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Xianzhou Luofu

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One of six (originally nine) ships under the Xianzhou Alliance, a spacefaring people comprised of three races (Humans, Foxians and Vidyadharas) who worship Lan, Aeon of the Hunt, and seek to destroy Yaoshi, the Aeon of Abundance, in revenge for granting them cursed longevity. Its citizens are under threat of a growing Mara pandemic caused by a recent Stellaron burst within the ship, as well as the re-emergence of a cult that worships Yaoshi and seeks to undermine the Luofu.
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In General

  • The Ageless: Xianzhou natives never age once they reach a certain age, but they can still die from outside factors, or in the Foxians' case, natural causes once they've reached the end of their 300-year lifespans, as revealed by Sushang when she explains each race's funeral rituals to Luocha during the related Trailblaze Mission.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: 8,000 years ago, an emperor of a long-forgotten civilization wanted to achieve immortality. He established the ships that make up the Xianzhou Alliance to search for it. Eventually, they encountered Yaoshi, who granted the immortality they sought... but at a price. At some point in their lifespan, the people become Mara-stricken and transform into monsters.
  • Bigger on the Inside: On the outside, the Xianzhou ships look far from world-sized, but they use Aeon-powered space-folding technology to create interiors far bigger than the ships' sizes would imply. Each separate "cabin" on the ship is called a "delve," each of which hold things like entire commercial districts and vast prairies.
  • Blessed with Suck: While the denizens of the Alliance have longer lifespans, it comes with the unfortunate side-effect of becoming Mara-stricken monsters at some point in their lives. Furthermore, according to Dan Shu, despite medicine having advanced enough to do things like cure blindness, these procedures simply don't work on the Xianzhou residents. Instead, their afflictions come back after a short period of time.
  • Brain Uploading: When a Xianzhou resident passes away, their consciousness is digitized and stored in a massive databank in the Hall of Karma. Under special circumstances, the deceased can be temporarily resurrected using this digital copy of their mind, though this process is strictly regulated.
  • Breaking the Fellowship: The High-Cloud Quintet was a legendary group of heroes on the Luofu consisting of Jing Yuan, Dan Feng, Jingliu, Yingxing, and Baiheng. However, when Baiheng died, the Quintet almost immediately fell apart. Dan Feng and Yingxing carried out a dangerous and forbidden experiment to resurrect Baiheng which failed horribly, resulting in Dan Feng undergoing forced molting rebirth into Dan Heng and Yingxing being turned into the immortal Blade. Jingliu eventually became Mara-struck not long after and fled the Alliance, which leaves Jing Yuan the sole remaining member of the Quintet who hasn't died or been disgraced.
  • Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Due to their technology working off of a slightly different basis than those from other places, the Xianzhou people tend to give fancy names to their technology, even if they aren't that functionally different from those from elsewhere. For example, they call their mobile phones "jade abacuses", electronic displays "Foursquare Mirrors," mobile games "sympathetic immersia," and virtual reality "Butterfly Immersia" (and in the latter case, one person you talk to is very insistent that the two are different, saying Butterfly Immersia is art). Naturally, the Trailblazer has a lot of "oh, it's just an X" reactions to these technologies.
  • Dying Race: Dan Feng's Start of Darkness began when he realized that the Vidhyadhara were doomed to become extinct in the long run — They are incapable of reproducing naturally, instead they're "born" by reincarnating from their past lives. However, they can still be killed for good if their deaths aren't through natural causes, which means their population has been slowly declining over time. He began his experiments hoping to find a way to make the Vidhyadhara fertile again and save their race.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Xianzhou Alliance is very clearly space Imperial China, with the development team even explaining that they took inspiration from Huizhou architecture for the buildings. Furthermore, the origins of the Xianzhou Alliance in an expedition launched on behalf of an immortality-seeking emperor brings to mind another, similar expedition established by Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of a united China.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Many Xianzhou natives consider succumbing to Mara sickness this, and would rather be mortals so they can experience real death rather than live with the knowledge they will inevitably lose their sanity and transform into mutated monsters that will attack their loved ones on sight.
  • Fiction As Coverup: The Ten-Lords Commission is secretive in general, and when the heliobi break loose, they have extra incentive to keep the recapture operation a secret because they do not want the heliobi to use their Emotion Eater abilities on the resulting panic. Thus, they reluctantly recruit Guinaifen, a renowned streamer, to "debunk" the heliobi sightings with alternative fictional explanations. Funnily enough, the one post that honestly admits a heliobus was involved is the one that receives the most criticism and skepticism.
  • Final Solution: The Xianzhou Alliance joined Lan in hunting Yaoshi across the galaxy, purging planets of her creations and followers wherever they find them. The amount of collateral damage the Hunt causes seems to be irrelevant as long as all trace of the Abundance in the galaxy is gone.
  • Foreign Queasine: The Xianzhou Alliance has a signature product called mung bean soda (a fictionalized take on douzhi), a drink made from fermented mung beans and known for its repulsive odor. It's known to be an acquired taste and many jokes are made regarding its flavor.
  • Fox Folk: The Foxians are humanoid with Little Bit Beastly traits, namely a fox tail and ears.
  • Harmless Villain: The Unshackled are a minor cult of Yaoshi worshipers. Most of them are not actively dangerous, so their presence is tolerated, but many of them make public nuisances of themselves, by, for example "unshackling" invasive species where they do not belong or "unshackling" stories that confuse emergency services into wasting resources on wild goose chases. Law enforcement actually thanks the Trailblazer when they accidentally trap some of them with sufficiently serious crimes to put them away for a while.
  • High Turn Over Rate: Only short by their immortal standards at least. It's noted in Jing Yuan's second Character Story that while most of the races of the Xianzhou Alliance are Long-Lived, most military officers don't even last a century due to the inherent dangers of their positions. Jing Yuan managing to survive in the position for over 700 years is given as a testament to his great combat prowess and keen intellect.
  • Human Subspecies: The "Xianzhou native" humans are called Homo celestinae by some texts in-game.
  • Hypocrite: Despite their hatred of Yaoshi and believing all their "gifts" to be a curse, the Xianzhou have no qualms using and refining their starskiff-growing technology that was developed by studying the Ambrosial Arbor. What's more, it's just one of many such technologies that were mostly lost when Lan destroyed the Arbor, meaning that they had to have explicitly conserved it when they had a chance to start with a clean slate.
  • Immortality Begins at Twenty: With the exception of the Vidyadhara, who have Born-Again Immortality, every other Xianzhou citizen from the humans to the Foxians stop physically aging past a certain point in their lives, which explains why there's a lack of senior citizens onboard. Some, however, have bodies of children and yet are described as working adults, such as the owner of Sleepless Earl teahouse or the "Short Auntie" in Aurum Alley.
  • Immortality Immorality: Due to the widespread chaos the Alliance experienced after attaining the Ambrosial Arbor, the civilization now outlaws seeking immortality and have made it their purpose to eliminate all traces of Yaoshi from the universe.
  • Immortality Seeker: As explained in History of the Xianzhou: Seven Arbiter-Generals this was the original purpose of the Xianzhou Alliance, though presently they have have since flipped their purpose and now seek instead to eliminate all chances to gain immortality. That said, there is an illegal cult within the Luofu, the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, which continues to adhere to the Alliance's long-abandoned goal. Additionally, plenty of people across the universe come to the Xianzhou to discover how their immortality works, either not realizing or not caring that the locals loathe their immortality.
  • Immortal Procreation Clause: The rules vary by which race, but the ones that don't have this problem are forbidden from leaving alliance territory to avoid disrupting outside ecosystems.
  • Judgment Of The Dead: The Ten-Lords Commission is styled after "netherworld judges." It's said that, in the absence of death, they have to "become" death; their job, aside from judging criminals and sending them to prison, is to capture (would-be) mara-struck people and send their consciousness into the Hall of Karma so they can rest without having to suffer in uncontrollable bodies.
  • Long-Lived: Xianzhou natives are this regardless of their species. Humans live for hundreds of years (Jing Yuan, for example, is over 700 years old), Foxians (who are considered short-lived in Xianzhou) tend to live for 300 years, and Vidyadharas are self-reincarnating.
  • No Such Agency: Officially, the Ten-Lords Commission (among the six Commissions) does not exist in the Xianzhou Luofu's records, and they usually operate in secret. Only high-ranking officials and Cloud Knights are aware of their existence and activity.
  • Society of Immortals: They're more The Ageless, but all the trappings (detriments included) in such a society apply: overpopulation, deficit of supplies, and many other related issues. They also have warped sense of time; a decade to short-life species is considered a short time by Xianzhou natives. Those among them who wishes to live out of Xianzhou are also regulated heavily due to Immortal Procreation Clause, not allowed to procreate with short-life speciesnote .
  • Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Technology: Their technology is intentionally designed to look primitive while actually being extremely advanced. For example, one woman uses what looks like a bow as her weapon, but the pulling of the string is just for show, the arrows are actually self-guided and auto-aiming. Their starskiffs are another example, which look like boats from ancient times but are actually advanced Organic Technology that can fly at high speeds. Another visitor explains that they consider this a form of humility.
  • Time Dissonance:
    • Side conversations reveal that Xianzhou natives have a skewed sense of "history" due to how long their lifespans are. For short-life species, spans of hundreds or thousands of years could be considered ancient history. But the long-lived people of the Luofu can talk about what happened as though they were talking about the weather yesterday. While exploring the Luofu, you run into two doctors trying to determine how a Cloud Knight's mara symptoms are progressing so quickly when he's "barely over two hundred".
    • In another sidequest, a Cloud Knight offers to help you with paperwork, noting that he's spent 150 years working behind a desk, so he can perform transcriptions in his sleep.
    • A memory of Imbibitor Lunae shows him telling Yingxing that he only has two hours to study the roots of the Ambrosial Arbor, but wonders if such a short amount of time will be enough. Yingxing, a short-life species, scoffs in return, as two hours is a long time to someone whose life can't be measured in centuries or millennia.
    • Master Gongshu says that this is why Xianzhou's robots (including their cycrane delivery drones) tend to have unique designs: short-life species tend to think about practicality first when designing machines, while to the long-life species, designs that are to-the-point would become dull in their eyes, so they give their machines intricate designs to give them "life" and to make them appealing.
    • A foreign anthropologist encounters significant difficulties studying the material culture of the Xianzhou Alliance because to long-life species, a 700-year-old vase is just another vase for daily use or to be thrown away, not an ancient item of historical significance.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: While they don't literally live forever, the Xianzhou despise their longevity due to the negative side-effects that come with it. They wish to kill the Abundance in retribution for what had been done to them. Also in general, they believe that a long life is meaningless without spark of passion or motivation, and that the longer they live, the duller they become to emotional stimuli.
  • We Used to Be Friends: The High-Cloud Quintet used to be close friends. Nowadays, three of them have murderous grudges with each other. As far as Jingliu is concerned, Dan Feng and Yingxing's failed attempt to bring Baiheng Back from the Dead was an unforgivable insult to Baiheng's honor. For this, she tortured Yingxing into further insanity and prays for Dan Feng's reincarnation to suffer regret until he dies for good in a well-deserved Karmic Death. Yingxing, now the Stellaron Hunter Blade, hates Jingliu for the aforementioned torture and hates Dan Feng's reincarnation Dan Heng for accidentally cursing him during the aforementioned attempt.
  • We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: Xianzhou developed the tech needed to automate lots of stuff long ago, but intentionally leave many jobs to manual labor to give themselves something to do.
  • Written by the Winners: The Disciples of Sanctus Medicus and other like-minded followers of Yaoshi accuse the Xianzhou government of this. It's true that the immortality Yaoshi granted came with terrible side-effects, chief among them Mara; it's also true that said immortality also came with various societal ills, such as population explosion from defying the Immortal Procreation Clause or the unhealthy interest other societies have had in that unwanted immortality ever since. However, it's not as fair to fault Yaoshi for all of them. It's one thing to hold Yaoshi responsible for making the people's birth defects and disabilities permanent for their entire lives, but not so much for any discrimination such people receive from their fellows. Besides this, if the Xianzhou really claim nothing good could come of the Abundance, then it's awfully hypocritical to continue using and even refining technology derived from the Ambrosial Arbor, such as the starskiff-growing technology they explicitly conserved following Lan's destruction of the Arbor. Of course, while Yaoshi's own culpability in the woes of the Xianzhou may be debatable, fanatics of the Abundance such as the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus and the Denizens of Abundance do continue to commit atrocities against the Xianzhou in their Aeon's name, which doesn't exactly help their image any.

The Vidyadharas

  • Born-Again Immortality: Sushang explains that when a Vidyadhara reaches the end of their lifespan, they revert into a pearl-like egg from which they hatch.
  • Draconic Humanoid: As descendants of the draconic Long the Permanence, Vidyadharas could turn into dragons, though according to Dan Heng this is only granted to the few who complete numerous rites and challenges, such as Bailu and Imbibitor Lunae. Otherwise, they just have Pointy Ears to indicate their Demihuman blood.
  • Dragon Ancestry: The Vidyadharas are descendants of the Long, the draconic Aeon of Permanence.
  • Dying Race: Though the Vidyadhara can reincarnate, this only happens if they die of natural causes. If they are killed by some kind of external force then they are Killed Off for Real. In addition, Vidyadhara cannot reproduce naturally. All of the Vidyadhara were created by an Aeon who disappeared long ago under unclear circumstances. Dan Feng attempted some alchemy experiments for Creating Life and was partially successful, but the last experiment he was able to make resulted in an abomination, killing many. While some saw the potential of his experiments, the Vidyadhara as a whole are too fearful to try them again and they also ran into political problems. As a result, the Vidyadhara as a race have been slowly but steadily declining over the millennia and are eventually doomed to extinction if nothing is done about it.
  • Living Memory: When Vidyadhara go through their rebirth process, they leave behind what are called Mirage Echoes, masses of water containing their lost memories. Mirage echoes can replay the past and occasionally even function equivalently to the ghost of a Vidyadhara's past self.
  • Pointy Ears: All Vidyadhara have these. For most Vidyadhara, it's the only way to distinguish them from humans.
  • Reincarnation Romance: Deconstructed with the Vidyadhara's Born-Again Immortality. While they are the race that suffers the most from the Immortal Procreation Clause, they are still capable of romance. A lot of people need excitement in their romance, which is a huge problem when you are Long-Lived.
    • One Vidyadhara woman with an unusually short rebirth cycle has left behind lots of lovers that she dodges, because she forgets her previous loves upon rebirth and wants a fresh start every time.
    • A Vidyadhara man named Cong somehow always stumbles upon the same woman (who isn't a Vidyadhara) in each rebirth cycle and falls in love with her each time. She had a great time getting to know him with a different skillset in each life, but now she's tired of him, so she turns down his latest confession. She would theoretically be willing to accept someone fresh and exciting, but she's also tired of romance in general, making her standards too high, so it's unlikely she will be having any future romances.
  • Semi-Divine: The Vidyadharas are descendants of the Aeon Long the Permanence, and are also referred to as Long's Scions.
  • Succession Crisis: Due to the previous Imbibitor Lunae breaking the established chain of succession for the position of High Elder, the exact nature of Vidyadhara leadership has been left in a grey zone since his removal. The position is nominally held by Bailu due to her being personally chosen by Dan Feng as his successor, but the Preceptors don't consider her legitimate, and commonly clash with the Alchemy Commission to introduce their successor of choice.

Cloud Knights

    Jing Yuan 

Jing Yuan

Introduced: May 17, 2023 (v1.0 "The Rail Unto the Stars" [second half])
Voiced by: Sun Ye (Chinese), Daisuke Ono (Japanese), Ryu Seung-gon (Korean), Alejandro Saab (English)
Young Jing Yuan voiced by: Zhong Ke (Chinese), Yuka Matsumi (Japanese), Kim Ye-rim (Korean), Brenna Larsen (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jing_yuan_4.png
Click to see his full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Erudition
Type: Lightning

One of the seven Arbiter-Generals of the Cloud Knights, and one of the Six Charioteers of the Xianzhou Luofu. Despite his seeming relaxed attitude, Jing Yuan, one of the oldest people in the fleet, is renowned for his wisdom and meticulousness, but also ruthlessness against all who dare disturb the peace.

Jing Yuan swiftly eliminates all threats with his glaive and the Lightning-Lord, a giant of light bestowed to his service by Lan, which through his Talent, Prana Extirpated, periodically thrusts its lance on a random foe and those adjacent to them, whose hits increase from three to as high as ten with his multi-target attacks—two with his Skill, Rifting Zenith, a side-sweeping slash, and three with his Ultimate, Lightbringer, where he strikes in tandem with the Lightning-Lord—in addition to three with his Technique, Spirit Invocation.note 
  • Achilles' Heel: Crowd-control debuffs are highly crippling to him, because by extension it also cripples the Lightning-Lord.
  • Actor Allusion:
    • In the Japanese dub, Daisuke Ono has also voiced Jotaro Kujo, one of the protagonists of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series, whose main fighters specialize in summoning Fighting Spirits called Stands, much like how Jing Yuan fights alongside the Lightning-Lord.
    • In English, Alejandro Saab has also voiced Cyno from fellow miHoYo RPG Genshin Impact, being spear-wielding military officers with white hair that covers one eye and associated with lightning.
  • Added Alliterative Appeal: All of Jing Yuan's Eidolon Resonance names (at least in English) use words that start with "S." Every one of them is a minor Badass Boast too.
  • Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring his Eidolons, you can upgrade his third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Strike, Suns Subdued and Stride, Spoils Seized, which will add two levels to his Ultimate and 1 to Basic Attack (Glistening Light) with the former, and 2 to his Skill and Talent with the latter.
  • Animal Motifs: Lions, as evidenced by his white pet lion on his official artwork, his lion's-head pauldrons, his long white hair resembling a lion's mane, and alternating between being a courageous general on the field and his sedentary lifestyle off of it.
  • Authority Sounds Deep: In his English portrayal (in courtesy of Alejandro Saab), he's given a deeper voice that gives off a relaxed, but still authoritative feel to his manner of speaking that becomes more commanding when serious.
  • Baritone of Strength: In all dubs except Chinese, Jing Yuan has a suitably deep voice to emphasize his strength.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: While he is a relaxed, easygoing person, Jing Yuan is among the most powerful people on the Xianzhou Luofu in terms of military and diplomatic strength. He also takes threats to the Luofu seriously, and will work tirelessly to stamp them out, as shown when he angrily declares to Phantylia that her actions constitute an act of war against Lan (on Nanook's behalf) that will be responded to accordingly.
  • Big Damn Heroes: In the climax to Dan Heng's Companion Mission, after he, the Trailblazer, and Bailu confront traitors out to kill the latter, Jing Yuan brazenly announces himself as the trio's reinforcement, entering the battlefield siccing the Lightning-Lord on the enemy even when he's supposed to be recovering from injuries during his battle with Phantylia. It's notable that he also appears before you sail to Scalegorge Waterscape and claims he's only sneaking away from his forced convalescence.
    "Reinforcements? I am the reinforcements."
  • Blade Reflection: In the ''A Flash'' animated short, Jingliu gets close enough with her sword to cut some strands of Jing Yuan's hair off and enable him to clearly see the shocked and distressed expression on his face.
  • Blade Spam: His Skill has him perform a single swing with his polearm and then disembodied "slashes" cuts through all enemies.
  • Bookends: The beginning of the A Flash animated short, which focuses on Jing Yuan's past as a young squire, has a shot of him practicing his sword under a tree as his master Jingliu watches over him. The animated short concludes with Jing Yuan, now a grown man, watching over his own squire Yanqing as he trains with the same sword exercise under the same tree that has also become taller and more verdant over the years, and repeats the words of instruction that Jingliu once said to him. As a bonus, young Jing Yuan's appearance bore similarities to Yanqing, having once been a boy with pale hair and yellow eyes in dressed in blue and white.
  • Boring, but Practical: Jing Yuan's approach to problems is to diligently handle them before they spiral out of control, and he believes that taking drastic action to avoid disaster is less wise than preempting such escalations in the first place.
    "A truly masterful chess player has no brilliant moves. People clamor excitedly over displays of extreme cunning, forgetting to worry about the overall dangers of the situation."
  • Brilliant, but Lazy: He's a famous Cloud Knight general, but he's notorious among his subordinates for being lazy, earning him the nickname "The Dozing General." In truth, he's diligent enough to deal with problems before they spiral out of control, so he usually avoids having to take drastic action, though that doesn't stop him from complaining about paperwork. It doesn't help that it's revealed that he never wanted to be a general, but is assigned to it. Nonetheless, he upholds his duty to the Xianzhou Luofu.
  • The Chains of Commanding: A lot of Jing Yuan's complaints involve work, as he never wanted to be general and is in a position where he's always expected to mind matters involving protecting the people of the Xianzhou Luofu to the detriment of his personal interests and relations with his acquaintances. He's well aware that a lot of people rely and look up to him and does his best to fulfill his duty as the Divine Foresight, but certain people like Yukong don't envy his position due to the accompanying pressure, remarking that he has to at least appear strong for the sake of the people, however reluctant he may be.
  • Chess Motifs: He is commonly associated with xiangqi, a Chinese form of chess, with his splash art depicting him seated before a xiangqi board, and his trailer also opens with him playing the game with Yanqing.
  • Critical Hit Class:
    • One of three stats Jing Yuan can upgrade via his Trace tree is Critical Rate, with him getting a 12% boost once fully unlocked.
    • In addition, two of his ascension Bonus Abilities are related to critical hits—his second, Battalia Crush, gives a 25% Critical Damage buff for the Lightning-Lord's next strike if it has at least six hits on stock, while his sixth, War Marshal, allows his Skill to grant him a 10% Critical Rate buff for two turns.
  • Damage-Increasing Debuff: Jing Yuan's sixth Eidolon Resonance, Sweep, Souls Slain, inflicts Vulnerable on the Lightning-Lord's target, which increases incoming damage by 12% per hit until the Lightning-Lord's current turn; as this can stack up to thrice at once, and given the Lightning-Lord has a minimum of three hits per attack, it is guaranteed to inflict a 36% penalty.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The characters of his name (景元, pinyin "Jǐng Yuán") are read as "Keigen" (via kan-on [Han Chinese-derived] reading; katakana ケイゲン) in Japanese and "Gyeongwon" (hangul 경원) in Korean.
  • Fighting Spirit: Jing Yuan fights alongside the Lightning-Lord, a giant of light bestowed upon him by Lan, which will attack every few turns and whose hits increase depending on Jing Yuan's attacks beforehand.
  • Finishing Move: He used the Lightning-Lord to deliver a Mercy Kill on Jingliu.
  • Gathering Steam: The Lightning-Lord has a base Speed of 60 and a minimum of three hits per action, which can be increased to ten through his Skill, Ultimate, or Technique (by two with the former, three with the rest), in addition to a 10-point Speed buff per stack (hence a maximum of 130), which is then reset once its turn comes up, whereupon it thrusts its lance to damage foes at randomnote , with adjacent enemies also taking damage worth a quarter of the main strikesnote  Jing Yuan's first Eidolon Resonance, Slash, Seas Split, improves the splash damage to half of that of the thrust.
  • Genius Bruiser: Jing Yuan is a large man and skilled fighter who is nevertheless known primarily for his intelligence and wisdom, to the point where he is known as the "Divine Foresight."
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: Apart from the Lightning-Lord's attacks, both his Skill and Ultimate hit all foes at once, in addition to adding, respectively, two and three hits for the Lightning-Lord's next action.note 
  • Hiding Behind Your Bangs: His right eye is always hidden underneath his hair, possibly symbolizing that he keeps his plans and strategies to himself and never fully revealing what he'll do.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "Time for the masterstroke."
    (Normal speed) "Radiant spirit, heed my word. Show no mercy!"
    (×2 speed) "Show no mercy!"
  • Kindhearted Cat Lover: The "General's Diary" readable item reveals he has a soft spot for cats and was tricked into purchasing a lion cub, after initially mistaking it for a grimalkin, an extinct cat species. He initially named it "Mimi" before changing it "Wave-Treading Snow Lion" after realizing it was a lion. The lion's appetite also garnered him the nickname "The Glutton General" for the sheer amount of money spent on its food which lead to rumors about his own appetite. One of the Stone Lions in the Seat of Divine Foresight has an inscription dedicated to his late pet lion, Snowmoon. Yanqing has a voiceline when he visits the Express that the lions used to stay in an enclosed pen in his rear courtyard. Even a chibi sticker of him in HoYoLab is one of him petting a little white cat. As far as the "kindhearted" part goes, Jing Yuan is very laid back, easy going, and friendly to most people, provided that they aren't stirring up trouble on the Luofu.
  • Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Wears his hair in a ponytail that still reaches down to his shoulder blades. One of his idle animations show that a finch will occasionally nest in his hair.
  • Master-Apprentice Chain: Jingliu was Jing Yuan's master, then he went on to train Yanqing. The latter eventually meets Jingliu by himself and indirectly learns some moves from her, too.
  • Mercy Kill Arrangement: Jing Yuan was instructed by his master Jingliu to kill her should she become mara-stricken, and when she succumbed, eventually Jing Yuan fulfilled his promise to her. However, she resurfaced some time afterward, barely holding onto what little sanity she still has.
  • Mighty Glacier: The Lightning-Lord has a measly base 60 Speed, and Jing Yuan himself has below-average speed for a damage dealer, especially coming right after Seele. However, with enough stacks the Lightning-Lord can do incredible amounts of damage... eventually.
  • Mystical White Hair: He has white hair and is the leader of a Society of Immortals, with plenty of mystical power on his own.
  • One-Handed Zweihänder: He has no problem swinging his glaive with one hand, sometimes even in a Reverse Grip, despite it being longer than he is tall.
  • Overly Long Name: His spirit's full name is the Lightning-Wielding Thunder-Clapping Spirit-Squashing Lord, which he finds way too long, so he shortens it to just "Lightning-Lord."
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: During the Phantylia boss fight, Jing Yuan completely drops his usually relaxed and playful tone for a much more commanding and serious one with new voicelines to match. It goes to show just how seriously he takes threats to the Xianzhou Luofu.
  • Puppet Fighter: He enters fights alongside his Lightning-Lord, which has its own spot on the turn order but relies on Jing Yuan being able to act. It attacks foes at random when its turn comes, with the number of its hits increasing whenever he uses his Technique, Skill, or Ultimate.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking: He is the general of the Luofu and one of the strongest warriors amongst the Xianzhou.
  • Really 700 Years Old: According to the description of the A Flash animated short, he has hasn't aged since the day he ended his master's life, more than 700 years before Yanqing rose to prominence.
  • Regenerating Mana:
    • His fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Savant Providence, immediately restores 15 Energy at the start of battle.
    • His fourth Eidolon Resonance, Spin, Stars Sieged, restores 2 Energy for every hit dealt by the Lightning-Lord (hence 6–20 per turn).
  • Reluctant Ruler: He's made it clear on several occasions that he didn't want to become the Luofu's general. Despite that, he won't hesitate to do everything in his power to ensure his people's safety.
  • Reverse Grip: Several of his attack animations have him swinging his glaive while the blade is pointed upside-down.
  • Sleepyhead: He's earned the nickname "The Dozing General" for a reason. The glimpse of him in the "Space Comedy" trailer depicts him dozing off while birds nest in his hair and Fu Xuan accuses him of dozing off in the middle of giving out orders in his character description video.
    • At the end of Dan Heng's Companion Mission, he's seen yawning and admitting that he should head back to the Alchemy Commission to resume his rest and recuperation. This one has its reasons, though: he was indeed supposed to recuperate from his injuries following the battle with Phantylia, and despite that, he still showed up to help fight back the assassins targeting Bailu.
    • One of Fu Xuan's voice lines has her tell the story of her attempting to make her case for taking over the generalship and he fell asleep in front of her.
    • The mini profile picture of him obtained from completing the Nameless Medal battle pass comes with the quote "When warmth intwines, a siesta beckons."
    • March's projection of him in her Companion Mission is him standing in the middle of the Alchemy Commission sound asleep.
    • One of his text messages to the Trailblazer is a request to not book sparring time in the afternoons because that time makes him tired and sleepy.
    • Talking to Yujin the tailor in Central Starskiff Haven has her revealing that he fell asleep while she was measuring and fitting him for new clothes.
  • Smart People Play Chess: Xiangqi is a prominent motif of his, and he is revered for being a cunning strategist, and is also on the Path of Erudition.
  • Sole Survivor: Downplayed; while Baiheng and Dan Feng died (technically for the latter, with Dan Heng being exiled afterward), Yingxing and later Jingliu became mara-struck and wanted criminals, leaving Jing Yuan the sole remaining member High-Cloud Quintet still in active service, and he feels slightly sorrowful about it.
  • The Squire: He was one to Jingliu.
  • Status Buff: His second Eidolon Resonance, Swing, Skies Squashed, confers upon him a 20% boost to the damage potency of his Basic Attack, Skill, and Ultimate within two turns after the Lightning-Lord struck.
  • Supernatural Gold Eyes: Jing Yuan has golden eyes and is the leader of a Society of Immortals with a special Guardian Entity gifted to him by Lan themselves.
  • Sword Plant: Spear instead of sword in his case; his idle animation has him stabbing the ground with his glaive. His talent also has the Lightning Lord stab the ground with its own weapon from above.
  • This Means War!: When Phantylia is successfully ousted from the Luofu, he angrily declares that her actions are tantamount to Nanook declaring war on Lan, and that they will fight back with full force.
  • Weapon Specialization: Jing Yuan's associated Light Cone is "Before Dawn" (5★), whose "Long Night" passive increases its wearer's Critical Damage by 36–60% and the damage of their Skill and Ultimate by 18–30%, as well as bestows the "Somnus Corpus" effect after using their Skill or Ultimate, which is consumed whenever they launch a follow-up attack to increase its damage output by 48–80%, which directly helps enhance the Lightning-Lord's attacks.
  • We Cannot Go On Without You: In the final confrontation against Phantylia, you are required to bring Jing Yuan as one of your team members, either your own or a trial version of him. If he dies in battle, it is an automatic Game Over.
  • We Used to Be Friends: He used to be very close friends with Dan Feng, Dan Heng's previous incarnation until he was banished from the Luofu for committing a terrible crime. Even though Dan Feng has long passed away, Jing Yuan still can't help but feel a little camaraderie with Dan Heng due to their similarities. He also has this attitude towards his former mentor, Jingliu, due to her bloodthirst from being mara-stricken and fulfilled his promise to kill her. Unfortunately, he also says that he never became close with her and it's one of his regrets. He's rather wistful about the Quintet as a whole and it's made clear that he misses his teammates that all have their own reasons for leaving.
  • You Fight Like a Cow: He's got some choice words when he fights Phantylia (who constantly mocks him and our protagonists by comparing them to pests), such as "the weeds in my backyard gave me more headaches than you."

    Sushang 

Sushang

Introduced: April 26, 2023 (v1.0 "The Rail Unto the Stars" [game launch])
Voiced by: Chen Tingting (Chinese), Misato Fukuen (Japanese), Park Shi-yoon (Korean), Anjali Kunapaneni (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sushang.png
Click to see her full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 4★
Path: The Hunt
Type: Physical

A naïve, enthusiastic rookie of the Cloud Knights who has recently transferred from the Xianzhou Yaoqing, Sushang yearns to become a legend in spite of her poor academic record.

Sushang specializes in single-target attacks that put extreme pressure on severely compromised foes. Her Skill, Cloudfencer Art: Mountainfall, can randomly trigger an auxiliary Sword Stance strike, which becomes guaranteed if her target is Broken, while her Ultimate, Shape of Taixu: Dawn Herald, summons a bird-like familiar to pound down on her target, as well as immediately forwards her next turn and, for two turns afterwards, boosts her Attack stat and augments her Skill with two additional chances to land weaker Sword Stance strikes. In addition, her Talent, Dancing Blade, boosts her Speed for two turns whenever any of her allies Break foes, and her Technique, Cloudfencer Art: Warcry, is a simple multi-target slash.note 
  • Alternate Self: Of Li Sushang from Honkai Impact 3rd. Like her, Sushang was trained in martial arts since her youth, and she gets to meet an "Otto" (Luocha) in her journey. Compared to her, however, this Sushang is still relatively inexperienced.
  • Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Rise From Fame and Prevail via Taixu, which will add two levels to her Ultimate and Talent with the former, and 2 to her Skill and 1 to Basic Attack with the latter.
  • Ancestral Weapon: Her sword is a family heirloom, though she doesn't seem to know its history.
  • Badass Adorable: Sushang is an eager, friendly, youthful-looking lady, if rather naïve and dense, who also possesses mean swordsmanship that increases in potency against severely compromised enemies.
  • Book Dumb: She admits to Dan Heng and Luocha that she probably doesn't know how to write their names. Later, it is shown that she doesn't know the basic history and lore of the Xianzhou. This is because her mother had often made her get up before dawn to practice swordsmanship, which caused her to fall asleep during school. One of her idle animations also involves trying to read a book... emphasis on "trying".
  • Cleavage Window: Possesses a prominent one, which one of her Eidolon images does a close-up on.
  • Close to Home: In the "Aurum Alley's Hustle and Bustle" event, Sushang feels compelled to intervene in the dispute between the Merchant's Guild of Aurum Alley and the IPC because she's seen firsthand the effects of the IPC's influence. She's afraid that the IPC would subsume Aurum Alley's people and erase its unique culture and identity just as it did in her native Yaoqing.
  • Cooldown Manipulation: Apart from her Ultimate, which immediately brings forward her next turn, her sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Vanquisher, brings forward her turn by 15% after using her Skill or Basic Attack, Cloudfencer Art: Starshine, if at least one enemy is Broken.
  • Cute Bruiser: A cheerful youthful-looking lady who also wields a two-handed greatsword, follows the damage-oriented path of the Hunt, and deals massive amounts of physical damage against her foes.
  • Damage Reduction: Sushang's second Eidolon Resonance, Refine in Toil, reduces damage received for one turn whenever Sword Stance was triggered.
  • A Day in the Limelight: "Aurum Alley's Hustle and Bustle" gives her the lion's share of the character focus, as she finds herself up a creek without a paddle trying to take on the IPC and recruits the Trailblazer to help her save the Aurum Alley business district from their acquisition. She's also the prize for playing through the event.
  • Death from Above: Her Ultimate has her summon a giant chicken through her blade, which then rushes forward and leap high to smash onto her target.note  In addiiton, for the next two turns she gains an 18–36% Attack boost and gives her two extra chances to trigger Sword Stance.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The characters of her name (素裳, pinyin "Sùshāng") are read as "Sushō" (respectively via go-on and kan-on [Wu and Han Chinese-derived] readings; katakana スショウ) in Japanese and "Sosang" (hangul 소상) in Korean.
  • Dumb Muscle: While Sushang is very skilled with the sword, this comes at the cost of her getting left behind in school.
  • Embarrassing Nickname: Due to her mother making her wake up before sunrise for sword training, Sushang would arrive to school too tired and sleepy to pay attention to class, earning her the name "Sleepy Sushang". One of her text chats involves running into an old teacher of hers who called her this in public, horribly embarrassing her.
  • Expy: With Honkai: Star Rail's explicit inspiration from the Trails Series, it becomes obvious she's this game's take on Estelle Bright—she's enthusiastic, eager to prove herself, friendly, (usually) warm, and is a little dense so that the audience can learn things alongside her. If the game were arranged a little differently, it'd be very easy to see her being the protagonist, and you basically do experience part of the Luofu storyline as essentially a member of HER party.
  • Gathering Steam: Sushang's fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Riposte, allows successive instances of Sword Stance to gather up to ten stacks of a 2% damage boost (hence a maximum of 20%).
  • Girlish Pigtails: Much like her inspiration, she wears these and is similarly immature and eager.
  • Guest-Star Party Member: Dan Heng happens upon her and Luocha while investigating the situation on the Luofu. She proceeds to join him as a guard and escort during his trip throughout the vessel.
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: Her Technique instantly strikes all foes at the start of battle.note 
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "Take this — Shape of Taixu!"
    (Normal speed and ×2 speed) "Rise, Phoenix!"
  • Kick Them While They Are Down: Against Weakness Broken enemies, her Skill is guaranteed to trigger Sword Stance to deal extra damage. In addition, her Talent buffs her Speed by 15–22.5% two turns whenever an enemy has been Broken. Her fourth Eidolon Resonance, Cleave with Heart, increases her Break Effect by 40%; and her sixth, Dwell Like Water, allows her Talent to stack twice, with Sushang automatically gaining one at the start of battle (hence an optimal Speed buff of 30–45%). All these help increase Sushang's chances of inflicting more pain upon downed enemies.
  • Military Brat: One of her voice lines explicitly says she was born in a military family, and had a very strict upbringing of martial training thanks to her mother.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Strictly downplayed compared to other examples as her attractiveness isn't given any focus, but between her ample chest which is emphasized by her Cleavage Window and short skirt revealing her bare legs, Sushang certainly provides.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Her phone case as well as her Ultimate features fat, cartoonish chickens, a reference to lighthearted contents featuring Fu Hua from HI3rd.Explanation
    • Her heirloom blade, the Xuanyuan Sword, is a reference to one of the Divine Keys from HI3rd.
    • Her fourth Eidolon Resonance pictures her wearing a Sleep Mask with goofy eyes, which references the "derpy Theresa" gag from HI3rd.
  • Powerful and Helpless: Sushang is a capable Cloud Knight and eager to help the people of Aurum Alley. But due to being Book Dumb, she's woefully unprepared to help with the economic and political grappling taking center stage in the "Aurum Alley's Hustle and Bustle" event. That's why she defers to the Trailblazer while still trying to help in any way she can.
  • Reduce Aggro: Sushang's second-ascension Bonus Ability, Guileless, reduces her chance of being attacked by enemies whenever she has no more than half her HP.
  • Regenerating Mana: Sushang's first Eidolon Resonance, Cut with Ease, reimburses the SP cost of her Skill if it was used against a Weakness Broken foe.
  • Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: In sharp contrast with her typical Book Dumb nature, she gets one moment of this.note 
    Sushang: "I met my old abecedary who taught me in the lyceum!"
    Trailblazer: "What's a lyceum? And what's abecedary?"note 
  • Situational Damage Attack: Normally, her Skill has a fixed 33% chance to trigger a Sword Stance extra hit, which will become guaranteed against Weakness Broken enemies.note  In addition, her Ultimate grants her a buff for two turns which gives her Skill two extra chances to trigger Sword Stance (with damage worth half of that of its base form). While this buff is active, her blade will be covered in an aura.
  • Sword and Fist: Downplayed. Her Skill involves her kicking the target before a sword slash.
  • Take My Hand!: In the "Harmony Greets the New Year" video, when Guinaifen trips and almost falls off the tall stage while dancing as the "lion", Sushang quickly grabs her hand. Guinaifen's hand almost slips off, but luckily Dan Heng helps by manipulating the water below the stage to create a geyser beneath her feet, and the former gets back on the stage and resumes dancing.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Downplayed. Sushang sends all three of her companions away to fetch Jing Yuan and holds off the Heliobus-possessed Yanqing on her own. She barely survives the fight thanks to Yanqing actively resisting his possession and holding back. Lampshaded when Guinaifen asks her afterwards if it was really necessary to send everyone instead of asking at least the Trailblazer to stay.
  • Vague Age: She's a proud member of the Cloud Knights and while her character story indicates she is fifteen years old, she casually mentions in the Aurum Alley event that she's seen how her native Xianzhou Yaoqing has changed over time, her mother is over 500 years old, and that she empathizes with Mingxi when she witnessed the confrontation with the IPC. Given that Xianzhou uses an Alternate Calendar, it's likely that the year used by the Xianzhou Alliance is longer than a real-world Earth year.
    "Any of the Yaoqing locals older than 500 — like my mother — will say the Yaoqing has changed. But they're not sure whether this change is leading to a better future, or if it's allowing short-life species to dictate their way of life... It's making everyone anxious."
    "When I saw Mingxi being confronted by the IPC, I felt the same uneasiness. I've been around several life-spans longer than that stooge, but somehow I was still at a loss for how to deal with him."
  • The Watson: Due to her lack of solid education as well her as being recently transferred to the Xianzhou Luofu, Sushang is often not in the know of things that are otherwise common knowledge, and has to have things explained to her for the audience's benefit.
  • Weapon Specialization: Sushang's associated Light Cone is "Swordplay" (4★), whose "Answers of Their Own" passive boosts its wearer's damage output by 8–16% as long as they keeps attacking the same target (to a maximum of five times, hence 40–80%); as all of Sushang's attacks (except her Technique) are single-target, this incentivizes her to keep putting pressure on one enemy at a time to increase her damage potential, especially against elite or boss enemies.

    Yanqing 

Yanqing

Introduced: April 26, 2023 (v1.0 "The Rail Unto the Stars" [game launch])
Voiced by: Miaojiang (Chinese), Marina Inoue (Japanese), Yi Sae-ah (Korean), Amber May (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yanqing.png
Click to see his full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Hunt
Type: Ice

A spirited young boy, one of the best swordsmen of the Xianzhou Luofu, and retainer and apprentice to Jing Yuan.

Yanqing applies lessons he learned from Jing Yuan to hit his foes where it hurts the most, as well as avoid reprisal, through the "Soulsteel Sync" state conferred by his Talent, One With the Sword, which for one turn (or until he is attacked) reduces his chance of being attacked, boosts his Critical Rate and Damage, and randomly augments his next attack with a rain of icicles that has a high chance to Freeze them. His Skill, Darting Ironthorn, has him send his swords hurling towards his target that bestows upon him said state, while his Ultimate, Amidst the Raining Bliss, boosts his Critical Rate for a turn, as well as Critical Damage if the state is also active, before flying on his sword towards his foe to slash them. In addition, his Technique, The One True Sword, enhances his damage against foes with over half their HP for the first two turns of battle.note 
  • Achilles' Heel:
    • Any enemy with a Herd-Hitting Attack, as they ignore his reduced aggro and thus can easily shut down his Soulsteel Sync.
    • Malefic Apes play with this. On one hand, Yanqing will quickly and gleefully slice through their Ice weakness and stop cold their attacks when he gets a Weakness Break. On the other, the Ape's special aggro targeting ignores Soulsteel Sync's reduced aggro, so if you don't opt to play it safe by having him use Basic Attack or another party member isn't able to take the heat in time, Yanqing has no chance to avoid the incoming hit that will demolish his low health and defenses.
    • His boss self also suffers from Herd Hitting Attacks because they hit all his swords at once without the need of guessing their weaknesses.
  • Added Alliterative Appeal: All of his Eidolon upgrade's names have words that start with "S", just like Jing Yuan's own.
  • Alternate Self: Of Ma Yanqing from the Seven Swords visual novel (which has never received an official English translation), which takes place in the world of Honkai Impact 3rd. Notably, he is substantially younger than Ma Yanqing was.
  • Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring his Eidolons, you can upgrade his third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Sword Savant and Surging Strife, which will add two levels to his Skill and 1 to Basic Attack (Frost Thorn) with the former, and 2 to his Ultimate and Talent with the latter.
  • Anti-Debuff: Yanqing's fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Frost Favors the Brave, increases his Effect Resistance by 20% while the Soulsteel Sync state is active.
  • Big Sister Worship: Downplayed. When he's charged with supervising Jingliu for her one day of freedom before her imprisonment, it's clear that their earlier time together, during which she taught him and he learned her identity, instilled in the boy some admiration towards her, assisting her with tying up loose ends with little complaints and expresses interest in her time as part of the High-Cloud Quintet.
  • Blade Enthusiast: Noted to be an avid collector of swords, to the point that he even buys two copies of swords that strike his fancy—one for his collection, and one to use in combat.
  • Critical Hit Class: To an extent greater than even his fellow Hunt Pathstriders.
    • In lieu of having generic Critical Rate or Damage buffs from his Trace tree, Yanqing's fighting style revolves around entering the Soulsteel Sync state through his Skill, which for one turn boosts his Critical Rate and Damage (by, respectively 15–22.5% and 15–37.5%, their potency being tied to his Talent), as long as he isn't damaged.
    • In addition, his Ultimate gives him a one-turn 60% boost to Critical Rate, as well as 30–60% to his Critical Damage while the Soulsteel Sync is active, before hitting his enemy. His sixth Eidolon Resonance, Swift Swoop, extends this buff for 1 more turn whenever an enemy is defeated.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The characters of his name (simplified 彦卿, traditional 彥卿, pinyin "Yànqīng") are read as "Genkyō" (via go-on [Wu Chinese-derived] reading; katakana ゲンキョウ) in Japanese and "Yeon'gyeong" (hangul 연경) in Korean.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: In spite of Yanqing's exceptional swordsmanship honed under Jing Yuan's tutelage, most of his peers, even fellow Cloud Knights, look down on him as a cocky lad who needs an entire detachment to back him up whenever he goes on missions, which fuels his desire to prove his mettle by pursuing Blade, one of the most notorious criminals in the universe.
  • Expository Pronoun: In the Chinese version, Yanqing is a Third-Person Person, showcasing his childishness despite being a Master Swordsman, although this was a formal way of referring to oneself in archaic times. In Japanese, he addresses himself with boku, which typically has more casual and boyish connotations. Jing Yuan refers to himself in third person during certain scenes in Chinese (specifically those where he's expressing gratitude or otherwise showing humility), so Yanqing may also be parroting him from past occasions.
  • Fighting Fingerprint: His first attempt to arrest Blade and Dan Heng has the former amusedly wonder if a certain woman, later revealed to be Jingliu, had trained him upon seeing his strongest attack (as a boss). It's a Call-Back to his Companion Mission, where during its climax Jingliu attacks him as a "parting gift," implying he would later learn to imitate parts of her fighting style. As Blade is well aware of Jingliu's capabilities as her former comrade, he recognizes her style in Yanqing's own moves.
  • Flunky Boss: As a boss, he can summon up to four flying swords to his aid. While the swords are around, his Toughness Gauge will be protected; each of the swords has one "hidden weakness" each that corresponds to one of Yanqing's weaknesses (Lightning, Wind, Imaginary), and the swords will break instantly if you Weakness Break them. Once all four have been dealt with, Yanqing will take damage, suffer a delay to his turn, and lose the protection of his Toughness Gauge.
  • Full Health Bonus: His fourth Eidolon Resonance, Searing Sting, increases the Ice Resistance Penalty of his attacks by 12% while he has at least 80% HP remaining.
  • Generation Xerox: Though they are not related by blood, Yanqing is almost the mirror image of Jing Yuan as a child, with the same light hair, yellow eyes, and blue-and-white outfit.
  • Glass Cannon: Yanqing possesses some of the highest base Attack and Speed values in the game. His Talent and Ultimate grant him powerful self-buffs that increase both the success rate and potency of his critical hits, bringing the pain against anyone weak to Ice damage. Such power comes at the cost of having some of the lowest HP and Defense values for a 5★; in addition, much of his power scales off of his Talent, which is deactivated if he takes damage from attack, forcing players to prioritize protecting him were they to capitalize on his damage potential.
  • Happily Adopted: Yanqing has no memories of his parents. He doesn't even know if they abandoned him or if they passed away before he could meet them. But he's happy to be under Jing Yuan's tutelage and looks up to him as his mentor and guardian.
  • Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: When he gets possessed by Apyra, a warrior heliobus, he proceeds to challenge the ghost-hunting squad to a spar. Just as the player comes to the brink of defeating him, he uses his Powers via Possession to unleash an HP to One attack.
  • Hero Antagonist: He's not evil by any means, but his relentless determination to bring down the Stellaron Hunters puts him into conflict with the Astral Express crew more than once; once in the Trailblaze Mission "Dragons Mislay, Dreams Astray" and once in Kafka's Companion Mission.
  • Heroic Willpower: Manages to first resist and then completely shake off Apyra's Demonic Possession.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "Practice is over."
    (Normal speed and ×2 speed) "Swords, descend!"
  • Kid Hero: He's one of the Luofu's greatest warriors despite being a teenager, and was skilled enough that he earned his military commission even before he was in his teens.
  • Master Swordsman: Blatantly stated to be the Luofu's greatest swordsman in his Character Stories, being able to control six flying swords at once, which is unheard of even for century-old drillmasters, having studied swords he purchased from the Artisanship Commission as well as proved himself in battle on many occasions. That said, Jingliu outclassed him him during their first encounter, and even then that was a testament to her might in her pre-mara-struck prime.
  • Mirror Match: If you have Yanqing in your roster and want to have him fight his boss self in the Forgotten Hall or Simulated Universe, go ahead, the game won't stop you. You can even get an achievement for delivering the final blow against Yanqing with your Yanqing's attack.
  • Money Dumb: His blade-collecting habits often result in him blowing all his funds by the end of the month, resulting in him having to beg Jing Yuan for food and other necessities.
  • Mythology Gag: While he might've been based on Ma Yanqing of H I3rd, his fighting style is closer to Li Sushang of that game, being an ice-elemental swordsmaster who can wield multiple flying swords and ride on them as they fly around. Her Ultimate in that game, dropping a colossal BFS from the skies, is also referenced here in Yanqing's strongest attack as a boss.
  • Overshadowed by Awesome: Story-wise, Yanqing is a Child Prodigy. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to pick fights with people who are far more experienced than him, including the former comrades and mentor of his own mentor, Jing Yuan.
  • Pain to the Ass: One of his idles have one of his floating swords going out of its way to hurt his behind, much to his annoyance.
  • Secret A.I. Moves: The playable Yanqing lacks his boss self's summonable swords and the Herd-Hitting Attack ultimate move.
  • Situational Sword:
    • His Technique provides a 30% damage boost for his first two turns against enemies with at least half their HP remaining.
    • His second-ascension Bonus Ability, Icing on the Kick, allows him to deal additional damage on enemies weak to Ice.note 
  • Skilled, but Naive: Yanqing's martial talent is the real deal, and he ascended to the role of Jing Yuan's Number Two at a very young age (especially in the Xianzhou Luofu, where he beats swordsmen who have spent centuries practicing). But for all his talent, he lacks experience. This, his ego, and his youthful recklessness get him into plenty of trouble and earn him some humbling defeats.
  • Sky Surfing: He rides on his flying sword in both his splash art and his Ultimate; in the latter, he does so to deliver a powerful slash at his target followed by his other blades.note 
  • The Squire: To Jing Yuan.
  • Status Buff:
    • The Soulsteel Sync state bestowed by his Talent boosts his Critical Damage and Rate, as well as gives his attacks a 50–65% chance to deal an extra hit (counts as a follow-up attack) with a 65% base chance to Freeze his target for one turn;note  this buff is dispelled if he takes damage from attacks (unless shielded or if he loses HP from other means), but with this buff, he's less likely to be targeted by enemies. In addition, his second Eidolon Resonance, Supine Serenade, allows the state to boost his Energy Regeneration Rate by 10%.
    • His sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Gentle Blade, boosts his Speed by 10% for two turns whenever he lands critical hits.
  • Status Effect-Powered Ability: His first Eidolon Resonance, Svelte Saber, allows him to deal additional damage against a Frozen enemy.note 
  • Storm of Blades: Most of his attacks, both as a playable character and as a boss, involve hurling blades at high speed with varying intensity, by virtue of him wielding them all telekinetically.
  • Theme Naming: As another connection between him and Jing Yuan, all of his Eidolons have names that start with S.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: His Skill has him command four swords to directly hurl themselves at his target.note 
  • To Be a Master: His goal is to be recognized as a Sword Champion, the greatest swordsman on the Xianzhou Luofu, like Jing Yuan's mentor Jingliu. He even aspires to to become the Sword Preeminence, the greatest fighter in the Xianzhou Alliance. But the former title has been vacant since Jingliu's disgrace, hence is also incentivized to shape history in the Luofu and restore its prestige.
  • Underestimating Badassery: He tries to convince Jing Yuan to let him handle Blade, seemingly unaware of just how dangerous the Stellaron Hunter really is, and ends up storming off to try and confront him against Jing Yuan's wishes. Jingliu, likewise, tells him that he's not ready to take on Blade. It gets worse later on when he tries to fight Blade and Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae at the same time; he predictably loses and is subsequently humbled.
  • Weapon Specialization:
    • Yanqing's associated 5★ Standard Warp Light Cone is "Sleep Like the Dead," whose "Sweet Dreams" passive increases its wearer's Critical Damage by 30–50%, as well as Critical Rate by 36–60% for one turn whenever their Basic Attack or Skill does not land a critical hit, triggered once every three turns, which further augments Yanqing's natural affinity for hitting hard where it hurts the most.
    • He is also associated with "River Flows in Spring," a 4★ Light Cone whose passive (increases the wearer's Speed by 8-12% and Damage by 12-24%) requires the wearer to not take any damage in-between their turns, much like Yanqing's own Soulsteel Sync buff.
  • Well-Trained, but Inexperienced: He is a Child Prodigy in swordsmanship, further refined by Jing Yuan's tutelage. He's still very young with little field experience (partially as a result of his master being so protective of him), which results in him coming up short against the likes of Blade, Jingliu, and Imbibitor Lunae who are far more experienced than him as well as Jing Yuan's old peers.
  • The Worf Effect: Yanqing is hailed as a the greatest swordsman of the Xianzhou Luofu. However, he repeatedly gets beaten by Jingliu, Blade, Imbibitor Lunae, and the Trailblazer, showing that the young Cloud Knight has a long way to go.

Divination Commission

    Fu Xuan 

Fu Xuan

Introduced: September 20, 2023 (v1.3 "Celestial Eyes Above Mortal Ruins" [second half])
Voiced by: Hua Ling (Chinese), Miku Itō (Japanese), Lee Ji-Hyeon (Korean), Sarah Wiedenheft (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fu_xuan_9.png
Click to see her full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Preservation
Type: Quantum

Master Diviner of the Divination Commission and one of the Six Charioteers of the Xianzhou Luofu. She uses her Omniscia and the Matrix of Prescience to predict the future and advise on the Luofu's route. Confident and blunt, she firmly believes that everything she does is the "best solution" for any situation, and is eagerly waiting to take over Jing Yuan's post once he retires, however distant that day may seem.

Fu Xuan protects her allies by predicting all kinds of harm that come their way and bear the brunt of their pain. Her Skill and Technique, respectively Known by Stars, Shown by Hearts and Of Fortune Comes Fate, summon the Matrix of Prescience—respectively, for three and two turns, in addition to the latter erecting a barrier that protects the party from being ambushed—which redirects most of the damage they are supposed to take onto her, as well as bestows upon the party the "Knowledge" effect that boosts their Max HP and Critical Rate. Her Ultimate, Woes of Many Morphed to One, traps all her foes in a phantasmal orb which she crushes with her bare hands, as well as builds a trigger count (to a maximum of two) for her Talent, Bleak Breeds Bliss, which heals her whenever her HP falls below half, in addition to bestowing the damage-reducing Misfortune Avoidance effect onto the party.note 
  • Achilles' Heel:
    • Attacks that can hit her for more than half her HP. Her self-healing Talent will not trigger if she is knocked out, even if she still has charges for it.
    • Bosses with a strong Herd-Hitting Attack. Soaking up two-thirds of damage taken by three other party members and full amount of her own damage can one-shot her even at full HP.
    • Like other Preservation Pathstriders, Fu Xuan suffers in battle modes like the Simulated Universe, where the party will be fighting over and over against multiple waves of enemies that can wear the party down over time, as she largely can't stop incoming damage to allies, only reduce it, and her ability to heal other party members is rather lacking. If you don't have any extra means of healing (such as Abundance Pathstriders or healing Blessings), her team will go down if they can't kill the enemies first.
  • Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Apex Nexus and Arbiter Primus, 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.
  • Anti-Debuff: Her sixth Ascension Bonus Ability, Liuren, the Sexagenary, confers a one-time crowd-control debuff resistance to the party upon using her Skill. If any party member, and any number of party members, is hit with crowd control (Frozen, Imprisonment, etc.) it's negated and the buff is removed from the party.
  • Auto-Revive: Her second Eidolon Resonance, Optimus Felix, will revive all allies taken down in one turn (to 70% of their HP) while the Matrix of Prescience is active, triggered only once per battle. She can, if the stars align, revive multiple party members so long as they fall to the same attack.
  • Badass Adorable: Fu Xuan is one of the wisest people on the Xianzhou Luofu and dominates combat through absorbing her allies' damage and blasting enemies with light. She also occasionally exhibits childish behavior befitting her youthful appearance, such has her sweet tooth and her minor insecurity regarding her height.
  • Beleaguered Boss: Judging from a few artworks featuring Qingque, Fu Xuan is annoyed and exasperated with having to deal with the lazy diviner.
  • Berserk Button: Calling Fu Xuan a "dwarf," as one heliobus' illusion did, is a surefire way to rile her up.
  • Bizarre Taste in Food: She happens to like Startaro Bubble tea, which according to its description tastes pretty gross.
  • Breaking Old Trends: Fu Xuan is one of the first two playable characters in the game (the other being Lynx, who was introduced at the same time as her) whose Basic Attack scales purely off of a non-Attack stat (i.e., Max HP), whereas most other characters use that stat for scaling of their Basic Attacks whether or not their kit's power scaling gravitates toward another stat.
  • Company Cross References: Similarly to Keqing of Genshin Impact, Fu Xuan is a confident, youthful-looking woman of great talent and ability with a violet/pink color scheme hailing from a place with a Chinese cultural aesthetic. She believes herself capable of taking over the position of a male authority figure who acts as her superior, and is subsequently humbled when she is handed the position and finds herself out of her depth in fulfilling the obligations asked of her.
  • Critical Hit Class:
    • One of three stats Fu Xuan can upgrade via her Trace tree is Critical Rate, with her getting a 18.7% boost once fully unlocked.
    • While the Matrix is active, the party also gains a 6-13.2% Critical Rate boost.
    • Her first Eidolon Resonance, Dominus Pacis, adds a 30% Critical Damage buff to the Knowledge effect.
  • Damage Reduction: Simply by being on the team, Fu Xuan's Talent confers Misfortune Avoidance to the whole party which provides a 10-19.6% damage reduction. She also, in effect, grants a large amount of this to every party member except herself with her Skill, redirecting a whopping 65% of the damage they would take to her instead.
  • Deflector Shields: Her Technique summons one that renders the party immune to enemy attacks for twenty seconds, as well as activates the Matrix of Prescience upon entering combat for the first two turns.
  • Dump Stat: None of Fu Xuan's abilities or upgrades scale off of her Attack stat, so any she gains from buffs or equipment loadout are almost completely useless. That said, her Attack stat can still be of help with certain Blessings from the Simulated Universe, but it's generally not worth building it up even for this purpose.
  • The Fatalist: Fu Xuan is a proponent of the belief that destiny is predetermined and sometimes there is only one choice one can make. She inherited such a belief from her mentor, who once told her that she'd be responsible for his death. The idea that she would betray her master offended her, which caused her to leave the Xianzhou Yuque for the Luofu. Later, when the Xianzhou Alliance had their backs against the wall during the third Denizens of Abundance War, Fu Xuan proposed that the Alliance send a signal to Lan to destroy the enemy army, but the only person who could send the signal was her mentor, who would be inevitably caught in the attack. When she realized this, she came to believe her mentor was right.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: In-story, her Omniscia was granted by Nous, the Aeon of Erudition who was also said to have been involved in the Xianzhou Alliance's divination technology. Gameplay-wise, however, she's a Preservation Pathstrider.
  • Glacier Waif: Unlike her fellow dainty Preservation Pathstrider March 7th, who's primarily a support unit specializing in casting Shields, Fu Xuan's kit incentivizes actively sponging her allies' damage.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: Has a rather short fuse and blows up quickly on others. According to Jing Yuan, this is the main reason why he hasn't retired and left the position of general to her since she is an otherwise brilliant leader.
  • Healing Hands: Her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Dunjia, the Metamystic, allows her Ultimate to heal the party (worth 5%+133 of her Max HP). In a variant, her Skill also bestows the party a Max HP boost, worth 3–6.6% of Fu Xuan's, as long as it's active.
  • Heal Thyself: Her Talent heals her once her HP falls below half.note  She can have a maximum of two charges, begins battle with one charge, and gains another after using her Ultimate.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "All things in this world have their laws."
    (Normal speed) "Yet stratagems, constellations... are human creations!"
    (×2 speed) "Human creations! Hmmph!"
  • Meaningful Name: The first character of Fu Xuan's name (符) can mean "charm," and likely comes from Taoist talismans and incantations for such things as warding off evil, befitting one who divines the future in search of positive outcomes.
  • Mechanically Unusual Fighter: In two ways...
    • Fu Xuan is one of the first two characters (the other being Lynx) whose abilities all scale off their Max HP, including even her Basic Attack.
    • Compared to her fellow Preservation Pathstriders, Fu Xuan doesn't generate any Shields to soak damage, nor does she have anything to Draw Aggro. Instead she relies on Damage Reduction and absorbing a sizable fraction of damage incurred by her allies. Because of this, Blessings of Preservation in Simulated Universe (which focuses on Shields), ironically, will be much less useful for her.
  • Mythology Gag: While she isn't explicitly an Alternate Self of Zhuge Kongming from Honkai Impact 3rd, both share several traits, such as having the same Chinese voice actress, their names originating from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, youthful appearances despite being centuries old, the use of divination to devise strategies, and act as sassy, no-nonsense subordinates to tall, easygoing men (respectively, Jing Yuan and the Captain).
  • Other Me Annoys Me:
    • March 7th's interpretation of her, as depicted in the Matrix of Prescience, exaggerates her wordiness. The real Fu Xuan is annoyed that March thinks that she is a blabbermouth.
    • Qingque gets trapped in an illusion representing her dreams of success and wealth, where its Fu Xuan has lost her job but is content with her employment under Qingque. The real Fu Xuan complains that this interpretation of her is a pathetic wuss.
  • Pain & Gain: Her sixth Eidolon Resonance, Omnia Vita, boosts the damage of her Ultimate depending on the amount of HP the party lost (to a maximum 120% of Fu Xuan's Max HP) whenever the Matrix of Prescience is active, with additional damage worth twice said amount.
  • Paper Talisman: She uses one for her Basic Attack, Novaburst, drawing one made of light before detonating it. This also ties into her Meaningful Name.
  • Pillar of Light: Her Ultimate has her trigger a huge pillar-shaped pink blast that damages all enemies and restores one charge of her Talent.note 
  • Pintsized Powerhouse: She's noticeably more petite than most of the characters on the Luofu save Bailu, and can seriously pack a punch (and tank them) with her powers.
  • Prescience by Analysis: Her primary means of divination is by using the Matrix of Prescience Ultima, a mechanical device at the center of Divination Commission that uses lots of provided data in order to predict possible future events.
  • Regenerating Mana: Two of her upgrades regenerate Energy depending on certain conditions while the Matrix of Prescience is active—20 points through her second-ascension Bonus Ability, Taiyi, the Macrocosmic, whenever she uses her Skill; and 5 points through her fourth Eidolon Resonance, Fortuna Stellaris, whenever her allies are attacked.
  • Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: She can be slightly wordy, and March 7th's interpretation of her, as depicted in the Matrix of Prescience, exaggerates her all the way into this trope, much to the real Fu Xuan's annoyance. In fact, one of Yanqing's voicelines seems to imply that Jing Yuan is not the only person she might put to sleep with her wordiness.
  • Sexy Backless Outfit: Played with. Fu Xuan's wardrobe exposes a large amount of her back, with only some ropes providing mild coverage. It's played with because although the exposed section consists of a modestly-narrow strip down her spine, it still runs all the way down to her rear.
  • Shorter Means Smarter: Downplayed. She's markedly shorter than her superior Jing Yuan, and is well-read and intelligent, though Jing Yuan himself is no slouch in mental capability.
  • Super-Reflexes: When Kafka shoots dozens of rounds at Fu Xuan, the master diviner casually moves every bullet in her path out of the way with her hands and barriers, descending without a scratch, likely as a result of her divination ability.
  • Sweet Tooth: Her character preview lore reveals that she dumps a lot of sugar into her herbal tea so she can finish her work at the end of the day. Qingque's Light Cone lore shows that she apparently keeps sweets on her to distract Fu Xuan whenever she gets caught slacking off. Ironically, if you talk to her in March's companion mission, she doesn't like Immortal's Delight, preferring Startaro Bubble Tea, which if synthesized, involves trash.
  • Third Eye: She has one located at the middle of her forehead called the Omniscia, which she claims was granted to her by Nous and allows her to see multiple futures. But as Nous said, "Knowledge comes at the price of suffering." For her, it means two things: the simple fact that knowing the possible futures can weigh a lot on one's mind, and how, as a Xianzhou human, her body will constantly reject the artificial eye, bringing her physical pain, even calling it an "eternal punishment." According to her character story, upon taking the eye for the first time, she recalled many moments from her past and then saw the future of her becoming a master diviner.
  • Weapon Specialization: Fu Xuan's associated Light Cone is "She Already Shut Her Eyes" (5★), whose "Visioscape" passive increases its wearer's max HP by 24-40% and Energy Regeneration by 12-20%, boosts ally damage by 9-15% when the wearer's health is reduced, and restores 80-100% of missing health for the party at the start of a new enemy wave. With the way Fu Xuan's kit works, the HP boost enhances her damage and tanking potential as well as the Max HP boost of her Skill, the damage boost is effectively perpetual since she's constantly taking ally damage, and she gains a powerful healing ability to keep the party fresh during protracted battles.

    Qingque 

Qingque

Introduced: April 26, 2023 (v1.0 "The Rail Unto the Stars" [game launch])
Voiced by: Liu Shisi (Chinese), Arisa Date (Japanese), Seo Da-hye (Korean), Bryn Apprill (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/qingque.png
Click to see her full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 4★
Path: The Erudition
Type: Quantum

A Diviner whose dependability is offset by her dislike for work, often spending her time away. She is responsible for rediscovering an ancient tabletop game known as Celestial Jade, which she has successfully reintroduced to Xianzhou society and now passes the time playing with her parlor buddies.

Qingque somehow incorporates Celestial Jade in combat through her same-named Talent, where she draws one Jade Tile among three suits, either one at a time whenever her allies act or two through her Technique, Game Solitaire, with the latest non-matching Tile tossed to her foe through her Basic Attack, Flower Pick; once she has four of a kind, she enters a "Hidden Hand" state, which upgrades her Basic Attack into Cherry on Top!, where she tosses all Tiles to be able to hit foes on either side of her target. Her Skill, A Scoop of Moon, manually draws two Tiles and can be used repeatedly until either the party runs out of Skill Points or she triggers Hidden Hand, each repeated use enhancing the damage of her subsequent attack, while her Ultimate, A Quartet? Woo-Hoo!, slams down a lucky Tile onto all her foes and automatically triggers Hidden Hand on her next turn.note 
  • Achilles' Heel: If a Guardian Shadow activates a ban on Basic Attacks, Qingque is doomed to get penalized by a counterattack if she cannot defeat or Break it in one hit, or have someone else stun it, as she cannot attack with her Skill instead to circumvent this, due to it being an enhancer for her Basic Attack instead of a standalone move.
  • Atomic Superpower: She can use Quantum-based abilities to manipulate her luck of the draw, as seen in her Skill and Ultimate, in order for her to bring more pain onto her foes.
  • Badass Adorable: Qingque is a short, cute, youthful-looking lady who can still put up quite a fight with Jade Tiles.
  • Batman Gambit: She lets slip in the "Foxian Tale of the Haunted" event that she actually wants Fu Xuan to fire her from the Divination Commission, because that will make her eligible for a hefty severance package that she plans to invest in a gaming parlor so that she can live the rest of her life in comfort.
  • Brilliant, but Lazy: Qingque has been described by her professors and colleagues as intelligent and gifted, but she only ever puts in the bare minimum amount of work to succeed and puts the rest of her energy into slacking off and having fun. It's even described as monumentally impressive how she managed to find a job at the Divination Commission, a division of the Xianzhou government that is constantly swamped with work, and not only figure out how to slack off but optimize slacking off in a position where there's almost no time to slack off.
  • Cannot Keep a Secret: When she reports some spookiness, she tries to avoid giving away the location to protect her workplace's reputation, but ends up spilling the words "Divination Commission" and "Master Diviner" anyways.
  • Deliberate Under-Performance: Qingque was a straight-D student, consistently scoring 60 points (the minimum required to pass) on every single exam. Her professors realized that she was doing this on purpose and constantly berated her for setting little to no goals for herself. Even when working at the Divination Commission she makes every possible effort to ensure that she's the lowest-ranked Diviner in her division regardless of what branch she's working for so she gets the least amount of work.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Qingque's kit makes her more difficult to play than most characters, since she requires specific team setups to maximize her potential; played correctly, however, she can hit extremely hard and compete with some of the game's better damage dealers.
  • Do Well, But Not Perfect: It's often recommended to avoid opening every turn with Hidden Hand whenever possible, as her Skill can be used without using her turn until either she has burnt through the party's SP or lucks out and triggers Hidden Hand, each repeated use boosting the damage of her subsequent attack. As it cannot be used if Hidden Hand has been triggered, it is recommended to stock as many SP as reasonably allowed (without cutting into the effectiveness of your other characters) and burn as much as possible on her Skill to boost either her Basic Attack or Ultimate before she rolls Hidden Hand. This strategy is further incentivized through her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability and fourth Eidolon Resonance, respectively Bide Time and Right on the Tiles, which provide her Skill another 10% boost and a 24% chance to augment her Basic Attack with an extra hit.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The characters of her name (青雀, pinyin "Qīngquè") are read as "Seijaku" (via kan-on, or Han Chinese-derived, reading; katakana セイジャク) in Japanese and "Cheongjak" (hangul 청작) in Korean.
  • Fictional Board Game: Qingque is responsible for rediscovering a lost board game called Celestial Jade, which is mahjong in all but name.
  • Gathering Steam: Each repeated use of her Skill gives her up to four stacks of a 14–30.8% damage boost (hence a maximum of 56–123.2%) to all her subsequent attacks until the end of her turn (including her Ultimate).
  • Hidden Depths: Delivers a hell of a Kirk Summation on the topic of Screw Destiny to a Heliobus-possessed Fu Xuan in the "Foxian Tale of the Haunted" event.
    " Heliobus, you cannot fathom the joys of humanity. You are imprisoned by the illusion of destiny, unable to free yourself - and you want everyone who peeks into the future to suffer the same pain as you. You don't understand humans at all."
  • Improbable Weapon User: Qingque attacks by tossing Jade Tiles (i.e., mahjong tiles) on her opponents.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "Luck of the draw!"
    (Normal speed) "Please, please, please, please, please... ah! Looks like... Victory!"
    (×2 speed) "Please, ah! Victory!"
  • Luck Manipulation Mechanic: Apart from dealing damage on all enemies, her Ultimate draws four tiles of the same suit afterwards, allowing her to immediately trigger Hidden Hand on her current/next turn.note  Relatedly, her first Eidolon upgrade, Rise Through the Tiles, will make her Ultimate deal 10% more damage. In addition, her Technique allows her to automatically draw two Tiles at the start of battle.
  • Magikarp Power: Qingque relies heavily on her Eidolons to be effective, meaning that although she is technically a Starter Mon, she only truly shines if you pull enough copies of her. To wit, her fourth Eidolon Resonance grants her a 24% chance to deal double damage for her Basic Attack, massively improving her potential damage output, while her sixth refunds 1 SP whenever she uses her enhanced Basic Attack, preventing her from going negative on Skill Point economy and granting immense flexibility to her other party members.
  • Mechanically Unusual Fighter:
    • Qingque has an extremely unusual skillset that is a minigame in and of itself, focused on drawing Jade Tiles with her Skill and Talent and discarding ones she doesn't need with her Basic Attack. Once she gets four of a kind, she triggers the Hidden Hand state, where, in exchange for being unable to use the Skill, she enjoys 36–79% boost (tied to her Talent) to her Attack stat, and her Basic Attack is upgraded to discard all Tiles in exchange for greater damage potency and radius.note 
    • To a lesser degree, Qingque is also odd in that, despite being ostensibly an Erudition Pathstrider, the lion's share of her damage output comes in the form of concentrated blast attacks, rather than the usual widespread area damage of most of her counterparts.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: During the "Foxian Tale of the Haunted" event, The normally lazy Qingque starts showing up to work early and trying to recruit her coworkers to start a business. This immediately sets off alarm bells for Fu Xuan who suspects that Qingque has been possessed by a Heliobus.
  • Randomized Damage Attack: Her fourth Eidolon Resonance, Right on the Tiles, gives her Skill a 24% chance to trigger Autarky, which enables her to launch a follow-up attack that deals damage equal to that of the finishing Basic Attack, either on its regular or enhanced forms.
  • Random Number God: Qingque relies heavily on luck, generating just enough Tiles to then cash out with her Skill to buff up and (if you have her fourth Eidolon Resonance) get her Autarky follow-up attack. When the stars align and she does get what she wants, Qingque can be the single highest damage character in the entire game, exceeding even 5★ damagers. When her luck is against her however, she's stuck dealing a single heavily buffed Basic Attack.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Qingque appears in her early to mid teens at most, yet she refers to Tingyun, who is 200 years old, as part of the "younger generation". She mentions in the "Pillow Whisper" quest that she had her job for hundreds of years.
  • Regenerating Mana:
    • Her second-ascension Bonus Ability, Tile Battle, reimburses 1 SP once per battle after she uses her Skill.
    • Her second Eidolon Resonance, Sleep on the Tiles, regenerates 1 Energy whenever she draws a Tile (whether from her Talent's effect or through her Skill).
    • Her sixth Eidolon Resonance, Prevail Beyond the Tiles, reimburses 1 SP after using her enhanced Basic Attack.
  • The Slacker: She often skips work to play Celestial Jade. When bringing the crew of the Astral Express to the Divination Commission, she admits that she's already been demoted at least once for slacking off, and one of her co-workers is more surprised to see Qingque actually doing her job than she is to see the visiting crew of the Express.
  • Starter Mon: Aside from Warp, she can be unlocked via completing Stage 3 of the Forgotten Hall. She is quite useful for a new player who lacks Seele or Silver Wolf, being a source of Quantum damage.
  • Status Buff: Her sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Winning Hand, provides a 10% Speed boost for one turn after using her enhanced Basic Attack.
  • This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Qingque is one of the few characters in the game who gains exponentially more value out of external boons revolving around consuming SP, as she has the capacity to use her Skill multiple times in a single turn. This produces an extraordinary amount of synergy in certain content, such as the Path of Propagation in Simulated Universe and Swarm Disaster.
  • Upgrade Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Read Between the Tiles and Gambit for the Tiles, which will add two levels to her Ultimate and Talent with the former, and 2 to her Skill and 1 to Basic Attack with the latter.
  • Weapon Specialization: Qinqque's associated Light Cone is "Today Is Another Peaceful Day" (4★), whose "A Storm Is Coming" passive increases its wearer's damage output by 0.20–0.40% per point of Energy (capped to 160, for a maximum of 32–64%), taking advantage of Qingque having one of the largest Energy pools among the launch lineup at 140 points (hence a damage boost of 28–56%).

Sky-Faring Commission

    Tingyun (Unmarked Spoilers

Tingyun

Introduced: April 26, 2023 (v1.0 "The Rail Unto the Stars" [game launch])
Voiced by: Jiang Li (Chinese), Yūki Takada (Japanese), Lee Myeong-ho (Korean), Laci Morgan (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tingyun.png
Click to see her full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 4★
Path: The Harmony
Type: Lightning

Head Representative (or "Amicassador," as she prefers to be called) of the Whistling Flames merchant guild. A Foxian woman who has a way with words, Tingyun is known for charming everyone around her with her tall tales, and whose reputation has spread far and wide across the galaxy.

Tingyun smooth-talks her allies into swiftly dispatching of her enemies with her Skill, Soothing Melody, which for three turns grants the "Benediction" effect to one ally, enhancing their Attack stat, augmenting their first offensive move with an additional lightning strike, and augmenting Tingyun's attacks through her Talent, Violet Sparknado. In addition, her Ultimate, Amidst the Rejoicing Clouds, is an enchanted dance that immediately charges up her target ally's Energy and enhances their damage output for two turns, while her Technique, Gentle Breeze, immediately charges up her own Energy.note 
  • Admiring the Abomination: Where the revival of the Ambrosial Arbor has most of the Xianzhou Luofu in a panic, Tingyun strangely seems to see it in the opposite light, marveling at the power of the Abundance and the overwhelming life force displayed by one of its creations. Strangest of all, she ponders whether or not she would gain the same degree of immortality as the Xianzhou if she consumed one of that same creation's fruits, a desire which edges alarmingly close to Xianzhou's taboos.
  • Ambiguous Situation: The Tingyun who interacts with the Express is, near the end of the story chapter, revealed to be Phantylia of the Antimatter Legion in disguise. The verifiable facts end there. Was there never a real Tingyun, with Phantylia playing a long con for some 200 years? Did they switch places during one of Tingyun's many business journeys? Or is this the real Tingyun, possessed and puppeted by Phantylia? Regardless, Phantylia snaps the neck of her Tingyun body, which quickly fades away... so, if there was a separate, real Tingyun, did she die right there, did she die long ago, or is she out there somewhere in need of rescue? All these possibilities are acknowledged in-universe, with no way to verify any of them.
  • Combat Hand Fan: If she has to fight, Tingyun can rely on her handfan to defend herself.
  • The Drag-Along: Is less than enthusiastic about being assigned to guide the Trailblazers by her superiors, although being the Amicassador that she is, she keeps it well-hidden.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The characters of her name (simplified 停云, traditional 停雲, pinyin "Tíngyún") are read as "Tei'un" (via kan-on [Han Chinese-derived] reading; katakana テイウン) in Japanese and "Jeong'un" (hangul 정운) in Korean.
  • Due to the Dead: The conclusion of the Xianzhou Luofu Trailblaze Mission primarily involves taking Tingyun's belongings and delivering gifts to several people in her stead. Afterwards, the crew gather with Yukong to perform the Soul-Soothing Ritual for her and all the others lost during the battle.
  • Evil All Along: The v1.2 main questline reveals that the Tingyun that the protagonists know is actually Lord Ravager Phantylia in disguise, who is responsible for smuggling the Stellaron onto the Luofu and manipulating the Sanctus Medicus into doing her bidding. The fate of the real Tingyun, if she existed at all, remains unknown.
  • Evil Doppelgänger: "Tingyun" is revealed to be a body puppeted around by Lord Ravager Phantylia, who discards the body once she realizes the jig is up and has to take matters into her own hands. Welt assumes that there was a real Tingyun to begin with in order for her to be impersonated, but his theories on whether or not Phantylia executed a Kill and Replace and stole Tingyun's body or simply snuck in while pretending to be the real Tingyun are inconclusive.
  • Five-Second Foreshadowing: One of the last hints the player receives about "Tingyun"'s identity is that she chooses to accompany the Astral Express to handle the poisonous mist despite the fact that Foxians are a long-life species and thus she should be unable to safely traverse the area without instantly turning into a Mara-struck. Her real identity is revealed shortly afterwards when the Astral Express defeats Dan Shu.
  • Foil: To Yukong. They’re both Foxians and Harmony Pathstriders who work together at the Sky-Faring Commission. However, while Tingyun is a young smooth-talking merchant who avoids battle whenever possible, Yukong is a seasoned pilot and war veteran whose sunshine years are long behind her. Furthermore, Tingyun is a Lady in Red while Yukong is True Blue Femininity. Finally, where Tingyun showed some fascination with the Ambrosial Arbor when it is revived, Yukong firmly adheres to the fleet's aversion to their cursed longevity. Then of course, Yukong is who she says she is, almost to the point of wearing her heart on her sleeve, while the Tingyun you meet in the main story is simply an Emanator of Destruction doing a bit to infiltrate the Luofu.
  • Foreshadowing: One clue that indicates Tingyun isn't who she seems is the fact that unlike most other playable characters, Tingyun never sends any daily text messages to you if you have her in your roster, indicating she's not actually on very friendly terms with the Trailblazer.
  • Fox Folk: She is a Foxian, a race in Xianzhou with fox ears and a tail.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: The reveal of "Tingyun" being Phantylia either impersonating or possessing Tingyun to infiltrate, and sow chaos within, the Luofu, does not stop the player from keeping their playable Tingyun in their party for battles. Including the battle immediately following Tingyun's neck snapping.
  • Hero-Worshipper: Yukong's splash art seems to show that a young Tingyun admired Yukong enormously, given the wonder with which she's looking at Yukong.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "A thousand wonders to raise your spirits!"
    (Normal speed) "Good omens, fight as one!"
    (×2 speed) "Fight as one!"
  • Impersonation-Exclusive Character: Implied. The Tingyun the Astral Express meets being Phantylia; any information about who Tingyun was is limited to people who knew her from before and her Character Stories and voiceovers. However, whether "Tingyun" was a fake identity of if there's a real Tingyun out there remains unresolved.
  • Intrepid Merchant: In her role as amicassador, Tingyun traveled across the stars to far-off worlds to trade and bring a bounty of goods back home. Her coworkers called her one of the best at her work, a natural-born merchant who brought untold prosperity to the Luofu. Yukong even recalls fighting alongside Tingyun in battle on some assignments.
  • Little Bit Beastly: Has fox ears and a tail as characteristic of the Foxian race.
  • Loved by All: Part of the "Obsequies Performed, A Long Road Ahead" Quest is going through Tingyun's remaining effects and delivering them as they were planned gifts that she was never able to deliver. Through delivering these gifts, the crew learn that the Tingyun people knew was very thoughtful and kind, even going out of her way to bring a rare tea to the owner of the Sleepless Earl. If the Trailblazer chooses to inform the recipients of her death, they're very saddened and offer gifts in her memory.
  • Mana Drain: Tingyun's second Eidolon Resonance, Gainfully Gives, Givingly Gains, restores 5 Energy for the ally with Benediction whenever they defeat an enemy.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Tingyun is an attractive Foxian wearing a dress that shows off her chest and legs very nicely.
  • Neck Snap: After Phantylia reveals herself before the Astral Express crew, she has Tingyun's neck snapped, instantly killing the body she possessed.
  • The Red Mage: Though her primary role is as an offensive support, Tingyun has surprisingly good damage output should the situation call for it; the Benediction effect, in addition buffing up her allies, indirectly helps augment Tingyun's attacks with lightning bolts through her Talent, with damage scaling off of the affected ally's Attack stat.note  Furthermore, her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Knell Subdual, boosts the potency of her Basic Attack, Dislodged, by 40%; this means that, in addition to her impressive buffing profile, Tingyun has one of the strongest Basic Attacks of any support character, effectively putting the "Harm" in Harmony.
  • Regenerating Mana:
    • Her Ultimate and Technique restores 50 Energy for, respectively, her ally and herself; in addition, her sixth Eidolon Resonance, Peace Brings Wealth to All, adds 10 points to the former's effect.
    • Her sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Jubilant Pasage, immediately regenerates 5 Energy at the start of her turn.
  • Squishy Wizard: Tingyun has powerful offensive support options, but is fairly lacking in HP and Defense and will struggle if targeted by enemies. This is further exacerbated by her dependence on her Attack stat to buff her allies, meaning players will likely prioritize giving her loadouts that enhance her buffing potency instead of survivability.
  • Status Buff:
    • Her Skill applies Benediction to one ally at a time for three turns, which boosts their Attack stat as well as allows their first attack to be augmented with an additional strike.note  Her second-ascension Bonus Ability, Nourished Joviality, will also let her buff her Speed by 20% for one turn after using her Skill, while two of her Resonances bestow buffs to allies with Benediction—her first, Windfall of Lucky Springs, grants a 20% speed buff after using their Ultimate, while her fourth, Jovial Versatility, is a straightforward 20% damage boost.
    • Her Ultimate grants a 20–65% damage boost to her target ally for two turns and restores 50 Energy for them.
  • Uncertain Doom: After the Tingyun you knew reveals herself to be Phantylia, she snaps the neck of the body she's using before leaving, with the body also disappearing shortly after. This causes a lot of uncertainty among the cast about whether Tingyun was the victim of a Kill and Replace, imprisoned, conveniently offscreen, or even if she existed in the first place. Additionally, despite having her affects placed on a Starskiff for the Soul Soothing Ritual, none of the characters know for sure that she's dead, with Yukong even swearing to continue searching for her and promising to avenge her if she discovers the worst.
  • Upgrade Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Halcyon Bequest and Sauntering Coquette, which will add two levels to her Ultimate and 1 to Basic Attack with the former, and 2 to her Skill and Talent with the latter.
  • Walking Spoiler: Certain developments in the Xianzhou Luofu Traiblaze storyline make it difficult to talk about her in full without revealing the true identity of her story version.
  • Weapon Specialization: Tingyun's associated Light Cone is "Carve the Moon, Weave the Clouds" (4★), whose "Secret" passive can randomly boost either the party's Attack by 10–20%, Critical Damage by 12–24%, or Energy Regeneration Rate by 6–12% whenever its wearer takes action, which changes for every new action and lasts until they are knocked out. All these effects play well to Tingyun's offensive support-oriented kit.

    Yukong 

Yukong

Introduced: June 28, 2023 (v1.1 "Galactic Roaming" [second half])
Voiced by: Zhong Ke (Chinese), Yumi Tōma (Japanese), Jeon Sook-kyeong (Korean), Dawn M. Bennett (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yukong.png
Click to see her full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 4★
Path: The Harmony
Type: Imaginary

The Foxian Helm Master of the Xianzhou Luofu. Once an ace starskiff pilot, a past tragedy in a great war cost her a loved one and forced her to leave her military life behind in favor of a job in the Sky-Faring Commission.

Yukong leads her allies to victory through her Skill and Technique, respectively Emboldening Salvo and Chasing the Wind (which additionally increases her field movement speed), which creates two stacks of Roaring Bowstrings that are consumed at the end of her allies' turn, which enhances the party's Attack stat, as well as adds a Critical Rate and Damage buff through her Ultimate, Diving Kestrel, where she leaps in midair and fires a powerful arrow made of light onto one enemy. In addition, her Talent, Seven Layers, One Arrow, boosts the HP and Toughness damage dealt by her Basic Attack, Arrowslinger, every other turn.note 
  • Ace Pilot: So much that her in-universe nickname is actually "Ace."
  • Action Initiative: Her first Eidolon Resonance, Aerial Marshal, boosts the party's Speed by 12% for the first two turns of battle.
  • Action Mom: Yukong alternates being a former ace pilot turned helm master of a spaceship, a decent fighter, and an adoptive mother to a young woman in her thirties.
  • Anti-Debuff: Yukong's second-ascension Bonus Ability, Archerion, resists one debuff, triggered at least every two turns.
  • Broken Ace: Yukong used to be one of the best starskiff pilots in the Xianzhou Luofu, but her best friend Caiyi's death forced her into retiring into a desk job, and she hasn't flown since.
    Yukong: My wings are broken. I can't go back. I think I'm old. I can't go back. I think I'll die. My wings are broken. I can't fly.
  • Critical Hit Class: If she has at least one stack of Roaring Bowstrings, her Ultimate ehances the party's Critical Rate and Damage (respectively, by 21–29.4% and 39–70.2%) until the current stacks expire, in addition to dealing damage by shooting a powerful arrow from the skies onto her target.note 
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Yukong's buffs have incredibly high numbers and can significantly increase her allies' damage output by herself, but they require proper planning (including for SP usage) and timing to maximize their efficiency on the right characters; otherwise, the buffs are wasted due to their very short durations.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The characters of her name (simplified 驭空, traditional 馭空, pinyin "Yùkōng") are read as "Gyokū" (respectively via kan-on and go-on [Han and Wu Chinese-derived] readings; kanji 御空, katakana ギョクウ) in Japanese and "Eogong" (hangul 어공) in Korean.
  • Fantasy-Forbidding Mother: Downplayed. During her Companion Mission, she explicitly forbids her daughter Qingni from piloting a starskiff, and is genuinely alarmed at her discovering her piloting skills early in life. Justified, in that Qingni's late biological mother and Yukong's best friend, Caiyi, made the latter promise to her to raise her daughter in her place but also forbid her from pursuing the same occupation for which she and her husband Guangyuan lost their lives.
  • Famed In-Story: Yukong’s past feats in battle made her a legend among the Xianzhou Luofu.
  • Foil: To Tingyun. They're both Foxians and Harmony Pathstriders who work together at the Sky-Faring Commission. But while Yukong is a seasoned pilot and war veteran, Tingyun is a relatively young merchant. Aesthetics-wise, Yukong represents True Blue Femininity while Tingyun is a Lady in Red. Finally, where Yukong firmly adheres to the Xianzhou Alliance's aversion towards any manifestation of Yaoshi the Abundance, Tingyun has shown some fascination for the revived Ambrosial Arbor.
  • Former Teen Rebel: The Sky-Faring Commission recruited Yukong as a pilot after she ran six consecutive red lights.
  • Fox Folk: Is Tingyun's fellow Foxian.
  • Hidden Depths: Despite her usually serious personality, Yukong is actually a starskiff immersia enthusiast which are essentially flight simulator video games. She is so knowledgable, she can give the Trailblazer detailed recommendations on which immersia to try based on their specific interests.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "The wind is rising."
    (Normal speed) "Cloudkites, formation! Bolt from the blue!"
    (×2 speed) "Bolt, from the blue!"
  • Little Bit Beastly: Has the fox ears and bushy tail characteristic of her race.
  • Madness Mantra: Her fourth Character Story details the despair Yukong felt in her last battle, eventually devolving into her repeating "I want to back" over and over again.
  • Meaningful Name: Yukong's name means "sky charioteer," befitting her background as a starskiff racer and her current job as helmswoman of a spaceship.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Similar to her fellow Foxian Tingyun, Yukong is a beautiful woman who wears a form-fitting attire that, while not exactly Stripperiffic, still exposes quite a bit of skin. Yukong bares her shoulders and most of her legs, has a modest neckline and hip windows that reveal what could very well be underwear straps.
  • Never Mess with Granny: Foxians are not an immortal race, with a lifespan of roughly 300 years. Yukong still looks youthful, but she is considered an elderly Foxian with less than a century left to live.
  • Parental Substitute: Yukong has been doing her best to fulfill her friend Caiyi's dying wish to raise her daughter Qingni as her own, as well as prevent her from becoming a fighter pilot. Qingni has been oblivious to this until Yukong's Companion Mission.
  • Regenerating Mana:
    • Her sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Majestas, regenerates 2 Energy whenever her allies take action while she has at least one stack of Roaring Bowstrings.
    • Her second Eidolon Resonance, Skyward Command, regenerates 5 Energy whenever any of her allies' Energy reach their maximum, limited to once per ally (to a maximum of 15 Energy at a time), reset once she uses her Ultimate.
  • Retired Badass: A famed pilot of the Xianzhou Luofu, who now spends most of her time mired in official duties and mountains of paperwork.
  • Shellshocked Veteran: Due to losing a loved one in a conflict during her military service, Yukong was so traumatized she swore off piloting ever again.
  • Situational Damage Attack: Her Talent buffs her Basic Attack (worth 40–100% of her Attack stat) as well as doubles its Toughness reduction at least every two turns.
  • Situational Sword: Yukong's fourth Eidolon Resonance, Zephyrean Echoes, increases her damage output by 30% while she has at least one stack of Roaring Bowstrings.note 
  • The Smurfette Principle: As of v1.6 she is the only female Imaginary-type character.
  • Speed Demon: A case of Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration. Yukong used to be an ace pilot who, as a young adult, once ran six consecutive red lights. Furthermore, her Technique allows her to enter Sprint Mode for twenty seconds, with a 35% boost to her Movement Speed.
  • Speed Echoes: Her Technique has her leave behind afterimages when running.
  • Starter Mon: Aside from Warping, she is obtained for free by completing the first stage of the Forgotten Hall: Memory of Xianzhou. She is greatly useful for a player who lacks Welt, Imbibitor Lunae, or Dr. Rationote , being a rare source of Imaginary damage.
  • Status Buff:
    • Her Skill grants her two stacks of Roaring Bowstrings, which provide a uniform 40–100% Attack boost to the party that lasts until these are consumed, one at a time at the end of her allies' turns (unless she is acting, typically whenever she uses her Ultimate). Her Technique also allows her to begin battle with the Bowstrings active if she initiates battle. Her sixth Eidolon Resonance, Bowstring Thunderclap, allows her Ultimate to refill one stack of said effect.
    • Yukong's fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Bowmaster, boosts the party's Imaginary Damage by 12% simply by being in the party.
  • Survivor Guilt: She suffers from a serious case of this, especially since many of her loved ones died in battle, such as her partner Caiyi and her husband Guangyuan. Tingyun's apparent death at the conclusion of the Xianzhou Luofu Trailblaze Mission only worsens her guilt.
  • Tempting Fate: Caiyi made Yukong promise to forbid her daughter Qingni from becoming a fighter pilot. Guess what Qingni wants to become?
  • Trauma Button: Qingni mentions that Yukong becomes unreasonable when it comes to "flying." The latter hid the former's starskiff toys, made her stay away from starskiff ports, and made sure she gets a desk job in the Sky-Faring Commission. This is rooted in her trauma from her piloting days that made her lose her drive to fly again, but especially the death of Caiyi, her best friend and Qingni's biological mother, who asked her to prevent her daughter from following in her footsteps.
  • Upgrade Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Torrential Fusillade and August Deadshot, add two levels to her Skill and Basic Attack (by one) with the former, and her Ultimate and Talent with the latter.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With her best friend Caiyi, who originally was one of her racing rivals.
  • Weapon Specialization: Yukong's associated Light Cone is "Past and Future" (4★), whose "Kites from the Past" passive allows its wearer's Skill to increase the damage potency of the next attacking ally (apart from the wearer) by 16–32%, further enhancing the damage potency of allies blessed with Roaring Bowstrings.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Yukong recalls a story of a man cursed with Age Without Youth, growing older but unable to die with the passage of time. She compares this to the situation of those with longer lifespans, explaining that while their bodies remain youthful and strong, time wears down their hearts and minds. Things that once brought them joy become dull and uninteresting, leaving them without the vibrant spark of species with shorter lives.

Alchemy Commission

    Bailu 

Bailu

Introduced: April 26, 2023 (v1.0 "The Rail Unto the Stars" [game launch])
Voiced by: Duoduo Poi (Chinese), Emiri Katō (Japanese), Jo Hyeon-jeong (Korean), Su Ling Chan (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bailu.png
Click to see her full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Abundance
Type: Lightning

A senior healer of the Alchemy Commission of the Xianzhou Luofu and High Elder of the draconic Vidhyadhara race. Despite her diminutive, childlike appearance, she is at least a few hundred years old, owing to the ability of her race to be reborn at the end of their lifespans.

Bailu specializes in healing and rescuing her allies from precarious situations with the "Invigoration" effect bestowed upon the party for two turns by both her Technique, Saunter in the Rain, as well as her Ultimate, Felicitous Thunderclap, where she opens her gourd to let loose a water dragon that sends a healing rainshower onto the party as well as adds one turn to any existing Invigoration effect, which twice heals an ally throughout its duration whenever they are attacked and whose power is tied to her Talent, Gourdful of Elixir, which additionally allows her to revive a fallen ally once per battle. In addition, her Skill, Singing Among Clouds, releases a healing droplet from her gourd onto one ally, which afterwards will bounce and twice heal allies at random.note 
  • Achilles' Heel:
    • Compared to fellow launch lineup healer Natasha, Bailu's stronger healing potency, as well as as an Auto-Revive effect, comes in exchange for lacking an Anti-Debuff effect.
    • The Auto-Revive effect of her Talent will not trigger if she's incapacitated in any way whenever a party member falls, either by being Frozen, Imprisoned, Entangled, or Dominated (by Kafka).
  • A Child Shall Lead Them: Her childishness belies her position as a High Elder of the Vidyadhara. The way various Xianzhou natives describe her suggests that she is indeed young by Xianzhou standards, and that the burden of her position would thus be disproportionately heavy. Dan Heng's Companion Mission implies that Bailu is the new life created by Dan Feng during his attempt to bring back Baiheng, possibly making her the youngest Vidyadhara in existence.
  • Auto-Revive: Her Talent automatically revives a knocked-out ally by zapping them with electricity,note  triggered only once per battle (extendable to two through her sixth Eidolon Resonance, Drooling Drop of Draconic Divinity).
  • Badass Adorable: Bailu's cute, diminutive looks belie one of the most powerful healers in the game who can easily carry teams through endgame content.
  • Bequeathed Power: This is how High Elder succession normally works using the Transmutation Arcanum, with the designatee gaining the corresponding dragon traits and abilities; Bailu grew the physical traits to match her station but seemingly didn't receive the power to go with it. It's heavily implied from Dan Heng's Companion Mission that Dan Feng's modified Transmutation Arcanum somehow inadvertently split the power and the role, with Bailu inheriting only half of it. When attempting to redo the seal on the Ambrosial Arbor, Dan Heng is unable to do it alone despite breaking the seal to begin with, but is able to do so with Bailu together, and the action appears to awaken some semblance of past-life memory in her like High Elders normally do through dreams but she cannot. Furthermore, Dan Feng was both a great warrior and healer in his prime, though more so for the former; Dan Heng kept the warrior aspect, while Bailu inherited the healing aspect.
  • Big Eater: She loves food, as she's apparently a regular at Aurum Alley's food stalls and Jing Yuan will always ply her with treats and snacks whenever he visits her clinic. The Aurum Alley event opens with Bailu bringing the Trailblazer there so that they eat their way through the various snacks offered, even wishing that the market could deliver to the Alchemy Commission. The Trailblazer can even jokingly comment that she only sees them as a free meal ticket. One of her daily messages to the Trailblazer is a meal plan, although she calls it "food therapy" and her character quote on the official website has her comparing lunch to medicine.
  • Cannot Dream: High Elders typically experience the memories of their ancestors' lives in dreams. Mysteriously, Bailu does not appear to dream at all, which is a cause for concern for her attendants. Subverted, as Dan Heng's Companion Mission reveals that she does have dreams, but refuses to tell anyone and lies about it to the Preceptors. Her last maid, Yuanli, initially recorded Bailu's dreams, but out of suspicion towards the Preceptors, stopped recording and kept it secret out of concern for Bailu before being reassigned by the Preceptors for disobeying them. One of her visitor voice lines on the Express has her telling the Trailblazer that she dreams of flying.
  • Company Cross References: Like Qiqi of Genshin Impact, Bailu is a 5★ healer who was part of the launch lineup, is far older than her childlike looks suggest, has bluish-purple hair, hails from a place with a Chinese cultural aesthetic, and is part of the standard 5★ gacha pool, as well as based on the Chinese interpretation of a common fictional creature (i.e., the dragon to Qiqi's zombie).
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: At the end of her Companion Mission, Bailu is justifiably furious at the callous disregard of the man who started the whole debacle, but she made a promise with someone else to heal an illness he's suffering from. So she does... while also giving him, a short-life human, uncontrollable hiccups every day for the next thirty years, calling it the price of her lenience.
  • Cute Monster Girl: Has antlers, Pointy Ears, a very long dragon's tail, and she happens to be less than four feet tall.
  • Damage Reduction: Bailu's sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Aquatic Benediction, adds a 10% damage reduction upon the Invigoration effect.
  • Draconic Humanoid: She has the features of a Chinese dragon due to her heritage as a Vidyadhara.
  • Dragon Ancestry: She is a descendant of Long, the draconic Aeon of Permanence.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The characters of her name (白露, pinyin "Báilù") are read as "Byakuro" (respectively based on the go-on and kan-on [Wu and Han Chinese-derived] readings; katakana ビャクロ) in Japanese and "Baekro" (hangul 백로) in Korean.
  • Elemental Hair Colors: She has bluish-purple hair, matching her Lightning element, though not the water visuals in her abilities.
  • Eyelid Pull Taunt: She does this in her character trailer as she runs away from the guards sent to escort her back to the Alchemy Commission.
  • Food as Bribe: During the "Aurum Alley's Hustle and Bustle" event, Bailu initially balks at the idea of using pictures of her as part of a promotion for a restaurant, citing the elders' displeasure at possibly tarnishing her image. Once Sushang says she'll get free meals from said restaurant for the duration of the promotion, she flips her stance and agrees instantly.
  • Glacier Waif: Since her healing scales off of her Max HP, maximizing Bailu's effectiveness will easily push her Max HP well ahead of her teammates, letting her tank hits without much worry in spite of her short stature and focus her healing efforts on the rest of the party.
  • Heal It with Water: How most of her healing is done, spraying medicinal drought from her gourd and using her ability to command water to splash it from person to person.
  • Height Angst: While slow growth is not uncommon among Vidyadharas, Bailu is still not happy about her short height. This is exemplified by the lore and artwork for the Light Cone "Quid Pro Quo," which shows her pouting in annoyance at Tingyun pinching her cheeks in adoration over her childlike looks.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "Time to show you..."
    (Normal speed) "What's in your... prescription!"
    (×2 speed) "What's in your prescription!"
  • Horned Humanoid: She has horns that resemble those of a Chinese dragon (which in turn resemble deer horns).
  • I Have This Friend: One text conversation with the Trailblazer has her asking them about ways to grow taller under the pretense of helping one of her patients. Naturally, the Trailblazer can see through it immediately.
  • Inadequate Inheritor: The Preceptors despise Bailu not only because she's Dan Feng's personal choice for successor, but also because they believe she lacks the true power of a High Elder on account of being more of a healer than a warrior.
  • Making a Splash: Ironically, despite her Lightning typing, many of Bailu's abilities visually resemble water. The only abilities that have her use electrical powers are her Basic Attack and her Talent. Given that the previous High Elder, Imbibitor Lunae, also had water powers, it's implied that she inherited that from him.
  • Mysterious Past: Not much is known about Bailu's past lives. However, Jingliu's Companion Mission heavily implies that she is the reincarnation of Baiheng. Jingliu mentions that Dan Feng couldn't accept her death, so both he and Yingxing/Blade attempted to resurrect her. The fact that Dan Feng personally appoints Bailu to be his successor, Jing Yuan checking in on her regularly, Blade going to the Alchemy Commission to see her when they have no prior history, and Jingliu going out of her way to meet her personally before heading off to the final reunion of the remaining High-Cloud Quintet, further suggest this.
  • Not Growing Up Sucks: The length of Vidyadhara childhood is highly variable, with one woman, Jinyu, growing to adulthood in days, and others functioning as working adults while in childlike bodies. Bailu is in the latter category and finds it frustrating that she is a centuries-old child, even worrying that she might never grow up at all.
  • Pointy Ears: Has these due to being a Vidyadhara.
  • Power Limiter: The circular shackle on her tail was created to prevent her from losing control over her powers.
  • Protectorate: In Dan Heng's Companion Mission, the Preceptors send assassins after Bailu since they don't believe she has what it takes to be a "true" High Elder, forcing the Trailblazer and Dan Heng to escort her to safety.
  • Randomized Damage Attack: Healing in this case. Her Skill first heals her target ally, followed by two additional healing bursts on random allies, albeit at the expense of a 15% reduction to the potency of each successive healing.note 
  • Really 700 Years Old: Vidyadharas can live many lifetimes more than a normal Xianzhou native, and are effectively reborn when they "molt," at the cost of their memories. Bailu has been around for several centuries at her youngest, and has probably forgotten more about medicine than most people could hope to learn in a lifetime. In spite of being (physically and mentally) a child, she's probably the most competent medical professional on the Xianzhou Luofu, and when working has a demeanor to match.
  • Rebellious Princess: As her Companion Mission reveals, she is next in line to rule the Vidyadhara but is not thrilled at the prospect of being holed up indoors and sneaks out whenever possible.
  • Regenerating Mana: Bailu's first Eidolon Resonance, Ambrosial Aqua, restores 8 Energy to any ally whose HP is full when Invigoration ends.
  • Semi-Divine: As a Vidyadhara, she is a descendant of Long, the Aeon of Permanence.
  • Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: When assassins first show up at the Ambrosial Arbor in Imbibitor Lunae's Companion Mission, Bailu complains about being made a bystander despite being combat capable, and is not a required member for most of the trek. Once the plot's orchestrator is uncovered and the group is surrounded with no real way to keep Bailu directly out of harm's way, this time a Trial version of Bailu is part of the ensuing fight (alongside Imbibitor Lunae, the Preservation Trailblazer, and eventually Jing Yuan), and is under a perpetual Lock-On effect for its duration since she's the direct target of the assassination.
  • Status Buff:
    • Apart from healing the party,note  her Ultimate bestows the Invigoration effect onto the party for two turns (as well as adds a turn to any existing effect), during which they are automatically healed twice per state whenever they are attacked.note  Her Technique provides the same buff at for the first two turns of battle, and her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Vidyadhara Ichor Lines, adds a third healing instance.
    • Bailu's second-ascension Bonus Ability, Qihuang Analects, boosts an ally's Max HP by 10% for two turns whenever her healing exceeds their Max HP. Bailu herself is not exempt, giving a minor boost to her healing when she's under this effect.
    • Her second Eidolon Resonance, Sylphic Slumber, boosts her Healing Bonus by 15% for two turns after using her Ultimate.
    • Her fourth Eidolon Resonance, Evil Excision, makes her Skill's healing instances provide 10% damage boost to the healed ally, which can be stacked up to thrice (hence 30%) and lasting two turns.
  • Tail Slap: Her Basic Attack, Diagnostic Kick, has her swat an enemy with her tail wreathed in lightning.
  • Token Mini-Moe: Bailu is to date the shortest of the playable Xianzhou Luofu cast.
  • Unwanted Assistance: Her Companion Mission starts with the Realm-Keeping Commission sending the Trailblazer to track her down and stop her from providing unauthorized treatment to the mara-struck. This is mainly because though Bailu's treatments are successful at fending off mara, it's only a stopgap at best and the Ten-Lords Commission is concerned her treatments will hide symptoms, making it harder for them apprehend the afflicted before their conditions worsen.
  • Upgrade Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Omniscient Opulence and Waning Worries, 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.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Dan Heng's Companion Mission implies that one of Bailu's previous incarnations may have been close friends with Dan Feng, hence why Dan Feng chose her to be his successor. Jingliu's own, meanwhile, implies that the so-called "previous incarnation" was none other than Baiheng, her and Dan Feng's Foxian peer within the High-Cloud Quintet.
  • Weapon Specialization: Bailu's associated Light Cone is "Time Waits for No One" (5★), whose "Morn, Noon, Dusk, and Night" passive increases its wearer's Max HP by 18–30% and Outgoing Healing by 12–20%, and records any number of healing done by the user; when any ally attacks, an additional damage will be dealt to one enemy (randomly selected among all attacked enemies) equivalent to 36–60% of the recorded healing, its damage type matching that of the user. Apart from boosting Bailu's healing potency, this ensures her Skill and Ultimate will never be wasted, supplying extra damage even when its healing is spent on healthy allies.
  • White Mage: She's the game's dedicated 5★ healer at launch, complete with the ability to revive downed allies.
  • You Are in Command Now: Prior to his forced molting rebirth, Dan Feng had designated Bailu as his successor to be the next High Elder. However, this was done without Bailu's knowledge and against her will, so she was suddenly shoved into a leadership position she was ill prepared for and didn't want.

    Dan Shu (unmarked spoilers) 

Dan Shu

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/npc_dan_shu.png
Dan Shu as an NPC
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dan_shu_enemy.png
Dan Shu as an enemy

A seemingly kind and blind woman who is the chief alchemist of the Alchemy Commission. The Trailblazer meets her after asking her to analyze medicine created by the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus cult, and slowly establishes a rapport with her... only to eventually learn that she is the leader of the cult.


  • All for Nothing: Dan Shu and the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus genuinely took Phantyllia's words that resurrecting the Ambrosial Arbor will give them more power to overthrow the Ten-Lords Commission. By the time she realized it did nothing, Phantylia/"Tingyun" reveals that she lied and immediately turns her and her comrades into Antimatter Legion monsters.
  • Big Bad Friend: The Trailblazer initially befriends her, only to realize that she is the leader of the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus that have been causing chaos throughout the Luofu.
  • The Cynic: When she and the Trailblazer rescue a little blind girl from monsters, Dan Shu gives her a rather cynical speech to toughen her up, about how terrible blind people have it on the Xianzhou and that she can only rely on herself.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Dan Shu was born blind, a condition that is incurable for Xianzhou denizens due to their Blessed with Suck form of immortality negating any possible forms of treatment by reverting their bodies to their natural state. She was often bullied as a child, with her only friend being a girl named Yufei, and she desperately wanted to gain the ability to see. Dan Shu attempted to treat her condition several times throughout her life, none of which worked permanently and many of which resulted in immense pain or nearly killed her. Yufei was later enlisted as a field doctor in a war, but she was killed as collateral damage by one of Lan the Hunt's attacks. This, combined with Dan Shu's suspicion that Lan's nemesis Yaoshi could heal her blindness, caused Dan Shu to angrily renounce the Xianzhou's god and turn towards worshipping Yaoshi.
  • Eye Scream: One of her attempts to cure her blindness involved transplanting a pair of eyes onto herself, knowing that due to the Xianzhou curse of immortality her old eyes would eventually grow back and override her new eyes, causing her unimaginable pain in the process.
  • Faith–Heel Turn: Dan Shu was once a devout follower of the Reignbow Arbiter. Hearing that her best friend was outright killed by her god shattered her faith, which led her to become a cult leader and terrorist.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • There are several hints that Dan Shu is the Master of Sanctus Medicus:
      • Jing Yuan believes that there are several traitors within the Alchemy Division.
      • Dan Shu is the Chief Alchemist and therefore in a high enough position to cover things up. She is also able to easily translate the Sanctus Medicus recipe that would have apparently stumped other alchemists with ease, which would make a lot of sense if she's the one brewing the medicine in the first place.
  • Interface Spoiler: When exploring the Luofu after the first encounter with Bailu, there's a short window of time when the player can speak to her before she becomes relevant to the plot. Despite this, she responds with voice dialogue, implying that she's far more important than your average generic NPC.
  • Morality Pet: She acts kindly towards Xiaoyu, a little girl who is blind just like herself. After Dan Shu's death, Xiaoyu's mourning of her reminds the player that the fanatical Dan Shu had a kind side.
  • She Cleans Up Nicely: Downplayed as she's by no means ugly when she hadn't yet been revealed to have joined the Sanctus Medicus. When she's an enemy, she's wearing much more revealing and intricately designed clothes along with some accessories.
  • Too Dumb to Live: It's quite amazing how a schemer like Dan Shu, who was able to keep the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus alive and active for millennia, was desperate enough to believe Phantylia, an Emanator of Destruction, would keep her word to revive the Ambrosial Arbor and not backstab her and her followers at the first opportunity.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Phantylia pandered to her and her fellow Disciples' desperation to revive the Ambrosial Arbor so she can take its power for herself. By the time she realized all her efforts were for naught, their benefactor turned her into an Antimatter Legion monster.

Ten-Lords Commission

    Hanya 

Hanya

Introduced: December 6, 2023 (v1.5 "The Crepuscule Zone" [second half])
Voiced by: Zhang Yuxi (Chinese), Sayumi Suzushiro (Japanese), Yoon Eun-seo (Korean), Suzie Yeung (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/character_hanya_portrait.png
Click to see her full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 4★
Path: The Harmony
Type: Physical

A judge of the Ten-Lords Commission who is tasked with interrogation. Her duties involve reading the sins of criminals, and writing down their crimes and assigned punishments with the Oracle Brush, even as centuries of witnessing the dark side of humanity has mostly numbed her emotions, only able to express them in the company of her older sister and fellow judge Xueyi.

Hanya passes judgment on her foes by tossing paper talismans that inflict marks of Burden through her Technique or Skill, respectively Netherworld Judgment and Samsara, Locked, which allows the next two attacks against them to restore one Skill Point for the party, as well as trigger the two-turn-long damage intake penalty imposed by her Talent, Sanction. Meanwhile, her Ultimate, Ten-Lords' Decree, All Shall Obey, has her write down a decree that boosts one ally's Speed and Attack fow two turns.note 
  • Always Identical Twins: Played straight when they were younger, but subverted as they got older; after Xueyi died at some point, her robotic body sports black hair, while Hanya retains her own look.
  • Big Little Sister: Hanya is considerably taller than her older sister, Xueyi.
  • Cooldown Manipulation: Her first Eidolon Resonance, One Heart, advances her turn by 15% once in between her turns whenever allies enhanced by her Ultimate defeats enemies.
  • The Dreaded: Played for Laughs. Hanya is the one person who can actually cause Tail to back down and obey.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: Sifting through the dreams of the mara-struck in order to notarize their sins is not a happy place to be, and the task itself involves going through this process for days at a time. For this reason, judges like Hanya drink what's called the Wine of Oblivion at regular intervals to cleanse themselves of the memories so they don't go insane from the work. For Hanya in particular, she's Plagued by Nightmares and the wine helps her sleep. She's also a regular at Du's Teahouse after work for some more palatable... Tea.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The characters of her name (simplified 寒鸦, traditional 寒鴉, pinyin "Hányā") are read as "Kan'a" (via kan-on [Han Chinese-derived] reading; katakana カンア) in Japanese and "Han-a" (hangul 한아) in Korean.
  • Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Her eyes are dull and lifeless, reflecting her dull demeanor due to the weight of her job, literally and metaphorically (given her mountains of paperwork and the gravity of the sins she is recording).
  • Early-Bird Cameo: She was first shown in "Under the Blue Sky" and "Return to Darkness" light cones.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "By the will of the Ten-Lords."
    (Normal speed and ×2 speed) "The Ten-Lord's decree, hereby ordained"
  • Mana Drain: Her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Netherworld, automatically recovers 1 SP once a Burdened foe is defeated while no more than one instance of its SP restoration is still intact.
  • Meaningful Rename: She claims that she and her sister took on the name "Hanya" and "Xueyi" to refer to black and white chess pieces, to remind them of the fact that they belong to the Ten-Lords Commission after the two, who were formerly mara-stricken, were apprehended by them, and at their disposal.
  • Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Relative to her fellow Harmony Pathstriders, Hanya is the first character whose kit revolves around Skill Point management.
  • Motor Mouth:
    • Hanya apparently has a tendency to ramble her thoughts to herself as seen in her idle animations. Huohuo secretly calls her the "rambling judge" in order to tell her apart from Xueyi. You even get an achievement for listening to her idle and combat animations in full.
    • She also rambles a lot in her text messages to the Trailblazer. In a fit of writer's block while trying to write a story to entertain Xueyi, she will text all of what she wrote to the Trailblazer in hopes of getting some feedback.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Downplayed, as her attractiveness isn't played up. However, her wardrobe hugs her curvy figure, especially her large breasts, and exposes her long legs, leaving little to the imagination. She's also one of the few characters with Jiggle Physics, though it's only noticeable in her field attack and while preparing her Skill.
  • No Indoor Voice: Inverted. In the Japanese dub, Hanya is very soft-spoken, to the point where you may have to turn up the volume just to hear her.
  • Numerical Theme Naming: All her Eidolon Resonances include allusions to numbers, in increasing order.
  • The Pen Is Mightier: Her Basic Attack has her paint a damaging mark on her foes with the titular Oracle Brush.
  • Retired Badass: Implied. Her Character Story depicts a recurring nightmare where she's battling an Abundance abomination that shows the face of Xueyi to tempt her into taking on immortality, meaning Hanya may have been a Cloud Knight before becoming a judge, or at least held some other active combat role. For her part, Hanya, like most members of the Ten-Lords Commission, does not remember her past occupation, muddying this somewhat.
  • Status Buff:
    • Her Ultimate enhances an ally's Speed and Attack for two turns (respectively, by 15—21% of Hanya's and 36—64.8% of the target ally's). In addition, her fourth Eidolon Resonance, Four Truths, extends the buffs' duration to three turns.
    • Her second Eidolon Resonance, Two Views, allows her Skill to give her a 20% Speed boost for one turn.
  • Status Effect-Powered Ability: The "Burden" status applied to an enemy by both her Technique (at random) and her Skill, allow the party's next two Basic Attacks, Skills, or Ultimates to restore one Skill Point apiecenote ; her Talent also increases damage dealt by said attacks to enemies afflicted with Burden by 15—33% for two turns. In addition, her second- and sixth-ascension Bonus Abilities, Scrivener and Reanimated, respectively gives the attacker a one-turn 10% Attack boost and regenerates 2 Energy should they recover SP, and her sixth Eidolon Resonance, Six Reverences, adds another 10% to the Talent's damage boost. Note that Burden can only applied to one enemy at a time.
  • A Taste of Power: She was playable as a trial unit in A Foxian Tale of the Haunted, which was released in the first half of 1.5 before she can be pulled from Warps starting from its second half.
  • Upgrade Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Three Temptations and Five Skandhas, which will add two levels to her Skill and 1 to Basic Attack with the former, and 2 to her Ultimate and Talent with the latter.

    Huohuo and Tail 

Huohuo (and Tail)

Introduced: November 15, 2023 (v1.5 "The Crepuscule Zone" [first half])
Huohuo is voiced by: Ge Zirui (Chinese), Maria Naganawa (Japanese), Kim Chae-rin (Korean), Courtney Lin (English)
Tail is voiced by: Liu Beichen (Chinese), Takeshi Hirabayashi (Japanese), Han Bokhyun (Korean), Adam Michael Gold (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/huohuo_transparent_portrait.png
Click to see her full Warp artwork.
Rarity: 5★
Path: The Abundance
Type: Wind

A young Foxian girl who is training to be a judge for the Ten-Lords Commission. She has a heliobus named Tail sealed in her tail, making her a magnet for spirits. As such, she is tasked with eradicating them despite her immense fear of ghosts.

Huohuo relies on her enchanted banner, her talismans, and Tail to provide healing and offensive support. In addition to healing one ally and two others (as well as removing a debuff from her target), her Skill, Talisman: Protection, bestows upon her the "Divine Provision" effect for two turns (with potency tied to her Talent, Possession: Ethereal Metaflow), during which allies are automatically healed whenever they act or use their Ultimate, with healing extended once to allies with less than half their HP, as well as removes debuffs up to six times throughout its duration. Her Ultimate, Tail: Spiritual Domination, has her heliobus partner show his might to restore her allies' Energy as well s boost their Attack for two turns, while her Technique, Fiend: Impeachment of Evil, casts an intimidating aura around herself, inflicting surrounding foes with the "Horror-Struck" state that causes them to flee from her and imposes an Attack penalty to all foes for the first two turns of combat.note 

General Tropes

  • Anti-Debuff:
    • Her Skill dispels a debuff off of her target ally, and while her Divine Provision state is active she can cleanse up to six debuffs from her allies whenever they act.
    • Her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, The Cursed One, grants her a 35% resistance to crowd-control debuffs.
  • Auto-Revive: Her second Eidolon Resonance, Sealed in Tail, Wraith Subdued, allows her to revive a fallen ally to half their HP up to twice per battle while the Divine Provision effect is active, at the cost of losing one turn of the Provision's duration.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The characters of her name (藿藿, pinyin "Huòhuò") are read as "Fofo" (via transliteration; katakana フォフォ) in Japanese, while the Korean dub goes for "Gwakhyang" (hangul 곽향), the first character being the hanja reading of the lone Han character that makes up her name.
  • Dump Stat: None of Huohuo's abilities or upgrades scale off of her Attack stat, so any that she gains from buffs, equipped Light Cone, and Relics is completely useless. While some Blessings in the Simulated Universe may scale off such a stat, it's still not worth building it on her.
  • Encounter Repellent: Her Technique inflicts Horror-Struck on nearby enemies, forcing them to flee from her as well as shaves a quarter of all enemies' Attack stats for the first two turns of combat.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Even when Tail is separated from her in-story, Huohuo still retains Tail's power in combat.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) Huohuo: "Don't come any closer!"
    (Normal speed) Tail: "Move aside amateurs. Fiends or devils, I'll crush them all!"
    (×2 speed) Tail: "Fiends or devils, I'll crush them all!"
  • One Curse Limit: After a fashion. Huohuo being possessed by Tail makes her immune to possession by other heliobi.
  • Regenerating Mana: Her sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Stress Reaction to Horror, regenerates 1 Energy for her whenever her Talent heals her allies.
  • Situational Sword: Her fourth Eidolon Resonance, Tied in Life, Bound to Strife, increases the healing potency of her Skill and Talent inversely proportional to her target ally's remaining HP percentage (to a maximum of an 80% boost, meaning they max out if her ally has no more than 20% HP left).
  • Support Party Member: Huohuo can provide both healing and offensive support. Regarding the former, her Skill heals her target ally and those next to them, removes a debuff from her main target, and bestows upon her the Divine Provision buff which for two turns automatically heals allies whenever they act (as well as use Ultimates), as well as remove up to six debuffs, in addition to healing all allies with no more than half their HP, with all its potencies tied to her Talent.note  As for the latter, her Ultimate restores 15—21% of their Energy and boosts their Attack by 24—43.2% for two turns. In addition, her second-ascension Bonus Ability, Fearful to Act, automatically bestows her Divine Provision for her first turn in battle, while her first Eidolon Resonance, Anchored to Vessel, Specters Nestled, extends the state to three turns as well as adds a 12% Speed boost onto the party, and her sixth, Woven Together, Cohere Forever, provides an additional 50% damage boost for two turns to any ally she heals.
  • Upgrade Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Cursed by Fate, Moths to Flame and Mandated by Edict, Evils Evicted, which will add two levels to her Ultimate and Talent with the former, and 2 to her Skill and 1 to Basic Attack (''Banner: Stormcaller') with the latter.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: How the two's relationship ultimately pans out. Huohuo's timid nature makes way for snippier (for her) comments against Tail specifically, and Tail's harshness towards her carries more Tough Love than legitimate malice. When the chips are down, Tail will aggressively try to support Huohuo and push her away from her fear, and when Tail seemingly sacrifices himself to destabilize Cirrus and give the group a fighting chance, Huohuo almost immediately snaps out of her terror-filled state to assist the party, then breaks down in tears over his sacrifice once Cirrus is defeated.
  • Weapon Specialization: Huohuo's associated Light Cone is "Night of Fright" (5★), whose "Deep, Deep Breaths" passive increases its wearer's Energy Regeneration by 12-20%, grants up to five stacks of a 2.4-4% ATK boost to healed allies for two turns, and heals the lowest health ally for 10-14% of that ally's max HP whenever any party member uses an Ultimate. The healing on Ultimate use plays just like how Huohuo's Talent operates, increasing the reward for taking the same actions you normally would, while her area-effect Skill and incremental healing instances will stack the ATK boost widely and quickly, and ensure it doesn't fade.

Tropes exclusive to Huohuo

  • The Baby of the Bunch: Undoubtedly the youngest of the Ten-Lords Judges, having been first recruited when she was just a child.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Ever since she was first possessed by Tail, she'd dream of a day when he would no longer be around. When this finally happens for the first time in the aftermath of fighting Cirrus, she is reduced to tears. She then spends the subsequent quests trying to look for Tail amidst the escaping heliobi. Later, it's revealed that Tail intentionally had Hanya seal him inside the Lunaumbra Gourd, noting that Huohuo took his presence for granted; Hanya only lets him out to ward off the heliobus that possessed Huohuo, and is fine with being sealed in her tail again afterward.
  • Big Sister Instinct: While Huohuo interacts with an illusion of her mother when possessed by a heliobi, there's an option for her to ask about her sister, who she seems to be fond of.
  • Company Cross References: Huohuo is a shy, green-haired girl with fox-like features, who wears a hat, and is associated with wind, not unlike Sucrose of Genshin Impact.
  • Cornered Rattlesnake: For the final fight against Cirrus, Huohuo's healing for the entire encounter is more powerful than what she can usually provide, implying that she's every bit the capable judge others believe she can be when unencumbered by her insecurities.
  • Cowardly Lion: Huohuo stood her ground and fought Cirrus when the treacherous heliobus tries to suck up the Trailblazer and Xueyi into itself and Tail detaches from her body to destabilize Cirrus. The following battle sees her helping the others defeat Cirrus with her talismans, even though she no longer has Tail to help her.
  • The Cutie: Huohuo is a meek, gentle, soft-spoken girl who'd rather shy away from the supernatural goings-on with the Xianzhou Luofu were it not for her duties.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: After being possessed by Tail, Huohuo's parents practically abandoned her to the Ten-Lords Commission and was bullied in school on account of her different-looking tail.
  • Disowned Parent: During the final act of the "Foxian Tale of the Haunted" event, Tail possesses the cognition of Huohuo's mother inside her mindscape and brings her to her daughter, miming her apologizing to Huohuo for abandoning her. Huohuo knows it's a trick but makes peace with how things turned out anyway, and vows to waste no further thoughts on her parents that she'll probably never see again.
  • Elemental Hair Colors: She has green hair, matching her Wind element.
  • Exhausted Eyebags: Looking closely at her eyes shows she has bags under them, presumably as a result of having to deal with her phasmophobia.
  • Exotic Eye Designs: Her pupils are shaped like paw pads.
  • Fox Folk: Like Tingyun and Yukong, she is a Foxian, complete with fox ears and a tail. Due to her tail being possessed by the heliobus Tail, it appears to be wreathed in cyan flames.
  • Glacier Waif: While not to the same extent as Bailu, Huohuo is rather short, and as her kit scales off of her Max HP, players are incentivized to make her even tankier to increase her healing potency.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Her initial encounter with Tail was said to be her attempting to save what she thought was a dying heliobus by cradling it with her tail to safety. What follows is said heliobus attempting to possess her through her tail, the Ten-Lords Commission saving her life by sealing the heliobus into her tail, and a whole life of ridicule by peers and her family thanks to her current state.
  • Older Than They Look: Downplayed. Huohuo is a young Foxian girl, but according to Xueyi, she's been with the Ten-Lords Commission for at least 38 years.
  • Paper Talisman: She uses rabbit-eared paper dolls to heal her allies. Early in the "Foxian Tale of the Haunted" event, she also uses the talismans to guide the Trailblazer when they were trapped inside Furynox's illusion.
  • Prone to Tears: Huohuo cries a lot over all the supernatural shenanigans she is forced to face.
  • Shrinking Violet: Huohuo is very shy and with horrible self-confidence. At least when ghosts or the like aren't involved, she can compose herself enough.
  • Vague Age: This applies to all of the Xianzhou natives to varying degrees, but Huohuo is the only one whose age can be roughly estimated. Physically she looks like 13–17 human years old, as she's stated to have been possessed by Tail as a little girl, and at least 38 years have passed since then. Foxians are stated to live for up to 300 years. How this would compare to the average human lifespan further muddles things, but at the minimum she's aged at least a decade since then.
  • White Flag: Holds one which she can use to both ward away evil spirits and declare surrender, capturing the dual premises of her character pretty well. There's an achievement (named "Mission Impossible?") for delivering the killing blow to Phantylia with Huohuo's Basic Attack (i.e. striking her with that white flag).
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Huohuo has a crippling fear of ghosts. Unfortunately for her, not only does having Tail make her a Weirdness Magnet, she is also tasked with hunting down and capturing the spirits she's so afraid of.

Tropes exclusive to Tail

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tail_in_cutscenes.png
Click to see his appearance in Huohuo's Ultimate
  • A Dog Named "Dog": A heliobus named "Tail" sealed within Huohuo's tail.
  • Assimilation Backfire: Exploits this by deliberately assimilating himself into the empowered and engorged Cirrus, and causing chaos by Fighting from the Inside.
  • Everyone Has Standards: While Tails is harsh towards Huohuo, he was quite appalled when he discovered how her parents and classmates treated her after he was sealed in her tail.
  • Hypocritical Heartwarming: Tail is naturally harsh towards Huohuo, but he won't take anyone else other than himself picking on her. Case in point, he's enraged when Cirrus (possessing the Traiblazer) hurls genuinely horrific insults against Huohuo, and demands that they apologize to her.
  • I Choose to Stay: After being separated from Huohuo, Tail is captured by Hanya so he can recover. But after another heliobus tries to possess Huohuo, Tail returns to her and decides to stay with her for good.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he claims he couldn't care less about Huohuo and wishes he can escape the seal on her tail, it's pretty evident that he actually cares a great deal about her, going out of his way to protect her from other Heliobi, even if he won't admit it openly.
  • Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: Tail is a heliobus who is sealed inside Huohuo's tail by the Ten-Lords Commission. Tail's sealing made Huohuo's presence attract inhuman beings like other spirits.
  • Sleep-Mode Size: He normally takes the form of a disembodied fox head and tail, only expanding to a grander size and shape - implied to be his original form - during Huohuo's Ultimate.
  • Tough Love: While he usually insults and criticizes Huohuo, he does it in an effort to toughen her up in preparation for the threats she will face.

    Xueyi 

Xueyi

Introduced: December 27, 2023 (v1.6 "Crown of the Mundane and Divine" [first half])
Voiced by: Su Xun (Chinese), Maki Kawase (Japanese), Park Ri-na (Korean), Jenny Yokobori (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/xueyi_portrait.png
Click to see her full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 4★
Path: The Destruction
Type: Quantum

Older sister of Hanya and a fellow judge of the Ten-Lords Commission, who hunts down criminals in exchange for extending her stay in her artificial body long after she was killed in a prior conflict.

Xueyi casts swift judgment on compromised foes with her Talent, Karmic Perpetuation, which gathers stacks of Karma depending on the amount of Toughness the party reduces, and are consumed once eight have been gathered to automatically launch three random strikes with her twin daggers. Xueyi herself can gather the stacks, either by attacking all foes with her Technique, Summary Execution; on her target and adjacent foes with her Skill, Iniquity Obliteration; or one at a time with either her Basic Attack, Mara-Sunder Awl, or her Ultimate, Divine Castigation, where she fuses her daggers into a javelin which she hurls onto her target, which cuts into their Toughness gauge regardless of type resistances and further increases in power proportional to Toughness the target lost.note 
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: Her Ultimate cuts into her target's Toughness regardless of their type resistances. In addition, her second Eidolon Resonance, Klesha, Breached, allows her Talent to ignore enemy resistances as well as restores some HP (see "Life Drain" below).
  • Breaking Old Trends:
    • As a Quantum-type character following the Path of Destruction, Xueyi is the first 4★ character who doesn't share a type or a Path with either of the 5★ (Ruan Mei [Ice/Harmony] or Dr. Ratio [Imaginary/Hunt]) released in the same version.
    • Of all the new 4★ characters introduced post-launch, she is the first who debuts in the first phase of a patch instead of the second one.
    • She's the first 4★ Destruction Pathstrider who's neither a child (Arlan, Hook, Clara) or a centuries-old Xianzhou criminal (Imbibitor Lunae, Jingliu, Blade).
  • Casting a Shadow: She is a Quantum unit of the Destruction Path.
  • Casting Gag: This is not the first time Maki Kawase, her Japanese voice actress, voiced a young woman who died and was resurrected into another form (i.e., Xueyi's soul was transferred into a puppet body, while Junko Konno was zombified).
  • Chain Pain: In the cutscene during the battle against Cirrus, she commands several chains to pull the Trailblazer who's being lifted by Cirrus towards itself, but she is soon pulled up as well. Only Tail's intervention saves them as he distracts Cirrus.
  • Dual Wielding: In battle, Xueyi is shown specializing in wielding twin daggers to fight.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The characters of her name (雪衣, pinyin "Xuěyī") are read as "Setsui" (via kan-on [Han Chinese-derived] reading; katakana セツイ) in Japanese and "Seol-ui" (hangul 설의) in Korean.
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • Glimpses of her can be briefly seen in the "Interstellar Journey" trailer.
    • She was shown (together with Hanya) in "Under the Blue Sky" and "Return to Darkness" light cones.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "By the order of the Ten-Lords!"
    (Normal speed and ×2 speed) "Execute the Mara-struck! Errrgh!"
  • Herd-Hitting Attack: Her Technique and Skill hit multiple foes—all with the former,note  while the latter is limited to her target and adjacent foes.note 
  • Life Drain: Her second Eidolon Resonance allows her Talent to heal her (worth 5% of her Max HP), in addition to an Armor-Piercing Attack effect (see above).
  • Living Emotional Crutch: For a certain value of "emotional" for both parties, and "living" for one of them, Xueyi is clearly this for Hanya. In the latter's Character Story, she makes no bones about the fact that once Xueyi is gone for good, she will follow almost immediately after.
    Hanya - (About Xueyi): "Have you ever been to the Shackling Prison? The whole place is pitch black, except for the light cast by the occasional spiritfarer's lamp. To me, this mortal world is the prison, and my sister is the lamp."
  • Living on Borrowed Time: As stated by Hanya, Xueyi can only return to the world of the living for half a day for every criminal she apprehends before her soul returns to the matrix.
  • Out-of-Turn Interaction: Her Talent allows Xueyi to build up one stack of Karma for every 30 Toughness points the party reduces, which are then consumed once she has eight (equivalent to at least 240 Toughness points) to automatically launch three random strikes.note  In addition, her sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Perspicacious Mainframe, allows her to keep a tally of excess stacks gathered by the time her Talent is ready to activate, which are then used to build up stacks immediately after, while her first Eidolon Resonance, Dvesha, Inhibited, boosts its damage output by 40%, her second adds an Armor-Piercing Attack and Life Drain effects (see above), and her sixth, Saṃsāra, Mastered, reduces the trigger quota to six.
  • Real Name as an Alias: Her username in the "Ghostly Grove" website is simply the translation of her name, made more flowery: "SnowingOvercoat". Same with Hanya and "FRigid_Raven".
  • Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: All her Eidolon Resonances carry names of important concepts in Buddhism.
  • Ridiculously Human Robots: She is a cyborg whose outward appearance is indistinguishable from organic Xianzhou natives. Hanya explains that it's part of her job to subdue and detain evildoers, but her different senses mean she has lower self-preservation instincts than flesh-and-blood beings; Hanya constantly worries about her because of this.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Her Ultimate has her combining her daggers into a javelin which she hurls onto her target, cutting into their Toughness gauge regardless of type resistance as well as further increases in power the more Toughness she cuts.note  In addition, her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Intrepid Rollerbearings, gives it a 10% damage boost if her target has over half their Toughness, while her fourth Eidolon Resonance, Karma, Severed, allows it to bestow a 20% Break Effect boost for two turns.
  • Unusual Ears: Looking closely at her head shows that her ears are mechanical, hinting at her robotic nature.
  • Upgrade Artifact:
    • Her second-ascension Bonus Ability, Clairvoyant Loom, increases her damage output based on a value worth 100% of her Break Effect stat, to a maximum of 240%.
    • Her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Duḥkha, Ceased and Deva, Enthralled, add two levels to her Skill and Basic Attack (by one) with the former, and her Ultimate and Talent with the latter.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Gives encouragement to Huohuo to this effect during the "Foxian Tale" event, pointing out that in the entire history of the Ten-Lords Commission (which for reference, given the long lives of the Xianzhou people, may well span millennia), Huohuo has one wholly unique advantage and accomplishment: she's possessed by a heliobus - thus she is immune to possession from other heliobi and uniquely suited to combatting them - and has suppressed its Emotion Eater and domination effects for basically her entire life.

Others

    Guinaifen 

Guinaifen, née Guinevere

Introduced: October 27, 2023 (v1.4 "Jolted Awake from a Winter Dream" [second half])
Voiced by: Xiao Gan (Chinese), Hina Suguta (Japanese), Kim Su-yeong (Korean), Morgan Garrett (credited as Morgan Lauré) (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/character_guinaifen_portrait.png
Click to see her full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 4★
Path: The Nihility
Type: Fire

An outworlder from the planet Camelot, long lost to the Antimatter Legion, who became a street performer on the Xianzhou Luofu after arriving there by accident.

Guinaifen presents an explosive surprise to Burnt foes through her Talent, PatrAeon Benefits, which has a high chance to inflict Firekiss on foes whenever they take Burn damage, which for three turns builds up to three stacks of a damage intake penalty. This is facilitated by her Skill, Blazing Welcome, where she compresses her staff into a firework which she tosses onto her target and adjacent foes, with a high chance to inflict Burn, as well as her Technique, Skill Showcase, which explodes on random foes four times and has a high chance to inflict Firekiss. Her Ultimate, Watch This Showstopper, summons a pack of Ditings to plant a giant firework that explodes on all enemies and immediately triggers Burn damage whenever possible.note 
  • Action Initiative: Her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Bladed Hoop, advances her turn by 25% at the start of combat, all but guaranteeing she'll get the first turn and start off performances with a bang.
  • Affectionate Parody: Of streamers and video content creators, being a street performer who does shows both online and offline, graciously accepts super-chats (donations) from audiences and encourages them like and subscribe for her content. She did take offense at being called "unemployed" by Xueyi and Hanya, though, because she really is employed by a street troupe.
  • Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Smashing Boulder on Chest and Swallowing Sword to Stomach, which will add two levels to her Skill and 1 to Basic Attack with the former, and 2 to her Ultimate and Talent with the latter.
  • Anti-Debuff: Inverted with her first Eidolon Resistance, Slurping Noodles During Handstand, which gives her Skill a 100% base chance to inflict a 10% Effect Resistance penalty against her target for two turns.
  • Badass Adorable: Guinaifen is a cheerful, energetic young lady, often referred to as a little one by her longer-lived peers, and is also a decent combatant specializing in inhibiting Burnt foes.
  • Birds of a Feather: She bonds with the Trailblazer over how they both don't have a homeworld.
  • Breaking Old Trends: Guinaifen is the first character who does not have an associated Light Cone (whose passive's Path requirement matches theirs) introduced at the same time as her, with an earlier Light Cone featuring her, "Subscribe for More!", instead requiring Hunt Pathstriders to unlock its passive.note 
  • Camera Abuse: The end of her Ultimate has one of the summoned Ditings splatting against the camera.
  • Company Cross References: Much like Naganohara Yoimiya of Genshin Impact, Guinaifen is an orange-haired young woman with a cheerful personality, an attractive design, and associated with fireworks.
  • Damage-Increasing Debuff: Her Talent has a 100% base chance to inflict Firekiss on foes whenever they take Burn damage, which for three turns builds up to three stacks of a 4-7.6% damage intake penalty, which can be extended to four with her sixth Eidolon Resonance, Catching Bullet with Hands (hence an optimal maximum of 16-30.4%).
  • Damage Over Time: Guinaifen excels at inflicting Burn on multiple enemies and exploiting it mercilessly with the Firekiss effect to increase their incoming damage. Her Skill has a 100% base chance to inflict Burn for two turns against her target and adjacent foes,note  as does her Basic Attack, Standing Ovation, by 80% once she has unlocked her second-ascension Bonus Ability, High Poles. In addition, her second Eidolon Resonance, Brushing Teeth While Whistling, allows both attacks to add a 40% boost to Burn damage.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Her homeworld of Camelot was destroyed by the Antimatter Legion, and the last thing she and her siblings saw of her homeworld was her mother staying behind to fight the invaders, knowing she wouldn't survive. They ended up on a barren mining world, where the old knight her mother sent with them died from an illness, and her older brothers turned to space piracy just to survive.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Guinaifen's character reveal has her ask "Would you like to see me break that stone slab with my chest?". The way she phrases it (which was likely due to a grammar mistake in translation) makes it sound like she's using her breasts to accomplish the task. note 
  • Doomed Hometown: She mentions in a text chat that her home world was destroyed by the Antimatter Legion.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: She is first seen in the "Subscribe for More!" Light Cone, long before her first physical appearance in v1.4. She also was first mentioned by Ms. Yo in Aurum Alley back in v1.2.
  • Elemental Hair Colors: She has orange hair, matching her Fire element.
  • Fighting Clown: She's a street performer who tosses around fireworks and summons Ditings to attack enemies.
  • Genki Girl: Guinaifen is a very cheerful and energetic girl, which helps in her content creator gig.
  • Informed Attribute: In the Aetherium Wars event, when March meets her for the first time, the former says "You... don't look like a Xianzh—" and she confirms that she isn't a native. The thing is, there's nothing conspicuously different about her character design, which follows Xianzhou's aesthetics. Her red hair is unique among the Xianzhou population, which tends to be brunette or dirty blonde, but it's easy to forget that with story-centric characters like the pink-haired Fu Xuan and the green-haired Huohuo.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "Come feast your eyes!"
    (Normal speed) "It's never too early... for a Happy New Year!"
    (×2 speed) "Happy New Year!"
  • Jiggle Physics: Downplayed. Guinaifen's breasts slightly bounce during her attack animation and during exploration, and her chest noticeably bounces during one part of the Harmony Greets the New Year cinematic.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Guinaifen is very easy on the eyes thanks to her revealing wardrobe, long orange hair, and generous curves, but she's also an Affectionate Parody of content creators and streamers, adding to her appeal.
  • Naturalized Name: Her birth name is Guinevere, and was given the more Xianzhou-sounding name Guinaifen by Sushang.
  • Nice Character, Mean Actor: Invoked; she is normally about as cheery and kind off-camera as she is on it, but when a fan starts stalking her by abusing Ghostly Grove posts to try to see more of her, including surreptitiously recording footage, Guinaifen puts her foot down and blows her off by being more abrasive. Ghostly Grove is, after all, a job for Guinaifen with potential danger involved, plus the stalker is considered a minor by Xianzhou standards who is using her parents' money for her streams instead of going to school, so playing nice simply isn't in the cards. While the fan ceases stalking, she has only become even more of a fan because the in-person experience made Guinaifen more real to her, sending a final care package full of snacks at the quest's conclusion.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Where something also literally breaks; out of curiosity, Guinaifen wanted to hold the Lunaumbra Gourd, disregarding Huohuo's warning that the gourd will cause her to become drowsy from the heliobi sealed within. Unsurprisingly, she passes out and dropped the gourd on the ground, causing it to break and release the heliobi, allowing Cirrus to absorb them and attack the Trailblazer and co. It's implied that she was actually possessed by Cirrus when she did it.
  • Pinball Projectile: Her Technique tosses a firework at enemies to initiate combat, bouncing up to four times between random foes to deal damage worth half her Attack stat per hit and apply her Firekiss debuff.
  • Recruited from the Gutter: Her space-pirating brother Lancelot fell upon a Xianzhou skiff which subdued them, leading to the IPC arresting them, while she and her younger siblings are handed off to the Cloud Knights. Lancelot begged for mercy, and instead of punishment they were shipped to the Luofu, where the younger siblings were put through school and Guinaifen was picked up by Ms. Yo to be a street performer. Even now, having the resources, freedom, and some brotherly encouragement to leave the Luofu if she wished, Guinaifen chooses to stay both because she genuinely enjoys what she does, and wishes to repay the kindness shown to her and her family despite their criminal past.
  • Regenerating Mana: Her fourth Eidolon Resonance, Blocking Pike with Neck, restores 2 Energy whenever enemies take damage from Burn effects she inflicted.
  • Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Guinaifen takes her birth name after the wife of King Arthur. Her older brother, Langshile, is originally named Lancelot, after Arthur's closest brother-in-arms. Fittingly, her former homeworld's name is Camelot, King Arthur's kingdom.
  • Riches to Rags: Guinaifen was the daughter of a powerful politician in Camelot; after it fell to the Antimatter Legion, she and her siblings became poverty-stricken refugees who had to turn to piracy before finding a new life at the Luofu, where she made a name for herself as a street performer.
  • Sexy Backless Outfit: Guinaifen's dress has her back exposed, apart from some straps holding her dress together.
  • Situational Damage Attack: Her sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Walking on Knives, confers a 20% damage bonus against Burnt enemies.
  • Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: Guinaifen has two associated Light Cones which prominently feature her alongside her friends on the Ghost Hunting Squad (Huohuo and Sushang), and neither of which match her own Path but do match those of her friends. For a friendly and bubbly person like her, this makes sense, plus she's a street performer and streamer whose main job is to draw eyes and entertain, so she gets further exposure outside her own Path this way. That Guinaifen is the main focus of these Light Cones also means she's stealing the show from them.
  • Status Effect-Powered Ability: Apart from blasting all enemies, her Ultimate immediately triggers any potential Burn damage.note 
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Absolutely everything Guinaifen does in combat is accompanied by an explosion of some kind. Even her Basic Attack is an explosive-propelled pole vault into a staff whack on the enemy's head.
  • Telescoping Staff: Her weapon of choice, which can shrink into a firework stick to chuck at foes for her Skill.

    Imbibitor Lunae (UNMARKED SPOILERS) 

With the revelations about his true identity, there will be unmarked spoilers. Read at your own risk!

The former Vidyadhara High Elder of the Xianzhou Luofu, protector of the Ambrosial Arbor. Once known as Dan Feng, he committed a grave sin that threatened all of the Luofu, leading to his subsequent punishment and perpetual banishment. The punishment inflicted upon him robbed him of the ability to pass down his full strength to his reincarnation, leading to Dan Feng being reborn as the man now known as "Dan Heng."


General Tropes

  • Draconic Humanoid: Naturally has the features of a Chinese dragon due to his heritage as a Vidyadhara. An interesting thing to point out is that, unlike Bailu, neither Dan Feng's nor Dan Heng's extremely long tail is usually seen (outside of one of his Idle Animation).
  • Dragon Ancestry: Is a descendant of the draconic Aeon Long the Permanence.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: "Imbibitor Lunae" ("Moon Drinker") is another of Dan Heng's titles as High Elder of the Vidyadhara. The characters of his name (simplified 饮月, traditional 飲月, pinyin "Yǐnyuè") are read as "Ingetsu" (via kan-on [Han Chinese-derived] reading; katakana インゲツ) in Japanese and "Eumwol" (hangul 음월) in Korean.
  • Horned Humanoid: Has a pair of green translucent dragon horns on his forehead, as natural for his Vidyadhara heritage. Funny enough, his horns actually grow longer when his tail manifests in his Idle Animation.
  • Loss of Identity: Each High Elder not only inherits the memories and powers of the previous ones, their appearance is also changed to that of the first High Elder thus erasing their individuality and previous identity.
  • Making a Splash: His attacks take on the form of water, some of which he can shape into his Cloud-Piercer spear or a Chinese dragon. Fitting, as dragons are strongly associated with bodies of water and rain in Chinese Mythology.
  • Past-Life Memories: Unlike normal Vidyadhara, the High Elder has the ability to pass down not only his power but also his memories, though this is usually done between the current High Elder and a successor chosen by the council of Vidyadhara elders with the predecessor usually forgetting everything when they are reborn. This is played with for him: due to his crimes, Dan Feng was punished with molting rebirth and a seal that would normally prevent him from properly reincarnating, thus in theory will make his reincarnation a completely normal Vidyadhara without any of the past memories; however, as revealed in some texts, said seal had an intentional flaw put by the Preceptors, with the intent of making his reincarnation unlock his old powers and memories someday, which comes true in Luofu's Trailblaze Mission plot.
  • Pointy Ears: Dan Heng's ears grow during his transformation, revealing his true Vidyadhara nature, while Dan Feng always had them.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Despite looking no older than his late twenties, Dan Heng has already lived several lifetimes as Imbibitor Lunae.
  • Semi-Divine: As a Vidyadhara, he is a descendant of Long, the Aeon of Permanence.
  • Walking Spoiler: It's difficult to look at, let alone talk about Imbibitor Lunae, or even view his own name as a playable character without revealing that he is Dan Heng, or that he is the reincarnation of Dan Feng. As such, any information within this folder pertaining to Dan Heng's past and his identity as Imbibitor Lunae will be unmarked.

Dan Heng・Imbibitor Lunae

Introduced: August 30, 2023 (v1.3 "Celestial Eyes Above Mortal Ruins" [first half])
Voiced by: Li Chunyin (Chinese), Kent Itō (Japanese), Kim Hye-sung (Korean), Nicholas Leung (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/imbibitor_lunae_portrait_7.png
Click to see his full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Destruction
Type: Imaginary

Dan Heng draws anew into his past life's powers to gradually supercharge his attacks through his Talent, Righteous Heart, which builds up to six eponymous, damage-boosting stacks for each hit he lands, as well as his Skill, Dracore Libre, which can be used up to thrice in succession to upgrade his Normal Attack, Beneficent Lotus, into Transcendence, then Divine Spear, and then Fulgurant Leap, each successive upgrade increasing the number of its hits, in addition to the latter two becoming able to hit foes on either side of his target and generate one stack of Outroar per hit (to a maximum of four) which boosts his Critical Damage. The Skill Point cost can be ameliorated whenever he gathers stacks of Squama Sacrosancta, of which he can hold up to three at a time, which are consumed in their place and are generated either one at a time with his Technique, Heaven-Quelling Prismadrakon, which bestows the Leaping Dragon state that allows him to perform dash attacks that block incoming attacks and damage all foes at the start of battle, or two with his Ultimate, Azure's Aqua Ablutes All, where he summons a water dragon to devour his target and adjacent foes.note 
  • Added Alliterative Appeal: His Ultimate is named Azure Aqua Ablutes All, going hand-in-hand with the flowery, poetic naming of attacks from Xianzhou Luofu's characters.
  • Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring his Eidolons, you can upgrade his third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Clothed in Clouds and Fall is the Pride, which will add two levels to his Skill and 1 Basic Attack with the former, and 2 to his Ultimate and Talent with the latter.
  • Anti-Debuff: His fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Aqua Reign, bestows him a 35% immunity to crowd-control debuffs.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: Not unlike his base form, his sixth Eidolon Resonance, Reign, Returned, grants a 20% boost to the Imaginary Resistance Penalty of his fourth-stage Basic Attack every time his allies use their Ultimates up to thrice per battle (hence a maximum of 60%).
  • "Back to Camera" Pose: The first full view of Imbibitor Lunae's form after his transformation completes has him face away from the camera.
  • Charge Attack: His Skill can be used up to thrice in a single turn to power up his Basic Attack, each upgrade increasing its power and hits (i.e., in increasing magnitude, two, three, five, and seven), with the two highest upgrades gaining the ability, from the fourth hit onwards, to extend their damage coverage to include foes on either side of his target and build stacks of Outroar per hit that boosts his Critical Damage.note 
  • Cleavage Window: Has a prominent diamond-shaped window at the front of his outfit.
  • Critical Hit Class:
    • One of three stats Imbibitor Lunae can upgrade via his Trace tree is Critical Rate, with him getting a 12% boost once fully unlocked.
    • In addition to enhancing his Basic Attacks, his Skill generates stacks of Outroar that boost Critical Damage by 6–13.2% if said attack can land at least four hits, starting from before the fourth hit (i.e., the two highest stages of his Basic Attack, which land five and seven hits), lasting until the end of his current turn (hence a maximum of 24–52.8%). His fourth Eidolon Resonance, Zephyr's Bliss, extends the buff's effects until the end of his next turn.
    • His sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Jolt Anew, enhances his Critical Damage by 24% against foes weak to Imaginary damage.
  • Dash Attack: While in the Leaping Dragon state bestowed by his Technique for twenty seconds, his attacks become a forward lunge that damages all enemiesnote  and negates incoming field damage.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: Depending on team composition and loadout, Imbibitor Lunae can be this or Awesome, but Impractical. His massive damage output comes at the expense of an obscenely high SP cost, which can be punishing to spendthrift players; with the proper support and SP management, however, he can easily tear through waves of enemies and bosses alike with his huge damage multipliers.
  • Dragons Up the Yin Yang: Is a Draconic Humanoid holding a floating black-and-white ball.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Before his official debut in the game, he was teased in the Official Release trailer, the version 1.2 trailer and Blade's trailer.
  • The Exile: After Dan Feng reincarnated into Dan Heng, he was banished from ever setting foot on the Luofu again and escorted off the ship, as detailed in Dan Heng's first Character Story.
  • Fanservice Pack: Dan Heng is already easy on the eyes, but the Imibitor Lunae state takes it up a notch, turning him into a Long-Haired Pretty Boy in a Sexy Backless Outfit with a detached sleeve and a Cleavage Window that shows off more of his figure. His eye color even turns from a muted blue to a bright blue-green, which adds to his otherworldly aura.
  • Female Gaze: He gets several of these after his transformation into Imbibitor Lunae within the game and in promotional material.
    • In one cutscene in his Companion Mission, it starts with the camera zoomed in on his Sexy Backless Outfit before slowly zooming out to reveal he and Bailu sealing the Ambrosial Arbor roots together.
    • The Brighter Than The Sun light cone promotional animation has the camera zoom in on his cleavage window while Dan Heng grunts.
    Nicholas Leung (Dan Heng's English VA) during 1.3's special program: "He looks pretty good for a man in chains... if y'know what I mean."
  • Flower Motifs: White lotuses, which are featured in his outfit, attack and splash art, and he also emerges from one after his transformation.
  • Foreshadowing: Dan Heng's true nature and identity has been hinted way before the game even launched.
    • This official art shows him standing in front of a screen that has the image of a Chinese dragon while the full moon can be seen through the window outside. The lighting makes it appear as if the moon is dripping down into the wine cup that Dan Heng is holding.
    • In the 2023 New Year celebration art, Dan Heng's headband has green horns that are similar to the ones that grow on his head later.
    • In response to March 7th suggesting that she is hundreds of years old, Dan Heng tells her that he "has met several long-life species, but hasn't seen any that looks like you."
    • Dan Heng received his In-Series Nickname "Cold Dragon Young" in Boulder Town.
    • Dan Heng's second-ascension Trace is named "Hidden Dragon".
    • Dan Heng acts as Mr. Exposition to Sushang when she's trying to remember more details about the Vidyadhara.
    • Dan Heng's first Character Story mentions him seeing his body clearly for the first time, and how "this body" belongs to "this current name".
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • You can potentially pull and play as the Imbibitor Lunae the moment the Warp menu unlocks as early as the Prologue, long before Dan Heng undergoes the transformation into the Imbibitor Lunae late in the Xianzhou Luofu story arc.
    • Dan Heng's original self and the Imbibitor Lunae can both exist in the same team and fight alongside each other despite being the same person. This includes in the battle against Phantylia, where he will aid you as an assist character who can unleash a powerful attack against the boss upon command once you have enough energy; you can have up to three Dan Hengs during this battle.
  • Gathering Steam: His Talent gathers up to six stacks of Righteous Heart every time he lands a hit, which gradually increase the damage of his subsequent hits by 5–11%, and which can be extended to ten (hence a maximum of 50–110%) with his first Eidolon Resonance, Tethered to Sky (which will also make him gain an extra stack for each hit, making it easier to build up the stacks); the buff lasts until the end of his turn. Due to the way unit turn works, it's possible for him to build three stacks first with his Ultimate (before or during his turn), then gain the rest with his enhanced Basic Attack (especially the fourth stage) to make the attack itself even more powerful.
  • Glass Cannon: Imbibitor Lunae can dish out a whole of pain on his foes, but he is quite fragile for a Destruction Pathstrider, having weaker defenses than his peers and no way to mitigate damage on his own.
  • Guest-Star Party Member: Following Dan Heng's transformation, he (as the Imbibitor Lunae) becomes a temporary playable character when fighting Yanqing to avoid arrest, and later rejoins the Trailblazer and friends at the request of Jing Yuan, though his stats cannot be viewed and usage of his Ultimate and Technique is disabled at these times.
  • Guyliner: From only having red eyeliner on the bottom corner of his left eye, Dan Heng now has red eyeliner on the bottom of both his eyes as Imbibitor Lunae.
  • I Never Said It Was Poison: In his Companion Mission, Dan Heng notices that while explaining to Bailu's attendant maid about their treacherous return from the Ambrosial Arbor, he never said it was assassins that made the trip such, and her fumbling excuses after catching this cotton him to the fact she's in on the plot.
  • Interface Spoiler: Imbibitor Lunae's presence in the Characters section of the Data Bank reveals him to be the same person as Dan Heng, giving away who he was prior to joining the Astral Express.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "Awaken, dormant scales!"
    (Normal speed) "Delve Hidden Moon...World-Cleansing Dragon! Hmph!"
    (×2 speed) "World-Cleansing Dragon! Hmph!"
  • Invulnerable Attack: When performing his Dash Attack while in the "Leaping Dragon" state, he completely nullifies any attacks that hit him.
  • King Incognito: The Astral Express knew nothing about his origins until Dan Heng reunites with them at Scalegorge Waterscape, and as an illegal visitor numerous Luofu citizens found his face familiar but were not able to recognize him as the reincarnated High Elder. It helped that he himself only had a vague idea of who he used to be, with his memories slowly resurfacing during the later parts of the Xianzhou Luofu Trailblaze Mission.
  • Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Dan Heng is already a handsome young man. Regaining his memories and identity as Imbibitor Lunae only enhanced his looks further, with his hair growing longer until it reached his waist.
  • Mechanically Unusual Fighter: While not the first whose Skill solely enhances their Basic Attack, Imbibitor Lunae is the first whose Skill does not finalize his action (thus can be undone before using a Basic Attack)note , does not count as "casting Skill," and does not cost Skill Point itself, instead toggling between his Basic Attacks which do cost Skill Points.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Dan Heng is already quite the looker, but his appearance as the Imbibitor Lunae ramps up the attractiveness even further, gaining an ethereal allure, a Sexy Backless Outfit, and showing a good deal more skin.
  • Mundane Utility: As Dan Heng's Technique does not wear off after being used if it doesn't cause him to enter battle, it can be used to make navigating the overworld faster than running. It is also one of the best methods of completing barrel busting and Trotter catching Adventures in the Simulated Universe Expansion Modules since his speed makes him exceptional at covering ground.
  • Mythology Gag: With the reveal of Imbibitor Lunae, Dan Heng has additional parallels to Fu Hua from Honkai Impact 3rd. Both are youthful looking dark-haired immortal leaders associated with a Chinese mythological creature of their respective groups from a Chinese-inspired society who were killed in the past and left their homeland after their revival. Imbibitor Lunae's appearance can also be described as a gender-bent version of Fu Hua's Azure Empyrea battlesuit, featuring ink brush stroke effects in his basic attacks, as well as the yin-yang symbol represented by the black-and-white ball he holds.
  • Parting the Sea: Imbibitor Lunae does this so that the rest of the party can walk through the ruins of Scalegorge Waterscape to get to the roots of the Ambrosial Arbor and stop Phantylia.
  • Power Makes Your Hair Grow: When becoming the Imbibitor Lunae and regaining his previous incarnation's power, Dan Heng's normally short hair grows until it reaches his waist.
  • Reduced Mana Cost: Both his Technique and Ultimate build stacks of Squama Sacrosancta (respectively, by one and two), of which he can hold up to three at a time and which are consumed before SP whenever he uses his Skill to charge up his Basic Attack. His second Eidolon Resonance, Imperium On Cloud Nine, increases the stacks he builds with his Ultimate to three, and additionally lets him take his turn immediately after using it.
  • Regenerating Mana: His second-ascension Bonus Ability, Star Veil, immediately restores 15 Energy at the start of battle.
  • Sexy Backless Outfit: Has a lotus-shaped window located in the middle of his back.
  • Shaping Your Attacks: His Ultimate (and, to a lesser extent, his fourth-stage Basic Attack) conjures a water dragon that devours his target and adjacent foes.note 
  • Splash Damage Abuse: The wide damage coverage of his third- and fourth-stage Basic Attacks and his Ultimate count as extra hits for his Skill and Talent, stacking his damage boost faster than they appear.
  • A Taste of Power: You get to play and control Imbibitor Lunae in the Trailblaze missions "Dragon Mislay, Dreams Astray" and "Oblation Obtained, Order Ordained". Notably, both missions are first released in v1.2, while Imbibitor Lunae himself is unobtainable from the Warps until 1.3.
  • That Man Is Dead: After his reincarnation, he refuses to be referred to anything related to his past life. And even though his appearance now resembles his previous incarnation as the Imbibitor Lunae, he identifies himself first and foremost as Dan Heng of the Astral Express.
  • Transformation Sequence: Somehow being Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Blade causes Dan Heng to become encased in a ball of water from which a giant water dragon emerges, then returns to him, resulting in a Magic Plastic Surgery that undoes the effort he went into looking like a regular human as well as a Significant Wardrobe Shift.
  • Weapon Specialization: His associated Light Cone is "Brighter Than The Sun" (5★), whose "Defiant Till Death" passive increases its wearer's Critical Rate by 18-30%, as well as grants a stack of Dragon's Call for 2 turns whenever they use a Basic Attack, up to two, with each stack granting 18-30% ATK and 6-10% Energy Regen. Imbibitor Lunae's immense power revolves almost completely around his Enhanced Basic Attack, and the Energy Regen gained fuels his Ultimate so he can gain more Squama Sacrosancta for more Enhanced Basic Attacks.

Dan Feng

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_08_29_at_91412_pm.png
Voiced by: Yang Chaoran (Chinese), Junji Majima (Japanese), Kwon Seonghyeok (Korean), Yong Yea (English)

The previous Imbibitor Lunae and Dan Heng's past incarnation, who was sentenced to undergo molting rebirth after committing a great sin.


  • Battle in the Center of the Mind: In the "Ichor of Two Dragons" animated short, Dan Feng appears as the representation of Dan Heng's past sins and folly, and the two battle each other because Dan Feng insists that his sins are also burdens for Dan Heng to bear. In the end, with his memories of being around the Astral Express crew empowering him, Dan Heng awakens as Imbibitor Lunae and powers through Dan Feng's attack... and stops short of hitting him, a sign that Dan Heng isn't completely rejecting his past, but won't let it follow him into the future either. Seeing this, Dan Feng gives his approval and disappears.
  • Combat Medic: Dan Feng was known for both his healing and destructive power, which were inherited by Bailu and Dan Heng respectively.
  • Death by Origin Story: Dan Feng being forced to undergo molting rebirth after his failed attempt at resurrecting Baiheng and being reborn as Dan Heng is one of the main causes of Dan Heng's miserable early life.
  • Mad Scientist: Part of the "grave sin" he committed was to modify the High Elder succession ritual, Transmutation Arcanum, into an experiment to find a way for the Vidyadhara to procreate. It Went Horribly Wrong, with him accidentally creating a draconic abomination that had to be put down by his old comrades and the Cloud Knights. However, what most people don't know is that said experiment also successfully birthed a new life - and that life came from him applying the Vidyadhara's draconic essence on the body of a person from another species. Jingliu's companion mission implies that the real reason Dan Feng did that experiment was to try to bring Baiheng back to life.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: As one of five Vidyadhara High Elders, he was tasked to guard the Ambrosial Arbor and generally rule over the Luofu's Vidyadhara. He was also one of the legendary High Cloud Quintet of the Luofu.
  • Seeks Another's Resurrection: He was deeply affected by Baiheng's death and couldn't accept it, so he decided to embark on a dangerous and forbidden experiment to try and resurrect her which ultimately resulted in him being branded a criminal.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Dan Feng's main motivation was to find a way to free the Vidyadhara from their cycle of reincarnation so that they can reproduce naturally again.

    Jingliu 

Jingliu

Introduced: October 11, 2023 (v1.4 "Jolted Awake from a Winter Dream" [first half])
Voiced by: Du Mingya (Chinese), Houko Kuwashima (Japanese), Park Yi-seo (Korean), Amanda Lee [credited as "AmaLee"] (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jingliu_character_cut_in_icon.png
Click to see her full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Destruction
Type: Ice

Formerly the greatest swordswoman of the Xianzhou Luofu in her prime, Jingliu was supposedly slain by her protégé and comrade-in-arms Jing Yuan after she had been mara-struck centuries ago, but was later revealed to have somehow survived and, after centuries of wandering galaxies, returned to her homeland for mysterious reasons.

Jingliu saps her allies' life-force to strengthen most of her attacks. Her Talent, Crescent Transmigration, allows her to gather up to three stacks of Syzygy, one at a time through either her Technique, Shine of Truth, which additionally Freezes foes both in the field and for the first turn of combat; her Skill, Transcendent Flash, where she sends a crescent-shaped beam onto one target; or her Ultimate, Florephemeral Dreamflux, where she leaps in midair and rains a barrage of crescent-shaped icicles onto her target and adjacent foes. Once she has two stacks of Syzygy, she enters the "Spectral Transmigration" state, immediately advancing her next turn and giving her a Critical Rate boost, during which her Basic Attack is locked away in favor of burning Syzygy stacks to upgrade her Skill into Moon On Glacial River, gaining increased damage potency and coverage in exchange for consuming her allies' HP.note 
  • Achilles' Heel: If fighting against Malefic Apes and she is in the Spectral Transmigration state, Jingliu is very likely to suffer from their hard-hitting attacks, since she will be restricted to her Skill. This is especially problematic if she has the lowest Speed in the team, often meaning she'll be the last to act before the Ape's attack.
  • Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Halfmoon Gapes Mercurial Haze and Night Shades Astral Radiance, which will add two levels to her Ultimate and Talent with the former, and 2 to her Skill and 1 to Basic Attack (Lucent Moonglow) with the latter.
  • Area of Effect: Her Technique creates a circular field that moves with her and Freeze enemies within, as well as at the start of battle (in addition to building one stack of Syzygy for her).
  • Arrogant Kung-Fu Girl: In Yanqing's Companion Mission, she belittles his skills at several points of their contest, while making it clear hers are far better.
  • The Atoner: She claims that she is surrendering to the Luofu as atonement for all the people she hurt in her mara-induced madness.
  • Beauty Is Bad: Downplayed. Jingliu is a beautiful woman with long white hair, a form-fitting dress, and a skirt that shows off her thighs. She also comes off as eerie and sinister, being a mara-struck, and these traits make people wary of her, even if she isn't actually evil or malicious.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite being dead for over 700 years, she still looks alluringly beautiful, if somewhat eerie-looking.
  • Big Sister Mentor: Less "Big Sister" in their first encounter, but her Companion Mission sees Jingliu take this sort of attitude towards Yanqing, acting rather playful towards him and being a bit more encouraging of his skills, such as suggesting the reason he won their next contest that she proposed, which was a pretext for her to talk privately with Dan Heng, was because he got better.
  • Blind Weaponmaster: She was once the revered Sword Champion of the Luofu. When she appears in Yanqing's Companion Mission, she is wearing a blindfold, causing him to mistakenly assume that she cannot see. However, he discovers later that her sight is very much unhindered and she still retains much of her skill, easily beating him in their contest.
  • Blood Knight: While she seemingly has a good hold on her sanity in the present, her mara infection makes her uncharacteristically excited when fighting abominations and seemingly revel in the carnage. It's to the point that she attacks Yanqing even after the abominations were defeated because she wasn't satisfied yet.
  • Cast from Hit Points: An odd variant that doesn't involve the user at all. The Spectral Transmigration state makes her Skill drain their allies' HP (worth 4% of their maximum values) in exchange for boosting her Attack stat worth 540% of the total HP consumed off of the party (albeit capped to a value worth 90-198% of her Attack stat). In addition, her fourth Eidolon Resonance, Lunarlance Shines Skyward Dome, provides a further Attack boost worth 90% of the total HP consumed, as well as increases the Attack buff cap by 30%.
  • Cooldown Manipulation: In addition to the Spectral Transmigration state instantly granting her a turn upon activation, her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Sword Champion, allows the base form of her Skill to advance her turn by 10%.
  • Contralto of Strength: Jingliu is a deadly swordswoman with a low contralto to back up her martial skill with the blade.
  • Cosmic Motifs: Jingliu has heavy lunar motifs, from a lunar crescent appearing on her blindfold and the ornament on her chest to almost all her abilities' and upgrades' names alluding to the lunar phases, and the moon appearing on both her Utlimate and Enhanced Skill.
  • Critical Hit Class:
    • One of three stats Jingliu can upgrade via her Trace tree is her Critical Damage, with her getting a 37.3% boost once fully unlocked.
    • While in the Spectral Transmigration state, her Critical Rate increases by 40-52% (tied to her Talent).
    • Her first Eidolon Resonance also increases Critical Damage for her Ultimate and enhanced Skill, while her sixth provides a further boost when she enters Spectral Transmigration state. And both can stack with each other.
  • Cruel Mercy:
    • She mentions that she could have left Blade an Empty Shell in the Shackling Prison, but she decided to teach him swordfighting to doom him to an eternity of suffering as punishment for his role in attempting to resurrect Baiheng.
    • As for Imbibitor Lunae, Jingliu decided not to try and kill Dan Heng, knowing that Dan Feng's sins will continue to haunt him for the rest of his life.
  • Death Glare: Jingliu's Ultimate animation has her flash a chilling one, complete with Empty Eyes before launching the attack.
  • Doomed Hometown: Jingliu originally came from the Xianzhou Cangcheng, one of the three Xianzhou ships that were destroyed. Those of the younger generation like Yanqing have never even heard of its existence.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Before her first appearance in Yanqing's Companion Mission, she appeared briefly in the Official Release Trailer and is a major focus in the A Flash Animated Short.
  • Elemental Hair Colors: Her hair is white, as befitting her icy powers.
  • Evil Mentor: Blade views her as this, and considering her "teaching" involved her taking full advantage of his immortality to subject him to unending Cold-Blooded Torture, it's hard to blame him for hating her so much.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: Because Jingliu never meets the Trailblazer, either in-story or as a visitor to the Express, she does not have any text messages with them whatsoever, not even daily ones for having her in your roster.
  • Gathering Steam: Jingliu starts battle with a relatively weak single-target Skill. However, said Skill, as well as her Technique and Ultimate, help build stacks of Syzygy that, once she has two, allows her to enter the Spectral Transmigration state that enhances her Critical Rate and upgrades her Skill so long as she has said stacks to burn.
  • Go Out with a Smile: When she's hit by Jing Yuan's ultimate attack, Jingliu gives a small smile before being defeated.
  • Guest-Star Party Member: She fights alongside Yanqing during the latter's Companion Mission, but she acts on her own, and her information cannot be viewed.
  • Hypocrisy Nod: While she to this day still hasn't let go of her grudge against Dan Feng and Yingxing, she also acknowledges that she didn't turn out any better than them, as she killed many innocents during her mara-induced rampage and rendered her name just as taboo as theirs as a result. Thus, she doesn't dispute Blade's claim that "of five people, three must pay a price."
  • I Am Not Left-Handed: While she primarily fights right-handed, she'll instead hold her sword in her left hand during her Ultimate.
  • I Cannot Self-Terminate: As she had lost her sanity from being mara-stricken and attacked those around her out of survival instincts, Jing Yuan and the Cloud Knights had to intervene to kill her.
  • I Never Said It Was Poison: When Yanqing meets her for the first time, he assumes she's blind, although he keeps it to himself. In the middle of the mission, after her several remarks (about how Yanqing handles his swords, among other things), he makes a show of trying to put her under arrest and "deduce" that she isn't blind... to which she answers that she never said she was, in the first place. He gives a brief but obviously dejected look right after.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "All will be revealed..."
    (Normal speed and ×2 speed) "...In lunar flame!"
  • Irrational Hatred: She's aware of how Vidhyadhara reincarnation works, and that Dan Heng is effectively a different person from Dan Feng. She doesn't care, as from her perspective Dan Feng's crimes against nature were too great for death to be punishment enough. She treats Dan Heng's memory loss as an excuse to dodge responsibility and depending on dialogue can accuse him of faking it. She admits that the only reason she hasn't killed him herself is because as a fellow sinner, she doesn't have the right to be his executioner. She also believes his crimes have destined him to a Karmic Death anyways.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: While she constantly belittles Yanqing's skills in his Companion Mission, she's right to point out that the young swordmaster has no chance against Blade, and arranges their contest to get the Stellaron Hunter's information so she can find him first.
  • Lady of War: Jingliu is a beautiful swordswoman who fights with an air of elegance even in the midst of her mara-induced brutality.
  • The Last Dance: Her Companion Mission is about her spending her final day on the Luofu as a free woman before being sent to trial for her crimes.
  • Laughing Mad: One of her voice lines when using her enhanced Skill simply has her cackling as a sign that she is giving in to her mara-induced madness.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Her Traces help push her in this direction, boosting her HP, Crit Damage, and Speed so she can hit hard, hit fast, and take a hit before going down.
  • Master Swordsman: Her weapon of choice is a one-handed sword and as the previous Sword Champion of the Luofu, she was one of the best in using it. She demonstrates her skill in Yanqing's Companion Mission by easily overtaking him in their contest on who can slay more abominations, outright moving faster than he can see. Her gameplay as a Guest-Star Party Member also shows her hitting much harder than him, taking out enemies with just one hit.
  • Mentor Occupational Hazard: She taught Jing Yuan everything she knew until she became mara-struck and had to be put down by him. For one reason or the other, it doesn't stick. Jingliu's own mentor, known in her character stories as the "woman in armor", also runs afoul of this, perishing in combat.
  • Mercy Kill Arrangement: She instructed Jing Yuan to kill her should she become mara-struck. The scenario eventually happened, but for some reason, it doesn't stick.
  • Ms. Fanservice: With her long, flowing white hair and a curvaceous figure well-displayed by her revealing, form-fitting dress, alongside a sultry voice, Jingliu is certainly a beautiful woman. Downplayed as her story, accomplishments, and current condition are emphasized much more than her looks.
  • Mundane Utility: Jingliu's Technique is an Area of Effect that moves with her and freezes enemies around her, which is useful during Adventure domains to stop Trotters running away from her (in the Trotter-catching minigame) or to instantly break barrels without having to attack them one-by-one (in the barrel-breaking minigame)
  • Nightmare Hands: In her trailer, there's a shot of her surrounded by shadowy hands, which symbolizes her struggling with mara. They also appear in her Idle Animation.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Downplayed as a whole as her eyes are pinkish instead of red. The trope was averted when she was sane, where she was a stern but excellent master whom Jing Yuan had a lot of respect for, but played straight when she became mara-struck and fought fiercely against him. Played straight again in her Ultimate, where her pinkish-red eyes turn blood-red before bombarding the enemy with a barrage of slashes.
  • Sadist Teacher: She was this to Blade after he became mara-struck—and "teaching" isn't even her main intention. It doesn’t get much more sadistic than teaching someone all your sword techniques by using them to kill them multiple times so that they're fully ingrained into their being.
  • Sanity Strengthening: Appears mostly sane when Yanqing meets her, although she implies it's still a struggle to avoid falling back into her mara-struck state. She implies that the reason she wears her blindfold is to avert her gaze from things that may worsen her mental state.
  • The Scottish Trope: According to Yukong, speaking Jingliu's name is forbidden within the Luofu, as her name has been erased from history.
    Yukong: (About Jingliu) [sternly] You should not mention this name... it has been a forbidden word for a long time.
  • Self-Deprecation: If there's anyone Jingliu hates as much, if not more, than Dan Feng and Yingxing for their disastrous attempt at reviving Baiheng, it's possibly herself for becoming mara-struck and slaughtering her comrades in a fit of madness. She's constantly deriding herself for her current state and how easily she can fall back into it if she's not careful, and her Companion Mission involves her genuinely turning herself in for the crimes she committed after turning.
  • Signature Attack: A leap into the air followed by a horizontal slash that sends a massive frozen Sword Beam toward her target; in gameplay, it's her Ultimate. Yanqing learns a similar attack (Cascading Laceration in his boss version) that involves less acrobatics and throwing an actual huge sword but is otherwise similar enough that Blade can instantly recognize it.
  • Situational Damage Attack: In addition to granting them a 24% Critical damage buff, her first Eidolon Resonance, Moon Crashes Tianguan Gate, grants both her Ultimate and enhanced Skill an extra hit worth 100% of her Attack stat if there is only one foe in the field.
  • Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: While at present Blade wants absolutely nothing to do with Jingliu, it's fair to say that her... "teachings" made him a stronger warrior. True to form, Jingliu's Cast from Hit Points effect while under Spectral Transmigration parallels Blade's own usual methods, if pointed outward at the rest of the party instead of herself, and helps accelerate Blade's Talent charges, thus directly increasing his potential damage.
  • Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Her current sword is one created with her own ice powers; the pre-release blurb has Bailu outright calling it an "icicle". She creates a bigger one for her Spectral Transmigration state and her Ultimate. She used to have a proper sword - crafted by Yingxing, which Blade now wields - but after some point in time she finds no more use for it, wishing to transcend her limits by "being her own sword".
  • Stern Teacher: During their encounter, she takes time to belittle Yanqing's skills (especially as he expresses his desire to face Blade), make a contest out of killing mara-struck to show how outclassed he is, and then attacking him with her signature attack as a "parting gift". It's implied as her secretly teaching him. In v1.2, Yanqing was able to copy said attack and incorporate it into his fighting style.
  • Super Mode: Once she has two stacks of Syzygy, Jingliu enters the Spectral Transmigration state, which immediately brings forward her next turn, confers to her a 40–52% Critical Rate boost, and consumes the stacks to upgrade her Skill, giving her greater power and coverage at the expense of chewing at her allies' HP and locking her offensive options to both this and her Ultimate (which can still let her regain Syzygy while in this mode). In addition, her second-ascension Bonus Ability, Deathrealm, confers a 35% Effect Resistance buff, while that for her sixth, Frost Wraith, adds a 20% damage boost for her Ultimate; her second Eidolon Resonance, Crescent Shadows Qixing Dipper, allows her Ultimate to provide an 80% damage boost to her next enhanced Skill, and her sixth, Eclipse Hollows Corporeal Husk, extends the Syzygy cap to four and automatically builds one stack whenever she enters the state, as well as boosts her Critical Damage by 50%.
  • Sword Beam: Her Skill (basic and enhanced) and Ultimate have Jingliu fire off crescent-shaped beams of ice onto her foes with a swing of her sword. For the latter two especially, she leaps to the air first before shooting those beams.note 
  • Sword Pointing: Prior to using her (regular) Skill, she'll point at her target with her blade.
  • Weapon Specialization: Jingliu's associated Light Cone is "I Shall Be My Own Sword" (5★), whose "With the Evening Jade" passive increases its wearer's Critical Damage by 20-32% and grants up to three stacks of Eclipse whenever their allies lose HP, boosting the damage of the wearer's next attack 14-24% per stack (hence a maximum of 42-72%) and reducing enemy Defense by 12-20% if they have three stacks. Because Jingliu's attacks while under Spectral Transmigration consume HP from her allies, she will always gain the maximum possible buffs while attacking this way without relying on external factors.
  • World's Best Warrior: She was once known far and wide as the Sword Champion, the finest swordswoman in the Xianzhou Luofu. Even now her skills as a swordswoman remain unrivaled, as she utterly trounces Yanqing in their contest and lethally wounded Blade time and time again in the past.

    Luocha 

Luocha

Introduced: June 28, 2023 (v1.1 "Galactic Roaming" [second half])
Voiced by: Zhao Lu (Chinese), Akira Ishida (Japanese), Shin Yong-woo (Korean), Craig Lee Thomas (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/luocha.png
Click to see his full Warp artwork.

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Abundance
Type: Imaginary

A mysterious trader from beyond the stars who has recently arrived at the Xianzhou Luofu, carrying with him the coffin of a past client who requested him to bring them there for reasons known only between the two.

Luocha heals his allies whenever they attack enemies within the Field of his Talent, Cycle of Life, created whenever he generates two Abyss Flowers, either two through his Technique, Mercy of a Fool, or one at a time through his Skill, Prayer of Abyss Flower, which immediately heals an ally as well as the instant their HP falls below half, or his Ultimate, Death Wish, where he summons the spirit in his coffin to strike at his foes and remove one of their buffs.note 
  • Amplifier Artifact: His third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Surveyal by the Fool and Cicatrix 'Neath the Pain, adds two levels to his Skill and 1 to Basic Attack (Thorns of the Abyss) with the former, and 2 to his Ultimate and Talent with the latter.
  • Anti-Debuff: Luocha's second-ascension Bonus Ability, Cleansing Revival, allows his Skill's auto-healing to remove a debuff from his target ally, while that for his sixth, Through the Valley, adds a hefty 70% resistance to crowd-control debuffs.
  • Area of Effect: The Field effect allows allies to heal themselves whenever they attack enemies, lasting either for two turns or until Luocha has been knocked out.note  Some of his unlockable abilities are tied to this:
  • His fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Sanctified, expands the healing effect to the entire party, albeit to a lesser scale.note 
  • His first Eidolon Resonance, Ablution of the Quick, bestows upon the field a 20% Attack boost for the party, while his fourth, Heavy Lies the Crown, inflicts enemies with Weaken, hence reducing their damage output by 12%.
  • The Chessmaster: Luocha helped orchestrate the Luofu's Stellaron crisis and subsequently turned himself in, knowing the Alliance's laws dictate that the magnitude of the crime he committed means he must be sent to be tried by all of the Arbiter-Generals and the Marshal personally. Jing Yuan figures out too late that this is exactly what he wanted, and that it has something to do with whatever is stored in the coffin he carries. However, Jing Yuan's hands are tied at this point, and he is forced to admit that Luocha outsmarted him.
  • Combat Medic: With the "Combat" part emphasized. Unlike previous Abundance Pathstriders Natasha and Bailu, Luocha specializes in bestowing a Life Drain effect unto his party with all his healing scaling off of his Attack stat instead of Max HP. Combined with his offense-oriented Ultimate, his ability to automatically heal allies with low HP without using Skill Points, and the expansion of the effect to the party through his fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, it's possible to have him act a few times for an entire fight while still keeping his allies' HP high enough.
  • Damage-Increasing Debuff: His sixth Eidolon Resonance, Reunion With the Dust, guarantees his Ultimate to inflict a 20% penalty to his victims' Type Resistances for two turns.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: His second Character Story implies that his homeworld was run by a Religion of Evil, and that memories of the days spent there were not happy ones.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • When his Skill is triggered to automatically heal an ally whose HP fell below half, it will take last priority behind all other effects; if by then said ally's HP has recovered to over half, the auto-heal will not activate.
    • Upon completing Jingliu's Companion Quest, Luocha sends the Nameless a farewell letter apologizing he won't be able to come visit them again anytime soon. If there are any optional conversations with Luocha the player missed out on prior to that point, the game will give you the Stellar Jades rewards normally tied to them after reading his letter, preventing them from being Permanently Missable Content.
  • Dub Pronunciation Change: The characters of Luocha's name (simplified 罗刹, traditional 羅剎, pinyin "Luóchà") are read as "Rasetsu" (via kan-on [Han Chinese-derived] reading; kanji 羅刹, katakana ラセツ) in Japanese and "Nachal" (hangul 나찰) in Korean.
  • Due to the Dead: His main reason for carrying around a coffin is because he made some kind of promise to whoever rests in it prior to their death, and it's implied that the promise relates to returning it to the Luofu as some kind of debt to repay, though what that promise is has yet to be revealed. The end of Xianzhou Luofu's storyline, however, implies that it's a Coffin Contraband.
  • Gathering Steam: Both his Skill and Ultimate generate one stack each of Abyss Flowers (as well as two with his Technique); once two are gathered, he consumes them to generate the Field effect.
  • Guest-Star Party Member: He joins Dan Heng and Sushang as a party member, but he acts on his own, and his information cannot be viewed.
  • Good Is Not Soft: While Luocha will go out of his way to help others in need without demanding anything in return, he isn't afraid to use morally questionable actions to accomplish his goals, like instigating the Luofu's Stelleron Crisis to purge the Abundance denizens within, even though killing them is also the Xianzhou wanted.
  • Good Samaritan: When the Astral Express crew decide to investigate Luocha's movements, they can't find any evidence of wrongdoing and instead find instances of him being heroic, such as rescuing a pair of actors trapped in a ditch and tearing out the cover page of a book that had spoilers written on it.
  • Healing Hands: His Skill has him use a pendant that serves as a medium to heal one ally, either manually or automatically whenever their HP falls below half (with at least a two-turn cooldown), the latter of which costs no SP and will interrupt the action order when triggered. note 
  • Identical Stranger: Luocha is the spitting image of Otto Apocalypse (and Void Archives by extension), one of the main antagonists of Honkai Impact 3rd aside from the Honkai themselves. This gets referenced in his Companion Mission where Welt is shown a picture of Luocha and briefly flashes back to some unpleasant memories.
    • One of his Express visit conversations references this.
    "I heard Dan Heng mention that before he boarded the Express, there was a passenger who looked remarkably like me. He was seemingly up to no good and left a lasting psychological scar."
  • Improbable Weapon User: In addition to a rapier, he attacks with a massive coffin in his Ultimate.
  • Intrepid Merchant: Luocha is a merchant that travels the universe regardless of its dangers, and also picks up various skills along the way, such as healing.
  • Invocation:
    (Ultimate activation) "Eternal sleep is not the end..."
    (Normal speed) "The dead will return!"
    (×2 speed) "The dead return!"
  • Kill the God: The denouement for the Xianzhou Luofu Trailblaze Mission confirms that Luocha is also an enemy of Yaoshi, despite being blessed by THEM, and him being implied to be the one who snuck the Stellaron onboard the Luofu was part of his and Jingliu's plan to kill the Aeon.
  • Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Is described as a handsome young man in his introduction, with long blonde hair that goes down to his waist.
  • Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Relative to his fellow Abundance Pathstriders, Luocha is the first whose healing scales off of his Attack stat instead of Max HP.
  • Mr. Exposition: Explains lore about Aeons to Sushang, which also serves to deliver exposition to the players.
  • Mysterious Stranger:
    • Despite claiming to be a merchant who regularly does business within the Xianzhou Alliance, none in the Luofu seem to know who he is. This is justified in the case of Dan Heng and Sushang, as the former has been staying away from it, and the latter is a new transfer and is a bit Book Dumb. Even Tingyun, herself a well-traveler merchant, states in one of her voice lines that she's never heard of him and that his name doesn't appear in their records. But of course, it's also a bit unclear if the playable Tingyun is meant to reflect the "true" Tingyun or Phantylia-as-Tingyun, and if it's the latter, it makes sense that Phantylia wouldn't bother to learn about one random merchant her stolen identity may or may not have known; this muddies the waters on how unknown Luocha truly is.
    • In addition, Jingliu's Companion Mission reveals that he certainly has an infamous reputation in the greater galaxy under his true name, which Jing Yuan doesn't say out loud but notes it's a "tongue twister".
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Luocha is Chinese for "Raksha", Li Sushang's Affectionate Nickname for his Alternate Self, Otto in "Saga of the Shattered Swords" light novel. Luocha's real name has been described as "hard to pronounce" by both himself and later Jing Yuan, which is also a reference to said light novel; it's the same reason Sushang calls Otto "Raksha"note .
    • In Honkai Impact 3rd, the Abyss Flower is a Divine Key created using the core from the Herrscher of Death.
  • Nice Guy: Unlike his Honkai Impact 3rd counterpart, Luocha goes out of his way to help people in need, whether it's helping a couple of people out of a ditch or healing a cyborg.
  • Nom de Guerre: He's clearly "European" compared to everyone on the Luofu, so you may find his Chinese name odd—indeed, "Luocha" is only an alias he uses in Xianzhou space. In IPC space, he uses a different, "harder to pronounce" name... which isn't revealed during the 1.0 quests.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Following the conclusion of the Xianzhou Luofu Trailblaze Mission, Jing Yuan interrogates Luocha, who willingly turned himself in, for possibly being connected to the Stellaron crisis and being a follower of Yaoshi. Luocha defends himself by claiming that he and the Cloud Knight general are the same in that both are enemies with Yaoshi despite the former's Abundance powers.
  • Put on a Bus: After clearing Jingliu’s Companion Mission, Luocha is arrested by Jing Yuan and left a letter for the Astral Express to explain his absence. While you can still use him as a party member, he will not be present in the Astral Express as a visitor for an indeterminate amount of time.
  • Royal Rapier: He primarily uses a rapier as his weapon, and in combat he carries himself in an elegant and proper manner.
  • Serious Business: Luocha takes story spoilers very seriously, and when he spots that a prankster has written spoilers inside the cover page of a book he likes, he immediately rips the page out.
  • Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: When the Nameless investigate him during his Companion Mission, all their conjectures about his evil plots turn out to have far simpler and more benevolent explanations. Aside from his similarity to Otto, the mysterious contents of his coffin, and the footage photo of him overlooking the Ambrosial Arbor as it suddenly grew, there doesn't appear to even be anything wrong with him. The Stinger for the Xianzhou storyline complicates this matter further. While Luocha is heavily implied to have smuggled the Stellaron onboard (Jing Yuan accuses him for doing it, but Luocha doesn't confirm nor deny it), he explains that he is also seeking to destroy the Abundance and is working with Jingliu.
  • Situational Sword: His second Eidolon Resonance, Bestowal From the Pure, either increases his Skill's Outgoing Healing by 30% if his target ally has less than half their HP, or allows it to generate a Shield for two turns otherwise.note 
  • Spoiler: During his character quest, he tears off a cover of a book belonging to a beloved detective series. Luocha did this because someone wrote about a huge spoiler on the inside of the cover, and he didn't want anyone else to be spoiled.
  • Squishy Wizard: Downplayed but still there. Luocha's healing scales with his Attack, as opposed to Max HP like most other Abundance Pathstriders, meaning that when built properly, he'll be less resilient as a result. While this isn't too big of an issue in general, his fragility becomes more prominent when it comes to modes that jack up enemy difficulty like Simulated Universe and Swarm Disaster.
  • Vine Tentacles: His ultimate has him use the coffin to summon ethereal vines to impale all enemies and remove a single buff from them note .
  • Weapon Specialization:
    • Luocha's associated Light Cone is "Echoes of the Coffin" (5★), whose "Thorns" passive boosts its wearer's Attack stat by 24–40%, regenerates 3–5 Energy for each enemy they hit at once (up to thrice at once, equivalent to 9–15 Energy), and boosts the party's Speed by 12-20 points for one turn after using their Ultimate, hence simultaneously increasing his healing and damage potencies, as well as allowing him to charge up his Ultimate faster.
    • He's also associated with "Perfect Timing" (4★), whose "Refraction of Sightline" passive boosts its wearer's Effect RES by 16-32%, as well as Outgoing Healing by 33-45% of Effect RES, up to a maximum of 15-27% increased Outgoing Healing. Paired with his sixth Ascension Bonus Ability, Luocha becomes all but impossible to lock down with crowd control, allowing him to unceasingly supply his team with skill points and cleansing heals, and is less likely to get caught by damage-over-time effects that bypass his crowd control resistance.

    Diting 

Diting

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/npc_diting.png
Bionic dogs who resembles a Chinese nian in appearance. It helps out the Astral Express crew by finding hidden objects and trace trails out of view.
  • Mythology Gag: Functionality-wise, Diting's gameplay resembles the Elemental Sight from Genshin Impact, which creates a temporary color-coded field of view to reveal shining objects that are not visible in the overworld and trace trails that match the color of the people you're pursuing (ie: pink for Kafka and green for Dan Shu).
  • Robot Buddy: Diting is a robot of the Entranced Ingenium series created by the Artisianship Commission for the sole purpose of finding stuff for people who adopt it. Tingyun provides the Astral Express crew with her pet in order to chase Kafka in Stargazer Navalia.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: It serves a similar purpose to Peppy in Herta Space Station: Both are cute pets who are used for trailing missions.
  • Team Pet: Diting serves this role for the Astral Express crew on the Luofu, leading them on to hidden clues that will bring them closer to their targets.

    Qingzu 

Qingzu

A Vidyadhara at the Seat of Divine Foresight who serves as the Chief Counselor to the Divine Foresight, essentially making her Jing Yuan's right hand woman.

  • Beleaguered Bureaucrat: Her initial attitude when first interacting with her gives off the impression that she's way too busy to chat. After completing the "Obsequies Performed, A Long Road Ahead" quest, she will tell the Trailblazer that her backlog of work shows that there is still a lot of work to do before things settle down.
  • Unreliable Expositor: Asking her for gossip about the Seat of Divine Foresight will have her telling the Trailblazer four different yet vaguely plausible stories, like Yanqing being a Vidyadhara whose ears were bitten off or that Yutie is a shared name for the guards. Talking to Jing Yuan will have him say that it's up to the player to decide whether or not her stories are true.

    Master Gongshu 

Gongshu Liang

Voiced by: Zou Liang (Chinese), Hironori Kondo (Japanese), Kim Yong (Korean), Michael Sorich (English)
An eccentric member of the Artisanship Commission that the Trailblazers run into while trying to resolve the issue with the Ambrosial Arbor. After mistaking them for enemies and siccing his robots on them, the Trailblazers convince him that they're here to help and he joins them to assist them.

    Preceptor Taoran 
Voiced by: Xu Zongzhe (Chinese), Hitoshi Bifu (Japanese), Yong Kim (Korean), Daman Mills (English)
One of numerous leaders in the Luofu Vidyadhara community in charge of overseeing general Vidyadhara affairs alongside the High Elder.

    Entranced Ingenia 

Uniquely-shaped Xianzhou mechanical creations, made to perform miscellaneous tasks. Due to unknown factors, they've "come alive" and become hostile.

They consist of: Entranced Ingenium: Golden Cloud Toad, Entranced Ingenium: Obedient Dracolion, Entranced Ingenium: Illumination Dragonfish, Aurumaton Gatekeeper (elite) and Aurumaton Spectral Envoy (elite).


  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Aurumaton Gatekeepers were used to aid Xianzhou people in warfare; however, they've said to have "rebelled" multiple times (in part due to the effects of Emperor Rubert's Mechanical Wars) before they were subdued, and nowadays they require talismans to work and are only used to guard important sites.
  • Achilles' Heel: Aurumaton Gatekeepers' Sanction Rate increments when your characters use offensive Skills or Ultimates, which means DPS units reliant on enhanced Basic Attacks (and sometimes non-offensive Skills) can plow Aurumaton Gatekeepers without much retaliation. Getting inflicted with crowd-control debuff, or getting Weakness Broken, will also prevent them from gaining Sanction Rate.
  • Blade Below the Shoulder: Aurumaton Gatekeeper has a glowing baton for its right arm that it can use to whack your characters.
  • Breath Weapon: Golden Cloud Toad can breathe dense fog onto one of your characters to attack them.
  • Combat Hand Fan: Aurumaton Spectral Envoys wield a pair of metal fans, and its attack movement resembles dancing.
  • Fembot: The Aurumaton Spectral Envoy decidedly is designed to look more feminine and can pass as a human female wearing a sort of Powered Armor.
  • Fire-Breathing Weapon: Illumination Dragonfish can breathe fire onto all of your characters.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Just like Automaton Grizzly's case, Aurumaton Gatekeeper's summoned Illumination Dragonfishes can damage their own summoner upon their deaths. There's also an achievement for when Illumination Dragonfishes' explosion deals a killing blow on the Aurumaton Gatekeeper.
  • Status Infliction Attack:
    • Golden Cloud Toad and Obedient Dracolion can inflict Slow (reduced SPD) and Weaken (reduced damage dealt) respectively on your characters with their attacks.
    • All of Illumination Dragonfish's attacks can reduce the DEF stat, including when it explodes upon death and hits other enemies around it.
    • Aurumaton Gatekeeper's "Dread" attack has a chance of inflicting Weaken on your characters. After entering Sanction Mode, it can sometimes inflict Imprisonment with its attacks.
    • Some of Aurumaton Spectral Envoy's attacks (including one AOE attack) can inflict Reverberation on their targets, like Wraith Warden's attacks. If any party members become stunned due to Reverberation's effect, they will target said stunned member for their next move, which will deal big damage; this damage can be reduced if the stun expires/is cleansed before the aurumaton can attack them.
  • Super Mode: whenever your characters attack Aurumaton Gatekeeper with Skill or Ultimate, or when it uses its "Dread" attack on your party, it'll build up "Sanction Rate" by 33%. When it reaches 100%, it summons 2 Illumination Dragonfishes and enters "Sanction Mode" for 2 turns: its Toughness Gauge will be protected and it starts unleashing more powerful attacks. There's an achievement for when you make them enter Sanction Mode 3 times in a single battle.
  • Super-Scream: Obedient Dracolion roars on one of your characters' face to deal damage.

    Heliobi 

A race of parasitic beings composed of pure energy who sustain themselves by possessing sentient organic lifeforms and feeding off of their emotions and desires.


  • Blood Knight: One of the main reasons the Heliobi have congregated to Fyxestroll Garden is that they want to combine together and have a rematch against the Lord General that defeated Ignamar.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Heliobi aren't evil per se. They simply have a different set of values due to being immaterial energy beings that crave stimulation, which they can only get through possessing living beings.
  • Complete Immortality: As far as everyone knows, they are immortal. Short of an Aeon's power, there is no known way to kill one and they seem to live forever.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Individual Heliobi are highly individualistic and generally don't like working together. However, in the rare cases that they do team up, it's no guarantee that a Heliobus won't betray its comrades on a whim if it benefits them more.
  • Creative Sterility: They can feed off of the creativity of others, but struggle to create anything new of their own.
    • The "Chess Ghost" loves creating puzzles, but has difficulty creating anything challenging.
    • One heliobi is feeding off of the residual longing of a composer who was sad that he could not complete his song. The heliobi has inherited that sadness, but cannot resolve it without external help due to their innate lack of creativity.
    • Another heliobi borrows Qingque's fantasies of wealth to come up with unrealistic business plans. Inside said fantasy, many people, including the fantasy Qingque's employees, voice their complain that the Celestial Jade game needs new innovation in order to grow, but "she" insists that the game doesn't need it.
  • Dead Person Impersonation: Heliobi are a race of spirits, but they have nothing to do with the dead. However, being a race of Emotion Eaters, they occasionally imitate lost loved ones or pretend to be actual ghosts in order to provoke emotions to feed off of. In the Foxian graveyard they have chosen as their new home, there are many "ghosts" of green fire. Only one of the ghosts the Trailblazer encounters is implied to actually be a real ghost.
  • Death of Personality: The closest equivalent heliobi have to dying. Normally, when heliobi form a Fusion Dance, even as they specialize in different roles, the individual heliobi are still recognizable. Especially powerful heliobi like the Flint Emperor or Lord Ravager Phantylia however, can effectively destroy the personalities of lesser heliobi.
  • Demonic Possession: This is their main and most feared ability. They can invade the minds of others and take control of their bodies. They are limited to one heliobus per host, so a person who is already possessed cannot be possessed by more.
  • Emotion Eater: They enjoy experiencing the emotions of beings of flesh and blood. They do not need them to live, but have grown quite addicted to their new diet. They describe different emotions as having "flavors".
  • Fusion Dance: Heliobi can fuse themselves into a single, more powerful amalgated Heliobus. The personalities of the consumed Heliobi remain separate, and the fusion will break apart if they do not get along well.
  • Humanity Is Infectious: For better or worse (mostly for the worse for both parties), the heliobi have effectively been contaminated by humanity's influence. In their ancient past, they did not feed and their personalities were more compatible for Fusion Dances. Nowadays, they are addicted to mortals. One young heliobus who is closer to their former nature expresses dismay that he witnessed his fellows absorb the negative traits of humans without being balanced out by the positive traits, becoming even worse reflections of humans. The rare heliobi that become fully human even in personality have it the worst since the incompatibility with their true nature drives them to despair.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: The heliobi as a race are Emotion Eater parasites, and the worst of them are capable of impressive cruelty, but it is mentioned a few times that even they are no match for the worst humans.
  • It Amused Me: Pretty much their motive for doing anything.
  • Living Battery: How the people of the Xianzhou have made use of them. They are beings of immortal flame, making it possible to use them as an endless source of energy. As such, they were sealed in the great Creation Furnace.
  • Master of Illusion: They can trap people in mental illusions.
  • Mental Fusion: When a Heliobi possesses a mortal for too long, their minds start blending, to the point that they cannot distinguish their thoughts. The end result is usually the mortal's death and the Heliobi developing a new personality.
  • More than Mind Control: They can magnify them, but they cannot plant desires that are not already there.
  • Obliviously Evil: While some heliobi are blatantly malicious, others seem lack an understanding of the harm they are causing.
  • Our Spirits Are Different: Heliobi are not derived from the dead and are therefore not ghosts, but they are classified as a type of astral being, much like Wubbabos.
  • Perpetual-Motion Monster: As Emotion Eaters, feeding empowers them, and inversely they can be weakened by strain, but they do not actually need to eat to live. They are beings of immortal flame that will probably never die. The Xianzhou realized the utility and now use them as a Living Battery that needs no fuel and will provide them with energy forever.
  • Possession Burnout: Heliobi are addicted to mortal sensations and do not really understand the value of moderation, causing damage to their host as they overindulge themselves in one activity. Once they've exhausted their host body, the host body spontaneously combusts, usually killing the host. Such as the case of a heliobus who impersonates the deceased lover of a Foxian man; both he and said heliobus are addicted to the feeling of love they once shared, and if you choose to let them go, they spent the last of said man's time going to places until he died from the possession, and said heliobus willingly turned "herself" in to the Ten-Lords Commission.
  • Power Copying: Apyra, the Heliobus possessing Yanqing, turns into a copy of Yanqing, complete with all his skills and attacks, for the boss fight.
  • Powers via Possession: A long time ago, many warriors made a Deal with the Devil with some of their kind, offering up their bodies as hosts in return for borrowing their powers to use against the enemy.
  • Reality Warper: Their powers grow greater when they combine into a Fusion Dance, potentially even up to the point that they can bend the local area.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: A long time ago, they formed a Fusion Dance and challenged the general of the Xianzhou Luofu to battle for fun. Upon their defeat, the Heliobi were sealed in the Creation Furnace to contain them, sentenced to power it for all eternity as punishment. However, after the Furnace was damaged during Stellaron crisis, a number of Heliobi were able to escape forcing the Ten Lords Commission to seal them into another can called the Evil Sealing Matrix.
  • Seers: They have a very weak ability to predict the future on a racial level. Some are specialized in the field, and it grows stronger as more of them fuse.
  • Soul Power: After their defeat at the hands of the Xianzhou Alliance, the Heliobi were sentenced to an eternity of servitude as an endless power source. In particular, the Luofu uses them to power its Creation Furnace while the Zhuming uses them (especially the Primordial Flame, the remains of Flint Emperor) to power the entire ship.
  • Unknown Rival: The Heliobi want to get revenge on the Lord General who defeated them and sealed them in the Creation Furnace. However, said Lord General, Teng Xiao, has been dead for millennia and his successor, Jing Yuan, has no idea Heliobi even exist.
  • Vampiric Draining: Heliobi gain power by feeding off of the emotions and desires of the people they possess. If left unchecked, this process can become lethal as they eventually render their victims into shriveled up corpses.

Flint Emperor

The overall leader of the Heliobi and one of the most powerful ones to ever exist.
  • All There in the Manual: The Flint Emperor doesn't make an appearance in the main story, and is only mentioned in the game's various historical texts.
  • Enemy Mine: According to legend, when the Xianzhou Alliance was desperately fighting a losing battle against the Denizens of Abundance, the Flint Emperor agreed to possess a Xianhou hero and grant them his power. The Xianzhou hero would use the Flint Emperor's power to destroy the enemy fleet and then ascend into Aeonhood as Lan.
  • Red Baron: He is also called the "Primordial Flame".

Ignamar

Once a mighty amalgamation of Heliobi powerful enough to threaten the Xianzhou Luofu, he was defeated by the Lord General of the time and shattered in countless fragments.
  • The Dreaded: The Heliobi basically worship Ignamar for being able to collect so many of them together to form such a powerful entity, powerful enough to fight a Xianzhou Lord General on even terms.
  • Posthumous Character: He no longer exists, having been shattered into countless fragments that developed their own personalities.

Cirrus

Voiced by: Mufei (Chinese), Risae Matsuda (Japanese), Valeria Rodriguez (English, spirit), Analesa Fisher (English, possessed boy)
A Heliobus that manages to temporarily possess the Trailblazer.
  • Aesop Amnesia: When the characters comment on how careless Furynox is being, Cirrus explains: "The stronger you are, the more you underestimate your enemies... sometimes being weak and humble is the way to survive." As soon as she claims Furynox's power, she repeats his mistake and is soundly defeated.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: Cirrus is this, as she wants to become powerful enough to defeat Jing Yuan. However, despite giving the Trailblazer, Xueyi, and Huohuo serious trouble, when Cirrus finally gets the chance to fight the general, she gets utterly curb-stomped by the Lightning Lord.
  • Enemy Mine: Cirrus possesses the Trailblazer while they are both trapped in Furynox's illusion, pointing out that they both need to work together if they have any hope of escaping.
  • I Just Want to Be Free: One of Cirrus' main motivations is to be able to escape the Luofu after spending millennia trapped in the Creation Furnace.
  • Smug Snake: Cirrus fancies herself a cosmic chessmaster that can outwit anybody given enough time to carry out her plots. However, she is regularly defeated by the Ghost Hunting Squad, and when she finally does get a chance to attack Jing Yuan, he effortlessly defeats her in a single blow.
  • Time Abyss: Cirrus describes how she has existed since long before the Xianzhou Alliance was even an idea.

Furynox

A Heliobus that settles in Fyxestroll Garden in hopes of becoming the second coming of Ignamar.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: He's the final boss of the first chapter of A Foxian Tale of the Haunted. Once he's defeated, Cirrus takes his place as the Big Bad.
  • Honor Before Reason: He's easily goaded by Cirrus into coming out in the open to battle her and the Trailblazer.

Historical

    Baiheng 

Baiheng

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_08_29_at_95410_pm.png
Voiced by: Tao Dian (Chinese), Rie Suegara (Japanese), Kim I-an (Korean), Montse Hernandez (English)

The Foxian member of the High Cloud Quintet, a gifted starskiff pilot and archer.


  • Ace Pilot: Considered one of the greatest the Luofu has ever known, though she had a habit of wrecking the Starskiffs she piloted.
  • Destructive Savior: Despite her piloting skills, Baiheng almost always ended up somehow destroying whatever Starskiff she was piloting, whether it be in battle or crashing it on a random planet. It was so commonplace that the Sky Keeping Commission eventually nickamed her the "Starksiff Killer".
  • Fox Folk: She was a Foxian.
  • Genki Girl: When she was seen in the animated short "Ichor of Two Dragons", she seemed more excitable and perky compared to the other members of the High Cloud Quintet.
  • The Heart: It's heavily implied she was this to the High Cloud Quintet, as the group completely fell apart the moment she died.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Jingliu mentions that it was Baiheng's brave charge that allowed the Xianzhou to defeat an Emanator of Abundance, but it ultimately cost her life.
  • Mayfly–December Friendship: Foxians have a much shorter lifespan than other Xianzhou natives, so she perished long ago. Her companions, on the other hand, are still alive to one degree or another.
  • Posthumous Character: She's long since passed away by the time of the story. Jingliu elaborates on it to Dan Heng and Yanqing, claiming Baiheng sacrificed herself during a battle against Shuhu, one of the Emanators of The Abundance.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: Despite being long dead, her death in the past is the direct cause of the High Cloud Quintet's falling out and resulted in who they'd become in the present; Dan Feng began his experiments that would eventually result in his forced rebirth into Dan Heng, Yingxing's attempt to help Dan Feng would backfire horribly and result in him being mara-struck and cursed with immortality as Blade, Jingliu would fall to the mara in the aftermath and go insane, and Jing Yuan would ultimately become the general of the Luofu after driving her off.
  • Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Blade laments her death in the present and believes she didn't deserve to die the way she did, and it caused Dan Feng and him to commit grave sins in an attempt to bring her back.
  • Unluckily Lucky: According to Jingliu, Baiheng had an uncanny knack for surviving even the most lethal situations... but the same couldn't be said for any Starskiffs she piloted, nor for those brave enough to accompany her on missions. That said, her luck finally ran out during one fateful mission in a battle against Shuhu, one of the Emanators of The Abundance.

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