Potentially Reworking Nerimazeth
One of the biggest challenges I've faced ever since Riot's initial reboot of Runeterra is answering the simple question: 'where can you find Xerath?' For a while I had him occupying some nondescript ruins vaguely somewhere in the south, since the Descent Into the Tomb trailer never bothered to specify where the Magus went after he was freed.
Eventually, Riot released their interactive map and revealed that Xerath was occupying a city called Nerimazeth, located near Mount Targon. It wasn't much to work with, but it was something. I imagine Xerath having occupied the city alongside people who he'd managed to actually convince that HE was the one true god-emperor of Shurima.
I had him occupying a tower in the middle of the city, since I liked the idea of Xerath literally lording over his subjects, and I didn't expect Riot to ever really tell us much about what the city was like. The Twilight of the Gods story that was set in Nerimazeth gave us some info, but the most prominent feature we get in that story is that Nerimazeth has an amphitheater.
Then Legends of Runeterra came along and finally revealed to us what Nerimazeth is like under Xerath's control:
Absolutely fucked.
Xerath has evidently made no effort to make the city habitable by human standards, instead filling the ruins with big monuments made to siphon energy from the land and turning his followers into his own variant of Baccai.
Now, I actually don't dislike this as a concept, as it finally gives us an answer as to how Xerath is trying to go about breaking his seal in the new lore. The issue is that, as a roleplayer, this presents something of a problem for me... Or more specifically, my partners.
I mean, traveling to the territory of a crazy magical demigod was already kind of tricky for some people to justify their muses doing back when that territory was an actual city. Now if other muses want to have an audience with Xerath, they have to travel through a desolate wasteland leaking arcane power and inhabited by zealous energy monsters.
So yeah, going forward, I'm going to try and find something of a middleground between the two iterations. I don't mind Xerath's territory being warped because of his nonsense, but I don't want it to be a COMPLETELY fucked-up magical wasteland that no human character in their right mind would ever venture to.))
