Ivern

Runeterra has its share of beings who are not quite human, and Ivern Bramblefoot is one of them. Part man, part tree, he crosses the wild the way a local crosses their own neighborhood, finding value in every thicket and hollow instead of just passing through. People call him the Green Father because he looks after the woods he wanders, and he leaves them richer and odder than they were before.

What he knows is the sort of thing most champions never think to learn: which vine will cooperate, which creature is in his debt, which butterfly can be relied on to carry a message from one grove to another. He keeps friendships with the plants, birds, and insects scattered across Freljord and further afield, and when travelers come asking for advice, he tends to send them off more puzzled than wiser. He is not exactly hostile. He just keeps time and reasons by the forest’s rules, not by ours.

His combat follows the same thinking. Rootcaller conjures vines that snare a target so allies can rush in and finish the job, while Brushmaker transforms patches of undergrowth into hidden traps that deal extra damage to anyone who steps into them. Triggerseed spreads his protective streak to a companion, wrapping them in a shield that hurts any attacker who leaves them alone. When a fight needs more muscle, he calls forth Daisy, a Sentinel so closely bound to him that she follows his orders in battle. Ivern is never out to conquer anything. He nurtures what is around him, and the forest is both where he lives and what he fights for.

In terms of mechanics, Ivern plays as a support who can just as easily be played in the middle lane, using mana like most other spellcasters, though not much else about him looks like a standard mage. His passive, Friend of the Forest, means he never fights non-epic jungle monsters, so instead of clearing camps like any other jungler he grows magical groves there. If those groves are left alone long enough, they set the monster inside free for good, another small act of kindness from a champion who can’t seem to leave a piece of wilderness worse than he found it.