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Zilean OriginalCentered
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Runeterra Crest icon

Biography

The Chronokeeper

By Ian St. Martin

Biography[]

Void Crest icon Icathia, most desolate and cursed of lands, was not always so. Theirs was a rich and diverse civilization, ruled by benevolent Axamuk, last of the Mage Kings of old. As the Shurima Crest icon Shuriman empire expanded across the continent, Axamuk's calls for peaceful coexistence were ignored, and his armies destroyed by the god-warriors of the Ascended Host.

Though humbled by this defeat, many Icathians saw an opportunity for mutual advancement. Accepting an offer of autonomous satrapy, they installed a governing council of distinguished mages, philosophers, and lawmakers to oversee the transition of power.

After almost nine centuries of imperial rule, a young man named Zilean Zilean joined the council's ranks. He was an elemental mage with a prodigious understanding of physical reality, who had studied under the greatest minds of the age—from the great Yun of Ixtal Crest icon Ixtal, to the astromancers of Faraj, and countless others besides.

There was one component of the material realm that few had ever truly grasped, but Zilean was determined to master.

Time.

Time was the one inescapable constant, in all things. Even the mighty god-warriors were not immune to its passage... though they were revered above all others in Shuriman culture.

As part of the political establishment, Zilean now saw more clearly the smoldering discontent among the citizens of Icathia. While their land was home to some of the most heroic leaders and revolutionary thinkers in the empire, not one had ever been deemed worthy of Ascension. Again and again, the council submitted petitions to the distant emperor, yet access to the Sun Disc was denied, without explanation. For all they gave, it seemed Icathians would never be seen as equals.

Zilean's own resentment grew, yet he was worried by open talk of secession among his peers. He was a patriot through and through, but in the face of the Ascended Host, any rebellion could only end in calamity for his people. Seeking a diplomatic solution, he went as an envoy to neighboring Kahleek, Kalduga, and Ixtal. He had made many allies in his lifetime, and he implored them to stand with Icathia.

Each time, the answer was the same. They would not defy Shurima. If Zilean's people wanted to, they would do so alone.

Returning home, he was shocked to find the council had decided to crown a new Mage King. Breathlessly, joyously, they told Zilean of the ancient and forbidden power they had discovered—a power so great, it would all but guarantee Icathia's victory.

They told Zilean of the power of Void Crest icon the Void.

He looked to these reasoned, wise Icathians, but saw only madness in their eyes. As much as it grieved him, Zilean would rather his homeland's revolution be crushed, than to let this abomination be set loose.

Zilean's worst fears proved true. Once unleashed in battle, the Void overwhelmed the mages attempting to control it, and Icathia was doomed.

As he tried to escape the capital, the ground shook. Buildings toppled. Such horrors as had no place in this world or the next erupted from the depths, driving terrified citizens before them.

They were trapped. Hundreds of thousands of innocents would die. In desperation, Zilean urged as many as he could to take refuge in his tower, and did the impossible.

He removed the entire structure from time.

Crashing to the cold floor, his power spent, Zilean looked at the frozen figures all around him. The Void was halted, but only within those walls—outside, where Icathia once stood, there was nothing.

Zilean had spent decades trying to comprehend the mysteries of time and causality, and it seemed only he could move freely back and forth within the anomaly he had somehow created. These people had been saved, true enough. He just didn't know how to undo what he had done to achieve it. Through deep meditations and esoteric devices of his own design, he began to divine the strands of past and present that led to this moment, gradually learning how to move back and forth along them, looking for a future where his efforts had already succeeded...

It was there that he found the true threat: the end of everything. The great unmaking that awaits Runeterra.

Effectively, Zilean now exists everywhere, and always has. Even so, he is only too aware of the consequences of trying to bring about change in the world and sparking other unexpected destinies—often conflicting, and almost always more dangerous. Perhaps if he can find a way to save his own people, then the greater disaster might also be averted.

The only question is, what might he be willing to sacrifice along the way?

Change log[]

The Chronokeeper
Enemy Missing pingMISSINGEnemy Missing ping Updated to the current version.
Enemy Missing pingMISSINGEnemy Missing ping Fifth version.
Zilean Render
"There is no greater grief than for a loss that is yet to come." - Zilean Zilean Once a powerful Icathian mage, Zilean became obsessed with the passage of time after witnessing his homeland's destruction by the Void. Unable to spare even a minute to grieve the catastrophic loss, he called upon ancient temporal magic to divine all possible outcomes. Having become functionally immortal, Zilean now drifts through the past, present, and future, bending and warping the flow of time around him, always searching for that elusive moment that will turn back the clock and undo Icathia's destruction.
Enemy Missing pingMISSINGEnemy Missing ping Updated to remove references to the Institute of War.
Zilean Render
"There is no greater grief than for a loss that is yet to come." - Zilean Zilean

In the wastelands of Urtistan, there was once a great city. It perished long ago in a terrible Rune War, like most of the lands below the Great Barrier. Nevertheless, one man survived: a sorcerer named Zilean. Being obsessed with time, it was only fitting that he dwelled in the city's Clock Tower. As the havoc of the war neared his home, Zilean experimented with powerful temporal magic to divine all possible futures, hoping to discover a peaceful solution. But Zilean's enchantments affected his perception of the passage of time, and he was in a contemplative stasis when Urtistan was set upon by an entire phalanx of dark knights of unknown affiliation. By the time he realized his error, Urtistan was nothing more than smoldering debris. Those responsible for its destruction had wisely left the Clock Tower unharmed, both to avoid drawing Zilean's attention and to torment him for his oversight.

Zilean barely had time to grieve the momentous loss before he learned that his dangerous research had a cruel side effect: chrono-displasia. This mystical disease granted him immortality, but detached his consciousness from its anchor in the present time. He now mentally drifts through time, from any point he has already lived to the present, unable to impact the events which unfold. The most torturous aspect of this curse is that Zilean sometimes experiences Urtistan as it once was and the rest of the time resides in its lonely ruins. Zilean quests for a cure, and thereafter a way to save his people.
Enemy Missing pingMISSINGEnemy Missing ping Third version.
Zilean Render old
"There is no greater grief than for a loss that is yet to come." - Zilean Zilean

In the wastelands of Urtistan, there was once a great city. It perished long ago in a terrible Rune War, like most of the lands below the Great Barrier. Nevertheless, one man survived: a sorcerer named Zilean. Being obsessed with time, it was only fitting that he dwelled in the city's Clock Tower. As the havoc of the war neared his home, Zilean experimented with powerful temporal magic to divine all possible futures, hoping to discover a peaceful solution. But Zilean's enchantments affected his perception of the passage of time, and he was in a contemplative stasis when Urtistan was set upon by an entire phalanx of dark summoner-knights of unknown affiliation. By the time he realized his error, Urtistan was nothing more than smoldering debris. The summoners who were responsible for its destruction had wisely left the Clock Tower unharmed, both to avoid drawing Zilean's attention and to torment him for his oversight.

Zilean barely had time to grieve the momentous loss before he learned that his dangerous research had a cruel side effect: chrono-displasia. This mystical disease granted him immortality, but detached his consciousness from its anchor in the present time. He now mentally drifts through time, from any point he has already lived to the present, unable to impact the events which unfold. The most torturous aspect of this curse is that Zilean sometimes experiences Urtistan as it once was and the rest of the time resides in its lonely ruins. Only the powerful summoning magic employed by members of the League of Legends has been able to treat this condition, and Zilean has joined in hopes of finding a cure, and thereafter a way to save his people.
V1.0.0.32 (October 23rd, 2009) Second version.
Zilean Render old
In the wastelands of Urtistan, there was once a great city-state. It perished long ago in a terrible Rune War, like most of the lands below the Great Barrier. However, one man survived. He was a man obsessed with time, a sorcerer who dwelled in the giant Clock Tower of Urtistan named Zilean. As the Rune War devastated his homeland, he experimented with powerful temporal magic that he hoped would bring peace. Instead of perishing with the rest of his kind, Zilean survived and was afflicted with chrono-displasia. This mystical disease made him immortal, but also made him detached in time. His consciousness now drifts through time, from any point he has already lived to the present. Zilean's greatest curse is that he sometimes experiences Urtistan as it once was and the rest of the time resides in its lonely ruins. The Chronokeeper has joined the League of Legends hoping to either find a cure for himself or a way to bring his people back from th...
V0.9.22.14 (June 24th, 2009) Original version.
Zilean Render old
Rising from the cracked, dried lakebeds of Urizan is a tower, shaped like a huge grandfather clock. Impenetrable and unassailable, there are no doors into it, nor any openings to climb or fly into. There is no water or vegetation within a hundred miles of this structure, only the desiccated remains of what was once a beautiful flourishing lake, now destroyed by the ravages of war and the hands of time. This is the way he wants it, the man who constructed this tower out here in the middle of nowhere. He has no need of supplies. Has no desire for visitors.

Inside, Zilean Zilean tinkers with his clocks. They cover his workshop. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Some work; most do not. He is obsessed with time. For he is both blessed and cursed by it. Blessed because he has discovered the way to manipulate time, making it move forward and back at his whims. Cursed because each time he does, he leaves a little piece of himself behind, doomed to see the world how it was, is, and eventually will be - all at the same time.

That is why he lives here, in the middle of a drained, dead lake. When he looks out the window he can see it as it was, hundreds of years ago, beautiful and alive. But at some point he must look away, for watching it be destroyed over and over again for all eternity could drive even the most solid mind insane.

References

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