Introduction

This article complies with version 0.94 of Runarcana RPG

Hello Summoner,

Welcome to Runarcana, a book created by the community, for the community, to provide countless adventures in their imaginations wandering through the fantastic land of Runeterra, the world where the League of Legends takes place.

RPGs are a space for creating and living legends and stories that take place in fantastic worlds. RPGs are guided by imagination where creativity and resourcefulness are stimulated and used to solve problems if necessary These fantastic worlds can range from legends of our world, such as the legend of King Arthur and the Round Table, to explorations of Egypt and even times like the 1920s, to authorial universes like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the Lord of the Rings and even classics like the Iliad and the Odyssey.

But besides authorial universes, RPGs can also happen based on your current reality or even your own creation, as a fantasy world created by you, with your characters, places, stories, and events. There are no limits to the fields of imagination where the RPG can journey with a group eager to make stories happen and change the course of events.

RPG means “Role-Playing Game”, it differentiates itself from games of pure imagination by bringing with it sets of rules for the resolution of disputes so that there is no overlapping of argumentation, creating unnecessary conflicts. Also, they bring rules for the creation of characters and determine when and if their actions are successful or not.

Usually, an RPG is full of challenges, which are presented by another player, known as Game Master, DM, or Narrator. Unlike the players, the Game Master is the conductor of the story and mediator of other players’ actions. The Game Master creates adventures for the characters to navigate through dangers and decide the paths to explore. An example of one of these problems would be the Game Master describing the Frostguard Citadel entrance and the players deciding what they want their characters to do when they hear it. Will they enter the dangerous domain? Are you going to talk to any member of this tribe? Or will they cast a spell that can take them directly to the Howling Abyss?

After the players’ decisions, the Game Master will narrate the result of their choices, either by describing the consequences of those choices or by using the rules to determine the success or failure of the players’ attempt. The Game Master can improvise in relation to each player’s actions since the RPG is exceptionally flexible, making the described rules just a common basis and a guide for the Game Master’s decision making.

There is no defined ending to an RPG game. When one goal is completed, another can begin, creating an adventure saga known as a campaign. Many players end up having their campaigns for months or even years, making incredible stories at each game session, where they meet their friends to continue the story in which their characters have immersed.

Usually, there are no winners or losers in an RPG, at least not in the usual way, like other types of games. In an RPG, all players tend to work together to advance the story, it’s not common for them to fight each other to define who is weaker or stronger, but rather to help each other, covering each other’s weakness. Each character has its own role within a group, while some characters are more combat-oriented, others will excel in social interactions, and some will even excel in exploring the places presented by the Game Master.

Even if players can’t succeed in their goals, having fun together is much more critical, which is a victory for everyone.

The Bases of this Book

The following is a great deal of information pertinent to the fundamental structures that were used to create this book, such as League of Legends and Dungeons & Dragons, as well as a brief summary of the publisher’s history and a disclaimer about the arts and images that are inserted in this book. You may have had access to this book without knowing some of this information, so let’s talk about some essential things pertinent to this book.

League of Legends

The League of Legends, usually abbreviated as LoL, is one of the most played video games in the world, with millions of fans around the globe, it continues with continuous growth each year, creating and reinventing an entire esports industry.

Created by Riot Games in 2009, it was idealized by founders Brandon “Ryze” Beck and Marc “Tryndamere” Merrill as a game that should stand out for fun and competition, leading players to test their limits at each match.

Perhaps the most crucial characteristic of this game, for the purposes of this book, is its multiplayer characters, in which people play in teams to defeat the enemy team.

Runeterra

Runeterra, on the other hand, is the world where the stories related to LoL happen, a fantasy world with aspects linked to fantastic medieval scenarios, but with many elements linked to science fiction and technological paradigm changes.

This book is a work in constant evolution and adaptation, this is partly due to its nature in synchronizing with the changes presented by Riot Games regarding the League of Legends universe, with this many things can change from one edition to the other, affecting mainly the environment, but sometimes even the rules

More information about Runeterra can be found in Chapter 11: Runeterra, with some brief descriptions of the principal nations of this world.

D&D

D&D or Dungeons & Dragons was the first RPG system created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, a system that deepened the narratives in the individual, unlike armies like miniature games.

Since the 1970s, it was the main RPG system, giving rise to several others in the course of the following decades but still being one of the leading systems today, in 2022.

D&D has several editions, with the rules not being utterly compatible between different editions, for any information regarding the rules, this book’s reference is the 5th edition of D&D.

Editor

The editor of this book, known as Arddhu, has been an RPG player since he was 8 years old, having started this activity with childhood friends in the 90’s and attending a store near his home called Pendragon

He found League of Legends in 2013, fell in love with the game and its fantastic universe, and has since then remained involved in the “silly game” either professionally or by hobby (as is the case with this book).

He maintains this project as a hobby and in a non-commercial or lucrative way, accepting submissions of material produced by the community and making a curatorship of this same material.

Art and Images

The arts contained herein are either owned by Riot Games and also follow the “Legal Jibber Jabber” policy, or are authored by artists responsible for fan arts, listed in Appendix C: References. Any use of them should be requested from their creators.

The World of Runeterra

Runeterra appears to be a world very similar to our planet in several aspects, however, it possesses some secrets and creatures that you may one day have seen in your most playful dreams.

As much as it is only a planet, Runeterra is closely linked with magic, possessing unknown relationships with other realms of existence that remain untouched by human hands, yet full of dreadful creatures or extremely social beings who would not think twice about giving shelter to an unprotected traveler.

A few nations separate this world, they share certain characteristics, but all are unique, differentiated in their histories, cultures, geographies, governments, and their relationships with magic. Although they exist worldwide, several intelligent creatures of the same species may be completely different in their behavior depending on the region where they grew up and may be the target of contempt, depending on where they were born.

With all this, the Game Master can set up a campaign in any of these nations or perhaps create his own with unique beings from this small universe. Being a world still in development by Riot Games, the players’ creative freedom towards their worlds and characters is gigantic, so check with the Game Master the rules related to the campaign he is presenting to you, the Master is the final authority to define key pieces and the workings of the world on your game

Using This Book

This book is separated into 3 parts:

The Part 1 is about everything necessary for you to create a character in the world of Runeterra. Containing information about Origins, Classes, Backgrounds, Equipment, among other options for you to further detail your character, to make it a unique personality in the world.

The Part 2 is about the general rules of how to play Runarcana, detailing the attributes of the character, the rules that should be used for the adventures out of combat and the rules of how the combat itself works. Also for players, this part details the rules for conjuring spells and the list of spells for each class that has the spellcasting capability.

The Part 3 portrays the game scenario, where you can find basic information about the world of Runeterra, portraying its regions and realms of existence.

How to Play

There is no “correct” way to play RPG, however, there are fundamental points that must occur within a game for its proper functioning.

1. The Game Master will describe the scenario. Here the Game Master speaks to the other players, where the characters are located, how is the place around them, how are the people there, that is, if there are people.
   It is up to the Game Master to give a general notion to the players of what action options they can take, giving them an overview of their situation. For example, the Game Master narrates:

   “You wake up in a precariously illuminated room, you feel the frozen stone floor under your bodies and in the distance the dim light of a torch that is about to go out. When the light from the torches goes out, you can see a phosphorescent blue viscous liquid that strongly illuminates the room, so you see a wooden door at one end and a chest at the other. What do you do?”

3. The players decide how they will react to what was described to them. After listening to everything the Game Master has to say, the players must act, being able to ask a variety of questions or going straight to the point. Each player can take different actions, one may want to know “Do I remember how we got here?”, or another may act by wanting to analyze the liquid flowing from the walls, or someone may want to open the chest.

   Oftenly, the solution to a problem can be simple, like who said that would like to see the chest, the Game Master can simply tell them that the chest is locked, and that they can’ t see the key anywhere near. Or in case of the player who decided to approach the walls ends up having a surprise when the liquid starts to detach from the wall and take the form of something he has never seen before. It is not necessary for all players to take concrete action, but it is up to the Game Master to listen to what each one has to say.

5. The Game Master then narrates the outcome of the players’ actions. At the end of the players’ decision making, or interrupting it to give a surprise element, the game returns to the first step, where a new situation is being presented and the Game Master describes the new elements that have emerged in the scenario.

Regardless of the situation, these 3 points always repeat themselves. In case of a combat, this base is still followed, but the actions are more structured, with more fixed rules and with the use of turns to define the actions of each character, be it the player or the Game Master.

The RPG, for the most part, is usually flexible and fluid, always adapting the situation to the players’ actions. The ambiance is usually in the mind of its players, with its surroundings described by the Master so that everyone can imagine the scene. However, some Game Masters may choose to have images to facilitate general understanding, and some Game Masters like to bring music or sound effects to give the game a better atmosphere. In some cases, it is common to have a map so that players have a notion of where their characters are and the positioning of their enemies, helping in their decision making.

Game Dice

This game makes use of multifaceted dice with different numbers on each side. You can find this dice in game stores or use a digital version for them, there are some applications that simulate this dice or you can even use Google for this.

The dice are differentiated in this book using the prefix “d” followed by the number of sides the dice has, such as d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20. The most common of them is d6, which is a six-sided dice, being used in several board games.

In addition to these dice, there may be some expressions that use the same concept, such as d100 (or percentage dice), d3 and d2. There are some different ways to use them, the d100 can be “created” using two d10, here one dice will represent the tens and the other the units, that is, by rolling the 2 dice, you get the results 4 and 2, knowing that the first dice was defined as the tens, you get the final result of 42. For the d3, you can roll a d6 and divide the result by half, rounding up. While for a d2, you can get the result in several ways, such as rolling any dice and setting odd numbers to 1 and even numbers to 2, or playing a coin, setting the results to heads and tails.

The rules will tell you what dice you should use for each situation and whether you should add any bonuses to the rolled result. For example, one of your attacks causes 3d6 + 5, this means you must roll three sixsided dice and add 5 to the total value.

The D20

Does an adventurer’s furious attack hit his target or does it just graze through the thick scales of his enemy? Will an army general believe the desperate story he was told?

When being the target of a psychic attack, will the adventurer be able to resist or succumb to mental control?

In all these situations where results are uncertain, the player or the Game Master must roll a d20 to determine success or failure.

Every character and creature has six attributes that will define their physical and mental abilities. They are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma, among the characters of players it is common that the values of these attributes are between 8 and 20, while for creatures it is possible that their values have a minimum of 1 or something as high as 30. Being the value 10 considered the general average of humans, a person who has a value above that is already considered an exceptional being, but if he is below... let’s say that he is not a good representative of the species.

These six attributes are the basis for almost every move that requires a d20 roll, whether made by players or the Game Master. Saving Throws, attribute testing or attack rolls are the main things that use a d20.

Advantage and Disadvantage

In some cases, a saving throw, skill test or attack rolls ends up under use of a special rule called advantage or disadvantage. Some of the character’s or creature’s abilities can describe when they will have advantage or disadvantage, but it is the Game Master who will define most of the time whether or not she will have advantage or disadvantage.

The advantage is something positive for the creature who will perform a d20 roll, while the disadvantage demonstrates a negative circumstance for it. When you are in any of these situations, you should roll two dice instead of one, if you are in advantage, you should use the higher value of the roll, while in disadvantage you use the lower value. For example, if you have an advantage and roll 14 and 7, you use the 14, but if you have a disadvantage and get the same values you use the 7. For more detailed rules on the use of advantage and disadvantage, see Chapter 7: Using Attributes.

Dice Rolling

Regardless of the type of dice used, a roll will always follow these steps:

1. Roll the Dice and add the modifier. In almost every data roll the modifier of one of the six attributes is used, and in some cases the character or creature has certain training or ease in a certain skill or weapon, giving him the opportunity to add the proficiency bonus to his roll. See Chapter 1 for a better understanding of attribute values and their modifiers.
3. Add a bonus or penalty. Sometimes it is possible that there is something affecting the roll, ranging from a Class ability to a spell or Rune, be it positive or negative. After getting the result, you should add or subtract the set value, depending on what is affecting the roll.
5. Compare the value with the target number. D20 rolls usually have a target value, if the total value obtained in scrolling is equal or greater than the target number, the saving throw, skill check or attack roll is a success, otherwise it is a failure.

Damage rolls, on the other hand, do not have a target value, they are only performed when successful in an attack roll.

The Game Master is the one who defines the target value that must be reached in order for a roll to be successful or unsuccessful. The target number for saving throws and skill checks is called the Difficulty Challenge (DC), while the target number for an attack roll is defined by the Armor Class (AC) of the target.

With this simple rule it is possible to decide the majority of the actions. Chapter 7 provides more detailed rules on using dice and attribute values ​​within the game.

The Specific Beats the General

As previously stated, Part 2 of this book brings the set of general rules needed to play Runarcana. In some moments you may notice that there are traces of Origin, Class skills, magic items, creature skills and other elements of the game that do not exactly follow the general rules present in Part 2, thus creating an exception to the rules. Keep in mind that if a specific rule contradicts a general rule, the specific rule prevails.

Normally, exceptions to the rules are minimal. For example, a person with a physical body cannot go through a wall, but some Class spells or abilities make an exception to this rule.

Almost all spells and Runes count as an exception to the rules.

Round It Down

There is a general rule that is not present in Part 2 and that you need to know. Whenever it is said that a result is divided, the value should be rounded down if it ends in a fraction, even if the part of the fraction is greater than half.

Adventures

The RPG consists of a set of characters that are performing the adventure that the Game Master showed them. Each character brings special traits to the adventure in the form of attribute values and skills, class characteristics, traits of Origins, equipment and magical items. Each character is different and each one has its own advantages and disadvantages, so the best group is the one where each character is different from the other. Adventurers must cooperate to succeed in the adventure.

The adventure is the core of the game, a story with a beginning, middle and end. Game Masters can create adventures, or they can use a ready-made one, in full, or modify it to suit their needs.

In any case, the adventure will present a atmosphere of fantasy, be it a ruin, a burning castle, a desert or a busy city. There is a wide variety of character types: the player characters (PC) created and played by other players at the table and the non-playable characters (NPC) controlled by the Game Master.

These characters can be clients, allies, enemies, contractors or just redundant characters in the story of the adventure. Usually, an NPC is the villain and his plan guides many adventure activities.

Throughout the adventure, the character will find several creatures, objects and situations that must be dealt with in some way. Sometimes adventurers and other creatures will do their best to kill or capture each other in battle. Other times, the character will bring the target and talk to these creatures. Usually, players spend time trying to solve puzzles, overcome obstacles, discover hidden things or solve current scenarios. At the same time, players explore the world and make decisions about where to go and what to do next.

The scale and complexity of adventures vary. Short adventures, known as one-shots, are adventures that have their beginning, middle and end in one single game session. A longer adventure, like a campaign, can involve hundreds of battles, interactions and other challenges and can last dozens of sessions, lasting weeks or months in real life. Usually, the end of an adventure is the return of the character to civilization to rest and enjoy the fruits of his work. But this is not the end of the story. You may think that the adventure is just one season of a TV show, consisting of several exciting episodes. A campaign is an entire show, with a series of activities performed by some characters that follow the story from beginning to end.

The Three Pillars of Adventuring

Players can do, or at least try, anything they can imagine with their characters that can be commonly described in 3 pillars: Combat, Exploration and Social Interactions.

The Combat is mainly dealt with in Chapter 9, but the rules for using spells during combat are dealt with in Chapter 10. Combat involves all creatures united in an effort to defeat their enemy, either by killing them, holding them hostage or forcing a retreat. Combat is the element with more rigid and less malleable rules, being divided into turns so that everyone can have the chance to act. Even though it is not very malleable, it is still possible that players try the strangest maneuvers, or the most impressive acrobatics.

The Exploration is, basically, the movement of characters through the world presented by the Game Master, including their interaction with objects and any environment in which they are, such as a forest, city or village. This interaction takes place through the choices of the players and the result of their actions presented by the Game Master. How to spend a few hours moving from one city to another and setting a waking shift, unraveling the riddles of an old shuriman tomb, or even cutting a rope in the middle of a forest to see what happens.

The Social Interactions, as the name says, is the interaction of players with the characters presented by the Game Master. It can happen when trying to convince a guard to give you access to an exclusive party, get information through a secret language or ask for mercy to a powerful enemy.

Chapters 7 and 8 deal with the general rules for exploration and social interactions, as well as various traits of Origin and Class characteristics.

A World of Magic

Runeterra is full of magic in all places, be it more visible and obvious as the conjuration of a fireball or in its most feared creatures, like dragons. Regardless of the way it is, magic is present daily in the day-to-day life of all beings, and is the focus of Chapter 10.

Although it is in abundance in the world, direct practitioners of magic are not so common, however, magic often appears in some of the skills of certain people. It is practically impossible that a campaign ends without anything magical happening, even in anti-magical regions like Demacia, it is present everywhere, trapped inside the petricite that its walls and houses are made of.

Magic is the key to the survival of the players, because without the healing of the acolytes, the explosive power and versatility of the Arcanes or the magical support of the Pilgrims, it is very likely that the other characters would quickly succumb before their enemies.