Zaahen

A God Who Picked the Prison

Zaahen was once revered as a deity. Today he stalks his own people. As one of the Darkin, he holds divine power and corruption in roughly equal parts. For much of his existence he elected to stay locked inside his glaive instead of gambling on what that power would do unchecked. The confinement was not a sentence handed down to him. He accepted it deliberately, as a way to keep his madness contained.

Unbound, Yet Still at War

He is free now, but the conflict has not concluded. It has simply taken up residence within him. Zaahen tracks down other Darkin throughout Ionia and farther afield, fighting the same corruption he wants to eradicate in his own kind. He is not alone in this; Ionians like Irelia are waging their own struggles for the region. Good intentions have not made him gentler. Each battle is as much a test of whether he can still resist his own nature as it is a fight against the enemy in front of him.

That inner struggle is visible in his combat style. With his next attack, the Darkin Glaive cuts twice, dealing bonus damage and restoring some of his health. Recasting it attaches a knock-up to the strike that follows. Dreaded Return lunges forward with a stab and drags any enemy it hits back toward him. Aureate Rush carries him to a chosen spot and sweeps a slash in every direction the moment he lands. His ultimate, Grim Deliverance, has him ascend and then plunge his blade downward, damaging enemies and healing him for a share of the damage dealt. Cultivation of War, his passive, accumulates Determination each time he strikes an enemy champion, adding bonus attack damage that reaches its highest point once the stacks are full. The longer he fights, the more dangerous he becomes. He is just as at home trading blows in close quarters as he is threading through a line of foes, and he powers this relentless offense with mana instead of fury or energy. That is an unusual choice for a warrior who spends most of every fight at melee range, a resource more typically linked to patient casters.