The Lore of Runeterra's Targon and its Champions

Mount Targon is the tallest mountain on Runeterra, located on the western coast of the Shuriman continent. Its sharp peak has not been formed geologically but by magical forces pulling the mountain upwards from the top.

The peak of Mount Targon constantly shimmers in celestial light.

For thousands of years, Rakkor tribes have lived around the base of the mountain and seen the constellations in the skies as Aspects of powerful celestial beings. While most of the tribes worship the Sun and migrate with its movements, only those who have devoted their lives to it are called the Solari. The Solari believe that the Sun is the source of all life, while all other sources of light are false. The elite militant order Ra’Horak is dedicated to protecting the Solari and their faith.

The smaller religious sect in the region is the Lunari, who worship the light of the Moon. While the two religions were peacefully coexisting at one point of history, for generations the Solari have seen the Lunari as heretics and forced them into hiding. As the celestial cycles in the heavens are turning, so is the balance of power in Targon, and the rise of the Lunari is beginning.

Seasonal homes of the Rakkor chiselled to the mountain.

Despite its remote location, the mountain has seen visitors from all over Runeterra throughout history. These hopefuls have undertaken the task of climbing the mountain, as reaching Targon's Peak could get one imbued by celestial powers. It is said that the mountain itself constantly changes, and while the climb might take a day for some, for others it is a matter of months. The mountain’s slopes are filled with the unfortunate who did not survive the gruelling cold or the visions caused by the mountain. In the end, even reaching the summit will leave you with nothing if the crystalline Arbiter of the Peak judges you unworthy.

Diana, Leona, and Taric have all gained their Aspect powers quite recently.

Being chosen by the Aspects is a rare occurrence that happens once every few generations, but as of late it four people have gained celestial powers after a successful climb. As the Aspect of Twilight has also returned to Runeterra, the odds are that a great conflict might be stirring in the horizon.

Champions

Aurelion Sol – the Star Forger

“The heavens diminish without my attention.”

Aurelion Sol was born at the beginning of the creation itself and started filling the vast emptiness with planets and stars. In one of his journeys through the cosmos, he came across a world he had not created, and seeing how invested in it the usually dispassionate Aspects seemed to be, he decided to descend to the planet in the form of a celestial dragon to bask in the adulation of the fledgling civilizations.

The Targonians named the mighty being Aurelion Sol for the golden sun he had created for them and presented him a magical crown as a gift. As he placed the crown on his head, it stuck in place with unimaginable force, and Aurelion felt how his knowledge of the sun’s creation was being stolen. As the crown’s power hurled him back to the heavens and prevented him from getting close to Runeterra, he was forced to watch from afar how the Aspects guided the mortals to create a sun disc, which channelled Aurelion’s celestial powers into their new god-warriors. His delight for the eventual failure of the sun disc was short-lived as a second, more powerful one was built soon after.

While the Targonian Aspects still have the power to command him to do their bidding, like to close Void rifts on Runeterra, Aurelion has noticed how the crown’s power has weakened over time. He is now furiously waiting for the moment when he will be free of the crown’s power at last so he can make Runeterra pay for Targon’s arrogance.

Leona – the Radiant Dawn

“I am the bulwark against darkness.”

Leona was raised to the Solari faith, and due to her devotion, everyone was convinced she would one day become one of the elite Ra’Horak. While she excelled, she noticed another student, an orphan named Diana, struggling to understand the teachings. While most saw her constant questioning as insolence, Leona saw a lost soul devoted to a search for meaning. When the teachers finally gave up, Leona started debating with her, determined to win Diana over, and the two eventually developed feelings for each other.

One night, Diana told her about a hidden alcove she had found in the mountain, and the symbols and depictions within it. Leona managed to talk her out of her plans of climbing to the summit of Mount Targon to learn more – or so she initially thought. While Diana never spoke of the find or her plans again, Leona noticed her starting the climb one night and, seeing no other option, decided to follow her friend. After what seemed like an eternity, she reached the peak. Leona saw her friend engulfed in silver light and writhing in agony and she tried to run to help her but was stopped by golden radiance enveloping her. After gaining control of the power imbuing her, she realized that she had been selected by the Aspect of the Sun and tasked to protect the Solari.

She found Diana clad in silver armour, begging Leona to join her in search of the answers the Solari could not provide. As Leona insisted on the pair to return to hear the Solari priests’ judgment, a short battle ensued. Diana emerged victoriously but did not kill her old friend, instead fleeing to confront the Solari elders herself. After descending the mountain, Leona found the priests and their Ra’Horak guards slain by Diana. Leona has sworn to find her old friend to preserve the Solari’s dominance as well as to help Diana control her powers before they consume her.

Diana – Scorn of the Moon

“They tried to blind me with resplendence, but they could not break me!”

Diana was found as a child by Solari hunters, still swaddled between her frost-claimed parents. She was raised as one of the Rakkor and given the training of the Solari, but unlike other students, she wanted to find out the reasoning behind their beliefs. The libraries and her teachers were no help and merely raised new questions, and when Diana started noticing entire chapters torn out of the ancient tomes, she was assigned harsh punishments. While every other student started distancing themselves from her, the most devout of them, Leona, began debating with her and they eventually developed feelings for each other.

One night, Diana found a hidden alcove on the mountain, and inside imagery of warriors clad in gold and silver, with the Sun and Moon shining over them at Targon's Peak. Diana rushed to share the finding with Leona, who merely warned her for spreading her heretical thoughts. Frustrated, Diana saw only one place where she could find the answers she wanted: the top of Mount Targon. She managed to survive the gruelling climb and was greeted by the full moon. As a pillar of its silver light slammed into her, she felt a presence taking over and showing her vision of the past, of another faith – the Lunari. Regaining control, she realized that she had been granted the Moon Aspect’s power. Seeing Leona clad in golden armour, she begged her to face the future together, but the pair eventually clashed. Fearful of losing herself to the Aspect’s power, Diana fled having won the fight.

Feeling vindicated, Diana returned to the Solari high priests, determined to show them the error in their ways. But as they saw her as nothing but a blasphemer and a heretic, she let her rage take over in a terrible burst of moonlight and escaped the temple with a trail of death in her wake. Driven by glimpses of the past, Diana sees her destiny as unclear but remains convinced that the Sun and Moon do not need to be enemies.

Taric – the Shield of Valoran

“To preserve beauty and protect all life.”

Taric was born in Demacia and continued his family’s tradition of military service. While he trained hard, he still found time to volunteer with the Illuminators or help the stonemasons, serving his country in many ways. Taric did not want to limit whom or what he would protect as he saw value and beauty in everything around him. He steadily rose through the ranks and eventually got promoted to the elite Dauntless Vanguard. There the code of conduct was much stricter than he was used to, and he started to struggle with the new demands.

While at the service of the Vanguard’s Sword-Captain, the older soldier and his personal retinue were slain in battle after Taric had abandoned his post to wander around a ruined temple nearby. By Demacian laws this dereliction meant execution, but Garen Crownguard, whom Taric had befriended earlier in his military career and who had become the successor of the ill-fated Sword-Captain, intervened. He sentenced Taric to endure “the Crown of Stone”, an ancient punishment which meant that Taric would have to climb Mount Targon. While the punishment would have allowed him to flee and start a new life in exile, Taric was determined to atone for his deeds and took the first ship heading south.

As Taric endured the climb as well as the testing visions of the mountain, he reached the pinnacle of Targon, where the Arbiter of the Peak granted him the power of the Aspect of the Protector. Taric has gladly accepted his new role as the guardian of life and beauty of the entire Runeterra.

Soraka – the Starchild

“Let me guide you.”

For ages, the celestial entities followed the life of Runeterra from above. They were concerned as the inhabitants of the planet deviated from their intended purpose, and either misinterpreted or ignored the guidance and fates written in the stars. Eventually, one of these beings, Soraka, decided to descend on Runeterra to guide the mortal races, taking a form of flesh and blood.

What had appeared to be pure chaos from up above started to seem like almost perfect beauty from Soraka’s new perspective. While she witnessed the cruelty and suffering of the mortals, she also saw their infinite potential for kindness. Soraka realized that she should not try to force the mortals on the path of the celestial plans, but instead guide and inspire them to reach their full potential.

Over the millennia, Soraka travelled far and wide, guiding the lost and healing the wounded wherever she went, inspiring legends about the Starchild across Runeterra. She has now made the westernmost peaks of Mount Targon her home, where she has begun to teach her healing ways to the local Ottrani vastaya.

Zoe – the Aspect of Twilight

“I bear a message from- Oh hey what's that?”

Zoe’s path to wielding celestial powers was not the usual. She was an imaginative and mischievous Rakkor girl, who was noticed by the Aspect of Twilight while she was skipping class. The Aspect followed Zoe’s escape from her teachers for an hour, until she got cornered on a cliff’s edge. Before the teachers were able to reach her, the Aspect summoned six items in front of Zoe. She picked the only useless one, a toy ball which she kicked towards a nearby house and sang gleefully as it bounced among her teachers. Zoe’s carefree attitude impressed the Aspect, and it opened her a portal to the peak of the mountain. She dived in backwards, instantly becoming one with the Aspect, while sticking out a tongue at her teachers before disappearing.

Zoe travelled through the dimensions exploring her new powers for what was barely a year for her but centuries on Runeterra. Upon returning she found multiple new Aspects who had joined her on the mortal world, but as they kept brushing her aside, she journeyed to the stars where she met Aurelion Sol. After learning how her fellow Aspects had tricked the great cosmic dragon into wearing the power-siphoning crown, Zoe promised to protect the “space doggy”, and in exchange, Aurelion has stopped threatening to destroy her when the time for his revenge comes.

As the herald of major events, Zoe’s re-emergence likely means that a great change is coming but while she might be carrying a warning message to the mortals, so far she has been focusing on playing games or tricking them instead to her own amusement.

Aphelios – the Weapon of the Faithful

"The moon speaks, Aphelios: You are its voice."

As Aphelios and his twin sister Alune were born during a rare lunar convergence, the Lunari always saw them as children of destiny. They grew up as devout followers of the faith, Aphelios becoming physically gifted where Alune excelled in magic. While Aphelios was sent on increasingly dangerous missions to protect the Lunari, Alune trained her skills as a seer.

When Alune’s tasks eventually required her to leave the temple, Aphelios’ faith started to waver. In his search for purpose, he underwent a ceremonial journey into darkness that culminated in drinking the essence of a poisonous noctum, opening him to the night’s power. The intense pain caused by the liquid numbed Aphelios to everything else. Soon after, the ancient temple Marus Omegnum began to come into phase from the spirit realm, and Lunari across the mountain gathered to witness the rare occurrence. As Alune was to be the only one entering the fortress, Aphelios had requested to attend the event.

When the temple emerged, so did an army of Solari that had somehow found the Lunari gathering. The Lunari were being overrun when Alune reached the heart of the temple and unlocked her full potential. The already-beaten Aphelios managed to drink the noctum again, and through it, he could feel his sister’s power and hear her voice. Alune conjured a new magical weapon to replace Aphelios’ broken one before pushing the temple, and herself within, back into the spirit realm to keep it safe from the Solari. Through the combined power of the twins, the Lunari were ultimately able to fight off the Solari attack.

Using the noctum’s poison in Aphelios’ veins as a focus for her magic, Alune has since conjured an arsenal of moonstone weapons for his brother in their many missions together. Being incredibly close and yet far apart, the twins’ destiny of becoming the Lunari’s ultimate weapon has been one of pain and sacrifice.

Malphite – Shard of the Monolith

"Snow on my head, rain on my feet."

After the Void had erupted into the material world and eradicated Icathia, the Ascended Ixtali elemental mage Ne’Zuk created the Monolith, a fortress of living stone. Maintained by the greatest elemental mages and manned by his fellow Ixtali god-warriors, Ne’Zuk set out with his superweapon to eradicate the Void. The battle raged on for weeks, and the fortress was pushed on its limits by the Void’s attacks. Eventually the entire Monolith crashed down to the gaping maw below. Only Ne’Zuk managed to survive from the wreckage, fleeing from the humbling destruction.

Some shards of the Monolith clung to something of a magical life after the crash but were ultimately consumed by the Void. Only a single fragment remained, buried deep beneath the surface before awakening centuries later. Malphite, Ixtali for ‘bad stone’, has since become something of a legend in Runeterra. Still feeling the drive enkindled by Ne’Zuk’s creation, Malphite continues its fight against the creatures of the Void.