jules Seigneur
Digital Creator - Writer
Currently following a degree in Literary and Digital Creation, I'm looking for a work-study contract in publishing, writing or communication. I pride myself on my strong technical background, my versatility and my creativity.
Concepts - League of Legends
As an enthusiastic League of Legends player, imagining new champions and writing paper concepts is one of my favorite hobbies. Creating a champion's kit along with their visuals and lore is an exciting prospect, and allows me to improve my game design skills.
The concepts featured here were first posted on the LolChampConcepts subreddit, a dedicated online board holding monthly thematic concepts. These concepts taught me how to write paper concepts and how to receive and integrate criticism.
Each concept was rewritten and thoroughly commented to be made clearer to non-League of Legends players. They have been divided in two sections : "Background" and "Gameplay".
Ramiel - the Agent of the Spider
Context - Concept written for the June 2018 contest. The theme was "Whips" ; the goal was simply to create a champion wielding a whip, or a similar weapon. This is an as-of-yet unexplored archetype in League of Legends. To find a strong direction, I turned toward spiders. In pop culture, arachnid characters often weave flexible yet hard-as-steel webs, which can shaped into anything (from morning-stars to parachutes). I imagined a half-man half-spider character with four arms, which would start with only one web-whip but would weave up to three more as the game went on, strengthening him over time.
Background
Playstyle - Physical ranged jungler, favoring the late-game
Why ? - Whips are mid-ranged weapons, since they need space and amplitude to strike at full strength. Thematically, Ramiel is a predator. "Jungler" champions roam the jungle to kill monsters, which grants them gold and experience. Covertly stalking enemies through the jungle allows Ramiel to play like a sneaky spider trapping its preys. Since Ramiel gains more weapons as the game goes on, he can be categorized as a "late-game" champion.
Lore - Ramiel is a homonculus created by the Vilemaw, a Spider-God lurking within the Shadow Isles. Built from cadavers and tormented souls, Ramiel skitters along the Web of Life, a metaphysical concept linking each and every living being. Ramiel is a predator, devouring monsters and intelligent creatures to offer their life-force to the Vilemaw. He has a conflictual relationship with Elise, the human priestess of the Vilemaw. She offers sacrifices to her god in order to gain its favors and keep her eternal youth.
Why ? - The Vilemaw has been established for a long time within the League of Legends universe, but has only ever interacted with Elise. By contrasting Elise and Ramiel, I wanted to bring out each character's unique traits while making the Vilemaw more important, generating potential conflict with other unrelated champions. Ramiel's lore explains his arachnid morphology and his predatory gameplay.
Appearance - Ramiel is a tall androgynous individual, with pale (almost translucent) and sharp features. Ramiel's body is wrapped in a silky substance which covers him from neck to toe. This ethereal material glows with the colors of the rainbow in random places. The Agent of the Spider's arms are thin, ending in spindly, clawed fingers. His weapon of choice is a strand of web used as a whip.
Why ? - I wanted to give Ramiel an unambiguously arachnid appearance while keeping him distinctive from Elise, the other spider champion. Elise is a woman covered in red-and-black chitin, with long pointy legs jutting out from her back. I chose wholly different colors and textures for Ramiel to make him stand out.
Gameplay
Passive - Web of Life : Whenever Ramiel kills a large monster (or an epic monster), he summons at Spider Nest at the monster's location. When an enemy unit approaches a Nest, the Nest is destroyed and the enemy's position is revealed. Ramiel can maintain up to 6 Nests at the same time ; they auto-destruct after a set period of time.
Why ? - This passive skill directly stems from Ramiel's lore and encourages him to invade the enemy jungle to undermine the enemy team's effort and grow in strength. By weaving his lair through enemy terrainm, Ramiel can observe the enemy jungler and stalk him as he sees fit. On the other hand, this means Ramiel must regularly take risks and explore the enemy jungle to keep his advantage. Overall, this builds on the thematic idea of a spider slowly weaving its web to capture its prey.
1st spell - Luminous Lashing : Ramiel cracks each of his whips in a straight line, dealing physical damage with each lash. Ramiel can move freely during Luminous Lashing, although he is slowed by 50%.
Why ? - I wanted to create a simple and intuitive spell, and a whip lash felt logical. Since each woven whip adds a strike to Luminous Lashing, this skill is an easy way to showcase Ramiel's unique gameplay hook. To fully optimize his damage output, Ramiel needs to land each and every whip lash, which demands good aim and positioning.
2nd spell - Strings of Steel : Ramiel passively takes less damage from non-epic monsters. When Ramiel activates Strings of Steel, he parries the X next attacks in the targeted direction (X being his current amount of whips). Each parried attack grants Ramiel bonus magical damage on his next auto-attack.
Why ? - The passive component allows Ramiel to survive in the jungle, since the Agent of the Spider can otherwise be quite vulnerable. The active component grants Ramiel a strong defensive tool whose usefulness will be dictated by his player's skill. Since this defense only protects Ramiel in a single direction, his opponent can outwit him and move to strike around his parry. The damage bonus acts as an incentive to use this spell, and rewards the player for good execution.
3rd spell - Iridescent Cocoon : Ramiel shields himself within a cocoon, taking reduced damage for 2 seconds. After a short while, Ramiel can dash out of the cocoon to reposition himself.
Ramiel can recast Iridescent Cocoon while within his cocoon to capture and entangle nearby champions. Ramiel can capture as many champions as he has whips. Webbed champions are slowed down, and must break the tether by running away from the cocoon.
Why ? - Iridescent Cocoon is primarily a defensive spell, but also breaks up enemy formation by forcing them to move away from his cocoon. This way, Ramiel can more easily focus isolated enemies, reducing risks. Iridescent Cocoon can also slow down a pursuer. Thematically, this reinforces Ramiel's arachnid thematic as a nimble predator webbing up his prey.
Ultimate Spell - Web of Creation : For each rank of Web of Creation, Ramiel weaves a new whip, strengthening his base spells and increasing his attack speed. Ramiel can cast Web of Creation while standing on a Spider Nest to teleport in another Spider Nest of his choice.
Why ? - I wished to keep Ramiel's ultimate spell simple. For each skill point put into Web of Creation, he gains a new whip. This is a simple and common-place method to regulate his power curve. Since Ramiel's kit is already quite offense-heavy, I gave him a supportive ultimate. Web of Creation grants him amazing mobility and lets him attack his enemies from unexpected angles. This also forces his opponents to search through their jungle and destroy Spider Nests, so Ramiel cannot freely invade their territory.