| “ | Ten great kings took ten great thrones, Nine crowns adorned nine heads. One left to scratch upon their mounds, The crow, alive and dead. |
„ |
| ~ The poem about the Ten Kings. |
The Ten Kings are a villainous race of extremely powerful demons that appears in the lore of the fantasy MOBA videogame series League of Legends.
A race of the most ancient and powerful demons in all of Runeterra, tales of the Ten Kings have been passed for so long that many wonder if they are even real. However, with the awakening of Fiddlesticks, it has become clear that these beings do in fact exist, and there's no telling what horrors they will unleash once freed from their slumber.
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Lore[]
As they are some of the most ancient and mysterious demons in all of Runeterra, not much is known about the Ten Kings' origins, as they have existed since before humans even existed. Over the centuries, poems and legends have been passed down for generations to either scare children or add an air of mystery around folk tales, though few actually believe these tales to be true. The name "Ten Kings" comes from an old Demacian poem by an unknown author, who describes the demons as rulers upon thrones. In the poem, nine of the kings have crowns, but the First of Ten, Fiddlesticks, does not, despite being the eldest and most powerful of its brethren.
One of the many stories talking about one of their members is The Cycle of Ashlesh. It speaks of the fantastical Lord of Joy, Ashlesh: a many-limbed beast who menaced the world along with its nine ferocious siblings. Hungering for primal joy, Ashlesh attempted to consume the realm of the gods—but the gods struck the monster down, trapping it deep below the earth in an endless, shimmering lake within the seventh layer of the underworld.
At some point in time, the Ten Kings disappeared and their reign of terror ended, possibly because they were sealed away, but this happened well before it could be recorded in history. Since then, Fiddlesticks is currently the only one to have awakened, with Ashlesh's power being channeled by the woman named Nilah with the intention of slaying monsters.
Lurking in eastern Demacia, Fiddlesticks preys upon victims using their worst fears against them, imitating its victims cries for help and manifesting itself in the form of a skeletal puppet of cloth and metal. As Fiddlesticks searches Runeterra, it kills every victim it can find, and presumably seeks to awaken its other brethren as well, so that together they may unleash terror upon the people of the world once again.
Ashlesh on the other hand, pushes joy to its hideous extremes, feeding on the dark, inverted aspects of the emotion, like delirium and obsession. Wielding Ashlesh's immense power comes with a price, as their current holder, Nilah, sacrificed her ability to feel anything outside of joy and was erased from the memories of all who knew her. She can, on the other hand, observe that she is feeling other things, or that she wants to feel other things.
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- While Fiddlesticks is confirmed to be the "First of Ten", it is also confirmed that the other demonic champions such as Tahm Kench and Evelynn are lesser demons and not members of the Ten Kings.
- With the release of Yone's lore, it is explained that the Azakana are the most basic form of all demons, meaning that at the start of their existence, the Ten Kings started out as Azakana as well.
