Each champion that is added to League of Legends contributes to the overall world-building of Runeterra, oftentimes connecting them with existing champions to update their lore simultaneously as well. However, in the case of one particular Darkin, a story released regarding her journey has fans frustrated at its lore contradictions, ultimately leading to an upcoming change.
When the lore for League’s newest champion, Naafiri, was released on June 22, fans across social media expressed concern as to how exactly the Darkin dagger “shattered” and became part of an entire pack of dogs at once. While this was little more than a metaphor about the pack’s bond, Riot Games will be diving back into the Hound of a Hundred Bites’ lore to make it more clear as to what exactly happened.
“We always meant for the shattering of the blades to be metaphorical as Naafiri doesn’t quite understand herself what happened,” Riot Lexical, part of the product management team on League’s champions. “The word choice was a bit too ambiguous and we would like to clear that up!”
A major spotlight was placed on Naafiri’s lore uncertainties via a Reddit thread from June 23, where the original poster went into detail—using other pieces of Darkin lore as evidence—that it should be impossible for any Darkin weapons to be destroyed, let alone by a pack of dogs. The shattered blade also did not make sense due to descriptions that appear to place Naafiri’s power equal to or above that of Aatrox.
However, many responses to the original thread noted some discrepancies in the original poster’s breakdown, most notably that it appeared Naafiri’s biography was written about her by herself, adding implicit bias to the way she describes herself and the events that happened to her. This is made more evident through Riot Lexical’s response that Naafiri “doesn’t quite understand herself what happened.”
At this point, it is unclear as to how exactly Naafiri’s lore will be updated and when those updates will be implemented.
