Vastaya, new League of Legends race, revealed

UPDATE, 4/25:

Riot has revealed that Nami, Rengar, and Wukong are all descendants of the mysterious Vastaya. Each of these characters, as well as Ahri, now have their own, updated lore on the Universe site. It seems that we are not quite done learning about the Vastaya yet.

This brings the total number of confirmed Vastaya champions up to six: Ahri, Rakan, Xayah, Nami, Rengar, and Wukong.

Original story:

In a new lore piece released on their Universe website, Riot Games introduced the vastaya, a new race in League of Legends. League’s two newest champions, Xayah and Rakan, belong to this new grouping of animal-people. However, there is also a familiar face. Ahri, the nine-tailed mid laner, is also a vastaya, and shows up briefly in the story.

The piece itself follows a Piltovan explorer/researcher who goes by the name of Eduard Santangelo. Santangelo is anything but humble, and the narration is told from his own first person perspective, as it is supposed to be his field journal.

He chronicles his travels to Ionia, where he runs into a new creature. This beast wandered into Santangelo’s camp and decided to rummage for food. He describes it as a creature that walks on two legs like a human but is “a chimeric combination of several other creatures.”

Riot Games

Santangelo refers to this new race as a phylum, rather than a species. A phylum is a larger classification, meaning that the range of vastaya could be considered broad. Some vastaya may be highly intelligent bird-people, others can be weird monkey-lizards.

The journal goes on to describe run-ins with other vastaya creatures, and the potential variety of creature contained in the classification continues to grow. He is taken in by what appears to be an odd beaver-seal-otter-fungal creature. They appear to be civilized, at least to a Piltovan’s eyes. They wear clothes and offer him a great deal of hospitality. Soon he learns they speak his language.

Riot Games

They tell a tale of humans fleeing the void wars (a presumed war between the void-like creatures, such as Vel’Koz/Kha’Zix/etc, and the people of Runeterra), and finding shelter here in the more remote parts of Ionia. It seems that here they met a race of shapeshifters, with whom they procreated. Thus the vastaya were created.

After Santangelo is kicked out of the creatures’ homes for being a little too blunt about cross-species breeding, he wanders Ionia for months. When he eventually decides to bathe, he comes across a creature that he describes as a beautiful woman with fox features. We of course know this to be Ahri.

Riot Games

He gawks at her bathing for a while (like a creep) and is eventually interrupted by a traveling salesman. This guy answers some questions and then turns out to be a shapeshifter himself, turning into a pig before Santangelo’s very eyes.

Santangelo concludes his journal by suggesting that there is so much more of the vastaya to discover. He apparently returns to Piltover, only to leave again shortly after, allegedly to find Ahri, with whom he is very much in infatuated. He is then kidnapped and presumably executed.

There is no mention of Xayah or Rakan in this article, however, there are many secrets to uncover here. Could this have connections to any other champions? This may warrant an investigation on our part. Stay tuned for more details.