Piltover

Piltover, also known as the City of Progress, is a thriving, progressive city whose power and influence is on the rise. It is Valoran's cultural center, where art, craftsmanship, trade and innovation walk hand in hand. Its power comes not through military might, but the engines of commerce and forward thinking. Situated on the cliffs above the district of Zaun and overlooking the ocean, fleets of ships pass through its titanic sea-gates, bringing goods from all over the world. The wealth this generates has given rise to an unprecedented boom in the city's growth. Piltover has - and still is - reinventing itself as a city where fortunes can be made and dreams can be lived. Burgeoning merchant clans fund development in the most incredible endeavors: grand artistic follies, esoteric hextech research, and architectural monuments to their power. With ever more inventors delving into the emergent lore of hextech, Piltover has become a lodestone for the most skilled craftsmen the world over.
Piltover is a thriving, progressive city overlooking the ocean. Fleets of ships pass through its titanic sea-gates, bringing goods from all over the world. Merchant clans fund incredible endeavors, including artistic follies and architectural monuments to their individual power. With ever more inventors delving into hextech, Piltover has become the destination for the most skilled craftspeople from across Vi'zarrdia.
Piltover has been always swimming in money, that's the only thing that matters there, they despise Zaun people because of their pride, they see them as rats, rats with no future, and if you dont have future you dont matter in Piltover, because this is the City of Progress, City of Money, and most important of Prestige.
== The City ==
Piltover always had VERY strict opinion about undercity, and one more thing, Magic. The Piltoverians has always been aware of magic and it's sources even though it's the city of progress they don't accept the magic in the city.
Piltover is now ruled by the Piltover's council which consists seven members:
- The head of the council, Heimerdinger is one of the founders of Piltover and, so far as we know, far older than the other members. Originating from a spiritual realm, Yordles do not age in the same way as humans, and so can live through hundreds of human lifetimes. 
Heimerdinger is an esteemed inventor who holds a strong interest in developing technology. He’s eccentric and has grown somewhat unaware of the state of places outside of Piltover’s topside heights. He’s also highly opposed to the use of arcane arts having previously fought in a long distant war against its most powerful wielders.
- Mel Medarda is perhaps the next most influential member of Arcane’s Council. An adroit social manipulator, she excels at getting others to behave as she wants and needs them to. Mel describes herself as an outcast from her home nation of Noxia, having proven unfit for her warlord mother. She rose through the ranks of Piltover’s elite to establish herself as head of one of the richest clans in the city. Mel is extraordinarily driven, and seeks to put Piltover on the world map to a greater degree.
- Danya Elrod The head of the Elrod family also holds seat on the council. Mrs. Elrod leads one of the most prestigious clans in the city and is a patron of Jayce’s various inventions. She’s also the mother of Araliff. Mrs. Elrod holds much stricter viewpoints on matters than her husband. She’s trained to use a hunting rifle, and doesn’t think much of people from the undercity.
- Hoskel is a brash, self-centered and occasionally dim-witted man with little care for much beyond the success of his trade routes. He is easy to anger, dislikes the undercity. Hoskel is involved in varying degrees of corruption within Piltover, such as importing illegal Noxian spirits.
- Bolbok is robotic person who obtained a seat on Piltover's ruling council. He also developed a fear of the arcane, as his entire race was apparently almost annihilated by magic. He had some relation to the Rune Wars, which wizard Ryze seeks to prevent occuring again. It’s also known that this is the same event Heimerdinger makes reference to when highlighting the threat posed by magic. Bolbok mistrusts arcane forces and has no love for the undercity.
- Shoola, she values the trade network that Piltover’s hextech has enabled, but also notably speaks in support of undercity inhabitants, claiming that the council has “lost touch” with them and they’re still constituents.
- Salo is shown as self-absorbed and content in the frivolities of upper-class life, albeit with a more traditionally refined manner of speech. He’s opposed to military measures as a first response but typically looks to the other Council members for leadership. Salo is also involved in some levels of corruption relating to imports.
== History ==
=== Birth of Progress Day ===
Zaun finalized its plans to destroy a portion of the isthmus connecting Valoran and the Southern Continent, allowing for safe sea passage between eastern and western Valoran. The plan involved using thousand of chemtech bombs to crack open an area of the land so that a cavern could be created, but the results were catastrophic. In what seemed to be an accident, the bombs triggered a series of earthquakes that completely destroyed the isthmus and sank large districts of Zaun and thousands of its citizens, while also leaking poisonous gas into the city's surviving areas.
Janna, empowered by the prayers of Zaun's people, arrived and blew away the gas, saving many lives and being eternally remembered by Zaun's denizens, converting her from a goddess of faith for sailors to a guardian deity for Zaun. She has yet to leave Zaun following this event.
Eventually, Zaun was rebuilt. In order to regulate the river passage they were built over, the Sun Gates were constructed, forcing all transport through the waters to be regulated by Zaun. This brought immense wealth to the city and likely led to Piltover's construction and elevation from Zaun, as the ruling families were in control of the taxes and trade produced by the Sun Gates, leading to the formation of the actual merchantile clans.
Construction of the Sun Gates led to great changes in eastern Valoran and the eastern seas, as Noxus was from this point on able to more easily pool together resources from across its empire without needing land travel, and Bilgewater's pirates found the seas brimming with trade ships waiting to be plundered, feeding in to the criminal underbelly of the city.
=== Discovery of the First Hex Crystals ===
The Ferros family gained most of its wealth through a rare crystal harvested from a creature native to the sands of a distant valley. These first hex-crystals, or “first crystals,” contained power normally reserved to those born with innate magical ability. Camille's Great-Great Aunt Elicia lost an arm, and nearly her life, during one such early expedition. Her sacrifice was celebrated, and it set an expectation that is still reflected in the Ferros family motto today, “For family, will I give.”
The creatures Elicia Ferros found, the Brackern, were not an unending resource, and Camille's family had to look for ways to augment the crystals they had accumulated. Utilizing certain shadow investments in chemtech and runic alchemy, the Ferros family brought to market the less powerful, but easier to procure, synthetic hex-crystals. Such power often comes with consequences, and the production of synthetic crystals is rumored to be a heavy contributor to the Zaun Gray.
=== Get Jinxed! ===
Piltover has been known as the City of Progress for the countless technological advancements it has made, but Jinx found a way to halt progress entirely for some time: anarchy! Chaos, buildings crumbling, people dying, painted animals running rampant, and the city in constant gunfire... it was Jinx's dream. Piltover's Finest, Caitlyn and Vi, attempted to track her down to no avail.
As Jinx's rampage escalated, Caitlyn declared a city-wide manhunt for her. Jinx responded to this by marking the treasury with a challenge to Vi, saying that she would attack the place at the time and date she had written there. When the time came, she showed up and began to wreak havoc as usual. Vi began chasing her, smashing through every wall along the way. Eventually Jinx was cornered, but she let loose a barrage of rockets, destroying the building. When the officers had awoke, all the gold was intact still remained and Jinx had spelled out something in the sky using the city's lights: "YOU'LL NEVER CATCH ME!".
=== Progress Day ===
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: For the celebration, see the Fesivals section of Celebrations. For the Legends of Runeterra card, see 8 Progress Day!.
Three Noxian spies, Gysbert, Tamara, and Colette, infiltrated Piltover for many months in hopes of placing an agent inside Clan Medarda. They used the annual Progress Day to showcase their technical skills to the clan's masters and apprenta.
Tamara Lautari showcased her Hex-Armillary Amplifier invention. It worked by harnessing the properties of a crystal and exponentially increasing its output. However, the invention itself proved to be dangerous as it almost destroyed the entire hall due to its faulty construction - which was intended to sabotage the proceedings.
Later on, after leaving the Medarda mansion, Tamara was apprehended by Caitlyn, who had discovered her true identity and purpose in the city. She was subsequently banished and sent back to Noxus.
Both Tamara and Gysbert failed to become Medarda apprenta, but Colette succeeded. Some time after, Colette would obtain a Medarda trading map, which she would relay to Noxian intelligence.
== Characters ==
Category:Locations