Behold!





The herald for a new era in League of Legends lore has arrived! Meet Yuumi, the greatest sorceress familiar this side of Runeterra! Tremble in fear, peasants, as this mighty creature awes and wows you with her -- oh come on, Yuumi. Are you really napping again?





What? Fish? No! You’ve had like five already today. Hey! Those are my clothes, not your scratching post!





Image via Riot Games





The tiny but adorable cat Yuumi is the familiar of the Yordle enchantress Norra (think what Pix is to Lulu). When Norra mysteriously disappeared, it fell to Yuumi to find her with the help of the Book of Thresholds, a magical, sentient tome once belonging to Norra. The book’s pages contain many portals, which Yuumi travels through in search of Norra. She IS a cat, however, so getting distracted comes with the territory. Fish, naps, and friends seem to pull Yuumi away from the task at hand sometimes, but she always continues looking for Norra in the end.





As an inhabitant of Bandle City, Yuumi represents a revolution in the way the Yordle homeland has been presented. In a preseason video, head of creative development Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street outlined Riot Games’ goals for the lore this year.





Image via Riot Games

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“2018 was all about setting the baseline for the world of Runeterra,” Ghostcrawler said. “We couldn’t even really explain where the different locations existed until we could share with you a map of the world. Starting this year, we’re going to talk a lot more about what these locations are like, and more importantly, how the champions connect to them and to each other.”





One of the most interesting aspects of the map Riot shared last year, which can be found here, is that Bandle City changes locations for each person. While some might see it in Noxus, other players will see the mystical city in the Freljord, or even the heart of Demacia. In the same video, Ghostcrawler hinted at the city’s true nature.





“As a change of pace from the potentially dark story in Demacia, we’ll also be looking into Bandle City this year,” Ghostcrawler said. “We’ll consider questions such as, ‘Does one simply walk into Bandle City?’ and “Is Bandle City even a real place?’ or even ‘Why does Riot think the League world needs Yordles in the first place?’”





Image via Riot Games





For League fans who have played Dungeons and Dragons, Bandle City might very well be Runeterra’s version of the Feywild. The Feywild exists in a parallel plane as the Prime Material Plane, where most D&D adventures take place, and is a place of potent magic, as well as the birthplace of the fey, fairy-like creatures.





We know from previous champion lore and comics that Yordles are essentially fey creatures. Humans can’t even process their true nature due to their glamour, which obscures their appearance. Pix, Lulu’s familiar, is also described as a fey creature, and a good number of Yordles released so far have had proficiency with magic, most notably Lulu and Veigar.





Could Riot be planning an expansion of Bandle City lore to make it more similar to the Feywild, or could some other ideas be in play? We won’t know for sure until Yuumi’s complete lore is revealed, and even that may bring about new questions. Until Riot updates us with a complete description of Bandle City, all we have are theories and guesses.