Exclusive LoL champion reveal: Trundle, the Cursed Troll

We're excited to reveal, for the first time ever, full details on the next champion to step onto the battlefield in League of Legends--a crazy, diseased troll with a ridiculously large club and a knack for biting his foes. Trundle looks like he'll fill a debuffer/tank role with some jungling/solo-laning potential, not to mention a pretty gnarly hairstyle. Read on for a full abilities list, screenshots and all the backstory you can handle.

Abilities List

Rabid Bite : Trundle bites his opponent, dealing damage and sapping some of their attack damage.
Contaminate : Trundle infects a target location with his curse, gaining attack speed, movement speed, and crowd control reduction while on it.
Pillar of Filth : Trundle creates a plagued beacon at a target location, which becomes impassable terrain and slows all nearby enemy units.
Agony (Ultimate) : Trundle immediately steals his target's health and a percentage of their armor and magic resistance. Over the next six seconds the amount of health, armor, and magic resistance stolen is doubled.
Decompose (Passive) : Whenever an enemy unit near Trundle dies, he heals for a percentage of their maximum health.

Trundle's backstory

Trolls have never been well-regarded beings on Valoran. Generally speaking, they are barbaric, cannibalistic, and sneaky [my kind of dudes -Josh]. They are creatures relegated to the murky recesses of the world, hidden away from most intelligent beings. Despite their maleficent natures, however, the Ruhgosk tribe of trolls never deserved the grisly fate that was visited upon them.

Generations ago, a twisted necromancer known as Hakolin the Bonecrafter attempted to enslave the Ruhgosk tribe. The trolls of this particular tribe are considerably more genteel than their ill-mannered brethren, although still uncouth by human standards. The Ruhgosk fought tooth and claw against the necromancer, ultimately driving him from their land. But as a parting gift, Hakolin afflicted the trolls with a leprous disease, forever cursing them and their descendents. The leprosy would have rotted their flesh away to nothing were it not for the trolls' natural ability to regenerate. Caught forever in a hideous rotting state, the Ruhgosk endured their curse while desperately in search of a cure. They never found one.

A wise Ruhgosk shaman learned that he could magically bind the disease to a single troll, provided that the troll could bear the weight of the entire tribe's curse upon himself. However, there was no such troll...until the birth of Trundle. His ability to regenerate is so profound that it appeared that he did not even carry the disease. As Trundle grew, he came to understand his gift and what it could do for his people. When he came of age, he took the curse from his tribe in a baptism of searing agony. Through the shaman's ritual, Trundle became a horrifying creature whose flesh constantly sloughs off his body, only to be re-grown in an unremitting cycle. He has joined the League of Legends in hopes of eventually finding someone who could dispel the heinous curse completely.

Favorite quote : "I've learned a thing or two about pain! Let me show you." --Trundle

Personally, as someone who always chooses Troll as my race in any game that allows it, and usually picks a melee debuffer/poison-based class, Trundle sounds like he might be the perfect champion for me. I can't wait to give his abilities a try as soon as he's introduced to live servers (probably within two weeks, based on Riot's typical champion release schedule). And you can expect a hands-on Champion Appraisal--a recurring feature we've started doing that judges every LoL champion as it's released, telling you what to watch out for when facing them on the battlefield, how to succeed playing as them, and whether or not its worth your hard-earned cash-- for Trundle on this site as soon as he's available.