The Story of Taric
Taric was a Demacian soldier — a decorated one, from a noble military family — who was expelled from the military for a dereliction of duty that got his entire unit killed. He made a choice that saved himself and failed the others, and the tribunal's judgment was proportionate. Rather than accept Demacia's official verdict and live with it quietly, he made a decision that strikes most people as excessive: he climbed Mount Targon.
The mountain strips away pretension. The Aspect of the Protector — the divine force that descends to those who survive the ascent — does not choose people for conventional virtue. It chose Taric, which he understands as the specific lesson he was climbing toward: protection is not about never failing. It is about what you do with the failure. He descended as the Shield of Valoran, carrying the Aspect's power and his own unresolved guilt.
He is the most literally beautiful being in Runeterra by most accounts — the Aspect's light radiates through him, gemstones and golden armor and genuine warmth that is both divine and his own. He is also, beneath the magnificence, still the soldier who made a bad choice and has decided that the rest of his life will be organized around never making it again. He protects with everything he has. He knows what it cost the last time he didn't.