VERY INTERESTING: ARCANE

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about the hit series 

Arcane' Explained: Everything You Need to Know About Netflix's 'League of Legends' Animated Series

An overview of the regions and characters featured in the League of Legends adaptation.

League of Legends is one of the most popular MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arena) games ever created. Released by Riot Games in 2009, League has drawn in players across the world and spawned a massive esports scene. It has two spin-off games, the auto-chess battler Teamfight Tactics and the card game Legends of Runeterra. League of Legends allows players to pick from more than 100 playable champions with origins all across the fantasy world of Runeterra. 

Runeterra's lore and characters have led to Arcane, an animated adaptation of League produced for Netflix. Arcane will delve into this world, focusing on the story of the sisters Vi and Jinx as they find themselves at odds after being separated as young children in the undercity, Zaun. With 12 years to build up the lore, there’s plenty to learn before watching the adaptation. Here’s everything you need to know before watching Arcane, beginning with a look at Runeterra.

Runeterra’s fantasy world is vast, separated into 13 regions. These regions are populated with many races, and cover diverse cultures and biodomes. From the lush, verdant greenery of Ionia to the vast deserts of Shurima, the militarized empire of Noxus to the secluded region of Ixtal, Runeterra is rich in history and magic. Arcane is set in two regions: The gleaming City of Progress Piltover and the undercity district of Zaun.

Piltover and Zaun are deeply interlinked, so much so that Legends of Runeterra treats them as a single region in its game. They literally stand on top of each other, with Piltover built atop the cliffs that Zaun is built in. Despite being so interwoven, the two regions are at odds more often than not due to differences in living conditions and cultures.

Dubbed the City of Progress, Piltover is a hub of trade, science, and learning. Piltover is renowned for the Academy that teaches the brightest minds of Runeterra, where they learn cutting-edge techniques of hextech science, and how to develop it further. Its docks are also a massive source of trade, with merchants sailing to Piltover from all over Runeterra. This has made Piltover into a very affluent city with a high standard of living.

In contrast, Zaun is a much grimmer district, receiving much of Piltover’s runoff, and suffering far higher rates of poverty and crime. Tragic accidents involving chemtech and other industrial mishaps happen often, but the Zaun Gray is one of Zaun's most dangerous hazards. The Gray is a thick smog from the factories in Zaun and Piltover, and its varied thickness makes breathing in Zaun anything from an annoyance to a hazard. 

The people of these contrasting regions harbor a deep dislike of each other; the citizens of Piltover look down on those of Zaun as a lower class, while Zaunites have a simmering hatred of the Pilties for creating the impoverished conditions they live in. Arcane promises to explore these tensions, with the official trailer showing glimpses of riots and hinting that the tenuous peace between the regions is coming to an end. Of course, any fantasy world is only as good as the characters who inhabit it, so let’s take a look at the champions who will be in Arcane.

Vi

Vi is one of the main characters in Arcane, voiced by Hailee Steinfield. Vi grew up on the streets of Zaun and quickly gained a reputation for being quick to anger and quicker to punch. In her youth, she headed a gang for a short time until a botched heist with a partnered game went south, putting innocent people at risk.

 Shortly after putting the rival gang in their place with a beating from her iconic hextech gauntlets, Vi vanished from Zaun. She resurfaced later as a member of Piltover’s Wardens, the group charged with enforcing peace and order in the city of progress. The exact reason Vi left Zaun has largely been a mystery to this point, and it’s one that Arcane will likely answer.

Jinx

Jinx is well-known throughout Piltover and Zaun as an anarchic maniac armed with incredible firepower, from her shark-shaped missile launcher Fishbones to the explosive fire chompers she keeps handy. Jinx performs many of her crimes under the guise of pranks that range from swapping all the street signs in the city to destroying and robbing Piltover’s most secure vaults. 

Much of Jinx’s past has been a mystery, including an obsession with Vi that has gone unanswered until Arcane revealed that the pair are sisters who grew up in Zaun together. The trailer also hints that Jinx’s mania isn’t a natural development for her but a state of mind forced upon her by a mysterious individual. Jinx will be voiced by Ella Purnell.

Caitlyn

Caitlyn, voiced by Katie Leung, grew up in an affluent family, born to parents who were both brilliant hextech engineers. However, Caitlyn felt at home in the wilderness outside Piltover as much as the gilded city she grew up in. Caitlyn learned to stalk prey, and proved to be an incredible shot as she explored the wilds - which served to be a valuable skill when she came home to find her parents kidnapped. 

Caitlyn tracked down the criminals responsible - except for the mastermind, C, and became a renowned private eye after. Eventually, her prowess led the Wardens to recruit her as a sheriff, and Caitlyn now enforces the peace in Piltover with the advanced hextech rifle her parents built for her and her partner, Vi, as she tries to find C.

Jayce

Raised in the City of Progress, Jayce, played by Kevin Alejandro, embodies many of its ideals of invention and discovery. A brilliant creator, Jayce has a deep understanding of technology that allows him to outshine his peers, even those who have been studying for longer than him. 

His brilliance has also led to others considering him aloof and arrogant because he simply doesn’t comprehend that others struggle with concepts he finds simple. The only scientist who could come close to Jayce’s brilliance was Viktor until Viktor’s ambitions grew to immoral heights that Jayce could no longer ignore and led to him destroying his only friend.

Viktor

Viktor was born in Zaun, and quickly realized many of the industrial accidents that plagued the undercity were due to human error. He created autonomous machines capable of doing factory work and removing the human factor. Viktor’s brilliance drew the attention of Piltover’s Academy where he excelled, working alongside some of Piltover’s brightest minds - including Jayce. 

Viktor and Jayce worked together on several projects, including a mechanical diving suit. Viktor proposed augmenting the suit with a chemtech helmet that would allow supervisors to control the divers, further removing human error - but Jayce saw it as the immoral destruction of free will. He brought Viktor’s research to the Academy and got him expelled, sending Viktor back to Zaun to continue his research. Viktor is voiced by Harry Lloyd.

Heimerdinger

Professor Cecil B. Heimerdinger is a yordle, a race of small beings that live in Bandle City, a region that’s not actually on Runeterra, but exists as a pocket dimension with many entrances to Runeterra. Heimerdinger is a brilliant individual, spending much of his time creating ingenious inventions and tinkering with them to make them even more efficient. With time, Heimerdinger realized that his abilities had outgrown Bandle City. Venturing into Runeterra to find a location better suited for his research, he found a home in Piltover and became renowned as one of the greatest inventors the City of Progress has ever seen.

And as always have a chilled day from the Viking