| Basic | |
|---|---|
| Advanced | |
| Craftable Emblem | |
| Uncraftable Emblem | |
| Radiant | |
| Artifact | |
| Support | |
| Consumable | |
| Removed | |
| Disabled |
Brackern[]
Surrounded around the Shuriman Continent are several clans of Brackern, including clans in the Shuriman desert.
Dormun[]
The Dormun are gigantic, slow-moving creatures protected with large chitinous plates covering their body. In the harsh conditions of Shurima they have evolved to survive the perpetual drought by utilizing an unknown sense to locate hidden reservoirs of water. Incidentally, certain nomadic tribes have built themselves a permanent home upon the backs of these beasts where they clean the creature and hunt any airborne pests who venture near.
Eka'Sul[]
Desert goats that travel in herds.
Mwatis[]
Mwatis are goatlike creatures with large plated casques on their heads. Mwati wool and plate are prised for felting and insulation.
Kmiros[]
Gigantic scarabs that roam in swarms, looking for unfortunate travelers to feed on. They seem to be common prey for 
Rammus.
Outerbeasts[]
- Main article: Voidborn
Beside the Xer'Sai, other creatures from the Void, referred to as 'outerbeasts', can be found in the desert.
- Xer'Sai: Creatures from the Void that plague the southern deserts. They are the size of big dogs on average, but can be smaller or much bigger.
Rek'Sai, as the queen, is by far the largest and most dangerous of her species. Xer'sai burst from their small burrows and ravage anything nearby, to the detriment of desert caravans. Once dead, the Xer'sai decompose at an abnormally rapid rate and become inedible.
Ralsiji[]
Large and aggressive minotaur-like creatures. They are humpbacked quadrupeds with long limbs and thick horns.
Shuriman Camel[]
A breed of camels native to the deserts of Shurima and are used by caravans as well as common folk as primary mode of transportation. Despite being well-suited for lengthy travels in the desert landscape, they are still prey to a many predator such as the Xer'Sai.
Sandswimmers[]
Sandswimmers
Sandswimmers are massive quadrupedal creatures that traverse the Shuriman desert in cyclical patterns. They got their name due to their preferred method of travel. Their narrow bodies and webbed feet are perfectly design for swimming under the sand. They feed on bugs and other small creatures most desert beasts ignore. Scavengers will often memorize the predictable paths these creatures take, and jump onto their backs to ride as far as they wish.
Skallashi[]
The Skallashi are large quadrupedal herbivores. These hardy beasts of burden are common across Shurima, ideally suited to the harsh desert environment. Their key body feature is their long legs. Notoriously bad-tempered, they are nevertheless treated with great reverence. Their brown hides are often painted with sacred symbols of protection, and their horns hung with totems and charms. While these creatures are mostly used for travel and carrying heavy loads, on some larger skallashi people are able to built miniature rooms for more comfortable travel. To own one is often considered a sign of considerable prosperity.
Champion Roadmap: April 2018[]
- Never Turn Your Back on the Sea
Let's reset a bit and wade right into the next champion we're adding to the list. We felt it was time to execute on a new support with a darker, deeper thematic than most of our support cast. We also wanted to create an aggressive playmaker, someone who doesn't just save a drowning ally, but who forces their enemies to drown themselves... by their own hands.
Keep your health high, your eyes to the sea, and pray you aren't on the list.
Champion Reveal: Pyke[]
Abandoned by his crew to the leviathans of the deep, Pyke drowned—but didn't stay dead. Years later, a fabled revenant known as the Bloodharbor Ripper still stalks the Slaughter Docks, crossing names off a list that never seems to end. Wait...you look familiar...[2]
- Gift of the Drowned Ones
- Bone Skewer
Tap: Pyke stabs and greatly slows all enemies in front of him.
Hold: Pyke readies and then throws his harpoon, impaling the first enemy struck and pulling them a fixed distance towards him.
- Ghostwater Dive
Pyke dives into spectral waters, entering camouflage and gaining a significant increase to his movement speed that decays over a few seconds.
Camouflage hides Pyke from view while enemies remain outside his immediate area. Attacking or casting spells immediately ends camouflage.
- Phantom Undertow
- Death from Below
- Playing as Pyke
Gameplay - Playing as Pyke
As Pyke, you're a cutthroat who cripples and kills all who cross you—which is everyone you come across. Start by stalking your victims with a Ghostwater Dive, lurking right at the edge of their vision. Resurface with a swift Bone Skewer to butcher multiple enemies at point-blank range. Hold the blade a little longer to harpoon just one foe instead, reeling them in to your territory before gutting them like a fish.
Get even more aggressive by rushing foes with a Phantom Undertow, leaving opponents paralyzed with fear as the rest of your crew closes in. When you smell blood in the water, finish the job with Death from Belowto clinch the kill and cross multiple names off your list.
- Playing with Pyke
Gameplay - Playing with Pyke
They say death is the best crowd control, and Pyke makes a great argument. In lane he's constantly angling for the all-in, using hooks and stuns to set up kills. While he can maim foes from any spot in a fight, he's better suited to a flank than the frontline, so expect him to make more picks than peels. And don't worry if he ends up doing lots of murdering himself—there's extra gold for whoever assists in his vendetta.
Pyke likes to kill, but he needs help with his homicides. Injuring opponents by trading and poking is key before Pyke drags them under. Even when he catches an enemy alone, he'll need to take a couple stabs at his target—enough time for their friends to intervene. His high mobility is also offset by low survivability: Pyke is easily punished if he dives deep for a kill he can't quite finish. The Ripper didn't get his name by playing passive, though, so be ready for violence at any moment.
- Tips and Tricks
- Bone Skewer's harpoon always pulls your catch the same distance—which means charging up and spearing an enemy right in front of you will fling them backwards into the jaws of your team.
- Take a second to slip out of sight after a skirmish and let Gift of the Drowned Ones recover a significant chunk of lost health. You don't have to leave the area entirely—use Ghostwater Dive to circle enemies like a shark before going back in for the kill.
- Once you've put enemies in lane underwater, don't hesitate to swim somewhere else and pick up kills across the map. Ghostwater Dive and Phantom Undertow double as mobility, letting you quickly segue from one crime scene to the next. Just make sure to signal your crew before diving into dangerous waters.
ORIGINS: Pyke[]
By Kenny 'Karnifexlol' Cameron[3]
“Thalassophobia: The persistent and intense fear of deep bodies of water.”
If you don’t have a healthy fear of the ocean, well, you probably should. But don’t fear the possibility of drowning or the weight of the pounding waves. Fear what lurks below the depths. Fear Pyke.
When Pyke began hunting his prey in bot lane back in 2018, his core gameplay design was a shock to many. League had never seen an aggressive, high-skill-cap assassin who was designed to be played… as a support?
Now, nearly 5 years since his release, it’s time for a deep dive (yea, pun intended) into the development of the support that changed bot lane forever—Pyke, the Bloodharbor Ripper.
- The ‘Why’ Behind the Assassin
“People thought I was crazy when I first pitched the opportunity space to the DNA (Design, Narrative, Art) room,” recalls lead producer Ryan “Reav3” Mireles. “Everyone thought an assassin support was impossible. It was kind of a spit-out-the-coffee type moment.”
In a role that ideally exists to help the ADC secure kills and stay alive, a bloodthirsty, undead, shark of a man doesn’t seem to make much sense. But from a strategic standpoint, an assassin support champ made all the sense in the world.
First, a little context. Before Pyke was released, League was going through a queue crisis. Support was the least popular role in the game and it was seriously affecting matchmaking all across the board.
“It was actually a huge problem,” says game designer Jonathan “EndlessPillows” Fuller. “Autofill protection actually became a thing around this time because we were forcing so many people into support who didn’t want to play it.”
Teams from all across League were looking at how they could help. The Systems team started work on support quest items, but the Champions team hadn’t yet been tasked to solve the problem.
“At the time, the Champions team wasn’t sure what they could do to help,” Reav3 explains. “But I looked at the problem and thought, ‘hmm, people are really attached to champions in League. Sometimes players will even switch roles if they’re excited enough about a specific champion.’ And I wondered if we could increase the queue for support just through a champion release.”
But what could make a champ appealing enough to entice players away from other roles and get them to start queuing as support? To help answer that question, the team took a hard look at the existing champion roster and paid special attention to support.
“When we looked at the themes of the existing support champions in the game, we saw that there weren’t a lot of dark or evil thematics,” Reav3 says. “Most support champs were on the bright, colorful, happy side of things. Even if they were a little more evil like 
Zyra, they were still typically bright and colorful… except for 
Thresh.”
A play rate analysis graph from 2017-2018 shows Thresh and Blitzcrank as major outliers in the Support role.
Not all support champions exist solely to heal or aid the living. Some exist to trap souls in a lantern so they can torment them for eternity. Thresh was the dark, edgy, evil character that the team used as philosophical inspiration for their new support.
“We looked at Thresh and saw that he actually did increase queue for support when he came out,” Reav3 shares. “He was a support that appealed to fighter players specifically. While he is tanky, he had a lot of mechanics that made him a natural fit for players who like to main fighters.”
But when the Champions team sets out to create something new, their mission is to push gameplay fantasy into a fresh direction. This new support couldn’t just be another bruisery tank support like Thresh. It needed to have a twist. And it needed to be popular enough to increase support play.
And one thing is for sure, nothing is more popular in League of Legends than an assassin.
- More Than a Drowned Man
While the gameplay hook might make sense, an assassin doesn’t really fit the typical look and feel for support champs. Why is he using his hunting prowess to help his team? Who exactly is Pyke?
If you’ve read his lore, you’ll know that Pyke was once a fisherman. But he wasn’t just your average rod-and-reel-sippin’-beer kind of angler. He was a bit of a maniac. Pyke specialized in fishing for monster fish. And to catch these monsters, he would launch himself off a boat onto the fish and sink harpoons and tow hooks into its flesh. You know, chill shit.
“He was basically a jaull fisher, a blue-collar guy, dockworker-type who would go out on these boats,” Reav3 says. “Like somebody on Deadliest Catch with an extremely dangerous job, except way deadlier because it’s Bilgewater. He also got paid a lot. But not as much as the captains running these fishing companies.”
Workplace safety and good working conditions weren’t exactly priorities when Pyke was fishing. The only thing that mattered to these captains was hauling in a fish and bringing back a paycheck. And Pyke was more than happy to oblige. Until one day when Pyke and his crew were out hunting jaull-fish.
In case you’re not well-versed on the deep-sea ecosystems of Runeterra, jaull-fish are massive creatures known for the valuable sapphilite sacs that grow in their mouths. Sapphilite is a glowing blue substance that’s used to create different kinds of magical distillations.
Pyke was one of the few fishermen brazen enough to try and harvest that sapphilite from a live jaull-fish. But this particular jaull-fish would be no ordinary hunt for Pyke. This one would swallow him whole. And his crew would cut his safety line and leave him in the belly of the beast rather than attempt a rescue and risk their own lives.
It’s unclear exactly how Pyke survived being swallowed by a jaull-fish, or moreover, if he survived. Because when he emerged, Pyke was no longer a man. He was an apex predator—a phantom who stalked his prey from stealth. A ghost with a grudge. And a list.
At the top of his list? The captain and crew of the ship who left him to die. And after that? Well, let’s just say Pyke’s list always has fresh ink.
“Pyke’s original writer, Matthew Dunn, was really interested in the idea of Pyke going on this revenge rampage that causes him to lose more and more of his humanity,” says Conor “fizzNchips” Sheehy, narrative writer for Pyke’s expanded lore in Legends of Runeterra. “The reasoning for people appearing on his list became more and more tenuous. The list became a reflection of who he’d become rather than the wrongs that had been done against him. It became a reflection of his murderous nature.”
But what should a murderous, may-or-may-not-be-dead-himself, monster fisher look like?
“If we stuck too closely to his drowned man identity, it would be hard to not make him appear as some kind of zombie with green skin,” explains art director Larry “TheBravoRay” Ray. “Plus, dead typically represents a lack of agility and speed. So we had to figure out what we were trying to say visually without context. I think there were a lot of challenges with that.”
It wasn’t until character artist Victor Maury took a pass at creating the detailed paintover illustration (above) that the team began to have confidence in the visual direction Pyke was headed. But there were still a few final details that needed ironing out.
“Another big topic of discussion was Pyke’s hair,” TheBravoRay adds. “We had him bald, we had him with cornrows, with dreadlocks, stuff like that. So we partnered with one of our engineers, Joshua Parker, and Riot Noir (Author’s Note: Riot Noir is a Riot Identity Group that brings Black Rioters together across the company) to explore some of these ideas. We knew that just because we had a target identity for Pyke, that didn’t mean we had to embrace stereotypical hairstyles.”
As Pyke began to resemble the all-around badassery that is his character fantasy, the team knew he needed abilities lethal enough to match his murderous nature. So they got to work on giving Pyke a kit that would empower him to transform enemy champions into chum.
- Death by Design
“Early on, we tossed around a lot of gameplay fantasies to help make support more appealing,” EndlessPillows says. “There were quite a few ideas that we loved, but we ended up getting really excited and passionate about a concept that we originally called thief support. And one of the first things we knew he needed was stealth.”
Very early concepts for Pyke show the different styles and themes the team explored before landing on “Thief Support” later.
Stealth was a mechanic that hadn’t seen much play in bot lane at the time. So the team took that idea and ran with it for Pyke’s W, Ghostwater Dive, which they used to help him create openings for other—deadlier—abilities.
“It basically came down to the fact that players just need a moment to feel like an assassin,” EndlessPillows adds. “If there is some point in the kit where they get to nearly guarantee a kill on somebody, it would meet that goal. And that’s kind of how we thought about Pyke’s ultimate. It helped satisfy the bloodlust of players who didn’t want to play support.”
Pyke’s ult, Death From Below, quickly became a focal point in his kit and helped round out his assassin gameplay fantasy. At first, the ult didn’t have a reset on kill, but the team knew a true assassin should be able to secure more than one kill in a teamfight.
So the rest of his kit was centered around the fact that Pyke would treat the enemy team like giant fish at sea—springing himself from target to target and fileting executing them one by one. And he’d use some fitting tools to help.
“Pyke’s original concept artist, Chris Campbell, had the idea to give Pyke this crazy fish hook thing. And at the time, he didn’t have a hook mechanic in his kit. We thought it looked awesome, but we also thought it would make players assume that Pyke would just hook people towards him. So we iterated away from that and eventually landed on his harpoon. And then we ended up using the harpoon for a kind of hook mechanic anyway,” EndlessPillows chuckles.
Earlier versions of Pyke’s Q not only pulled units to him, but it also rooted them in place afterwards. In early playtests the team realized if Pyke was going to have stealth, a dash with an AOE stun, and an ult that could chain kills together, giving Pyke an instant grab, Blitzcrank-style (fish)hook would make him much too strong.
So the design team needed to come up with a way to help Pyke live up to his murderous fisherman fantasy without making his opponents in lane too salty. Pyke’s Q needed to be less of an instant win button and more of a source for skill expression.
“We found this great mechanic where Pyke could charge up his harpoon like a 
Vi 
Q and it’s always a fixed distance instead of pulling directly to himself,” EndlessPillow explains. “Having it go a fixed distance made it less of a death sentence compared to a Blitz hook, but it also let you do cool things in melee range like flip people behind you or even over a wall if you were up against it.”
So if Pyke can basically set up his own kills and also execute them, there was still a big question to be answered: Uhh, how is this a support champ again?
“We were really nervous about adding a support character that could easily kill players. This was before things like 
Brand support and the carry support meta,” EndlessPillows recalls. “We were also worried about the social aspect of it. What is your ADC going to think when you’re literally in there trying to steal kills?”
Besides just having a sweet K/D/A to brag about, getting kills also means players are able to make more of the shiny stuff. Gold. So if Pyke was meant to go on murderous rampages, the team knew they’d have to find a way for the ADC to get paid.
“That’s where Pyke’s gold-sharing stuff came from as a social release valve of sorts,” EndlessPillows explains. “Whatever resources you would have got from that kill, you’ll get anyway. Pyke got a triple kill, but Vayne feels fine because she has 600g in her bag as well.”
- The Sound of Submersion
If you’ve played against Pyke, you know there’s no scarier moment than when he disappears in front of you and you hear the blood-curdling sound alert that signals you’re within his ult’s execute range. Uh oh…
That “uh oh” moment is something the sound team took very seriously when creating Pyke’s audio suite. And for many players, Pyke’s sound effects are among the most iconic in all of League.
“In the early stages of a project, we typically partner with design, narrative, and art to discuss how we can make the experience really shine,” explains manager of sound design, Brandon “Riot Sound Bear” Reader. “It’s an intimate exploration and something that’s really unique to what we do.”
Once the team has a clear heading, they begin collecting and capturing a whole catalog of sounds that they think will fit the character. In the case of Pyke, they spent hours capturing sounds in a pool and manipulating the sound of an instrument aptly named, the waterphone.
“Once we have all the sounds we want, we create our own narrative experience through audio,” Riot Sound Bear adds. “Pyke’s sound designer, Bryan Higa, built this sonic story of a person who was getting drunk at a tavern. He was walking out of this tavern onto a pier, onto the docks. And as he’s walking, he sees something in the water. Then all of a sudden a person leaps from the water, attacks the drunk guy, and pulls him back into the depths, submerging him.”
That feeling of being quickly pulled under is what the team focused on for Pyke. They aimed to build tension and fear for everyone near Pyke’s end of the pool.
“You know when he’s getting close to you. It’s supposed to feel scary,” Riot Sound Bear smirks. “It’s a horrific feeling that somebody is going to come out and get you. It’s the feeling of being submerged in surround sound.”
Trivia[]
- Pyke is voiced by Darien Sills-Evans in
League of Legends, 
Legends of Runeterra, and 
Ruined King.[4]
PROJECT: Pyke and 
Empyrean Pyke are voiced by the same actor.- Pyke's Japanese voice actor is Ryūnosuke Watanuki[5] [6].
- Pyke's champion theme is composed by Edouard 'EdTheConqueror' Brenneisen, who also composed PROJECT: Pyke's theme.
- Pyke's teaser showed him with a different bandanna design than the one he was released with, which was for in-game visual clarity. A later change was made to both himself and his emote to reflect the teaser.[7][8]
- Pyke's placeholder model was a black colored
SSW Talon.[9] - Some of Pyke's possible names were Shar and Jaull, the type of fish that ate him.[10][11]
- Pyke's codenames were AssassinSupport and ThiefSupport.[12][13]
- Some of Pyke's scrapped spells include:
- Permanent invisibility if he was in vision range of an ally and not in combat.
- A
Death Mark like ability that worked off of his own team's damage. - A dash that
exhausted any enemy you struck, and would reset if you hit 2 or more enemies. - A kidnap spell that would place a marker on the ground, and then reactivate within a window to dash in a direction, if he had hit an enemy he would teleport them back as well.[14][15]
- A spell that would hold net charges that could be connected in order to create a free form trap.[16]
- Inspirations for Pyke include various horror movies like Jaws, It, Halloween, and Friday the 13th, as well as waterbending from Avatar the Last Airbender, Scorpion from Mortal Kombat, and Thane Krios from Mass Effect.[17]
- Various thematics that could've been taken with Pyke include an undead Yordle from the
Shadow Isles and a sand wraith from 
Shurima .[18] - During development
Ghostwater Dive was tested to refresh if 
Death from Below executed a target.[19] - Pyke originally had a fishing net cape and would cause
Phantom Undertow to leave behind the hooks of his net.[20] - Pyke originally had two weapons, a sickle and a harpoon, but the sickle was removed in order to simplify the champion and avoid confusing players into thinking he had a hook spell.[21]
- Ironically
Bone Skewer was added later in development.
- Ironically
Media[]
- Related Music
| Pyke's theme |
- Related Videos
- Main article: Summoner icon
- Main article: Ward skins
- Main article: Emotes
References[]
- ↑ Never turn your back on the Sea
- ↑ Champion Reveal: Pyke
- ↑ ORIGINS: Pyke
- ↑ Pyke's voice actor
- ↑ Pyke's Japanese voice actor
- ↑ Pyke's Japanese voice actor 2
- ↑ Bandanna update
- ↑ Emote update
- ↑ Black colored Talon
- ↑ Scrapped names
- ↑ Scrapped names 2
- ↑ Indev names
- ↑ Indev names 2
- ↑ Scrapped abilities
- ↑ Scrapped abilities 2
- ↑ EndlessPillows on Net-Work Spell
- ↑ Horror movie inspirations
- ↑ Possible thematics
- ↑ Ghostwater Dive reset
- ↑ EndlessPillows on Pyke Net Cape
- ↑ EndlessPillows on Pyke Weapons