-old girl who had stepped in to beg her father's release before shooting dead the distraught father.

In this moment something snapped within the people witnessing the scene and every Zaun citizen present attacked the Enforcers without conern for their own lives. This attack would go on to inspire more within the city to take up arms and riots broke out everywhere, with the intention to put as many Enforcers down.

Janna tried to protect as many innocent lives caught in the crossfire as she could, but the death toll was climbing with her people dying in droves.

When Piltover took to trying to blow the bridges and starve the residents in Zaun, Janna had reached her limit and decided something more drastic had to be done.

For a month, the Goddess of Wisdom and Harmony became an unyielding and unrelenting, furious storm.

She took the fight straight to Piltover and wrecked havoc upon the city. Gleaming, unblemished structures that reached to the sky came crumbling down as if they were sandcastles within the oceans reach.

She dispersed her followers to ransack the city of the progress of food, clean water, and medicine. And kept the Enforcers secluded to Zaun, without backup and provisions and many beaten Zaunites looking for their own pound of flesh.

After a month of nonstop terror from the Goddess and many injured and homeless within Piltover, its Council flew up a white flag and begged for an audience.

Upon the Bridge of Progress, Janna stood mighty, if not unproud of her destruction, and yet resolute in her decision. She was done watching the mindless cruelty and violence to her people and would be ruling over them from then on.

An accord was struck that day.

Zaun would be its own nation from then on, and Piltover would pay compensation to the people for their negligence, in the form of money, technology, healthcare, and education.

An accord, that Piltover had no other choice but to agree to.

And this is how we come to Zaun today, under Janna's rule.

A city crushed by oppression and poverty, now turned metropolis of renewed vigor and spirit.

Zaun has transformed within the past seventy years into a technological paradise, built of off science and magic.

Its once toxic air has been dissipated by the trees that now grow within and upon every building, sustained by the HexTech-empowered artificial sun bolted to the cavern ceiling, and scheduled rainy days using the sprinkler system stretched out throughout the city. Water filtration has drastically improved drinkable water, and botany has become an essential subject in every school.

Zaun is now the cultural hotspot in Runeterra, with many coming from all over the world to visit or call Zaun its home.

You'll now find many cultures thriving within the city, as well as old structures standing proud against the tides of time.

One such building is a bar/pub called The Last Drop.

Religions of all caliber operate in Zaun, but none hold a candle to the temples of the Wind Goddess.

Mages with elemental talent, are often in high demand as they assist in the evironmental stability of the city.

And although Enforcers do still operate within the city, their presence holds neither respect nor true authority. Many Zaunites will opt to seek the services of private security firms, such as The Eye Of Zaun or the newly formed Firelights flying through the city on their chem tech-powered hoverboards; invented by 15-year-old Ekko Bennet in 2015, making him one of Zaun's first adolescent millionaires.

However, Enforcers have been reported to tiptoe on the boundaries of the two cities accordance.

With reports of Zaun civilians being killed just on the outskirts of the city, and more than a few being assaulted and/or killed within back alleys of Zaun. It is not difficult to discern what is happening.

The Enforcers are either trying to return to their old ways, or someone is looking to profit of off a potential war.

Either way, Zaun will be ready for what comes at it.

It vows to not wait for their gentle Goddess to bloody her hands again for them, they are the warriors who built this town.