Noxus
Champion Lore

Riven

the Exile

Once a swordmaster in the warhosts of Noxus, Riven is an expatriate in a land she previously tried to conquer. She rose through the ranks on the strength of her conviction and brutal efficiency, and was rewarded with a legendary runic blade and a warband of her own. However, on the Ionian front, Riven's faith in her homeland was tested and ultimately broken. Having severed all ties to the empire, she now seeks to find her place in a shattered world, even as rumors abound that Noxus itself has been reforged...

Riven splash art
Riven splash art
Origin & Background

The Story of Riven

Riven was Noxus's ideal soldier — a girl from an occupied Noxian territory who enlisted and became the best, most committed warrior in her unit, who believed in Noxus's philosophy with the completeness of someone who had genuinely been lifted by it from nothing. She had a rune blade, unique to her, that she carried as both weapon and identity. Then her commander ordered the use of a chemical weapon during the invasion of Ionia, and the weapon affected friend and enemy alike, and everyone in her unit died, and she survived.

She shattered her blade. She walked away from Noxus. She crossed into Ionia and continued walking, unable to stop moving, unable to return to what she'd been, unable to fully understand what she'd survived into. She has spent the subsequent years in Ionia — the country she invaded, whose people she killed — trying to figure out what accountability looks like when the thing you're accounting for has no good answer.

She carries the shattered pieces of the rune blade, unable to fully let go of what it represented and unable to wield what it has become. She has found in Ionia something she didn't expect: people who lost as much as she did, some of whom can imagine — not forgive, but imagine — that the soldier who followed terrible orders is different from the commanders who gave them. She is building something from the shards. She does not know yet what it will be.

Key Connections

Relationships

Ionia
Adopted Penance
The land she invaded and now lives in — the country where she is working out what survival and accountability look like in practice.