Kayn’s lore reveals his origins

Kayn is League of Legends’ newest champion, set to be released in the coming week. Like all the others before him, he comes burdened with a history. While some champions have tragic beginnings, like Orianna being a machine meant to replace a dead little girl, Kayn may have had it the worst.

According to his bio, he began his life as a Noxian soldier, conscripted into the services of the vast empire at the age of 10. The Noxians were locked in a war against the Ionians at the time, attempting to seize the land for themselves. Training and sending child soldiers was an attempt to lower the Ionian’s will to fight.

When Kayn landed, he stood his ground and attacked with everything he was. He threw his sword away, exchanging it for a farmer’s sycthe, slaughtering everyone in his view. Days later, Zed and the Order of the Shadow came to investigate the battle scene. Kayn was lying in the mud, battered but not beaten. Instead of ending the young man, Zed saw an opportunity to mold him into the perfect weapon. Pulling the boy from the mud, Zed took him in and trained him.

Kayn became the Order’s greatest trainee, growing more arrogant all the while. Years into his training, he was sent on a mission to retrieve a mystical Darkin weapon from his home, Noxus. What he found was the legendary sycthe, Rhaast, a living weapon. Instead of destroying the demonic blade, he grabbed it for himself. The corruption of the weapon twisted his body and mind, melding the shadow and the Darkin together into one beast.

Riot Games

The separate story, The Blade of Millennia, tells the Origin of Kayn’s relationship with Rhaast in a more entertaining fashion and is certainly worth the five minutes it takes to read.

Kayn’s life has been tragic, but it certainly doesn’t seem like he sees it that way. All he has ever known was war and death, and he has become determined to be the best at both. How fitting then that he should meld with Rhaast, the physical embodiment of death itself.

With the introduction of Rhaast, the second Darkin (Aatrox being the first), perhaps it is time to learn more about this ancient, evil race. Maybe we will find out soon? Or maybe we will have to wait another five years for the next Darkin champion.