PLAYER NAME: Whit
CONTACT: whitticus OR disco whitticus#8139
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Kerry (Moiraine) but also I have been watching. waiting. on plurk.

CHARACTER: Viktor
CANON: Arcane
CANON POINT: Episode 7, after returning to Piltover but before augmenting himself with the Hexcore.

BACKGROUND:
Arcane is a television spin-off of the MOBA League of Legends (sorry in advance), and acts as an origin story for some of the game’s playable characters. However, it’s fully self-contained and is effectively a soft retcon, which current wikis do not reflect accurately, so I’ll do you some bullet points. Full episode recaps are here, for reference.

✵ The gleaming metropolis of Piltover has a complicated relationship with its “Undercity” (called Zaun). While the former is a bustling, wealthy trade hub and mecca for scientists and artisans, the latter is industrial, polluted, crime-ridden, and historically subjugated. The events of Arcane occur as the development of magitech creates heightened prosperity for Piltover while forces in Zaun attempt to weaponize the technology as part of a violent push for independence.

✵ Before all this, Viktor grows up in Zaun as a solitary child who nonetheless displays a prodigious talent for engineering and an interest in science. He gains his first mentor by stumbling upon the workshop of an Undercity scientist, and then leaves after learning a hard lesson about the unethical lengths to which some will go in the name of progress. At some point (through persistent sneaking around), he attracts the attention of Professor Heimerdinger, head of Piltover’s Council, who sees his scholarly potential and offers him admission to the Academy. Viktor leaves Zaun to study and eventually becomes Heimerdinger’s assistant.

✵ Meanwhile, Jayce Talis, a student, is doing off-the-books experiments in an attempt to harness magical energy through technological means. After an accident that reveals his illegal research, he faces expulsion from the Academy. Viktor recognizes the potential world-changing implications of “Hextech”. Tasked with consolidating the equipment for disposal, he steals Jayce’s notes, convinces him to resume his research, and together they break into Heimerdinger’s lab where they successfully complete the experiment. The Council admits that Hextech is viable and worth pursuing.

✵ Six or seven years pass. Working as partners, Viktor and Jayce have successfully overseen the construction of the “Hexgates”, large-scale teleportation structures that have bolstered Piltover’s status as a global shipping lane. Now, the two scientists hope that they will be able to present their latest project (a stabilized Hextech “gemstone” that can be used to power portable devices) to the public. Viktor, whose health is in decline, wants to use this new energy source to improve the Undercity (which has not seen the economic prosperity afforded to Piltover by Hextech), but Heimerdinger believes the research needs more development to prevent general misuse.

✵ One of the gemstones is stolen in a violent attack on Piltover. Jayce is elevated to the Council on the grounds that he will be able to best safeguard Hextech in the wake of the attack. Viktor throws himself back into his work, developing the Hexcore, which he describes as an “adaptive rune matrix”, a continuously-evolving conduit for magical forces, though it does not function as intended and he isn’t sure why.

✵ Viktor collapses while working overnight. He awakens in the hospital and receives a formal diagnosis–due to prolonged chemical exposure throughout his childhood, he is deteriorating rapidly and does not have long to live. Now racing against the clock, his study of the Hexcore becomes an obsession as he observes that it reacted to his blood the night he collapsed (cool and normal). Armed with the knowledge that the device responds to organic matter, he begins a series of transmutation experiments that he hopes will be the key not only to physiological augmentation, but also a potential cure for his illness. However, all of his subjects (plants) die shortly after being exposed to the Hexcore, and when Heimerdinger is brought in to consult, he is horrified by what he sees and orders it destroyed. Jayce retaliates by enacting a coup and removing him from his position as head of the Council, allowing Viktor to continue his research.

✵ Having otherwise reached a dead end, Viktor seeks out his former mentor in Zaun, who offers him Shimmer, an Undercity drug that enhances the user’s constitution (the implication being that utilizing the substance will help the subject survive the Hexcore’s transformative properties). Viktor accepts and it becomes clear that he plans to perform his next experiment on himself.

✵ Viktor returns topside and is immediately detained, finding that Jayce has enacted a blockade between the cities to prevent further attacks on Piltover. This is followed by a heated conversation about the weaponization of Hextech in response to reports that the gemstone thief may have already found a way to utilize the technology. Viktor, opposed to developing weaponry, realizes that Jayce is more easily swayed. Unable to trust that his partner will maintain his integrity or even understand the necessity of what he is about to do, he decides he has no choice but to proceed with his self-experimentation alone.

ABILITIES | POWERS:

✵ Academics - What Viktor lacks in physical ability, he makes up for in genius-level intellect. Though this is, of course, a fantasy setting where all scientists are unrealistically multidisciplinary, he’s primarily a mathematician and physicist, with some knowledge of biology and chemistry. Having attended Piltover’s academy and served as dean’s assistant, he has a well-rounded education and is a quick study, able to piece together and complete a fellow academic’s research solely from reading his notes.

✵ Engineering - He’s shown to be a resourceful tinkerer and inventor from a young age, and over the course of the series helps develop, design, and execute a variety of magitech devices, ranging from a stable power source for portable equipment to tools for miners and artisans to what is essentially a large-scale fast travel mechanism. Viktor is a mechanically-minded individual with an eye for detail and can puzzle out the workings of most devices, successfully defusing a bomb that stumped another engineer.

✵ The Arcane - The bulk of his work in the series involves harnessing arcane powers via technological methods (Hextech). In developing this technology he gains an understanding of a rune-based magic system and creates an evolving magical conduit that responds to and transmutes organic matter, which he eventually uses to physically augment himself. It’s entirely likely that given time and resources he would be able to decipher and possibly utilize similar magic systems. Though he has no inherent magical ability of his own, he apparently develops some kind of psychic connection to the Hexcore over the course of his time working on it–by the last episode of the series he’s unable to destroy the device, apparently because it is compelling him not to. This does not, however, give him any special powers. He’s just probably on his way to being owned by an evil polyhedron.