League of Legends Warwick Lore
- Release date: February 21, 2009
- Class: Diver
- Legacy: Fighter | Tank
- Positions: Jungle
- Range Type: Melee
- Difficulty Level: 1
Unlike most of the champions in League of Legends, there is not much information regarding Warwick. His name is unknown, but there are different stories of his origin. We’ll examine two biographies released from the game, League of Legends, and a fan theory of Warwicks’ origin based on the League of Legends Netflix Series: Arcane. This League of Legends Warwick Lore guide compiles everything we know so far.
Table of Contents
The Origin of a Lycan: First Biography
No name, no alias. Based on the League of Legends biography, Warwick was one of the most powerful and feared men in his home city, Zaun. Life before turning into a werewolf creature, he was an alchemist, an infamous alchemist that was the teacher who taught Singed everything he knew. The reason for being so infamous was that he did not use alchemy for the good of the people; he created concoctions that were used to arm the Noxian army. While working with Noxians, his laboratory was close to the front lines. He was mastering the dangerous chemicals to create the deadliest potions, so dangerous that even healers of Ionia, under the leadership of the Starchild Soraka, could not combat the chemical weapons he manufactured.
Warwicks’ name was to be feared; hearing it brings back the horrors that devastated Ionia, calling him “the Deathmaker.” Despite being under the protection of the Noxian High Command, it did not protect him from the curse cast unto him. Soraka, as an act of revenge for the lives lost, used her power to mirror the darkness in his heart. As he returned to his laboratory, his body began to thirst for blood. His body was beginning to transform; hair started to grow out where it should not be, his teeth sharpening while his fingernails turn into claws. Singed watched the entire transformation, terrified as he watched his master disappear while the beast emerged from his body.
Out of control and craving blood and human flesh, Warwick burst out of his laboratory through the doors and sprinted until he disappeared. No longer called “the Deathmaker,” his new form calls for a new title, “the Blood Hunter.” Warwick continues to fight for Noxus within League of Legends and embraces his werewolf body, turning what Soraka called a “curse” into a gift. He is thankful for bringing out the monster hiding under his skin.
The Origin of a Lycan: Second Biography
Like the first biography, Warwick was said to be a man who found his life in Zaun. Rather than being the Deathmaker who decimated the Ionian army with chemical weapons and cursed Soraka, he was a scientist who experimented on humans for dark types of research. His studies led to him being called a “procurer” of collecting human test subjects by the people of Zaun. Warwicks’ craft and ruthless determination made his name strike fear into the people’s hearts.
Warwicks’ work became well known to the criminal underworld of Zaun, and he frequently receives clients to create monsters and other specimens to use as weapons. The problem was his body could not keep up with such high demands from his long list of clientele. In this stressful situation, he decided to experiment on himself to surpass the limits of his human body. His longtime friend, Singed, who is not his apprentice in this version of Warwick’s origin story, helped devise a powerful formula to achieve what Warwick wanted.
The potion required three ingredients: silver from the Shadow Isles, a heart of a celestial, and the fang of a Balefire dire wolf. Warwick was able to collect all three components of the formula. He even traveled to the land of Ionia to capture Soraka, as she is believed to be a child of the stars, which would be perfect for checking the “heart of a celestial” from his list. Unfortunately, Soraka was made aware of his attempt to capture her, which made him unsuccessful. Ashamed, broken, and beaten by Warwicks’ failure, he decides to combine the two components to create an incomplete potion. Singed warned him that the results would be unpredictable and dangerous, but Warwicks’ stubbornness made him ignore his friend’s warning and drink the potion.
Warwick achieved what he wanted, raw strength, heightened senses, increased durability, and stamina, but these new abilities came with a side effect. His body transformed him into a half-man-half-wolf creature. Believing that the potion worked despite being complete, he had to test his new power. Every day he gets stronger, faster, and even deadlier, but the cost of the incomplete potion also takes effect. As he grew powerful, his human side was beginning to fade away. With his animalistic instincts starting to take control of his body, Warwick could feel himself getting lost. He still captures humans as his test subjects instead of bringing them back alive in his laboratory, and his werewolf body instead kills his victims. He knew that he needed Sorakas’ heart to stabilize his werewolf form before his mind was lost and only the feral beast remained.
The Origin of a Lycan: Vander is Warwick Fan Theory
(Contains Spoilers for Arcane)
Riot recreated the origin story for Warwick in the League of Legends lore that is now set years after the events of the Netflix series, Arcane. Warwick is still one of the fiercest men from Zaun, who transformed into a massive and brutal werewolf. In this take, Warwick was an unnamed and reformed criminal who Singed captured, the same Singed in the Arcane series that created the potion, Shimmer. Singed experimented on Warwick and continuously performed tests to perfect his craft, but the unnamed man died during the process. His death, after all the torture, unlocked his wolf-like state. Since his escape from Singes’ laboratory, Warwick became a stalker of the streets of Zaun. Most know him as the “Uncaged Wrath.”
The brief story of the unnamed man perfectly lines up with one of the new characters in Arcane, Vander. In Arcane, Vander and Silco were like brothers in their youth, and both fought together to free Zaun from Piltover’s repressive rule, which led to war. Betraying Silco, Vander attempted to drown Silco in Zauns’ polluted rivers before stabbing Vander on his should and escaping underground.
Years later, Vander led an uprising against Piltover as the city of Zaun began to die from extreme conditions. Unfortunately, the people of Zaun and Vander failed, and the rebellion against Piltover was over as dozens of Zaunites were massacred.
In the aftermath, sisters Vi and Powder were found by Vander, both orphans due to the uprising. Guilt and stunned by his actions cost them their parents’ lives, he adopted the two girls and vowed to live a peaceful life. Vander raised the two sisters as if they were his daughters before adopting two orphaned boys as his sons, Mylo and Claggor. He taught his children how to survive in Zaun and escape trouble.
Now living a simple life as the head of a bar called the Last Drop, Vander also took control of the Lanes of Zaun, which became the central meeting ground of the undercity. To keep the peace by any means, Vander signed an uneasy agreement with the enforcers of Piltover, which carried on for years but did not last forever.
Vanders’ four children sneaked into Piltover to raid a house that belonged to the Kiramman Clan to earn a quick buck before being discovered, and the Wardens were now tasked to apprehend them. Piltovers’ enforcers did not discover the children’s identities but were set to track them down in Zaun. Once again, the tension between Piltover and Zaun began to grow, and another uprising was underway.
Vi, the eldest of all of Vanders’ children, wanted to surrender to keep the peace between the two cities. Learning that his child is turning in, Vander swaps places with her and gives himself over to the Wardens to protect Vi. Silco discovers this while underground and intercepts Vanders’ arrest, capturing and taking him into Silcos’ hideout. To save Vander, Vi, Mylo, and Claggor became a trap. Vi fights through Silcos’ accomplices with Vander along her side. On the other hand, Powder tried to defend Vi using a makeshift monkey bomb that killed Mylo and Clagger and injured Vander in the process.
Vander continues the fight against the remaining accomplices before being stabbed in the gut by Silco. Desperate to save his daughters, Vander drops Shimmer into his bloodstream, transforming him into a mutated monster, almost defeating Silco and saving Vi from the exploding hideout. His wounds are now becoming fatal from the fall, so he tells Vi to take care of Powder before seemingly dying.
The fan theory suggests that in the aftermath of Vanders’ fight against Silco, Singed took his body and experimented on him as he was still alive. He led the fans to believe Vander is the unnamed man the in-game lore spoke about.
Additional Hints That Vander is Warwick
In League of Legends, some clues come from Warwicks’ in-game taunts. For most characters, taunts coming from Warwick are either threats or insults, but when trying to taunt Vi or Jinx (formerly known as Powder in Arcane), he has a surprisingly personal message for the two sisters. He hints at his identity as the man who taught Vi how to box, which Vander would also remember. If Warwick taunts Jinx, however, he feels almost haunted by her, telling Jinx that she was there and asking to be left alone so he would not remember her.
These in-game taunts suggest that Warwick is a transformed Vander, as his dialogue seemingly has a deep bond with the two women, and only Vander would have such a connection. If this theory is confirmed, we may see the upcoming season of Arcane feature a heartwrenching confrontation between the three characters, which everyone who is a fan of the series and games is too excited to wait for.
If you have not watched Arcane yet, you can watch all nine episodes of the first season by streaming it on Netflix. For season two, the good news is that Riot Games and Netflix announced that it was currently in production on November 20, 2021. Unfortunately, for the bad news, we won’t expect the new season anytime in 2022.
