Aspects of Targon

The Aspects of Targon are immensely powerful celestial beings who exist beyond the physical realm, each embodying a fundamental cosmic concept such as War, the Sun, the Moon, Twilight, or the Protector, and each drawing power from its own pattern of stars. To act in the mortal world, an Aspect selects a host from among those who climb Mount Targon and merges with that vessel, a bond that ranges from genuine partnership to near-total domination. Through this union they manifest in champions such as Pantheon, Zoe, Leona, Diana, and Taric. The Aspects' capacity for treachery is written into the fate of Aurelion Sol. When the star-forging dragon descended to Targon, drawn by the worship of its people, they had the mortals present him a crown etched with the patterns of the celestial realm, claiming it was a gift of reverence. Instead it clamped to his brow, stole his knowledge of the sun's creation, and hurled him back into the heavens, binding his will. The Aspects then set the mortals to build a great gleaming disc, the Sun Disc, to channel his celestial power, and when the first disc failed, a second and more powerful one rose to replace it. With that stolen power the Aspects raised immortal god-warriors, the Ascended of Shurima, for some unknown conflict still to come. These champions cast down their rivals and fought the creatures of pure darkness that poured from the Void, but the long Darkin Wars corrupted the Ascended Host, twisting their minds through millennia of conflict. Warriors such as Aatrox and Naafiri fell, and the Aspects imprisoned the corrupted Darkin within their own weapons, where Aatrox endured as a sentient sword and Naafiri as a dagger lost to the sands, both now hungering to reclaim physical form. On Mount Targon, Aatrox killed the Aspect of War itself, leaving the mortal Atreus, known as Pantheon, to carry the dying embers of that divine power through his own will alone. Later, a succession of sorcerous catastrophes left Targon and its Aspects all but defenseless, and the crown binding Aurelion Sol began to weaken, shedding flecks of gold that blazed across the skies like comets. The Aspects endure as some of the oldest powers in the cosmos, opposed by the Void they were raised to fight and by the enslaved star dragon who has never forgiven their deception.