Characters / Honkai: Star Rail

Honkai: Star Rail (Main Character Index)
Astral Express
Locations: Herta Space Station | Jarilo-VI | Xianzhou Luofu | Penacony
Factions: Stellaron Hunters | Genius Society | Interastral Peace Corporation
Aeons

The universe is vast and full of wonders, and so are the numerous people and figures that the Astral Express meets while traveling the star rails that Akivili the Trailblaze laid eons ago that live and shape it.

A list of all the characters in Honkai: Star Rail.

Characters with their names in bold are playable.

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The Astral Express

• The Astral Express ^note The Trailblazer, Dan Heng, March 7th, Himeko, Welt, Pom-Pom, Messenger

Locations

• Herta Space Station ^note Arlan, Asta, Herta, the Wubbaboos, Xenohydro, Ruan Mei's Creations
• Jarilo-VI ^note Bronya, Gepard, Lynx, Pela, Serval, Cocolia, Clara, Hook, Luka, Natasha, Seele, Findie, Oleg, Sampo
• The Xianzhou Luofu ^note Jing Yuan, Sushang, Yanqing, Fu Xuan, Qingque, Tingyun, Yukong, Bailu, Dan Shu, Hanya, Huohuo, Xueyi, Guinaifen, Imbibitor Lunae, Jingliu, Luocha, Diting, Master Gongshu
• Penacony ^note Misha, Gallagher, Firefly, Siobhan, Robin, Sunday, Mr. McCoy

Factions

• Stellaron Hunters ^note Blade, Kafka, Sam, Silver Wolf, Elio
• Genius Society ^note Ruan Mei, Zandar, Polka, Aiden, Rubert, Sserkal, Yu Qingtu, Elias Salas, Dr. Primitive, Screwllum, Chadwick, Stephen Lloyd
• Interastral Peace Corporation ^note Aventurine, Jade, Topaz & Numby, Owlbert, Skott, Velite

Aeons

• Aeons ^note Akivili, Nanook, Lan, Nous, Xipe, IX, Qlipoth, Yaoshi, Aha, Mythus, Oroboros, Long, Idrila, Fuli, Tayzzyronth, Terminus, HooH, Ena

Annihilation Gang

Another faction that follows the Path of Destruction. The collective label for the various species that look up to Nanook in their sprees of pillaging and annihilation, but are inadequate to fundamentally understand and carry out the will of the Destruction. As such, Nanook rejects them, as they have "impure" reasons for destruction.

In General

Akash, Dubra, Duke Inferno, Caterina, and Constance

• Ambiguous Situation: Aventurine and Black Swan state that Acheron offed Duke Inferno and caused the disbandment of the Ever-Flame Mansion. While Duke Inferno's death is emphasized by Black Swan looking into Acheron's memories, it is left unclear whether others of the group were killed alongside him, or if their plans even remain in motion with the death of their figurehead.
• Arc Villain: "A Night of Ever-Flame: Scene 33" establishes their intention to accept the Family's invitation to Penacony's grand celebration, and lays out each member having a different target. It's ambiguous whether this will still be the case with Acheron's elimination of Duke Inferno and the Ever-Flame Mansion's supposed disbanding as a result of it.
• Asshole Victim: The Jepella Brotherhood was one of the most powerful factions within the Annihilation Gang until they were toppled by the Stellaron Hunters inciting the Jepella Rebellion.
• Evil Versus Evil: The Annihilation Gang itself is divided into more than one faction, some of whom are enemies with one another. The Jepella Brotherhood and the Ever-Flame Mansion have long held a sordid rivalry. The Jepella Rebellion, sponsored by the Stellaron Hunters, had the not-so-unintentional side effect of weakening one of Ifrit's rivals, allowing him to gain power, presumably with the goal of setting him up as an Arc Villain for Elio's script.
• The Family That Slays Together: Ifrit refers to his minions as his children, and they in turn as "father".
• Not Afraid to Die: In a true reckless Destruction fashion. In "A Night of Ever-Flame: Scene 33", when Constance asks "what if we end up dead?", Akash shushes her, saying "since when have those on the Path of Destruction feared death?" When Dubra asks if they have any fallback should their plan gets foiled, Ifrit sternly answers "such a thing does not exist".
• Omnicidal Maniac: The Data Bank explicitly says that the Annihilation Gang destroys and pillages civilizations to satisfy their own selfish desires, which even Nanook considers impure.
• Psycho Supporter: To an already murderous deity. Nanook is ruthless, but not sadistic. It is implied that Nanook attempts to destroy the universe because they believe that the current universe does not deserve to exist and wants to let something new take its place. The Annihilation Gang admires Nanook for destroying things, but do not understand the Aeon's reasons. The Gang enjoys destruction for "impure" reasons, like sadism or plunder. They yearn for Nanook's gaze, but will never get it, and suffer from too much Psychological Projection to understand why.

Duke Inferno

Ifrit

Duke Inferno

Voiced By: Meng Xianglong (Chinese), Teruyuki Tanzawa (Japanese), Lee Joo-seung (Korean), Bob Johnson (English)

The master of the Ever-Flame Mansion. A demon born from a planet that was destroyed by Nanook, who has destroyed many civilizations in the name of Destruction and seeks for Nanook's gaze, yet has never received it.

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• Bait-and-Switch Boss: At first, all the foreshadowing hints at him becoming a major Arc Villain in Penacony, only for him to be unceremoniously Killed Offscreen by Acheron, to establish her as an extremely dangerous Wild Card.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He likes to think he's a big deal but is easily outwitted by Ratio when trying to assault the Herta Space Station. Later, he is unceremoniously Killed Offscreen by Acheron when travelling to Penacony. Not hard to see why Nanook didn't even acknowledge this guy.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: He wears a nice red suit and has spearheaded the demise of many civilizations.
• Cool Crown: Wears a fiery crown that floats above his head. According to its Relic description, it was made from embers of a destroyed star.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Was first mentioned in "The Ashblazing Grand Duke" Relic set, which tells about his birth, role as a destroyer of countless civilizations, and Penacony inviting him.
• Energy Being: He and his race of flame demons are stated to be a type of energy being similar to Wubbaboos and Heliobi.
• Face Death with Dignity: He knew he had no chance of defeating Acheron, but he nonetheless accepted his end with grace, even admitting that everything comes to end.
• Fantastic Terrorists: Compared to the Antimatter Legion which acts like your typical Alien Invasion, Ifrit works more by systematically spreading terror, including announcing their attacks on broadcast, with the breaking news about their attack in Herta Space Station being styled similarly to terrorist attack news.
• Flaming Skulls: He has a burning goat's Skull for a Head.
• Gruesome Goat: Ifrit has destroyed many civilizations and his head is a fiery, skeletal goat head.
• High-Class Glass: Wears a monocle to complement his suit.
• Killed Offscreen: If Aventurine and Black Swan are to be believed, Acheron killed him offscreen and stole his invitation into Penacony. In the "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" teaser, disintegrating pieces of his skull can also be briefly seen when Black Swan peers into Acheron's memories while trying to find out how she did it.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: He's the leader of a terrorist organization who styles himself as a duke with the fanciful attire to match.
• Meaningful Name: Named after a specific type of djinn that's associated with flames and generally malevolent.
• Mono no Aware: In a twisted example, he believes that "the true beauty of things can only be appreciated in its destruction".
• Not Afraid to Die: Again, in true reckless Destruction fashion. Acheron only came to mug him for his invite (and had subdued his "children" nonlethally) and offered him mercy, but he chose to fight her to the end. His choice to fight arises both from his beliefs and his desire to overcome a superior foe or die trying to prove himself to Nanook.
• Parental Favoritism: He calls Constance his "most ambitious and exceptional child", implying that he considers her to be the best of his children.
• Space Master: He was born from the Phase Flame, an interdimensional fire created by a posthumous member of the Genius Society. As a result, he can bend space, effectively allowing him to teleport. This also lets him teleport other people against their will, with the phenomenon resembling Spontaneous Human Combustion. However, the range is short, and space bending technology exists, which can be used for Teleport Interdiction.
• Undignified Death: Ultimately averted. Black Swan's perception of Acheron's memory shows a Curb-Stomp Battle in the "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" video, and the fact she doesn't even remember him and his crew until the end of the video initially implies that she only saw him as a nuisance. In the flashback sequence to his final moments proper, he gets to lay out his philosophy, being Defiant to the End and Not Afraid to Die, to which Acheron displays Sympathy for the Devil when the topic comes up with Welt. In hindsight, her original reaction to remembering his death appears to be born of Acheron's forgetful tendencies rather than a dismissive remark.
• Villainous Valour: In his final moments, he fully accepted his fate (facing Acheron) with great composure and chose to go out fighting.
• The Worf Effect: Ifrit is established as a powerful Energy Being, causing chaos on Herta Space Station before turning his attention to destroying Penacony. He never makes it, with Aventurine and Black Swan accusing Acheron of carrying out the assassination. This establishes her as someone incredibly dangerous, especially since the encounter was so insignificant to her that it takes her a while to place who Black Swan was talking about.

Akash

Akash "The Tuner"

Voiced By: Zhao Zihan (Chinese), Tarusuke Shingaki (Japanese), Baek Seung-chul (Korean), Talon Warburton (English)

The Tuner

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• Blind Musician: Implied. Duke Inferno says he "lit a fire" in his eyes, when saying this the image on screen is of an eye ball on fire, and when we see Akash's face it's covered by dark shades.
• Instrument of Murder: His demonic-styled cello, which produces flames when he plays a note.
• Meaningful Name: "Akash" is Hindi for "sound".
• Musical Assassin: Implied. He carries a demonic-looking cello that produces flames, and his task is to "serenade" the upcoming celebration.
• The One Guy: Out of the four "children" of Duke Inferno, Akash is the only man. He also seems to be a less direct combatant, compared to the scythe-wielding Dubra and the dominatrix-styled Caterina.

Caterina

Caterina "The Shacklebound"

Voiced By: Li Chanfei (Chinese), Yuko Sanpei (Japanese), Lee Sae-byeok (Korean), Arianna Ratner (English)

The Shacklebound

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• Chained by Fashion: True to her title, she wears a pair of shackles and a collar with broken chain hanging from them.
• Commissar Cap: She has a black leather one, which briefly shoots flames.
• Feet-First Introduction: She's first shown stomping on her chained ball with her heavy metal shoes.
• Fiery Redhead: She has vibrant red hair, and comes across as the most aggressive of the bunch.
• Hellbent For Leather: She's dressed completely in black leather, including pants that look painted on and a crop top with straps arranged in a pentagram over her cleavage.
• Ms. Fanservice: Huge breasts, Hellbent For Leather, Painted-On Pants, and wears a revealing bustier that bears her midriff and cleavage.
• My Blood Runs Hot: Implied, with Duke Inferno claiming to have given her "blood of fire".
• Mythology Gag: She bears more than a little resemblance to Shub-Niggurath from Honkai Impact 3rd.
• Of Corsets Sexy: She wears a black bustier to highlight her large breasts.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: She's a Fiery Redhead dressed in black and is a member of a terrorist organization dedicated to commiting destruction For the Evulz.

Constance

Constance "The Dahlia"

Voiced By: Ruan Congqing (Chinese), Mikoi Sasaki (Japanese), Kim Do-hee (Korean), Jennifer Losi (English)

The Dahlia

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• Creepy Blue Eyes: She has bright, inhuman blue eyes that match her flames.
• Flower Motifs: She is represented during Duke Inferno's speech by an ever-burning dahlia, which is likewise her alias. She also wears a large black dahlia as the accent piece on her hat.
• Horns of Villainy: She has a pair of horns, curling to frame her delicate features. She's also said to be the most ambitious and favorite of Duke Inferno.
• Light Is Not Good: She's dressed in all white but is far from good.
• Prehensile Tail: Constance has a long, slender tail to match with her demonic horns.
• Psychotic Smirk: Seemingly fond of this (as seen in several of her shots), which, in spite of her elegant outfit and reserved attitude, makes her creepy.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Constance speaks in a soft, sweet voice that belies her position as Duke Inferno's favorite.
• Stylish Sunhats: She wears a large and elegant sunhat decorated with a single black dahlia.
• Technicolor Fire: She can summon vibrant, blue flames.
• The Voice: Her voice can be heard speaking to Black Swan in the Trailblaze mission "Cat Among the Pigeons" when the latter examines Ifrit's invite that was stolen by Acheron.

Dubra

Dubra "The Scribe"

Voiced By: Su Ziwu (Chinese), Ruriko Noguchi (Japanese), Kim I-an (Korean), Kayli Mills (English)

The Scribe

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• Bad Habits: The girl is dressed like a member of the clergy, wearing a mitre and a veil as well as having several crosses on her clothing.
• Black Cloak: Dubra's true(?) form is one of these, floating midair and controlling the girl with string-like chains.
• Creepy Cool Crosses: The girl has several crosses decorating her clothing and her headgear, though it's unclear what they would symbolize in Star Rail's universe.
• Creepy Doll: The little girl is merely something controlled by Dubra, collapsing unnaturally and controlled by strings.
• Hat of Authority: The girl wears a large headpiece similar to a Bishop's mitre, giving her an air of religious authority.
• Master Swordsman: Implied as Duke Inferno claims to have taught her mastery of the sword during her introduction.
• Sinister Scythe: Dubra wields a massive scythe, held by the ghostly being that seems to be her true form.
• Tempting Apple: In his speech to his followers, Dubra is represented by a beautiful golden apple that is rotting inside. The girl is likewise cradling a bright red apple in her hands, just prior to being revealed as a front for the creature controlling her.

Galaxy Rangers

Devotees of the Hunt who travel the cosmos, upholding the beliefs of justice via one's own action.

In General

• Arch-Enemy: With Dr. Primitive. It's rumored that after the Galaxy Rangers thwarted one of his plots, he went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge to hunt them all down.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The Galaxy Rangers' main claim to fame was the assassination of Lord Ravager Zulo, an Emanator of Destruction.
• I Work Alone: While they are all part of the same faction, each of the Galaxy Rangers typically operates solo and very rarely team up.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: As followers of the Hunt, the Galaxy Rangers are firm believers of answering violence with violence.
• Vigilante Militia: The Galaxy Rangers are not a formal law enforcement organization and are simply a loose collection of vigilantes from around the universe who have dedicated their lives to hunting down evildoers and galactic threats.

Acheron

Acheron

Introduced: March 27, 2024 (v2.1 "Into the Yawning Chasm" [first half])
Voiced by: Juhuahua (Chinese), Miyuki Sawashiro (Japanese), Park Ji-yoon (Korean), Allegra Clark (English)

^{Click to see her full Warp artwork.}

^{Click to see her pre-game.}

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Nihility
Type: Lightning

An alleged member of the Galaxy Rangers visiting Penacony. Seemingly helpful if taciturn, not all is as it seems...

Acheron sends her foes to oblivion with swift, precise swordsmanship. Her Talent, Atop Rainleaf Hangs Oneness, allows the party to simultaneously build one stack of Slashed Dream for Acheron and one of Crimson Knot onto their foes whenever they inflict debuffs (to a maximum of nine each), with the latter prioritizing building stacks upon the foe with the most such stacks, receiving them should the inflicting attack hit multiple foes, as well as inheriting stacks from another marked foe should they fall. For her part, Acheron can build both stacks through her Skill, Octobolt Flash, where she slashes onto her foes and leaves afterimages that hack away immediately after. Once she has nine stacks of Slashed Dream, her Ultimate, Slashed Dream Cries in Red, is unlocked, during which she traps all her foes in a monochrome dimension and inflicts them with penalties to all kinds of type resistance, then hacks away at one foe at a time with three strikes of Rainblade, each of which consume up to three Crimson Knots to be able to damage all other foes (and whose potency increases proportional to the number of stacks consumed), before ending with a reality-shattering Stygian Resurge slash on all foes that clears all remaining Knots. In addition, her Technique, Quadrivalent Ascendance, is a swift slash that instantly defeats normal enemies, while against elite- or boss-grade foes and Trotters, it damages all foes at the start of a new wave and chips at their Toughness Gauges regardless of resistances, and grants her a same-named buff that automatically builds a stack of Slashed Dream and Crimson Knot (on a random foe) after using her Ultimate.^note When fully upgraded, she automatically builds a stack of both kinds at the start of her turn, as well as gains a boost to raw damage proportional to the number of fellow Nihility Pathstriders in her party and to Critical Rate when attacking debuffed enemies; new enemies that enter battle suffer greater damage whenever she uses her Ultimate; she automatically gains five stacks of Slashed Dream and Crimson Knot (against a random foe) at the start of battle, as well as up to three stacks of her Technique's buff whenever she builds Slashed Dream beyond the maximum; the preliminary slashes of her Ultimate allows her her to build up to three stacks of a damage boost that last for three turns afterwards whenever she attacks foes afflicted with Crimson Knots, while its finisher is augmented with six additional strikes; and all her attacks can now shred Toughness Gauges regardless of enemy resistances.

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• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Acheron is a stoic and serious woman with long dark purple hair.
• Alternate Self: Of Raiden Mei from Gun Girl Z and Honkai Impact 3rd, sharing her Chinese and Japanese voice actresses. Izumo's downfall heavily mirrors that of HI 3's Previous Era (with some elements from the present-day story), and she admits to finding the veiled story Welt tells of Kevin Kaslana and Project Stigma familiar.
• Ambiguous Situation: Her true nature is left unclear after Aventurine reveals that Acheron is likely not a Galaxy Ranger and in fact is probably an Emanator, though he's not sure which Aeon she's tied to. Then again, it's not certain if Aventurine is telling the full, or even partial, truth. Given her past involving what appears to be IX, it's implied (and confirmed as of v2.1) that she's a Self-Annihilator, someone who gazed at the Nihility and lost part of their selves, taking the "meaning" of their lives - and especially the few that can "single-handedly withstand the encroachment of Nihility on their existences," which causes the road she walks to be like a shadow of IX cast in the world. As far as her being a Galaxy Ranger, she considers herself to be in the role of one, but not a fully committed one, and she does not follow the Hunt like most of them do. During his call with Black Swan, Boothill claims she's an imposter (as far as being a member of the Galaxy Rangers).
• Amplifier Artifact: Her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Frost Bites in Death and Strewn Souls on Erased Earths, adds two levels to her Ultimate and 1 to Basic Attack with the former, and 2 to her Skill and Talent with the latter.
• Animal Motifs: The "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" animated short prominently compares her to a snake, and snake-like vertebrae are also featured in the patterns on her clothes as well as splash art. Additionally, she has snake-like slit pupils.
• The Anti-Nihilist: While Acheron is definitely jaded and world-weary, and knows from experience that not all stories have even a chance at a happy ending, her conversation with Aventurine reveals she doesn't believe that the inevitability of death makes life meaningless. If anything, she believes that this inevitability actually makes death itself not worth worrying about, and encourages him to keep on "preparing" to welcome the end that, when it's time for his final rest, "the end" will give a completely different meaning, and he can lay down his laurels with no regrets.
• Armor-Piercing Attack:
  • Acheron's Technique and Ultimate cut through her enemies' Toughness regardless their weakness, in addition to a Damage-Increasing Debuff for the latter tied to her Talent.^note The former also deals damage worth twice her Attack stat
  • Her sixth Eidolon Resonance, Apocalypse, the Emancipator, increases her Resistance Penetration against all damage types by 20%, in addition to allowing her Basic Attack and Skill to shred through Toughness Gauges regardless of her foes' weaknesses and change the properties of these attacks such that they are considered Ultimate damage.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: It is shown that Acheron has a sort of natural intuition that lets her catch onto things much more quickly. For starters, she is able to immediately deduce that Welt's cane contains a potent black hole-type power without even interacting with it or being told about what it is, and she is able to almost instantly deduce a connection between given attributes of Family members when shown a list of their names and traits.
• BFS: Her introduction shows her wearing an odachi that looks almost as long as she is tall.
• Blessed with Suck: As an Emanator of Nihility, she is both blessed and cursed. She can use the Path of Nihility to make herself less noticeable or to destroy her enemies, but by the nature of being so directly linked to IX is cursed to have one foot in the grave and for her memories to keep fading.
• Bring It: During the "Your Color" trailer, Sparkle sends illusions of Kafka, Silver Wolf, and Blade to attack Acheron. What does she say before she utterly curb-stomps them?
  Acheron: Do your worst.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: In the "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" short, Black Swan asks Acheron about the fate of the Annihilation Gang since she suspects that Acheron killed Ifrit. Acheron doesn't even know or remember who the Annihilation Gang even are, and it isn't until much later that she actually recalls them and casually shrugs it off.
  Acheron: Annihilation Gang... Annihilation Gang...? ...Oh. Those guys.
• Call-Forward: In Penacony's Trailblaze Mission, Acheron mentions having a dance with a beautiful lady from the Garden of Recollections, though she forgot to ask for her name. The "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" video shows that particular encounter with Black Swan.
• Character Select Forcing:
  • Downplayed. Her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, The Abyss, gives her Basic Attack, Skill, and Ultimate a damage boost depending on the number of other Nihility Pathstriders in her party—115% if one, 160% if at least two. Her second Eidolon Resonance, Mute Thunder in Still Tempest, reduces the quota for the maximum boost to one such Pathstrider, in addition to a Regenerating Mana effect.
  • The "Izumo Gensei and Takama Divine Realm" Planar Sphere set released alongside her is seemingly made specifically to synergize with her kit, as it applies a 12% Crit Rate buff if its wearer is in a team with at least one other character of the same path.
• Cleavage Window: Her outfit leaves a significant amount of her chest exposed, which the camera highlights at times, such as in her Early-Bird Cameo.
• Color-Coded Characters: Her hair, eyes, and outfit are all purple in color, both of which match her Lightning element.
• Contralto of Strength: In all four languages, her voice has a low timbre that reflects her serious demeanor. It also complements her deadly skills in swordplay and status as an Emanator of Nihility.
• Criss-Cross Attack: Her Skill has her rush towards her target and move around them so fast that she creates afterimages, then she appears again in her initial position and sheathes her blade as her afterimages slash her target and adjacent enemies in the shape of an X.^note With damage worth 80–176% and 30–66% of her Attack stat against, respectively her target and adjacent foes
• Critical Hit Class: Unlike most Nihility characters, Acheron specializes in this:
  • One of three stats Acheron can upgrade via her Trace tree is her Critical Damage, with her getting a 24% boost once fully unlocked.
  • Her first Eidolon Resonance, Silenced Sky Spake Sooth, gives her an 18% Critical Rate boost against debuffed enemies.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: So far, any serious fights against Acheron have ended very poorly for whoever dares to challenge her:
  • She defeated Duke Inferno very easily and killed him when he refused to back down.
  • When Sparkle sends illusions of the Stellaron Hunters at Acheron during the "Your Color" trailer, Acheron beats all three of them simultaneously without taking a hit, and she also utterly obliterates the whole illusion with her Ultimate.
  • When Aventurine's ultimate attack against the Astral Express forces Acheron to act, she fully unsheathes her blade and instantly destroys him and his massive attack with one slash.
• Curtains Match the Windows: Like her previous incarnations in Honkai Impact 3rd and Genshin Impact, she has purple eyes and hair.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff:
  • Her Talent allows her Ultimate to inflict a 10–22% penalty to all kinds of Type Resistance against all foes throughout its duration.
  • Her fourth Eidolon Resonance, Shrined Fire for Mirrored Soul, permanently inflicts enemies that enter battle with an 8% Ultimate damage vulnerability.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The video "Kyoden: A Cleave Across the Transient World" shows her home world Izumo being in a constant war with beings called Yaoyorozu-no-kami from neighboring Takamagahara, and she was one of their best fighters. The war was fought with countless casualties and sacrifices, but the worst part is that she and her fellow people realized too late that everything is "naught" before the "black sun" above them, heavily implied to be IX, which caused both planets to disappear without a trace.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Whenever she uses her Technique or Ultimate, the color of her surroundings (including enemies) become monochrome, save for the red on her outfit and attacks.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Ifrit is a functionally immortal energy being in the same vein as Phantylia, which neither the Astral Express nor the entirety of the Luofu have found a way to permanently kill yet. Yet Acheron is allegedly able to outright kill Ifrit offscreen some time before arriving on Penacony. Ifrit did admit that, as he knew Acheron is an Emanator - and thus, more of a "Cthulhu" than he is - he'd be no match for her, but he chose to go down fighting regardless.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Acheron plays significantly different from most characters in a way that makes her not very straightforward to use. She lacks an Energy meter for her Ultimate, rendering any Energy-boosting effects and/or loadouts useless on her, instead using a stack system that requires inflicting nine debuffs to unlock her Ultimate. Managing to get around this limitation, however, rewards you with an extremely powerful and relentless attacker who crushes bosses and enemy waves alike with fantastic damage output.
• Dump Stat: Because Acheron's Ultimate does not use Energy, she gains nothing from her Energy Regeneration stat, or any loadouts and Simulated Universe blessings that buff or grant Energy. She does, however, still benefit from the Brain in a Vat blessings from the Path of Erudition, as they're technically not tied to Energy.
• Early-Bird Cameo: She was featured in the TGA Candidacy Video before making her appearance in the game.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Back on Izumo, Acheron had a Hime Cut similar to Raiden Mei's, as shown in "Kyoden: A Cleave Across the Transient World". Over the course of the trailer, her hair gradually became more messy. After becoming a Self-Annihilator, her hair covers one of her eyes, to emphasize on her gloominess as an Emanator of IX.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Like all her previous iterations, Acheron came from a place with a Japanese cultural aesthetic. Specifically, her home world Izumo takes its name from a real-life city in Shimane Prefecture hosting one of the most important Shinto shrines in Japan, claimed in myths as the gathering place of the gods, while the Yaoyorozu-no-Kami from neighboring Takamagahara that they fought against is named after the vast pantheon of kami and the heavenly plane they reside in from Japanese Mythology. In addition, the real-life Izumo is also believed to be the place where the entrance to Yomi (called Yomotsu-hirasaka) once existed.
• Failure-to-Save Murder: Acheron blames herself for Firefly's apparent death, believing she could've prevented had she broken her vow not to draw her sword. Whether the Trailblazer agrees or disagrees depends on the player.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Her outfit has a long flowing white sleeve and a pauldron covering her left arm, while her right arm has an elbow-length black glove adorned with metal on her hand, leaving her shoulder bare. Her left boot only reaches up to her knee, while her right boot goes up to her thigh. She also has a flame-shaped tattoo on her left thigh.
• Foil: At first, Acheron and Aventurine seem like they have nothing in common; however both of them have a similar Dark and Troubled Past of struggling with Survivor's Guilt, which is why Aventurine turns to her to ask about "why are we born into this world if it's just to die."
• Foreshadowing: Black Swan's line about her is "Avoid entering someone's past memories lightly, especially hers." The "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" video eventually shows why, as Black Swan tried to peek into her memories. In the end, Black Swan says that "some memories are like silent abyss, filled with those who have drowned in it."
• Forgetful Jones: Acheron is described as someone who frequently forgets important things. This is shown in the "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" animated short when she doesn't even remember facing the Annihilation Gang until she's reminded of them by Black Swan. She can remember emotions longer than specific details, so she tries to keep track of important things by associating a strong emotion with them. This is implied to be a result of her encountering IX, encounter with which causes any unfortunate soul to become Blessed with Suck and receive a curse that causes some aspect of them to repeatedly decay away. Some especially strong-willed Doctors of Chaos are able to persist against their curse indefinitely, but most Self-Annihilators eventually burn out of existence. She also claims that she can remember bits of memories whenever she unsheathes her blade, with the narration noting that she instinctively grips her blade whenever she says so or she's trying to remember something.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the "Your Color" trailer, in her introduction shot, you can faintly see the words "Self-Annihilator" in the background, at the same time as "Galaxy Ranger" is displayed prominently on the foreground.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: As of v2.1, despite otherwise being on friendly enough terms with the Trailblazer that they can even invite her to take a group photo along with other playable characters at a Hanu-themed photo stand-in at Clock Studios Theme Park, she does not send any daily messages to the player if they have her in their roster. This contrasts towards Jingliu and Tingyun, who do not send daily messages due to story reasons^note canonically, Jingliu never meets the Trailblazer, while "Tingyun" is Phantylia in disguise (therefore was never on friendly terms with the Trailblazer).
• Gathering Steam: Besides inflicting Crimson Knots on debuffed enemies, Acheron can build up to nine stacks of Slashed Dream to unlock her Ultimate. In addition, her second-ascension Bonus Ability, Red Oni, instantly builds five stacks of both kinds at the start of battle (the Knots on a random foe), and allows her to build up to 3 "Quadrivalent Ascendance" stacks (similar to her Technique) whenever she builds stacks of Slashed Dream beyond the maximum nine, which will return up to 3 stacks of Slashed Dream and inflict up to 3 stacks of Crimson Knots onto random enemies after her Ultimate ends.
• Have We Met?: She asks the Trailblazer if the two of them had ever met before when they first met in the Dreamscape.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Acheron is said to be aloof and taciturn, and her hair covers one of her eyes.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: Most of the time, when she's not doing Sheath Strike, she draws her sword out for a quick, blink-of-an-eye slash before she sheathes it again. When she activates the power of "Naught", however, she instead goes for wielding her sword two-handed to deliver powerful, screen-shattering slashes.
• Interface Spoiler: Defied. In her profile, her affiliation is "Galaxy Ranger", but after completing "Cat Among the Pigeons", it'll change into Self-Annihilator. Her character stories also have censored parts that are uncovered after completing said Trailblaze Mission.
• Invincible Hero: Acheron is almost completely untouchable. Every fight she gets into is a Curb-Stomp Battle in her favor, she's able to brute-force through Sparkle's illusions, Black Swan's attempts at probing her mind resulted in Acheron subjecting her to a Mind Rape without even realizing it, and the one time she was forced to draw her sword, it obliterated a Stoneheart-empowered Aventurine in one hit and left a permanent scar in the sky itself where she struck.
• Invocation:
  (Ultimate activation) "I weep for the departed."
  (Normal speed) "Dusk's rain, it too shall fall!"
  (×2 speed) "It too shall fall!"
• Kiss Diss: In the "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" animated short, Acheron swiftly withdraws her hand when Black Swan plants a kiss on it, interrupting the latter's pushing up of her sleeve. Black Swan simply smiles and grabs her wrist to continue their dance.
• Man of Kryptonite: Acheron is this to Black Swan due to being a Self-Annihilator whose memories are constantly erased and due to being an Emanator of IX. Since the Path of Nihility revolves around the belief that the universe itself and everything in it are meaningless and worthless, it is the antithesis to that of Remembrance, which embodies the ideal that all memories of the universe should be preserved because they hold meaning. As such, when Black Swan tried to peek into Acheron's memories in the "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" animated short, witnessing IX's power in such a way could have killed Black Swan, and subjected her to a brutal Mind Rape.
• Meaningful Name: Her name in Chinese and Japanese, respectively "Huángquán" and "Yomi" (both readings of 黄泉), are names of the underworld in their respective myths. Meanwhile, in English, "Acheron" is the name of a river that serves as the entrance of Hades in Classical Mythology. The meaning becomes more pronounced in "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" video where Black Swan indirectly describes Acheron's memories as "a silent abyss, filled with those who drowned in it" - Acheron's mind is a veritable underworld.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Acheron has a number of unusual and unique mechanics, to the point that her Aptitude Showcase separately demonstrates her overworld and in-battle capabilities.
  • Her Technique can kill entire Pre-existing Encounters instead of simply damaging them and can be chained if another encounter is nearby. It also will not use any Technique Points if it misses.
  • Instead of filling a gauge by dealing and receiving damage, her Ultimate can be unlocked through the party inflicting at least nine debuffs, visualized as petals on a flower. It is also not a one-and-done attack, instead allowing her to target up to three separate foes with single-target slashes before unleashing a fourth, all-encompassing strike.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: In "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas", Black Swan attempts to read Acheron's memories... only to be shown a horrible nightmarish sequence that left her terrified of Acheron's true nature. It goes double for her since she's a Living Memory and Acheron is an Emanator of Nihility - her forgetful nature means that she's a walking black hole of memories, complete with an image of Black Swan being torn apart by a black hole, which makes it one of the few things that can genuinely threaten her.
• Mind Rape: In the "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" animated short, Acheron inflicts this on Black Swan when she attempts to read her memories, leaving the Memokeeper absolutely terrified of Acheron's true nature. Given that Black Swan sees Ifrit's dead body before she sees Acheron through the Duke's monocle and the former says "are you asking me?", it's implied that Black Swan is experiencing the moment where Acheron "tore Ifrit apart" from his perspective. It wasn't intentional on Acheron's part, though, as the latter didn't notice Black Swan struggling and kept dancing as if nothing happened until the end when Black Swan is gasping for air after her experience. In Acheron's voiceline about her, she only remembered the mesmerizing dance.
• Ms. Fanservice: Much like her previous incarnations in Honkai Impact 3rd and Genshin Impact, Acheron is very well-endowed and shows off a good amount of skin, especially her breasts and midriff. Her long hair and tall frame add to her attractiveness, though it's still downplayed since the story doesn't draw any specific attention to her beauty.
• Mystical White Hair: Her hair turns white whenever she draws on her powers of Nihility.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Acheron is the "Raiden" archetype of this game, following the footsteps of Raiden Mei from Honkai Impact 3rd and the Raiden Shogun/Ei from Genshin Impact, all three being tall, beautiful women with long dark hair, Japanese cultural aesthetics, mastery in swordsmanship, and association with lightning, as well as identical Chinese and Japanese voice actresses (as well as Korean with Ei). In addition, her Ultimate has her hacking away at enemies in a similar fashion to Mei's Ultimate (as the Herrscher of Origin) and Ei's Elemental Burst (in addition to sharing the former's mirror-shattering effect for its finisher and the latter's reliance in some form on her allies' input to unlock its full potential).
  • Acheron's outfit is reminiscent of Mei's battle suits, particularly her Herrscher of Thunder, Striker Fulminata, and "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" outfits, as well as Ei's more pronounced Japanese design elements and hair accessory.
  • Upon the Trailblazer's first meeting with Acheron, she tells them they remind her of her old friend, but her relationship with said friend varies depending on the Trailblazer's gender: a steadfast ally if Stelle, an eventual rival if Caelus; both are obvious references to Mei's relationship with, respectively, Kiana and Kevin Kaslana.
  • She also quotes one of Sakura's lines in Elysian Realm, especially in Chinese where the words are taken verbatim.
    Acheron: "Once, someone told me: 'No compassion for the enemy, for it is cruelty upon yourself. But you must see clearly who the true enemy is...'"
  • This quote (and one of Trailblazer's responses) is also a reference to one of Aponia's conversations in the Elysian Realm when she's talking to Mei (with the role now reversed; the Mei counterpart of this game is saying Aponia's quotes)
    Acheron: "Everyone, and every face they remember, the joy and the heartaches, the vows sealed and those left hanging... all will inevitably march towards a predetermined ending. If you had grasped the journey's finale right from its inception... I would ask: Would you still embark on this journey?"
    Trailblazer: "I would blaze a trail without hesitation."
    • This gets referenced again at the end of "A Walk Among the Tombstones" in her conversation with Aventurine. When he asks why they struggle against destiny, her response references the complete version of Mei's response to Aponia above:
      Acheron: "Even if the ending has been predetermined, that's fine. There are countless things that humans cannot change. But before the end, there are many things that humans can do while on their journey. And because of this, the "end" will thus reveal a completely different meaning."
  • Her "Thunder Core" Bonus Ability Trace is named after Mei's Core of Thunder.
  • In the "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" trailer, one of the scenes traced by Black Swan resembles the shot of Mei standing over a fallen Kiana^note the scene in question instead shows a fallen soldier aiming his rifle at her from the Honkai Impact 3rd animated cutscene "Lament of the Fallen".
  • In the "Kyoden: A Cleave Across the Transient World" Myriad Celestia trailer that focuses on Acheron, elements of Mei's theme "Honkai World Diva" can be heard in the background music. In addition, Acheron is shown wielding both the Sentinel blade Howl and the Bearer sword Origin, direct references to Mei becoming the Herrschers of Thunder and Origin respectively. Acheron even briefly has a pair of Oni horns similar to Mei in her Herrscher of Thunder form, though the size of Acheron's horns are mismatched compared to Mei's uniform horns.
  • When Welt tells her about how his world managed to defeat Kevin, Acheron acknowledges that his story is very similar to hers, but with the key difference that she slew her world's Kevin on her own, but still failed to save her world. She also acknowledges that she's not "who he thinks she is."
  • After their battle, she asks Sam if he dreams of those slain by his hand; this is the same question Kevin asks Mei in one of the Elysian Realm interactions. Mei answered yes; Acheron flashes back to her encounter with Duke Inferno after this question. Later, Sam answers that he doesn't, and Kevin admitted the same thing.
  • Her Ascension voiceline says "Never turn back — the path behind is gone." It's an oblique reference to one of Mei's victory quotes, "To move forward is my only choice."
• No-Sell:
  • In her character trailer, "Your Color", Sparkle tries to trap her in an illusion, but she sees right through it, and shatters it with little effort.
  • In gameplay, as a result of her Ultimate not using energy, she is completely unaffected by enemy debuffs that drain or hinder energy generation.
• No Sense of Direction: Acheron gets herself easily lost in Penacony's hallways. This luckily ends up getting the Trailblazer out of trouble with Aventurine when she passes by and intervenes.
• Not So Stoic: Downplayed, as she remains cool-headed throughout the Trailblazer's first encounter with her, but when parting ways with the Trailblazer, she is shedding tears after revealing that they reminded her of a close companion she knew.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Acheron killed Duke Inferno in a Curb-Stomp Battle, which is only confirmed though short flashbacks in her memories. Keep in mind that Duke Inferno was an energy being, akin to Cirrus, which would make killing him no easy feat.
• Oni: Back in her homeworld, she became an oni after prolonged exposure to the Kami and weapons forged from them. After taking on the power of "Naught" (implied to be Nihility), however, she lost her horns and her hair became white.
• One-Hit Kill: Her Technique will instantly strike down normal enemies without entering combat, and she can execute it up to thrice in succession. While it won't instantly kill elite- or boss-grade foes or Trotters, it will instead deal damage and reduce their Toughness Gauge regardless of resistances.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Her announcement post states that "Acheron" is but an alias she goes by, and no one knows her real name.
• Parasol of Prettiness: Acheron carries a red janomegasa with flame and flower motifs in her splash art and trailer that enhances her lonesome and mysterious aura.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: When she enters her other form, her hair goes from going past her waist to nearly touching the floor.
• Purple Is Powerful: Her hair, eyes, and outfit are primarily purple and she's strong enough to fight Sam to a draw. Aventurine also claims she is in fact an Emanator (though he doesn't know that her path is Nihility, and thus Acheron is an Emanator of IX) who managed to slaughter Ifrit (a nigh-immortal Energy Being similar to Phantylia) offscreen in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Rainbow Speak: Some of her dialogue, such as her asking the Trailblazer information relating to her long lost old friend and her close bond with them, and noting dark rumors surrounding Penacony, has the subtitles colored red. Notably, in some of those lines, what she actually says are randomized, sometimes including lines she had said before; the Trailblazer can seemingly pick up that something's wrong with it too. In some cases, even the Trailblazer's own dialogue can turn red as well such as when they try and reject their help (the red text will have the Trailblazer accept her, like the other option) when meeting her again with Black Swan. This seems to indicate some level of influence on Acheron's part onto the Trailblazer themselves with the latter noting that something is off.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Her purple irises turn red in her "activated" form, enhancing her already high level of swordsmanship with the powers of Nihility.
• Regenerating Mana: Her second Eidolon Resonance automatically restores one stack each of Slashed Dream and Crimson Knot (on the foe with the most such Knots beforehand) at the start of her turn.
• Rōnin: As a wandering swordswoman from a lost world with a Japanese-inspired Fantasy Counterpart Culture, Acheron fits the role in all but name.
• Rummage Sale Reject: Acheron's outfit is very revealing, asymmetrical, and looks cobbled together from many different parts.
• Semi-Divine: She is believed to be an Emanator. Of which path, it is uncertain, but strongly implied to be the Nihility. This was confirmed in Cat Among Pigeons.
• Sexy Backless Outfit: The asymmetry of her coat leaves a good portion of her back exposed.
• Sheath Strike: Her announcement post mentions that she always strikes with her scabbard without drawing her sword, as shown in her fight with Sam where she swings it despite not removing it from its sheath. Despite this, the "White Night" music video has her wielding her sword without said scabbard. Her basic attack Trilateral Wiltcross has her swing her blade onto enemies while it's still sheathed.
• Sherlock Scan: She seems to have an uncanny ability to spot hidden objects and see a person's true identity almost instantly, demonstrated when she identifies the Star of Eden hidden inside Welt's cane and how the Astral Express is carrying a Stellaron around, as well as figuring out Sam's true identity.
• Shinigami: The lore of Acheron' associated Light Cone implies that she occasionally acts like the inverse of one when she traverses through the Purgatory and Limbo dark sea manifested by IX, rescuing souls from losing themselves to nothingness instead of sending them off to "the afterlife". When Aventurine wakes up there after successfully killing his dream self, she appears to help him reorientate and even encourages him to find purpose in living on.
  She reaches out and saves the drowning from the temptations of Nihility, and one mirage after another bursts apart behind her figure.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Back in Izumo, she used to dress much more conservatively in a white kimono tied with a red obi and traditional okobo sandals. In the present day she has switched to modern and revealing streetwear consisting of boots, black leathery hotpants with a matching crop top, and a coat with a single furisode sleeve, the latter possibly to keep some reminder of her homeland while also refitting herself with attire appropriate for a wandering lifestyle in the cosmos.
• Single-Stroke Battle: At the climax of "A Walk Among the Tombstones", Aventurine pulls out his ultimate move against the heroes in an attempt to get Acheron to act. The act works, as Acheron steps in and unsheathes her blade before delivering a single slash, one powerful enough to tear the space of the Dreamscape asunder and turn the world grey in one massive shockwave. Aventurine ends up being transported into a "death dream", one of the manifestations of IX's power.
• Single Tear: When parting ways with the Trailblazer after their first encounter, she sheds a tear from one of her eyes, seemingly due to the Trailblazer's appearance reminding her of an old friend she had. She does it again before unsheathing her blade when Aventurine threatens to bombard Penacony with his giant poker chips.
• Sole Survivor: Implied to be the only native of Izumo left after her homeworld was not only devastated by the Yaoyorozu-no-kami but also consumed by the black hole that was slowly sucking it in.
• Square Race, Round Class: While ostensibly a Nihility Pathstrider, Acheron has little-to-nothing to do with its usual specialties (i.e., debilitation and damage-over-time) and plays more like Erudition (such as Serval), with her Crimson Knot debuff serving no real purpose other than providing an additional damage outlet for her Ultimate. At most, her Ultimate can inflict a penalty to All-Type Resistance Penetration, and her fourth Eidolon Resonance allows it to inflict a Damage-Increasing Debuff on enemies, but even then the former only benefits herself since it only lasts as long as her Ultimate is active. She does, however, benefit greatly from being on a team with other Nihility Pathstriders, both for her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability and her Crimson Knot being stacked when any ally (even non-Nihility ones) inflicts debuffs.
• Status Buff: Her sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Thunder Core, gives her up to three stacks of a 30% damage boost (hence a maximum of 90%) for three turns after using her Ultimate whenever its preliminary strikes hit enemies afflicted with Crimson Knots, as well as augments its finisher with 6 strikes dealing damage to random enemies, each dealing damage worth a quarter of her Attack stat (like Argenti's fully-charged Ultimate).
• Status Effect-Powered Ability: In addition to building stacks of Slashed Dream for Acheron, her Talent allows the party to inflict a stack of Crimson Knot (to a maximum of nine) whenever they inflict debuffs (including whenever they are Broken, which will always inflict debuffs). Stack infliction tends to prioritize the foe with the most such stacks, being the only one to receive it whenever attacks that inflict debuffs hit multiple foes as well as inheriting it from another afflicted foe once it is defeated. Whenever Acheron triggers her Ultimate, each of her preliminary strikes consume up to three Knots of her target to make her deal additional damage to all other foes, whose potency increases proportional to the number consumed; as the finisher consumes all remaining Knots from all enemies, this incentivizes players to carefully choose her targets to maximize her damage potential.^note With damage worth 14.4–25.92% of her Attack stat per preliminary strike, 18–32.4% for the spread damage plus 9–16.2% per additional Knot consumed (hence a maximum of 36–64.8%), and 72–129.6% for her finisher
• Sultry Bangs: Acheron's hair covers her left eye to fit with her alluring Ms. Fanservice design.
• Sword Beam: She launches several while fighting Sam during the White Night music video announcing v2.0, and sends a single giant red slash towards Aventurine that shatters his domain along with him in the climax of the Cat Among the Pigeons Trailblaze Mission.
• Sympathy for the Devil: She compliments Duke Inferno as a determined and heroic Pathstrider for his willingness to sacrifice his life as a martyr for the sake of his children, commenting to Welt that not even a villain like him deserves disparaging.
• Telepathy: As seen in her first encounter, she can seemingly read and transmit thoughts.
• Three-Strike Combo: Her Technique invokes this, having three separate attack animations when used repeatedly.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: She throws her (still sheathed) sword at Sam at one point during their fight.
• Trademark Favorite Food: She likes peaches, saying that they embody life's delights and pleasures. One of her Idle Animation and official chibi stickers depict her eating a peach. It's a possible reference to two things:
  • In Japanese Mythology, when Izanagi was escaping from hordes of monsters in Yomi (the underworld, as well as Acheron's namesake in the Japanese localization), he threw some peaches to distract them, as the fruit symbolizes longevity, vitality, and the divine.
  • In Honkai Impact 3rd, when Mei and Kiana have a heart-to-heart talk in chapter 32, the former mentions that her favorite school snack is the peach pudding. When Kiana asks why, Mei says that it was the snack she first shared with a genuine friend - Kiana herself.
• Warrior Poet:
  • At the end of the "Kyoden: A Cleave Across the Transient World" trailer, in the Japanese version, she says "Even if everything in this world is as fleeting as dew, but still..." which is a reference to a haiku by Kobayashi Issa from Edo period: "露の世は, 露の世ながら, さりながら" ("The world of dew is merely a world of dew, even so...") While he meant it in the context of him finding it hard to accept that his baby daughter is dying from a disease (in spite of him being a Buddhist, which espouses detachment from worldly matters), in Acheron's context it meant that even if her world is crumbling and losing all of its meaning, she's against giving up.
  • Her Ultimate line in Japanese is a haiku: 涙雨、降りて溢るる、渡り川… During her battle against Aventurine, she adds 2 more lines: 黄泉路を行けず、常世還らむ^{Full meaning}"Rain of tears, they fall and overflow the river... the path to the underworld (Yomi) is inaccessible, returning [you] to the mortal world" (paraphrased in English translation as "I wish to mourn the departed, weeping like rain, to swell the crossing stream...as the tide arrives, leading you back home.") Notably, she also sheds a Single Tear as she's reciting this. These are a reference to a tanka poem in Kokin Wakashu, by Ono Takamura: 泣く涙雨と降らなむわたり川水まさりなば帰りくるがに^{Full meaning}"As [I] cry, rain falls onto the stream, [I] shall return as the water rises".
• Warrior Therapist: The aftermath of her duel with Sam shows that instead of prolonged fighting, she got him to stop with some simple choice statements and questions, delivered in a dispassionate and honest way that compels Sam to open up to her, and is taken a step further when Acheron declares that she knows who Sam really is.
• Weapon Specialization: Acheron's associated Light Cone is "Along the Passing Shore" (5★), whose "Steerer" passive increases the wearer's Critical Damage by 36–60% and inflicts Mirage Fizzle on enemies once per attack for a turn, which increases the wearer's damage dealt to them by 24–40%, and increasing again by the same value for Ultimate damage. Not only does Acheron appreciate Mirage Fizzle as another way to stack Crimson Knot, her Ultimate counts as multiple separate attacks, letting her apply it to every enemy on the first hit against the one with Crimson Knot and vastly strengthen every future hit thereafter.
• White and Red and Eerie All Over: Her "other form", as seen in the "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" trailer, her Technique and Ultimate, has her color scheme turning into mostly white and red, with her hair turning white and her right arm bared but colored blood red, complete with red and white flowers growing on her body. This is part of her backstory involving demonic beings.
• Willfully Weak: Acheron is shown to prefer fighting with her sword sheathed most of the time, rarely unsheathing the blade unless absolutely necessary, and even then, she only unsheathes it slightly. The one time she does end up fully unsheathing her blade, she's powerful enough to utterly obliterate Aventurine, one of the extremely powerful Stonehearts of the IPC, in a single slash.
• You Remind Me of X:
  • During her first encounter with the Trailblazer, she claims that the Trailblazer reminds her of an old friend she once had.
  • While Welt does not directly state as such, Acheron catches on that he is suggesting that he knows someone like herself when he tells her the story of Kevin Kaslana. Acheron's response is to simply remark that there are countless worlds out there, many of which share the same faces but different paths, and that she's not "who he thinks she is". It is also for this reason that Welt admits that he wants to trust her, being so similar in appearance to someone he knows.

Boothill

Boothill

Introduced: v2.2 "Then Wake to Weep"
Voiced by: Peng Bo (Chinese), Katsuyuki Konishi (Japanese), Kim Dan (Korean), Andrew Russell (English)

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Hunt
Type: Physical

A cyborg cowboy affiliated with the Galaxy Rangers.

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• Arm Cannon: His left arm can turn into one to fire a stronger shot.
• Ax-Crazy: When he realizes he's speaking with Black Swan and not Acheron over the phone, his first assumption is that she's there to be Acheron's bodyguard, so he immediately offers to put a bullet in Black Swan's head and asks her to clean her forehead in preparation for it.
• Company Cross References: He seems like a more human Billy Kid from Hoyoverse's upcoming Roguelike Zenless Zone Zero, being cyborg cowboys with a black, red and white colour scheme.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Boothill has a voice-only appearance in Version 2.1, where it is revealed that he is hunting Acheron, inadvertently coming into contact with Black Swan when he calls Acheron's room to threaten her.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: He's actually rather foul-mouthed, but a malfunction in his Synesthesia Beacon causes his dirty language to come off as sounding cutesy or corny instead.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Boothill's hair appears to be long enough to reach his waist.
• Mirror Character: Like Blade, he is a Long-Haired Pretty Boy with a black and red colour scheme whose desire for Revenge has driven him across the galaxy.
• Mr. Fanservice: A Long-Haired Pretty Boy Hell-Bent for Leather cyborg in a shrug that exposes his literally metal sculpted Underboobs and midriff, and pants with hip windows.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: A space cyborg cowboy who, like tales of heroic cowboys, drift around and fight injustice wherever he goes.
• Revenge: According to his introduction post, he has a score to settle with the IPC.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: He wields a futuristic revolver as his primary weapon.
• Underboobs: A rare male example. His shrug leaves his "nipples" exposed.
• Vapor Wear: A rare male example. The hip windows on his pants show that he's not wearing underwear.
• "Wanted!" Poster: Similar to the Stellaron Hunters, the IPC has a wanted poster out for Boothill with a bounty in the excess of 730,000,000 credits. Boothill's ultimate attack animation also has him collecting a wanted poster of his current target before shooting them.

Garden of Recollection

A group of worshippers of Fuli, the Aeon of Remembrance, who serve as their messengers and seekers of memories.

Black Swan

Black Swan

Introduced: February 6, 2024 (v2.0 "If One Dreams At Midnight" [first half])
Voiced by: Yang Menglu (Chinese), Hitomi Nabatame (Japanese), Kim Ha-yeong (Korean), Arryn Zech (English)

^{Click to see her full Warp artwork.}

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Nihility
Type: Wind

A Memokeeper of the Garden of Recollection, who is the narrator of the Myriad Celestia Trailer: Fables About the Stars Part 1. She first makes an official appearance in Penacony, where she was invited by the Family as a representative of the Garden of Recollection.

Black Swan condemns enemies afflicted by damage-over-time debuffs with up to fifty stacks of Arcana imposed by her Talent, Loom of Fate's Caprice, which explode at the start of their turn before resetting to one stack, in addition to expanding its damage radius to adjacent foes (also with a chance to inflict Arcana) if they have at least three stacks and allowing damage-over-time debuffs to ignore a fraction of their Defense with at least seven. For her part, Black Swan can inflict at least one stack through her Basic Attack, Percipience, Silent Dawn, which has additional infliction windows depending on the number of her target's Wind Shear, Bleed, Burn, and/or Shock debuffs; one a time with her Skill, Decadence, False Twilight, where she drops a magic circle on her target and adjacent foes, with an additional chance to inflict a Defense penalty for three turns; and repeatedly at the start of battle on all foes with her Technique, From Façade to Vérité, with decreasing chances for every stack successfully imposed. Her Ultimate, Bliss of Otherworld's Embrace, summons phantasmal arms to squeeze the life out of all her foes, as well as imposes Epiphany for two turns, which increases their damage intake during their turn and simultaneously counts their Arcana damage as Wind Shear, Bleed, Burn, and Shock effects, as well as negates the first Arcana stack reduction whenever it is triggered.^note When fully upgraded, she gains a chance to automatically impose stacks of Arcana, whenever her Skill hits enemies afflicted with damage-over-time debuffs, a new foe enters the field, or whenever they are attacked (with an additional window should they manually trigger such debuffs), as well as impose a penalty to her foes' Wind, Physical, Fire, and/or Lightning Resistances if they have the corresponding debuffs; defeating enemies afflicted with Arcana has a high chance to impose six stacks on adjacent foes; and the Epiphany effect imposes an Effect Resistance penalty, as well as restore some of Black Swan's Energy either at the start of the afflicted's turn or whenever they are defeated.

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• Amplifier Artifact: By unlocking her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, As Above, So Below and Linnutee Flyway, which will add two levels to her Skill and Talent with the former, and 2 to her Ultimate and 1 to Basic Attack with the latter.
• Animal Motifs: Swans, naturally. She holds her namesake animal in her Myraid Celestia trailer, and in the "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" animated short, she flaps her arms while dancing with Acheron, and of course her desperate attempts to leave Acheron's mind after the latter unintentionally Mind Rapes her is compared to a swan struggling in vain against a snake's attacks.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: If an enemy has at least seven stacks of Arcana, any damage-over-time debuff they have will ignore 20% of their Defense stat. This also applies to adjacent foes (as Arcana damage is expanded to include them with at least three stacks).
• Big Damn Heroes: In the Child's Dream, she intervenes just in time to save the Trailblazer and Firefly from getting killed by Something unto Death, and helps them escape the twisted dreamscape.
• Chain Lethality Enabler: Her second Eidolon Resonance, Weep Not For Me, My Lamb, gives her a 100% base chance to inflict six stacks of Arcana on foes adjacent to an inflicted foe whenever it is defeated, making it easier for her to kill other enemies faster.
• Cleavage Window: Her outfit leaves a good portion of her sizable breasts exposed, which the camera has drawn attention to.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Her first Eidolon Resonance, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, imposes a 25% penalty to Wind, Physical, Fire, and/or Lightning Resistances if an enemy is inflicted with Wind Shear, Bleed, Burn, and/or Shock, respectively.
• Damage Over Time: Black Swan has her own unique form of such an effect called Arcana, which stacks up to fifty times and explodes to deal Wind damage at the start of the afflicted enemy's turn before the stacks are reset to one, and whose potency is tied to her Talent's Trace levels. Black Swan has a chance to manually impose the stacks—one at a time with her Basic Attack (by 50–68%), a 100% base chance against her target and adjacent foes with her Skill, and repeatedly on all foes at the start of battle with her Technique (a 150% base chance, with a 50% reduction to success rate for each time a stack is successfully imposed)—and when the enemy's turn comes up, each active damage-over-time debuff an enemy has also has a 50–68% base chance to impose stacks (again tied to her Talent) before Arcana deals damage.^note Worth 96–264% of her Attack stat in its base form, with an additional 4.8–13.2% boost per stack (hence a maximum of 240—660%) Furthermore, her sixth Eidolon Resonance, Pantheon Merciful, Masses Pitiful, gives her a 65% chance to inflict Arcana on any foe attacked by her allies, with another 50% chance to inflict an extra stack for each one she is applying onto enemies (from any source).
• Death Dealer: Her attacks consist of her throwing several Cards of Power at the enemy.
• Femme Fatale: She fits most of the criteria: beautiful, alluring, mysterious, and not afraid to use her looks to get what she wants, as shown in "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" with Acheron (although, unfortunately for her, that attempt went horribly wrong).
• Fortune Teller: She picks cards in a manner reminiscent of a tarot reader.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Black Swan will start aiding the Trailblazer both during the second phase of Something Unto Death and while guiding them through the dream version of the Reverie, which has been warped into a hostile place. This is represented in combat by a special button that will let Black Swan summon several glass hands to deal damage and inflict Arcana when fully charged, in a similar manner to the Engine of Creation during the Cocolia fight or the Imbibitor Lunae during the Phantylia fight. However, nothing stops you from bringing the playable Black Swan in your team.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: She is a serene and graceful Fortune Teller and her hair and outfit are purple in color.
• Hartman Hips: Black Swan's hips are slightly wider than her shoulders.
• High-Class Gloves: She wears a pair of purple gloves that go up to her biceps to fit along her appearance as a sensual and elegant Fortune Teller.
• Invocation:
  (Ultimate activation) "Memories are ever changing."
  (Normal speed) "Beneath the silent waters, lies an endless abyss! Ehahahahaha..."
  (×2 speed) "Beneath the waters lies an endless abyss!"
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: In the video "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas", as she's dancing with Acheron, she says that "in this nocturnal hunt, the Ranger is not the only one who hunts". She means that she's going to look into Acheron's memories, specifically trying to find out whether Acheron truly killed Duke Inferno - but then as Black Swan peeks into her memories, the former ends up being "hunted" by the latter as Acheron figuratively "tears her apart" like a snake preying on a swan, followed by scenes of predator creatures capturing their preys. In the end, some time after their dance, Black Swan even says "tonight is our final engagement".
• I Kiss Your Hand: Among the already intimate touches Black Swan was making on Acheron in "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas", she also flirtatiously kisses the back of the latter's hand to set up the magic foundation she needed to peer into Acheron's memories.
• Lascivious Beauty Mark: Not a typical facial beauty mark, but rather, her Sexy Backless Outfit exposes a mole on her back.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: As a Memokeeper, part of her powers include manipulating memory, which she inflicts on Sampo and Sparkle without warning to avoid an altercation from the latter in her Companion Mission. The two are left without any memory of what they're doing on Penacony, let alone where they are until a certain length of time passes before their memories return, and by then Black Swan will have been long gone.
• Living Memory: Implied, like the Messenger. In one Myriad Celestia trailer, she "moves" around in pictures and statues, briefly animating them in the process, matching the Messenger's description that Memokeepers are beings of pure cognition that can move unimpeded by conventional means of movement. In-game, she confirms that she doesn't need to use the Dreampool to enter the Dreamscape, and she offhandedly says that she can phase through walls.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: The elegant, sensual, and graceful Fortune Teller has long white hair that reaches her hips.
• Mind Rape: Black Swan ends up a victim of this (albeit unintentionally) during the "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" animated short when she tries to look into Acheron's memories. This is due to Acheron being an Emanator of IX and a Self-Annihilator who is basically a walking black hole of memories, making her a mortal threat to Black Swan since the latter is a Living Memory.
• Ms. Fanservice: Black Swan seems to be designed with this trope in mind, with large breasts (which her outfit draws attention to), Hartman Hips, a Sexy Backless Outfit with a Navel Window and tights under thigh-high boots, and an official character art depicting her smiling and lying down in a seductive pose. She also uses her beauty to her advantage when it suits her, such as when she questions Acheron about the Annihilation Gang in the "Rondo Across Countless Kalpas" animated short.
• Mythology Gag: Her role in the "Fables About the Stars" trailer is remarkably similar to that of Dainsleif in the "Teyvat Chapter Storyline Preview" of Genshin Impact, being a mysterious narrator who provides descriptions and foreshadowings of future characters and plotlines.
• Navel Window: Her dress becomes transparent around the area of her navel, allowing it to be seen.
• Near-Death Experience: Black Swan found out the hard way that Acheron is her Man of Kryptonite as a Self-Annihilator with a "black hole" memory, and appears to have only been saved because Acheron returned to her usual self in the nick of time.
• Nightmare Hands: Her Ultimate has her summon a horde of sinister glass hands to crush all enemies in their grasp,^note with damage worth 72—129.6% of her Attack stat as well as impose Epiphany for two turns, which increases her victims' damage intake by 15—27% during their turn (e.g., damage-over-time or Arcana activation) for the next two turns, negates the stack reset of the first Arcana damage, and makes Arcana count as Wind Shear, Bleed, Burn, and Shock effects for any ability that involves them (such as Luka's enhanced Basic Attack, which triggers Bleed damage, or Hook's Burn-based abilities).
• Not So Above It All: After the end of her Companion Mission, the Trailblazer questions Black Swan's identity after being messaged by Sparkle, who was pretending to be Black Swan to find the memory bubble that the Trailblazer viewed. The mysterious Memokeeper bombards them with a bunch of Word Salad about memory, then impishly caps it with a Pom-Pom sticker.
• Oh, Crap!: When Black Swan tries to peer into Acheron's memories, she is horrified by whatever she saw and later admits she made a terrible mistake in trying to view the Galaxy Ranger's past.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: She's usually calm and collected with a gentle smile, which makes her terror-struck face after peeking into Acheron's memories and getting subjected to Mind Rape utterly jarring. This is made more significant by Black Swan's nature as a Memokeeper; she lacks a physical body and thus hormones to generate biological emotions like fear.
• Percent-Based Values: Her sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Candleflame's Portent, increases her damage output worth 60% of her Effect Hit Rate, to a maximum of 72% (i.e., if said stat is at least 120%).
• Power Floats: She floats in the air in during her idle animations and when activating her Ultimate.
• Purple Is the New Black: Is named Black Swan and is once described by Acheron as wearing a "black veil," but the primary color of her wardrobe is purple.
• Regenerating Mana: Her fourth Eidolon Resonance, In Tears We Gift, restores 8 Energy whenever an enemy afflicted with Epiphany takes their turn or is defeated, in addition to granting Epiphany a 20% penalty to Effect Resistance.
• Sexy Backless Outfit: Her outfit leaves her back exposed, though her long hair partially obstructs it.
• The Shrink: After a manner, having an understanding of people's thoughts and emotions that she is quick to calm the Trailblazer down after they witness Firefly's death, and after hearing out Aventurine's offer, she styles herself as a psychotherapist when talked to.
• Splash Damage:
  • Her Skill hits a target and adjacent foes,^note worth 45—99% of her Attack stat, with a 100% base chance to inflict a stack of Arcana and also a 100% rate to inflict a 14.8—22% Defense penalty for three turns.
  • If an enemy has at least three stacks of Arcana when their turn comes up, it'll additionally trigger a blast that deals damage to adjacent foes, with a 50—68% chance to also inflict a stack of Arcana on them.^note With splash damage worth 72—198% of her Attack stat
• Status Effect-Powered Ability:
  • Her Basic Attack has a additional 50—68% chances of inflicting more Arcana for each damage-over-time debuff (i.e., Wind Shear, Burn, Bleed, Shock) active on her target. Her second-ascension Bonus Ability, Viscera's Disquiet, gives her Skill a 65% base chance to also inflict Arcana in the same manner.
  • Her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Goblet's Dredges, gives her 65% base chance to automatically inflict a stack on new enemies that enter the field, as well as gives the party's attacks that manually triggers damage-over-time debuffs (e.g., Kafka's Skill) a 65% base chance to inflict up to three stacks of Arcana at a time (one for each such debuff triggered).
• Vapor Wear: Because the bare skin of her back and sides are fully exposed, there is no way for her to be wearing a bra underneath her outfit.
• Weapon Specialization: Black Swan's associated Light Cone is "Reforged Remembrance" (5★), whose "Crystallize" passive increases the wearer's Effect Hit Rate by 40-60%, as well as bestows up to four stacks of Prophet whenever they attack enemies with damage-over-time debuffs (at a rate of one per debuff type), which increases their Attack stat by 5-9% and allows any damage-over-time debuff they inflict to ignore 7.2-10% of their target's Defense. Such effects facilitate Black Swan's specialization in taking advantage of damage-over-time debuffs and bolstering her Arcana damage, and helps in one of her passives that turns her Effect Hit Rate into extra damage output.
• Wild Card: For the sake of solving the mystery of Penacony, Black Swan is willing to ally with multiple of the involved factions. This includes striking up an alliance with Aventurine, before also making one with the Nameless out of both faith in their abilities and as part of her deal with Aventurine, who wanted the Trailblazer brought to him to strike a deal.

The Messenger

The Messenger

Voiced by: Megan Shipman (English)

A mysterious agent of the Garden of Recollection, an intangible, unnoticeable woman who was drawn to the Astral Express by the rarity of a Receptacle who carries a Stellaron. Although she answers to a greater organization and is not an active, let alone known, Nameless, she journeys with them across the stars in order to record the Trailblazer's past, future, and influence on the universe. She presides over the Forgotten Hall, a repository of the Trailblazer's past battles and experiences, and offers them aid in exchange for memories.

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• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The Messenger freely admits that although she once possessed a body of flesh and blood, she has long since abandoned her physical form to become a being of pure thought.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: She has some odd ethics on memory and the manipulation thereof. She's restricted any memories of herself from the majority of the Astral Express crew without permission, claiming that by limiting knowledge of her existence to only the Trailblazer, she's preserving the value of those memories by keeping them unique. She likewise claims that fulfilling the Trailblazer's request to restore their own lost memories would be a gross violation of law.
• Chekhov's Gunman: For the most part, the Messenger is just a regular NPC you can interact with on the Astral Express, up until you take March 7th's Companion Mission and discover that she—who may or may not be the same one in the Astral Express—is responsible for suppressing March 7th's memories on orders from the Garden of Recollection.
• Dissonant Serenity: She sounds disconcertingly cheerful and calm when informing the Trailblazer that violating even one of the Garden of Recollection's laws concerning manipulation of memory will result in her immediate termination. Justified somewhat by the reality that the Messenger has no physical body, and subsequently lacks biological instincts and hormones that would drive her towards survival or emotional responses.
• The Faceless: She is always seen in a reflective full-face mask underneath a hood, obscuring any possible features. Talking to her reveals that she does have a face, but insists on charging the Trailblazer an unnamed amount of memories to earn a look.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Should the Trailblazer reveal her presence to the rest of the Astral Express crew, the Messenger becomes annoyed with them and wipes the crew's memories of the conversation, as them knowing about her existence is against the Garden of Recollection's rules regarding distribution of memory.
• Living Memory: An unusually literal example. The Messenger is a cognizant, self-perpetuating thought pattern that can only interact with the world by inserting herself into the memories of sentient beings. She exists independently of the physical world, and isn't dependent upon any one person or place, but is in turn restricted in that she can only interact with memories, and must rely on the cognition of others to travel.
• Memory Jar: Her role as a Memokeeper is to venture out into the vast universe, collecting precious and irreplaceable memories to prevent them from fading. Her current mission is to follow the Astral Express and assess the memories that someone carrying a Stellaron will generate.
• The Needless: Lacking any kind of physical body, she does not experience exhaustion, hunger, or pain, nor does she need sleep or material fulfillment, and exists in perpetuity even in circumstances fatal to mortals, such as solar storms.
• Transferable Memory: The Messenger's very existence is this trope. She's a living collection of memories capable of interfacing with and altering those of other sentients. She can download, delete, copy, paste, and edit memories at will akin to computer data, though she claims that the ways she can manipulate the memories of others is harshly limited by the Garden of Recollection's laws.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: She claims that her suppression of March 7th's memories is meant to protect her, implying there is some Awful Truth hidden in them that can destroy her otherwise.

Intelligentsia Guild

A faction that follows Nous the Erudition, and the polar opposite to Genius Society. While Genius Society are composed of geniuses recognized by Nous themselves and spend most of their time pursuing knowledge on their own (barring a few exceptions), the Intelligentsia Guild are composed of ordinary people who believe that knowledge should be shared by all through an academic network of mutual learning, allowing them to transcend past the limitation of ordinary individuals and become something greater. They are heavily sponsored by the IPC, gaining vast resources and ease of interstellar travel in exchange of knowledge.

In General

• Boring, but Practical: The Intelligentsia Guild is comprised of ordinary scientists and engineers. They cannot singlehandedly revolutionize entire fields like geniuses can, but Reed Richards Is Useless is mostly in effect for the Genius Society, and their results only rarely benefit the public. Moving the universe forward is mostly up to the Intelligentsia Guild.

Dr. Ratio

Dr. Veritas Ratio

Introduced: January 17, 2024 (v1.6 "Crown of the Mundane and Divine" [second half])
Voiced By: Sang Yuze (Chinese), Shunsuke Takeuchi (Japanese), Lee Donghoon (Korean), Jordan Paul Haro (English)

^{Click to see his full Warp artwork.}

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Hunt
Type: Imaginary

A self-assured and eccentric member of the Intelligentsia Guild who calls himself a "mundanite", Dr. Veritas Ratio is well known for his surpassing intellect, draconian ways of teaching, and the strange plaster full-head mask he occasionally dons. A teacher by trade, he journeys the stars to spread the gift of knowledge in his self-proclaimed mission of eradicating the disease known as ignorance.

Dr. Ratio castigates all who fail to meet his standards with his Talent, Cogito, Ergo Sum, which grants a chance to hurl a high-velocity piece of chalk as a follow-up attack when striking with his single-target Skill, Intellectual Midwifery, that increases for each debuff on the enemy; or his Ultimate, Syllogistic Paradox, where he summons a giant pillar to collapse onto his target and inflicts them with Wiseman's Folly, which guarantees him to attack twice with his Talent whenever the marked foe is struck by his allies. In addition, his Technique, Mold of Idolatry, generates a plaster statue of himself that draws enemy aggression as well as reduces their Speed for the first two turns of battle.^note When fully upgraded, his damage output increases against foes with at least three debuffs, with a further boost proportional to the number of further debuffs; his Skill gains up to six stacks of a Critical Rate and Damage boost proportional to the number of debuffs on his target (with a further upgrade increasing the cap to ten and allows him to immediately gather four at the start of battle), as well as sees a heightened chance to reduce his target's Effect Resistance for two turns; his Talent's follow-up attack is augmented with additional hits depending on the number of his target's debuffs, as well as restores some Energy; and Wiseman's Folly can now trigger his Talent thrice.

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• Amplifier Artifact: By getting his Eidolons, you can unlock his third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Know Thyself and Sic Itur Ad Astra, which will add two levels to his Ultimate and 1 to Basic Attack with the former, and 2 to his Skill and Talent with the latter.
• Ancient Grome: He has a Latin name but an ancient Greek motif overall (his combat abilities have prominent geometry and mathematics motifs, his use of a classical statue mask and a marble column in his Ultimate animation, etc.).
• Animal Motifs: To an extent, owls. His shoulderpiece resembles an owl, and it also shows up as the image of his Talent. They are considered symbols of wisdom in Western cultures through associations with Athena, goddess of wisdom in Classical Mythology, befitting such a learned man as Dr. Ratio. Owls are also ambush predators, and can be regarded as ill omens. Dr. Ratio's appearance in the v1.6 Special Program is sudden and unannounced; his introduction in the "Crown of the Mundane and Divine" story is similarly out of left field, and Herta and Ruan Mei were never aware he was even there. While his role in the latter story is certainly helpful, one can see his initial appearance as an ill omen for the chaos instigated by Duke Inferno, as Dr. Ratio only took measures to mitigate damage and capitalize upon it, and nothing to actively stop it.
• Anti-Debuff: Inverted with his fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Inference, which gies his Skill a base 100% chance to reduce his target's Effect Resistance by 10% for two turns, making them more easily inflicted with debuffs, which many of his abilities rely upon.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: He's rather snarky towards Aventurine while they're working together during the events of Penacony and even seemingly betrays him. Later, it's revealed that he was on Aventurine's side the whole time and even gives him some genuine advice to help the man when he was struggling to find the meaning of all of his struggles.
• Badass Bookworm: Dr. Ratio clearly sculpts his body just as much as his mind, supporting his intellectual pursuit of eradicating ignorance with overtly physical attacks in combat by slamming enemies with his codex and throwing chalk at them. His ripped body is also shown in full display.
• Badass Teacher: He acts like a teacher even in combat, with him literally schooling his foes.
  (Follow-up attack line) "0 points! Next!" / "Fail! Get out!"
• Bathing Beauty: A rare male example with his Light Cone, which depicts him reading in a bath. He mentions it as a personal hobby, nursing and cleansing his body alongside his mind in relaxation.
• Blue Means Smart One: His hair and outfit are dark blue, and he is an esteemed scholar and educator.
• Breaking Old Trends: Dr. Ratio is the first unit of the Hunt Path whose kit has no innate means of increasing his speed or advancing his actions, instead representing the path's focus on rapidity through a deluge of hard-hitting follow-up attacks.
• Cleavage Window: His shirt has a diamond-shaped cutout over his sternum.
• The Comically Serious: He's prone to some odd behaviors like wearing a plaster head cover, making flamboyant poses (including in his statues) or speaking in fancy terminology. And he does all that with complete seriousness.
• Critical Hit Class:
  • One of three stats Dr. Ratio can upgrade via his Trace tree is his Critical Rate, with him getting a 12% boost once fully unlocked.
  • His second Ascension bonus ability, Summation has him gain an increase to his Critical Rate and Damage by 2.5% and 5%, respectively, for every debuff the enemy has when he uses his skill on them (up to six, for a max of 15% and 30% respectively), lasting for the entire battle. His first Eidolon Resonance Pride Comes Before a Fall increases the maximum stack count to ten (for a maximum 25% and 50%), and immediately grants four stacks at the start of combat.
• Death from Above: His Ultimate has him summon a giant column, which then crumbles and topples onto a single enemy for massive damage.^note Its damage is 144%–259.2% of his ATK
• Disc-One Nuke: For players who started playing between the second phase of Version 1.6 and the end of Version 2.1, Dr. Ratio can be immediately obtained from the mail as soon as the prologue Trailblaze mission, "A Moment of Peace", is completed, allowing Dr. Ratio to become part of their initial starting roster. Being a 5★ Imaginary Hunt unit, he can become a strong source of Imaginary damage early on for players who do not have Welt, Luocha, or Imbibitor Lunae (all three of them are also 5★, with the latter two being on a time-limited banner), long before obtaining the 4★ Yukong, who is given for free significantly later in the story.
• Draw Aggro: His Technique summons a statue of himself (in various poses), which for ten seconds will attract enemies' aggression in its radius, and if the attracted enemies are attacked, they'll be inflicted by a 15% Speed penalty for the first two turns of the next battle.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Even if he is critical of the Genius Society and his accomplishments are on par with theirs, his character story implies that he always wanted to join the Genius Society but was unable to do so as Nous never gave their gaze upon him. Recognizing this, he set out to spread knowledge and possibly make everyone on par with the people who shared Nous' gaze and privileges instead.
  Dr. Ratio: If this day I have not gained the recognition of Nous - then it stands to reason that I never will at any point in the future.
• Elemental Eye Colors: His amber eyes match his Imaginary Element.
• Enraged by Idiocy: Dr. Ratio makes no secret of how much he hates stupidity and ignorance, outright comparing them to diseases to be eradicated.
• Exact Words: Sunday asks Dr. Ratio if he would be willing to betray Aventurine, which Dr. Ratio denies. Sunday bribes him with the promise of Stellaron research anyways and Dr. Ratio reveals Aventurine's entire plan to him. However, the scholar never actually said he would betray Aventurine, and the plan he leaked was really a decoy to throw Sunday off.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: His right arm is covered by a long flowing blue sleeve and an owl-shaped shoulder piece, while his left arm is mostly bare.
• Female Gaze: His trailer has a shot of him crossing his legs at an angle that focuses squarely on his thighs and butt, especially since he's sitting on an invisible seat.
• Glass Cannon: He's capable of decent damage but has low defenses like other Hunt Pathstriders.
• Guyliner: On the bottom of both his amber eyes, he wears matching red eyeliner that enhances the sharpness of his gaze.
• Idea Bulb: A light bulb appears besides his head in one of his idle animations, where he thinks to himself while an apple hits his noggin without noticing, a reference of the legend of Isaac Newton discovering the idea of gravity.
• Invocation:
  (Ultimate activation) "Esse est percipi..."^note "To be is to be perceived..."
  (Normal speed) "Knowledge is the measure of all things. It reveals truth and falsehood."
  (×2 speed) "Knowledge, measure of truth, and falsehood!"
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: May well invoke it through his plaster mask. Figuratively, it helps him by shutting away his senses so he can think in peace. Literally, it keeps a barrier between him and the ignorant masses.
  Dr. Ratio - (About Self: Headpiece): "First, with the headpiece on, isolated from my five senses, I can think without interference. And second, I don't have to set eyes on stupid people. Of course, they don't want to see me either."
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's rather mean to people who don't match his standards and is somewhat haughty besides. That said, it comes from a place of frustration and disappointment rather than any malice. He does earnestly believe that ordinary people can learn to grow and evolve without the need to rely on geniuses and wants them to let go of their foolishness to achieve it.
• Life-Saving Encouragement: When he parts ways with Aventurine in Penacony, Dr. Ratio hands him a vial containing "doctor's advice" and tells him to open it when he's at the end of his rope. After Acheron "kills" Aventurine and sends him to the "horizon of existence", she tells him to open it when he questions the point of life, and inside he finds a note left by Ratio telling him to keep living, which aides in pushing him to decide he is not ready to die.
  Ratio: The impossible in the Dreamscape is not "Death," but rather "Dormancy". Do stay alive. I wish you the best of luck.
• Magic Wand: He uses his chalk as a wand when attacking with his skill.
• Meaningful Name: His full name, Veritas Ratio, means "truth of the matter" in Latin. In the Chinese and German versions, he's straight up called "Dr. Truth".
• Mr. Fanservice: Dr. Ratio is a very good-looking man, wearing a shirt that showcases his ripped physique, and his Light Cone even depicts him as a Bathing Beauty.
• Neat Freak: Downplayed, but Dr. Ratio certainly enjoys his baths, and one of his idle animations involves aggressively scrubbing clean his codex after presumably finding it dirty. More figuratively, he despises foolishness and what he perceives as "mental filth".
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: His character stories note that he has published works and made discoveries in numerous fields, including medicine, biology, engineering, mathematics, physics, philosophy, and natural theology.
• Regenerating Mana: His fourth Eidolon Resonance, Ignorance is Blight, regenerates 15 Energy whenever he triggers his Talent.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: His text messages has him using a lot of fancy words, befitting his scholarly ways.
• Shaping Your Attacks: His Skill takes the form of summoning a tetrahedron made of light to strike at his target (representing a math problem).^note Depending on Trace levels, the damage of his Skill is equivalent to 75–165% of his Attack stat
• Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • As a member of the Intelligentsia Guild, Dr. Ratio seeks to share knowledge and eradicate ignorance which he perceives as a widespread disease. True to his mission, he can be immediately obtained after completing the Prologue Trailblaze Mission "A Moment of Peace" between the second phase of Version 1.6 and the end of v2.1. This is also why his actual path is The Hunt even though he follows the faction of Erudition.
  • His combat kit performs at its best against enemies suffering from debuffs and damage-over-time effects, which is primarily the domain of Nihility characters. Quite fitting that an educator whose purpose is to fill vacant minds with knowledge would be at his prime when working off other characters whose Path represents emptiness.
• Smart People Play Chess: His introduction in Trailblaze Continuance "Crown of the Mundane and Divine" is of him playing chess... with himself.
• Starter Mon: A variant; between the second phase of Version 1.6 and the end of Version 2.1, players can recruit Dr. Ratio for free via mail, as a thank you towards players for their dedicated support in helping the game become nominated and won Best Mobile Game in the 2023 Game Awards.
• Status Effect-Powered Ability: This is his main gimmick.
  • His Talent has him toss a chalk at enemies as a follow-up attack ^note Depending on Trace levels, its damage is equivalent to 135–297% of his Attack stat; his Skill gives him a base 40% chance to trigger his Talent, with an additional 20% for each debuff his target has (meaning it is guaranteed if they have at least three debuffs). His Ultimate also applies Wiseman's Folly to his target, allowing any attack from other party members that hit the marked enemy to trigger his follow-up attack, up to two times. With his sixth Eidolon Resonance, Vincit Omnia Veritas, Wiseman's Folly can be triggered one additional time, and the damage dealt by these follow-up attacks increases by 50%.
  • His sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Deduction, increases his damage output against foes with at least three debuffs by 10% per debuff (hence 30% increase at minimum), capped at 50% (i.e 5 debuffs).
  • His second Eidolon Resonance, The Divine Is in the Details, augments his Talent's follow-up attacks with up to four additional strikes with damage worth 20% of his Attack stat for each debuff his target has.
• Stealth Mentor: His role in "Crown of the Mundane and Divine" has him playing the part in throwing Herta's Space Station in disarray, all to fulfill his goal of teaching the researchers and staff to not give into blind worship towards the Genius Society.
• Stern Teacher: He has extremely exacting standards and does not suffer fools in his classroom. Classes taught by him, according to his character story, have a completion rate of 3%
  Dr. Ratio - (on his harshness towards students): "There are students of mediocre abilities, students who think too highly of themselves, students who waste their talents... There are too many kinds of students, and the ones among them who are both talented and diligent are few and far between. Those filled with vim while vacant of thought remain a horde."
• A Taste of Power: He is a trial unit in "Crown of the Mundane and Divine" Trailblaze Continuance released in the first half of Version 1.6 before his release in its second half.
• Throw the Book at Them: His basic attack Mind is Might has him whack enemies with the codex he carries. It's extra painful due to being made of stone.
• Tsundere: He's outwardly annoyed by Aventurine's flippant attitude and seemingly illogical reliance on his own luck to accomplish his goals, but knows him surprisingly well and supports him in his goals. Most prominently shown in Aventurine's Keeping Up With Star Rail video, where he stubbornly denies being friends being Aventurine and only admits he's not altogether terrible to work with, only for Owlbert to reveal that Aventurine personally requested for Dr. Ratio to appear on the show, pointing out that Dr. Ratio wouldn't have accepted the invitation if he didn't know Aventurine well.
• Unflinching Walk: His Ultimate animation has him drop a giant column on an enemy, then walk away from it after its drop.
• Weapon Specialization: Dr. Ratio's associated Light Cone is "Baptism of Pure Thought" (5★), whose "Mental Training" passive increases its wearer's Critical Rate by 20–32%, Critical Damage by 8–12% for each debuff their target has (to a maximum of three, hence an optimal 24–36% boost), and grants them the "Disputation" effect for two turns whenever they use an offensive Ultimate, increasing damage output by 36–60% and allowing their follow-up attacks to ignore 24–40% of their target's defense. This complements Dr. Ratio's kit, incentivizing players to keep putting pressure on compromised foes, as well as further enhances his Ultimate and Talent.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The end of "Mundane Troubles" reveals that despite helping thwart the Annihilation Gang's attacks on the Herta Space Station, he also had a hand in exacerbating discontent amongst its staff and used his own Phase Flame to merely ensure Ifrit's attempts to teleport the missing researchers into the vacuums of space failed instead of actually doing anything to prevent them. When confronted by Screwllum, who realized his involvement, he admits he did what he did to curb the blind worship the researchers display towards Genius Society members such as Herta and Ruan Mei, believing this stunts their ability to learn and grow on their own.

Knights of Beauty

Followers of Idrila the Beauty. They travel the cosmos alone, professing old codes of chivalry in their search for their missing Aeon.

Argenti

Argenti

Introduced: December 6, 2023 (v1.5 "The Crepuscule Zone" [second half])
Voiced By: Liang Dawei (Chinese), Shinnosuke Tachibana (Japanese), Choi Seung-hoon (Korean), Adam Michael Gold (English)

^{Click to see his full Warp artwork.}

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Erudition
Type: Physical

A member of the Knights of Beauty. A forthright and earnest man who wanders the cosmos to extoll the virtues of Idrila's good name with unwavering conviction. He first meets the Astral Express when they are trapped inside a Giant Sting, and helps them get out of the situation.

Argenti gracefully dispatches his foes with increasing force facilitated by his Talent, Sublime Object, which bestows up to ten stacks of Apotheosis, which boost his Critical Rate, for every enemy struck by his spear: one at a time with his Basic Attack, Fleeting Fragrance, and all enemies at once with either the downward strike of his Skill, Justice, Hereby Blooms, or his Ultimate, For In This Garden Supreme Beauty Bestows, a mighty swipe which can be further upgraded into Merit Bestowed in "My" Garden to additionally deal six strikes at random. In addition, his Technique, Manifesto of Purest Virtue, dazes surrounding enemies, rendering them unable to attack the party, as well as deals damage against all enemies and regenerates some of Argenti's Energy at the start of battle.^note When fully upgraded, he gains some Energy at the start of battle, as well as enjoys heightened damage against foes with no more than half their HP; he automatically gains stacks of Apotheosis at the start of battle, which in turn gain a Critical Damage boost, as well as extends his capacity to twelve stacks;; and his Ultimate can now boost his Attack stat for one turn if he uses it on at least three foes as well as ignore a sizable fraction of his enemies' Defense.

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• Amplifier Artifact: By getting his Eidolons, you can unlock his third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Thorny Road's Glory and Snow, From Somewhere in Cosmos, which will add two levels to his Skill and Talent with the former, and two to his Ultimate and one to Basic Attack with the latter.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: His sixth Eidolon Resonance, "Your" Resplendence, allows his Ultimate to bypass 30% of his enemies' Defense.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He is dressed in overly flamboyant armor, with long, flowing red hair and a habit of speaking in Purple Prose. He is clearly not meant to ever be taken seriously, due to his delusional devotion to a goddess who is implied to not even exist. Then he slew a massive space insect that was putting the entire Astral Express at risk, by himself. And he survived. His battle kit contains very little in the way of complex mechanics; all he can really do is play the offensive, and that’s all he needs.
• Blinded by the Light: His Technique dazes surrounding foes for ten seconds, rendering then unable to attack the party. Should the party attack them to initiate battle, all enemies take damage equivalent to 80% of Argenti's Attack stat, and he gains 15 Energy.
• Critical Hit Class: His Talent allows him to build up to ten stacks of Apotheosis, which boost his Critical Rate, for every foe he hits throughout the duration of battle.^note Depending on Trace levels, by 1–2.8%, hence a maximum of 10–28% In addition, his second-ascension Bonus Ability, Piety, automatically grants him one stack at the start of battle, while his first Eidolon Resonance, A Lacuna in Kingdom of Aesthetics, adds a 4% Critical Damage boost to each stack (hence a maximum of 40%), and his fourth, Trumpet's Dedication, allows him to gather two more stacks at the start of battle (hence three at optimal) as well as extends his stack capacity to twelve.^note Meaning his maximum Critical Rate and Damage boosts grow to, respectively, 12–33.6% and 48%
• Dork Knight: Argenti is, without a doubt, a compassionate man of great kindness and capability who holds a true, deep allegiance to his faith. This faith, by that same measure, makes him a bit of an oddball - in his Character Reveal trailer alone, and as shown in-game, he's introduced aboard the Express wholeheartedly and unironically praising the beauty of a potted plant.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He was first name-dropped in one of Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster's occurences, "Knights of Beauty to the Rescue". Most of the time, choosing to accept his help (among other knights) will grant you 3 Blessings of your current Path.
• Encounter Repellent: His Technique inflicts "Daze" on nearby enemies in the overworld, which will make them stop pursuing you. Attacking them in this state will inflict damage on all enemies based on Argenti's ATK on the first turn, and recover 15 energy for him.
• Flunky Boss: As a boss, he can summon 3 kinds of floating statues, and enhance their potency. One of them deals Physical DMG onto all of your characters, another one applies Barrier to him (and to all other statues when enhanced), and the last one grants him a DMG buff. When they're killed, the targets of their effects will become reversed between him and your party.
• Green Thumb: Though a plant superpower element doesn't exist as an official type, Argenti's Skill has him stab the ground with his spear, causing rose vines to erupt and pierce all enemies.^note Depending on Trace levels, its damage is equivalent to 60–132% of his Attack stat
• Heroic Sacrifice: In order to help the Astral Express escape the innards of the Giant Sting's belly, Argenti plans to launch himself out of the train and use his spear to stab the bug's stomach to force it to vomit the crew out, though he does assure the Trailblazer he will try to make it out alive as well. After the Astral Express crew successfully escape, Argenti is seemingly never seen or heard from again... then afterwards texted the Trailblazer asking if they're okay, much to their and March's relief.
• Invocation:
  (Ultimate activation) "Until I see that light once more..."
  (Normal speed) (Normal Ultimate) "...I will protect all beauty in the universe."
  (Normal speed) (Enhanced Ultimate) "...I will protect all beauty in the universe... for Idrila."
  (×2 speed) (Normal Ultimate) "...I will protect all beauty!"
  (×2 speed) (Enhanced Ultimate) "...I will protect all beauty! ...for Idrila."
• Knight in Shining Armor: A classic example. He and the other Knights go by the code of chivalry (which is stated to be obsolete in modern times by the game) and, somewhat like historical religious crusaders, march across the worlds to preach the ideals of Beauty and their Aeon, Idrila. They (Argenti included) also wear luxurious armor, ride dexterous mounts, sing beautiful songs, and offer their aid to those in need.
• Large Ham: If his trailer is anything to go by, Argenti is truly grandiose in just about everything he does.
• Limit Break: His schtick. Argenti can charge up his ultimate twice to unleash a much more powerful attack, denoted by an outer ring around the Ultimate gauge. The skill icon additionally starts out as a rosebud that blooms when the second energy level is met. The fully-charged Ultimate also deals six additional damage bursts on a random foe. ^note Depending on Trace levels, its damage is equivalent to 96–172.8% of his Attack stat in its base form, 168–302.4% in its upgraded form, and the power of the random damage is equivalent to 57–102.6% of his Attack stat
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Quite fitting for a noble Knight of Beauty to have a flowing long mane of hair.
• Meaningful Name: His name is derived from the Latin word "argentum", the name of the metal silver, which fits both his outfit and his attitude.
• Mirror Match: Nothing's stopping you from bringing your own Argenti to fight him. In fact, as he and all of his summons has Physical weakness, Argenti himself is a great counter to him.
• Regenerating Mana: His Talent regenerates 3 energy for each enemy hit by his attacks. His fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Generosity, also regenerates 2 Energy for him for every new enemy that enters battle.
• Secret A.I. Moves: Playable Argenti cannot summon the floating statues that his boss self uses.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Argenti isn't at all difficult to operate - Use his Skill to quickly gain Energy and stack his Crit Rate buff, then pop his Ultimate when it's completely filled for its bonus damage. Extremely effective.
• Situational Sword:
  • His sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Courage, gives him a 15% damage boost against foes with no more than half their HP.
  • His second Eidolon Resonance, Agate's Humility, bestows a 40% Attack boost for one turn whenever his Ultimate hits at least three foes.
• Something about a Rose: His kit features heavy rose motifs and holds one in his Wish artwork, and this young man upholds the virtues of Beauty.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: He can speak to insects of The Propagation.
• Takes One to Kill One: Despite being a Physical Pathstrider, his boss self and the statues he summons to assist him are weak to Physical damage. Ironically, this makes Argenti himself a good unit to use against him, as he can hit all their weaknesses and potentially kill all of the statues to severely hinder the boss version.
• A Taste of Power: Argenti is playable as a Trial unit in the Boulder Town Martial Exhibition.
• Weapon Specialization: Argenti's associated Light Cone is "An Instant Before A Gaze" (5★), whose "A Knight's Pilgrimage" passive increases its wearer's Critical Damage by 36–60%, and their Ultimate's damage by 0.36–0.60% per point of their Max Energy (to a maximum damage boost of 64.8–108%). With currently the highest Max Energy of 180 and a very rapid way to build both Energy and Critical Rate through his Talent for fast and efficient Ultimate use, Argenti is singularly poised to take full advantage of this Light Cone's simple but potent boosts.

Masked Fools

The followers of Aha the Elation, an intergalatic organization of unpredictable tricksters devoted to pursuing whatever amuses them.

In General

• The Anti-Nihilist: The Fools believe that the universe is a cold and uncaring place, with laughter the only thing that could possibly give it meaning. In this way, the followers of Elation believe in creating "laughter" throughout the universe, seeking to create change and sow chaos as a means to give life meaning. This could just as easily result in acts of great kindness or petty mischief, as their ultimate goal is to stir the pot to avoid the stagnation of nihilism.
• Company Cross References: They are the second mysterious organization of mask-wearing "fools" to appear in a Hoyoverse game, the other being the Fatui from sister-game Genshin Impact.
• Cool Mask: As implied by their name, they each have a mask which holds some level of importance to them for as-of-yet unknown reasons, and feature prominently in their designs. Except for Sampo, whose mask was stolen by Sparkle.
• For the Lulz: As the most radical followers of the path of Elation, they believe personal enjoyment is the only thing that gives the universe meaning.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The three Masked Fools we meet to have received the most story focus so far have this dynamic, further helped by the three knowing each other personally.
  • Giovanni is the nice. He treats other characters very courteously and while his status as a Masked Fool and convenient presence to give exposition and guide the Trailblazer and March makes him seem suspicious, any dubious intentions he may have are thrown out the window with the reveal that he organised the Atherium Wars event to give Hook an opportunity to reunite and play with the Trailblazer.
  • Sparkle is the Mean. Of the three, she's the one who methods of creating Elation are the most actively malicious; Socially, she's a complete Trollish Jerkass, and a lot of her actions such as impersonating the deceased Robin in front of Sunday and even offering to continue doing so for the sake of the Family's reputation, which only serves to enrage him, makes her come off as very callous.
  • Sampo is the In-Between. Sampo is a unrepentant thief and conman, who's not above cutting and running when it suits him and will betray his clients for the right price. However, he's also very affable and, as noted by Sparkle, has lines he won't cross. Additional info also suggest that he's a Friend to All Children.

Belobogian Masked Fool (Unmarked Spoilers)

Sampo Koski

See his entry here.

Sparkle

Sparkle

Introduced: February 29, 2024 (v2.0 "If One Dreams At Midnight" [second half])
Voiced By: Zhao Shuang (Chinese), Reina Ueda (Japanese), Seong Ye-won (Korean), Lizzie Freeman (English)

^{Click to see her full Warp artwork.}

Rarity: 5★
Path: Harmony
Type: Quantum

An unpredictable, somewhat unhinged Masked Fool. Unscrupulous and dangerous, her idea of "fun" involves impersonating other people through acting and illusions, something she demonstrates very readily in Penacony, her purpose known to none but herself.

Sparkle revels in chaos by encouraging her allies to use their Skills with reckless abandon through her Talent, Red Herring, which increases the party's Skill Point pool by two as well as their damage output up to thrice for two turns whenever they consume SP. Her Skill, Dreamdiver, summons a phantasmal carp that increases an ally's Critical Damage for one turn, as well as forwards their turn (except if used on herself); her Ultimate, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, has her wear a fox mask that restores 4 SP as well as bestows the "Cipher" effect onto the party for two turns, which further bolsters her Talent's damage boost; and her Technique, Unreliable Narrator, bestows the "Misdirect" effect onto the party, rendering them invisible to enemies and adding 3 SP at the start of battle.^note When fully upgraded, she automatically increases the party's Attack stat, with increasing potency proportional to the number of her Quantum-type allies; her Talent can now add three Max SP, while its damage buff gains the ability to ignore a fraction of enemies' Defense proportional to the number of stacks; her Skill's Critical Damage buff is now extended to the start of the buffed ally's next turn, as well as also applied to allies with Cipher whenever she uses either her Skill or her Ultimate—the latter, if at least one ally is already buffed; and the Cipher effect is extended to three turns, as well as gains a direct Attack buff.

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• Ambiguously Evil: While she isn't outright evil, she's definitely not as benevolent or benign as her fellow Masked Fools Giovanni and Sampo, especially since it's still not clear why she's searching for the Watchmaker's Legacy.
• Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Pipedream and Parallax Truth, which will add two levels to her Skill and 1 to Basic Attack with the former, and 2 to Ultimate and Talent with the latter.
• Animal Motifs: The masks around her are Asian Fox Spirit styled, while she also features numerous gold-fish swimming around her and in an ornament on her belt. Both animal imagery associated with summer festivals and revelry, as well as mischief.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Her second Eidolon Resonance, Purely Fictitious, allows each stack of her Talent to allow the party's attacks to ignore 8% of enemy Defense (hence a maximum of 24%).
• Beware the Silly Ones: Sparkle may be childish, but she's still very dangerous, knocking the Trailblazer and Firefly unconscious and sending them to A Child's Dream.
  • Sparkle repeatedly offers a prized possession as a gift, the ‘Mutually Assured Destruction Button.’ That she promises when pressed, will completely obliterate herself and the Penacony dreamscape. For a moment Aventurine is incredulous that she would be allowed to bring such a destructive device anywhere near Penacony, but then realises that with her outlandish claims and silly persona, it could actually be a case of Crazy Enough to Work.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Sparkle can have some... very strange logic at times, as shown during her shared Companion Mission with Black Swan.
• Cool Mask: She's pictured wearing a traditional kitsune mask, and has two more floating around her in her warp art.
• Critical Hit Class:
  • One of three stats Sparkle can upgrade via her Trace tree is her Critical Damage, with her getting a 24% boost once fully unlocked.
  • Her Skill boosts an ally's Critical Damage for one turn, as well as advances their turn by 50% (unless used on herself).^note Depending on Trace levels, equivalent to 12—26.4% of her own Critical Damage, with an additional 27—48.6%. Her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Artificial Flower, extends its duration to the start of the buffed ally's next turn (hence bolstering Ultimates and follow-up attacks), while her sixth Eidolon Resonance, Narrative Polysemy, adds a further boost equivalent to 30% of Sparkle's own, as well as expands the buff on all allies endowed with Cipher whenever she uses either her Skill or her Ultimate (with at least one ally already buffed).
• Cute and Psycho: Do not let Sparkle's cheery, childish personality and mannerisms fool you- she is an absolutely nasty piece of work that has a tendency to do things for her own entertainment, morals be damned.
• Dub Name Change: The name "Sparkle" is a reading of 花火, a pairing of Han characters commonly used in Japanese to mean "firework" and read via kun'yomi [native] method as "Hanabi" (hiragana はなび), which is then read as "Huāhuǒ" in Chinese (where the word for "firework" is usually 焰火 ["Yànhuǒ"]), while the Korean dub opts for transliteration as "Seupakeul" (hangul 스파클; the characters can be read via hanja as "Hwahwa" [화화]).
• Encounter Repellent: Sparkle's Technique renders the party undetectable for 20 seconds, as well as adds 3 SP should they enter battle.
• Exotic Eye Designs: Her irises have four lighter patches which, which combined with her pupils, form the shape of a cherry blossom. All five "petals" in each eye glow pale pink when she uses certain abilities.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Sparkle appears to be a very cute and cheerful young girl, but beneath that cute face is a very nasty and sadistic jerk.
• Fantastic Racism: Although she was not necessarily being sincere, she was quick to insult Aventurine and call him untrustworthy based purely on his Sigonian heritage.
• Femme Fatale: She is a beautiful, mysterious woman described as a "dangerous master of theatrics" that lives only to seek out amusement.
• Foreshadowing: Even before the reveal, there are numerous hints that the Sampo you meet in Penacony was actually Sparkle in disguise the whole time:
  • He mistakes Firefly for March 7th. The real Sampo has no trouble remembering other people's faces.
  • He repeatedly assures the Trailblazer and Firefly that the activities they're doing aren't illegal. The real Sampo doesn't really bother explaining how some of the stuff he does is pretty illegal.
  • He only refers to himself as Sampo, when the real Sampo often likes to refer to himself with a Full-Name Basis.
  • He's shown to get rather annoyed and disappointed at how blind the two seem to be to the truth. The real Sampo almost never gets angry and annoyed like that, especially with someone he seems to regard as a friend.
  • Particularly sharp players will notice that even his way of speaking sounds rather off, starting from when he reintroduces himself.
• Fourth Wall Psych: The very first time she speaks in the Trailblaze mission, she looks directly at the camera and asks a question that is relevant to the Trailblazer at the time. One cut later, and we see she's actually speaking to Aventurine.
• Genre Savvy: Being a former actress, she knows many kinds of story conventions, and uses it to weave together a "investigation game" which she roped Black Swan into (with Sampo's help).
• Girlish Pigtails: Has her long black hair tied in a pair of tails, which, combined with her youthful look, strikes a jarring contrast to her moral ambiguity.
• Hidden Depths: According to the teaser trailer for "S.P.A.R.K.L.E ~ Sandman Peeps as Rhythm Keeps Live Event", she's a fan of jazz music. Being Sparkle, she indulges this interest by trapping a popular jazz band inside one of her illusions.
• Hollywood Hype Machine: Her Myriad Celestia trailer suggests that "Sparkle" was originally a character a promising young actress played, before the constant string of performances (upwards to 990 fully-booked showings) eventually made her snap, adopting the "Sparkle" identity for real and becoming the Masked Fool she is today...that is, assuming anything in it isn't another show she concocted to gather sympathy.
• Hostile Show Takeover:
  • In Black Swan's "Keeping Up With Star Rail" episode, she suddenly takes over Sampo's role in describing Black Swan, complete with her tearing Sampo's namecard. In her own episode, Sampo himself appears, with the namecard visibly duct-taped.
  • In the end of her "Keeping Up With Star Rail" episode, when the light goes dim, Owlbert gets replaced offscreen with her (his medal tied to his cape is changed to a red flower knot). It's also implied that she also hijacked the episode's upload herself, given that the episode is quite literally titled "Sparkle: Ability Intro Vid (remember to fix title)", the description is the Masked Fool being annoyed that the host has to provide their own video description, and a comment left by the HSR channel itself has her going Oh, Crap! over forgetting to fix the title.
• Hypocrite: She criticizes Aventurine for coming from a planet infamous for producing liars, thieves, and manipulators, which is rich coming from a Masked Fool who can flawlessly disguise herself as other people and isn't afraid to to use that skill to manipulate others merely for her own personal amusement.
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: When Sparkle attempts to impersonate Black Swan during a call to the Trailblazer, she claims she forgot the contents of a memory bubble and needs to see it again. The Trailblazer picks up on this since a Memokeeper should not be capable of forgetting anything, causing Sparkle's plan to fail.
• Internal Homage: In her gameplay preview trailer, she gets to say "Rules are made to be broken!" - i.e Destruction Trailblazer's Ultimate line.
• Invocation:
  (Ultimate activation) "Let's play hide and seek."
  (Normal speed) "A thousand faces in a thousand places. Can you find the answer?"
  (×2 speed) "Can you find the answer?"
• Jerkass: Sparkle is, as of 2.0, outright the most unpleasant person in the playable cast. She's incredibly rude to Aventurine (even coming across as bigoted in her comments), and even impersonates Robin, who is dead at this point, to her brother who loves her very much. In addition to all those, Sparkle often speaks in an intentionally aggravating manner.
• Kick Chick: Sparkle's Basic Attack, Monodrama, has her merrily skip up to the enemy and give them a Roundhouse Kick.
• Kick the Dog: Sparkle impersonates Robin after her death as a way to mock Sunday. He is not amused by this.
• Lady in Red: The first female Masked Fool, dressed in a curve-hugging red dress suiting her name.
• Large Ham: Kicked up a gear in her character trailer.
  "What is Elation? Me! I AM ELATION!!" (Cue Maniacal Laughter and Disney Acid Sequence)
• Leg Focus: Sparkle wears incredibly foot-exposing sandals that only barely qualify as "footwear" (being held in place by a pair of fancy laces and nothing more) and in her splash art, they've already fallen off with Sparkle not caring at all. Moreover, although many of the playable ladies in the game have outfits that can easily be described as flattering, Sparkle's dress has a "hemline" that terminates just below her buttocks, meaning that any artwork or scene she features in, like her splash screen or her 5* light cone, shows off her legs completely.
• Master Actor: As a Masked Fool, this is her idea of seeking amusement: playing pretend. She even boasts that she can pass as a member of Genius Society if she wants to. In her own Myriad Celestia trailer, she was implied to be a famous actress in her home planet. In "Masquerade Duet", she plays all of the Sweet Dreams Troupe robots that Black Swan and Sampo faces, with their voices sounding distinct from each other.
• Master of Disguise: Sparkle can disguise herself as anyone for her deceits. She disguises herself as Sampo when she sends the Trailblazer and Firefly into the real Dreamscape, and the final scene of the story's first arc has her disguise herself as Robin to Sunday, after the real Robin is killed.
• Me's a Crowd: Sparkle plays everyone in her character trailer, all but one of which eventually "having their strings cut", with the last two playing Russian Roulette together.
• Mirror Character: She's one to Firefly within the Penacony storyline, as both are beautiful young ladies with fire-themed names who use deception at one point in their quest for the Watchmaker's Legacy. But while Firefly is a Nice Girl who wears a rather tame outfit, Sparkle is a Lady in Red who has a nasty personality.
• Ms. Fanservice: Sparkle is a beautiful Femme Fatale wearing a revealing short kimono that draws particular attention to her legs.
• Multiple-Choice Past: One of her lines outright says that she will come up with whatever backstory matches your tastes. She specifically mentions "An abandoned orphan, a cursed little girl, the last descendant of the puppet clan..." all of which are the subjects of her first three Character Stories.
• Mundane Utility: Her Technique of giving her temporary stealth makes her one of the best characters for Trotter Catch in Simulated Universe: Expansion Module, as Trotters will not run from you and thus become absolutely trivial to catch. Sparkle's stealth can also be inherited by another character via switching, so you can team her up with a character with good mobility like Imbibitor Lunae or good offensive technique like Kafka to make the room even more of a joke.
• Mythology Gag: Her "Mutually Assured Destruction Button" is a possible reference to Honkai Impact 3rd's "Kevin Killer Mk. 666", one of Vill-V's inventions that was designed to "factory reset" the Elysian Realm.
• Oh, My Gods!: "By the Laughter."
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In "Masquerade Duet", she directly voices all of the "Sweet Dreams Troupe" members that Sampo and Black Swan meet during their "murder investigation game." When Sampo is talking to the "Sheriff" that Sparkle likes to arrange her own death, "Sheriff's" voice slips up to Sparkle's own (angry) voice before "he" speaks normally again.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Her first appearance has her trading verbal barbs with Aventurine, it's also one of the few moments she drops her cutesy voice and speaks seriously.
• Pet the Dog: Despite her wildly self-centered nature, Sparkle does have her moments.
  • Although rude and aggressive in her first meeting with Aventurine, she seemed charmed enough that he actualy sort her out to leave him with a clue. While cryptic and delivered as an insult, Aventurine later admits it helped set him down the right path to achieving his aims on Penacony.
  • While approaching Sunday in the disguise of his dead sister was undoubtedly Sparkle twisting the knife, she seems to have been sincere about playing the role of Robin to keep up the masquerade for the Family, with Dr Ratio's later comment suggesting that its greatly helped the Family to pretend that everything is going smoothly for Robin's planned performance.
• Power Stereotype Flip: She's a Harmony unit and part of a faction that revels in unpredictability and chaos, which is basically the opposite of Harmony.
• Red Herring: In "Masquerade Duet", in the "first case", one of the clues she left behind for Black Swan is a Pom-Pom doll. The "constable" who works with her points out that it's most likely misleading "evidence". In the "second case", one of the clues is... a literal red herring, also unrelated to the case at hand. It's all part of Sparkle messing with her. It's also the name of Sparkle's Talent.
• Regenerating Mana: In a variant, Sparkle's Ultimate restores 4 SP for the team, while her second-ascension Bonus Ability, Almanac, increases her Basic Attack's Energy generation from 20 to 30 points.
• Set Bonus: Her sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Nocturne, bestows the party a 15% Attack boost, which can increase depending on the number of Quantum-type characters in the party (including herself), at a rate of 5/15/30% for each such member (hence a maximum of 45%).
• Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Sparkle's idea of "fun" as a Masked Fool is impersonation. True to form, her Skill is very similar to Bronya's, except done in her own, unpredictable way. It has a fixed 50% turn advancement, so buffed allies are not guaranteed to get their turn, and it increases Critical Damage (like Bronya's Ultimate, also scaling with her own Critical Damage) instead of giving a general damage boost, meaning Sparkle gets to laugh at the enemy if they eat a critical hit and take major damage, or laugh at you for getting frustrated at missing the critical hit and losing out on her buff. Her Technique is also similar to Seele's in that she allows everyone in the team to be undetected by enemies.
  • Sparkle's second-ascension Bonus Ability allows her Skill's Critical Damage boost to carry over until the start of the buffed ally's next turn, hence enhancing their Follow-Up Attacks (as well as Ultimates). In the context of the Simulated Universe, where the path of Elation is centered around empowering such attacks, this means Sparkle's actively supporting her Path.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: As one of the more radical members of the Masked Fools, Sparkle sees people's suffering as a toy for her own amusement and is shown to be an unrepentant sadist who loves to annoy people without ever raising her voice.
• Stealth Mentor: Aventurine later realizes that when Sparkle told him to go "find a mute" to befriend, she was actually giving him a hint. He at first thought that the "mute" refers to someone who cannot make a voice, which is why he goes after Robin and witnessed her death. But later, Sparkle tells him that there are 2 mutes and he's going after the wrong one. After his boss fight, he says that the other "mute" would be "someone who cannot speak" - someone who had reached the other side of Penacony's "anti-death barrier" and lived, but can't tell the tale; he's glad that she (said person) is still alive and well.
• Support Party Member: Sparkle's abilities revolve around increasing the party's damage output and providing them with more SP to work with.
  • Her Talent increases the party's SP pool from 5 to 7, as well as bestows up to three stacks of a damage boost for two turns whenever they consume SP^note Depending on Trace levels, her Talent's damage multiplier is 3—6.6% per stack hence a standard maximum of 9—19.8% This makes Sparkle a fantastic companion to such SP-hungry damage-dealers like Qingque and Imbibitor Lunae.
  • Aside from regenerating 4 SP, her Ultimate bestows the Cipher effect onto the party that further increases her Talent's damage buff for two turns.^note Depending on Trace levels, by 6—10.8%, hence her Talent's damage boost raises up to 27—52.2% Her first Eidolon Resonance, Suspension of Disbelief, extends its duration to three turns as well as adds a 40% Attack buff, while her fourth, Life Is a Gamble, extends the SP regeneration to 5 points and raises the SP cap to 8.
• Two-Faced: Not her per say, but her fox mask is evenly split into white and red halves, which fits her trickster personality.
• Third-Person Person: In the Japanese dub, she refers to herself by her own name ("Hanabi").
• Weapon Specialization: Sparkle's associated Light Cone is "Earthly Escapade" (5★), whose "Capriciousness" passive increases its wearer's Critical Damage by 32–60%, and grants the Mask effect for the first three turns of combat, which gives the party a 10-14% boost to Critical Rate and 28-56% to Critical Damage, in addition to bestowing stacks of Radiant Flame whenever they gain SP (even if it reaches its cap), which are then consumed whenever four are collected to refresh Mask for four turns. On top of greatly enjoying the Critical Damage boosts, Sparkle's Ultimate immediately recovers exactly 4 SP, letting her maintain the Mask effect with trivial ease.

Giovanni

Giovanni di Giorgio da Epsilon

The mysterious masked backer of the "Aetherium Wars" tournament.

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• Connected All Along: A post-event memory bubble reveals that he's an acquaintance of Sampo as a fellow Masked Fool.
• Fiction 500: He's stated to be incredibly wealthy.
• Menacing Mask: He wears a mask that combined with his habit of giggling a lot makes him look a lot creepier than he really is.
• It Amused Me: As a follower of the Path of Elation, he does whatever he feels is personally amusing. This includes funding a massive gaming tournament just so a little girl can see their friend once again.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: In the Aetherium Wars event, March 7th spends most of the event being suspicious of him since he's constantly pushing the Trailblazer into progressing with the tournament while laughing off any attempts to ask for an explanation (as well as being named after the villain of Pokemon Gen I). Turns out that, at least in this case, there's no malicious intent and he basically organized the tournament at Hook's behest just so she can have fun with the Trailblazer.

Zhongshan (unmarked spoilers)

A woman who claims to be a member of The Unshackled, a minor outworld group in Xianzhou Luofu that worships Yaoshi and believes that releasing wildlife (or "unshackling" in their words) will let them gain "merits" from the Aeon of Abundance. She appears in the adventure mission "Bestial Ferocity".

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• Call-Back: Sparkle uses "Zhongshan" as one of the "suspects" in her murder mysteries in "Masquerade Duet."
• Code Name: The name "Zhongshan" is implied to be just an alias; she says that "my friends on the Luofu called me Zhongshan".
• Foreshadowing: Throughout the mission, there are several hints (mostly from her words) that point to her being a member of the Masked Fools. In her letter you get in the end, she says that the Trailblazer must've realized along the way that she's suspicious, and she hopes that they can say "Aha" from the bottom of their hearts.
• Insane Troll Logic: During the mission, the "Three Benevolent Ones" of the Unshackled mentions a problem with their release of wildlife: one of them planted endangered plants, which gets eaten by the endangered sheep released by the second, and the third's released wolves preyed on said sheep. The Trailblazer is told to "solve" this problem; when they point out that the three can just release wildlife in different worlds, Zhongshan says that the members have business on the Luofu and can't just go out easily. She instead chooses to approach it in a different direction: find a "creature" that can meet all of the criteria of the Three Benevolent Ones' preferred wildlife (plants, endangered animals, beasts of prey). The Trailblazer then suggests inorganic lifeforms - ones from Jarilo-VI, a planet on the brink of destruction and thus are (in a way) "endangered". After the two travel to Belobog to acquire some automatons, they and Zhongshan smooth-talk the three into believing that the robots fit their "definition" of the wildlife they prefer to release, and while they have some doubts, the three are convinced and proceed to release said robots. About a day later, said robots ended up causing trouble in different ways and the three got arrested by the Realm-Keeping Commission.
• Karmic Trickster: While half of what she's doing for The Unshackled is for the sake of a gag, the other half is to make them realize their wrongful ways and flawed mentalities, especially by showing how harmful the consequences of their actions are.
• Knew It All Along: In the middle of the mission, the Trailblazer gets a message from Jingyan (a Realm-Keeping Commission officer) to infiltrate The Unshackled and "crumble" them from within; they then try to keep it a secret from those around them, Near the end of the mission, though, it's implied that Zhongshan already knew about it, telling the Trailblazer to collect their remuneration.
• Overly Pre-Prepared Gag: In the letter she left you after the mission, she says that "I just 'unshackled' them". This is after her deception "humbles" the Unshackled's members and she bails them out of the brig for the troubles they caused for "releasing" the automatons from Belobog; she sincerely wants them to let go of their delusion of "self-proclaimed kindness". Near the end, she also says "I don't know if you like this joke about unshackling, but I hope you do."

Antagonistic Factions

The Antimatter Legion

The army of Nanook, Aeon of Destruction. The Antimatter Legion is made up of inhuman beings infused with Antimatter whose singular goal is to spread destruction towards the universe.

They consist of: Baryons and Antibaryons, Voidranger: Reaver, Voidranger: Distorter, Voidranger: Eliminator, and Voidranger: Trampler (elite).

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• Animated Armor: A closer look at the Legion models shows that they have several holes across their bodies which reveals that their internal structures are entirely hollow, looking more akin to sentient suits of armor than actual lifeforms.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: The main weapons of Reavers, the basic foot-soldiers of the Legion, are a pair of arm-mounted curved blades made out of Antimatter.
• Energy Bow: Tramplers' strongest attack is to create a bow and arrow made of energy and fire it on one of your characters after a turn passes. It has a high chance of inflicting Entanglement.
• Evil Versus Oblivion:
  • While they’ll attack just about everyone, the faction giving them the biggest headache is the IPC, due to how their philosophies are the exact opposite to one another. Whereas the IPC fights for the Preservation, and is not above committing morally dubious acts to carry out Qlipoth’s will, the Anitmatter Legion fights for the Destruction, and seek to destroy the universe, as per the will of Nanook.
  • Another organization that opposes them is the Stellaron Hunters. They are willing to commit morally dubious acts in the name of following Elio’s script to reach the point where the Trailblazer will face against Nanook. Though whether or not the Antimatter Legion is aware of this has yet to be determined.
• Mook Commander: Distorters can command other enemies to attack a specific target.
• Mythology Gag: As inhuman creatures that seek to destroy civilizations wherever they find it, they're essentially this universe's equivalent of the titular Honkai from Honkai Impact 3rd. Likewise, the Lord Ravagers seem to occupy a similar role to the Herrschers, as a Person of Mass Destruction that commands the mindless hordes and are capable of infiltrating a civilization for the purpose of destroying it from within.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Less so on the 'maniac' part (it's stated that Nanook's desire for destruction is more philosophical and cold, and doesn't appreciate destruction for the sake of self-gratification) but they still want to destroy the universe and everything in it.
• One-Man Army: The generals of the Antimatter Legion are the Emanators of Destruction, also called "Lord Ravagers". They're more than capable of wiping out planets and are considered so dangerous the Xianzhou Alliance, which is made up of several planet-sized ships and are considered one of the galaxy's superpowers, finds it preferable to avoid Lord Ravagers and their vessels as much as possible.
• Our Centaurs Are Different: Tramplers resemble one - making them undead alien centaurs - and they frequently attack by kicking your characters with their horse legs, including a Shockwave Stomp. One text in Seat of Divine Foresight implies that they're based on creatures of Abundance called "Houyhnhnm".
• Overheating: Each time Eliminators attack, their blasters will overheat, and they have to spend a turn cooling it down, so they effectively attack once every second turn. This is to balance the fact that said attack not only deals substantial damage, but also applies a Damage-Increasing Debuff.
• Scary Dogmatic Aliens: They serve the role as the titular hostile alien faction who invade planets purely to cause destruction and wipe out all life for the sake of Nanook's philosophy, and they consider everyone who isn't on their side an enemy.
• Shaping Your Attacks: Tramplers can cause a block of quantum to rise from beneath your character's legs, dealing damage.
• Spin Attack: Reavers have an attack where they rush towards one of your characters and perform a spinning slash as a Blast-type attack.
• Star Killing: According to the in-universe book "List of Archenemies" in the Seat of Divine Foresight, one of the unnamed Lord Ravagers of the Legion has the power to extinguish entire stars and plunge their planets into complete darkness, earning them the nickname "Sun Devourer". They have already wiped out one-third of the stars in the Yvanna chain.
• Unwitting Pawn: To the Stellaron Hunters. While both them and the Antimatter Legion are still mortal enemies by default since they fight for different causes, the Stellaron Hunters will bait the Legion into key locations as scapegoat tools if it benefits them, such as Silver Wolf baiting the Legion to Herta Space Station in the Prologue so they can divert attention away from them and fulfill Elio's prophecy of awakening the Trailblazer. The Legion troops themselves are unaware that they're being used to fulfill another faction's goals other than Nanook's desire to destroy the universe.
• Warrior Undead: Lore entries of several Antimatter Legion units state that they are the remains of almost-dead or dead warriors who were thrown into the Warforge and fused with Antimatter to empower them, essentially making them an army of undead soldiers.
• You Will Be Spared: Nanook is willing to spare a few, particularly powerful victims of theirs if they obey their will, although in the end they'll still be destroyed like everyone else. These people become the Lord Ravagers, the seconds-in-command of the Legion.

Doomsday Beast

An artificial beast created from fragments of a dead Leviathan plus several other dead creatures, meant as the Antimatter Legion's heavy-hitter. It assaults the Herta Space Station in the story's beginning before it was repelled by the Trailblazer and Astral Express crew's efforts. Can be later refought as an Echo of War.

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• Cognizant Limbs: You have to knock down its Disaster's Right hand, Dawn's Left Hand, and Antimatter Engine before you can hit it directly. When the 2nd phase comes up, you have to repeat the process.
• Draconic Abomination: an artificial beast that vaguely looks like a dragon with grotesque features, created to herald destruction of worlds.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: the attacks done by its right hand will always hit all your characters at once.
• Shoot the Mage First: Antimatter Engine has a skill that can buff both its hands and recover their Toughness Gauge if they were broken, and in the 2nd phase, the only way to stop Impending Doom is to inflict Weakness Break on it. As such, the Engine should be the priority target.
• Turns Red: When it enters 2nd phase, it'll immediately use "Impending Doom" to deal big AOE damage to your party, and the attacks done by its right and left hands are enhanced, dealing more damage and potentially causing Imprisonment and Entanglement respectively. It can also repeat Impending Doom after several turns passes.
• Warmup Boss: as the first Echo of War boss for the "beginner's area" (Herta Space Station), it's designed to be dangerous yet simple: its Cognizant Limbs are weak to Physical (Antimatter Engine), Ice (the right hand), Wind (the left hand) and Fire (all three), and at that point you'll most likely have Physical Trailblazer, March 7th, Dan Heng and Himeko (the last one given as a "trial") respectively.

Lord Ravager Phantylia the Undying

Voiced by: Huang Ying (Chinese), Yurika Hino (Japanese), Tara Langella (English)

One of the Antimatter Legion's Emanators, Phantylia specializes in using subterfuge and deceit to trick her enemies into destroying themselves from within. She is a Heliobus and therefore has the ability to possess living beings. Can be later refought as an Echo of War.

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• Arc Villain: She's the true villain behind the Xianzhou Luofu storyline.
• Auto-Revive: Her Destruction Lotuses cannot be permanently destroyed; when their HP is depleted, they will enter a "Repose" state for 2 turns, after which their HP gets filled back to full.
• The Baroness: Phantylia's boss form takes on the appearance of a beautiful woman, and is known among the Lord Ravagers for her more subtle approach to destruction. Welt describes her as someone that enjoys toying with her victims, destroying the minds of those she corrupts and taking pleasure in sowing the seeds of discord wherever she goes.
• Become a Real Boy: The description for her Echo of War boss drop, Regret of Infinite Ochema, her decision to hijack the Ambrosial Arbor to prioritize a body instead of instantly imploding the Luofu, and her own statements, highly imply this is her own real goal. She's stated to fear destruction despite being its Emanator, and she wished for an imperishable body for that reason.
• Cooldown Manipulation: She can manipulate roots to "strangle" one of your characters, delaying their turn.
• Demonic Possession: This is apparently how she can possess other people, though Welt mentions she would need to break their mind and spirit first, which is why he believes her possession of Tingyun isn't what it seems.
• Energy Beings: She does not have an actual physical form, only appearing as a small ball of fire, and needs to possess or create a physical body if she wants to affect the material realm.
  • With the introduction of the Heliobi, which are also beings of pure energy, it's pretty much all but established that Phantylia is likely a Heliobus herself. Her "true" form has her manifest as a blue-green flame, she is immortal since she lacks physical form, and she can possess living beings, which are traits she shares with Heliobi. There's also the fact that all of the Heliobi know Phantylia by name, and the Heliobi's thousand year imprisonment at the hands of the Xianzhou Alliance would explain why Phantylia decided to target the Luofu in the first place. However, the Regret of Infinite Ochema description suggest that she's just as enslaved as the other Heliobi are.
• Evil Sounds Deep: As she reveals herself, Tingyun's voice lowers in pitch until it reaches her true natural voice.
• Flower Motif: Her headdress is shaped like a lotus flower, which symbolizes purity and rebirth.
• Foreshadowing: According to Jing Yuan, only an Emanator of another Aeon could sneak a Stellaron onboard the ships without him knowing. Then it turns out that an Emanator was indeed allying herself with the Sanctus Medicus for that express purpose.
• Giant Woman: Phantylia's boss form is a gigantic woman whose size is comparable to Jing Yuan's Lightning-Lord.
• Green Thumb: Courtesy of the power of Abundance, she can conjure lotus flowers or roots to attack you, with the flowers serving as her flunkies.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: She gains access to powerful AOE attacks starting from phase 2 onward.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Her preferred method of destruction is manipulating civilizations into destroying themselves. For example, she tried to destroy the Luofu by kickstarting a civil war between the Cloud Knights and Sanctus Medicus. When that didn't work, she tried to forcibly convert Jing Yuan into a Voidranger. But due to Jing Yuan’s sheer willpower to resist her control with his Lightning-Lord delivering the final blow and Dan Heng freeing him, she failed at that as well, forcing her to leave the Luofu after her defeat.
  • Gameplay-wise, when her Destruction Lotuses have their HP depleted, Weakness Broken, or their Bloom buff dispelled, they will inflict a Damage-Increasing Debuff on Phantylia and delay her next turn.
• Humans Are Insects: She refers to Jing Yuan's party as "ants" and some of her attacks are finger flicking or using her hand fan to swat your characters like one would do to a pest.
• It Amused Me: As a Lord Ravager, Phantylia could destroy her targets directly through brute force if she chose to, but she instead chooses to manipulate them. There is no other reason for her to operate like this other than she finds it more fun to see her enemies destroy themselves.
• Mana Drain: In a variant, her Abundance Lotuses can absorb 1 Skill Point from you. When killed, the lotuses will return 3 Skill Points.
• The Man Behind the Man: it's revealed that she was the one supporting Dan Shu and the Sanctus Medicus behind the scenes.
• Maximum HP Reduction: Her Destruction Lotuses can inflict "Prana-Siphon" debuff onto your characters, which will block a percentage of their HP from being recovered. Like any other debuffs, it has a duration and can be dispelled.
• The Mole: Her typical MO is to impersonate an important figure and take advantage of their position to secretly sow chaos and division, just like what she did by impersonating Tingyun.
• Not Quite Dead: She shrugs off her defeat in the Luofu and mocks the protagonists for destroying a body she created for herself 'on a whim' - though said defeat still forces her to retreat with her plan effectively ruined. Welt later explains that it would take much more firepower to permanently kill her.
• Percent Damage Attack: She can command her Destruction Lotuses to target one of your characters; after a turn, the target will take damage equal to more than half of their Max HP. This attack can be prevented by Weakness Breaking them or removing their "Bloom" Buff.
• Purple Is Powerful: Phase II of her boss fight colours her in purple hues as she unleashes the power of Destruction. Her attempted forced transformation of Jing Yuan into a Voidranger also causes purple lightning to surround him.
• Regenerating Health: Her Abundance Lotuses can regenerate 50% of their HP per turn.
• The Vamp: She's quite playful in her interactions with her foes, and takes pleasure in corrupting her victims. She's eager to see heroes fall into darkness, bringing about their own destruction and the downfall of their civilizations.
• Verbal Tic: Much like Tingyun, her puppet, Phantylia also refers to other people as "benefactor".
• Yin-Yang Bomb: She first utilizes power of Abundance (courtesy of Ambrosial Arbor) in the first phase, then power of Destruction in the second, and both in the third and final phase.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Her alliance with the Sanctus Medicus was only ever one of convenience, and once they successfully smuggled a Stellaron into the Luofu and revived the Ambrosial Arbor, Phantylia had no more use for them and they subsequently became expendable to her.

Stellarons (Unmarked Spoilers)

Stellarons, described as the "Cancer of All Worlds", are artifacts of unknown origins which randomly appear on planets and cause widespread chaos through reality-distorting phenomenons.

Much about Stellarons are veiled in mystery, as analyzing one is said to be difficult, but it is understood Stellarons warp the Imaginary Energy around them on a massive scale, which has the side effect of affecting the galactic Star Rails used by Astral Express train to move across vast distances of space, rendering them unusable. Additionally, their presence also manifests the Fragmentum, a spatial corruption which spawns elemental monsters.

Due to the mere presence of Stellarons being capable of hindering the journey of Trailblazers across worlds, resolving Stellaron-related incidents is considered one of the unofficial duties of those who walk the path of Trailblaze. The events of Jarilo-VI reveal the Stellarons might be in fact sentient entities with their own "will" and "voice".

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• Ambiguous Situation: There is much about Stellarons which are yet to be understood by people across the universe.
  • Stellarons aren't even initially understood to be sentient. In Jarilo-VI, only the Trailblazer (who is a host to another Stellaron), Cocolia, and Bronya can hear the Stellaron's voice. March 7th notes the Nameless has encountered and sealed several Stellarons, and this is the first time they had known a Stellaron had a voice and could communicate; thus, it is unclear if all Stellarons are sentient and simply didn't make themselves known, or if Jarilo-VI's Stellaron is a unique case.
  • Related to the above, it is also unclear if the Trailblazer is a person who happens to be a Receptacle to a Stellaron, or if the Trailblazer is the Stellaron's consciousness manifesting through a suitable host.
  • It is speculated the Stellarons are artifacts of Nanook spread across the universe in the Aeon's effort to systematically destroy everything. However, whether or not this is the case remains to be seen. At one point Nanook blesses the Trailblazer to fight against a Doomsday Beast of Nanook's own Antimatter Legion. Yet, not long after that Qlipoth the Preservation also does the same; the fact multiple Aeons could bless a single person with a Stellaron inside them strongly suggests they are not particularly affiliated with a single Aeon.
  • It is shown the powers of Stellarons can freely influence and interact with those of Aeons. Not only can Stellarons in general affect Imaginary Energy which Akivili's Astral Express relies on for space travel, the Stellaron inside the Trailblazer can harness both Nanook and Qlipoth's blessings for the host's use. And in Luofu, another Stellaron displays it can accelerate the side effects of Yaoshi's blessing of immortality in the citizens of Xianzhou, making them turn into Mara-Stricken monsters at a much more rapid pace. All of these suggest there is a certain degree of connection between the nature and powers of Aeons and Stellarons.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Jarilo-VI Stellaron first responded to a wish to stop a planet-destroying threat by essentially rendering said planet inhabitable as a frozen landscape. The Luofu Stellaron also responds to the local population of immortal-hating people by accelerating the degeneration and monster transformation of the people. If all Stellarons are sentient, this might in fact be their modus operandi.
• The Corruptor: The Jarilo-VI Stellaron first invoked Be Careful What You Wish For to the first Supreme Guardian of Belobog by responding to her wish in a way which devastates the planet and keeps the last pockets of humanity confined into a single city and underground. Then it spent the next centuries 'whispering' its intentions to anyone it could contact, particularly the Supreme Guardians. Cocolia is the victim who gets the worst of it, and she is effectively turned into its pawn in realizing its 'vision' of a new world, as Cocolia under its influence calls Bronya 'mother of the new world'.
• Dub Name Change: In Chinese and Japanese, its name 星核 translates to "star core" or "star nucleus".
• It Can Think: At the very least, the Jarilo-VI Stellaron can. Whether or not the others do remains to be seen.
• Jackass Genie: The Jarilo-VI Stellaron was first contacted by the Supreme Guardian Alisa Rand, who wished to eliminate the invading Antimatter Legion. It did so... by summoning the Eternal Freeze, which froze most of the world in the process. It wiped out or stopped cold both the invading Legion and just about every person on the planet outside of Belobog.
• Mythology Gag: The Stellarons have many references to Honkai Impact 3rd:
  • From the trailer "Jepella Rebellion", it's implied that the Stellarons take different forms in different planets, and at least in some of them, the Stellaron Hunters taking them out causes chaos and havoc in the respective planets, if not outright collapse. This is a reference to the "Ether Anchors"; they're the Cosmic Keystone of various bubble universes, each of them have different appearances, and taking them out of the "bubble" will cause the bubble to slowly destabilize. There's also a mysterious faction that hunts Ether Anchors of various bubble worlds for some unknown purpose, just like the Stellaron Hunters.
  • As seen so far with Jarilo-VI and the Xianzhou Luofu, the Stellarons grants people their wishes but with a negative consequence, this method is very similar to how Sa is able to destroy bubble universes by granting them their wishes.
• No Ontological Inertia: Zigzagged. The Astral Express crew hope that sealing the Stellaron and removing its influence from Jarilo-VI will end the Eternal Freeze and allow the planet to flourish again. The Eternal Freeze does end upon the stellaron's sealing, clearing the skies above Belobog for the first time in centuries. Unfortunately, the Stellaron's influence has become so entrenched in its 700 years on the planet that it will be a long time before Jarilo-VI regains a fraction of its former fertility. However, without the Stellaron's influence, Belobog now has the chance to make real headway against the Fragmentum.
• Reality Warper: Stellarons harness Imaginary Energy, i.e. the very energy which sustains reality and its phenomenons. One Stellaron freezes an entire planet along with a horde of the Antimatter Legion — an entire army blessed by Nanook, who is also this trope — and another Stellaron can affect the immortality blessing of Yaoshi on mortals, implying Stellarons might be this trope on a scale comparable to Aeons themselves.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: As of present time, no known Stellaron has ever been destroyed, so whether or not they can even be destroyed is up in the air. As such, the preferred method to deal with one is to seal its activity and confine it, which at least temporarily removes the threat.

Fragmentum

Phenomenon caused by Stellaron corrosion that warps and corrupts spaces and spawns dangerous creatures.

The enemies consist of: [Element]spawns, Incineration & Everwinter Shadewalkers, Mask of No Thought, Imaginary Weavers, Blaze/Ice Out of Space (elite), Frigid/Searing Prowler (elite), Stormbringer (elite) and Guardian & Decaying Shadow (elite).

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• Always Chaotic Evil: In-universe, the Intelligentsia Guild warns the general masses that the echoes created by the Fragmentum should not be mistaken or treated like the real deal, lest horrible consequences may occur, as they tend to be hostile and dangerous.
• Company Cross References:
  • Somewhat akin to "Ley Line memories" in Genshin Impact, the Fragmentum can spawn "ghosts" of people in the past, who are stuck in the time they lived. In the "Vessel of Mediocrity" sidequest it's revealed that the "Cyrille" you're interacting with is the Fragmentum memory of the real Cyrille who had passed away long ago. The daily mission "Ghost of the Past" in Belobog will also have you come across these "ghosts" whom you need to tend to before they disappear.
  • The Calyxes, Stagnant Shadows and Caverns of Corrosion are also creations of the Fragmentum and are said to hold the "data of reality" that the Fragmentum gathers - just like the Leyline Outcrops, World Bosses and the various farming Domains in Genshin, as all of them are linked by the Ley Lines, which hold the "memories" of reality.
• Cooldown Manipulation: Everwinter Shadewalkers' attacks can delay the action of their targets by 50%.
• Counter-Attack: The Guardian Shadow can impose various kinds of "bans" onto your characters; from using basic attack, skill, or from outright attacking her (only if there are other enemies around). Violating this ban will result in her dropping a Thunder Hammer on the violator. The "bug" version of her in Simulated Universe will punish all characters whenever a ban is violated. The bans are treated as debuffs, and will be cleared each time the afflicted character violates the ban; they can also be cleansed with the right skill. She can be prevented from counter-attacking if you inflict a crowd control debuff on her, or if you break her Toughness Gauge. There are 2 achievements related to this: one is when all of your characters violate her bans, and another is when you manage to not trigger her Counter-Attack for the whole battle.
• Disappears into Light: Fragmentum creations and anyone sufficiently contaminated by their influence disappear into particles of light upon death.
• Feathered Fiend: The [Element]spawn group of Fragmentum monsters (consisting of the Flamespawn, Frostspawn, Thunderspawn, and Windspawn) look and act like birds, and they attack your party members by flying directly into them. They will even let out an eagle's cry when killed in battle.
• Flunky Boss:
  • Frigid Prowler can summon Everwinter Shadewalkers to aid it. It can also "devour" one of said Shadewalkers in order to buff its ATK and empower its next Ice Wheel Fist move. However, if you manage to defeat all of the Shadewalkers before the Frigid Prowler could "devour" them, it will fail the attempt and get inflicted with -50% DEF debuff, and you can also get an Achievement for causing this to happen the first time. Its "bug" version in Simulated Universe can summon more Everwinter Shadewalkers, will devour all of them instead of just one (and gain more buffs afterward), and can use a powerful Area of Effect attack on the next turn.
  • Stormbringer's "bug" version in Simulated Universe can summon 4 Windspawns after its strongest attack.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: For all the danger that the Fragmentum poses on interstellar civilizations, it's an odd sight to see genuine Fragmentum monsters willingly participate in the Boulder Town Super League event to casually spar against your party in what amounts to a "friendly" competition rather than a war of life and death.
• The Heartless: Both Guardian Shadows and Decaying Shadows on Jarilo-VI are implied to be the manifestations of past Supreme Guardian's regret, hatred, sorrow, and other negative emotions that are given physical forms by the Fragmentum. From the Stagnant Shadow drops of these two elites, they're implied to be Svetlana and Alina Rand. The two most noticeable ones are Cyrille as a Guardian Shadow (who appears in the "Vessel of Mediocrity" sidequests) after being murdered by her own people over Stefan's schemes several hundreds of years prior, and Cocolia as a Decaying Shadow (who appears in Gepard and Serval's Companion Mission "Only A Child") following her death in the main story.
• Helpful Mook: Zig-zagged with Masks of No Thought. They're still hostile enough to attack you, but defeating them will cause them to replenish your party member's energy, allowing you to build up their Ultimates quickly.
• Hostile Terraforming: Fragmentums assimilate the surrounding data, destroy it, and then recreate their own versions, effectively transforming worlds.
• It Can Think: Some Fragmentums are capable of creating complex plans, like the Guardian Shadows.
• Magic Missile Storm: Decaying Shadow's strongest attack has her preparing herself for a turn, and on her next turn, she'll launch up to 9 golden magical projectiles onto your characters at random. Before said turn comes up, attacking her will reduce the amount of the projectiles launched by 1 each time, and breaking her Toughness Gauge will stop the attack entirely. There's an achievement you can get if you can deplete the number of projectiles (without triggering Weakness Break) before she can launch them; when this happens, she'll raise her staff as usual, only for her to shake her head in confusion as her projectiles are gone.
• Mundane Utility: In the "Lab Assistants in Position" event, Wen Shiling hypothesizes that the high temperature of Blaze Out of Space monsters can be used to extract liquid coffee and smelt metal.
• Status Buff:
  • Mask of No Thought can buff the ATK of all enemies.
  • Imaginary Weaver can give themselves a buff after using Reverberating Carol which grants Damage Reduction to non-Type Weakness attacks and increases the damage of their next attack.
  • Blaze Out of Space and Searing Prowler have moves that buff their ATK stat.
• Status Infliction Attack:
  • The attacks of Thunderspawn, Windspawn and Incineration Shadewalker can cause Shock, Wind Shear and Burn respectively.
  • Blaze Out of Space's attacks can inflict Enkindle, which is similar to Burn but with longer duration. Their "bug" version in Simulated Universe has an unique move that absorbs all of the Enkindle debuffs in the party to empower an AOE fire attack, increasing its DMG per Enkindle absorbed.
  • Ice Out of Space's attacks can freeze their targets. Their "bug" version in Simulated Universe has an unique move that specifically targets frozen units to deal big damage onto them and the adjacent units, and clears their frozen status.
  • Stormbringer's attacks have a chance of inflicting Wind Shear. Its strongest attack (aiming with an Energy Bow like Voidranger: Trampler) will also specifically target units affected by Wind Shear. However, if none of your units have Wind Shear on them before it can launch said attack, the attack will fail to come out - there's also an achievement for when you can manage to create this situation.
  • Frigid Prowler has an attack where it blows strong icy winds, causing Area of Effect ice damage that inflicts "Deep Freeze" onto your characters. This status reduces the afflicted's Ice RES and SPD stats.
  • Searing Prowler's attacks can inflict Burn on your characters. Its strongest attack can also deal more damage if it hits characters with Burn, or (for its Simulated Universe's "bug" version) deal extra Blast damage onto Burned characters.
  • Decaying and Guardian Shadows' attacks can cause Imprisonment and Shock respectively.
• Underground Monkey: Most of the Fragmentum monsters are Palette Swaps of enemies from other factions. For a few examples, the Everwinter/Incineration Shadewalkers are based off the Silvermane Soldiers, the Stormbringer is based off the Antimatter Legion's Trampler, and both the Frigid and Searing Prowlers are based off the Automaton Grizzlies and Direwolfs respectively. They even share similar movesets, albeit with some mechanical tweaks here and there to make them distinct. Justified in that the Fragmentum is known to bend reality and make echoes based on things that already exist.
• Unfinished Business: The Fragmentum assimilates data, especially strong desires and emotions. It is unclear whether immortal souls exist in this universe, but the occasional Living Memory will show up in a Fragmentum as a result of the unfulfilled desires of the original person. The Trailblazer sometimes gets tasked with putting them to rest.

Abominations of Abundance

Part of the Denizens of Abundance who wish to spread the blessings of Yaoshi to all other races in the galaxy... whether the latter wants it or not. The Xianzhou Alliance allied themselves with Lan the Hunt to hunt those abominations that threaten other worlds and prevent other races from attaining immortality.

In particular, there's also Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, a secret heretical sect in Xianzhou who wishes to continue worshipping Yaoshi (whom they call the "Merciful Medicus"), against the wishes of the rest of Xianzhou. They believe that becoming mara-stricken - a condition after a long-lived species has lived long enough that turns them into mutated monsters - is a way to embrace the original blessings of Yaoshi upon their ancestors.

Their ranks consist of:

Mara-Struck: Soldier and Warden

Disciples of Sanctus Medicus: Internal Alchemist, Ballistarius, Shape Shifter (elite), and the Ascended (elite)

Abundance Sprites: Golden Hound, Wooden Lupus and Shadow Jackhyena, and Malefic Ape (elite)

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• Achilles' Heel: Any character with Status-Buff Dispel such as Pela. Mara-struck Soldiers and Wardens, Shape Shifters, and Malefic Apes each have a dispellable buff (Rebirth, Maddening, Draining Hit, and a stacking damage buff respectively) which, if removed, make them significantly easier to deal with.
• Automatic Crossbow: The Ballistarius wields one that he uses to rapid-fire arrows at random targets.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Mara-struck Soldiers wield 2 arm-blades in combat.
• Blow You Away: The Ascended's attacks are Wind-type and can inflict Wind Shear on your characters.
• Body Horror: As shown by Banxia in Bailu's Companion Mission "Evanesce Like the Morning Dew", the process of mutating into a mara-struck monster isn't pretty and involves permanently fusing the host's body with the armor they wear, meaning they can never take it off. What makes it even worse in Banxia's case is that she's still self-aware about it when the process takes shape.
• Cast from Hit Points: The Shape Shifter burns a chunk of health to perform its Mara-Summon ability. This also gives them Draining Hit, healing them for every instance of damage they deal so long as the summoned Mara-struck Soldiers have Rebirth, which means its next turn follow-up of Thudding Calamity (a single-target attack that strikes multiple times) will heal them for the lost health and then some unless you either dispel the status or remove Rebirth from the Soldiers.
• Death-Activated Superpower:
  • Golden Hound is able to advance forward nearby enemies' actions after its death.
  • Internal Alchemists can inflict "Spur of Thunderwoe" onto your characters; when said Internal Alchemist dies, characters with said status will receive damage.
• Enemy Summoner: The Wooden Lupus can summon Shadow Jackhyenas onto the field. The latter will inherit the same HP as the former's current HP, and the latter has weaker Toughness Gauge than the former.
• Fate Worse than Death: Becoming mara-struck is consistently regarded as this across the Xianzhou. Unlike straight-up dying, mara sickness involves becoming an insane, super-strong monster that experiences incredible suffering and is an active danger to everyone around them.
• Flower Motifs: Ginkgo trees, which symbolize longevity and vitality in multiple countries, including China and Japan.
• Flunky Boss: The Shape Shifter can summon Mara-struck Soldiers to aid him. While the Soldiers still have the Rebirth buff, the Shape Shifter gains the ability to heal themselves by attacking.
• The Heretic: While most of the Mara-Stricken are unwillingly mutated, the more powerful ones are part of the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, a heretical group within the Xianzhou who revere Yaoshi.
• It Can Think: Turns out the mara-stricken still retain their sentience in spite of their aggression, and frequently speak during battle.
• Killer Gorilla: The Malefic Ape is a huge and strong blue gorilla-like creature that was once created as Xianzhou's war beast.
• Light Is Not Good: The Mara-struck Soldier and Disciples of Sanctus Medicus enemies are covered in bright golden ginkgo leaves, but they are very hostile to everyone.
• Maximum HP Reduction: The Ascended can inflict "Prana-Siphon" onto all your characters, causing 30% of their HP to be "blocked" for 2 turns.
• Meaningful Name: The "mara" in the name likely comes from the Buddhist demon of the same name, who is also associated with death and rebirth. The Mara-Struck Soldiers, at least, come back to life with half-health after being killed once in battle.
• My Skull Runneth Over: An in-universe theory suggests that this is the root cause of mara. Due to long-life species' immortality, their brains eventually run out of space for memories. This leaves only the most vivid and extreme memories, which tend to be memories of intense negative emotion that precipitate the transformation into a mara-struck.
• Ornamental Weapon: The Shape Shifter wields a shield like Silvermane Lieutenant, but they never use it to defend themselves.
• Savage Wolves: The Golden Hound and Wooden Lupus (and Shadow Jackhyena) are creations of old Xianzhou and were meant to be war beasts.
• Shockwave Stomp: the Shape Shifter has an attack where they jump and land onto your characters, dealing Blast damage.
• Underground Monkey: The Mara-struck Wardens are a variant of the Ten-Lords Commission's personnel, the Wraith Warden. The latter is slightly weaker than the former, but their attacks can inflict the unique "Reverberation" debuff; it does nothing on its own, but if your character with the debuff takes a hit from any attack, they will become stunned, delaying their turn significantly.
• Unskilled, but Strong: The Malefic Ape is best summed up this way. Its only attack is a single-target attack (a powerful Ground Punch), and the way it always targets whoever last used their Skill makes it predictable, but it will buff itself before attacking up to 3 times before it gets exhausted, so anyone that becomes its target must be prepared to tank the massive damage its attack does. Its "bug" version in Simulated Universe is stronger in that it gains its attack buff each time your characters perform Skills and is no longer dispelable, and it now has a Super-Scream attack that hits the whole party, but the way it works now is more manageable: it now only does the Ground Punch attack once per "Wrathful Roar" activation (normally 3 times), and the attack (and the attack buff) will be canceled entirely if it suffers from Weakness Break.

Abundant Ebon Deer

A creation of the Ambrosial Arbor, made after the latter was revived using a Stellaron, in order to guard its roots. In the story, the Astral Express crew has to fight it to stop the Arbor's overgrowth in the Artisanship Commission.

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• Achilles' Heel: As the boss of the Simulated Universe's World 7, Remembrance is bar none the best path to use against it. With its ability to spawn in highly disruptive saplings and eventually gaining three actions per turn in its final phase, it really doesn't like getting frozen and denied the ability to act, which Remembrance happens to revolve around. Having an Ice weakness further inventivizes trying to chain freeze it. It says something that Herta, who has been largely dismissed as a weak unit for endgame bosses, is considered one of the better options for the Ebon Deer because of how easily she can set up mass freezes against it.
• Blow You Away: One of its attacks is a Horn Attack that deals AOE Wind damage.
• Counter-Attack: One of its Plant Mooks can strike back if you attack it.
• Green Thumb: With the power of Abundance, it can create various Plant Mooks out of the ground.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: the first time our heroes fight it, it heals itself every turn by absorbing energy from Ambrosial Arbor. After they retreat and find a way to cut off its connection to the Arbor, they can finally defeat the creature. It can still occasionally heal itself the same way in the second battle, but the healing is now relatively weaker.
• Mook Medic: One of its Plant Mooks can heal others based on a percentage of its HP.
• Power-Up Food: In its later phases, it can create a special plant whose purpose is to grow fruit each turn. If it manages to grow 2, the Ebon Deer will consume them to fuel its strongest attack (an AOE lightning strike that can deal massive damage).
• Shock and Awe: It can summon lightning strikes onto your characters, one at a time.
• Status Buff:
  • One of its Plant Mooks can buff the Ebon Deer's ATK.
  • In its later phases, it can occasionally buff its DEF and block its Toughness Gauge from depleting for 2 turns.
• Status Infliction Attack: one of its Plant Mooks can inflict a special debuff that makes one of your characters uncontrollable and be forced to use their basic attack onto a random enemy for a few turns.

The Swarm

The spawn of the Aeon of Propagation, the Swarm is composed of insect-like alien creatures that mindlessly propagate throughout the universe, consuming everything in their path. Though their Aeon is dead, their presence is still felt.

They consist of: Juvenile Sting, Lesser Sting, Gnaw Sting, and True Sting (boss).

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• Action Bomb: The Lesser Sting's primary purpose is to explode on your characters' face after a turn, dealing Blast damage with a chance of inflicting Outrage status (like one of Abundant Ebon Deer's plants' effect).
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: All of the Swarm creatures are big bugs that are at least as big as a full-grown person.
• Combination Attack: True Sting's strongest attack has it prepare for a turn, and when its next turn comes, it and all the other Sting mooks will attack your characters simultaneously, dealing heavy AOE damage. This attack can be stopped by breaking its Toughness Gauge, and you can also reduce its damage by killing the Sting mooks around it. There's an achievement you can get when it uses this attack after all of the Sting mooks are killed, averting the trope and reducing the damage to a minimum.
• Enemy Summoner: As befitting the path of Propagation, this is their entire schtick. Juvenile Stings will split off full-health copies of themselves every few turns, and True Stings can summon multiple Juvenile and Lesser Stings at once or even another True Sting. Combined with their massive defenses in higher difficulties of Swarm Disaster, it can quickly become difficult to kill enemies at a rate faster than they can summon new enemies. To mitigate this, Swarm enemies explode when they are killed, damaging the rest of the enemies and making it easier to finish them off.
• Explosive Breeder: Of the non-sexual variety; what makes them truly dangerous is the ability to propagate themself purely through mitosis. This reflects in-game, as even weak members of the Swarm will reproduce themselves endlessly if not dealt with or staggered quickly enough.
• Flunky Boss: Befitting the theme of the Swarm, True Sting can spawn Sting mooks out of its body. In its third phase, it can even split into two True Stings. There's an achievement you can get if you can defeat the 2 True Stings at the same time.
• Horde of Alien Locusts: They're a swarm of insect-like alien creatures that only think of devouring and reproducing.
• Lightning Bruiser: They're fast enough to almost always get their turns before your characters could; if your characters are slow enough, some of them may even get a second turn. They also have tough Toughness Gauge; you need to use 3 basic attacks to break a Juvenile Sting's gauge, and 4 for the Lesser Sting, when most mooks need only 2 basic attacks to Weakness Break them; they also have more HP than most common mooks. Their attacks may look weak at first, but with how fast they are, the damage can become substantial as they add up, especially with how Wind Shear can stack.
• Sand Worm: While not appearing in-game, a narration of the Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster game mode describes amongst the forces of the Swarm a gigantic worm with metallic teeth.
• Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: If any of the Swarm enemies get killed in battle, they'll release an explosion that damages all other enemies on the field and inflict Vulnerability on them. The explosion deals substantial damage, enough to possibly start a chain of explosions among all Swarm enemies if you've been thorough enough on depleting their HP. There's also an achievement for defeating True Sting with the explosion of the spawned Sting mooks.
• Spin Attack: True Sting has an attack where it spins its whole body once, dealing damage in an AOE.
• Status Infliction Attack: Juvenile Sting and True Sting's attacks can inflict Wind Shear on your characters. Also, one of True Sting's attacks can cause Wind Shear to tick once on your character if they're afflicted by it, dealing additional damage.

Starcrusher Swarm King: Skaracabaz

An Emanator of Propagation personally bred by Tayzzyronth, a gigantic insect capable of destroying celestial bodies to be used as incubators for new Swarm offspring. The real Skaracabaz had long died, but a 'Synthetic' version breaks free in the Seclusion Zone of Herta Space Station, later able to be refought as an Echo of War.

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• Back from the Dead: As part of Ruan Mei's research on Emanators, Skaracabaz was cloned for study.
• Breath Weapon: It can fire a stream of quanta death ray from its mouth, dealing Blast damage to your characters.
• Clone Degeneration: The synthetic version of it can only exist for 56 seconds due to its unstable existence. Ruan Mei had calculated this outcome and considered it a failed experiment.
• Energy Ball: Its strongest attack in the 2nd phase is to prepare for a turn while it creates a forcefield carapace. In its next turn, it will create a gigantic quantum sphere and slam it down onto all your characters, dealing massive AOE damage.
• Flunky Boss: To a greater extent than True Sting. Aside from an Entanglement-inflicting attack that also spawns a Gnaw Sting at the same time, it has a move where it creates a forcefield carapace that reduces damage taken against it and make it spawn either Gnaw Sting or Lesser Sting whenever it takes a hit. To compensate for this, when it gets Weakness Broken while this carapace is active, it will release an explosion that damages the HP and depletes Toughness Gauge of all of its spawns, and inflict a Damage-Increasing Debuff on them.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The battle with Skaracabaz lasts much longer in gameplay than the 56 seconds the clone can supposedly exist for.
• King Mook: To the Sting mooks, especially the Gnaw Sting that is also introduced alongside it in the same version.
• Star Killing: According to its Flavor Text, it can fire death rays that can destroy entire stars.

Trotters

Pig-like interdimensional creatures known for getting lost in various places, travelers who encounter these creatures see them as good omens.

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• Armored But Frail: The Trotter of Preservation puts up a shield that blocks numerous hits, but once the shield is broken, their HP and defenses are quite poor and can be defeated quickly.
• Cowardly Mooks: when they spot you on the map, instead of attacking, they'll attempt to run away, and then jump into a dimensional hole after they run for long enough. If you get to attack it, it'll spend its time cowering and attempting to escape; if you can't defeat it after a few turns, it'll jump into a dimensional hole.
• Metal Slime: Their entire schtick: they're semi-uncommon enemies that are somewhat difficult to kill, run away in three turns, and give extra rewards if defeated. The rewards vary from Stellar Jades (if found in the overworld), to extra items and Credits (if randomly spawned in an overworld fight), to extra Blessings (in the Simulated Universe), or buffs to allies or debuffs or damage to all enemies (in the Forgotten Hall).
• Stealth Pun: Trotters are pig-like creatures who hold treasures. They're "piggy banks", and they're outright called "Interdimensional Piggy Banks" in the Russian translation.
• Superpowered Mooks: There are variants of Trotters in Simulated Universe with the power of Paths: Trotter of Abundance can sacrifice its HP to heal other enemies around it, Trotter of Preservation puts up shields on all enemies that have to be broken first by your attacks before you can damage any of them, and Trotter of Destruction can perform a Counter-Attack that hits all of your characters if you attack any enemy.
• Visual Calculus: In battle, when they get into the phase where their Toughness Gauge gets blocked and they gain absolute Effect RES (a sign that they will flee in the next turn), they start "murmuring" mathematical equations out loud; if you squint, one of them is the formula of Schwarzschild Radius.

Trailblazer's Aether Spirit Trotter

In the beginning of Aetherium Wars event, the Trailblazer and March 7th bump into Eric, who found a certain Aether Coin, and 2 IPC grunts threatening him to give the coin to them. After our protagonists beat the grunts, Eric decides to give the coin to you, which contains a rare Aether Spirit: a Trotter. Unlike other Aether Spirits who are merely copies of existing enemies and can only obey commands, this Trotter behaves as if it's wholly alive. It becomes the Traiblazer's primary Aether Spirit for the event.

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• Boring, but Practical: Its abilities aren't too fancy but it's also the most reliable healer of the Aether Spirits.
• Composite Character: its Basic Attack is an AOE attack like Trotter of Destruction, while its Skill is a whole party heal like Trotter of Abundance. Its Ultimate is a Super Mode that adds the property of its skill into its basic attack, in addition to buffing all allies' damage output for 20% for a turn.
• Flawed Prototype: Most Aether Spirits mindlessly obey orders. Why does this one have an actual personality? It was one of the IPC's earlier models and had a production flaw, in that they replicated the original creature's personality instead of filtering it out. Asta thought that was cool and kept the glitched creation as a collector's model.
• Healer Signs On Early: It's the first Aether Spirit the player obtains, and it has healing capabilities that encourage the player to keep it on their team.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Played with in that you have to choose one name out of 10 predetermined names. They can range from cute-sounding names like "Puffball" or "Bubbles", to bombastic names like "Trotterlord", to hilariously generic ones like "Warp Trotter" or just "Trotter".
• The Reveal: the event organizer, Wilder, later reveals that this Aether Spirit was part of Asta's collection, and that its "lifelike quality" is because of an anomaly that occurred when uploading its data during its creation; somehow, its data was uploaded completely instead of selectively, hence how it acts life-like and almost sentient.
• Starter Mon: it becomes the first Aether Spirit that you acquire in the event's story, and it'll be a major focus of the story as the Traiblazer's Signature Mon.
• Status Buff: its Talent is to increase the ATK of other party members for a turn after it takes a hit.
• Support Party Member: The Trotter's damage potential is middling at best but its skillset makes it a powerful party-wide buffer and healer; its Talent and Ultimate can improve the team's firepower while keeping your team topped off.
• Weak, but Skilled: The Trotter has rather mediocre stats and basic abilities, but it makes up for it by being the only Aether Spirit to get four chip slots (the maximum possible), making its utility extremely flexible. It is also the only Spirit who can use the Trotter Patch Chip, which boosts its HP and ATK by a hefty 35%.

Other

Void Archives

Void Archives

The very same being that originally appeared in Honkai Impact 3rd. He is a Divine Key, a powerful weapon from a lost civilization, storing all its knowledge, and capable of mimicking the powers of the other Keys. Gaining sentience, he stole a human body, and became an ally of Welt Yang. Together, they traveled to this universe and encountered Himeko on the planet Salsotto. His current whereabouts are unknown.

For tropes specific to him before the start of Honkai: Star Rail, see here.

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• The Ghost: He traveled to this universe alongside Welt, and the pair continued to travel together for some time. He seems to have been present on Salsotto, when Himeko invited Welt to join the Astral Express but hasn't been mentioned since then. What happened and where he went remains unclear, as the younger members of the crew like March 7th seem to have never met him.
• Identical Stranger: The Void Archives used one of the spare bodies of his former user Otto Apocalypse to gain a physical form, and therefore would be identical to Otto's counterpart in this universe. The traveling merchant known as "Luocha" is also identical to the Void Archives, a fact that Welt keeps close to his chest upon seeing a photo of Luocha.

The Unshackled

A group of Yaoshi followers who travel the universe to "unshackle" various forms of life by setting them free into the wild. They are featured in the sidequest "Bestial Ferocity".

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• Animal Wrongs Group: They believe they are doing good in the name of Abundance by releasing various flora and fauna into the ecosystems of planets and world-ships they visit. Not only is this causing a headache for the Realm-Keeping Commission who has to deal with the potentially invasive species that they release, they soon find out that each of them prefers releasing different types of organisms who just so happen to prey on each other, wasting their own efforts. The Trailblazer is unwillingly roped into their schemes after killing some Abominations of Abundance that Tonya released, with the backing of the Realm-Keeping Commission hoping they can dismantle the group from the inside.
• Breaking the Fellowship: After Zhongshan's plan gets all of the main members arrested by the Luofu's Realm Keeping Commission, it's revealed in Zhongshan's letter that all of the members went their separate ways, with only a few of the more harmless members remaining behind on the Luofu.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • They're nothing but a source of ridicule in their sidequest, and it doesn't help that a Masked Fool makes it her personal mission to keep trolling them for the sake of a few laughs.
  • Nannan is considered this by the rest of the group, since he desires to release the microorganisms in water into the wild. The other three Benevolent Ones think that this is such a stupid endeavor that they kicked him out of their group and continually belittle and insult him. Consequently, he is the only one to escape punishment when the plan to release automatons into the wild backfires spectacularly.
• Didn't Think This Through: Their attempts to carry out their work on the Luofu consistently end in disaster. They keep trying to release endangered plants and animals back into the wild but make the mistake of releasing them in the same place. Naturally, the endangered herbivores start eating the endangered plants, only in turn to be eaten by the endangered carnivores who subsequently starve when their food suppy runs out.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Nannan "unshackles" bottles of drinking water, supposedly to release microbes. The others think he isn't taking it seriously, but his actions are harmless enough to make him the only member of the immediate group to not be arrested. Eventually, his faction of the Unshackled invest in ecological farming with domestic wastewater, making his faction the only one authorities start to appreciate.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Zhongshan's letter states that this is how she viewed the Unshackled. She considered them to be pompous, arrogant people with an inflated sense of self worth who used their devotion to Yaoshi as an excuse to flaunt their moral superiority over others, which is why she was motivated to take them down a peg or two by "unshackling" them instead.
• Take That!: They're quite obviously a jab at well-meaning but incompetent environmentalists who want to do their part to help the environment but don't know how to do so in any constructive or meaningful way.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: They try to unshackle as many living things as possible in the name of serving Yaoshi and the Path of Abundance, who values all life. Of course, they're doing things wrong.

Hakuhatsu Ki

Hakuhatsu Ki

Voiced by: Qin Qiege (Chinese), Satoshi Hino (Japanese), Yoon Yong-sik (Korean), Sean Lynch (English)

A mysterious figure from Acheron's past.

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• Alternate Self: Implied to be this universe's version of Kevin Kaslana, with his moniker meaning "White-haired Oni" (Kevin has white hair and a demonic form with horns), sharing the same Chinese and Japanese actors and a tragic history involving a world destroyed through a lengthy conflict with a corruptive force. The 12 Sentinels he discusses with Acheron similarly echo the Divine Keys and Herrschers of Kevin's past, while his sword, named "End", is represented by a flaming sword similar to Kevin's iconic weapon, and also referencing Kevin taking on the partial authority of Finality.
• Posthumous Character: Acheron confirms with Welt that she killed him.
• The Voice: The "Kyoden: A Cleave Across the Transient World" animation centers on him repeatedly questioning the woman that would become Acheron, but he is never shown.