[Riot Creative Contest 2017] The Great Lunar Race
Since the Chinese/Lunar New Year is coming, I thought that I’d like to create a piece which depicted a very old and traditional story about how the Chinese Zodiac came to be. For those unaware, this is what determines what animal every new year is centered around. For instance, this year is the “Year of the Dog”, and last year was “Year of the Rooster”.
The order of the animals are determined by a massive race to see who could reach the finish line first. (in some cases, a Heavenly Gate). There have always been many different variations of how the race is told, but the order always remains the same:
1. Rat – Twitch (or maybe Teemo): Crafty, quick-witted, sneaky, devious, rides on the Ox’s (Bull) head and jumps across the finish line at the last second. We can add humor to this character i.e. Maybe Ox head-butts Twitch across the finish line.
2. Ox – Alistar – Resolute, diligent, persistent, unrelenting – His ult is even a perfect representation of himself (Unbreakable Will).
3. Tiger – Rengar or Nidaleen tiger udyr – Ferocity, power, speed. Rengar is the more likely candidate as he represents the themes better (I mean, his resource is Ferocity). Tiger’s major advantage was speed, however the presence of a river significantly slowed down progress.
4. Rabbit – Cottontail Teemo/Fizz or Battle bunny riven – Swift, deft, agile. Fizz is the most likely candidate as he represents how the rabbit finished the race, leaping and hopping across the stones in the river, while Tiger had to swim through it. He makes up for his lack of power and size by using the troll pole.
5. Dragon – Asol – Noble, proud, kind, majestic. You must be wondering about how a DRAGON didn’t come in first. Well, he stopped by a village to help them with an issue (anything from fire, to needing water, etc), and also helped rabbit cross the river by blowing the log which he was standing on.
6. Snake – Cassiopeia – Sneaky, sinister, clever. Scares the horse away as she is close to the finish line, by hiding somewhere and surprising her.
7. Horse – Hecarim - Strong, untamed, energetic – Horse was going to finish in 6th until the snake scared him off, and resulted in coming in 7th.
8. Goat/Sheep – Soraka – Goat, Monkey and Rooster worked together by finding/creating a raft and crossing the river together, so they finished at around the same time.
9. Monkey – Wukong – Cheeky, smart, clever, crafty – Everything you’d expect from a monkey. Wukong fits this perfectly especially with his clone and Nimbus Strike. We can play around with this during the race to show how he would attempt to win (i.e. deceit and trickery by using clones everywhere to distract and confuse.) (clone pulling at someone’s face)
10. Rooster – Azir – Observant, hardworking– Big chicken. Azir is a leader and an emperor, so we could have him helping Goat and Monkey with his sand soldiers.
11. Dog – Warwick, Nasus – Happy go lucky, honest, loyal – These champions don’t fit the category too well, so we’d mostly likely have to go with Nasus due to his duty and loyalty in his lore. In the story, he takes a bath in the river before finishing the race. We can also use Nasus to interact with Azir for more champion personality.
12. Pig – Sejuani (for Bristle) or Gragas (who symbolically fits better) - Lazy, compassionate, capable, generous (especially with their meals) – Definitely a capable candidate, however he got quickly side-tracked to eat a meal during the race.
By centering LoL champions around this, I thought that it’d be an interesting way to tell this same story through the power, lore and our personal experiences with varying champions and draw parallels to represent the race to become the best.
As such, the key elements which I want present are:
1. The struggle to become the best (A race towards the Summoner Cup is an ideal race condition, subject to change if I come up with something better)
2. Champion personality – in what ways can different champions try to overpower and outwit eachother? What techniques would they use and how? I rank this over telling the story as it is a LoL fanart competition, and I personally find the options I get with champion interaction to be much better than the old story.
3. Maintain the traditional Chinese story, so that people understand the story behind Lunar Revel.
Here's the rough sketch I've got so far.
Feedback and criticism is always welcome! I'm still trying to figure out how to put in pig!