The Story of Swain
Jericho Swain lost his arm at the Battle of the Sands — a Noxian military disaster caused by a conspiracy within Noxus's own ranks that sacrificed soldiers for political advantage. He survived. He returned to Noxus with a demon lodged in the stump of his arm, a thing that had fed on the suffering of the battle and offered him a transaction: power in exchange for the secrets of the people it consumed. He accepted. He understood what he was accepting.
He became Grand General through the kind of calculated political maneuvering that most Noxian leaders are too proud to admit is more effective than warfare. He outmaneuvered generals, exposed conspiracies, accumulated debts and leverage, and eventually held enough power that the formal title was a formality. He rebuilt the Noxian intelligence apparatus from the ruins of the organization that had betrayed the army at the Battle of the Sands, and he has been using it ever since for exactly the purposes that terrify the people who know about it.
Swain's demon shows him truth — the actual intent beneath what people say, the real shape of situations that present differently. This has made him the most informed person in Noxus, and the information has not made him optimistic. He knows what Noxus is. He knows what the empire's ambitions will eventually cost. He continues because he believes that the alternative — Noxus without him directing it — would be worse, and he is probably right, which is a dark thing to be right about.