The reworked Volibear has officially launched, and alongside his new look and the “sooner or later, it’ll get nerfed” skill set, the soon-to-be-released skin – Volibear Thrice-Stabbed God – is one of the most notable highlights that Riot is bringing to players.
As previously announced, Volibear Thrice-Stabbed God will be a free gift skin for all League of Legends players who own Volibear or unlock this champion during the event celebrating his rework launch.
Speaking of the free skin giveaway event for champion reworks, we can immediately recall Gangplank Captain – a free skin for Gangplank that the community received during the Burning Tides event.
To make it memorable, Gangplank’s Captain skin depicts this brutal pirate in the past, before he was ambushed by Miss Fortune and lost an arm as he is now.
Similarly, Volibear Thrice-Stabbed God is also a skin closely tied to the lore of the Freljord demigod.
Volibear’s backstory has actually been changed a long time ago, even before the champion rework project was announced. According to this lore, Volibear is one of the incredibly powerful demigods and one of the beings who established the land of Freljord.
He summoned his disciples, calling them Ursine, to form an army against the Ice Witch. Volibear defeated Lissandra and blinded her, but could not stop the schemes she had set in motion.
The worship of the Ice Witch has spread throughout Freljord, or to put it simply, the people of Freljord largely now follow the faith of the “New Gods,” while the “Old Gods” – those who pioneered the early days of this land – have been forgotten.
In another context from the short story “Silence for the Cursed,” the followers of Udyr – the Ursine are gradually regarded as heretics. In reality, calling them heretics, the monsters are not wrong. Ursine were once spiritual travelers (similar to Udyr), possessing the ability to connect their souls with the spiritual roots of all things, but due to worshiping Volibear, they sold the human souls within their bodies, transforming into grotesque monsters, which in Udyr’s eyes, are a mix of bears and many other creatures.
The short story “Silence for the Cursed” describes the appearance of Volibear when Sejuani’s legion seeks his help to fight Ashe. Despite having a much larger army, Sejuani’s forces, even Udyr, were easily manipulated by the “monster” Volibear’s mind control.
But more horrifying, Volibear’s manifestation in the present world no longer resembles the majestic demigod of ancient times, but rather the shadow of a monster with a face that is no longer intact, exposing its skull, a battle armor riddled with various weapons, and four bizarre eyes.
Thus, in contrast to Gangplank Captain – a skin that talks about Gangplank’s past, Volibear Thrice-Stabbed God is a skin that depicts a fallen and extremely grotesque version of Volibear.
A demigod defeated in an ancient war (as mentioned above, even though he defeated Lissandra, Volibear could not stop the worship of the Ice Witch), losing reverence and being haunted by eternal power, leading him to drift away from humanity, rot, and degenerate into a monster capable of manipulating human will.
This is also the context related to the formation of Volibear Thrice-Stabbed God; the question is whether Riot Games wants to connect it with the default universe of League of Legends or not? And if so, then this horrifying skin might be the true face of Volibear in the real era of Runeterra.
