Universe:Hextech

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For information about the Hextech skins, see here.

For information about the other references to Hextech, see Hextech (disambiguation).

Hextech is a magical technology that utilizes rune magic through scientific and mathematical equations to create exquisite artifacts that can be wielded by anyone, not just the few people out there with a natural aptitude for the arcane. It requires a magical, volatile type of crystal called hexite to function properly.

Lore[edit | edit source]

Hextech Champions[edit | edit source]

The following are champions either made from hextech, or were beings who augmented their bodies with hextech to such an extent that they have lost all traces of their original body parts:

Notable users[edit | edit source]

Caitlyn wields a custom-built hextech rifle.
Ekko wields the Z-Drive, a device that is capable of rewinding time.
Heimerdinger has built numerous hextech devices and is considered an expert in the field, despite his reservations about the practice.
Jayce, one of the scientists who created hextech, wields the Mercury Hammer, which he can also transform into the Mercury Cannon.
Jhin wields Whisper, a hextech pistol that shoots handcrafted hextech bullets. He also has a hextech mass accelerator for his Curtain Call.
Jinx wields Fishbones (a hextech rocket launcher) and Zapper (a hextech shock pistol), both of her own design.
Seraphine uses the Echoes of the Heart, a hextech platform stage for her performances. All of her abilities in-game are also channeled through the stage.
Vi wields the Atlas Gauntlets which increases the striking power of her punches.

History[edit | edit source]

Main article: The Era of Hextech

Hextech is a revolutionary new technology, having been created by the aspiring inventors Jayce Talis and Viktor through the stabilization of volatile blue hexite crystals and runic algorithms. Jayce and Viktor would invent many devices during Piltover's golden age of hextech, most notably the Hexgate, a realm-warping device able to transport airships across Runeterra in an instant. However, a Zaunite known as Jinx would eventually steal and reverse-engineer hextech using Jayce's notes, leading to the development of hextech weapons and pushing the cities towards open conflict. The Noxian warlord Ambessa Medarda also took a keen interest in the weaponization of hextech, but was unable to get a hold of any talented scientists who could master it the way Jinx had.

The overuse of hextech led to unexpected fluctuations in the arcane, which was a side effect that affected plants and corrupted various surfaces and machinery across the city. This was in large part an effect of Viktor's work, which involved an adaptive runic matrix known as the hexcore, as well as a massive Anomaly that festered beneath the Hexgate. While Viktor originally intended to use the power of hextech to heal the people of the undercity, his vision for a brighter future quickly spun out of control as he became obsessed with curing all humanity of their emotions and flaws. Meanwhile, Jayce, Ekko, and Heimerdinger would investigate the corruption caused by an Anomaly beneath the Hexgate's main reactor, which would send them through alternate realities without a clear method of getting home. When Jayce and Ekko returned, they managed to defeat Viktor and seal the Anomaly and the hexcore away for good, and after the cataclysmic event most of world's the leading experts in hextech were either dead, missing, or disinterested in continuing its use.

Properties[edit | edit source]

Hextech's power is limited only by the imagination of their users. It is capable of amazing feats, from powering machinery to creating beams of light capable of cutting the strongest steel. Hextech devices have runes inscribed on them; when the runes are coupled with the power of the hextech gemstones, it gives the device its magical properties. Unrefined hexite crystals are shown to be extremely volatile and easily explode from just a little bit of impact. Jayce and his partner Viktor were able to refine these crystals and turn them into hextech gemstones—small, sphere shaped crystals (similar in appearance to blue marbles) that could endure great amounts of impact without reacting violently. With the creation of these hextech gemstones, they could be wielded safely by the common man and used to power up portable hextech devices.

Piltover and Zaun are the most tuned into this technology, but have vastly differing motives. Jayce, the original visionary behind hextech, primarily uses its power to invent tools for easier labor and transport in Piltover, whereas Viktor, his Zaunite partner, became interested in augmentation and the medical applications of hextech, a result of his own debilitating illness (as well as the illnesses that plagued many in the undercity). Jinx, another Zaunite, specializes in the weaponization of hextech, having crafted a number of hextech explosives that she uses in open rebellion against Piltover.

While hextech is known as a revolutionary technology capable of performing miracles, meddling with the arcane is shown to have negative side effects, like the corruption that occurred as a result of the Anomaly under the Hexgate. Viktor's invention, the hexcore, was also capable to manipulating Viktor's mind and eroding his humanity, implying that hextech may have a potentially malicious and parasitic quality to its nature. A race of hextech creatures created by Viktor's hexcore were formed through a process called "hexcorization", which used its power to magically-augment human bodies and remove their emotions.^[1]^[2] These creatures would nearly absorb the entire city into their collective consciousness, nearly causing a disaster that was comparable to the ancient Rune Wars in terms of raw destruction.^[3]^[4]

Inventions[edit | edit source]

Hextech
Artifice
Vi's Atlas Gauntlets
Hextech Guns
Star Rods
Parade Electrorig
The Hexgate
Hexgate Power Core
Talis Acceleration Gate
Jinx's Monkey Bomb
Hextech Crystal
Jinx's Fishbones
Jinx's Zapper
Jinx's Rhinogun
An Evolved Cultist
The Anomaly

There are numerous hextech devices made.

Atlas Gauntlets: Exceedingly rare and powerful hextech augments that were originally designed by Jayce and Viktor to make mining easier for miners in the fissures beneath Zaun. The gauntlets are each powered a hextech gemstone and are able to lift and crush heavy stones without fatigue. Vi got a hold of Jayce's prototype gauntlets and uses them as weaponized boxing gloves.
Ekko's Z-Drive: Created by Ekko from pieces of shattered hexite (with the assistance of Heimerdinger and Powder), it is a portable device able to rewind time in short bursts, enabling its user to safely change events that occurred four seconds into the past. The user is the only one that recalls the rewinding of time: However, they are unable to rewind any injuries that occur to them even with the devices use.
Hexgate: An enormous tower constructed based on schematics by Jayce and Viktor at the request of the Piltover Council. The Hexgate is capable of warping airships to far-off locations across Runeterra, which transformed the city into a hub for global shipping and attracted scholars from around the world.
Hextech Golem: These constructs made of magical and technological components that vary in size, shape, purpose, and intelligence.
- Blitzcrank: A golem created by Viktor who is said to have "evolved" all on their own. They have the ability to extend their hand similar to a grappling hook.
- Orianna: Originally a human, Orianna Reveck was transformed into a golem by her father, Singed, using a combination of apex shimmer and Viktor's hexcore.
- Viktor's Puppets: An army of hextech puppet soldiers that are created from the bodies of Viktor's cultists and the hexcore, which transformed them into beings of sleek white and gold metal. These evolved cultists are virtually indestructible and utterly obedient to Viktor's will.
Jayce's Acceleration Gate: The Talis Acceleration Gate is a large mechanical device operated from a chair with levers. The energy field is capable of aiming and launching any object at a remarkable speed. Jayce gave an acceleration gate to the Enforcers to help defend the Hexgate.
Jayce's Mercury Hammer / Mercury Cannon: A transforming weapon created by Jayce for him to use in combat and defend Piltover from dangerous threats. In Arcane, Jayce creates the hextech hammer to defend Piltover from a possible war with Zaun. He first uses the hammer in a raid on a shimmer manufacturing factory belonging to the crime boss Silco. It can transform into a powered greathammer that has the hammer's head and pommel enhanced so that its ability to deal heavy blows is intensified—or it can transform into a blaster that can shoot lightning orbs. It can also emit an electrical field that surrounds Jayce and knocks back and electrocutes nearby enemies.
Jinx's Fishbones: Designed from her childhood drawings, this rocket launcher has a chemtech payload known as Super Mega Rockets. At one point, this weapon was modified to use a hextech gemstone as its power source, enabling it to shoot its payload over longer distances with greater power.
Jinx's Rhinogun: An all-terrain heavy weapon that functions as both a machine gun and a rocket launcher, it was created when Jinx fused the remains of Pow-Pow, Fishbones, and her Zapper with with a power source from Heimerdinger's H-28G Evolution Turret, a cooling system from Ekko's hoverboard, and a heating pipe from the Firelights' hideout.^[5]
Jinx's Zapper: A pistol modified to use a hextech gemstone as its power source, enabling it to fire blasts of arcane electrical energy at her targets.
Jinx's Monkey Bomb: A clockwork toy monkey filled with several explosive hex crystals, it was the first working bomb that Jinx ever created.
Star Rods: A hextech devices which is used to emit light in the richer streets in Piltover, these lights pierce the darkness (and rising Zaun Gray) with ease.
Viktor's Hexclaw: The hexclaw is a large mechanical arm created by Viktor that is mounted to a table and controlled by a crystal attached to the user's glove. It shoots a powerful laser that is able to cut precisely through solid rock, and was originally designed to help artificers with crafting and manufacturing. An appendage resembling the hexclaw would later grow from Viktor's back, which contained its own rune matrix and could shoot lasers powerful enough to cut through metal.
Viktor's Hexcore: The hexcore, also created by Viktor, is a self-learning and evolving runic matrix that is able adapt towards any magical function, most notably the augmentation of human physiology. While it was originally a simple hextech device, the hexcore would seemingly develop a mind of its own, making it difficult for Viktor to control as it threatened to consume him. Jayce would later use it to save Viktor’s life, transforming him into a cyborg. In addition to Viktor, the hexcore is also responsible for the transformations of his followers turning them into puppets under his control, and Orianna's transformation into a golem.
Other notable hextech devices are: Hextech Capacitor, Hextech Alternator, Hextech Rocketbelt, Hextech GLP-800, Hextech Gunblade‎, Hextech Protobelt-01, Hextech Revolver‎, 6 Hextech Transmogulator, Echoes of the Heart, most Piltovan and Zaunite mechanical golem, etc.

Trivia[edit | edit source]

The crest of Piltover is shaped in the form of a hextech device.
- The Hexgate's topmost area of the tower is shaped in the form of the Piltovan crest.
In the Path of Champions (non-canon) 4Jayce story mode, 5Heimerdinger mentions that hexite crystals are made from galsite put under immense pressure.
The Hextech alternate universe skinline was directly inspired by this magical technology, reimagining champions ether wielding it or being hextech devices themselves.
Tocker is a Little Legends in the Teamfight Tactics Prime universe, and is a hextech golem that resembles a bird. There are also hextech forms of Craggle and Gloop.
Prior to Skarner's biography update, hextech was powered by a resource called "brackern crystals" (also known as "sing stones" or "first crystals"), which contained the souls of ancient brackern and were mined from the Crystal Scar in the deserts of Shurima.
- Since Skarner's update, the brackern no longer have any connection to hextech, with the origin of hex crystals being rewritten to match their origin in Arcane.