![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
info ➢
name Viktor, the Machine Herald
age 30s
dob 29 Dec 961 AN
species Augmented human
residence Emberflit Alley, Zaun
canon League of Legends
first impressions
appearance Primarily head to toe in armor, Viktor stands around 6'0 (augmented from his previous 5'7), though he isn't particularly broad. It's rare for him to remove his mask, especially around people he doesn't trust (which, honestly, is most people), but beneath it, he has various augments to his face and most notably to his eyes, which are black with glowing orange iris. Where he still has skin (mainly the center of his face, his lower abdomen parts of his arm and his leg), his skin is pale and covered in various scars and moles.
voice More often than not, Viktor speaks through a voice modulator that adjusts the tone of his voice to sound lower and more robotic, though it still has his characteristic Zaunite accent. This link has all his current voice lines from the game both with and without his voice modulator.
demeanour There's a rigidity to the way Viktor moves, something that has only diminished with great practice, and even with the augments, Viktor moves carefully and it's evident he possessed a limp in life as he often favors the right side of his body. Unapproachable is the general aura he gives off, though for people who are coming to him seeking help or who insist on coming at him with respect, they'll find that underneath that cold, robotic exterior is a passionate man who really, genuinely, wants to help people. He gets animated when he talks about things that he's passionate about, speaking quicker and moving his hands more.
personality
positive passionate . practical . logical / rational . driven . gentle
neutral idealistic . ambitious . visionary . cynical . proud . emotional . lonely .
negative bitter . jaded . distrustful . insecure . angry . obsessive .
about
Viktor is born in Zaun on the border of the Entresol Level, which sits below the Promenade and above the Sump. It was, as far as the lower levels of Zaun goes, relatively habitable, and with his parents being artisans with a storefront on the Promenade, he had a slightly better life than those who lived deeper in the city. They still struggled to make ends meet and still suffered from the clogged atmosphere of the lower levels of the city, but there, Viktor was loved and encouraged by his parents and because of them, he pursued his passion for invention and discovery.
The backrooms of their house were quickly overtaken by his studies and his experiments, though he was forced to temporarily abandon them when a chem spill near their home foced them to evacuate. The frequency of their moves eventually prompted Viktor to look into the mechanical failures and through dedicated research and hours upon hours of building prototypes, Viktor developed machinery and inventions that he offered to the businesses around him to make their working conditions safer. He was turned away by all except for the Fredersen Chem-forge, who took a chance on him and his inventions. Within a month, their accident rate dropped to zero and other establishments started seeking his services and his work became widespread throughout Zaun.
At the age of nineteen, Viktor was surprised by the offer of a place at the prestigious Academy of Techmaturgy in Zaun and he nearly accepted the placement when he was approached by a professor from Piltover, Stanwick, who convinced him to go, instead, to the uppercity, where he was promised access to the most advanced labs and all the resources he could ever hope for.
Leaping at the chance, Viktor left everything behind in Zaun to move to Piltover, where he eventually met and partnered with the most egotistical (his words) but brilliant (also his own words) inventor in the city, Jayce. They balanced each other out and, despite all appearances and assurances otherwise, they were good friends.
In the midst of his studies, however, a major chem-spill devastated huge swathes of Zaun and Viktor returned to assist in the rescue efforts, eventually using all he'd learned to create Blitzcrank, a golem built with advancements to the current technology to develop a level of sentience until then unheard of. Not only did Blitzcrank save countless lives, but he was Viktor's crowning achievement.
Viktor remained in Zaun for a while after, staying with the intention of trying to help those affected by the toxins. He and Blitzcrank attempted to use techmaturgy to reverse the damage caused by the blight, only to untimately fail. The deaths affected Viktor deeply, and he returned to Piltover with new knowledge and a greater desire to learn how to merge human anatomy with technology but also how people could be enchanced by that same technology.
Upon his return, Viktor was faced with yet another blow: Professor Stanwick, in his absence had claimed credit for the creation of Blizcrank, presenting Viktor's work and research as his own. Despite lodging formal complaints and turning to Jayce for help, his friend refused to speak for him and the matter was decided in Stanwick's favor.
Throwing himself into his work rather than wallow in his bitterness, Viktor determined to continue his studies in using technology to enchance the lives of humanity and to make people's lives better and safer. His bitterness, unfortunately, did inform his work, Viktor seeking to remove human error and weakness, beginning to see humanity and the human element as an aberration and an inefficiency, conflicting with his partner's view that these human elements were needed for invention, namely that they were the human spirit of ingenuity and creativity.
This conflict came to a head, when, while working with Jayce on solving the problem of developing better suits for divers at the docks to assist in their clean up efforts of debris and chemical waste. When divers started reported seeing strange lights and hallucinations, Viktor determined that it was the divers' panic drive causing them to lash out and get their fellow colleagues killed, and he created a chem-shunt that bypassed the fear response, effectively controlling the diver.
Jayce challenged him on the fact that his invention bordered on enslavement, and after a heated fight, Jayce reported Viktor to the board. He was expelled from the college and returned to Zaun, to Emberflit Alley, where he sank into a deep depression. After weeks of trauma, introspection, and wrestling with the ethics of his grand design, Viktor began operating on himself in secret, removing the human parts of him and replacing them with machinery, bit by bit, including a emotional inhibitor that muted almost all of his emotions and therefore "removing" his humanity. With the enchancement of machinery, supplemented by various chems, Viktor, outwardly and as much as he could make others believe, had excised the humanity that he struggled with.
Still, despite his growing obsession with the Glorious Evolution and his desire to free humanity from the parts of itself that hold it back, Viktor used his knowledge and resources to save hundreds lives, built breathing mechanisms, and offered his services to anyone willing to seek him out in Zaun. Viktor believes that if he can fully purge himself from all emotion, he can become the ideal version of himself, but really, all of this comes from a desire, simply, to just stop hurting.
Presently, Viktor finds himself mostly at odds with his former partner, Jayce, whose Hextech and the crystals he obtained from Shuriman, are the last piece (he believes) in his quest to finally push humanity into that Glorious Evolution.
The backrooms of their house were quickly overtaken by his studies and his experiments, though he was forced to temporarily abandon them when a chem spill near their home foced them to evacuate. The frequency of their moves eventually prompted Viktor to look into the mechanical failures and through dedicated research and hours upon hours of building prototypes, Viktor developed machinery and inventions that he offered to the businesses around him to make their working conditions safer. He was turned away by all except for the Fredersen Chem-forge, who took a chance on him and his inventions. Within a month, their accident rate dropped to zero and other establishments started seeking his services and his work became widespread throughout Zaun.
At the age of nineteen, Viktor was surprised by the offer of a place at the prestigious Academy of Techmaturgy in Zaun and he nearly accepted the placement when he was approached by a professor from Piltover, Stanwick, who convinced him to go, instead, to the uppercity, where he was promised access to the most advanced labs and all the resources he could ever hope for.
Leaping at the chance, Viktor left everything behind in Zaun to move to Piltover, where he eventually met and partnered with the most egotistical (his words) but brilliant (also his own words) inventor in the city, Jayce. They balanced each other out and, despite all appearances and assurances otherwise, they were good friends.
In the midst of his studies, however, a major chem-spill devastated huge swathes of Zaun and Viktor returned to assist in the rescue efforts, eventually using all he'd learned to create Blitzcrank, a golem built with advancements to the current technology to develop a level of sentience until then unheard of. Not only did Blitzcrank save countless lives, but he was Viktor's crowning achievement.
Viktor remained in Zaun for a while after, staying with the intention of trying to help those affected by the toxins. He and Blitzcrank attempted to use techmaturgy to reverse the damage caused by the blight, only to untimately fail. The deaths affected Viktor deeply, and he returned to Piltover with new knowledge and a greater desire to learn how to merge human anatomy with technology but also how people could be enchanced by that same technology.
Upon his return, Viktor was faced with yet another blow: Professor Stanwick, in his absence had claimed credit for the creation of Blizcrank, presenting Viktor's work and research as his own. Despite lodging formal complaints and turning to Jayce for help, his friend refused to speak for him and the matter was decided in Stanwick's favor.
Throwing himself into his work rather than wallow in his bitterness, Viktor determined to continue his studies in using technology to enchance the lives of humanity and to make people's lives better and safer. His bitterness, unfortunately, did inform his work, Viktor seeking to remove human error and weakness, beginning to see humanity and the human element as an aberration and an inefficiency, conflicting with his partner's view that these human elements were needed for invention, namely that they were the human spirit of ingenuity and creativity.
This conflict came to a head, when, while working with Jayce on solving the problem of developing better suits for divers at the docks to assist in their clean up efforts of debris and chemical waste. When divers started reported seeing strange lights and hallucinations, Viktor determined that it was the divers' panic drive causing them to lash out and get their fellow colleagues killed, and he created a chem-shunt that bypassed the fear response, effectively controlling the diver.
Jayce challenged him on the fact that his invention bordered on enslavement, and after a heated fight, Jayce reported Viktor to the board. He was expelled from the college and returned to Zaun, to Emberflit Alley, where he sank into a deep depression. After weeks of trauma, introspection, and wrestling with the ethics of his grand design, Viktor began operating on himself in secret, removing the human parts of him and replacing them with machinery, bit by bit, including a emotional inhibitor that muted almost all of his emotions and therefore "removing" his humanity. With the enchancement of machinery, supplemented by various chems, Viktor, outwardly and as much as he could make others believe, had excised the humanity that he struggled with.
Still, despite his growing obsession with the Glorious Evolution and his desire to free humanity from the parts of itself that hold it back, Viktor used his knowledge and resources to save hundreds lives, built breathing mechanisms, and offered his services to anyone willing to seek him out in Zaun. Viktor believes that if he can fully purge himself from all emotion, he can become the ideal version of himself, but really, all of this comes from a desire, simply, to just stop hurting.
Presently, Viktor finds himself mostly at odds with his former partner, Jayce, whose Hextech and the crystals he obtained from Shuriman, are the last piece (he believes) in his quest to finally push humanity into that Glorious Evolution.