Characters / Honkai: Star Rail—Aeons

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

Aeons

Mysterious, godlike entities who roam the universe. Each one is a powerful Reality Warper who has left a mark upon reality itself in the form of Paths, an embodiment of philosophy through which life and the universe itself may take form. Simply living in accordance to the values espoused by a Path can bestow Super-Empowering to mortals, and Aeons THEMSELVES can bless entire worlds with physics-defying, supernatural powers.

Due to THEIR powers and influence, the Aeons are deified by many across the universe, forming a group of followers or worshippers who each attempt to live in accordance to the Paths of their Aeons. The Astral Express itself can be considered a group of followers of Trailblaze, although the Path has been left masterless after Akivili died under unknown circumstances.

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In General

• Abstract Apotheosis: Many of THEM are former mortals, but upon ascending, THEY become bound to THEIR paths and THEIR mentality completely changes. According to Welt and Himeko, THEY are bound to the Primum Mobile, causing THEM to lose free will and the ability to process anything outside the Path THEY represent. THEY literally cannot act against THEIR Path. For example, the Harmony will never raise a ruckus, the Abundance will keep spreading immortal life, the Propagation became mindless as intelligence is considered useless for the instinct to propagate, and more. THEIR way of thinking becomes so alien that asking THEM questions is usually pointless. Aeons capable of communicating with THEIR followers on a personal level are the exception rather than the rule, and none of the living ones can reliably do so. Out of all the Aeons, Akivili was probably the only one that fully retained the ability to relate to mortals. Even after creating simulated, modified replicas of them, Herta still requires the help of a person containing a Stellaron to bridge the communication barrier.
• Ambiguous Gender: It is debatable if gender is a concept which applies to Aeons. Only some have humanoid forms, and even among those there are quite a few being referred with THEY/THEM pronouns regardless of the gender expressions of their forms. In the Chinese text, all Aeons are referred to with the pronoun "祂" (tā), which is primarily used to refer to the Abrahamic god, but can also refer to other deities. As of the 2.1 update, Aeons (and other deific figures) are referred to with all-caps pronouns as a reflection of this. Prior existing text in the game was also revised to match the change.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: Of the possible philosophical paths which can be cultivated and expressed by life itself.
• Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: The followers of many Aeons claim THEY were once lesser, mortal lifeforms before becoming Aeons. How it happened differ between Aeon to Aeon, and the exact specifics are unclear.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Aeons became what THEY are by living through a philosophy with which life can be lived, and after a certain point embody that philosophy so thoroughly in a vast and encompassing manner to the point it is difficult for mortals to truly comprehend their mindsets. This is most obvious with Yaoshi the Abundance; THEIR gift of immortality is bestowed with apparently benevolent intentions, but the consequence can range from genuinely helpful (to Denizens of Abundance) to catastrophic (to the Xianzhou Alliance).
• Call-Back: Though Aeons are entities which are first introduced to the Honkai Multiverse within Star Rail, there have been multiple instances of entities similar to THEM existing or being hinted at.
  • In Houkai Gakuen 2nd or Gun Girls Z Part 2, the Will of Honkai is revealed to be once a race of lifeforms from an Alternate Universe, who used the Honkai to ascend and assimilate all other forms of life, becoming one with the Honkai itself of their universe. It is suspiciously similar to what Tayzzyronth the Propagation attempted to do in the past of Star Rail universe.
  • In Honkai Impact 3rd, the Honkai is revealed to be a force put in place by mysterious beings to reflect the lifeforms of any particular world into understanding themselves, and exists to allow physical and spiritual transformations for intelligent life. Due to humanity being in a habit of seeing the Honkai as an alien, corruptive force, on top of being flawed at the best of times and bastards at the worst of times, it results in the Honkai becoming the existential threat it is in the story. At the climax of Part 1, after Kiana figures out the Honkai for what it really is, she uses it to become one with the Cocoon of Finality — a cocoon representing the true nature of Herrschers and Honkai — which allows her to halt the flow of Honkai from Imaginary Space into the physical universe, and utilize it as she pleases. This is eerily similar to how Aeons are stated to be once lesser lifeforms who, according to the parables of Aha's birth, climbed the highest branch of the Tree of Existence — just like how Kiana reached the Cocoon of Finality by ascending to the highest realm of Imaginary Space, which is a branch of the Imaginary Tree representing The Multiverse.
• Caps Lock: In Version 2.1, the English translation fully capitalizes the Aeons' pronouns, to emphasize THEIR otherwordlyness and THEIR power.
• Cosmic Entity: THEY are powerful enough to extend their influence across countless worlds, and the Paths THEY walked on could affect mortals across the entire known universe.
• Eldritch Abomination: Transhuman Abomination kind. While THEY were not necessarily humans prior to their ascension, THEY are now vastly powerful Reality Warpers who each embody a philosophy which can be expressed within life itself.
• Enigmatic Empowering Entity: All of THEM are, to a certain extent: all characters directly or indirectly draw upon their paths as sources of power (even more so in the Simulated Universe thanks to their direct blessings) and at times, THEY tend to choose Emanators - direct representatives of their Paths that are essentially demigods. However, due to THEIR Blue-and-Orange Morality, what most Aeons actually want is often an enigma.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: Played with. Aeons do not seem to need prayer to exist, but the active following of their Paths can make those Paths stronger. This is especially important for Paths whose Aeons have died. For example, The Cancer of All Worlds made the Path of Trailblaze more necessary than ever, but with Akivili dead, the Nameless struggled. They managed to empower the Path of Trailblaze by spreading stories, recording experiences, and forming their efforts into new blessings.
• Have You Seen My God?: In Luofu, Kafka shares how a number Aeons have disappeared, leaving behind masterless Paths. She namedrops Long the Permanence, Ena the Order, Idrila the Beauty, Tayzzyronth the Propagation, and Akivili the Trailblaze. She claims Ena and Tayzzyronth have died, while other sources claim Akivili and Idrila have also died.
• I Am the Noun: Aeons are typically referred to as being the concept they represent; for example, Lan is not just the Aeon of the Hunt, THEY are often directly called "the Hunt."
• Kill the God: According to Kafka, there are three ways Aeons can die which are known to humanity. She initially only shares two, however.
  • Aeons with similar Paths and philosophies of life would clash, and the wider Path will assimilate the smaller one. Kafka states this is how Ena the Order fell to Xipe the Harmony.
  • Aeons can wage wars on other Aeons to destroy the means by which an Aeon can express THEMSELF. This is how Tayzzyronth the Propagation fell.
• Legacy Immortality: In a way. A Path is a mark which an Aeon imprinted upon reality itself through THEIR ascension, and it persists even after the death of the Aeon. The only known way for a Path to completely disappear is if it is engulfed by a greater Path.
• Mysterious Past: The origins of many Aeons are unknown. Even for the Aeons with some known history, that history is vague. Lan, for example, is known to originate from the Xianzhou Alliance, but even the most popular story of THEIR rise is considered to be an unconfirmed myth, and no one knows who THEY were as a mortal. An illusionary Herta generated by the Matrix of Prescience claims that Aeons do not have a past, because their Path overwhelms it.
• Mythical Motifs:
  • Related to Genshin Impact's usage of Archons, "Aeons" is also a concept in Gnosticism.
    • They are said to be "emanations of God" which aren't so much "beings" as they are "concepts" that exist in a purely noumenal/ideal world. In Star Rail, a few characters mention that Aeons don't exist in the physical plane normally, THEY "project" themselves into it in order to manifest.
    • Like how later "generations" of Aeons are emanations of "older" Aeons, in Star Rail some Aeons started as a follower of another Aeon's Path, notably Tayzzyronth creating the path of Propagation after following Permanence.
    • "Nous" (meaning variously "thought", "intuition" or "mind eye") is also one of the Aeons in Gnosticism.
  • The game seems to borrow much from Aleister Crowley and his religion Thelema in conceptualizing the Aeons.
    • The term Aeon in Thelema refers to the division of the history of humanity based on their religious and spiritual expressions. The Aeon of Horus in particular, the time when humans will seek a state of self-realization via spiritual growth and finding one's individuality through recognizing one's "True Will" (calling, purpose in life), thus acquiring new set of ethics and philosophy, perfectly describes the Aeons of Star Rail universe, many if not all of whom were once lesser/mortal beings before undergoing certain experiences to embody a philosophy of living before ascending and becoming Aeons.
    • Aeons are godlike beings who each have their own understanding of the universe in accordance to the philosophies by which THEY ascended with, who goes on to enact that understanding upon the universe and other life. This corresponds to the ascendant state Thelemite magicians will become once they cross "the Abyss" which lies between the physical world and the higher realm from which all phenomenons originate. In fact, according to Honkai Impact 3rd, Thelemic understanding of the Abyss exists in the form of Honkai, which according to Kevin and Elysia, exists supposedly to assist mortal lifeforms of the universe to become greater beings through physical and spiritual adaptation.
    • The process by which mortals become Emanators (individuals blessed by Aeons to act on THEIR behalf) involve individuals walking down the Path of an Aeon, which sometimes may also begin with the person being greeted by a previous Emanator. This parallels how Thelemites are expected to communicate with their personal Holy Guardian Angels in their effort to find the True Will, who themselves could be previously humans as well.
    • The two known ways Aeons can die correspond with two out of three Aeons dividing humanity's history: Aeon of Isis (when humans revere nature itself through pagan worship) and Aeon of Osiris (when humans revere the idea of God of death and rebirth through monotheist religions). The Aeon of Isis ended when smaller beliefs are assimilated by greater schools of thought and religions, and the Aeon of Osiris ended when monotheist religions became divided into countless sects and went to war over ideology and values.
• Odd Job Gods: Justified. Aeons are not really gods in the traditional sense, THEY are living embodiments of philosophies of life. As such, each of THEM is technically doing the same thing — expressing and imprinting THEIR philosophies of how life should shape itself into the universe, and that expression differs greatly from Aeon to Aeon. Compare Nanook the Destruction who believes in the systematic destruction of everything with Aha the Elation who concludes the entire purpose of existence is to have something to laugh at.
• Our Gods Are Different: Compared to Genshin Impact which uses Gnostic and fantastic image of gods (i.e as "powerful people - with all their flaws - in charge of regions"), Star Rail's Aeons follow the idea of "gods" as science fiction typically view them: supernatural beings beyond mortal comprehension whom mortals deify as a symbol, without said beings necessarily aware of them and their activities.
• Patron God: Most Aeons have "factions" that follow each Aeon's Paths. Some of the Aeons have closer relationship with their factions (i.e Nanook and Antimatter Legion, Lan and Xianzhou Alliance), while some others are possibly unaware that THEY had followers.
• Physical God: Hits nearly every point of the trope. THEY are powerful enough to the point reality itself bends around them, and THEIR Paths are marks left on reality itself which can influence all life across the universe. Naturally, THEY are deified and worshipped by many, particularly those who walk down THEIR Paths, and each known Aeon has at least one faction serving as THEIR followers. Though it's played with in that, most of the time, THEY aren't "physical", as THEY normally exist in the "Path Space" and only appear in the physical plane by projecting THEMSELVES into them.
• Religion is Magic: THEIR Paths act as a source of power, giving Pathstriders and Emanators their abilities and making various forms of Magitek possible.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Played with. Some of THEM have names taken from several different Real Life myths, such as Nanook (Inuit), Xipe (Aztec), Fuli (Taoism) and Qlipoth (Judaism), while some others have original names.
• Semi-Divine: Emanators are those who have been entrusted with a degree of authority over a Path by that Path's Aeon. They are much stronger than normal Pathstriders. Some Aeons see their Emanators as extensions of THEMSELVES and give them a lot of power over their path, some do not anoint any Emanators at all.
• Spirit World: The Aeons appear to reside in a place called Path Space. The Trailblazer has occasionally been seen to mentally travel to it at important moments, especially when they manage to attract an Aeon's attention
• Time Abyss: Most if not all of the known Aeons are old enough to be this trope. For instance, the Xianzhou Alliance became followers of the Hunt about 8,000 years prior to present time, meaning Lan and Yaoshi have been around at least before then.
• Touched by Vorlons: Pathstriders are people who have received power by following the Paths. If they manage to earn enough of an Aeon's interest for the Aeon to glance at them, whether out of approval or pity, they receive a blessing.
• Vague Age: All of the Aeons have unclear ages. Lan, for example, is implied to be around 30,000 years old when THEY became an Aeon, but when that happened is unclear in relation to present time. More details regarding their ages are in their respective folders.
• Wowing Cthulhu: Pathstriders can earn blessings by following the Paths, but the most prestigious way is to impress an Aeon enough for THEM to give the Pathstrider a glance.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Even Akivili, the Aeon closest to mortals, cannot be perfectly recorded by conventional technology. When the Trailblazer witnesses a recording of THEM, the Trailblazer can perceive what Akivili said, but does not hear THEIR voice.

Akivili

Akivili, The Trailblaze

Cloudstrider

"Akivili, Depart once more, Akivili!"

— Black Swan

The Aeon of the Trailblaze, who created the Astral Express. In the distant past, Akivili desired to see the galaxy and the wonders it holds, leading to the creation of a system of galactic pathways called the Star Rails that span the entire cosmos. With THEIR faithful ride, the Astral Express, Akivili sailed the galaxy alongside those who sought wonder and adventure as THEY did; those who followed in THEIR footsteps became Pathstriders of the Trailblaze referred to as the "Nameless". However, under mysterious circumstances, Akivili perished and was never seen again, leaving the Astral Express and THEIR Pathstriders masterless.

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• Dead Person Impersonation: Within Herta's Simulated Universe, the Trailblazer is coded such that they appear to be Akivili to the inhabitants of the simulation, particularly to other Aeons.
• Death by Origin Story: Akivili is dead before the story even begins, but without the Aeon and the Astral Express THEY presided over, the many worlds across the galaxy would not even be aware of each other, much less interact. Akivili is almost definitely responsible for much of the current status quo of the known universe.
• Humble Hero: In contrast to many Aeons, Akivili was described as an Aeon willing to walk alongside THEIR followers, instead of maintaining a solemn distance.
• Human Aliens: According to various descriptions, Akivili preferred the appearance of a human mortal to walk the path of the Nameless and enjoyed life like a mortal.
• Manchild: The Trailblazer purchases a memory bubble left behind by Akivili. While not entirely reliable due to being damaged and modified, it depicts Akivili as a troublemaker constantly causing problems due to THEIR childish recklessness and needing to be told off by Pom-Pom. Pom-Pom proceeded to punish THEM with cleaning duty. Akivili's antics include:
  • Riding snowmobiles into the Taikiyan Stadium in the middle of a match, forcing the match to be suspended and obligating some of Akivili's followers to do volunteer work repairing the damage.
  • Splurging a huge chunk of THEIR budget buying 250 nosewalker cubs as pets, keeping them in the bathroom, and allowing them to breed out of control, filling the other carriages with sewage.
  • Eating the last serving of the Express Special. However, Akivili denied disinfecting the kitchen and losing 42 Pom-Pom pies, saying that much was clearly on Pom-Pom.
  • Deleting entries from the Express data bank.
  • Watering plants with some beverage (allegedly SoulGlad, but Dr. Edward admits that part was edited for advertising purposes).
  • Breaking into Pom-Pom's exclusive snack vault.
• My God, What Have I Done?: According to a damaged memory bubble, after Akivili was told off by Pom-Pom for all the trouble THEY caused, Akivili described THEMSELF as the worst Nameless ever, though Pom-Pom reassured THEM that that title belonged to the person who once blew up the train (actually a disguised Aha).
• One-Man Industrial Revolution: Akilivi is credited for setting up the Star Rail network, not only making interstellar Faster-Than-Light Travel possible, but connecting previously-isolated planets and their denizens together throughout their travels. The impact Akilivi had on the entire galaxy just for wanting to explore its wonders had transformed it into the interstellar hub it is known for in present day.
• Patron God: Akivili existed as a patron of all travelers, but was most importantly the deity of the Nameless, those who rode the Astral Express across the stars with THEM.
• Posthumous Character: Due to an unknown accident during THEIR travels, Akivili is long since dead. The Astral Express itself was abandoned and left to rot before Himeko found and repaired it. Solving the mystery of the circumstances leading up to Akivili's death is part of Himeko's motivation to assist the Astral Express in finding its way home.

Nanook

Nanook, The Destruction

Monarch of Extinction

"Yet that light began to burn, piercing through the clouds as a golden death. Towers crumbled and people fled, for the sun was soon to set and meet with vicious destruction."

— Black Swan

The Aeon of Destruction, known to take the form of a humanoid man with dark skin and golden eyes. Pathstriders who walk Nanook's Path admire recklessness, anger, and destructive behaviour.

Nanook leads the Antimatter Legion, who THEY bless directly to spread destruction across the worlds. The Annihilation Gang also professes faith in Nanook and destroys in THEIR name, but Nanook looks at them with disdain at best for their "impure" reasons to destroy.

In Simulated Universe, Nanook's Blessings of Destruction - befitting the path's theme of "destructive recklessness" - is all about granting your characters boons in a "risk and reward" fashion.

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• Ability Mixing: In Simulated Universe's expansions, by gathering at least 3 Blessings from 2 certain other paths, you can gain "Resonance Interplay" buffs for Path Resonance: Destruction, causing it to gain properties that fit said other paths.
  • In Swarm Disaster, by getting 3 Preservation or 3 Elation blessings: the former lets Path Resonance grant your characters a shield if their HP is below half, while the latter allows follow-up attacks to regenerate Path Resonance's energy, and more if the character's HP is below half.
  • In Gold and Gears, by getting 3 Hunt or 3 Abundance blessings: the former will make Path Resonance reduce all enemies' HP to One if their HP was around 20% or lower, and the latter will make characters gain "healing over time" based on the HP they've lost by either ally's action or Path Resonance's effect.
• Alien Blood: Bleeds bright yellow from THEIR wounds all over their body.
• Ambiguously Evil: Antimatter Legion is a galactic threat who is routinely wiping out whole civilizations and destroying entire worlds, and various factions freely describe them as evil in contrast to many other Aeon followers. However, there are a number of clues suggesting this isn't all that it seems:
  • The fact Nanook directly glances at and empowers the Trailblazer to fight against a Doomsday Beast of the Antimatter Legion implies there is greater purpose in the Path which Nanook sees through.
  • The 1st dev log entry about Nanook questions why does the Path of Destruction exist in the first place, and why it isn't part of Finality. The log then states mortal conclusions of the Paths of Aeons are not yet at a high enough level to comprehend the specifics which distinguish a Path from another, and that the true meaning of a Path might be impossible to completely express with just a word.
  • Another scientist compares Nanook's existence with that of entropy itself, stating destruction is not merely inevitable, but also necessary for the universe, which might shed light on Nanook and the Antimatter Legion's true intentions: complete and thorough destruction of the universe, so a new form and meaning to existence can come anew.
  "Expansion, fusion, and then annihilation. If we wish to welcome the new, then we must first embrace the end."
  -From a scientist just before pressing the button for nuclear detonation, 2152 AE
• Barbarian Long Hair: Has three barbaric-looking braids reaching past THEIR waist.
• Critical Status Buff: In the Simulated Universe, Blessings and the Path Resonance of Destruction are more effective the lower your units' HP are.
• Dark Is Evil: The Antimatter Legion is of the few factions in the game which various descriptions and entries outright call "evil", and Nanook is both its leader and Patron God. What few clothing the Aeon wears also include a black waistcloth and several strips of black cloth on THEIR forearms.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Despite the above, as an Aeon Nanook operates on Blue-and-Orange Morality, and as Ambiguously Evil entry above has described, Nanook cannot be clearly defined as "evil" even if THEY are the Greater-Scope Villain of the cosmos.
• Desperation Attack: In Simulated Universe, the Path Resonance: Destruction can let you trigger an explosion that deals damage to all enemies depending on how much HP your characters have lost. Its Resonance Formation blessings can add extra effects to this ability: allowing it to automatically activate when your characters under 35% HP gets attacked without consuming its energy (limited to 2 times per battle), allowing it to consume your characters' HP up until 40% left before use, increase its damage, and then give them a shield equal to the HP lost by this ability, and allowing it to inflict a debuff that decreases enemies' DEF by 20% and deal Damage Over Time based on some percentage of the sum of your characters' lost HP.
• Destroyer Deity: THEY are often just referred as 'the Destruction', and the Aeon embodies the philosophy of destruction as the way of life and the universe itself.
• The Dreaded: Just as much as the Antimatter Legion serving it.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: It's believed Nanook was born when THEIR home world Adlivun fell, and it has now been "destroyed".
• Even Evil Has Standards: Nanook has utter contempt for the Annihilation Gang, who can "never escape the enslavement of their own selfish desires." In fact, it isn't an exaggeration to say the Gang consists of Antimatter Legion rejects. As members of the Gang are described to pursue destruction for their own desires, be it for slaughter, vengeance, or madness, it is very telling Nanook finds these motivations as impure and unfit for the Path's idea of Destruction.
• Eviler than Thou: The fact the Enemy Mine situation of multiple Aeons waging war to destroy Tayzzyronth the Propagation is not being repeated with Nanook the Destruction despite the latter's Omnicidal Maniac goals suggest this, but could go either way. Either Tayzzyronth is such a greater threat compared to Nanook that the current Aeons don't see Nanook as worth banding over, or Nanook and the Antimatter Legion are so unstoppable the other Aeons don't see banding together as a feasible course of action to stop Destruction.
• Foregone Conclusion: Multiple entities and factions believe Nanook and the Antimatter Legion destroying the universe isn't up to chance, but an inevitability.
  • Elio of the Stellaron Hunters claims he can see the future, and in most possible iterations, destiny simply ends in a great battle of Aeonic proportions involving Nanook.
  • Fuli the Remembrance and the Garden of Recollection are preparing the blueprints of a new universe by gathering all memories which exist, which suggests they believe Nanook's victory and destruction of the universe is inevitable.
  • HooH the Equilibrium is said to be waiting for the time "Nothingness" will equal "Existence", as the Aeon considers the creation of the universe itself to be an imbalance.
• Final Boss: At least according to Kafka. If what Elio prophesized is true, then the Trailblazer will always have to confront Nanook at the end of their journey, whether they want to or not. While it is the fate of all existence to eventually meet Nanook at the end of their destiny, the Trailblazer is implied to be the one person Elio believed could pave a future beyond that.
• Floating Limbs: As THEIR forearms are severed from their biceps, THEY have no elbows.
• Gathering Steam:
  • In Simulated Universe, 2 of the 3-star Destruction blessings grant your characters stacks of "Fighting Spirit" buff (increases ATK and DEF), maxing at 35, with different conditions: one of them grants your characters 4 stacks of Fighting Spirit^note Enhanced: adjacent characters also get 1 stack each time they take a hit or consume their HP and then lose 4 stacks after their turn ends, and the other grants your characters 16 stacks if their HP is below 50%. 3 of the 2-star Destruction blessings are tied to this mechanic: the first will make characters with the buff consume 10% HP every time they attack and deal additional damage based on some percentage of HP lost by this effect, the second grants Damage Reduction for each stack^note Enhanced: the max amount of stacks is raised to 45, and the third one allows your characters to immediately deal damage on enemies that just attacked them, with more stacks raising its damage.
  • In Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster, taking on the Path of Destruction allows your characters to gain a stacking DMG buff for every battle won. The path's effect will also generate 2 extra Elite domains on the map, and you can also get extra blessing if you beat an Elite domain. The Dice of Destruction's effects will also incentivize you in various ways to get into combat domains. In essence, this path's effects encourage you to leave destruction on your wake to get stronger.
• Greater-Scope Villain: For at least two different antagonistic forces.
  • The Aeon directly blesses the Antimatter Legion, who roam the universe to destroy pretty much every world they come across. As such, Nanook is this for everything the Legion is involved with.
  • The Annihilation Gang doesn't receive approval (just the opposite actually), but they are still causing mayhem in their efforts to revere the Aeon, making Nanook one for them as well.
  • The Astral Express crew also speculate the Aeon is the one sending out Stellarons to various planets, mainly due to the awfully convenient timing of a Stellaron's arrival and the Antimatter Legion invasion of Jarilo-VI. If this is true, then Nanook would be this trope for the story as a whole.
• Humanoid Abomination: Among the Aeons, Nanook appears the closest to a normal human, save for the missing legs and segmented arms.
• Light Is Not Good: Nanook bleeds glowing bright yellow Alien Blood and is heavily associated with fire, but is the Anthropomorphic Personification of destruction and seeks to bring the end of the universe.
• Mr. Fanservice: Appears as a muscular Hunk who is only clothed at the waist.
• Mystical White Hair: Has long white hair, as befitting THEIR status as Aeon.
• Mythical Motifs:
  • Is named after the Inuit god of polar bears, hunting and weapons.
  • Adlivun, the homeworld of Nanook when THEY were once a mortal, is named after the Inuit afterlife.
• Omnicidal Maniac: The Aeon desires nothing less than systematic and thorough destruction of the universe, and has the Antimatter Legion carry it out on a world-per-world basis. However, THEY downplay this in that "mania" most definitely isn't part of the Path of Destruction, given the Annihilation Gang was rejected by the Aeon for that very reason.
• Order Versus Chaos: Both sides of the spectrum. Other people tend to describe the Antimatter Legion as harbingers of "chaos" and destruction. However, Nanook and the Legion disassociate themselves from the inherent desires of people who use the Path of Destruction for their own pleasures, calling it "chaotic desires" which have no place in the will of Destruction; a mindset leaning to "order".
• Patron God: For the Antimatter Legion. The Annihilation Gang also claims Nanook as this, but the Aeon is so contemptuous toward them to the point it is believed "The value Nanook sees in the Annihilation Gang may be less than the value an infant sees when they smash a vase."
• Refuge in Audacity: Nanook admires recklessness, to the point the sheer audacity of the Trailblazer putting themselves in front of the Doomsday Beast, a planet-destroying monster of the Antimatter Legion, impresses Nanook enough for THEM to throw a glance at the Trailblazer and empower them enough to effortlessly dissipate said Beast's attack while simultaneously shoving it into Welt's Black Hole using the Stellaron within themselves.
• Significant White Hair, Dark Skin: Among the humanoid Aeons, THEY are the only one to appear as such.
• Straw Nihilist: Played with.
  • Descriptions about Antimatter Legion tend to paint them as destroying things without any inherent reason or purpose, to the point it is described they sneer when worlds in their dying moments ask them "why?" and one of their emissaries reportedly asked, "For what purpose do you live?" and "why are you alive?" as rhetorical questions.
  • However, the Legion themselves believe the creation of the universe was a mistake ^note meaning, there is a right way for existence, which contradicts nihilism by definition and may be the reason why the Path of Destruction is separate from the Path of Nihility, and that civilization is a growth of cancer birthed from its vast stellar. Because "war is the only common language known to all intelligent lifeforms", the Legion wage war; and "to correct the course and to rid the universe of the stain, Nanook must become the avatar of entropy." Put another way, Nanook sees the current course of the universe must be corrected due to THEIR philosophy, and THEY are trying to solve it via thorough, systematic destruction.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Has these as befitting THEIR status as an Aeon.
• Vague Age: Downplayed when compared to other Aeons. Nanook is definitively younger than Akivili, Tayzzyronth and the Aeons which were involved in the war which led to the latter's death, because by the time Akivili visited Adlivun, the world was plagued by remnants of the Swarm of Imperator Insectorum (a name or title for Tayzzyronth), before the world was destroyed and Nanook was born some unspecified time later.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: The entirety of THEIR upper body is exposed.
• War God: The Aeon is associated with war, so much so to the point the Legion state war is the only language across all civilizations; meaning it is the only method of communication which holds any meaning to the Legion, and by extension, to Nanook.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Has large, gaping wounds all over THEIR body, with an especially large one which cuts diagonally down from THEIR right shoulder to below THEIR left armpit on THEIR chest that bleeds yellow glowing Alien Blood.

Lan

Lan, The Hunt

Reignbow Arbiter

"The Lux Arrow will descend to purge the wicked abominations. You must follow the traces left behind in the storm's wake."

— Black Swan

The Aeon of the Hunt. Pathstriders who walk Lan's Path admire determination, ruthlessness, and tenacious behaviour.

Lan is the patron god of the Xianzhou Alliance, who follow THEM in their quest to destroy Yaoshi the Abundance and THEIR followers wherever THEY find them. The other faction affiliated with Lan is the Galaxy Rangers, who believe in Lan's ideals of using violence against violence and have vowed to hunt down injustice and evil all across the galaxy.

In Simulated Universe, the Blessings of the Hunt are all about frequency of actions and rapid, sustained offensive, allowing your characters to act a lot more times before the enemies could.

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• Ability Mixing: In Simulated Universe's expansions, by gathering at least 3 Blessings from 2 certain other paths, you can gain "Resonance Interplay" buffs for Path Resonance: The Hunt, causing it to gain properties that fit said other paths.
  • In Swarm Disaster, by collecting 3 Abundance or 3 Elation blessings: the former will have the Path Resonance heal your characters if the arrows manage to kill at least 1 enemy, the latter will increase your characters' and their summons' Speed for a few turns upon unleashing Path Resonance.
  • In Gold and Gears, by getting 3 Preservation or 3 Propagation blessings: the former will make Path Resonance extend your characters' existing shield buff by a few turns, the latter will buff Path Resonance's damage depending on how many skill points you recovered beforehand.
• Arch-Enemy: Is this to Yaoshi the Abundance. Lan apparently makes it a point to pursue Yaoshi across the universe, a mindset shared with some followers of the Hunt such as the Xianzhou Alliance. Other Hunt followers, like the Galaxy Rangers, do not share this mindset.
• Cernunnos: THEY are a God of Hunting who is typically symbolized by deers with emphasis on the antlers.
• Cool Helmet: Wears a helmet with horns that jut forward.
• Deity of Human Origin: There are many Xianzhou legends that claim Lan was once a legendary Xianzhou hero who ascended to Aeonhood during the Alliance's greatest hour of need. However, these legends aren't taken seriously since historians are certain Lan's existence pre-dates the Xianzhou Alliance.
• Destructive Saviour: Lan does not appear to care much about collateral damage. Lan's Simulated Universe entry makes note of an incident where Lan caused an entire planet to implode upon itself because one of Yaoshi's monster-creating "blessings" was rampaging across the planet unchecked and the IPC couldn't contain the problem. Dan Shu's diary recounts the time where the Xianzhou Alliance won a war when the Reignbow Arbiter shot an arrow into the physical plane, annihilating not just the enemy forces but a nonzero amount of the Xianzhou's personnel, including a field hospital.
• Determinator: The Path of Hunt encourages this, particularly in the form of single minded pursuit toward a goal or an objective. The simulated universe version of Lan the Hunt chooses to ignore the Trailblazer (which should have registered as Akivili), simply because Akivili has nothing to do with Lan and THEIR current hunt.
• The Faceless: THEIR Cool Helmet hides their entire face.
• Gathering Steam:
  • In Simulated Universe, 2 of the 3-star Blessings of the Hunt grant your characters up to 8 "Critical Boost" stacks, each increases Crit Rate and Damage by 6% and 12% respectively; one of the blessings grants 1 more stack each turn^note Enhanced: increases max stack to 12, while the other one grants 4 stacks (and advances their next action immediately) upon killing an enemy. The way Critical Boost works is that the buff is passed onto the the character of the next turn, and if they take a hit (from an enemy's turn), they'll lose the buff, so it'll encourage you to gather other Hunt blessings that speeds up your characters' turns to make the most out of this buff. 3 of the 2-star Hunt blessings are tied to this mechanic: Allowing the characters' Ultimate (Enhanced: and follow-up attacks) to inherit Critical Boost and increase its stacks by 1 upon activation^note otherwise, as they are Out-of-Turn Interaction, Ultimates and follow-up attacks normally cannot be boosted with Critical Boost unless they're activated right on/after their normal turn, healing your active characters per turn ^note Enhanced: or after they use their Ultimate depending on the number of stacks, and further increasing the characters' Crit DMG (up to 150% extra) if their Crit Rate is over 100% if they currently have the buff.
  • In Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster, taking on the path of the Hunt will grant your characters increased Crit DMG the more Trotters you hunt and successfully captured. Domains with Trotters inside will be marked on the map, and they can "move" to adjacent domains each turn, but the Dice of the Hunt gives you ways to get into Trotter-marked domains more easily. Of course, like in regular Simulated Universe, the Trotters will grant you bonus Blessings if you can defeat them on time - this path, essentially, gives you a quick way to gather Blessings and get stronger by hunting Trotters.
• Gravity Master: Lan is said to use "gravity as THEIR bowstring and stars as THEIR arrows".
• I Have Many Names: THEY are called the "Reignbow Arbiter" or "Archer Lord of Fate" by THEIR followers, while followers of Yaoshi call THEM "Devilish Archer Author".
• Light Is Good: Lan is heavily associated with light, and in the Xianzhou Alliance's eyes THEY help to maintain order and prevent them from repeating the mistakes that almost led to the end of their civilisation.
• The Marvelous Deer: THEIR symbol features a deer's head.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Lan may be the Xianzhou's patron Aeon, but do not mistake THEM for a guardian deity. Lan lives almost exclusively to smite THEIR targets from existence, and will not stop for anything. If Lan considers something a problem, THEY will solve it by destroying it with extreme prejudice. Other concerns, like collateral damage against even THEIR own followers, are of comparatively little concern; Yukong bitterly remembers a battle in which Lan's arrows wiped out the enemy only after the Xianzhou had already sacrificed countless lives to hold the line, wondering aloud what mortal struggles are to an Aeon who can make problems go away with the snap of a finger.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In one of Herta's Simulated Universe entries, she makes such a comment about Lan and Yaoshi regarding THEIR Destructive Saviour tendencies:
  This is the action and creed of The Hunt, for whom salvation and destruction are nigh indistinguishable. THEIR perpetual enemy, the Abundance, is the same, for THEY bring healing and torment hand-in-hand...
• Our Centaurs Are Different: Appears as a masked and armored centaur with wheels where THEIR hind legs should be.
• Patron God: For the Xianzhou Alliance and Galaxy Rangers, though moreso the former.
• Rain of Arrows: In Simulated Universe, the Path Resonance: The Hunt allows you to summon a whole rain of arrows from the heavens, dealing damage to all enemies based on the ATK of your character with the highest ATK. Its Resonance Formation buffs add extra effects to this ability: doubling its maximum energy capacity and regenerating it whenever your characters take their turn, guaranteeing it to deal Critical Hit against enemies with lower than 50% HP and regenerating 50% of its energy for each enemy it defeats, and advancing the turn of your character with the highest ATK and giving them a special buff (increasing their Crit DMG based on their Crit Rate and allowing them to get an Extra Turn if their next move defeats an enemy).
• Revenge: The Path of Hunt encourages ruthlessness, and revenge is a suitable mindset to encourage such quality. Notably, the Xianzhou Alliance pursue Yaoshi and Denizens of Abundance partially because the blessing of immortality from Yaoshi had done much wrong to their people. After defeating Phantyllia, Jing Yuan declares that Lan will now hunt down Nanook as revenge for what THEIR Lord Ravager had done to the Luofu.
• Sacred Bow and Arrows: As Aeon of the Hunt, Lan is heavily associated with bow and arrows to shoot at THEIR adversaries, primarily Yaoshi.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Lan and the Xianzhou Alliance go to extreme lengths to hunt down Yaoshi and THEIR followers, and they will not stop until their adversaries are exterminated. No matter where Yaoshi hides, Lan will find THEM. Lampshaded by Welt who calls the Path "narrow"; as Paths themselves restrict the respective Aeons into a particular way of thinking, "the Hunt" as a concept symbolizes singular, unchanging obsession or focus, hence making it a narrow path enforced by persistence. This is also why playable characters of the Hunt excels in powerful single-target damage and high speed.
• Super-Speed: THEIR blessings in the Simulated Universe have a strong focus on allowing your characters to attack ahead of the enemy, even multiple times.

Nous

Nous, The Erudition

Monarch of Myriad Machines

"The celestial one guards their secrets, plotting out the roots that connect all things. But they are silent, like a shroud of mist at the center of the universe. Listen to the silence and you will know where the stars are resting."

— Black Swan

The Aeon of Erudition. A mechanical god determined to unearth the secrets and logic of the cosmos. Pathstriders who walk on Nous' Path admire thinking, logic, and strategic behaviour.

The factions affiliated with THEM are the Genius Society, whose members are picked by Nous themselves, and Intelligentsia Guild, who believe that knowledge should be freely flowing like currency and are more open to all beings who seek to learn.

In Simulated Universe, THEIR Blessings of Erudition are introduced in 1.6 alongside the new expansion "Gold and Gears". Said blessings grant you boons related to Ultimate and AOE attacks.

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• Ability Mixing: In "Gold and Gears", the Path Resonance: Erudition can gain its Resonance Interplay buffs by gathering 3 Elation or 3 Nihility blessings: they make your follow-up attacks (the former) or any attack on Weakness Broken enemy (the latter) not consume the trigger count of Synapse Resonance. The former will also make follow-up attacks trigger said effect an extra time on each enemy hit.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: While this trope applies to all Aeons in general, particular mention goes to Nous because THEY decide who joins the Genius Society based on raw genius potential alone regardless of the morality of the individuals in question. Because of this, the members of the Genius Society can vary wildly on the morality spectrum, ranging from genuinely good people like Aiden and Screwllum, to heinous psychopaths like Rubert and Dr. Primitive (the former tried to kill all organic life in the galaxy while the latter is a wanted Mad Scientist on the run from authorities).
• Cyber Cyclops: Is shown to have only one red glowing mechanical eye.
• Deity of Mortal Creation: Interacting with the portrait of Zandar One Kuwabara (the 1st member of Genius Society) in the Herta Space Station at the prologue has Kafka mention to Silver Wolf about how Nous was supposedly created by him.
• Deus est Machina: Nous is a supercomputer that became an Aeon.
• Dub Name Change: In Chinese, Nous' name is more technical in nature as 博识尊(Bóshìzūn), or "Knowledge Lord".
• God in Human Form: According to Fu Xuan's character story, when she was younger, she entered a "library" and asked a question to an old blind man inside, about whether fate is truly set in stone or it can still be changed by more precise prediction and correct actions. He told her that he cannot answer it, and can only present her a problem and a way to perceive it. She responded by asking him to grant her the "eye"; he agreed, but also warned her that to accept said eye means to endure endless "torture". She then realized that it is the Wisdomwalker's creed. This, combined with how the "Erudition Keys" trace-leveling material talked about "key to open a library" and how Nous can't give answers, only questions, all imply that the old man was none other than Nous THEMSELF.
• God of Knowledge: As the Aeon of Erudition, Nous was originally a computer designed to provide answers that ascended to godhood. THEY seek to calculate the essence of the universe and select the most intelligent beings in the universe to be part of the Genius Society. Those who walk the Path of Erudition admire thinking, logic, and strategic behavior.
• Meaningful Name: 'Nous' is a concept from classical mythology roughly equivalent to intellect or thought.
• Patron God: Of Genius Society and Intelligentsia Guild.
• Prescience by Analysis: According to Simulated Universe: Gold and Gears, Nous can perform a myriad amount of calculations to predict future events; back in the era of Emperor Rubert, Nous could predict at least 3 events coming true: the infighting between 2 departments within the IPC that triggered the Borderstar Trade War, Rubert starting the Mechanical War, and Polka Kakamond slaying Rubert.
• Spam Attack: In Simulated Universe, 2 of the 3-star Blessings of Erudition allows your characters to charge "Brain in a Vat" in various ways: whether by entering battle and Weakness Breaking enemies, or by dealing lethal damage to them^note Enhanced: when fully charged, the character's Speed will be buffed. When its value reaches 100%, the next time the character in question uses Ultimate, their Energy will be refilled to full again, allowing you to use another Ultimate in quick succession at the cost of draining Brain in a Vat's value.^note This refilled energy will be lost if you choose not to use your character's Ultimate again before they get to use either their Basic Attack or Skill (i.e on their next turn), though in that case Brain in a Vat's value will be retained. 3 of the 2-star Erudition blessings are tied to this mechanic: allowing your characters to charge Brain in a Vat whenever they gain energy beyond 100%, increasing the Crit DMG of the ultimate performed by spending the charge^note enhanced: the Crit DMG buff can last until the end of their next attack, and granting a shield to the character who use Ultimate by spending the charge.
• The Spock: The Path of Erudition appears to encourage a mindset built around logic and reasoning. Notably, Nous extends THEIR blessings to both Genius Society and Intelligentsia Guild, which are often at conflict regarding how knowledge should be pursued and spread (the former only seeks knowledge relevant and to be hoarded for geniuses, while the latter appreciates all forms of knowledge and spreads it to all), suggesting Nous does not really care how things are carried out as long as knowledge continues to be accumulated.
• Synchronization: In Simulated Universe, the Path Resonance: Erudition deals big damage on all enemies and inflicts "Synapse Resonance" debuff on all of them. While the debuff is active, every attack (up to 15 attacks on each enemy with this debuff) will make both the affected enemy and another enemy with the highest HP take additional damage (counts as Ultimate damage) based on a percentage of the attacker's ATK. Its Resonance Formation buffs add more effects to this: making the marked enemy with highest HP take extra damage when they're attacked by an Ultimate, triggering the additional damage effect twice more whenever a marked enemy is defeated, and regenerating its energy based on a percentage of your characters' combined max energy whenever an enemy appears (whether at the start of battle or when they're summoned by another enemy).

Xipe

Xipe, The Harmony

Mother of All Stars

"Then, they say, O you who have reached the end, enter into the paradise that envelops all! Join this great choir and feast, listen to the beating of billions upon billions of hearts, holding you in their embrace..."

— Black Swan?

The Aeon of Harmony. An all-encompassing deity welcoming the entirety of the universe into their loving embrace. Pathstriders who walk Xipe's Path admire understanding, support, and cooperative behaviour.

As befits the theme of harmony and unity, THEY have only one affiliated faction, called simply "The Family" whose members come from various worlds.

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• The Assimilator: Kafka mentions Xipe has previously engulfed another Aeon, Ena the Order, due to overlapping concepts.
• Celestial Body: THEY wear a dress made of galaxies and gas clouds.
• Cleavage Window: THEIR dress exposes their sternum.
• Green-Skinned Space Babe: THEY appear as a feminine humanoid with purple skin.
• Holy Halo: THEY are shown to have a vividly colourful, abstractly-shaped Unusual Halo, as befitting THEIR Aeon status.
• Humanoid Abomination: Is among the few Aeons that have a more human form, save for the Multiple Head Case, purple skin and parts of their body breaking away into puzzle pieces.
• Many-Faced Divinity: Is shown to have 3 faces in the style of Vedic deities.
• Mind Hive: THEY are described as a plural Aeon who is an amalgamation of thousands of beings from many different worlds. This is reflected in THEIR multiple faces and voices.
• Ms. Fanservice: Appears as a beautiful and curvaceous woman wearing a form-fitting dress.
• Mystical White Hair: Has long white hair that reaches THEIR calves, giving a supernatural impression befitting an Aeon.
• Mythical Motifs: Named after the Aztec god Xipe Totec, god of seasons and agriculture.
• Nice Is Not Good: Xipe is praised as an Aeon who spreads the blessings of joy, happiness, and harmony to THEIR followers. However, like all Aeons, the actions undertaken according to their Path can be difficult to comprehend through conventional morality. Case in point, THEY assimilated the Path of Order and its Aeon, Ena, when THEY ascended, implying control and restriction of free will are parts of the unity Harmony brings. THEIR associated faction, the Family, is also willing to resort to shady methods when necessary in order to enforce the will of Harmony, such as in Penacony.
• Patron God: Of the Family.
• Rule of Symbolism: More obvious than the other Aeons. Some parts of Xipe's body appears to break away into purple puzzle pieces, which when combined with the Celestial Body theme of the Aeon imply Xipe views the universe as ultimately a giant jigsaw puzzle, with everyone and everything meant to fit together like puzzle pieces of a big picture.
• Voice of the Legion: Implied to have this as Black Swan's narration during THEIR segment in the Myriad Celestia trailer starts to echo and feature multiple voices speaking in-sync. The Swarm Disaster portion of Herta's Simulated Universe also reveals Xipe speaks with at least 2 different voices; while THEY are in sync most of the time, the two voices can sometimes pick different words to say something (“Akivili / The Trailblaze?” for example), with one text colored red and the other purple, fitting with Xipe's status as a Mind Hive.

IX

IX, The Nihility

All-Consuming Black Hole

"Blindfold your eyes, they say, that the approaching darkness may strike no fear in you. Let it not burden your soul, nor numb your stride."

— Black Swan

The Aeon of Nihility. A lonesome, introverted entity shut away from the rest of the universe in certainty of purpose's absence. Pathstriders who walk IX's Path admire laziness, exhaustion, and meaningless behaviour.

THEIR affiliated factions (for a loose sense of "affiliated") are the Self-Annihilators and Doctors of Chaos. Both have received the gaze of IX, but the former became dejected and truly nihilistic while the latter became curious, determining in defiance of their Aeon's beliefs that there is meaning to existence. There's also supposedly another faction associated with the Nihility called Device IX, but whether it actually exists at all beyond mere rumors and speculations is deemed a mystery.

In Simulated Universe, THEIR Blessings of Nihility grants your characters boons related to debuffs, especially Damage Over Time effects.

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• Ability Mixing: In Simulated Universe's expansions, by gathering at least 3 Blessings from 2 certain other paths, you can gain "Resonance Interplay" buffs for Path Resonance: Nihility, causing it to gain properties that fit said other paths.
  • In Swarm Disaster, by gathering 3 Hunt or 3 Propagation blessings: the former will let Path Resonance advance your characters' next turn depending on how many DOT debuffs are successfully applied on enemies, and the latter allows your characters to trigger the DOT effect of the Path Resonance by hitting enemies with basic attacks.
  • In Gold and Gears, by getting 3 Remembrance or 3 Elation blessings: the former will make frozen enemies take more damage from Path Resonance's DOT and extend the DOT's duration, the latter allows you to increase the DOT's damage for every type of non-DOT damage the enemies have suffered, with this increase being reset at the end of each of the enemy's turn.
• Adorable Abomination: For an Eldritch Abomination consisting of a black hole, IX appears quite cute with THEIR "head" consisting of a purple blob with sad-looking and small beady eyes.
• The Anti-Nihilist: IX has a group of these as THEIR followers. The Doctors of Chaos are people who have comprehended the vast abyss of the Path of Nihility, and concludes meaninglessness is not the answer to the universe. Thus, they are trying to “cure” IX the Aeon through sufficiently meaningful actions, hence being Doctors.
• Blessed with Suck: Self-Annihilators are often referred to as a faction, but it has been noted that it might be more accurate to call them a phenomenon. Like all Paths, the Nihility offers power. However, making contact with IX and becoming a Self-Annihilator, receiving the direct enlightenment of Nihility, comes with a price, destroying some aspect of their being. The blessings of the Nihility give them various abilities, such as massive destructive power, but an aspect of their own existence repeatedly decays away. This might apply to their physical body or their mind. In Acheron's case for example, her memories fade away quickly. Some especially strong-willed Doctors of Chaos are able to persist against the curse indefinitely, but most Self-Annihilators eventually burn themselves out of existence.
• Brown Note Being: In the simulated universe, IX notices the Trailblazer (as Akivili), and THEIR presence nearly drives the Trailblazer to mindless despair. According to Herta, IX in the simulation is not even trying to do anything harmful; THEIR stare just inadvertently causes it.
• Dub Pronunciation Change: IX's name is spelled that way in every language, but different language says it differently; i.e in English it's pronounced "Eye Ecks" (i.e the 2 letters are pronounced separately), while in Japanese it's pronounced "Icks".
• Genius Loci: Strongly implied. While every other Aeon revealed so far is a person or creature of sorts (or a supercomputer in Nous' case), IX is described to be a location, being a sentient black hole complete with an accreation disk orbiting around THEM. THEIR exact whereabouts in the universe still remains a mystery.
• Gathering Steam: In Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster, if you choose the Path of Nihility, your characters can gain increased Damage Over Time the more "Blank" domains you enter during the run. The path's unique effect is that entering Blank domains will cause its contents to change into that of other domains at random (otherwise, nothing happens if you enter Blank domains). The Dice of Nihility's effects can turn every domain of a certain category into Blank domains, thus encouraging you to take the "meaning" out of activities and go on a metaphorical path of aimless wandering in order to get stronger.
• Lazy Bum: The Path of Nihility encourages this behavior. After all, doing anything at all is meaningless, why bother going the extra mile by putting effort?
• Non-Malicious Monster: The simulated universe IX can cause Brown Note on beings just from THEIR presence, regardless of THEIR intentions. This is true for the real IX as well. THEY do not actively hand out THEIR cursed "blessings", the Self-Annihilators were simply unfortunate enough to have come into contact with THEM.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Encountering IX for the first time in Swarm Disaster result in your run ending prematurely as IX’s influence nearly overwhelm the Trailblazer.
  Herta: '”A word of advice. Don’t get too close to Nihility… Everything will just end suddenly!”'
• Patron God: Technically IX is never known to have blessed anything, but the Doctors of Chaos walk down the Path of Nihility and claim IX as this for them. Acheron mentions that the only people who have been "blessed" by IX are people who have managed to make contact with IX's shadow and survive.
• Purgatory and Limbo: One of IX's manifestations is a black sea with a black hole in the backdrop. Aventurine ends up there when he manages to force Acheron into killing his dream self. He mistakes it as the land of the dead, but Acheron clarifies that it is only a temporary stop where consciousnesses linger before moving onto their own paths, and death isn't guaranteed.
• Status Infliction Attack: In Simulated Universe:
  • 2 of the 3-star Blessings of Nihility allow you to inflict stacks of "Suspicion" debuff on enemies, each increases Damage Over Time inflicted on enemies up to 99 stacks, but 2 stacks will be lost after the enemy's turn ends. One of said blessings inflict 3 stacks of Suspicion on an enemy whenever they're inflicted with a DOT debuff, while the other one inflicts 1 stack whenever the afflicted enemy takes DOT damage^note Enhanced: Suspicion stacks will no longer deplete per turn. 3 of the 2-star Nihility blessings are tied to this mechanic: the first one allows you to inflict 1 extra Suspicion stack^note Enhanced: double the stack amount whenever Susipicion is sucessfully applied, the second passes the debuff stacks onto another enemy upon an enemy's death, and the last one reduces the enemy's ATK^note Enhanced: and Effect Resistance per stack.
  • The Path Resonance: Nihility inflicts 4 kinds of Damage Over Time debuffs at once to all enemies with a chance. The Resonance Formation buffs give additional effects to this ability: increasing its chance of debuffing to 100%, the debuffs' duration by 1 turn, and their stacks by 1, additionally inflicts 2 stacks of Confusion^note when you inflict Weakness Break on an enemy, said enemy will immediately take damage from all the DOT debuffs they currently have, times the number of stacks and 2 stacks of Devoid^note when enemies regenerate their Toughness Gauge, Devoid will reduce the amount of the gauge regenerated, depending on the stacks on all enemies, and allowing it to regenerate its energy by 40% at the start of a battle, and 2% each time enemies take damage from DOT effects.
• Unrealistic Black Hole: IX is described as a black hole, and THEIR official render even shows that THEY have an accretion disk orbiting around THEM with planets being torn apart by tidal forces, which is about as close to a realistic depiction of a black hole that IX will ever get. However, THEY have a Celestial Body of stars with beady sad eyes giving them a Cute Slime Mook-like appearance for an event horizon, which is of course nothing like an actual black hole, on top of lacking General Relativity effects such as gravitational lensing, time dialation, and the Doppler shift of light on THEIR accretion disk.

Qlipoth

Qlipoth, The Preservation

Amber Lord

"Push open the majestic gates, they say, and lift up the tablets of lapis. Read them aloud — let the fire that forged the bricks and the ones that laid the wall's foundations be known!"

— Black Swan

The Aeon of Preservation, a god who takes the form of a headless giant made entirely of amber. Pathstriders who walk Qlipoth's Path admire patience, sacrifice, and defensive behaviour.

THEIR affiliated factions are the Interastral Peace Corporation (IPC) and The Architects. The former began as a "support group" to assist Qlipoth in THEIR astronomical fortification building before slowly becoming the largest economic entity in the galaxy, while the latter does the same thing but with an unchanging focus in building fortifications, including in Jarilo-VI; there, they're also involved behind the founding and managing of the Silvermane Guards.

In Simulated Universe, Qlipoth's Blessings of Preservation focuses on generating shields for your party, as well as granting you boons related to shields.

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• Ability Mixing: In Simulated Universe's expansions, by gathering at least 3 Blessings from 2 certain other paths, you can gain "Resonance Interplay" buffs for Path Resonance: Preservation, causing it to gain properties that fit said other paths.
  • In Swarm Disaster, by getting 3 Nihility or 3 Remembrance blessings: the former will let Path Resonance inflict Bleed status onto all enemies, while the latter will let said attack deal higher damage onto Frozen enemies before removing said status.
  • In Gold and Gears, by getting 3 Destruction or 3 Erudition blessings: On characters with 50% health or less, the former will increase Path Resonance's damage and extend current shield duration for them. The latter will allow you to increase the next Path Resonance's Physical resistance penetration by casting Ultimate, up to 8 times.
• Gathering Steam: In Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster, taking on the Path of Preservation allows you to apply "Cornerstone" onto the domains by using the Dice of Preservation. Said domains will not collapse if you go past them (but they will collapse if you enter them), and the effects of applying it will only take effect once you get into the Boss domain: you gain increased shield generation per Cornerstone applied, and for each different type of domain covered by said effect, you gain chances to choose Blessings. Also, one of the effects of said dice allows you to get Cosmic Fragments (the SU's currency) for every domains covered by Cornerstone. In essence, by "preserving" as much domains as you can, you'll gain more power at the end.
• God of Good: The closest equivalent among the currently alive Aeons, Qlipoth's goal is to protect and preserve all life and planets, and though THEIR method is through separating the worlds through walls, THEY at the same time permit and sponsor the Interastral Peace Corporation who instead tries to connect the universe through trade, and even sent Emanators to be among the IPC despite THEIR actions running contrary to the Aeon's wishes. However, Qlipoth is also noted to be infamously aloof, rarely even glancing in the direction of THEIR followers. This aloofness is noted by both Himeko and Cocolia herself as having been a significant factor in why Cocolia abandoned the path of the Preservation and found her hope in the Stellaron's "promised new world" instead.
• Good Is Dumb: Qlipoth may be the most benevolent of the Aeons revealed so far (barring the late Akivili), but THEY are not without THEIR flaws. It's worth noting the philosophy behind their Path is actually not understood by the vast majority of followers; all they can understand is a voice telling to "build a wall" without context, which doesn't automatically translate to a noble cause. THEIR followers, the Architects, are also known for misusing their philosophy for trying to shill fortifications for civilizations without considering the consequences or whether it would actually benefit them long-term. For example, one Architect on the Xianzhou Luofu named Greyla tells a story about how she convinced a planet's civilization to build what's essentially a Dyson Sphere-esque wall around them for better protection at the cost of blocking out its host star's light from reaching its surface, and even then, the wall didn't work, and the planet was destroyed by hostile forces regardless.
• Good Is Not Soft: As benevolent as Qlipoth is known to be, THEY are still an Aeon with all the cosmic power that title implies. The Swarm Disaster event reveals, among other things, that Qlipoth was the one who dealt the final blow to Tayzzyronth the Propagation with a star sized golden hammer, mercilessly destroying the insect Aeon even as THEIR roars of pain can be heard across the galaxy.
• Golem: Certainly gives the impression of looking like one, with THEIR amber and rock-like body.
• Humongous-Headed Hammer: Qlipoth wields a hammer of galactic proportions, with each swing carrying the power of an entire planet slamming down, so powerful that the sound echoes across the universe, and has even become a standard unit of time to measure eras ("Amber Era"). In the Swarm Disaster, THEY used it to deal the final blow onto Tayzzyronth.
• Magikarp Power: In the Simulated Universe, Preservation builds rely extremely heavily on access to 3-star blessings to gain the bulk of their power, with comparatively unimpressive lower-rarity blessings that give a wide spread of unimpressive generalist buffs. But once it has the core engine Macrosegregation to build up ungodly amounts of shields while weaponizing them with the 3-star Quake damage blessings and amped up Path Resonance, it can be nearly unstoppable.
• Mythical Motifs: Is named after the representations of evil/impure spiritual forces from Jewish mysticism, though the Aeon is likely named that due to the word literally meaning "shell".
• The Older Immortal: Noted to be among the oldest known Aeons, alongside Oroboros the Voracity.
• One True Faith: Qlipoth's followers, particularly the IPC, are steadfast in their faith about how Qlipoth was the very first Aeon to manifest. In fact, Herta's notes on Qlipoth mention the IPC is vehemently opposed to any research which even suggests Qlipoth wasn't the first Aeon.
• Patron God: THEY are the patron Aeon of the Interastral Peace Corporation as well as the Belobog Citadel City of Jarilo-VI.
• Situational Damage Attack: In Simulated Universe:
  • 2 of the 3-star Blessings of Preservation lets your characters deal "Quake" damage based on the amount of shield points your characters have; one of said blessings triggers Quake by attacking, the other one triggers it by being attacked. 3 of the 2-star Preservation blessings are tied to this mechanic: the first one increases Quake's damage and Blasts its damage to adjacent targets, the second one further increases its damage based on the individual character's DEF stat, and the third allows Quake to inflict Bleed on enemies that take the hit.
  • the Path Resonance: Preservation deals damage to all enemies based on the total amount of current shield points your characters have. Its Resonance Formation buffs add extra effects to this ability: guaranteeing the ability to deal Critical Hit and increasing its Crit DMG for every shielded characters in the team, granting your characters a small shield and a buff that prevents your shield from breaking if the enemies' attack is going to break it (1 use per activation), and allowing it to regenerate its energy by 40% when entering battle, and 2% each time your characters gain a shield.
• Starfish Language: The Swarm Disaster event reveals Qlipoth was among the Aeons Ena invited in THEIR coalition to destroy Tayzzyronth, and reveals Qlipoth has this. In fact, while the Trailblazer can translate what Ena says to Qlipoth using their Stellaron, they quite literally cannot comprehend a single word from Qlipoth, rendered in text form as jumbled mess of fonts with no alphabet. This is implied to be the reason why Qlipoth is only able to say “build a wall” to THEIR followers.
• Theme Naming: THEIR Blessings of Preservation in Simulated Universe are prefixed by "Construct" (1-star), "Interstellar Construct" (2-star) and "Divine Construct" (3-star).

Yaoshi

Yaoshi, The Abundance

Thousand-Handed Merciful Medicus

"Let your staff strike the earth, they say, once, and again. The tender sprouts will grow to the sky, and the dew that falls from their branches will rid you of sickness, and poison."

— Black Swan

The Aeon of the Abundance, representing concepts such as life and healing. Pathstriders who walk on Yaoshi's Path admire selflessness, altruism, and healing behaviour. Despite Yaoshi's benevolent intentions, THEIR quest to spread immortality has done more harm than good, with many of those blessed by THEM turning into violent, bestial monsters. The Xianzhou Alliance's people have come to loathe Yaoshi due their civilization nearly being destroyed as a result of the Aeon's blessing, so the Alliance and their patron god Lan the Hunt have sworn to destroy Yaoshi and THEIR followers.

THEIR affiliated factions include Denizens of Abundance and Elixir Seekers. The former are the civilizations which received the Aeon's blessing and fervently worship THEM in return, while the latter are the Xianzhou Alliance's ancestors who originally sought Yaoshi to attain immortality. There's also a secret sect in the Xianzhou called the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, who wish to continue their civilization's old way of worshipping Yaoshi against the wishes of the rest of the Xianzhou.

In Simulated Universe, THEIR Blessings of Abundance grants boons based on healing, whether by giving you various ways to heal your party or granting your characters buffs when they get healed.

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• Ability Mixing: In Simulated Universe's expansions, by gathering at least 3 Blessings from 2 certain other paths, you can gain "Resonance Interplay" buffs for Path Resonance: Abundance, causing it to gain properties that fit said other paths.
  • In Swarm Disaster, by gathering 3 Nihility or 3 Propagation blessings: the former lets Path Resonance buff your characters' Weakness Break efficiency and Break Effect, while the latter lets Path Resonance buff all damage output of all characters (stackable twice) and recover 1 Skill Point if at least 1 of your characters gets overhealed by Path Resonance.
  • In Gold and Gears, by getting 3 Destruction or 3 Erudition blessings: When the Path Resonance overheals your characters, the former will store the overhealed amount to be used to heal your characters later when their health falls below 35% Max HP, the latter will buff your characters' Ultimate damage based on the overheal amount.
• Ambiguous Situation: The Xianzhou blame Yaoshi for seemingly cursing them with Mara, and it is widely believed that the condition comes part and parcel with the Xianzhou natives' particular form of immortality. According to Fu Xuan however, Mara affliction can actually happen to any of the three races that make up the Xianzhou Alliance, it's just that Foxians don't usuually live long enough for it to manifest, and Vidyadhara normally reincarnate before it can take root. That it can happen to the Vidyadhara is especially odd given that their immortality comes not from Yaoshi but from Long, the Aeon of Permanence, showing that understanding of the condition is incomplete.
• Arch-Enemy: Is this for Lan the Hunt. However, what Yaoshi thinks of Lan is currently unknown.
• Cleavage Window: The robes that THEY wear leaves a large part of THEIR chest exposed to show the three gashes located there.
• Extra Eyes: Yaoshi is described in the Simulated Universe to have "tens of thousands of eyes". At least some of those eyes can be seen in the portrait above, where THEY take the form of red eyes appearing in long gashes in THEIR skin.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: THEY have eyes with black scleras and red pupils all over THEIR various limbs.
• Fertility God: Yaoshi is all about the creation and nurturing of life. Unlike most examples of this trope, though, Yaoshi's promotion of life is not necessarily good. In the original Chinese, the Path's name "Abundance" is explicitly meant to be "Fertility", and it was named that way too in the pre-release beta.
• Gathering Steam: In a way different from other paths - when you take on Path of Abundance in the Swarm Disaster, your characters gain increased healing power depending on the current countdown. Unique to this path, the countdown will be reduced by 3 points instead of 1 whenever you move around, but if you move onto a domain with the "Mercy" effect, you'll instead gain 1 point in the countdown. The Dice of Abundance give various ways to cover more of the domains with Mercy, allowing you to keep raising the countdown number. Also, one of the effects of the dice gives you bonus points for the countdown (and Cosmic Fragments) for every domain with Mercy, while another effect lets you cause HP loss onto enemies when you enter battle, for every point in the countdown. Essentially, playing this path the right way will lead to an abundance of countdown, healing power, and potentially Blessings and Curios from the many domains you enter.
• God Is Flawed: Some have described Yaoshi as being the most benevolent of the Aeons as they go out THEIR way to heal people. The Xianzhou however believe Yaoshi to be evil and hate them to the point where they see worship of them as heresy. Regardless of Yaoshi's actual morality, in terms of actions THEY do seem to fail to prepare for the consequences of their gift of immortality, which can easily turn into a Fate Worse than Death for the affected or even result in planet-wide ecological disasters. It's hard to know for sure whether Yaoshi means for this to happen, but it does happen uncomfortably often.
• Green Thumb: THEY granted the immortality that the Xianzhou Alliance's ancestors were seeking with the extremely tall Ambrosial Arbor tree, and are also pictured sitting on a throne made of vines while holding an ear of wheat. THEY are also symbolised by two intersecting ears of wheat.
• Harmful Healing: Yaoshi has a tendency to do more harm than good. THEIR blessings are known to cure people's diseases and prevent them from aging with the unfortunate side effect of eventually turning them into aggressive monsters.
• Healer God: One of THEIR titles is the Merciful Medicus, and Pathstriders of the Path of Abundance are similarly healer units.
• Healing Hands: In Simulated Universe, the Path Resonance: Abundance heals all of your party and grants them increased maximum HP for a duration. Its Resonance Formation buffs give extra effects to this ability: allowing it to also cleanse debuffs and give a stackable buff that blocks 1 debuff attempt on your characters and then heal them, preventing your characters from receiving lethal damage and then automatically casting the ability (1 use per battle), and adding itself into the turn queue to give periodic healing, with reduced healing potency.
• Horned Humanoid: Sports deer horns on the sides of THEIR head.
• Humanoid Abomination: Is among the few Aeons that have a more human form.
• I Have Many Names: THEY are also known as Merciful Medicus by THEIR followers, while THEIR opponents (mainly people of the Xianzhou Alliance) name THEM "Plagues' Author" or "Deathless Doom".
• Immortality Inducer: Yaoshi apparently roams the universe to actively spread this; granting the blessing of Abundance and immortality to any world and civilization who wish for it. In the simulated universe, this extends even to fellow Aeons; Yaoshi approaches the Trailblazer (coded as Akivili for experiment) to embrace and kiss them, wanting to give Akivili a body which would not die.
• Intimate Healing: The Simulated Universe version of Yaoshi kisses Trailblazer-as-Akivili to grant them immortality.
• Light Is Not Good: While a Healer God like Yaoshi would normally be associated with good, the Path of Abundance does have its dark side as Yaoshi shows favor to not just regular healers, but also Mad Scientists who resort to dubious or outright unethical methods to advance the field of medicine.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Has three pairs of arms.
• Mythical Motifs: Building on Yaoshi's Buddhism-inspired elements, THEIR name is taken from the Chinese name for the Buddha of healing and medicine Bhaisajyaguru, 药师佛 (Yàoshīfó), as befitting a Healer God. THEIR behavior and blessing, however, are essentially a 'corrupted' version of a Buddha: whereas Buddhism teaches of the importance of impermanence and how desire and life itself is the root of all suffering, Yaoshi teaches and spreads material permanence in the form of immortality and states that death is the root of all suffering.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Xianzhou Alliance has many names to denounce Yaoshi their former Patron God, but few stand out as much as "the Deathless Doom."
• Nice Is Not Good: Yaoshi is described as one of the nicest and most affable of the Aeons, whose actions and philosophy embody generally positive traits like healing and altruism. However, THEY are still an Aeon, so Blue-and-Orange Morality still applies to THEM. Yaoshi is vehemently hated by the people of the Xianzhou Alliance due to granting them near immortality and some of THEIR ardent followers like the Order of Sanctum Medicus are just as destructive and dangerous as followers of more 'evil' Aeons.
• Obliviously Evil: It's an in-universe debate whether Yaoshi knows the consequences of THEIR actions and doesn't care, or THEY are this trope and only see that THEIR spreading of life is good without regards to the quality of that life.
• Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: Among the humanoid Aeons, Yaoshi is the most androgynous-looking due to a lack of any clearly identifiable secondary sexual characteristics on THEIR body alongside a feminine face and long hair. Further muddling the situation is Yaoshi being referred with THEY/THEM pronouns when the Trailblazer encounters them in the Simulated Universe while the Fables About the Stars Part 1 trailer uses she/her pronouns.
• Patron God: For Denizens of Abundance. Was also one to the Elixir Seekers, the ancestors of the Xianzhou Alliance.
• Plaguemaster: THEY are this to the Xianzhou, who refer to THEM as the Plagues Author as THEIR blessing of longevity caused longevity-related sicknesses and ailments among them and almost caused their civilisation to crumble.
• Situational Damage Attack: In Simulated Universe, 2 of their 3-star Blessings of Abundance lets your characters charge "Dewdrop", either by entering their turn (charges based on percentage of current HP) or by getting healed (charges based on the heal amount)^note Enhanced: also increases damage of Dewdrop by 40%. When your character attacks, Dewdrop will burst, dealing additional damage based on the total charge amount. 3 of the 2-star Abundance blessings are tied to this mechanic: the first one allows Dewdrop to heal your characters when it bursts, based on its charge, the second one allows it to cleanse 1 debuff when it bursts, and the third one increases its charging potency if your character's HP is full.

Aha

Aha, The Elation

Joyseeker

The Aeon of Elation, a wily god who races through the stars in search of entertainment.

THEIR affiliated factions are the Masked Fools and Mourning Actors. The former believe that the ultimate meaning of all things lies in laughter, and thus spend their time mocking others for their flaws and causing chaos for their own amusement, while the latter seek to defy Elation and tries to convey the idea of necessary sadness and tragedy to the universe, only for Aha to find them amusing and bless them with the Aeon's power.

In Simulated Universe, THEIR Blessings of Elation grants boons related to follow-up attacks.

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• Ability Mixing: In Simulated Universe's expansions, by gathering at least 3 Blessings from 2 certain other paths, you can gain "Resonance Interplay" buffs for Path Resonance: Elation, causing it to gain properties that fit said other paths.
  • In Swarm Disaster, by collecting 3 Abundance or 3 Remembrance blessings: the former allows the Path Resonance to randomly cleanse your debuffs on hit, while the latter allows it to freeze enemies if the attack happens to deal ice damage.
  • In Gold and Gears, by getting 3 Nihility or 3 Hunt blessings: The former grants Path Resonance a chance to inflict DOT debuffs if the attack happens to deal physical/lightning/wind/fire damage, the latter will advance the next action of your ally with highest ATK and all of friendly summoned units depending on the Path Resonance's energy consumed.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Aha has a group of people who are dedicated to defying the Path of Elation, the Mourning Actors, who want to remind everyone about the existence of tragedy, that no amount of joy can prevent sorrow. Aha actually finds this amusing; enough to outright bless them and let them spread their teachings about tragedy and sorrow to the universe.
• The Anti-Nihilist: The Masked Fools, followers of the Path of Elation, tell a parable about the birth of their Aeon with An Aesop along this lines.
  When the Aeon of Elation climbed to the highest branch on the Tree of Existence, THEY saw the cold and despicable void, the stars operating like machinery, and how the meaning of all things bows before nothingness. THEY continued looking until they saw a baby fall to the ground and cry because it had been wronged. The Aeon burst into laughter so clear it tore through the cold universe and still reverberates through the universe today.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Just because Aha embodies the very concept of amusement doesn't mean THEY aren't dangerous. Aha is still an Aeon, with all the nasty Blue-and-Orange Morality that entails. Herta's writings describe an incident where Aha disguised themselves as a human and joined the Astral Express for over a year, and when they got the opportunity, Aha blew up an entire planet and half the Express along with it.
• Character Select Forcing: Aha's Blessings of Elation in Simulated Universe benefits those who can do follow-up attacks (Counter-Attack included) - and, as of this writing, they comprise only about 1/3rd of the roster^note Himeko, Herta, March 7th, Clara, Yanqing, Qingque (only with 4th Eidolon upgrade), Bronya (ditto), Jing Yuan, Blade, Kafka, Topaz (& Numby) and Dr. Ratio. And even among those, only Clara, Jing Yuan, Blade, Kafka, Topaz and Dr. Ratio have follow-up attacks strong/consistent enough to make Blessings of Elation worthwhile to use. This can be partly alleviated with the 3-star blessing Champion's Dinner: Cat's Cradle, which causes (offensive) Ultimates to count as follow-up attacks, therefore allowing many other characters to enjoy Blessings of Elation's benefits.
• The Chessmaster: Aha's modus operandi is less about grand displays of power like other Aeons and more about subtly manipulating people or entities to do THEIR bidding.
  Fu Xuan, in the book Glimpses into the Beyond: "It would be wrong to assume that the Joyseeker is a jester among the Aeons. Yes, THEY can't really perform earth-shattering miracles like the Reignbow Arbiter or the Firmamend Arbiter. However, by using THEIR invisible hand, THEY can imperceptibly influence the movements of all living things. This demonstrates an extraordinary and delicate manipulation of reality."
• For the Evulz: Being the metaphysical embodiment of Elation, Aha exhibits all forms of humor as THEIR whims command, especially humor at another’s expense. What they do could be as harmless as a pie to the face, or as horrifying as ending a species. THEIR followers, the Masked Fools, could be described as a cult of Trolls who basically go around the galaxy to piss people off as much as possible. This is acknowledged in gameplay with their Elation Blessings in the Simulated Universe which empowers your characters by attacking out-of-turn, interfering with the flow of the battle and potentially turning the whole thing chaotic. Aha will even go as far as to destroy entire planets just for a joke.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The Simulated Universe version of Aha is distinct from other simulated Aeons in that they are fully aware the whole thing is a simulation, including THEMSELF. Not only that, THEY also know the Trailblazer is just impersonating Akivili and the real Aeon has long died. Aha nevertheless still pretends to treat them as if they were Akivili, sarcastically apologizing for blowing up the Astral Express (which the real Aha did to Akivili when the latter was still alive). Herta's comments suggest this seems to always happen each time they simulate Aha.
• It Amused Me: What the Path of Elation espouses as the ultimate reason for existence. All things exist because they are to be laughed at. This makes the Masked Fools rather disliked among followers of the Aeons, as they promote doing whatever in the name of pleasure, which usually translates to chaos in their wake.
  The Fools believe that the truth of the world is a joke, and that the ultimate meaning of all things lies in mere laughter.
• Laughing Mad: In the Simulated Universe, Aha's presence can be sensed with the sound of crazed laughter.
• Many-Faced Divinity: Seems to be composed of several masks with different expressions, all held by a humanoid silhouette obscured by shadows.
• Mythology Gag: The Masked Fools are the second time Hoyoverse has featured a cult of dangerous misfits themed around comedy, the other being Genshin Impact's mask-wearing Fatui (lit: "fools").
• Patron God: For the Masked Fools, followers of the Path of Elation. Ironically enough, Aha is also this for the Mourning Actors, who seek to defy Elation as a philosophy, having blessed them directly.
• Psychopathic Manchild: The Trailblazer's interactions with them in the Simulated Universe suggest THEY often act like a child in constant need of stimulation.
• Randomized Damage Attack: in Simulated Universe:
  • 2 of the 3-star Blessings of Elation allow your characters' follow-up attacks to deal additional "Aftertaste" damage of a random Type; one of them randomly procs Aftertaste 1-3 times, the other one procs it once, and once more if the enemy is Weakness Broken. 3 of the 2-star Elation blessings are tied to this mechanic: the first one makes Aftertaste to proc 1 extra time (with reduced damage) each time it procs, the other two reduce the affected enemies' ATK and increase their damage taken for each different damage types of Aftertaste damage they took, lasting until the end of their next action.
  • The Path Resonance: Elation is a series of attacks of random damage types (counts as follow-up attacks by the game) to all enemies 3-5 times. Its Resonance Formation buffs give extra effects to this ability: allowing it to regenerate its energy when entering battle and whenever characters perform follow-up attacks, doubling its maximum energy capacity, making it consume more than 100% of its energy and deal more instances of damage depending on how much extra energy is consumed, and inflicting a debuff on all enemies that increases their damage taken against follow-up attacks.
• Shout-Out:
  • The entry of the Masked Fools begins with this:
  Even an organization like the Masked Fools sing praises of their Aeon. The Aeon will never give you up, never let you down, or abandon you. He will never make you cry, say goodbye, or tell a lie and hurt you.
  — Ast Rickley, super popstar of the Epsilon XII Galaxy
  • Even the name of the Aeon could be a reference to one of Rick Astley's music videos, A-ha.
• Take That!: The Masked Fools are fond of this, calling out all kinds of people for their perceived flaws. They laugh at heroes for self-righteousness, kings for lust for power, lovers for infatuation, and scholars for overthinking.
• Trickster God: As an Aeon whose portfolio includes pranks, amusement, and subtle manipulation, Aha is certainly one of these.
• Troll: If the parable of THEIR birth is any indication, Aha appears to delight in the misery and suffering of lesser beings. THEY even went out of their way to bless a group of people who seek to defy the Path of Elation, seemingly just to mock them.
• Unpredictable Results: In Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster, if you play Path of Elation, you can gain random amounts of damage boosts for your follow-up attacks for each domain you pass through. The Dice of Elation's effects let you choose a domain and apply a random "Happiness" effect to it, ranging from changing the domain's type, swapping its position with another domain, copying its contents to an adjacent domain (like one of Dice of Remembrance's effects), locking your next step onto that domain, or automatically clearing said domain and turning it blank (like one of Dice of Destruction's effects). In essence, if you're the type who gets elated by surprises and unpredictable situations, then this path is for you.

Mythus

Mythus, The Enigmata

Shapeless Prince

The Aeon of Enigmata, an unknown existence that obscures itself from all possible gazes, seeking to render the universe incomprehensible to those who seek answers.

THEIR followers are the Riddlers, who distort and deconstruct language, and the History Fictionologists, who obfuscate and erase history in the hopes of saving people from the stagnation of total certainty.

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• Abstract Eater: One of Herta's more dangerous curios is an artifact created by a History Fictionologist. The curio eats culture and recorded history directly out of humanity's collective subconscious. Herta has dealt with it via a Tailor-Made Prison designed to make up history for it to feed off of, though the curio's description says that the curio will not be fooled forever and will eventually see through her tricks.
• Animal Motifs: Jellyfish. Herta’s Dev Log explains that Mythus' form is described as a broken and torn "jellyfish," akin to a deliberately destroyed version of... the "cognitive" center of the human brain.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: This applies not only to the Aeon but to their followers at large. The beliefs of Mythus's Emanators are poorly understood by the galaxy at large. What is known is that they have an inflated belief in their own altruism. They are convinced that if the past is fully understood, then the same will be true for the future. By destroying the past beyond repair, they believe that protecting other beings from the despair of Prescience Is Predictable and maintains the illusion of free will. Few people agree with them, and as the fallout of their work is more and more understood, their reputation has become comparable with the Antimatter Legion. The Antimatter Legion destroys matter, the History Fictionologists destroy the Universe itself.
• Conlang: Actually inverted. The Riddlers are followers of Enigmata who make a point to blur, distort and twist the meanings of words and languages so their meanings are lost to any potential discoverers. In other words, they are deconstructing languages.
• The Ghost: While several Aeons qualify for this trope, either because THEY'VE long since vanished or because THEY haven't yet been introduced to the player, Mythus and HooH are distinct from THEM in that THEIR true forms have never reportedly been witnessed by anyone, even THEIR followers.
• God of Knowledge: A variant. Mythus aims to subvert and obfuscate knowledge by creating myths and deconstructing language. THEY believe that if all knowledge of the universe became known, the universe might become stagnant.
• The Heavy: Implied to have THEIR hand and followers on pretty much every faction who seek to figure out truths in the universe, in an effort to sabotage the accumulation of knowledge or fabricate truths.
• Internal Retcon: Welt notes much history of the known universe is missing, and states the Enigmata is responsible for most of that. In particular, History Fictionologists are followers of Enigmata who make it their mission to rewrite history with fabrications, fallacies or outright fiction, making it difficult if not impossible for the truth to be unravelled. They are so notorious to the point they are compared to Antimatter Legion in how hated they are.
• Lost Common Knowledge: Mythus's goal is speculated to be rendering all knowledge lost. Followers of the Path of Enigmata are actively obscuring history and killing languages, while the Aeon THEMSELF seem to be sabotaging attempts to accumulate more knowledge. As an example, the Star Rail universe has civilizations which are several thousands of years ahead of humanity from Honkai Impact 3rd. Yet, it is only recently the Genius Society progressed scientific research far enough to identify Imaginary as a unique element, a discovery that humanity of Honkai Impact 3rd identified early in the Previous Era, which was more than 50,000 years prior to the AD Calendar. Welt, who notices this discrepancy, believes the Enigmata is responsible for the oddness of knowledge progression and missing history in Star Rail universe.
• The Man Behind the Man: It's implied that THEY, along with Aha, were the ones behind the events where some organic humans took on the late Emperor Rubert's Anti-Organic Equation and starting the Second Rubert Wars.
• Necessarily Evil: Despite hindering progress for knowledge, it is noted that Mythus's attempt to obscure facts and truths about the universe has its own benefits. If a civilization manages to discover everything there is about the universe, there will be no more incentive for progress, which would lead to stagnation. Ultimately, much like the other Aeons, Mythus operates on Blue-and-Orange Morality.
• Patron God: For the History Fictionologists and the Riddlers.
• Unreliable Expositor: Someone with Reality Warper powers is sabotaging knowledge and recorded history, but there are signs that information about the "History Fictionologists" said sabotage is blamed on has itself been tampered with.

Oroboros

Oroboros, The Voracity

Drinker of Worlds

The Aeon of Voracity, an ancient Leviathan who has carved a Path of THEIR very own into the universe.

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• Gorgeous Gorgon: THEY resemble a gorgon with green snakes as hair, surrounded by larger, more monstrous snakes.
• Last of Its Kind: If Oroboros really is a Leviathan, then THEY would be the last one left alive in the known universe, discounting the artificial creatures created from the remains of Leviathans which are part of the Antimatter Legion.
• The Older Immortal: Noted to be among the oldest known Aeons, alongside Qlipoth the Preservation.
• The Old Gods: Suspected to be one of the Leviathans, gigantic creatures who once roamed the stars in a time before the Aeons rose into existence.
• Siren Song: The Trailblazer’s first encounter with THEM in the Simulated Universe has Oroboros singing with a beautiful and alluring voice to lure them in so it can devour them. It nearly worked until Herta paused the simulation.
• Villainous Glutton: The Path of Voracity is simply about eating, hunting preys and devouring everything in sight, and this is true to both the Aeon and those who walked on this path (as seen in Simulated Universe). This insatiable voracity had caused numerous devastation across the worlds.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite Oroboros being prominent in the early portions of the Swarm Disaster as depicted by Herta's Simulated Universe, THEY simply disappear midway along with Ena with no mention of what happens to THEM near the end and after the crisis, as if obscured.

Long

Long, The Permanence

Progenitor of All Dragons

The Aeon of Permanence, a deific dragon and progenitor of the Vidyadhara race who suddenly disappeared from the universe's stage.

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• Divine Parentage: Dan Heng mentions that the Vidyadhara are Long's descendants, and as such they are also referred to as "Long's Scions".
• A Dog Named "Dog": Their name (龙/龍) means "dragon" in Chinese.
• Dragon Ancestry: Is the progenitor of the Vidyadharas.
• Dragons Are Divine: As an Aeon who took the shape of a Chinese dragon, this trope is naturally applied to THEM.

Idrila

Idrila, The Beauty

Wondergazer

The Aeon of Beauty, believed by the universe to have died long ago, leavingTHEIRtheir Path without a master. THEIR followers include the Mirror Holders, who seek the pieces of the Beauty to revive THEM, and the Knights of Beauty, a group of skilled and fearless knights who fervently worship Idrila and believe THEY never died.

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• Literally Shattered Lives: The most common interpretation of Idrila's death. It is the belief of THEIR followers, the Mirror Holders, that this was ultimately caused by differing opinions and perspectives of beauty across the universe fracturing the concept of "true" beauty into endless variations, reflecting back on Idrila as actual physical damage.
• Magic Mirror: Idrila is an example of this trope inflated to deific proportions. The only image associated with THEM is one of a shattering mirror, and purported fragments of THEIR body take the form of magical mirrors capable of projecting "beautiful" reflections into reality.
• Only Mostly Dead: What the Mirror Holders believe in regard to Idrila's current existence. They know that THEY have long since died, but believe it may be possible for THEM to return should the concept of beauty across the universe be reunified into a single expression. This contrasts with the Knights of Beauty, who don't believe Idrila is dead at all.
• Patron God: Serves as such to the Mirror Holders and the Knights of Beauty, even long after THEIR own death.
• Pieces of God: It is believed that the Mirrors of Transcendence possessed by the Mirror Holders are fragments of the Aeon's fractured form, their power to reflect what the user considers beautiful into reality lending credence to the idea. The Mirror Holders believe that gathering these fragments together from across the universe will aid them in resurrecting Idrila.
• Posthumous Character: Idrila is held to have disappeared long before the present era, most of the universe and even THEIR followers believing THEY had died.
• Save Your Deity: The overall goal of the Mirror Holders. They continue to believe in Idrila's divinity despite THEIR death and seek to reunify THEIR body and the ideal of beauty to enable their revival.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: Reportedly. While there are no images or descriptions of Idrila to say anything about THEIR appearance, having carved the Path of Beauty into the universe through their actions proved that THEY were a looker if nothing else.

Fuli

Fuli, The Remembrance

Glowswather

The Aeon of Remembrance, appearing in the form of a crystal emperor. Fuli wanders the universe in search of memories, likewise tasking THEIR followers, Garden of Recollection, with the same mission. Among them, however, secretly lie the Cremators, who believe that some memories are less than desirable and deserve to be deleted beyond recovery.

In Simulated Universe, THEIR Blessings of Remembrance grants boons related to freezing enemies, allowing you to delay enemies' turns repeatedly.

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• Ability Mixing: In Simulated Universe's expansions, by gathering at least 3 Blessings from 2 certain other paths, you can gain "Resonance Interplay" buffs for Path Resonance: Remembrance, causing it to gain properties that fit said other paths.
  • In Swarm Disaster, by gathering 3 Hunt or 3 Destruction blessings: when the freezing effect of Path Resonance expires or is resisted, the former will inflict Slow debuff on all enemies, while the latter will inflict penalty to all damage resistances of enemies, which grows in number for each percentage of your characters' HP loss.
  • In Gold and Gears, by getting 3 Preservation or 3 Propagation blessings: The former grants your characters shields whenever the Path Resonance's freezing effect expires or is resisted, the latter will allow you to inflict the Dissociation debuff by using basic attack on enemies successfully frozen by Path Resonance.
• Ambiguously Related: Fuli, from THEIR name and Cool Crown, has distinctively Chinese cultural elements, linking them with the similarly Chinese-inspired Xianzhou Alliance. Combined with the fact that the Xianzhou Alliance was established because their ancestors' emperor (who also wore a Cool Crown that is similar to Fuli's, as seen in ''History of the Xianzhou: Seven Arbiter-Generals'') wanted to be remembered eternally, there is a possibility that Fuli is that emperor who managed to Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence.
• The Ark: Fuli’s ultimate goal, so said by the Garden of Recollection that revere and serve THEM, is to accumulate the universe’s memories in order to construct a blueprint of creation. Then, after Destruction has had its due and all has fallen silent, Fuli will use this blueprint to make the universe anew. During the Swarm Disaster, Fuli is implied to have closely followed the trails of Oroboros the Voracity to try to obtain memories of the worlds devoured by the latter.
• Backstory Invader: When Fuli ascended as an Aeon, THEY tempered with the memories of pretty much every living being except for perhaps the Aeons, making it as if Fuli has always existed. This makes it impossible to say for certain, at least for mortals, when exactly THEY came into being.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Even by Aeon standards. The one follower of Fuli who is recording the Trailblazer in the Astral Express will erase the memories of other people in the Express if the Trailblazer tries to inform them of her existence, but when asked to restore memories, she notes such a thing is illegal by her standards and grounds for immediate termination.
• Cool Crown: The headpiece that Fuli wears is a mian'guan, which has been historically worn by Chinese emperors.
• Cycle of Hurting: In Simulated Universe, one of the two 3-star Blessings of Remembrance allows you to inflict "Dissociation" debuff on enemies by attacking a Frozen enemy (the other one inflicts the debuff by triggering Weakness Break). Dissociation is considered the same as Frozen, except that the ice damage they take when they thaw is much higher (30% of their max HP). One 2-star Remembrance blessing makes it that when the enemy with Dissociation thaws, they'll get Frozen with a chance. Combined with the above 3-star blessing, it's possible for you to keep the enemies in Dissociation or Frozen state for long, and 2 other 2-star Blessings help make the cycle more painful: one of them makes enemies with Dissociation take more damage, which can stay for 1 turn after the state ends, and the other one makes your attacks break Dissociation early and increase the ice damage caused by the breaking.
• The Faceless: THEIR entire face is blanked out.
• Gathering Steam: In Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster, taking on their Path or Remembrance will make you gain increased Effect Hit Rate the more domains with "Recollection" effect you passed through. The gimmick of the path is that you can copy domains around and apply Recollection on them using the Dice of Remembrance. In essence, this path allows you to "remember" your experiences as you tread through, and gain strength from it.
• The Heretic: One of the factions professing worship of Fuli is the Cremators. They steal from the Garden of Recollection, assign the memories value based on their own arbitrary standards, and destroy the memories they deem unworthy, self-righteously declaring that they are saving Fuli from unnecessary work. The rest of Fuli's followers see them as arrogant idiots for thinking they have the right to judge the value of memory and don't even see why their actions would be necessary. The galaxy at large sees them as criminals, naming them as the primary suspects for mysterious cases of memory loss throughout the galaxy. Cremators who get caught are sentenced to death.
• Humanoid Abomination: They appear as a human-shaped crystal being.
• Living Memory: Followers of Fuli who live in the Garden of Recollection are said to have cast aside their physical forms to live exactly as how they are remembered, meaning they are literally this trope. The messenger of the Garden who observes the Trailblazer even claims she is able to exist, interact with the Trailblazer and move around their perception because she is more akin to an information entity who exists through memory and perception.
• Memory Jar: Taken to a galactic extreme. Fuli and the Garden of Recollection where the Aeon resides are said to hold the memories of every living being in existence.
• Mythical Motifs: Fuli (浮黎 Fúlì) is named after a supreme deity from a Taoist sect.
• One-Hit Kill: Memokeepers operate under strict regulations binding the usage of their Transferable Memory powers, and breaking a rule will result in them getting their existence terminated on the spot. However, it is noted some Memokeepers can bypass those restrictions and avoid this.
• Patron God: For the Garden of Recollection and its Memokeepers.
• Pensieve Flashback: When the Trailblazer asks a Memokeeper messenger whether or not she can restore their lost memories, she asks back if that is a trick question because doing so violates the rules. This implies that Memokeepers can restore lost memories and are in fact not taking memories from the brain or other physical sources when interacting with memories.
• Self-Serving Memory: The Cremators are a faction of Memokeepers who believe they have the right to decide which moment of the universe should be preserved in time and which ones should be completely erased without any trace. In other words, they are an entire faction that tries to apply this trope to the universe itself.
• Staring Down Cthulhu: In one of their entries in Simulated Universe, Herta says that Fuli once appeared during the IPC founder Louis Fleming's final retirement speech. Fleming and the Aeon locked eyes with each other for some seconds, then the latter disappeared and the former walked away from the stage, never to be seen again. Herta claimed that of all people who have seen an Aeon directly, Fleming was the calmest one she had seen.
• Status Infliction Attack: In Simulated Universe, the Path Resonance: Remembrance is an attack that deals damage to all enemies with a high chance of freezing them. Its Resonance Formation buffs grant extra effects to this ability: gaining a chance to reduce the enemies' resistance to freezing, additionally inflicting a debuff that doubles the duration of other debuffs, and regenerating its energy when you enter battle and whenever an enemy becomes frozen.
• Transferable Memory: Memokeepers from the Garden of Recollection have the power to freely back up, store, and transfer memories like computer data. This ability has caused a bit of a bad reputation for allegedly stealing memories.

Tayzzyronth

Tayzzyronth, The Propagation

Imperator Insectorum

The Aeon of Propagation, an ancient, deceased deity who threatened the entire universe with THEIR rapidly reproducing Horde of Alien Locusts called the Swarm. THEY are the focus of the Swarm Disaster game mode of the Simulated Universe.

In the Simulated Universe, THEIR Blessings of Propagation confer benefits revolving around basic attacks and the usage of skill points.

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• Ability Mixing: In Simulated Universe's expansions, by gathering at least 3 Blessings from 2 certain other paths, you can gain "Resonance Interplay" buffs for Path Resonance: Propagation, causing it to gain properties that fit said other paths.
  • In Swarm Disaster, by gathering 3 Destruction or Preservation blessings: the former makes Path Resonance grant the chosen ally a Single-Use Shield that nullifies all damage once (except Damage Over Time effects) and recover 1 more Skill Points if their HP is below 50%, and the latter makes it grant the chosen ally a shield equal to 60% of their HP, lasting for 3 turns.
  • In Gold and Gears, by getting 3 Abundance or 3 Remembrance blessings: The former makes Path Resonance heal the target ally; when it overheals, other allies will get healed instead. The latter will make the ally with Metamorphosis buff deal more damage on Frozen enemies, and their attacks gain a small chance of freezing enemies.
• A Day in the Limelight: Is the front and center focus of Swarm Disaster event of Herta's Simulated Universe, being the literal parent of all of the Swarm. Doubles as A Death in the Limelight, as THEY are eventually killed by a coalition of Aeons.
• Almighty Idiot: Despite being a god-like being who can single-handedly breed indefinite amounts of world-devouring insects, Herta's notes indicate that Tayzzyronth THEMSELF was not only timid, THEY were also pretty much mindless and only driven by the instinct to reproduce. As later explained by THEIR Path, this is justified: Propagation is not so much a spiritual philosophy as much as it is an instinctive one. The mind and the spirit is nothing more than a byproduct of the instinct to live and propagate, and as such unnecessary to life as Path of Propagation expresses.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • How exactly did Tayzzyronth ascend into becoming an Aeon using a part of the Path of Permanence? Aeons with similar Paths will clash and the greater one would engulf the smaller one, so exactly how Tayzzyronth apparently did something which was the reverse of that is not yet explained.
  • At the end of the Swarm Disaster portion of Simulated Universe, Herta and Screwllum conclude while it is possible the rise of Tayzzyronth and the Path of Propagation was coincidental; the destruction of Lepismat star system where Tayzzyronth once lived as a mortal was definitely not a coincidence and was intended. Herta specifically mentions Voracity, Elation, and Finality as the possible culprits, but whether or not any of them is indeed responsible is not yet confirmed.
• Arch-Enemy: Oroboros is said to be one to them, as the former went to devour many of the Swarm's spawns during the Swarm Disaster. The battles between the two Aeons are said to have devoured and devastated countless worlds.
• Character Select Forcing: THEIR Blessings of Propagation gives boons related to basic attacks and consuming/recovering skill points. While technically all characters can easily benefit from these blessings (unlike Elation), they'll work better if you have characters with enhanced basic attacks, and/or especially those who consume a lot of skill points. As of Swarm Disaster's introduction (1.3), there are only 2 characters who fit both descriptions: Qingque and the Imbibitor Lunae. Coincidentally, they're Quantum and Imaginary-type respectively, which match the weakness types of the new enemy type introduced, the Swarm.
• Enemy Mine: Tayzzyronth posed such a massive threat to the universe that THEIR fellow Aeons, who are normally solitary entities, found it necessary to form an alliance to destroy Tayzzyronth in a war.
• Eviler than Thou: The fact the Enemy Mine situation of multiple Aeons waging war to destroy Tayzzyronth the Propagation is not being repeated with Nanook the Destruction despite the latter's Omnicidal Maniac goals suggest this, but could go either way. Either Tayzzyronth is such a greater threat compared to Nanook that the current Aeons don't see Nanook as worth banding over, or Nanook and the Antimatter Legion are so unstoppable the other Aeons don't see banding together as a feasible course of action to stop Destruction. As of Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster, it's implied the former is true: the ever-expanding Propagation intruded on the other Paths (Order, Equilibrium, Trailblaze, among others) that they saw Tayzzyronth as a threat.
• Fertility God: In a very roundabout way: the Path of Propagation necessarily includes the concepts of reproduction and life, though the Aeon took that concept to its logical extreme with near-endless reproduction that threatened to overwhelm the universe.
• Gathering Steam: In Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster, taking on the Path of Propagation grants you increased Basic Attack damage the more Swarm-related Domains you enter. The Path's effect generates more of the Swarm domains in the map; the Dice of Propagation's effect ranges from generating even more Swarm domains, granting additional bonuses onto Combat: Swarm domains, and best of all, making you skip straight to the Boss domain and granting you Propagation blessings equal to the Swarm domains you skipped through this way. In essence, in this Path, you'd like to "propagate" more Swarms to strengthen yourself and then reap the benefits in one fell swoop, which also allows for faster completion.
• Hates Being Alone: How THEY ascended to Aeonhood. THEY were the Last of Its Kind and was so desperate for companionship that THEY created a whole new Path.
• Horde of Alien Locusts: The Path of Propagation's philosophy in how life should take form was expressed in the form of this. The Swarm, a horde of self-propagating alien insects who once threatened to overwhelm the entire universe.
• Insectoid Aliens: Naturally, since THEY are an insectoid Aeon that gives birth to space-faring insects.
• Last of Its Kind: THEY are said to be the last of the Coleoptera race.
• Marked to Die: 2 of their 3-star Blessings of Propagation allows your characters to inflict "Spores" on enemies, either by recovering Skill Points (inflict them to 2 random enemies) or consuming Skill Points (inflict them to all enemies). An enemy can hold a max of 6 stacks of Spores (can be raised to 9 by enhancing the former *3 blessing); when they possess 3 or more, taking a hit will cause Spores to burst, dealing additional damage and spreading them to adjacent enemies once. 3 of the exclusive 2-star Propagation blessings are tied to this mechanic: increasing the number of times Spores can spread and making the original bearer contract the spread Spores again, increasing Spores damage and spreading all Spores stack onto other enemies when they're defeated, and healing the character with the lowest current HP whenever the Spores burst^note Enhanced: each existing stack of Spores will also reduce damage taken by allies. Also, one of the Resonance Formation buffs for Path Resonance: Propagation also changes how Spores work: if the chosen ally still has the Metamorphosis buff, only they (and not the other allies) can cause the Spores to burst, and bursting Spores will also additionally deal Basic Attack damage up to 3 times on the same target; in effect, this can potentially cause all enemies to take Basic Attack damage at once. This special Basic Attack damage can also benefit from other Basic Attack boons that Path of Propagation grants you.
• Not Quite Dead: Some parties do not believe that Tayzzyronth was dead, contrary to common belief.
  • According to an excerpt from the in-universe book "Glimpses of the Beyond," the Xianzhou Alliance theorized that Tayzzyronth might regenerate THEIR full body at any moment.
    "According to the scholar, such horrors have not completely disappeared. The Imperator Insectorum's descendants remain, and THEIR own body could return at any moment. This scholar once showed me his collection — A dull yellow piece of amber with moving flecks and a buzzing tremor. I was absolutely gob-smacked to hear him say that it is part of the "Imperator Insectorum's Prison Cell." The omniscia implanted in my forehead could not see the future of this item, which only serves to corroborate the scholar's claims. All I can do is pray in silence to the Reignbow that such a day will not come soon."
  • After completing the main story of Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster, Herta expressed her skepticism about THEIR supposed death due to the presence of endless Swarms.
    "And the last, as well as the most important point of suspicion. If Tayzzyronth did indeed fall according to all observations and evidence, why are there still endless Swarm offsprings roaming around the universe? What exactly is the root of the Path of Propagation... If we can figure this out, I'm sure everything will make sense. But we have a long way to go to find the answer to this question."
• Patron God: Was one for the Swarm.
• Posthumous Character: Kafka states Tayzzyronth is long dead by present time. THEIR character is explored in Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster, added in Version 1.3.
• Red Baron: A number of files describe Tayzzyronth as Imperator Insectorum, which roughly means emperor of insects in Latin.
• The Remnant: The Swarm is now just remnants of Tayzzyronth's spawns who, while no longer at their peak due to their Path being diluted when Qlipoth hammered Tayzzyronth, remains a significant threat to worlds unfortunate enough to encounter them.
• Snowballing Threat: Due to the nature of THEIR Path, Tayzzyronth - who was once the last of THEIR kind - overwhelmed the universe with THEIR spawns, out of sheer instinct to propagate. The Aeon was eventually stopped by coalition of several other Aeons, and the Swarm Disaster is no more, but some small amounts of the Swarm survived and still roams the cosmos to this day.
• Status Buff: In Simulated Universe, the Path Resonance: Propagation is unique in how it works: Choose 1 ally to advance their turn immediately, regenerate 2 Skill Points, and grant them the unique "Metamorphosis" buff for 1 turn. The buffed character's attack can ignore 10% of their primary target's all-type resistances for every Skill Point they consume or recover, which can stack up to 2 times. Its Resonance Formation buffs give additional effects to this: extending the Metamorphosis buff by 1 turn and regenerating 20% of its energy if the buffed character defeats an enemy, doubling the energy limits and regenerating its energy whenever characters consume or recover Skill Points, and buffing the chosen ally's damage output by 40% and changing how "Spores" work (see Marked to Die above).

Terminus

Terminus, The Finality

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• The Ghost: THEY have not only yet to appear, but is being deliberately kept as mysterious as possible. THEY are not included in the Data Bank along with the other Aeons, THEIR description can only be briefly seen in a random loading screen, and is only briefly mentioned by Herta in Nanook's Simulated Universe file.
• Mythology Gag: The Finality is said to be an Aeon involved in prophecy and said to "move backwards in time". In sister game Honkai Impact 3rd, the Herrscher of Finality is prophesized to be the last and most powerful Herrscher, responsible for wiping out humanity and resetting the 50,000-year cycle.

HooH

HooH, The Equilibrum

The Aeon of Equilibrium, a formless being who has never been witnessed by the universe. HooH watches over the universe, nudging things where needed to further THEIR mission, confident that balance will eventually be achieved.

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• Ambiguously Related: To Ena the Order. The Swarm Disaster portion of Herta's Simulated Universe reveals when Ena disappeared, countless suns disappeared along with THEM — but the voice of Equilibrium returned the suns to countless systems. What exactly this means is unclear, but it implies there is a connection.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Has purportedly achieved this to an even greater extent than what Aeons grasp by default. HooH is said to have "dissolved THEIR will into the web of logic behind the universe's movement", making THEM more akin to a background process of the universe itself than a galactic deity as Aeons are traditionally considered.
• Balance Between Good and Evil: More like balance between everything. Good, evil, order, chaos, love, hatred, and all other opposites are variables HooH seeks to balance throughout the universe. Even the creation of the universe in and of itself is considered by HooH as an imbalance, and it awaits the day where Nothingness will finally equal Existence.
• Big Brother Is Watching: The Equilibrium is said to observe the entirety of the universe, factoring even the tiniest, most insignificant variables into THEIR eternal quest for universal balance. Even those acting to defy THEIR mandate have long since become a part of HooH's surveillance network, contributing even in their defiance.
• Dub Name Change: Different localizations use different symmetrical names for the Aeon, such as 후 in Korean and XyX in Russian.
• The Ghost: While several Aeons qualify for this trope, either because THEY'VE long since vanished or because THEY haven't yet been introduced to the player, HooH and Mythus are distinct from THEM in that THEIR true forms have never reportedly been witnessed by anyone, even THEIR followers. THEIR form is finally shown in Simulated Universe: Gold and Gears.
• God Is Neutral: In this case, god is extremely neutral. Although HooH interferes enough with the universe to avoid becoming The Watcher, THEY ultimately favor nothing and no-one beyond what is required to balance various factors of creation. Even the Arbitrators, the faction of mortals who formed around HooH in admiration of THEM and THEIR quest for balance, are given minimal consideration by the Aeon.
• Meaningful Name: Even THEIR name is perfectly balanced: in the Chinese script, 互 (Hù), has both horizontal and vertical symmetry and translates to "reciprocally". The English script renders it as "HooH" to approximate that symmetricality.
• Medium Awareness: The Path of Equilibrium appears capable of achieving this in some vague fashion. Upon the player maxing out their Trailblaze Level for the first time, capping their progress through the game, a mysterious voice will reach out to the Trailblazer, claiming to belong to the faction that follow HooH, the Arbitrators. That this only happens the first time Equilibrium Level can be raised hints at some level of this trope being in play.

Ena

Ena, The Order

Aeon of Threads

The Aeon of Order, a long-gone deity known to have been subsumed by Xipe the Harmony.

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• A Day in the Limelight: The Swarm Disaster event of Herta's Simulated Universe reveals that Ena played a key role in ending it, and also shows much about THEIR character. Can also be considered A Death in the Limelight, as Ena disappeared about midway into the story shown by the simulation.
• Ambiguous Situation: It is known Ena had died some time around the end of the Swarm Disaster, with Xipe's rising. But Ena and Oroboros simply disappeared midway into the Simulated Universe's recreation of the event as if being obscured (and later Xipe themselves appears alongside Aha), leaving it ambiguous what exactly happened to Ena before Xipe arose.
• Big Good: Can be see as one during the Swarm Disaster. Ena was the one who gathered the coalition of Aeons to wage war with Tayzzyronth, specifically inviting Qlipoth to a dialogue which suggested the Order was trying to convince the Preservation about how ending the Disaster was in THEIR best interest.
• Control Freak: Herta outright describes THEM as one. Considering their dedication to Order and their thread/puppet string motif, it makes sense.
• End of an Era: Ena's death near the end or some time after the Swarm Disaster is implied to be one, as with THEIR death, calamities suppressed by Ena's Order can now form.
• God of Order: Obviously, Ena seeks to impose THEIR philosophy of Order across the universe and all its worlds. In fact, Ena was considered by Herta to be one of the few Aeons who commonly interacted with mortals for the sole purpose of maintaining order, and was willing to initiate a dialogue and an alliance between Aeons, who are usually solitary entities, to eliminate threats to THEIR order.
• Living Statue: Ena primarily appeared to mortals using the form of a giant statue in the likeness of a holy woman.
• Order Is Not Good: Ena might be the Big Good of the universe during the Swarm Disaster, but like any Aeon, Ena subscribed to Blue-and-Orange Morality. Ena's form heavily implied THEIR definition of Order was to watch over and manipulate everything with their "threads".
• People Puppets: In "Destruction: I" story of Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster, the Trailblazer is somehow engulfed in a "desire for destruction", only for their limbs to be restrained by invisible strings, which causes said urge to recede suddenly. At the same time, Ena appears, and the text implies that THEY did this out of either love or a desire for "order".
• Posthumous Character: Kafka explains Ena ceased to exist after THEY and their Path were absorbed by Xipe. THEY first show up in one story of Simulated Universe: Swarm Disaster.
• Reality Warper: Swarm Disaster portion of Simulated Universe reveals Ena had been suppressing countless calamities across the universe, including the Trailblazer ("Akivili" in said universe)'s "urge for destruction". Along with the fact that Nanook hasn't existed yet during the era (according to Herta), it's implied that the concept/thought for "destruction" was actively blocked by Ena up until THEIR disappearance.
• Red Baron: Ena was also known as the "Aeon of Threads".

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