A complete(ish) collection of Ekko’s lore, including stories, videos, art, game files, and everything else ever made about him. Even the things Riot forgot about.
Collected and arranged by one of Ekko’s last remaining fans, a one-trick who actually cares.
This is a durable record of Ekko’s story as it was originally told, and how he will always be to those who will never give up on him. Even if Riot did.
If you like him just the way he is, you are not alone. Join us.
If you’re here because of a TV show, why not give the real Ekko a chance? We love him, and we think you will, too.
Ekko is a League of Legends character. As a child prodigy from the city of Zaun, Ekko manipulates time through an hourglass-shaped device known as the Zero-Drive, or Z-Drive. Through this machine he’s built out of spare parts and a discarded, broken crystal, Ekko is able to set a specific point in time, and then “rewind” back to that point, repeatedly. This gives him a significant tactical advantage by both allowing him to undo his own mistakes, and capitalize on knowledge of his opponents’ moves, before they even make them.
Ekko is a skilled inventor and engineer, known for building amazing things out of scrap and tossed-out parts. He’s had no formal training or mentorship. His inventions are usually the result of curious experimentation, and what he winds up with is often not what he originally set out to make.
While Ekko’s life in Zaun comes with more than its fair share of struggles, Ekko is at his core a mischievous, yet good-hearted boy who just wants to have fun and build cool things. Even though he’s perfectly capable of stepping up and being a hero (and he often does!), his natural state is to run wild with his friends, “The Lost Children of Zaun”.
Ekko is a perfectionist, and makes full use of his Z-Drive to fuel this perfectionism, for better or for worse. He is known to redo even mundane daily tasks until he’s absolutely nailed every possible aspect of them. This is not always healthy for him, and is a matter of concern to his friends.
Ekko considers the hourglass to be his personal symbol. He’s painted one on his face, he’s built his time machine in an hourglass shape, and the design is featured prominently in his graffiti.
Narratively, Ekko and his stories explore the dynamics between Zaun and Piltover, the city above. As a resident of the Sump, Zaun’s lowest region, Ekko sees firsthand the horrors and dangers in Zaun that make the clean, regulated life in Piltover possible. While his skills and intellect would guarantee Ekko a comfortable life in Piltover, he steadfastly refuses to sell out. Instead, Ekko cherishes the freedom that Zaun grants him, and the friends and family he could never leave behind. For Ekko, leaving Zaun would be the easy solution, and he doesn’t seem to do easy solutions.
Ekko’s parents work tirelessly in Zaun’s factories, both to keep food on the table, but also in hopes of sending Ekko to any of Piltover’s prestigious univerisies. He, however, wants nothing to do with the gilded life in Piltover. Staying in Zaun and supporting his parents and his friends is more important than the opportunities his parents wish for him. This difference causes some internal tension for Ekko, as he doesn’t know how to reveal that their dreams are not his own, without crushing their hopes.
Both Ekko’s appearance and personality reflect the resilient and rebellious nature of Zaun and its citizens. While Ekko may not have a full perspective of why Zaun and Piltover interact the way they do, he has seen how these interactions are a detriment to the lives of those he cares about the most. This has made Ekko resentful of the city above, though he remains upbeat and dedicated to pursuing justice for his friends and family in Zaun.
All I can offer him is the meticulous collection of media related to him, and an honest attempt to prevent it from changing or disappearing. I hope you leave here with a deeper appreciation for him.
A collection of written works Riot has released about Ekko is available on its own page. It includes the original, more complete version of his biography that is no longer on Universe.
Riot has released a number of comic books and similar media featuring Ekko. They include…
A collection of official art and visual media related to Ekko is kept on its own page.
Currently, this includes concept art posted publicly by the artists, and files from League’s online artbook.
A collection of videos, such as trailers and other promotional media, are available on their own page. This includes cinematics and trailers for Wild Rift and Legends of Runeterra. You can view them here, or download them to your device.
Two pieces of music were released alongside Ekko, his login theme, and the music backing his trailer.
You can play them here, or download them to your device.
“Ekko: the Boy Who Shattered Time” (Login Theme)
Download:
FLAC (lossless),
MP3 (320kbit)
“Ekko: Seconds” (Trailer Music)
Download: FLAC (lossless), MP3 (320kbit)
You can view Ekko’s League of Legends model in your browser, with all animations, here.
The in-game model is available as a Blender file. This model is unrigged, and is of lower quality than the model used in the game’s menu.
If you have the better model, or can rig this one, let’s get in touch.
Ekko’s champion reveal minisite from April 2015 has been cleaned up, (mostly) bundled into a single file, and made available here. It includes a rundown of his abilities in League, a brief introduction, and some notes from his gameplay designer. Everything except fonts and videos are inlined into the page source, meaning you can just save the page and have a complete copy.
A May 2015 forums thread for Rioters to answer questions on Ekko has been recovered and is available on its own page.
The League of Legends forums have been inaccessible for years. This is likely the only easily-navigable copy of this thread on the Internet.
The official website for “Convergence” has copies of “A Perfect Life”, but they appear to be direct exports from Illustrator, making them abnormally large and unsuitable for casual viewing. That said, it’s likely as close to “source” as we can get.
The Riot Archive Project maintains historical game and client data, for pretty much every Riot game, on the Internet Archive. For example, their League archive going back to season 9, and another one for before that! You can learn more at their Discord server or at their Patreon.
A Discord guild was made to accept submissions and give information on the site. It is also a space for those who prefer Ekko’s original lore, and are sad to see it go.
Most communities are generally hostile to those who don’t like the new lore.
Ekko’s story hit me very deep, for reasons I still don’t entirely understand. While I wasn’t a League player before 2015, mere exposure to Ekko got me to start. Since then, I have played no other champions, and I work very hard to preserve Ekko in any way that I can.
This archive was started when I began to notice that older material related to his 2015 release was beginning to disappear due to frequent “remodeling” of the leagueoflegends.com website. While it first included only “web assets” like comics and videos, I have since been asked to include in-game assets, such as voiceovers, models, and textures.
To keep this project “Free as in Zaun, not as in League”, I focus on making the content more “durable”, by using open formats and removing DRM/telemetry wherever present. Only “mainline” Ekko, from League of Legends, is preserved here.
In late 2023, Riot announced that they would be retconning certain aspects of League’s lore (but mostly Ekko’s) in order to recoup a $250 million investment in a cartoon that was never meant to be canon. I will not be playing along with this. Ekko’s original story and design will be preserved here for as long as I have a pulse.
Riot is free to try wasting a 0day on me if they are unhappy with this.
--r000t