“So instead, I created the nine-hit passive and changed fox-fire to a much more manageable three.” “I liked the idea of including the theme of nine in her kit as much as possible,” says Ezreal. Ahri later had nine rotating fox-fire flames, but rapidly shooting off nine projectiles made each one feel pretty unimportant. What changed: Fox-fire could once be used to illuminate bushes during its duration, kind of like a ward, but tech issues put an end to that. More often, fox-fire was a representation of the spirits they collected, which is what Ahri’s orbiting fox-fire is. Here’s a list of Ahri’s abilities we couldn’t think of a clever subheader for:įox-fire: In some myths, the nine-tailed fox could literally generate fire. Most alterations were subtle and aimed at making her kit feel as satisfying as possible. This consistency is far from the norm in champ development, but because most of Ahri’s abilities were directly based on her thematic, nothing drastically changed. Deadly Charmįrom the start, Ahri’s abilities included an orb, a charm, fox-fire, and some kind of dash. “Ari” literally means graceful and elegant in Korean, so the “h” was added to give her a more unique name. She almost could’ve been Nabi, Danbi, Ruri, Dasom, or Chorong, but Ari won out. This tale gave Ahri a motivation for murder that wasn’t just in cold blood-she was driven by her desire to be human-while still reflecting the gumiho myths she was based on.īonus: Ahri was named by Korean players through a poll on the League of Legends website. But with her growing humanity came a moral compass, and she soon found herself unable to kill without remorse. Using her charm, she seduced men to their deaths, consuming more and more life essence in an attempt to become fully human. She was ridiculously beautiful-and knew the power that it held. As the essence of life left his lips, Ahri the fox instinctively absorbed it and was partially transformed into a human. One afternoon, the fox stumbled upon the aftermath of a human battle and was drawn to a man taking his dying breaths. “We had to find Ahri’s motivation for killing so she’d feel more relatable.”Īhri’s story tells of a clever fox who wished to become human. “You want to feel like the protagonist when you play, even if what you’re doing is villainous,” says narrative writer Alex “Skribbles” Yee. Gumiho are often seen as purely evil (sort of like old-school, non-sparkly vampires), so the challenge with Ahri was creating a more sympathetic character. After killing their human prey, the gumiho either feast on their flesh or absorb their life essence, depending on the story. When gumiho transform, they maintain some of their fox-like characteristics, such as furry ears or nine tails. Since Ahri was scheduled to release around the time we launched Korean servers, devs focused on gumiho, the Korean version of the nine-tailed fox. “Early on, we considered blending these stories into a cohesive whole,” says senior game designer Colt “Ezreal” Hallam, “but we believed this would be disrespectful to each culture’s individual stories.” Plus, there was the risk of potentially upsetting anyone who didn’t feel like their version of the tale was accurately represented by Ahri.

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