Hi everyone, thanks for joining us.
I'm Ant Reynolds Lenne and I'm a senior writer on the World Building team.
Hi there, I'm Maisie and I'm a concept artist on the World Building team.
And today we're gonna be talking a little about Noxus.
Noxus is a massive, massive, expansionist, aggressive empire.
It's constantly moving it's borders out.
It's actually one of the biggest empires in Runeterra
as well as one of the oldest.
It's also one of the most culturally inclusive places.
They're constantly bringing more people into the empire.
Which, to them, adds strength to the empire.
So traditionally,
Noxus has always been portrayed as the bad guys or the evil faction.
So today we'd like to take a closer look at them
and to dive into some of the nuances and details that make up the empire.
Noxus is situated on land that's very arid and devoid of resources
which makes it hard for them to grow any crops.
And because it's so hard for them to sustain themselves,
they've taken to expanding outwards and conquering other nations.
So at the heart of Noxus, the capital
is actually built around an ancient fortress
called The Immortial Bastion.
So The Immortal Bastion was actually a castle that was built by Mordekaiser
way way way in the past.
He was a tyrant
and all these different barbarian tribes that lived in the area
actually combined their forces to overthrow him.
And once they finally overthrew him,
they took The Immortal Bastion as their own
and that is what started the Noxian empire.
So Noxus is truly huge
It's expanded in all sorts of different areas.
So in the North it's expanded up towards the Freljord
pushing in the Freljord up there.
In the South, it's pushed into Shurima
it's actually taken over a whole bunch of the Northern Shuriman cities.
It hasn't taken on Piltover or Zaun yet.
it's neutral with those guys, it uses that as a trade port.
But you can tell that in the future they might be taking
a bit more interest there.
To the East, they had an attack against Ionia
but that did not go so well.
But you know it's only a matter of time
before they try and push their border back out that way.
So Noxus doesn't always conquer their territories violently.
In many cases some of these cities tend to want to bend the knee to Noxus.
Because they get great benefits in trade and protection.
As an example of assimilation, here's one of a Northern Shuriman harbor
where Noxians have instead of taking over the city,
set up this port of call and enclave where
they've started to live amongst the locals and take on some of their customs.
The governor of this harbor has taken to wearing Shuriman clothing
even though he's from Noxus in order to gain favor with the locals.
Noxus values strength over all else.
Primarily, this is martial and physical strength
although Noxians acknowledge strength in all its different forms.
So if you're a very successful trader or if you're politically inclined
you too can find great success in Noxus.
Noxus' view on strength is exemplified by a notion that they call the Trifarix.
The Trifarix, otherwise known as the principles of strength,
are the three aspect of strength that they've identified
which they believe that Noxus needs to be strong in all of these areas.
And those three areas are Might, Vision and Guile.
Their idea is that they need to be strong in all of these
and if they're weak in one area it can actually bring the whole of Noxus down.
So The Trifarix is also the name given to the tri-leadership of Noxus.
This was an idea that Swain has brought in.
Rather than having a singular emperor.
Noxus is actually led by three leaders.
One each represents one of those principles of strength.
So you've got Swain who represents Vision
you've got Darius who represents Might,
who's the leader of the military side of things.
And an unnamed sort of faceless figure who represents Guile.
Now one of the ideas with this concept is that a single emperor
can always be fallible and could bring Noxus down.
But if you've got three leaders there
they can each hold each other more accountable.
Noxus is a faction rife with symbology
and so the Trifarix is very commonly represented throughout the empire.
One of these instances is through the Noxian crest.
If we look at the Noxian crest
the eyes represent Vision
the pillars at the bottom represent Might
and the blades represent Guile.
Within the empire, the Trifarix is also represented by its architecture
such as this Noxian tower which shows the three pillars of strength.
In much of Noxus, people tend to build homes and structures
that are imposing and commanding to reflect their belief
in the principle of Might.
When Noxus goes to war,
it's very different than a place like Demacia going into war.
Demacia is very uniform, very regimented
Noxus is very different from that
It's not chaos,
but they see strength in all the variety and diversity
of the different ways these war bands fight.
War masons are a distinct branch of the Noxian military
and they scout ahead and are responsible for engineering feats
such as bridges, structures, anything that the Noxian army might need
to expand outwards.
Of all the war bands,
the Trifarian legion is the most elite and the most feared
It's led by Darius himself
and they're so named to reflect the core principles of Noxus.
Many warriors from the other war bands would give an arm and a leg
to be part of this Legion.
Aside from having a really large army,
Noxus is also very open to experimenting with new things
and constantly adapting and changing
as new ideas and people flood into the empire.
So one of the new technologies that Noxus is experimenting with
are black powder weapons
and they've also been taking an interest in Piltover and Zaun
due to the high levels of technology found there.
Magic is also just regarded as just another powerful tool in their arsenal.
So it's the kind of thing that they would be looking for
different mages to bring into Noxus
to hone their powers for the betterment and strength of Noxus.
It's the kind of place where they might embrace things
that other cultures might have a few more taboos around.
As an example of that is like bringing Sion back
they would just see this as a great thing for Noxus
cause he's this powerful warlord.
Other people might be like "I don't know if you should be doing that".
Noxus also makes use of a lot of creatures throughout the empire.
Whether it's in their war efforts or in their civilian life.
So for example, they might have living battering rams
or beasts of burden that pull their war machines
and in daily life, they might have a Drake Hound
especially if they're rich and noble as a display of wealth and power.
We hope you guys enjoyed this look into Noxus
and if you'd like to know more, we have new art and new bios on Universe.
so please check it out!
Thanks for watching.
Thank you.