This particular build came as a request from my brother and one that I was interested to try out because it gave me a chance to build a class that I haven't done yet. This does mean that, at some point, I'll have to build Kayle now, but I have other plans before that. I don't have too much else to say on that, so let's get into the build for Morgana, the Fallen from League of Legends.
MORGANA
CHARACTER Morgana
SOURCE League of Legends
GOAL Morgana is a character in the game of League of Legends where she serves in the role of a mage and a support who locks down foes and preserves her allies. An ancient being, Morgana’s mother was an Aspect, a being infused with celestial energy while her father was a mere mortal. As his wife grew more distant, Morgana’s father stole away her and her twin sister, Kayle, and took refuge in a different nation where they lived in relative peace. Morgana looked after other outcasts and the like until a great blade fell from the sky and split between the two sisters, causing them to grow wing. The two developed opposing philosophies and ultimately clashed, only ceasing when they inadvertently wounded their father. Since then, Morgana has bound her wings and rejected her heritage though she uses her powers to help those who seek her aid.
From the game itself, Morgana’s Soul Siphon passive allows her to heal whenever she deals damage with her other abilities. Dark Binding fires a projectile that roots the first creature struck for an eternity, which she often couples with Tormented Shadow to blight a patch of land with burning soil that deals continuous damage. Her third ability, Black Shield, can protect an ally from magic and effects that would pin them down. Finally, Morgana can use her ultimate ability, Soul Shackles, to slow enemies in an area before damaging and stunning them.
LEVEL 1 First things first, we look at our ABCs – ancestry, background, and class. Morgana managed to inherit some of her mother’s divine essence, which we’ll represent with the aasimar heritage on the human ancestry. We’ll take these boosts to Intelligence and Charisma and then pick up the Natural Ambition ancestry feat to give us a 1st-level class feat. I also like Celestial Eyes because darkvision is always handy, but I wanted to play with, at least at the beginning, Morgana’s rejection of her supernatural origin.
Looking through Morgana’s lore, the refugee felt like a suitable background for her, having stolen away from Targon into Demacia and dealing with troubles that brought. The first boost from this background will go into Constitution and we’ll take the free boost to Intelligence. We become trained in Society and Targon Lore, which can always be swapped to an appropriate settlement for the game you’re playing in, and we also get the Streetwise skill feat. Honestly, Streetwise doesn’t mean too much to us, but I liked the flavor of this background more than the mechanics.
When looking at building this character, the first thing I considered was her spell list. Going through each of them, I wanted something that could protect and bolster allies while still giving her some offensive capabilities. I was on the divine tradition for a little while and was thinking about how her mother essentially held a divine aspect, but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. After giving some thought to the other three, I decided that the occult spell list was the best fit for her. Of the current classes that have access to occult spells, my options were bard, sorcerer, or witch. The first was easy to cross off while I debated on the latter two. The main issue with taking sorcerer is that taking a bloodline that fit her backstory wouldn’t fit with the spell list I wanted, so I decided to build Morgana as a witch who has the Curse patron. This gives us occult spells and while not perfect, a lot of her abilities could be seen as ‘curses’ and she certainly views her heritage as such. As a witch, we receive an automatic boost to Intelligence and then receive four more boosts that will go towards Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 10, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 12, Cha 14). Our patron makes us trained in Occultism and we then choose to become trained in Athletics, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Nature, Religion, Stealth, and Survival. Since we took Natural Ambition, we’ll take the Cackle feat. This gives us another Focus Point and a focus spell that we can cast as a free action to Sustain a Spell. We can couple this with our evil eye hex cantrip that we receive from our patron. We also receive a familiar as a witch, which knows our spells for us including the ray of enfeeblement granted by the Curses patron, but there’s no animals really associated with her so it can be whatever you want.
Known Spells: Cantrips – chill touch, dancing lights, daze, detect magic, forbidding ward, guidance, mage hand, read aura, shield, telekinetic projectile; 1st – animate rope, bane, grim tendrils, protection, ray of enfeeblement, sanctuary
LEVEL 2 Having picked up the trained proficiency in several skills related to spell traditions, we will grab the Recognize Spell skill feat so that we get a reaction to try to identify a spell when it’s being cast. For our class feat, we’ll take the Basic Lesson witch feat and learn the Lesson of Protection. This gives us a third Focus Point, the max we can get, as well as the blood ward focus spell allowing us to bolster the defenses of our allies against specific types of creatures. It also gives us the mage armor spell.
Gear: ring of discretion
Known Spells: 1st – mage armor, soothe
LEVEL 3 Our first skill increase will put Occultism at expert proficiency. We look towards Toughness for our general feat, shoring up our HP a bit since we have a low Con and class HP.
Gear: +1 staff, everburning torch, ring of discretion
Known Spells: 2nd – dispel magic, resist energy
LEVEL 4 Morgana travels the world as a mortal and offers aid to others, which makes Natural Medicine feel like an appropriate skill feat for me to take. With this feat, she can Treat Wounds using the Nature skill. We’ll also take the Reach Spell, a metamagic feat from our class that we can use to extend the range of our spells, keeping us out of the thick of combat.
Gear: pendant of the occult, +1 staff, brooch of shielding, ring of discretion
Known Spells: 2nd – worm’s repast
LEVEL 5 We receive four ability boosts that we’ll plug into Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Wisdom (Str 10, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 19, Wis 14, Cha 14). To improve our usage of Natural Medicine, we’ll use this skill increase to improve Nature to expert proficiency. Before I remembered that you had to take Celestial Eyes at first level, I was looking at that one because I wasn’t digging any of the human ancestry feats at this level. Instead, I picked up Celestial Resistance – Fire, granting us some resistance to fire as that is an element that Morgana is often described as using in her lore.
Gear: mentalist’s staff, pendant of the occult, dusty rose prism aeon stone, +1 staff, everburning torch, ring of discretion
Known Spells: 3rd – paralyze, magical fetters
LEVEL 6 With the Root Magic skill feat, we can make a single protective charm per day that we can give to an ally to help them. Witch’s Charge is a class feat that allows Morgana to designate a single creature as her charge, allowing her to be aware of their status and affect them with touch spells as long as they are within 30 feet. This brings to mind the support and ADC of League of Legends – the former of which is a role that Morgana often fills.
Gear: +1 explorer’s clothes, +1 striking staff, mentalist’s staff, pendant of the occult, brooch of shielding, hand of the mage
Known Spells: 3rd – mind reading
LEVEL 7 At seventh level is when you can start getting skills up to master proficiency, which is what we’ll be doing with Occultism first. To help us act first in combat so that we can lay down buffs or debuffs, we grab Incredible Initiative, granting us a bonus on initiative rolls.
Gear: staff of abjuration, +1 explorer’s clothing, goggles of night, +1 striking staff, pendant of the occult, dusty rose prism aeon stone
Known Spells: 4th – globe of invulnerability, necrotic radiation
LEVEL 8 Building off of Recognize Spell, we can take Quick Recognition so that we can identify a spell being cast as a free action, meaning that we still have a reaction available for our next class feat – Counterspell. This is a second level class feat, but witches have such a poor selection of feats, I’m going all the way back for this one. It does kinda fit her in a way – she can use Counterspell to try to protect her allies from magic, just like her Black Shield does.
Gear: unmemorable mantle, staff of abjuration, wand of hopeless night (2nd-level), +1 explorer’s clothing, +1 striking staff, azure briolette aeon stone
Known Spells: 4th – vampiric maiden
LEVEL 9 Furthering our knowledge in other magical traditions, we can take a skill increase to Religion to get it up to expert proficiency. While bound, Morgana’s wings are still able to allow her to soar through the air, so we’ll take Celestial Wings for her to use in times of dire need.
Gear: +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, unmemorable mantle, staff of abjuration, wand of hopeless night (2nd-level), goggles of night, +1 striking staff
Known Spells: 5th – banishment, mind probe
LEVEL 10 This time, we’ll apply these ability boosts to Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma (Str 10, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 20, Wis 16, Cha 16). This is enough to get us an increased to our Intelligence bonus, which gets us another language and the trained proficiency in another skill. To round out some of the other skills we’ve taken, we’ll grab Arcana so that we’re now at least trained in all the magical tradition skills. We’ll grab Consult the Spirits as our skill feat, allowing us to use Occultism to speak to spirits and learn the knowledge they hold. Building off of the Witch’s Charge we took, we can pick up Witch’s Communion so that we can target more creatures with the benefits of our Witch’s Charge.
Gear: greater pendant of the occult, +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, greater mentalist’s staff, bag of holding (type II), wand of hopeless night (2nd-level), +1 striking staff
Known Spells: 5th – shadow blast
LEVEL 11 By using this skill increase to boost Nature up to master proficiency, we can now use Quick Recognize with this skill as well. For this general feat, we’re actually going to pick up a skill feat – Trick Magic Item. With this, we can try to activate magical items like wands, scrolls, and staves even if they aren’t on our spell list, as long as we succeed on a skill check.
Gear: +2 striking staff, greater pendant of the occult, mask of the banshee, +1 resilient explorer’s clothing, bag of holding (type II), wand of hopeless night (2nd-level)
Known Spells: 6th – vampiric exsanguination, wall of force
LEVEL 12 This is a skill feat that would’ve been better sooner, but I liked a lot of the skill feats I picked before this one. Anyway, Magical Shorthand will let Morgana learn spells quicker and cheaper. We don’t have a lot of focus spells, but we have some good ones in the form of blood ward and cackle. So that we don’t have to worry about using them freely in combat too much, we’ll take Hex Focus as our class feat, which lets us regain two Focus Points when we Refocus instead of just one.
Gear: +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, +2 striking staff, greater staff of abjuration, greater pendant of the occult, wand of teeming ghosts (3rd-level), rod of wonder
Known Spells: 6th – true seeing
LEVEL 13 Another skill increase will increase Arcana to expert proficiency. I was debating which route to go with this ancestry feat and ended up looking at Hardy Traveler. I didn’t want to delve too much deeper into aasimar feats and I went further than I wanted with them in this build, but this kinda makes sense to me. Morgana’s lore seems to suggest that she’s a traveler and this feat makes such a life easier, allowing her to carry more.
Gear: +2 greater striking staff, +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, greater goggles of night, greater staff of abjuration, greater pendant of the occult, mask of the banshee
Known Spells: 7th – energy aegis, force cage
LEVEL 14 A font of dark and dangerous knowledge, Morgana can reveal some of it using Disturbing Knowledge to frighten and potentially confuse enemies using Occultism. We’ll build off of Counterspell to get Reflect Spell, which doesn’t exactly fit any of Morgana’s abilities but witches are kinda short on feats and this one at least follows a bit of the feats that she’s been investing in.
Gear: pale lavender ellipsoid aeon stone, +2 greater striking staff, major mentalist’s staff, +2 resilient explorer’s clothing, wand of hopeless night (4th-level), wand of teeming ghosts (4th-level)
Known Spells: 7th – prismatic spray
LEVEL 15 Another set of ability boosts go to Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom (Str 12, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 21, Wis 18, Cha 16). We receive a skill increase at this level as well, which we’ll apply to Occultism to reach legendary proficiency in it. To help balance out our naturally low HP, we’ll pick up Diehard so that Morgana doesn’t permanently die until she reaches Dying 5 instead of Dying 4.
Gear: +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, pale lavender ellipsoid aeon stone, boots of speed, +2 greater striking staff, greater goggles of night, bag of holding (type III)
Known Spells: 8th – antimagic field, devour life
LEVEL 16 As demonstrated with taking Incredible Initiative, we want to be going first, and to help with that, we’ll grab Pilgrim’s Token, which gives us a small token that makes it so that we win initiative rolls on a tie. For our class feat, Effortless Concentration lets us Sustain a Spell as a free action once per round, meaning that we can couple this with cackle to Sustain two spells without spending a single action on them.
Gear: selenite crystal ball, +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, major staff of abjuration, pale lavender ellipsoid aeon stone, +2 greater striking staff, wand of teeming ghosts (5th-level)
Known Spells: 8th – prismatic wall
LEVEL 17 We can push Religion up to master proficiency to better use Trick Magic Item. Our final ancestry feat will be Celestial Word, allowing Morgana to call upon her divine blood to utter a divine decree once per day, which deals damage and weakens foes.
Gear: +3 greater striking staff, selenite crystal ball, dragonscale amulet, +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, pale lavender ellipsoid aeon stone, boots of speed
Known Spells: 9th – prismatic sphere, wail of the banshee
LEVEL 18 With the Bizarre Magic Occultism skill feat, our spells become harder to identify and thereby counter. Following the picking up of Hex Focus, we get Hex Wellspring so that we get all our Focus Points back whenever we Refocus, meaning we can use our focus spells without worry in an encounter.
Gear: diadem of intellect, +3 greater striking staff, major staff of impossible visions, selenite crystal ball, +2 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, wand of teeming ghosts (6th-level)
Known Spells: 9th – divinity leech
LEVEL 19 This final skill increase will boost up our final magical tradition skill as we put Arcana at master proficiency. With Morgana living on her own and the fact that her passive heals her, Fast Recovery makes sense to me as she becomes better at recovering from injuries without aid.
Gear: +3 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, diadem of intellect, robe of eyes, +3 greater striking staff, selenite crystal ball, dragonscale amulet
Known Spells: 10th – alter reality, remake
LEVEL 20 We’ll place our last ability boosts in Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma (Str 14, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 22, Wis 18, Cha 18). Another increase to our Intelligence bonus makes us trained in Acrobatics and gives us another language. We have two final feats at this level as well. Influence Nature allows Morgana to warp the natural world about her with time and a Nature check. For our class feat, Hex Master lets it casts multiple hexes in a round and we can use cackle to Sustain a Spell for all active actions with a single casting of it.
Gear: lavender and green ellipsoid aeon stone, +3 greater resilient explorer’s clothing, wand of teeming ghosts (8th-level), diadem of intellect, +3 greater striking staff, major staff of impossible visions
Known Spells: 9th – overwhelming presence
CONCLUSION Many of Morgana’s abilities are achieved through her spells rather than her feats or the like, which I don’t talk about as much going over the build. But paralyze and magical fetters help achieve the effect of her Dark Binding while we can use necrotic radiation to mimic Tormented Shadow. I picked up a number of protective spells because none felt like a great fit for her Black Shield – so I just looked at quantity over quality. There’s forbidding ward, protection, sanctuary, globe of invulnerability, energy aegis, and more. I picked up antimagic field because while I don’t think it’s something she wants to use too often, it fits for the shield’s ability to specifically stop magic. A heightened paralyze captures part of the feeling of Soul Shackles, but will have to be coupled with a damaging spell to really get the feel of it. Soul Siphon ended up being the hardest ability to find a parallel for but I was even thinking about going into the Cleric Dedication to get access to harm and then grab the Sap Life feat, but that required at least a three feat investment for a very minor effect. To make up for it, I tried to pick up as many life-draining spells as I could – vampiric maiden, vampiric exsanguination, and devour life, but that’s the closest I could get with this build. In her lore story, Morgana seemed to be able to read the mind or at least the faults of a character, which led to me adding mind probe to her spell list. I think aasimar is a good reflection of Morgana’s backstory even if I ended up not using too many feats from it due to her rejection of her heritage. In general with this build, I looked to build a character who lacks down enemies and preserves allies – even taking true seeing to get the feeling of a control ward – through mitigating damage to them. As always, it’s worth keeping in mind that as a witch, Morgana can add spells to her familiar to expand her available spells, and I just picked what I felt like was the best fit for her.
I have only two fully released classes that I haven't done builds for now (druid and investigator)! But lemme know what you think of this one. Does the build work? Does it capture the feel of the character? What would you change about it? Is it something you’d like to play? What other characters would you like to see for Full Build Friday? If you feel so inclined, join the blog’s Discord server or follow us on Twitter.
Have a fantastic Friday!
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