The Lore of Runeterra's Bilgewater and its Champions

Bilgewater is a bustling port city located on the Blue Flame Isles. With the closest thing to laws and regulations being the bounty board, the city has attracted a colourful variety of people looking to make a fresh start or a fortune.

Seaside view of the main harbour of Bilgewater and the Butcher’s Bridge above it.

While the wooden houses built from the broken hulls of ships create the majority of Bilgewater’s outlook, some of the older architecture can still be seen in the city. Before Bilgewater evolved to a lively port, the archipelago was mostly inhabited by the indigenous Buhru people who call the region as the Serpent Isles. The Buhru worship the kraken Nagakabouros, often referred as the Bearded Lady, as their god of life, growth, and perpetual motion. While the religion is not shared by the entirety of Bilgewater, paying the tithe by tossing a coin overboard before sailing out of the city remains a respected tradition.

The emblem of Nagakabouros.

For a long time, the city was effectively ruled by the reaver king Gangplank. He is said to having been so certain of his own status that he regularly increased his own bounty as an open challenge to the city’s inhabitants. Eventually, after spending half of her life plotting for the revenge, Miss Fortune managed to overthrow the fearsome pirate. With the help of her loyal crew, she blew up Gangplank’s ship the Dead Pool, alongside its crew and captain, in front of the entire city. The power vacuum created by the dethronement quickly led to fighting among the rival captains, until an uneasy truce was reached to prevent the whole city from succumbing into chaos. However, unknown to many, Gangplank managed to survive the humbling assault and has been planning to reclaim his city when the time is right.

Champions

Miss Fortune – the Bounty Hunter

“That’s CAPTAIN Fortune!”

Born as a daughter of the renowned gunmaker Abigail Fortune, Sarah had a happy childhood on an island outside the main city while also learning some of her mother’s craft. That all changed when the reaver king Gangplank arrived and demanded the finest pair of pistols. When Abigail refused, the ruthless pirate took the guns by force and shot the entire family of three with them, before smashing the pistols and setting the workshop on fire.

Somehow, the young Sarah managed to survive from the ruins while also salvaging the remnants of the pistols. She rebuilt the weapons and started gathering information about the masked man that killed her family. She took a ship to the city of Bilgewater and began a life as a bounty hunter, earning the nickname Miss Fortune by claiming a dozen bounties in the first week.

In the following years, she “acquired” the ship The Syren and her reputation continued to grow. She slowly built a small but loyal cadre, with whom she eventually took her carefully planned revenge against Gangplank by blowing up his ship in the Bilgewater harbour. When the rival captains started fighting for the city’s leadership, Captain Fortune was instrumental in negotiating the truce amongst them, using her guns Shock and Awe when necessary.

Gangplank – the Saltwater Scourge

“Neither the flames nor the depths could claim me.”

The infamous pirate Gangplank earned his riches, alongside many adversaries, by looting the ships that sail the trade routes of the Twelve Seas. Stories tell how he angered the Ionian Order of Shadow by ransacking one of their temples and made the Noxian Grand General Swain swear revenge after stealing his personal warship The Leviathan.

Despite the growing numbers of enemies, none were able to take him down as he and his loyalists, the Jagged Hooks, held firm control over Bilgewater and most other pirate gangs. Eventually, Miss Fortune shattered his aura of invincibility by blowing up his ship with its crew in front of the entire Bilgewater. Gangplank managed to survive the incident, although losing an arm and gaining plenty of new scars, and is now looking to reclaim his what he sees as rightfully his, while also taking revenge to those responsible.

Twisted Fate – the Card Master

“Never lost a fair game…or played one.”

Tobias Felix was born to the nomadic river folk of the Serpentine Delta. He learned the prejudice of others at an early age, as his people were only tolerated for their merchandise and otherwise quickly shunned for their strange traditions.

Drawn to the card games played in gambling tents, he showed natural talent, as if he could feel the cards’ placements in the deck. He got often accused of cheating, and one night a group of men decided to take revenge on the young man. Frightened, Tobias fled while the men searched the camp and beat up the river folk that tried to stop them. When he sheepishly returned in the morning, no one would look him in the eye, and despite his pleading, he was exiled for his actions.

Tobias grew up in the gambling halls to earn the money he needed to survive, until one day he met Malcolm Graves at the illegal high-stakes card tables. The two started a partnership, traveling across the coastal towns and beyond, pulling of heists of all kinds, all while Tobias began to seek out more dangerous means of bending the cards to his will. After a particularly daring heist went wrong, Graves got imprisoned by the local enforcers while everyone else made their escape. After failing to break Graves out of the infamous prison Locker, Tobias decided to start anew and switched his name to Twisted Fate.

Without a partner, Twisted Fate found himself cornered and captured more often, but he was quick to make his escape every time, leaving only a mocking calling card behind. He eventually reunited with the resentful Graves in Bilgewater after ten years when Miss Fortune used the unsuspecting duo as a part of her plan. The two had to put their differences aside to escape Gangplank’s wrath moments before his ship was blown to pieces. While the pair managed to restore their partnership, it will take time until the mutual trust is fully regained.

Nautilus – the Titan of the Depths

“These waters are mine.”

Nautilus was once a salvage diver recovering lost treasures from shipwrecks. Despite being one of the best in his craft, Nautilus asked for no special wages, only that the captain would toss a coin overboard when sailing out to honour the sea. As the easily available treasures slowly depleted, the ship, alongside its crew, got sold.

It turned out that the new captain was a foreigner who had bought the ship just for the services of Nautilus, as he was fixated on a specific wreck. Even though Nautilus preferred freediving, this task required going into depths that he would not have been able to handle, and thus the captain had brought along a giant suit of brass and iron. Bolted into the suit, Nautilus panicked when he realized they had nothing to pay the tithe with. The new captain merely laughed at the superstition, but promised to make the sacrifice once Nautilus returned with the treasure.

At first, Nautilus felt nothing but silence and dimming light of the surface, but then some eldritch power started pulling him down to the abnormal murk. Frightened, Nautilus grabbed the ship’s anchor chain and started hauling himself up, but just before he reached the surface, the chain snapped, sending the screaming man down in the depths of the sea. When Nautilus awakened on the ocean floor, the darkness could no longer hurt him, and the metal suit had become a seamless shell around him. The only thing he could remember was the captain’s broken promise, and he vowed on that moment that all would pay the tithe, one way or another.

Fizz – the Tidal Trickster

“Lemme at ‘em!”

Fizz is an amphibious and mischievous yordle who has taken home in the reefs surrounding Bilgewater and is seen as a sort of spirit of the ocean by the local people.

Long ago, he made his home in a great underwater city, a civilization far older than any of those on the land. Even though Fizz was not one of them, he was treated as equal and always welcome to the gatherings of the citizens. But as the oceans warmed, fierce predators rose from the depths. While Fizz was looking for survivors from other settlements which had fallen silent, huge dragon-sharks attacked the city. Sensing the blood on the water, Fizz raced back but he was too late. The loss of the entire city made Fizz sank into despair, and he drifted along the currents for millennia in a catatonic torpor.

He was eventually reawakened by a handful of coins dropping on him, and he became curious of the strange wooden fish where they came from. He learned that there were people living outside water and took the gifted coins as a sign of them wanting to be his friends. Following the ship, he eventually arrived to Bilgewater, and has since become a legend amongst the local inhabitants. Seasoned sailors know to be wary of the Tidal Trickster, as he can just as easily lead the ships into trouble as safety.

Tahm Kench – the River King

“Call me king! Call me demon!”

The River King. Two-Coats. Called by many names, the demon Tahm Kench is known for igniting an insatiable addiction that has led many people’s lives to ruin. Bearing a resemblance of a giant fish, he travels across the waterways of Runeterra looking for the next victim to make a deal with him.

All tales of meeting Tahm Kench start the same way – he makes an offer and asks something small in return. After his offer has realized, he returns with an even better one, but for a bigger price. This circle goes on as the victims slowly lose themselves to their growing greed. The tales usually end with people losing everything they gained or Tahm Kench swallowing them whole.

Thanks to the popularity of gambling in Bilgewater, Tahm Kench has become a legend in the city. He is rarely far away from the port’s games of chance, whispering his promises of great fortune and wealth in search of those that are willing to make a deal.

Pyke – the Bloodharbor Ripper

Pyke started his career by working at The Slaughter Docks but watching how heavy purses of gold were given to those bringing the sea monsters in, he managed to talk himself onto a ship’s crew. Only a few dared to hunt the traditional way by launching themselves at the sea monsters, securing hooks by bare hands, and starting to butcher the creature when it still lived for valuable organs best harvested fresh, but the fearless Pyke soon gained reputation as the best harpooner that money could get.

When hunting for Jaull-fish with an untested captain, the crew managed to capture a particularly big one and yet Pyke leapt in with no hesitation. However, the captured beast managed to alert its kin, and seeing the ship surrounded by massive sea monsters, the captain lost his nerve and cut the harpooner’s lifeline. The last thing Pyke saw was the crewmembers’ horror as the beast’s mouth closed on him.

However, that was not the end for Pyke. Deep in the ocean and still in the jaull’s mouth, a mysterious force seized him, and he was filled by thoughts of vengeance and retribution. He somehow made his way back to Bilgewater, where no one paid attention to the mysterious deaths at first. Soon people noticed that the killer was targeting captains, before the murders expanded to anyone associated with the bloody business of the Slaughter Docks, striking fear of the rumouredly supernatural killer in the hearts of the inhabitants of Bilgewater. Driven by his memories twisted by the deep, Pyke keeps gutting his way through the seemingly never-ending crew manifest of a non-existent ship called Terror.