Mechanics help with League of Legends crossover

[RyumaruMG]

Hey all, I need a hand with a campaign I'm going to be running for my youngest brother and a couple of his friends. They're all fans of League of Legends, so I thought it would be fun to run something set in that world.

I'm having a couple of issues with the setting however, and they basically boil down to two things:

1. Races
Runeterra is basically populated by humans and yordles with very few exceptions (constructs like Blitzcrank and Zac, Ascended, and trolls like Trundle). Firstly, I'm not sure which race I could reflavor as yordles. I've been considering either halflings or gnomes. On the other hand, I could always find a homebrew yordle race (or make one myself). The other edge of the issue is that this doesn't seem to offer much in the way of PC race variation. So I'm looking for lore about any other races in Runeterra that might be usable as well.

2. Gods
If I'm going to run a game, I want to have Clerics be as viable as possible. Unfortunately, I don't think we've gotten much in the way of lore for the gods worshipped on Runeterra and the ways people do so. I mean, obviously we have Illaoi and Nagakeboros (sp?), but other than that there's maybe Bard and the Kindred, and possibly Aatrox/the Darkin. If I could have a hand in working out my Runeterran options for Clerics, that would be most appreciated.

[Laereth]

Hey all, I need a hand with a campaign I'm going to be running for my youngest brother and a couple of his friends. They're all fans of League of Legends, so I thought it would be fun to run something set in that world.

I'm having a couple of issues with the setting however, and they basically boil down to two things:

1. Races
Runeterra is basically populated by humans and yordles with very few exceptions (constructs like Blitzcrank and Zac, Ascended, and trolls like Trundle). Firstly, I'm not sure which race I could reflavor as yordles. I've been considering either halflings or gnomes. On the other hand, I could always find a homebrew yordle race (or make one myself). The other edge of the issue is that this doesn't seem to offer much in the way of PC race variation. So I'm looking for lore about any other races in Runeterra that might be usable as well.

Gnomes could be a good fit for yordles. Rock Gnomes for those coming from Piltover and Forest Gnomes for those from Bandle City.

You could opt to make multiple human subraces to replace races, for example use mountain dwarf for Freljord people ?



2. Gods
If I'm going to run a game, I want to have Clerics be as viable as possible. Unfortunately, I don't think we've gotten much in the way of lore for the gods worshipped on Runeterra and the ways people do so. I mean, obviously we have Illaoi and Nagakeboros (sp?), but other than that there's maybe Bard and the Kindred, and possibly Aatrox/the Darkin. If I could have a hand in working out my Runeterran options for Clerics, that would be most appreciated.

Do Gods need to be heavily defined ? Could you simply have pantheons for the different regions ?
Say the Demacian Pantheon covers Light, Knowledge, War and Life, without having distinct Gods ?

[Elite Hatter]

Maybe split the yordle race. The males are gnomes and the females are halflings. Seeing as how in game they are different skin colored anyway.

As for races, humans are easy as you mentioned. You could say elves exist. Date elves from the shadow isles, wood elves from nidalee's jungle, and high elves from Mt targon, well the "sun" elves anyway. To represent the targons and worship of the sun. Or even High elves in general are the Ionians, to represent they're enlightenment.

Gods, just do the Summoners that run the League. They are, for all intents and purposes, the ruling force on Runeterra.

I'm super excited about this concept. I hope some of these help or give you inspiration for your game.

[SharkForce]

Maybe split the yordle race. The males are gnomes and the females are halflings. Seeing as how in game they are different skin colored anyway.

As for races, humans are easy as you mentioned. You could say elves exist. Date elves from the shadow isles, wood elves from nidalee's jungle, and high elves from Mt targon, well the "sun" elves anyway. To represent the targons and worship of the sun. Or even High elves in general are the Ionians, to represent they're enlightenment.

Gods, just do the Summoners that run the League. They are, for all intents and purposes, the ruling force on Runeterra.

I'm super excited about this concept. I hope some of these help or give you inspiration for your game.

yeah, uhhh... that distinct visual difference between male and female yordles you're thinking of?

that's because some of them are meglings. or at least, were meglings. not because of gender.

anyways, when it comes to deities in runeterra, i don't think there really are what you would consider deities in a D&D sense. more like warlock patrons. lots and lots of warlock patrons.

i would just keep the cleric class mechanically and replace the ability to call on their god for assistance with something else.

[Laereth]

i would just keep the cleric class mechanically and replace the ability to call on their god for assistance with something else.

You could also keep the divine intervention and have clerics work on their Faith. The divine intervention is the very slight odd that one cleric's Faith allows him to accomplish a miracle.

[Azreal]

They are making all female Yordles look like actual Yordles so there won't be that difference anymore.

There is the new lore from Pantheon's Mountain where their gods possess people to give them power to enact their will.

As far as races are concerned yes there are mostly humans, then Yordles, then there's both kinds of Ascended, contructs, then spirits like Brand, uplifted animals like Rammus or Wu-Kong, the Ice Bear Tribe, the Vikings that Olaf comes from are goliaths.

Divine magic can just be reflavored as Ionia magic and more spiritual based then anything.

[Chaosvii7]

Unless your characters are playing actual champions from the game, I wouldn't worry too much about race diversity and just make a bunch of human subraces, as previously suggested. Shurimans, Bilgewater Humans, Noxians, Demacians, Freljordians, Piltovians, Zaunites, and Ionians. I'm sure each has a pretty fitting racial analog in 5th edition.

As for deciding between Gnomes and Halflings; Por que no los dos? Give them the base stats of a Halfling and let them pick from any gnome or halfling subraces. I think Halfling base stats are a bit more fitting because no Yordle is explicitly not a little bit dextrous (Poppy runs fast and dashes, Gnar is still hyperactive and hops around before he transforms into Mega-Gnar). As for other things like constructs and undead, I would look into Plane Shift: Zendikar (the M:tG PDF unearthed arcana they made for D&D) and the Eberron UA for ideas of more exotic races like constructs, undead from the shadow isles - even the Ascended could be as simple as using Shifters and making it so they're constantly shifted (it'd probably be the boost in power that race needs to be good, at any rate).

I think if your players are really in love with the setting then they're not going to care much if their racial options are limited. It'd be more about telling a unique story of characters of their own design in tandem with the lore of League of Legends than it would be trying to replicate things they've already seen and done before.

[KorvinStarmast]

Hey all, I need a hand with a campaign I'm going to be running for my youngest brother and a couple of his friends. They're all fans of League of Legends, so I thought it would be fun to run something set in that world.


I always saw Jenna (wind sorceress?) and Varus(Bow fighter / Ranger?) as elves.

I can see Morgana as an elf as well, though it's a reach. I think Zed could be well rendered as an elf or a drow.

[RyumaruMG]

Gnomes could be a good fit for yordles. Rock Gnomes for those coming from Piltover and Forest Gnomes for those from Bandle City.

You could opt to make multiple human subraces to replace races, for example use mountain dwarf for Freljord people?



Unless your characters are playing actual champions from the game, I wouldn't worry too much about race diversity and just make a bunch of human subraces, as previously suggested. Shurimans, Bilgewater Humans, Noxians, Demacians, Freljordians, Piltovians, Zaunites, and Ionians. I'm sure each has a pretty fitting racial analog in 5th edition.

As for deciding between Gnomes and Halflings; Por que no los dos? Give them the base stats of a Halfling and let them pick from any gnome or halfling subraces. -snip- As for other things like constructs and undead, I would look into Plane Shift: Zendikar (the M:tG PDF unearthed arcana they made for D&D) and the Eberron UA for ideas of more exotic races like constructs, undead from the shadow isles - even the Ascended could be as simple as using Shifters and making it so they're constantly shifted (it'd probably be the boost in power that race needs to be good, at any rate).


I like these ideas. I was probably going to just go with gnomes as the parallel, given that almost all yordles in-game are either casters or tech-based. I do like the idea of picking between gnome and halfling subraces, though.

As for the other races, yeah, that sounds like a really good idea. I unfortunately don't have access to the Eberron book (unless they put free stuff for it on Unearthed Arcana), but so far my ideas boil down to:


Dwarves = Plague Jungles
Elves = Ionians
Half-Orcs = Freljordians
Tieflings = Shadow Isles (with their fire resistance swapped to necrotic)
Half-Elves = Bilgewater natives


Noxians and Demacians are probably going to be vanilla humans. I'm not sure I'll let people play Ascended since they're in-lore supposed to be these borderline-divine beings. And these are just the first draft ideas.

Fortunately, someone did a bunch of 5E homebrew that included Ashe as an NPC, the Ursine as a PC race, and the Frozen Watchers as a Warlock patron, so I'm definitely picking that stuff up!



Divine magic can just be reflavored as Ionia magic and more spiritual based then anything.

I think I'm going to do a slightly-tweaked version of this and have divine magic come from more vaguely-defined "spirits" and such. Possibly the same kinds of spirits/divine beings that Soraka used to be, if that's still her lore. I can't keep track of all these changes! D:


As for other stuff to provide them with class options and such, I've pulled Gunslinger, Artificer, and Engineer classes (my brother LOVES Heimerdinger) from the Unearthed Arcana and D&D subreddits. I'm reasonably sure anything else they might want to do can be covered by other class options.

[RyumaruMG]

Okay, so, having done some thinking/tinkering, I'm looking at using Dwarf stats for the Freljordians (though probably with some tweaks to their Stonecunning feature and poison resistance at the very least) and Half-Orc for the trolls. Or possibly the other way around.

I also still don't have a good idea of what stat blocks to use for Piltovians and Zaunites, though I may go the homebrew route with those.

Suggestions? Ideas? Any help would be appreciated.