"Doubtless he would have died there, alone, were it not for Shyvana." Riot's biography of Jarvan IV is a prince's education, and that sentence is the exam he failed: an outpost built against advice, a fall of hundreds of feet, a night under a tree believing he had failed his kingdom. The heir to Demacia's throne owes his life to a half-dragon the court still looks at sideways, which is, for the Riot MMO, the most useful fact in the text.
Who they are
His father's reign began with a wedding. Soon after his coronation, the biography says, Jarvan III found Demacia's noble families feuding and raising private militias, and chose to end it by marrying the Lady Catherine, whom the people loved and the court suspected he did too. The bells of the Great City rang for a day and a night. By the year's end the couple were expecting a son, and Catherine died giving birth to him. The king declared the infant heir apparent, swore never to take another wife, and put every hope for the kingdom into the boy.
The prince grew up at court, groomed and guarded every moment, with no memory of his mother. His father's Seneschal, Xin Zhao, from distant Ionia, taught him the history and politics of Valoran and the arts of war. In military training he met a brash Crownguard youth named Garen, and the two became a quick pair. When he came of age his father gave him command of the silverwing knights guarding the Great City, and Jarvan, who was not expected to take the field, decided to prove himself anyway.
He chose the lands beyond the Argent Mountains, a near-lawless frontier contested by Noxus, where a Noxian brute had killed his great grandfather in the first clashes between the two nations. Against advice he built an outpost high in the mountains to watch the enemy's supply lines, and Noxian artillery threw him from the saddle and hundreds of feet down. Wounded and delirious under a fallen tree, he was found by Shyvana, a strange violet-skinned woman, who somehow carried him back to the old castle at Wrenwall and stayed while he healed. Then the elemental dragon Yvva, which had been hunting her, appeared on the horizon. Jarvan limped from his bed, marshalled the garrison, took up his lance and swore they would return to the capital with the dragon's head or not at all. Shyvana killed the beast in her half-dragon form; the prince rallied the men who broke and sent healers to the wounded, and the biography credits his leadership with holding the line. He promised her a place in his guard.
He rode home with the skull, Shyvana at his side, to a father overcome and nobles who asked under their breath whether such a creature should stand beside the prince at all. With Garen now Sword-Captain of the Dauntless Vanguard and Shyvana training the border garrisons with the Wrenwall veterans, the text says, he feels sure Demacia can answer any threat. One day he must succeed his father and be crowned King Jarvan IV.
Where they belong
Riot's faction pages put Jarvan IV in Demacia; he is its heir. The biography's one excursion is to the frontier beyond the Argent Mountains. No race is listed for him on Riot's pages.
Riot lists four related champions:
- Garen: the Crownguard youth he met in training and has been paired with since, now Sword-Captain of the Dauntless Vanguard.
- Shyvana: the half-dragon who carried him to Wrenwall, killed Yvva, and holds the place in his guard he promised her, over the nobles' misgivings.
- Xin Zhao: his father's Seneschal, from Ionia, who taught him the history of Valoran and the arts of war.
- Lux: not named in Jarvan's biography. The link Riot draws is Demacia's court, not a scene in the text.
In the Riot MMO, as a guess
This is speculation. Jarvan IV is a quest-giving character, and the biography specifies which kind: a prince with a military command, a frontier he has sworn to stabilise and a habit of ignoring his lieutenants. That is the character at the top of a Demacian questline, sending a player to the Argent Mountains and receiving them at court afterwards. Wrenwall is the bonus, a castle with a dragon fight in its history. He is not a boss; he is alive, mortal, and on the side a Demacian starting zone would put a player on. Whether champions can hand out quests at all is the question in will champions be playable, and a prince is the least controversial answer.
What we do not know
Whether the era the game chooses, the open question in when is the Riot MMO set?, finds Jarvan a prince or a king. The biography ends with the succession still ahead of him and gives no date for it.
Whether the nobles who questioned Shyvana's place beside him have done more than question. The text records the whispers and nothing after, and Riot has not said.