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Character Name:
» Varus
Age:
» ~ 3100
Canon:
» League of Legends
Canon point:
» Post Sentinels of Light / Ruination
History:
» Varus was born over 3000 years ago in Shurima, an in-world analogue to the ancient Egyptian and fabled Atlantean Empires. It was a time when artificial gods walked the desert lands.
» These gods of Shurima were not inherently divine, rather, they were made so by powerful magic. Targon, the in-world Greek analogue, lived alongside true gods of this universe, known as Aspects. The Aspects taught mortals the ritual to imbue humans with a divine solar power via sun disc, rather than waiting for an Aspect--such as war, solar, lunar, the protector--to select a mortal to inhabit. In this way, Shurima could imbue warriors it deemed worthy to protect its borders for thousands of years with demi-godly status. However, unlike the Aspects, who retained their human form due to the divine selecting a worthy vessel, these Shuriman demi-gods, called the Ascended, took on more bestial forms that we might recognize as the Ancient Egyptian Gods.
» It's a complex ritual with a rich history barely skimmed over here, but I provided the most basic gist of it.
» At this time, Shurima was still expanding its borders across the desert, and came upon the port-city of Icathia. Given it was a land rich with resources, Shurima sought to assimilate it. Varus, whom at this point had a wife and a young son, was already an accomplished archer and hunter of notoriety, and thus sent alongside his squadron to help conquer the city. The war was hard-fought. Varus alone was left in a crow's nest, holding his ground and refusing to flee to ensure the safe escape of his comrades. He rained down volleys of arrows on Icathian soldiers, and held that tower with unerring courage and ferocity until reinforcements could arrive.
» Varus was not the cornerstone to their victory, but it could not have been earned without him.
» Icathia fell and was conquered by Shurima. Instead of a peaceful assimilation, the rich culture and history of Icathia was outlawed and stamped out, and anyone caught practicing Icathian traditions was sentenced to death.
» For his valor, Varus was awarded a prestigious rank among an elite force of archers, as denoted by the bronze and ruby diadem he proudly wears on his head. His life as a mortal isn't covered so much by riot here, so I like to assume it had its fair share of ups and downs, as all lives do. A life of conscription and travel, guarding and escorting the Shuriman elites for his loyalty and prestige. Many children--some that died, some that married and fathered or mothered grandchildren. All of whom lived a privileged life thanks to Varus.
» What we know for certain is that Varus was selected to Ascend via the Sun Disc ritual, meaning he would no longer only protect Shurima as a mortal soldier, but would assist the Aspects in protecting the threshold of the universe from that which shouldn't exist. His mortal body was accepted by an aspect, and he was given a new shape. What that shape was, and what aspect was once a part of him, we don't know. Varus has not spoken of it, and Riot hasn't told us. We do know his body became immortal, and he towered over normal humans. His flesh was strong and difficult to pierce, but he did still bleed. He could still die in combat, but illness, starvation, dehydration, and aging had no hold on him any more. Because of his conditional immortality, he lived a thousand more years while serving Shurima, saw his bloodline carry on, and happily served many generations of the royal family. As a god-warrior, his noble form was celebrated and loved by allies, and viscerally feared by Shurima's enemies.
» After that thousand years, though, Icathia came to a breaking point, and staged a rebellion. A pitiful thing that would be squashed under the might of Shurima like a wayward ant underneath a boot. But, unbeknownst to Shurima, Icathia had found something in the desert that did not belong in this universe, but had always tried to worm its way into existence. Something the Targonian Aspects had fought hard for eons to protect their universe against. The favor swung from Icathia to Shurima the second Varus and the other Ascended entered the fray. Swaths of Icathians were slaughtered, so Icathian mages ripped open the portal to the void, not knowing what they were unleashing. A vulture-headed Ascended sounded the alarm, and all of the Ascended--even un-magical humans could sense the way the universe and all of existence started to fray at the seams and turn into an oppressive, voracious static against the senses. Varus and the Ascended knew. The aspects they were bound with knew. The Void had found a way in.
» Tentacles and voids crawled from the Icathian line. It ruptured reality, devoured buildings and mortals alike. The Ascended were trapped and dragged into the nothingness, screaming as they disintegrated. Varus and a few other Ascended bore witness to the madness, and fled with their lives. The Icathians had won their freedom, but there was now nothing left of the city to celebrate.
» Thus began the Void Wars. The Ascended, Aspects, and mortal forces struggled for five-hundred years, and after the sacrifice of many Ascended and Aspects, after millions of mortal lives, after the kingdom of Ixtal sealed itself away, Shurima managed a delicate victory that hangs on in modern days by a thread. The Ascended warriors that survived--including Varus, Aatrox, Rhaast, and Xolaani called theirselves the Sunborn. Not long after this victory, though, disaster struck when Azir, the current Emperor, attempted the Sun Disc ritual to Ascend and bring everlasting stability to his empire. The ritual failed due to interference, and the failure caused catastrophic damage that brought the entire capitol city to dust and killed all of its inhabitants in a flash. Only the Sunborn and traitor that ruined the ritual survived.
» Though their bodies were divine and they commanded celestial energy, their minds were still mortal in constitution. The horrors of the Void War scarred many of them, and with the Sun Disc destroyed and the light of Shurima gone, many Ascended, over the centuries, fell to madness. The maddened gods began to fight among theirselves for who bore the right to now rule a world that had forgotten them, and so began the Darkin War.
» The aspect Varus hosted was slowly corrupted by his mortal mind. Celestial magic turned to blood magic, and with each bloodbath of a battle waged between the Darkin for dominance, more power was gained. Among them, Varus was notably the most vain, and so he crafted a handsome body for himself with his blood magic than the brutal, demonic ones his brethren would shape. Each of the Darkin raised their own armies in whatever means were available to them to combat for dominance. Many lead cults and small empires. Varus, who was once known as the Arrow of Protection, became the Arrow of Retribution.
» Runeterra faced destruction under the hands of the ravaged and corrupted Sunborn, now known to one another and the populace as Darkin. Fifteen-hundred years into the war, the Aspects crafted a way to defeat the warped magics of the Darkin. The Aspect of Twilight and what is suspected to be the Aspect of War(at that era), along with the spirit-fae known as the Vastayashai'rei, lured and sealed many Darkin to the signature weapons they wielded. Though this did have a particular drawback: whenever a Darkin was sealed to their weapon, the aspect that once shared a body with them died, and when the aspect died, it ceased to exist any longer in the universe, thus fundamentally altering reality. Still. It was a small price to pay in the face of total annihilation. When Varus was captured and sealed, the tides of the war changed in favor of the mortals, and he, as his bow, was wielded by the Aspect of War until all other Darkin were likewise sealed within their weapons.
» The Aspect of War was sacrificed and sealed, alongside Varus in his bow, within a deep well in Pallas, Ionia--a land where magic was still wild and strong enough to hold Varus trapped. So he stayed there, fully conscious and aware of the passage of time, for thousands of years until Pallas came under siege from invading Noxian soldiers. Noxian forces killed a mortal named Kai in the temple, and his lover, Valmar, sacrificed himself to the demon in the well in a desperate bid to save Kai.
» It worked, and Varus agreed to save Kai's soul, but as with all things, Varus' pact came with a price.
Personality:
» Passion
Varus is a passionate man, for better or for worse.
At it's best, Varus dedicated his life to Shurima and her people. While he had a love for people in general, he fell under the influence of Shuriman propaganda. He believed that conquering and assimilating countries and peoples under the crown of Shurima was best for everyone. He believed the sacrifices that the conquered made were worth it for the greater good--for the strength, resources, and culture that they gained and brought to Shurima. Once they were a citizen of Shurima, he would fight for them as much as he fought for his Emperor and family. Where he planted his heels, he would not yield come hell or high water, and where he stood, he shielded others with his arrows. He did not hide.
His promises were earnest, his word was good. He was a good Shuriman man. If he said it, it would be so.
When he loved, he loved fiercely. When he hated, it was just as ferocious. He would go from giving the shirt off of his back to setting someone aflame.
He gave his life for the honor of serving as a sentinel for Shurima. He accepted the gift of conditional immortality and became a god among men, an aspect and paragon that Varus cannot remember because it no longer exists. He watched his wife and son live their lives and pass, and all of his descendants thereafter. He did not flee before the void, he bore its horrors to protect Shurima.
Where he puts his love, in whatever form it might take--good or bad--he puts his life. Changing his mind or opinions on the matter is possible, but when it comes to changing his heart regarding matters he was personally wounded on, it takes time, effort, and casualties.
At present, as we see in many of his lore stores, his passion currently takes the form of anger and hate. He is a deeply hurt and traumatized man that feels shunned by the world, so he chooses to take an eye for an eye. To make the world hurt the way it made him hurt. He will not stop until he feels the price has been paid.
» Confidence
Varus is shown to be a decisive and self-assured man, not simply because he hates humans, but largely due to his personal experience, starting from his boyhood as a footsoldier. He rose through the ranks in the military, showing an affinity for strategy, teamwork, and leadership as he rose to the height of elite forces and finally an Ascended.
At its best, he's a dependable and fierce leader with prestige that only admired Aatrox as a superior. But that is also due in large part to his vanity.
Before the Void wars, Varus hadn't the trauma or hopelessness to deal with, and so he was a nobler leader that would protect his soldiers with his blood, sweat and tears as he did when mortal. But after the loss of the Sun Disc and fall of the empire, when he was cast adrift and forgotten by the people he loved and sacrificed so much for, he became scrupulous and cold. Resentful that they would so easily forget what the Ascended did for them, what they sacrificed for them. As he started to hate humans, they were no longer beloved peoples worth protecting and guiding, but ants worth burning under his gaze. His skills were turned against them.
He did not question his decisions or ideas. He knew what he would be sacrificing every time, and sending the message of death and anger was always worth whatever he lost. Humans were a plague upon the planet, and any way to be rid of them faster, even if they served in his own cult, was never a loss.
He comments in the comic and stories about his own skillset; he knows what he's good at, and he's proud of it. He will always remind others that they are filth compared to him in any aspect. Once upon a time he would have been humble about his shortcomings, but now, he responds to jabs at his prowess and weaknesses very personally. Any cracks or faults in stratagems or behaviors are very cruelly punished, albeit not always forthrightly. Varus will remember, and he will nurse that grudge to use it as fuel to torment an individual later on because how dare they.
» Living in his head
Varus tends to live in his head.
His thoughts are his reality. Perceived slights become absolute realities, and there's no possibility that it was a misunderstanding, that he mis-remembered. Everything is taken personally because he hurts, but he will not name it as hurt. Naming it as hurt robs him of his purpose to fight: his vendetta.
He holds on tightly to his past, not knowing how to live in the present or function without a driving goal or purpose to serve. That was the very problem that all of the Darkin faced after Azir was presumed dead and Shurima fell to ruin. But instead of coping with that trauma and grief, he turned it outwards to anger.
His only vision for the future is a world without humans, but he couldn't tell you what comes after that. If he would be happy after that. He would say he would be happy, but the prospect of not having that all-encompassing goal consuming him, he doesn't know what he would do with himself. He only knows what was, and cannot let it go. Cannot let go that he was captured and sealed in his bow, that he was punished for rightfully feeling betrayed and forgotten for his sacrifices.
» Manipulative
Varus is extremely emotionally and mentally abusive and manipulative. Using his bow creates a link between Darkin and human that cannot be broken except by death of one or the other. He eats away at their psyche, taints everything his human host does and dips it into anger and hate. Gives them addictive power, promises power that the humans can't possibly understand or wield.
He turns friends and family to enemies and spies, enemies to beasts worth killing. Death to satisfaction and divine justification to further drive his victim to madness.
His only happiness now is watching the humans around him follow him like lambs to the slaughter. The more they try to fight the inevitable, the more he delights. He takes supposed losses and uses them to twist the knives in his victims. The more creative he can get, the more fun he is having. He's the same with fellow Darkin, though we see that he does not forget old allies, and he acts against other Darkin with a heavier heart, based on how he refers to Aatrox with respect, and another Darkin as 'sister.'
» And, permeating it all, his anger and trauma.
Underneath every action, every part of who he is, his hate and anger taint everything he is and everything he does. It defines who he is, and how he sees the world.
But what is anger but grief? And we cannot grieve what we do not love. He has buried it deeply, but sharing a body with the souls of the lovers, Kai and Valmar, had started to melt that anger and chip it away. They started to break through the armor of what is and uncover the mortal man that was. Not because they want to, but because they had to, in order to survive.
Suitability:
» First and foremost, Varus has experience with eldritch-adjacent figures. The Void beings are the closest approximation to eldritch beings that his universe has--they're creatures that exist only to consume and destroy and return everything to nothingness. Encountering the full fury of the Void for five-hundred years and every horror it's capable of has fundamentally changed Varus. He's somewhat familiar with the Void, but that understanding means he's both well-equipped and poorly-equipped to handle the terrors at the same time. His greatest strength is familiarity with what he's up against, but also that familiarity leaves very deep emotional and mental scars.
But he does at least have the physical constitution to withstand exposure longer than most others would. The lower half of his body and ends of his arms are covered in corruption, and it's something he not only lives alongside, but has learned how to wield. Even if it's corrupted, it is still divine energy.
» I would also like to explore the character development Legends of Runeterra puts forth, wherein the presence of Kai and Valmar served as a sort of anchor to humanity, and re-awakens who he used to be before he was consumed by anger. Despite how he tortures them mentally and emotionally, they refuse to give up or give in, and while Varus has seen many humans that were difficult to break in his years, he can see their thoughts and emotions with much more intimacy than he ever could any one else's since all three souls are bound to the same vessel.
While he won't be willing to help at first, and will very likely laugh at the humans here for suffering the same stupidity as the humans of his universe, it'll be because of his mental/emotional distance from the Void Wars he served in, and because he wasn't that far into what we would call recovery.
Without Kai and Valmar's souls to keep him company or keep him anchored, he'll be very fragile and easily fall back into using hate and control since it's what he knows, it's what he's destined for.
When the reality of the horrorterrors are in his face, it'll snap him into survival mode and he'll be more manageable. Or he might panic and cause a lot of destruction!
» Varus will cause problems on purpose and be very difficult at first, but since he will need to rely on the other members of the community to donate energy and keep him alive, he's extremely incentivized to play nice.
Powers/Abilities:
» Corrupted Arrows
Varus does not need to craft physical arrows for his bow. While physical arrows can be used with his bow, Varus himself can create arrows of corrupted magic. Based on the kinds of magic used, they can do different things.
- Most basically, the arrows act as basic physical arrows. They shoot, they fly, they pierce, they injure. Having the ability to create magic arrows just makes combat easier.
- Arrows that glow red can cause the arms of his bow to split. When that happens, the arrow is charged with blood magic and acts more like a bullet. It pierces most armors and tends to leave exit wounds that look like explosive bullet exit wounds. If the target has been too close to Varus' arrows in combat for too long, when a target is hit with the magical arrows will also be heavily drained of their energy. These charged arrows can also pierce multiple enemies before dissipating.
Using the charged arrows does cost mana, which will drain Varus' reserves. He should not fire many of these arrows in one sitting.
» Corruption
Varus is very much in control of how his corruption interacts with the environment around him. It can siphon natural energy/magic around him and leave an area barren of life(if the world has magic in it, as Runeterra as a planet is loosely alive), or he can choose to let it be. Humans offer the most efficient source of energy, and are the most susceptible to corruption.
- If in combat, his basic arrows typically carry corrosive magic. If they do, those exposed to a small radius around his arrows for too long will exhaust much quicker. Their body starts to show physical symptoms, such as dark purple splotches on the skin like bruises, except there are brightly glowing white/purple streaks that pulse and undulate. Very terrifying experience.
To remedy this, just move away and the contamination will die out on its own.
Even common arrows he's bought are passively embued with corruption. That is, by being made by Varus or being in close contact with him for prolonged periods of time, they become corrupted, and infect and drain magic around him. They're carriers of his corrosion, but once they're no longer near Varus, the corruption dissipates. They cannot maintain the corrupted celestial energy on their own.
» Corrupted Chains
Varus can unleash a burst of energy. Tendrils fly from his hands in a direction, wrap around a target like undulating, pulsing, virulent snakes and bind the target in place and doses them heavily with corrupted celestial magic.
At worst it can madden a target, but more often than not, it makes them violently ill and exhausted to the point of passing out. If hit by one of Varus' charged arrows at this stage, the results can be extremely explosive and lethal.
The chains tend to snake out from the target. They're like really fast-moving, slimy eels that pulse and glow, and crawl to any target within a 9 meter radius. If people don't disperse from the target fast enough, they also get locked down by the corrupted chains. It can spread infinitely. The chains do dissipate after 3 or so seconds of being suppressed, as the corruption seems to prefer sapping the target and quickly moving on to immobilize someone else.
» Celestial Magic
As a corrupted demi-god, Varus has access to divine knowledge and magic. Much of the divine knowledge is too overwhelming for Varus' mortal mind, and was forgotten when the Aspect he shared a body with died. However, he can comprehend and still maintains corruptions of that divine knowledge/magic, and it still exists as what we know as Blood Magic.
As we see in As We Fall, Varus can bind a soul to a vessel, he can revive the dead. As we found out with Vladimir, Darkin Magic can grant conditional immortality. But it all comes at a hefty price for both magician and recipient.
All of his blood magic works on a Monkey's Paw rule. Blood Magic can offer immortality, but to extend your own lifespan, you must siphon the vitality from another soul, and just because one's body lives longer doesn't mean they have the mental constitution to handle living that long. To cast these sorts of spells also requires a lot of energy consumption, and more often than not a human life in exchange.
» Ex Spirit-walker
As a corrupted demi-god, Varus was privy to the spirit, divine, and void realms of Runeterra, and could access divine knowledge about that universe through the aspect he was bound with. While he knows of its existence and physical things such as history and how it functions, he can no longer access or interpret many things. For instance, he knows the World Runes exist and what they do, but he can no longer properly tap into their power. If he tried, it would cause a meteoric explosion.
The Vastayasha'rei lived in a spirit world that's adjacent to the mortal realm, and while he can feel its presence and particularly powerful spirits, he can no longer access the spirit realm. It would rip him apart mentally without the aspect there to guide him.
The Aspects function on celestial realms that humans can transcend to, but to do so often requires ritual death and rebirth, and those processes are not always guaranteed. Varus can no longer access the celestial realm, though he knows of its existence and many ways for mortals to access it. Divine knowledge is more often than not too much for mortal minds to bear.
Varus, while knowing these realms exist, cannot translate many things about them into mortal tongue. Trying to grasp and comprehend these things to translate them would drive him to madness(much like Zilean or Malzahar), as they aren't things mortals are meant to comprehend. That's why Shen had to prepare for a lifetime just to access the spirit realm. It's why so many human vessels of the aspects die before being reborn with celestial energy. Varus can convey what he remembers of historical events, names, and other such things, as those are things that occur within the boundaries of the mortal world, but much more than that, he can barely remember, let alone explain.
» Weapon-Bound
Varus' soul is bound to his bow, and has been so for thousands of years. Like other Darkin bound to their weapons, Varus requires a human host. To entice vessels, those who wield his bow gain instant access to Darkin Magic--if only they train to hone just how to use it, even if the raw knowledge is there. They get a taste of his raw power, and can perform at much higher standards than an average athlete. Using a Darkin weapon is extremely addictive, and takes a very strong willpower to overcome, otherwise the host falls to madness and dies.
This means he needs a living host to wield his bow. More often than not, the divine mind of a Darkin corrupts and overtakes the human consciousness within the body, so the human's soul dies, and the empty body left behind is now inhabited by the Darkin. Once the human is gone, the Darkin may change the body however they wish as long as they have enough magical energy to do so. The body can also live only as long as the Darkin has magical energy to sustain it and perform whatever task it seeks to perform.
As such, it's wise for the Darkin parasite to keep the host's soul alive as long as possible to use it as a built-in battery before being required to siphon energy from external living beings.
Once the Darkin no longer has energy to keep the body alive(keeping the body hydrated, rested, and fed uses far less of the Darkin's energy banks than sustaining it on magic alone), the body dies and the Darkin soul retreats into its weapon once more where it's entirely cognizant of the world around it(and able to talk), until it's able to lure in another host.
Varus must be extremely careful of how much of his magic he uses. The music video, As We Fall, also shows how extremely LARGE the Darkin are compared to humans.
» CONSEQUENCES
For using any of the magics above(aside from being bound by his soul to his bow), there will be consequences. Varus can perform these magics and tasks without any sort of battery or host to draw vitality from, but he exhausts his Darkin magics at an exponential rate. Partly because this world is not inherently magical like Runeterra, so there's no wild magic to passively draw from. If he exhausts himself, his body will die and he'll be stuck in his bow unless mods allow for an NPC to be his host, or a player offers to be his new host.
There isn't much passive magic to siphon from the environment here as there is in Runeterra, so it's not possible to maintain a baseline of magical energy without a host. At most he can mitigate the drain until the body dies and he's bow-bound again.
Any magic he tries to cast will exhaust his new host, and they'll share a body. It sucks. He's incentivized at all times to avoid needing to get a new host at all costs.
If other players choose to use his bow, they can become varying levels of dependent/addicted to the abilities it grants them, the knowledge it gives them access to, etc. Anyone else that uses his bow will also be exhausted by doing so, as it will siphon and store their energy for Varus to use. It's quite possible to notice how it's draining energy, but it's very easy to not notice it due to how it feels to be imbued with demi-godly abilities. Varus often uses this to his advantage to have many sources of energy to flit between absorbing. Those who use his bow will need to rest and be on light duty for a few days before being fully recovered.
Varus will HAVE to siphon living energy to use his magic, as he does not naturally replenish enough to continually use his magics.
He will NEED to perform rituals and have hosts. Since he no longer has Kai or Valmar's souls with him to draw energy from, he can and will tire MUCH quicker. Eating, sleeping, and staying hydrated will keep him alive, but he'll barely be able to function or perform basic tasks, as his body requires magic to function, being it was once divine. He'll need to find people willing to let him draw energy from them on a regular basis.
If not heavily using his magic, then two or three hosts he can bounce between will do. If relying heavily on his magic for a battle, then he'll have to do a full-on blood ritual. The ultimate move will be exhausting his magic until his body dies, then entrusting himself as his bow to a host.
Using his corrupting magic may also draw the attention of the horrors to him, as that corrupted magic may be of a similar enough vein to their own abilities to register.
If any curses past the life-drain/addictive qualities need be added, feel free to refer to losing memories of the self, or adding possibilities that rituals could fail/misfire in awful ways.
» Hunter, Soldier, Sentinel
Varus started as a hunter and honed his skills. As noted in the comics, Varus is an excellent tracker. Having grown up in the desert, he knows best what signs to look for there, but we see that he also adapts to lush seasonal forests and water basins very quickly. He's used to tracking prey, be they human or not.
As a soldier, he was broken and rebuilt to be but part of a whole. To have courage in the face of odds and situations that would overwhelm the average citizen. Varus took these to heart, and held the line on his own with just his bow and blade until reinforcements could arrive. He was given high honors and allowed to serve the Emperor.
He can process all that he catches as food, knew the seasonal flora and migratory patterns. The desert was his playground, and the oasis of Shurima was his home.
He was chosen to be an Ascended. An artificial god that rose to divinity via methods stolen from celestial star dragons. The ritual was still a success and the Aspect he was bound with accepted him as a host. As an Ascended and Sunborn, he stared at the precipice of reality, and saw the horrors that festered between the seams. He and the other gods and artificial gods worked together as a unit to ensure humanity would never have to face those horrors. It was a heavy responsibility.
» Cult leader, Darkin
As a Darkin, he waged war for almost two-thousand years against mortals and gods alike. It was a chess game of treachery and power. Fans of Game of Thrones or The Rings of Power can grasp the scale of treachery, manipulation, callousness and violence that such a role would entail.
Varus, like the other Darkin, once maintained his own cult of followers that would wage war for him against other Darkin cults, empires, and/or armies. Many humans over many centuries wielded him as a bow, and fell victim
Entity Affinity:
» The Lonely
Many of the Darkin, Varus included, fell due to lack of direction and trauma, and used ungratefulness for their sacrifices, as well as believing that, as divinity, they were the rightful rulers over mortals. He was sealed in his bow and trapped in the bottom of a well for thousands of years, separated from all he knew and loved. One of Varus' quotes mentions that he thinks he's no longer worthy of his past. Many of his manipulation tactics involve isolation as well.
Inventory:
» Scarf, necklace, tiara, chest strap/cabochon
» Bow
Samples: INFO HERE
