NOTE: Folders in boldface denote playable characters.

Akademiya

The Akademiya's insignia

The Akademiya is the most prestigious educational institute in all of Teyvat and the de facto government of Sumeru. It consists of six Darshans, or faculties—Amurta (Biology), Haravatat (Semiotics), Kshahrewar (Technology), Rtawahist (Illuminationism), Spantamad (Elementalism), and Vahumana (Aetiology)—each led by a Sage, with Azar from Rtawahist currently serving as Grand Sage and thus leader. It also manages the Matra, its disciplinary force that oversees the dissemination of publicly available information and enforces the Akademiya's laws. Hold great reverence to the late Dendro Archon, Greater Lord Rukkhadevata.

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General Tropes

Abandon the Disabled: The Akademiya sends scholars that have gone mad after connecting with the Irminsul to Aaru Village, condemning them to a life of hardship in the desert.
Academic Alpha Bitch: The Akademiya expresses great pride in their sense of wisdom and look down on anything they consider illogical or childish, such as dreams and the arts, and will use their authority to bully and browbeat those who practice them. Many of the researchers you encounter are uptight Jerkasses who look down on anyone they deem sufficiently uneducated, with several outright saying that laypeople don't even have the right to raise arguments with Akademiya scholars due to their intellectual inferiority.
Animal Motifs: Each Darshan is represented by an animal, which is displayed in their badges: Amurta has the Huma bird, Haravatat has the bull, Kshahrewar has a lion, Rtawahist has an elephant, the peacock for Spantamad and the horse for Vahumana.
Ban on A.I.: Tighnari mentions in his Story Quest that the Akademiya banned research on mechanical lifeforms as a result of some scholars performing unethical experiments on animals to differentiate between mechanical and biological lifeforms, though some scholars continue to do so in secret.
Belief Makes You Stupid: Inverted. The Akademiya blames their lack of progress in recent centuries on the loss of Rukkhadevata and Kusanali being a poor substitute. However, as the Sumeru Archon Quest progressed it became increasingly clear that they never had any true faith in the Greater Lord to begin with, as they abused her reincarnation and successor instead of giving her due respect, meaning that their Creative Sterility was of their own doing.
The Chain of Command: During the Sumeru Archon Quest, the Sages appear to be at the top of the hierarchy, with the Matra and the Corps of Thirty under their control in that order, which forces Cyno into Self-Imposed Exile after Azar kept vetoing his request to audit his and his fellow Sages' project (of turning Scaramouche into their new God of Wisdom), but also allows him to command the Corps detachment at Caravan Ribat to smuggle Rahman's group into Sumeru City disguised as prisoners. To prevent further abuse of power, as of Alhaitham's Story Quest, the Matra are no longer restricted by anyone, even the Sages, in carrying out investigations. However, there is also the mysterious Temple of Silence that Cyno is affiliated with which place in the hierarchy has yet to be clearly elaborated on as of v3.7, though it is implied that it can have higher authority than anyone in the Akademiya as the Akademiya followed its orders to seal Khaenri'ahn tech.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Zigzagged. The Darshans are each identified with a color: green for Amurta, black for Haravatat, grey/white for Kshahrewar, blue for Rtawahist, red for Spantamad, and yellow for Vahumana. Occasionally, the clothing worn by students and figures closely related to the Akademiya will more prominently display the colors of their Darshan, such as Azar from Rtawahist wearing blue robes. However, those that wear the standard uniform only can have their Darshan identified by the color of the band and badge on their hats, and there are also exceptions who do not wear the colors commonly associated with their affiliation at all.
The Commandments: The Akademiya has six cardinal sins that is the foundation of all its rules and regulations regarding what researchers are not allowed to do:
1. Interfere with human evolution.
2. Tamper with life and death.
3. Delve beyond the universe.
4. Investigate the origin of words.
5. Revere gods without acts of devotion.
6. Attempt the forbidden and fear none.
Cool Crown: Some scholar NPCs can be seen wearing a gold-plated chaplet, possibly indicating their senior researcher status.
Corrupt Church: Due to the Sages' influence, not only did they keep their rightful god imprisoned and ignored by most of her citizens while discriminating those who do worship her, they also got other Akademiya personnel to commit blasphemy by attempting to create a god to replace her, as well as various other crimes in the process of creating said god.
Creative Sterility:
- The Akademiya may be full of smart individuals but so few of them have the creative spark needed for research and scientific advancement compared to their more technologically advanced neighbor, Fontaine. They blame the loss of Rukkhadevata and Kusanali's inability to fill the void she left behind as the reason but it later becomes clear that their lack of creativity is completely their own fault.
- This is especially true for Kshahrewar, albeit for different reasons. Following the death of their greatest scholar, Pir Kavikavus, who died with much of his research, and due to strict regulations placed on research into machinery, they have made the fewest academic breakthroughs of the six Darshans in recent times, causing them to become the Akademiya's black sheep with the least internal funding. That said, Kaveh, a graduate of this Darshan, seems to be an exception. He is hailed as their greatest scholar in decades and has made numerous noteworthy advancements and discoveries in his area of expertise, earning him a place in the Akademiya's history.
Custom Uniform: Playable Akademiya characters, such as Alhaitham and Faruzan, are never shown wearing the standard Akademiya uniform that even staff wears, instead opting for their own unique outfits. This is also true for Layla, who dresses herself despite being the only Sumerian character currently enrolled at the Akademiya as a student. Lisa's "Sobriquet Under Shade" skin is currently the closest any playable character has come to wearing the Akademiya's uniform, though it is also tailored to her unique style.
Culture Police: Azar attempted to pass a law that banned public art performances, seeing them as useless distractions in the pursuit of research, which was to be enforced by the Corps of Thirty.
Cultural Posturing: Tirzad mentions that the Akademiya thinks that King Deshret was simply "another self-destructive tyrant" that demanded Blind Obedience from his subjects, when Deshret, while not without faults, actually died trying to protect his people from the Forbidden Knowledge he unwittingly unleashed, which in turn happened because of his desire to free humanity from Celestia's rule. The opinions of the Eremites are also occasionally dismissed by scholars as "superstition" even when the scholars have little, even less knowledge than they think they do about the desert as well.
Dramatic Irony:
- They believe that the reason why people go insane when trying to implant knowledge from Divine Knowledge Capsules, is because its knowledge that only the gods can comprehend. It's actually knowledge that comes from the Abyss, and Nahida explains that not even the gods can comprehend it.
- The Akademiya shuns Kusanali in favor of obsessively clinging to the memory of Rukkhadevata, and bemoans how academic advancement under the former has slowed to a crawl even though it's them that have been blowing her off for half a millennium. They've gone so far as to cooperate with the Fatui in an attempt to make a new mechanical God of Wisdom to fill in the void Rukkhadevata left, the same one that they've prevented Kusanali from filling herself, unaware that Kusanali is both a creation and the reincarnation of Rukkhadevata, meaning that not only have they been indirectly abusing their own god for centuries, their academic sterility is a disaster entirely of their own making. That's also not mentioning the fact that Rukkhadevata created Kusanali in the hopes that the latter would one day find her lingering consciousness and permanently erase her from Irminsul to eliminate the taint of forbidden knowledge, which means that they've been unknowingly sabotaging her plan to save the world.
The Dreaded: Getting on the Matra's bad side is the equivalent of being given a death sentence for many scholars of the Akademiya, especially if Cyno is the one passing judgment.
Dub Name Change: In East Asian localizations, the Darshans have two names, the transliteration of the Zoroastrian-inspired name that they are known by internationally and a shorter, more technical name relating to their area of study, described in three characters:
- Amurta as "Life Theory School" ("Shēnglùn-pài" [simplified 生论派, traditional 生論派] in Chinese, "Seiron-ha" in Japanese, "Saengnon-pa" [생론파] in Korean)
- Haravatat as "Knowledge Theory School" ("Zhīlùn-pài" [simplified 知论派, traditional 知論派] in Chinese, "Chiron-ha" in Japanese, "Jiron-pa" [지론파] in Korean)
- Kshahrewar as "Curiosities Theory School" ("Miàolùn-pài" [simplified 妙论派, traditional 妙論派] in Chinese, "Myōron-ha" in Japanese, "Myoron-pa" [묘론파] in Korean)
- Rtawahist as "Enlightenment Theory School" ("Mínglùn-pài" [simplified 明论派, traditional 明論派] in Chinese, "Meiron-ha" in Japanese, "Myeongnon-pa" [명론파] in Korean).
- Spantamad as "Elemental Theory School" ("Sùlùn-pài" [simplified 素论派, traditional 素論派] in Chinese, "Soron-ha" in Japanese, "Soron-pa" [소론파] in Korean).
- Vahumana as "Causation Theory School" ("Yīnlùn-pài" [simplified 因论派, traditional 因論派] in Chinese, "Inron-ha" in Japanese, "Illon-pa" [인론파] in Korean).
Elevator School: While the Akademiya has a university-like setting, it appears to admit students of various age groups, with the youngest known attendee being Sachin, who enrolled at age nine and graduated at fifteen. According to Alhaitham's fifth Character Story, it is also possible to enroll at an even younger age, as his grandmother first enrolled him into the Akademiya when he was seven before he expressed a preference for homeschooling.
Elite School Means Elite Brain: As the most prestigious institute of learning in Teyvat, the playable characters that are Akademiya alumni or current students are known to be smart, even geniuses, and the Akademiya not only has difficult entrance exams, admitting only a small number of students to study in its halls as a result, but it also has strict passing requirements that many scholars spend years attempting to fulfill. However, it is subverted with regards to the general student population, as Akademiya culture under the Six Sages before the events of the Sumeru Archon Quests has led to Creative Sterility and a lack of critical thinking, producing graduates who are Book Smart but without practical wisdom.
Evil All Along: Downplayed. The Traveler encounters scholars from the Akademiya a few times in prior regions, all of whom just appeared to be well-intentioned, if unlucky, researchers. And while indeed the majority of the Akademiya's rank-and-file are decent people eager to learn, the Sages turn out to not be too far behind the Fatui in terms of corruption, to the point of being willing to join forces with them to supplant their current god with one they deem wiser.
Even Evil Has Standards: The Akademiya generally seems to consist of elitists who subscribe purely to their own sense of logic, but prior to the Traveler's arrival they banned research into Mechanical Lifeforms on account of the animal cruelty researchers stooped to as a result, and in the past banned scholars for conducting unethical experiments. Of course, all these happened before one such scholar, Zandik, returned from exile as Dottore, the second-ranking Fatui Harbinger, and began exerting his influence on the Akademiya through the Sages.
Everyone Went to School Together: Downplayed; While every Akademiya-aligned character has studied there at some point, with the exception of Layla, who is the only current student, only Alhaitham and Kaveh are known to have met while they were still students.
Evilutionary Biologist: Defied as one of the cardinal sins of Akademiya prohibits research into human evolution, and is deconstructed in Alhaitham's Story Quest. As he puts it, the most optimal course of action in this kind of research is to remove the test subject's humanity, and that tends to run contrary to evolution.
Fatal Flaw: Pride, overreliance on the Akasha, and an inability to let go of Rukkhadevata's memory. These led the Akademiya to its current state of Creative Sterility and snobbish pseudo-intellectualism. And ultimately was how the Traveler and Paimon, Alhaitham, Cyno, and Dehya took them down.
Fantastic Science: Is an entire learning and research institute dedicated to studying the fantastical nature of Teyvat and its inhabitants.
Fictional Field of Science: Spantamad stands out among the Darshans as the one dedicated to researching Teyvat's fantastical setting, with studies in alchemy, Ley Lines, and elemental magic.
Friend in the Black Market: Kshahrewar signed a private contract with the merchant Dori to keep their Darshan afloat, supplying her with their technology and crafts in exchange for her funding their Darshan after the Akademiya began to neglect them.
The Fundamentalist: Kusanali and worship of her were suppressed as soon as the then-reigning Sages found her in the wake of the Cataclysm, deeming her unworthy of succeeding their much-vaunted Rukkhadevata, to the point that at present, Azar personally stopped Nilou from celebrating the Sabzeruz Festival, the Lesser Lord's birthday, as not only was her public performance not approved by the Akademiya, only the Akademiya is allowed to host large scale religious festivals.
Great Big Library of Everything: As necessary for Teyvat's most prestigious institute of learning and research, within the Akademiya is the House of Daena, which the game's map description states is "the bank of all knowledge across the world due to its unparalleled, all-encompassing book collection," although at the start of the Sumeru Archon Quests, it has been replaced by the Akasha System.
The Government: The Akademiya, as the official government of Sumeru, is a technocracy headed by six of the most learned individuals of each Darshan. It also counts as a theocracy as the Dendro Archon, God of Wisdom presides over the organization itself in its original incarnation, and once they manage to resolve things and let Kusanali ascend to her rightful position.
Government Conspiracy: The Akasha Terminals that they give out to everyone that passes through Sumeru? The Sages were using them to farm users' dreams without regard to their safety and lied to populace that they Cannot Dream because of the blessing of the Dendro Archon and stigmatized the idea of dreaming to cover it up. They even collect data on the movements of individuals of interest through the Akasha Terminals in order to predict their future actions, use Divine Knowledge Capsules to dispose of scholars who they no longer have a use for or might hinder their plans, and spread rumors about the revival of King Deshret in order to take advantage of the religious fanaticism of radical Eremites in order to use them as scapegoats. All of these were done for the ultimate goal of creating a new god to replace Kusanali as the God of Wisdom.
Hard on Soft Science: They're effectively the setting's take on academics who are contemptuous of the humanities or the arts.
Hates Reading: When Sumeru society at large became overly reliant on the Akasha System, which provided people with the information they needed right away and beamed it directly into their brains, physical books were devalued to the point where they became difficult to obtain.
Hypocrite:
- The Akademiya prides itself on its capacity for reason and logic, yet their obsessive reverence for Rukkhadevata compels them to use extremely faulty logic in their attempts to discredit Kusanali, such as clinging to "Never Found the Body" logic despite her very existence being enough proof that her predecessor is gone. Not to mention that, despite their obsessive devotion to their fallen god, they are the ones committing the highest form of blasphemy against her possible: helping Dottore uplift Scaramouche into godhood, his consciousness hooked up into the Irminsul and having already redirected Haypasia's attempt to connect to Rukkhadevata to himself.
- They claim that adults in Sumeru losing their ability to have dreams is a sign of logic and reason prevailing over childish fantasy. In reality, it's because they're using Akasha Terminals to harvest the populace's dreams for their own use.
- They shun Kusanali in favor of singing the praises of her late predecessor, Rukkhadevata, to the point of imprisoning her all her life. The Archon Quest eventually reveals that Rukkhadevata reverted to a childlike form centuries before Kusanali was born, and is a dead ringer to Kusanali. Thus they could have made the reasonable, if inaccurate, assumption that Kusanali is an amnesiac and depowered Rukkhadevata, and nursed her until she regained her power, but they instead marginalized her, meaning for all their praises of Rukkhadevata, they never actually hold any real faith or devotion to her.
Information Wants to Be Free: It's a theme that is touched upon in Sumeru's storyline—the Akademiya tightly controls the dissemination of information, and under the Sages an Akasha user's demographics determines their level of access to information. Several characters react negatively to these restrictions:
- Kusanali disproves of this practice as it limits the people's capability to learn and eventually shuts down the Akasha once she takes her rightful place. However, her stance is double subverted with regards to the demoralizing research on human nature conducted by Sachin, the Arc Villain of the Interdarshan Championship. While she agrees with Kaveh that it should be kept private, she claims that if a future Vahumana scholar decides to continue his research, she will not stop them because his work is an important stepping stone in understanding the truth of the world.
- Tighnari implies in his "More About Tighnari: III" voice line that his training of the Forest Rangers is technically illegal, though he doesn't face any consequences because stopping him would increase the burden on their healthcare system.
- Faruzan expresses gratitude to Kusanali for her actions, believing that knowledge is naturally something that cannot be limited or restrained and is supposed to be free for all.
- While Kaveh doesn't comment on the now-defunct Akasha, he does think that "wisdom should be uncovered by many people" and spread himself thin trying to encourage other students who had been demotivated by the extreme manner with which the Akademiya linked talent and resources.
- Conversely, Alhaitham doesn't comment on the Akademiya's policies on information dissemination, however, his birthday letters always include a talent book of Admonition, Ingenuity and Praxis each as reading materials for Paimon, and he also took notice of Isak's, a boy from the desert, which the Akademiya has historically neglected, increasing literacy in the Vedanagari script, which is likely the main Sumeru alphabet used by the Akademiya and the rainforest side of Sumeru^note.
- However, it is inverted in the case of Cyno and the Matra, as certain topics are better off behind lock and key for the sake of public safety, such as the legend that the Court of Desolation can tamper with life and death in Cyno's Story Quest. Furthermore, Sachin targeted idealists like himself to pass on his demoralizing research on human nature, which indirectly led to the death of Kaveh's father. Cyno comments that the Matra would step in to ban Sachin's research had it continued spreading and caused more suffering.
Insufferable Genius:
- A lot of the scholars the player encounters tend to be this if they're not Know Nothing Know It Alls.
- According to Kaveh's "About Faruzan" voice over, Haravatat scholars in particular have a reputation for being difficult to get along with. Among the playable Haravatat cast, this is true for Alhaitham, but it's debatable for Faruzan, who is comparatively nicer and more approachable despite her penchant for Brutal Honesty.
Intellectually Supported Tyranny: Other than the Sages being the Arc Villain of the Sumeru Archon Quest, the Akademiya's culture can be highly toxic, with many a personnel belittling others who don't share their background or beliefs out of a sense of superiority.
Irony: One that is Played for Drama or Played for Laughs depending on the situation. Sure, members of the Akademiya are smart, at least in theoretical terms, but have such a gigantic lack of wisdom or even practical know-how that they may as well be stupid in anything else.
Jack of All Trades: Apart from their specialization in technology, the Kshahrewar Darshan covers a wide range of topics, including textiles, architecture, and puzzle-solving. According to Kaveh's fifth Character Story and Vision Story, its students also explore and study ruins from King Deshret's civilization and have created their own theories surrounding his technology.
Know-Nothing Know-It-All: For all the talk of the Akademiya being Teyvat's most prestigious academic institution, its ranks are bloated with so-called intellectuals who, in trying to show off how smart they are, instead reveal how empty they are of actual thought. This isn't helped by overreliance on the Akasha atrophying many users' critical thinking abilities; instant access to its compiled knowledge often kills the will to figure things out the old-fashioned way, a major detriment in a research institute.
Loving a Shadow: They worship Rukkhadevata solely for her knowledge and intellect, ignoring how much of the reverence for her stemmed from her warmth and benevolence, combined with the fact that she loved the arts that they so despise. The Sages continuing to chase their warped ideal of Wisdom plays a huge role in Sumeru's present state, to the point that they are willing to betray everything Rukkhadevata stood for in an attempt to replace her with Scaramouche.
Magical Database: The Akademiya manages the Akasha, a massive database of all the knowledge collected from all corners of Teyvat, and distributes Akasha Terminals for public use, allowing all those who have one to seek and receive information by just using their brains.
Magitek: The Akademiya and characters closely affiliated with it are the most frequent users of Sumeru's more advanced technology, as compared to the common folk who only have Akasha Terminals at the start of the Sumeru Archon Quests:
- The Akasha, powered by the Dendro Gnosis, functions like the Internet, allowing users ease of access to any information by directly beaming it into their brains. It does, however, have drawbacks in that the information would always assert itself as the truth, even if it was incorrect, and would be difficult to forget. Excessive use of the Akasha also reduces the users' ability to think. Moesis was also able to upload his consciousness into the Akasha to create his own dreamscape.
- Knowledge Capsules function like USB drives, and users establish a magical link from the capsule into their brains in order to access the information they store. During the Sumeru Archon Quest, it is shown that they are used by the Akademiya's administration in tandem with the Akasha to disseminate ordinances, and desperate scholars may also visit black-market merchants like Dori to seek hard-to-find knowledge.
- Nahida acknowledges the Shouki no Kami, which fused Scaramouche to a Humongous Mecha and enabled him to utilize the Electro Gnosis, as an incredible feat of engineering, even calling it the culmination of human wisdom.
- Siraj and his Hive Mind equip a One Way Visors, and he is able to view the memories of his peers through the multiple floating wireless digital screens on his platform.
- Alhaitham's headphones allow him to Flash Step when using his Elemental Skill.
- Kaveh built his Robot Buddy Mehrak using a modified machine core from King Deshret's civilization, and channels his Dendro powers through it.
- Faruzan creates various machines that utilize her Anemo powers, such as the Dazzling Polyhedron she deploys for her Elemental Burst, which functions like an Attack Drone in combat. She also has a smaller Anemo mechanism that she toys with during her second idle animation, and that can also be used for combat as seen in the climax of the Interdarshan Championship.
Manipulative Bastard: They spread rumors of the resurrection of King Deshret to fanatical Eremites, telling them that resurrecting him involves sacrificing the mad scholars the Akademiya had exiled to Aaru Village so that the followers of King Deshret can help them with their schemes and to make a scapegoat.
No Historical Figures Were Harmed: There are several Akademiya scholars that are named after prominent historical Middle Eastern scientists:
- Alhaitham is named after Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), a tenth-century Arab physicist and astronomer.
- Giyath Khayyam, a retired researcher of the Amurta Darshan, is named after Omar Khayyam, an eleventh-century Persian polymath famed for his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, poetry, and philosophy, while his personal name is taken from Omar's birth name, Ghiyath al-Din Abu al-Fath ʿUmar ibn Ibrahim Nisaburi. Like Omar, this Khayyam is also a poet, and recites a verse from the former towards the end of the World Quest involving his Aranara friend.
- The Rtawahist scholar Farghani who seeks to prove that Teyvat is a globe is named after Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani (Alfraganus), a ninth-century Persian astronomer, among whose most notable scientific contributions is producing one of the most accurate figures for the size of the Earth in his time.^note Fittingly, his Daily Commission has him ask the Traveler to install or retrieve beacons he uses for surveying Sumeru as part of his research on the shape of the world. In addition, his reference over discrepancies with his previous calculations could also be a Historical In-Joke over a critical mistake Christopher Columbus made when he used al-Farghani's figures while planning his expedition to find a westward route to India.^note
Not the Intended Use: The Akasha is a truly marvelous invention left behind by Rukkhadevata. Powered by the Dendro Gnosis, it's basically the Internet, only with the ability to interface directly with the brain. Information from the Akasha can be beamed directly into people's brains, which makes it a convenient way for people to Wiki Walk, but also can act as a form of brainwashing if done forcefully enough. In addition, people can contribute to the Akasha's database by submitting Knowledge Capsules containing information harvested directly from people's brains. Furthermore, it can leverage all the information at its disposal to run calculations and simulations such as predicting Cyno's actions. Finally, it can boost that computational power by stealing the dreams of people linked to the Akasha, allowing it to think up the answer to outrageous questions such as how to create a god. In the meantime, the people can be trapped in a neverending dream to keep them asleep to harvest more and more dreams. One has to wonder which of these is its actual intended use. In truth, it's none of above. When the Traveler, Paimon, and Nahida meet the lingering consciousness of Rukkhadevata in Irminsul, the Greater Lord confesses that it was a slapdash countermeasure to the forbidden knowledge polluting Irminsul, and even then she considers it a necessary evil given that it is powered by stealing dreams, which she believes are a veritable source of information. When she died, the Akademiya claimed custody of it and repurposed it into its current form, with disastrous long-term consequences for Sumeruans' critical thinking skills when they begin allowing it to do their thinking for them, which is why Nahida ultimately shuts it down.
Omniglot: One of the requirements of graduation for Haravatat scholars, who study semiotics and linguistics, is to master at least twenty languages.
The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: Despite being the head of the Matra, Cyno is listed as being affiliated with the Temple of Silence in his profile instead of the Akademiya. The organisation's purpose in the greater organisational structure of the Akademiya has yet to be elaborated on, but the little amount of information available in-game implies that it acts similar to a Censorship Bureau and prison, deciding which research topics are benign for study and dissemination^note and holding scholars that may be guilty of flouting the rules^note.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Despite their mistreatment of her, Kusanali notes that they're fairly competent in their running of Sumeru, which makes their unethical actions in the Archon Quest all the more odd to her.
Prescience by Analysis: The Akasha is able to utilize its Magical Database to make highly accurate predictions (Azar even claims a margin error of only 2%) for the Akademiya to monitor persons of interest in real time.
Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: The Darshans are named after six of the seven Amesha Spentas, divine entities emanating from Ahura Mazda, the supreme god of Zoroastrianism, each of which represent elements of Zoroastrian cosmology.
- Amurta/Ameretat is associated with plants (befitting the Darshan's specialization in biology).
- Haravatat/Haurvatat, with water (which indirectly connects to the Darshan's specialization in semiotics, or reading signs, by the fact that water divination is a known profession [e.g., Mona]).
- Kshahrewar/Kshatra Vairya, with metals (befitting its technology output).
- Rtawahist/Arta Vahishta, with fire (i.e., the sun, moon, and stars, which the Darshan studies).
- Spantamad/Spenta Armaiti, with the earth (whose elements the Darshan studies).
- Vahumana/Vohu Manah, with animals (which indirectly connects to the Darshan's specialization in etiology, or the study of origins).
- In addition, titles that students can get depending on the progress of their studies and their research contributions (in ascending order of seniority, Driyosh, Dastur, and Herbad) are also taken from terms in the Avesta, the primary sacred text of the religion, that refer to the titles of religious authority.
- The Akasha System is named after the Akashic Records.
School Festival: v3.6's flagship event "A Parade of Providence" features the Akademiya Extravaganza, which is comprised of the Wisdom Gala, an annual exhibition of the Darshans' works, and the Interdarshan Championship, a quadrennial athletics competition between the representatives of the Darshans.
Screw Learning, I Have Phlebotinum!: Deconstructed. The Akademiya has taught the people of Sumeru that everything the Akasha says is true, and as a result, people have become so dependent on the Akasha to have all answers that they stopped thinking critically about the information they are receiving. The Traveler and their allies are able to exploit this by planting false information into the Akasha to trick the guards into leaving their posts, allowing them to carry out their plan to rescue Nahida.
Skewed Priorities: As seen in Alhaitham's Story Quest, Ilyas became an outcast because he was the only one willing to report a case of plagiarism of his friend's work, but couldn't say anything at the time because that project had a lot of people involved. When said friend was Driven to Suicide, the other students were more concerned about their thesis project being ruined by the allegations over any of the ethical implications or even after a person died because of it.
Straw Vulcan: They believe that adults in Sumeru not being able to dream is proof that logic and reason triumph over childish fantasies. In reality, they’re using the Akasha Terminals to steal people’s dreams.
Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: While four of the Six Sages were exiled for corruption by the end of Sumeru's Archon Quest, their predecessors over the last 500 years were already corrupt and negatively influenced the Akademiya for centuries, leading to other corrupt scholars still being present. Many of the Character Quests, Hangout Events and Limited Time Events for the majority of Sumeru characters show that multiple people are still doing terrible things to satisfy themselves and that the Akademiya still has a long way to go before corruption from within is completely gone.
Tested on Humans: Cyno was brought to the Akademiya as a test subject due to the spirit he hosts inside of him when he was a child, though the researcher who was assigned to him became his surrogate father and put a stop to that.
Token Good Teammate: Apart from Alhaitham and Cyno, who became so disillusioned with the Sages that they staged a revolt, all of the playable Akademiya-aligned characters have expressed their dissatisfaction with the way the Akademiya conducts business:
- In Tighnari’s "About Tighnari: Profession" voice line, he thinks the way Akademiya handles certain matters leaves much to be desired, which is why he instead chose to be an independent researcher after graduation.
- During his brief tenure as Acting Grand Sage, Alhaitham vowed to implement reforms to ensure that whistleblowers of academic fraud would not have to experience negative consequences for doing the right thing, like what happened to Ilyas.
- Kaveh expressed his disapproval of the way the Akademiya puts pressure on others by labeling them as geniuses after being informed about the Siraj incident by Alhaitham at the end of the latter's Story Quest. In his backstory, he also opposed how the Akademiya began to devalue the arts, with society as a whole following suit and making his work difficult.
- On numerous occasions, Faruzan expressed disapproval of the Akademiya’s stuffy rules and restrictions, saying that they haven't changed at all in her century-long absence.
- Layla's third Character Story anecdote states that, unlike the conservatives in the Akademiya, she admires and is curious about the arts and trades of those who worked in the streets, rather than looking down on them.
Too Dumb to Live: For an organization that preaches logic and reason to the point of all but banning "frivolous" activities like dancing, they're hardly shown to practice the rationality they encourage. For example, Kusanali advised them to not connect to Irminsul on account of its corruption having the potential to turn people insane. Not only does their intense dislike of her compel them to ignore her, but they went as far as to create the Akasha Terminal, a portable device that connects people to Irminsul to grant access to encyclopedic knowledge, distribute them to the entire populace and any visiting travelers, and even use it themselves. In the climax to the Sumeru Archon Quest, Alhaitham takes advantage of said overreliance on the Akasha to slip past the Sages and rescue Kusanali.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: During the third Traveler's Tale (Archon Quest Chapter III, Act VI), Eide, a Khaenri'ahn survivor desperate to revert his son Caribert's hilichurl transformation, reluctantly visits a Statue of Kusanali in Avidya Forest, imploring her in vain to restore him. While this seems oddly cold of Nahida, the end of said arc reveals that all these happened several centuries ago and is in fact a memory of the Traveler's sibling, a time when the Dendro Archon was under house arrest in all but name. Moreover, Eide, né Chlothar Alberich, would go on to found the Abyss Order, meaning the then-reigning Sages were partially responsible for creating part of Genshin Impact's Big Bad Ensemble.
Wizarding School: Downplayed, as most mentions of the Akademiya's curriculum have a heavy emphasis on scientific research, but Rosalyne, the woman who would become La Signora, once studied there in her youth, and the Flavor Text of the Witch's Sorting Hat artifact implies that she trained her Pyro abilities there.
Would Hurt a Child: Granted, she's only really a child by Archon standards, but the Akademiya's treatment of Kusanali can be seen as especially horrible considering the fact that she not only resembles a young girl but actually really was one mentally at the time of her birth. After the honeymoon period of her birth wore off and she was found wanting as God of Wisdom, they locked her in the Sanctuary of Surasthana where she stayed until the present. And as awful as the official account of Kusanali's introduction to Sumeru sounds, even that seems heavily sanitized compared to the real events; Nahida's memory of that day is much more traumatic, which she remembers as being dragged off by force, led past grieving citizens who either don't know or don't care that she's their new god, then promptly thrown in her prison and immediately abandoned.
Xanatos Speed Chess: Defied. It's implied that they had caught on to the Traveler trying to escape the dream, and manipulated Dehya’s memories in an attempt to prevent them from escaping. This ended up backfiring on them, as it only caused the Traveler to become even more determined to put an end to the dream.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Based on Alhaitham's own deduction when the Akademiya offered him a tempting promise to access the Divine Knowledge Capsule as well as seeing what it can do to people, he surmises that the Akademiya disposes of scholars and other personnel they deem useless or untrustworthy this way by exposing their Akasha Terminals to the Capsule, driving them insane, and then exiling them to a life of hardship in Aaru Village in the desert. Subverted in that they still need the mad scholars to a degree for their ultimate goal to create a new god in Kusanali's place, but in terms of genuine loyalty and contributions on their own free will, the mad scholars are nothing but disposable tools to them.

Six Sages

Azar (Rtawahist), Naphis (Amurta), Khajeh (Haravatat) and three others

The Six Sages are the leadership of the Akademiya, each representing the Darshans, with Azar from the Rtawahist Darshan serving as the current Grand Sage, or foremost among them.

Bad Boss: The four Sages involved in the plot to turn Scaramouche into their new God of Wisdom conducted a city-wide experiment that traps their scholars in a "Groundhog Day" Loop that went on for 168 cycles without care for their safety, kept obstructing Cyno from investigating their unethical project by lording their authority over him and tracking his movements, and tried to trick Alhaitham into driving himself insane by accessing a Divine Knowledge Capsule. They also had a policy of offloading scholars that they successfully made insane to Aaru Village for a life of hardship, and then using those mad scholars to extract Divine Knowledge from their brains and set up the radical Eremites as scapegoats.
Big Bad Duumvirate: The Sages are the main antagonistic faction in Sumeru, along with the Fatui.
Dramatically Missing the Point: The ultimate irony of the Sages is that, for all the praises they sing in Rukkhadevata's name, they really don't share any of her beliefs. At present, the Sages focus only on her extensive knowledge and completely ignore her other virtues which made her so beloved. In the end, they end up trying to replace her simply because they can't stand not being led by their idea of a God of Wisdom. In doing so, they end up selling out the country she created, the people she protected, and the ideals she cultivated in order to do so, making them the greatest blasphemers in Sumeru's entire history.
Emperor Scientist: On paper, Sumeru is a technocracy ruled by the Sages; in practice, though, it's closer to being ruled by a school board of pompous and hypocritical Dean Bittermen rather than a collective of geniuses.
Everyone Has Standards: While the degree of their culpability in keeping Nahida imprisoned is ambiguous, the Sages of the Amurta and Vahumana Darshans at least had enough sense to oppose Azar and the other Sages' plans to create a new god to replace her, hence why Azar had them imprisoned lest they get in the way.
Evil Counterpart: The Sages are a council of Sumeru's best and brightest who collectively rule over Sumeru, similar to the Qixing of Liyue. However, the Sages are a pack of Insufferable Geniuses who don't care about their country's civilian population, have largely turned their back on their Archon and her ideals, and abuse her absence and the fact that they're on the top of the pecking order to do whatever they want, which is a rough summation of what the adepti feared the Qixing would become in the wake of Rex Lapis's apparent death.
The Exile: At the end of the Sumeru Archon Quest, four of the Six Sages, including Grand Sage Azar, are condemned to permanent exile by Nahida as punishment for their crimes. Cyno bitterly notes that this is still too lenient a punishment given the gravity of their actions, but nevertheless chooses to respect Nahida's judgment.
Fatal Flaw: Their refusal to accept the reality that Rukkhadevata is gone and is succeeded by Kusanali. Dottore preys on this particular weakness to get them onboard his plot to turn Scaramouche into a god despite some reservations over his background and character, and when the plot is foiled by the Traveler and Nahida, he abandons them to the righteous wrath of the people of Sumeru.
Fate Worse than Death: For Nahida, executing the four Sages for their plot to replace her with Scaramouche, as well as a litany of other atrocities, would be far too lenient a punishment, so dumping them in a known hostile environment for them to suffer for the rest of their lives is much more grave. That said, she also did so in an attempt to rehabilitate them out of recognition of their efforts in the project.
First Church of Mecha: The Sages attempt to fill in the vacancy Rukkhadevata left behind with a Humongous Mecha powered by Scaramouche as their new God of Wisdom.
The Fundamentalist: Starting from the batch that found Kusanali after the Cataclysm, they suppressed worship of her and imprisoned her in Rukkhadevata's meditation chamber for the entirety of her existence because she did not meet their standards, and passed down this "duty" to their successors. Four of the current Six Sages then went on to attempt creating a new god who would meet their standards.
Godhood Seeker: Inverted, as they did not want godhood for themselves, but they approved the allocation of resources and manpower for Scaramouche’s deification project.
Hated by All: The Sages are among the most morally corrupt elements in Sumeruan society, putting Nahida/Kusanali under house arrest in all but name for half a millennium, condemning her to a life of loneliness simply because she failed to live up to their lofty expectations of the God of Wisdom. Their spite of her has gotten to the point that they willingly colluded with Dottore into turning Scaramouche into a god. After the Sages' plot fails and Nahida/Kusanali erases all traces of Rukkhadevata from the Irminsul, the people of Sumeru finally realize that the Sages abandoned their god and rightfully condemn them to permanent exile.
The Heretic: They refuse to accept Kusanali as the current Dendro Archon, to the point that they collude with the Fatui to supplant her with a manmade god, ironically unaware that Kusanali is the creation and reincarnation of their beloved Rukkadevata. When Dainsleif narrates that there is a "push for folly" in Sumeru, this is what he's talking about.
Horrible Judge of Character: They're desperate enough to have an Archon that lives up to their idea of the God of Wisdom that they either don't realize or are willing to ignore how bad an idea helping a Fatui Harbinger—and a deeply misanthropic one, to boot—ascend to godhood is, let alone taking advice from Dottore/Zandik, an ex-scholar who wormed his way back into the Akademiya by pandering to said desperation centuries after being expelled for his extremely unethical work.
Improperly Paranoid: Fearing that their illegal activities might incur the wrath of Cyno, leader of their own disciplinary force, the Sages annually upload his activity logs to the Akasha, which then calculates and predicts every possible action he could take, allowing them to constantly preempt his attempts at auditing them. All this gets them at the end of the fourth Act of the Sumeru Archon Quest is him growing so disillusioned with the Sages, he not only exiled himself from the matra, but even joined the Traveler, Alhaitham, and Dehya's plot to overthrow them.
Ironic Hell: The Sages enacted Sumeru's government policies, controlled the flow of information, and pushed a warped, fanatical worship of Rukkhadevata while simultaneously shunning Kusanali. Following the restoration of Irminsul and Kusanali's rise to power, the four Sages that participated in the God Creation Plan were banished to Avidya Forest to perform Forest Ranger duties for the rest of their lives. Kusanali also shut down the Akasha with which they controlled Sumeru's ability to learn, dream, and even think, ending the forced hoarding of information and freeing people from all walks of life to grow as individuals. Finally, not only did the Lesser Lord they so despised finally become Sumeru's god, the Greater Lord they so fervently claimed to have "worshipped" was completely erased from Irminsul to rid it of corrosive Forbidden Knowledge; while a sad fate for one as kind as devoted as Rukkhadevata, it is fitting that the very people who stained her name and trampled upon all she stood for while claiming to be trying to preserve her legacy ended up forgetting her as well.
Know-Nothing Know-It-All: While the Akademiya in general is full of this, the Sages deserve special mention for belittling and diminishing Kusanali for "disgracing" Rukkhadevata's legacy by being weak and inexperienced, blaming her for everything that's been going wrong for Sumeru. In truth, Rukkhadevata created Kusanali as her reincarnation and successor, born to save Sumeru and the world, and when they finally meet again the Greater Lord's lingering consciousness is so proud of Nahida for getting there, praising her wits and determination and assuring her that she'd make a great Archon. 500 years' worth of Sages have been doing nothing but hold Nahida back from completing her mission. Sumeru's lamentable state is their fault, not hers.
Laser-Guided Karma: Azar and the other three sages who collaborated with the Fatui are exiled to the Avidya Forest to cultivate their wisdom. Only two Sages, Naphis of Amurta and his unnamed Vahumana counterpart, who were against the collaboration, are left remaining.
Les Collaborateurs: Like the Tenryou and Kanjou Commissions in Inazuma, the Sages are the Fatui's chief accomplices in Sumeru.
Mirror Character: The Sages' feelings towards Rukkhadevata are similar to those that Kujou Takayuki had towards the Raiden Shogun. Takayuki only respected the Raiden Shogun's power and not her leadership. Similarly, the Sages only respect Rukkhadevata's wisdom and not any of her other virtues. The consequences of this lack of any real loyalty are made clear by the Sages' complete disregard for her successor and heretical plan to create a god equal in wisdom to Rukkhadevata. Like Takayuki, their false loyalty leads them to do things that their god would never condone, down to collusion with the Fatui, but unlike with the then-reigning Tenryou Commissioner, she isn't around to reprimand them.
Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Four of the Sages lead their subordinates in utilising their combined knowledge to implement the god-creation plan.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: By the end of the fourth Act of the Sumeru Archon Quest, the Sages' attempts at preventing Alhaitham and Cyno, two of the Akademiya's most respected personnel, from interfering with their pet project (respectively, by attempting to drive the former insane with a Divine Knowledge Capsule and continually vetoing the latter's requests to conduct an audit) result in both men witnessing firsthand their moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy, driving them, the Traveler, and Dehya to concoct a plot to overthrow them.
Scale of Scientific Sins: The four that were involved in Scaramouche’s deification project were guilty of committing the sins of hubris and usurping god by misusing the Akasha to harvest dreams from Sumeru's population without regard for their health to replace Kusanali with the Shouki no Kami, and had also intended to utilise his memories to control him.
Scientist vs. Soldier: Towards Cyno in an inversion of this trope, as they’re the villains rather than the good guys. Cyno follows the law to the letter, while the Sages are willing to break the very laws they established in the name of scientific progress. Likewise, due to Cyno’s disillusionment with them, he decides to let the Dendro Archon punish them for their crimes, while the Sages tried to keep her locked up due to how she didn’t meet their lofty expectations of a God of Wisdom and tried to have her replaced.
Sinister Minister: The four Sages that were involved in the god creation project may be part of Sumeru's religious leadership, but that doesn't stop them from trying to usurp the god that they were supposed to worship as well as abusing their authority to take advantage of their followers.
Token Good Teammate: Naphis, Sage of the Amurta Darshan, and his unnamed Vahumana counterpart opposed Azar's ambitions to create a new god, so they had to be imprisoned for the plan to proceed. By the end of the Sumeru Archon Quest, they are released and are the only ones with their positions intact when Azar and all their peers have been permanently exiled.
Underestimating Badassery: The Sages' plan fell apart when they underestimated how strong the Traveler’s will is, as they were able to catch on that something was up due to how familiar the scenario they were in was.
Ungrateful Bastard: In the altered history of Teyvat where Rukkhadevata never existed, and all her deeds were attributed to Kusanali instead, the Sages repaid Kusanali sacrificing her power and memories to save them from the forbidden knowledge by locking her up and forcing people to forget her before they tried to replace her with a new god.
Unwitting Pawn: The Akademiya at large, and the Sages in particular, are so desperate for a new God of Wisdom to fill the void Rukkhadevata left behind and for which they deem Kusanali wanting that they collaborated with Fatui to replace the latter with Scaramouche, morals or consequences be damned. As far as Dottore is concerned, however, it is but an experiment for him to observe, as well as an opportunity to take the Dendro Gnosis. When all is said and done, and despite the failure of the project, as soon as he negotiated away the Dendro Gnosis from Nahida (as well as the Electro from the defeated Scaramouche), Dottore abandons the Akademiya in a state of turmoil, with Azar and his three other peers permanently exiled.
Your Answer to Everything: Need to record data? File it away in the Akasha! Want to update the guards about new laws? Beam them directly into their heads with the Akasha! Too tough to work out how to uplift Scaramouche into a proper god? Turn everyone in Sumeru City into a think tank with the Akasha! Unfortunately for them, people have become so dependent on the Akasha that almost everyone in Sumeru has stopped thinking critically. Useful for keeping a populace ignorant and under control, but not so much when matching wits against someone who has been properly honing their mind the hard way, and that rot goes up all the way to the Sages themselves. This gives Alhaitham some big blind spots he knows he can exploit for the plan to rescue Kusanali.

Amurta

The Biology faculty of the Akademiya and oldest of the six Darshans, established by researchers who helped Rukkhadevata cultivate Dharma Forest, as well as the largest in terms of faculty body. The Amurta Darshan specializes in a variety of disciplines such as ecology and medicine, hence its size. In addition to studies in the Akademiya grounds, the Darshan operates Pardis Dhyai, a greenhouse west of Vimara Village, and Bimarstan, the local hospital of Sumeru City. Their sigil is the green huma bird.

Tighnari

Tighnari

Star alumnus of the Amurta Darshan, now working as leader of the Avidya Forest Rangers.

See his entry here.

Kautilya

A senior researcher organizing the Nilotpala Cup Beast Tamers Competition who hides some shady actions behind the scenes.

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He puts up a polite front during speeches, but going by one of his student's (Najah's) dialogue, his dismal reputation, and his inner thoughts (scannable with Nahida's Elemental Skill), he is an overall unpleasant guy.
Stealing the Credit: As it turns out, both the Wisdom Orb and Floral Jelly are actually refinements of other people's inventions, namely the Capturing Device and Withering Potion, rather than original inventions. It is also revealed to have a bit of the Omni-Ubiquity Net from Inazuma embedded into it. This on its own would have been fine — Many inventions are improvements on prior technology — Except he didn't credit the original inventors for using their base designs and tried to pass both off as his own unique creations. It also comes out that the Capturing Device and Withering Potion in general were sealed away in the Akademiya after they caused a major incident many years back, meaning Kautilya had to bribe Akademiya officials to gain access to them in the first place.

Lamiya

An Amurta researcher who specializes in Inscribed Mirrors to study wildlife. She is an event exclusive character debuting in "Shared Sight".

Ambiguous Situation: Given that the Akasha is shut down at the end of the Sumeru Archon Quest, it's unclear whether Lamiya was able to complete her research and release the technology, or if the Kshahrewar managed beat her to it.
Animal Eye Spy: Rather than being born with this ability, Lamiya used the Akasha's technology to create an Inscribed Mirror, which allows people to use the vision of small animals to search for things more easily. This puts her at odds with the Kshahrewar, who see the same potential in the technology and plan to build small machines for the same purpose.
"It" Is Dehumanizing: Played With. While she refers to her small animal scouts as an "it" (despite some having gendered names), she doesn't use it in a malicious manner, in fact, she is actually affectionate with them.
Just a Machine: One of the reasons why she prefers small animals to small mechanical constructs. She calls them "Cold Machines" and view Kshahrewar wanting to replicate her research with small constructs as a form of blasphemy. By contrast, she views small animals as adorably cute for how alive they are.
The Rival: How she views the folks at the Kshahrewar, perhaps, even more-so. She views them as fools, because they are attempting to make a construct that will make her own small animal scouts obsolete, and wants to prove on how valuable they are.

Historical

Shafaqat

An exiled scholar of (presumably) Amurta who died in in Aaru Village.

The Ace: Was originally a top researcher at the Akademiya who cultivated a new species of flower called the Golden Rose before going into exile.
Disappeared Dad: Was forced to leave his daughter when she was a child after going into exile.
The Exile: For unknown reasons, he was forced into exile in Aaru Village, where he remained until his death.
Friend to All Children: He befriended the children in Aaru Village after going into exile. However, he later grew to resent them after realizing that his own daughter, who he had been forced to abandon while she was young, had grown up without him.

Sohreh

A deceased Dastur of the Akademiya's Amurta Darshan. She was partnered with another researcher, Zandik, and would die under suspicious circumstances during an expedition.

Bad Date: Her final note mentions that she'd agreed to a night-time picnic with Zandik, which clearly did not go the way she'd hoped.
Horrible Judge of Character: She initially didn't get along with her research partner, but was won over by his good looks and charm. This ended up being the worst possible decision she could have made. .
Sinister Suffocation: An autopsy revealed she was already dead prior to the animal attack, with injuries that indicated Zandik had strangled her and then tried to cover it up.
This Bear Was Framed: The research team initially reported her death as the result of a Rishboland Tiger attack, but an autopsy revealed she'd been strangled prior to the mauling.

Rtawahist

The Illuminationism faculty of the Akademiya, which specializes in the study of the stars, which includes such disciplines as astronomy and astrology, in the belief that the stars write people's destinies and lead to the truth. Its sigil is the blue elephant.

Layla

Layla

Introduced: November 18, 2022 (v3.2 "Akasha Pulses, the Kalpa Flame Rises" [second half])
Voiced by: Hou Xiaofei (Chinese), Miyu Tomita (Japanese), Kang Sae-bom (Korean), Ashely Biski (English)

Fantastical Evening Star

"Even when we're not looking up at the stars, they're always there... *(yawn)* ...watching over us."

Rarity: 4★
Element: Cryo
Weapon: Sword
Constellation: Luscinia, the Nightingale

A student of the Rtawahist Darshan who specializes in theoretical astrology and draws star charts tirelessly in order to write her thesis even at the cost of being often sleep-deprived. Born to a family of Sumpter Beast ranchers north of Sumeru City, her intellect has caught the attention of the Akademiya, only to find its culture exhausting; nevertheless, she pushes on, even to the detriment of her wellbeing, to make her family proud.

Layla works hard to simultaneously provide defense and slowly whittle down the opposition. Her Elemental Skill, Nights of Normal Focus, blows a gust of cold wind on surrounding foes and bestows the Curtain of Slumber upon the active character, a shield that additionally accumulates Night Stars either gradually or whenever they use their own Skills, which are then converted into Shooting Stars that home in on enemies once four have been gathered. Her Elemental Burst, Dream of the Star-Stream Shaker, summons the Celestial Dreamsphere, a phantasmal astrolabe that launches four homing Starlight Slugs, with successful hits generating Night Stars if the Curtain is also active.^note

The Ace: Layla is an intelligent, popular, attractive, well-respected student who gets top marks at the most prestigious institute of learning in Teyvat and can literally write academic reports in her sleep. Played for Laughs insofar that she's not even aware of her more improbable feats such as her hundred-thousand-word essay or scaling the Wall of Samiel, due to sleeping through most of them. In the "Fabulous Fungi Frenzy" event, she proves skilled at fungi training as well, making it to the semifinals where she meets the Foregone Conclusion of having to go up against you.
Achievements in Ignorance: Ordinarily, she has trouble completing her thesis while awake. When sleeping though, she is surprisingly capable of writing complete reports with no problems.
Advertised Extra: Layla was advertised as a free Cryo character you get from the "Secret Summer Paradise" event after winning enough Fascinating Phenocrysts from the minigames, but despite this, Layla herself never appeared in the event's main questline proper, with the only hint that she had visited the Veluriyam Mirage at all being a letter found in the Quest Item "Returning Curios" Memento (II), making her spotlighted inclusion somewhat irrelevant as far as narrative consistency and roles are concerned.
All the Other Reindeer: One branch of her Hangout Event tree reveals that her lack of social skills and unintentional social avoidance, combined with her untidy look and tendency to complain about schoolwork, has rubbed several peers the wrong way, who feel that the way she presents herself isn't representative of her ability. The confusion is made worse by her classmates being unaware that the "Star's Blessing" is assisting her in finishing her work.
Ambiguously Human: Layla appears to possess pointed ears similarly to Nahida and Klee, although they go unacknowledged in her Character Stories.
Animal Motifs: Her Constellation is patterned after the common nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos), the national bird of Iran (befitting Sumeru's partial Persian cultural aesthetic), as well as indirectly related to Layla's affinity with the night.
Anime Hair: While most of the playable cast are given somewhat plausible hairstyles, Layla's is downright ridiculous. Her hair turns a lighter shade of blue as it goes down to the end, her twintails spiral into drills halfway down, and she even has streaks in her bangs shaped like stars.
Astrologer: She's studying to be an astrologist like Mona. However, her field of study is only theoretical astrology, and she doesn't seem to possess the same scrying powers that Mona does.
Awesomeness by Analysis: One of Layla's strengths that she does have confidence in is her powers of observation, which is useful to her study of theoretical astrology where she often has to make complex calculations of the movements of the stars. In addition, during the Akademiya Extravaganza "Star's Blessing" Layla noticed Kaveh's Stepford Smiler tendencies after "Daylight" Layla simply has one conversation with him.
The Baby of the Bunch: Among the playable characters associated with the Akademiya, Layla is not only implied to be the youngest as the only current student, but is also mentally the least sure of herself as "Daylight" Layla, as demonstrated in the "Parade of Providence" event, when she continuously receives advice from the other Interdarshan Championship contestants on dealing with her anxiety as well as the weight of expectations.
Badass Adorable: Layla is a cute and friendly, if frequently sleepy, girl who is also blessed with decent swordsmanship skills and a Cryo Vision.
Badass Bookworm: Layla is an academic blessed with Super-Strength and a Cryo vision, allowing her to fight monsters.
Barrier Warrior: Her Skill summons the Curtain of Slumber, a Cryo-elemental shield that generates Night Stars that transform into homing Shooting Stars once four are collected. Her first-ascension passive, Like Nascent Light, bestows stacks of Deep Sleep, which gradually increases the active character's Shield Strength by 6% for each Night Star generated (to a maximum of 24%) which will linger on until the Curtain disappears, while her first Constellation upgrade, Fortress of Fantasy, increases its Shield Absorption by 20%, as well as grants her the ability to generate the Curtain for multiplayer allies, with damage absorption worth 35% of hers (though sharing its twelve-second-long duration and 250% efficiency against Cryo-elemental attacks).
Big Damn Heroes: One route of her Hangout Event tree reveals that she saved a family from being robbed by Treasure Hoarders by running off to get help, which scared the thieves off, although for a while she didn't realize that she helped them because they were gone by the time she returned.
Big Ol' Eyebrows: Layla has noticeably thicker eyebrows than most of the other female characters, as a sign of her poor self-care. Her chibi art and emotes make them far more obvious.
Blessed with Suck: How she views the "Star's Blessing" due to it contributing to her lack of confidence in her own abilities.
Born Unlucky:
- Her Hangout Event tree reveals that she has had terrible luck since enrolling in the Akademiya, first losing the good-luck charm her mother gave her, which caused her to develop her sleep disorder, then nearly dying while fleeing some Rishboland Tigers, and finally accruing debt due to accidentally damaging some Akademiya equipment. Dori also swindled her of her scholarship funds, forcing her to live off of cheap vegetables for an entire year.
- This is averted in the event "A Parade of Providence", as she was able to complete each round due to pure luck and circumstance.
Broken Ace: An interestingly presented example, in that Layla's flaws and worries are more obvious than her strengths. Layla sees herself as a perpetually tired, poor, indecisive student with poor social skills who's just lucky to have the "Star's Blessing" and is not actually good at writing papers. Her peers and teachers, on the other hand, think she's a highly talented genius. In one ending of her Hangout Event tree, "Star's Blessing" Layla bluntly tells the Traveler that she doesn't actually possess any knowledge that "Daylight" Layla does not; she just represents what Layla would be capable of if she wasn't such a Nervous Wreck.
Bug Buzz: Layla hates bugs because they're always buzzing around her room at night and making it difficult for her to sleep or concentrate on her work. Sadly, since the eastern half of Sumeru is one giant rainforest, meaning winter isn't coming to drive the population away anytime soon.
Character Development: At the beginning of her participation in the Interdarshan Championship, she struggled with anxiety over the pressure of performing well and meeting the expectations of her peers from the Rtawahist Darshan, and felt lost due to a lack of a goal to work towards. After a chat with Tighnari and Cyno and thinking over their advice, she strives to perform well for her own desire to live up to the expectations of those who support her, and becomes significantly more relaxed.
Color Motif: While she is never seen in the standard uniform of the Akademiya, her default outfit incorporates the deep blue color of the Rtawahist Darshan.
Country Mouse: She was raised by Sumpter Beast ranchers in the more remote northern lands of Sumeru, and doesn't call her family for help with any of her woes because she wants them to think she's adjusting to city life well.
Cute Bookworm: Spends most of her time either sleeping, studying, reading, doing classwork, or drawing star charts, not necessarily one at a time. Though she's more on the unkempt side compared to Sucrose.
The Cutie: Most of the Akademiya personnel in Sumeru seem to consist of stuck-up elitists, and even most of its playable cast tend to have some serious character flaws (e.g., Alhaitham is too rational to the point of being insufferable, Cyno is too serious and intimidating when on the job, Faruzan can be prideful and very touchy about her youthful appearance, and Kaveh's good heart belies his emotional baggage). Layla, on the other hand, is a breath of fresh air for being an incredibly adorable and friendly girl who, despite her timidity and insecurities, is one of the few bright spots in the modern Akademiya.
A Day in the Limelight: The "Fabulous Fungus Frenzy" limited-time event not only serves as her official introduction, but also gives a little insight into her character. She also got a decent amount of character focus in "A Parade of Providence," second only to Kaveh.
Delicate and Sickly: The "Fabulous Fungus Frenzy" event revealed that rather than being an overworked student like many of her peers, Layla is a Sleepyhead because of a condition that causes her to become tired much more easily than the average person. Even the minimal labor that is expected of a scholar like putting away books exhausts her. Sure enough, the Traveler ultimately had to help her capture all the Fungi she needs to compete in the tournament. Just catching one Fungi (out of four) left her totally beat.
Determinator:
- Layla continues to pursue knowledge in the Akademiya regardless of the mental and physical stress attending has placed on her. She's even said to have outlasted many students who had enrolled in the same year as her.
- While "Daylight" Layla rarely argues with others, she once found her confidence when a Herbad slighted her and her classmates due to his conservative position on Theoretical Astrology, leading her to challenge his opinion. When the Herbad gave her his refutation, rather than give up as most students before she had, Layla continued this exchange of debates with him over several months. In time, the Herbad conceded to Layla's point and praised her for being one of the few students who dared to challenge him academically. Her perseverance in pursuit of knowledge and the truth is what gained her a Cryo Vision.
Early-Bird Cameo: Not in person, but in writing. A number of the purchasable furnishings in the Serenitea pot available before her release in the second half of v3.2, such as "Like an Omen of Daybreak" and "Like the Encircling Eventide," are implied to have been written from her point of view.
Elemental Hair Colors: Downplayed, as only the tips of her twintails have the light cyan associated with Cryo.
Exhausted Eyebags: It's very subtle in her character art, but looking closely at her in-game model shows that she has bags under her eyes, as a side effect of her lack of sleep.
Exotic Eye Designs: She has white, catlike pupils in her otherwise golden eyes.
Expository Pronoun: In the Japanese dub, Layla's pronoun when addressing herself changes depending on which "mode" she's in. "Daylight" Layla uses the formal, gender-neutral watashi, whereas "Star's Blessing" Layla uses the informal, feminine atashi.
Fangirl: Adoration for Mona Megistus is common in the Rtawahist Darshan, but in her voice lines the Traveler points out that there seems to be something more to that.
Flip Personality: Played With. The "Star's Blessing" Layla that takes over when "Daylight Layla" is asleep is significantly more energetic, decisive, and confident in her abilities, allowing her to finish her homework with less worry, but as explained in her Character Story 5, both personalities are a part of Layla.
Friendless Background: She has few friends in her Darshan because she is hesitant to express her opinions, making her appear aloof or arrogant. As well, other playable Sumeru characters speak of her as though they are aware of her achievements but do not appear to know her personally, and vice versa for how she speaks of them. Her Hangout Event tree explains that she had numerous friends back home but hasn't seen them in a long time due to the demands of schoolwork.
Gathering Steam: Whenever the Curtain of Slumber is active, it will generate Night Stars, either one every 1.5 seconds or two whenever the active character uses their Skill (within 0.3-second intervals), as well as, if the Celestial Dreamsphere is also active, whenever Starlight Slugs hit enemies (within 0.5-second intervals). Once there are four, they are turned into Shooting Stars that strike at enemies one by one.
Good Luck Charm: In one branch of her Hangout Event tree, Layla explains that as a child, her mother gave her a talisman which she believes was her good-luck charm when she was selected to enroll in the Akademiya. However, she lost it while running away from Avidya Leopards, and her sleep disorder developed soon after. In one ending, however, it's possible for her to get it back, gifted by "Star's Blessing" Layla as a reward for her hard work in facing her issues.
Homing Projectile: Shooting Stars and Starlight Slugs home in on enemies. Her fourth-ascension passive, Sweet Slumber Undisturbed, further increases the damage potency of the former based on 1.5% of her Max HP, while her sixth Constellation upgrade, Radiant Soulfire, increase the damage potency of both by 40%, in addition to a 20% reduction to the interval between generating Night Stars necessary to fire off the former (i.e., from 1.5 seconds to 1.2).
Humble Heroine: Upon first meeting her in the "Fabulous Fungi Frenzy" event, Layla introduces herself to the Traveler and Paimon as a mere student of the Rtawahist Darshan with no special titles, despite her reputation amongst hers peer for her intellect. This is the first indication of her insecurity regarding her competence.
Idle Animation: In addition to her two standard standby animations, Layla has a third in the form of her Elemental Skill, which allows her to sleep if the player does not move her after it is activated.
Inseries Nickname: She's gained a number of nicknames since enrolling in the Akademiya, such as "the Sleepwalking Eccentric," "the Human Calculator," and "the Heaven-Sent Thesis."
Insufferable Genius: "Star's Blessing" Layla often includes harsh critiques of her fellow students' theories, which shocks everyone else since "Daylight" Layla is normally extremely polite and nonconfrontational when she's awake.
Invisible Parents: Her family is mentioned numerous times, but they're never met in person since Layla doesn't want to rely on them to make it through her academic career.
Jack of All Stats: Layla's playstyle has a defensive focus, but she has well-rounded stats either way.
Locked Out of the Loop: Her "Star Blessing" personality goes out of her way to remove all evidence to what she really is from Layla, or even any concrete information about the fact that she sleepwalks, preferring Layla not know that it happens. When the Traveller finds out, she makes them promise to keep the information from her. "Star Blessing" has sympathetic reasons for doing this, thinking the knowledge would break Layla, but as it turns out it's actually not taking. Layla is aware of her sleepwalking and the subsequent rumors about her feats under such a state, that something is trying to keep her from finding out about it, and she's already figuring out that that something is herself. In her Hangout, she even reveals in one path that she's even aware of the clear similarities between herself and "Wisdom Seelie," expressing and almost certainty that it's probably her, as well as her "Blessing from the Stars" - so instead of being safely out the loop as "Star Blessing" intended it just worries her more she can't find any solid proof.
Meaningful Name: "Layla" (ليلى) is Arabic for "night," befitting how she is most active at night as well as her fascination with astrology.
Minored in Ass-Kicking: A notable aversion. Whereas almost every other character appears to be a trained combatant even if their occupation wouldn't ordinarily require combat training,^note Layla's normal and charged attacks, which both leave her winded at the end and has her use both hands to swing a one-handed sword, suggests that she's not a trained fighter. Her Hangout Event tree addresses this by explaining that her lack of sleep makes her feel weaker when fighting, which would also explain the lack of coordination.
Mirror Character: To Mona. Both are brilliant but frequently cash-strapped astrologers who often survive off of scant food and lament how poor they are. The difference is Mona is haughty and self-confident, while Layla is deeply insecure.
Missed Him by That Much: The "A Letter With Lovely Handwriting" memento found in the Veluriyam Mirage event, "Returning Curios" suggests that she visited the Mirage at some point before the Traveler and co arrived there.
Money Dumb: Perhaps out of desperation due to her sleep disorder, she purchased super-effective Sleep Gummies from Dori for 200,000 Mora per box with her scholarship and savings money, leaving her broke and forced to live on cheap vegetables for the next year. Even after telling the Traveler this, she considers purchasing more from Dori if they are "buy one, get two free."
Mundane Utility: Her goal in the "Fabulous Fungus Frenzy" event is simply to get into the quarterfinals so that she can take her "shroom buddies" home with her and have them do various grunt work that's too exhausting for her to do.
Near-Death Experience: During one branch of her Hangout Event tree, Layla explains that she was attacked by a pack of Avidya Leopards; by the time she was rescued by an Eremite band that passed by, she lost the talisman her mother had given her when she was little, and her sleep disorder developed soon after.
Nice Girl: Layla is friendly, as well as far more polite and humble than most of her Akademiya colleagues (made all the more remarkable by the fact that she shares the same Darshan as Azar), provided that you don't catch her in "Star's Blessing" mode. In the "Fabulous Fungi Frenzy" event, she joins the Traveler in trying to teach Haniyyah the importance of treating her fungi with love, and her match with them is treated as a friendly spar compared to the Traveler's opponents.
Non-Uniform Uniform: As of v4.2, Layla is the only playable character who studies at the Akademiya (Lisa, Alhaitham, Tighnari, Kaveh, and Cyno are all alumni, while Faruzan is a professor); however, she is the only member of her Darshan, as well as the only important student in the Akademiya, that wears an outfit that doesn't resemble the standard uniform worn by other students, though there are a few design elements in common that put it as being "close enough," such as the blue-and-gold Color Motif.
Pajama-Clad Hero: Underneath the Genshin stylings, (copious jewelry, detached sleeves, heels, etc.) her outfit is essentially a onesie, a dressing gown, and a nightcap as befitting someone desperate for sleep.
Perpetual Frowner: Downplayed; Layla is rarely seen smiling as "Daylight" Layla and her Kamera expressions are "Disappointed," which is Layla looking sad, and "Pensive," which isn't all that different from her neutral expression. As "Star's Blessing," however, Layla tends to smile more.
Perpetual Poverty: She blew all of her scholarship funds buying sleep gummies from Dori, and has been surviving off of cheap vegetables since, and can only afford textbooks when they're on sale. One of her emotes even depicts her crying over how poor she is.
Plucky Girl: For all her lack of confidence, Layla has impressive work ethic. She's pushed through with her studies where most of her batchmates have dropped out, and when an established scholar harshly criticized one of her papers, she engaged the other scholar in heated debate until the latter realized there was a flaw in the established teachings, and the determination she showed earned Layla her Cryo Vision.
Prone to Tears: Poor Layla is prone to sobbing a bit in some of her voice-overs, over the pressure of her work and the inability to sleep well.
Regenerating Mana: Her second Constellation upgrade, Light's Remit, restores 1 Energy for each Shooting Star that connects.
Scholarship Student: She spent her scholarship allowance on Dori's expensive Sleep Gummies, and is worried about failing her final exams because she would have return the money.
Sexy Backless Outfit: Her top is cut low on both sides, putting the top half of her back on display.
Shaping Your Attacks: In her third normal attack, she creates a star and bats it at the enemy with her sword.
Shrinking Violet: Her social skills are said to be lacking because she is hesitant to express her opinions to her peers, which makes her appear aloof and arrogant to them.
Single-Issue Psychology: In the "Matter of Course" ending of Layla's Hangout Event tree, the Traveler helps Layla overcome her self-confidence issues and she realizes that she won't need the "Star's Blessing" from now on, believing that she can overcome all presented obstacles now on her own without relying on others.
Sleepyhead: Much like Ganyu and Sayu but to an even greater extent, as she is perpetually tired due to what she describes as a "congenital sleep condition" that developed soon after she entered the Akademiya. Her Party Setup animation even has her stretching as if waking up from a nap, before summoning a mini Celestial Dreamsphere to lean on and continue to snooze.
Sleepwalking: If the rumors Tighnari shares with you about her are true, she's downright superhuman when she's asleep. She can effortlessly pump out college papers thousands of words long, once scaled the Wall of Samiel with her bare hands, and evidently gains Super-Strength. Small wonder she's so exhausted all the time if this is the kind of stuff her body makes her do while she's sleeping.
Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration:
- Her Skill creates a Cryo-elemental shield to sleep in, only waking when the shield ends or if the player gives any input. Said shield periodically generates Night Stars and fires them at enemies as Shooting Stars once four are gathered. In keeping with how competent she is when asleep, Layla can literally defeat enemies in her sleep.
- One of Layla's woes is the overwhelming amount of papers she has to write. With her utility passive, Shadowy Dream-Signs, giving her a 10% chance to double the output when creating talent books, poor Layla gets even less slack.
- At the end of her normal attack string, Layla visibly stops to catch her breath, alluding to her poor stamina.
Split Personality: Get her friendship level high enough, and it's revealed that "Star's Blessing" Layla is a full-blown split personality that takes control either whenever "Daylight" Layla is asleep or, as some of her Hangout Event branches show, she blacks out from excessive anxiety. Unlike "Daylight" Layla, "Star's Blessing" Layla is fully aware of her alternate personality's existence, but doesn't seem to mind being the submissive of the two.
Split-Personality Takeover: In a twist on the usual trope, her alternate "Star Blessing" personality emphatically does not want this to happen and would rather disappear herself, which is why she hides her existence from Layla. Her purpose is to help Layla become more mature and self-assured, and she's afraid that if Layla finds out that there's another her that appears to be more poised, confident and successful than herself - even if that's not really true - it might cause her to give up and fade away. As "Star Blessing" Layla doesn't want to take over, she goes out of her way to hide every trace of her existence.
Star Power: Befitting her specialization in astrology and her sleepiness, Layla is associated with stars, reflected in her ability to generate stars that are then fired off to enemies.
Starving Student: She was forced to live on cheap vegetables for a year after squandering her scholarship funds and saved up money on super-effective sleep gummies. Her Paimon's Painting emote also suggests that she has little Mora to live off of.
Status Buff: Her fourth Constellation upgrade, Starry Illumination, casts the Dawn Star effect on her allies whenever Shooting Stars are fired, which increases the potency of their next normal or charged attack used within three seconds based on 5% of Layla's Max HP.
Stone Wall: Compared to other characters, Layla can provide a large amount of survivability, but she's got low damage output without her sixth Constellation. Even with it, she's not going to do that much damage.
Supernatural Gold Eyes: She has gold eyes, and on top of being an astrologist like Mona, something is seriously off with Layla, given her bouts of "sleepwalking" where her personality flips and she becomes capable of performing arduous academic tasks as if she's simply signing a form.
Support Party Member: Layla's fighting style revolves around providing shields while also creating a continuous stream of Cryo application for Melt, Freeze, or Superconduct reactions.
Throw the Dog a Bone: While she ultimately didn't win the Interdarshan Championship, she still did well enough that her classmates are more than impressed with her as they shower her with praise.
Token Good Teammate: Especially contrasting Rhatawaist, whose Darshan's leader is the head of the Akademiya and Arc Villain Ensemble alongside Dottore and Scaramouche. Compared to the utterly villainous Azar, Layla is a cuddly sweetheart; moreover, her third Character Story explains that, unlike the conservatives in the Akademiya, she respects and admires the arts and the trades of people who work on the streets for a living.
Tomato in the Mirror: One route of her Hangout Event involves her seeking out the mysterious "Wisdom Seelie" for guidance on completing her thesis. In two out of the three possible endings to this route, it's revealed that Layla—or rather, her "Star's Blessing" self—is the Wisdom Seelie.
Unexpected Gameplay Change: Layla's Hangout Event is unusual compared to others in that the usual Relationship Values meter is instead replaced with one that measures Layla's anxiety levels, with the Traveler's goal during the quest being to keep it at manageable levels as she works on her thesis. If you let it max out however, "Star's Blessing" Layla will come out to play.
Unkempt Beauty: Layla certainly looks like someone who spends most of their time either sleeping or studying—her hair is messy and disheveled, her eyes have Exhausted Eye Bags, and she's developed pale skin from being indoors for so long. None of this holds her back from being portrayed as just as attractive as the rest of the playable cast.
Upgrade Artifact: A variant—her third and fifth Constellation upgrades, Secrets of the Night and Stream of Consciousness, add three levels to, respectively, her Skill and Burst.
Wake-Up Call Boss: For the "Fabulous Fungi Frenzy" event, where she is the second-to-last opponent. Unlike previous opponents, Layla is well-equipped to hit your team hard with her Anemo shrooms to gather them together, her Electro shroom to buff attack, and her Cryo shroom to nuke the whole batch at once with a mass Superconduct. If you haven't learned to use the lock-on mechanic to prioritize targets or have simply been neglecting training your shrooms, Layla will take you to school.

Azar

"Art... Dance... Aren't you ashamed of pursuing such frivolous and meaningless activities in this land of knowledge and reason? Our Archon created the utopia that is Sumeru City for all scholars who sought validity, verity, and truth... while people like you wish to defile it."

The Grand Sage of the Sumeru Akademiya and the Sage of the Rtawahist school.

Chekhov's Gun: During the second part of the Sumeru Archon Quest, when ordering a halt to the Sabzeruz festival, Azar orders Setaria to "have the Scribe draft an ordinance before the next Jnagarbha Day that prohibits public art performances." The Scribe in question is Alhaitham, and in the final part of the Quest the ordinance becomes an important part of his plan to rescue Kusanali, namely by swapping it with a tampered Capsule that instead misleads the Akademiya guards into pursuing an escaped Kusanali instead of arresting Nilou when she dances before the Akademiya grounds and Azar unwittingly triggers the Capsule.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: His actions can ultimately be considered high treason against Sumeru, and he also throws some of his own under the bus, such as allowing Dottore detain Setaria. It's even revealed he planned to betray Dottore.
Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Kujou Takayuki. Both are Evil Old Folks affiliated with the Fatui who enjoy a good deal of political power in their respective governments, with Takayuki heading one of the Tri-Commissions while Azar is the Grand Sage, and both display disloyal behaviour towards their respective Archons, with Takayuki manipulating the Raiden Shogun into starting the Vision Hunt and Sakoku Decrees for the sake of political power, while Azar actively has Nahida locked up and undermines any attempt at worship towards her. However, while Takayuki displays a twisted form of Undying Loyalty and faith in his Archon's abilities, believing that potential threats he brings to Inazuma, such as the Fatui, are inconsequential since she can destroy them with ease, Azar is entirely motivated by his lack of faith in Nahida for not living up to his standards as a God of Wisdom, even outright trying to replace her with a man-made one, and never affording her a chance to try living up to the title.
Dean Bitterman: He's basically what happens when a stereotypically tyrannical academic head becomes head of state and is capable of imposing his repressive decrees upon an entire nation.
Emperor Scientist: Technically; He's both the leading scholar and the head of state of Sumeru. Unlike most examples however, his field of expertise is much less technical since he's effectively an Astrologist.
Evil Counterpart: To Jean and Ningguang, the leaders of Mondstadt and Liyue.
- Jean happens to be a caretaker of a child, but actually cares for Klee despite occasional strictness, whereas Azar openly shunned and imprisoned Nahida.
- Ningguang is also ambitious in her goals (in her case, gaining as much Mora as possible), but isn't as ruthless and cares for the well-being of her people in Liyue to the point of sacrificing the Jade Chamber to stop Osial. Meanwhile Azar was willing to harm his own people just to make a new god. They both also have a right-hand that uses an Electro vision (Keqing and Cyno) whose opinion of them changes during the events of their Archon Quests.
Evil Is Petty: It's hard to call using Nilou as the host of the Sabzeruz Samsara and the festival as the backdrop of the Lotus-Eater Machine in the wake of their confrontation anything but one of the purest expressions of petty spite there is.
Evil Old Folks: Not only is he an unrepentant asshole, but he is at the head of an experiment using the Akasha Terminal to create an impromptu "Groundhog Day" Loop by stealing the populace's dreams, with no concern for the health and safety of his people.
Fate Worse than Death: By the end of the Sumeru Archon Quest, Azar is stripped of his position as Grand Sage and banished from Sumeru City to Avidya Forest, where he will be under constant surveillance by the Forest Rangers. Given how much he relied on his position, the Akademiya's resources, and the Akasha system (which is shut down when Nahida hands her Gnosis to Dottore), he ends up left with nothing but the clothes on his back. Cyno and Dehya think he deserved a worse punishment for his treason, but they defer to Nahida's mercy.
The Fundamentalist: Not only did he continue the suppression of Kusanali and her worship from his predecessors, in Chapter III Act II he personally stops Nilou from dancing in celebration for the Sabzeruz Festival as it was not approved by the Akademiya, and privately-hosted large scale religious festivals are also illegal. He then goes on to attempt passing a law to ban public art performances because of this encounter.
Fun-Hating Villain: He scoffs at art and dancing in Sumeru, calling such entertainment a waste of time, and shuts down the Dance of Sabzeruz while scolding Nilou and claiming that she should be putting her focus on studies. He also puts a ban on public art performances.
Hated by All: By the end of Sumeru the Archon Quest, he and three of his fellow Sages are exiled and completely reviled among everyone in Sumeru for their evil actions against Lesser Lord Kusanali. Cyno almost bitterly notes that Nahida was far too merciful when punishing them.
Hate Sink: The Sages as a whole are this, but Azar is a particularly loathsome individual, not just for being a cruel and elitist snob who shuts down the Sabzeruz Festival due to his own personal hatred of the arts, but for using the Akasha to loop the day of the festival and putting Nilou through the wringer. And unlike the villains in other parts of the game, such as the Fatui, he has no Freudian Excuse or anything of the like to justify his actions.
High-Class Glass: Wears a monocle on his left eye as befitting his status.
High Priest: As the Grand Sage, he has the highest religious authority in Sumeru.
Hoist by Their Own Petard: Of a whopping three counts by the finale of the Sumeru Archon Quest.
- Alhaitham's plan to rescue Nahida largely relied on Azar and Sumeru's overreliance on the Akasha Terminals he created, distributed, and preached as the legacy of Rukkhadevata; by swapping out a Knowledge Capsule with orders to the guards to put a stop to any public performances to one informing them that Kusanali escaped and for them to arrest her, the group is able to empty the Akademiya of its guards, who are subsequently ambushed by Dehya with the help of Rahman and his group, so that the Traveler can escape to go free Nahida and Cyno can confront Azar.
- Second off, the above instance could have only happened because of his decision to ban public performances to spite Nilou for wanting to celebrate the Sabzeruz Festival in honor of Kusanali. Additionally, it's Nilou herself performing in front of the Akademiya that prompts him to send to the public performance ban order to the guards, not knowing that it had been tampered with. Moreover, he was the one to entrust Alhaitham of all people to draft the ordinance in question.
- And lastly, though on a more minor note, Cyno reminds Azar during their confrontation in the Sanctuary of Surasthana that he explicitly forbade anyone other than himself from entering, meaning no one will come to save him from "being judged before the Archon".
Hypocrite: Along with the amount the Sages and Akademiya as a whole commit, Azar has his own personal bouts of hypocrisy.
- During his Motive Rant to Alhaitham and the Traveler, he lords the Sages' and Dottore's project to ascend Scaramouche to godhood to serve as their new Archon to have been done through the efforts of human effort and intellect. As the Traveler points out, despite his supposed praise for human wisdom, he's still looking to rely on a god. Additionally, this supposed belief ultimately undermines his and the Sages' attempts to pin the lack of academic progress on Kusanali, as it shows that they could have potentially made great progress in various fields had they even bothered to stand on their own two feet.
- When the Traveler calls him out on locking up Nahida and his already established hypocrisy on trying to make Sumeru a new god despite them already having one, he's quick to respond by deriding Nahida by mentioning how many of the things she's capable of at her current power are things the Akademiya can do with ease, citing caring for the people as an example. Bear in mind that his idea of "caring for the people" is putting the whole city through a samsara that forced them to relieve the same day without end, which nearly killed Dunyarzard and possibly others due to how they never got the chance to rest without realizing it, and he chose a day that he forcibly halted Nilou's attempt to throw a celebration for Kusanali just to make her suffer over and over again.
I Don't Pay You to Think: When Azar asks Uday, his new secretary after Setaria was imprisoned at Dottore's suggestion after she was compromised by the Traveler, Paimon, and Nahida, whether he had checked if Nahida had really escaped from her prison, the latter expresses confusion at Azar questioning the validity of the information provided by the Akasha, to which the Grand Sage took umbrage.
It's All About Me: Azar is an Entitled Bastard who has allowed the power and privileges of his position at the top of Sumeru's administration to go to his head, and with every encounter it becomes increasingly clear that to him, all of Sumeru exists to glorify and empower the Grand Sage Azar, and anything that is not serving to that end can hang to dry until he finds a use for it. His hatred for Kusanali is solely because of his preposterous conviction that there's nothing she could possibly teach anyone, much less Azar himself, and even his "reverence" of Rukkhadevata is only because he thinks she could. Thus, when Dottore pops in with a Gnosis and a suggestion for him to just create a new god he's more than happy to throw her aside too, her pesky moral teachings be damned. Oh, and he was also making plans to betray Dottore and control this new god too, making it pretty clear that he thinks even the gods should be at his beck and call. So whenever Azar says that anything he does is for the sake of the scholars, the Akademiya, Sumeru at large, etc., expect him to actually mean himself.
Jerkass: An arrogant, elitist hypocrite who reigns over Sumeru, only worshipping Rukkhadevata's wisdom and not her ideals, while being all too happy to lock up Kusanali because she can't live up to Rukkhadevata's name. He has no reason to act petty other than the satisfaction of antagonizing people, such as banning the Sabzeruz Festival and forcing people (especially Nilou) to relive the same day through a dream loop. Hell, even when he antagonizes Nilou over it, he refuses to listen to her over "[her] lack of intellectual credentials".
Kick the Dog: He cancels the Sabzeruz Festival, scoffs at the idea that Nilou could hold an intellectual conversation with him, and then mockingly tells her to "go celebrate the birth of that god to [her] heart's content" despite that being impossible with the event venue being vacated under his orders. And then, like some twisted joke, he creates a dream loop that forces everyone in Sumeru to relive the events of that day, including the part where he comes in to stop the festival, forcing poor Nilou to relive her anguish over and over again. The thing that makes this especially cruel is that forcing Nilou to loop that specific memory was completely unnecessary for the Samsara experiment to work (i.e. he could have made her loop a happier memory), but Azar went out of his way to make it happen out of sheer spite.
Laser-Guided Karma: His entire plan of keeping Kusanali locked up in favor of the Akademiya reigning over Sumeru, under the pretense she can't do what Rukkhadevata could, finally bites him in the ass when Nahida is set free and he is Out-Gambitted by Alhaitham. After being cornered and apprehended by Cyno, he is then forced to repent in front of Kusanali herself for his actions, and subsequently exiled to the Avidya Forest alongside the other Sages following Scaramouche's defeat.
Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: During his Motive Rant, Azar cited that the Akademiya's creation of a new God of Wisdom was meant to help them deal with the problems in Irmunsul and to break the Akademiya out of its current lack of progress. However, it is readily apparent that this was not his goal for the project, as Azar wanted to control Scaramouche after he ascended to godhood. His methods for attaining his goal, such as forcing people into the Samsara experiment (which could have killed them), collaborating with Dottore, exacerbating centuries-old tensions between the people of the rainforest and the desert, and committing blasphemous treason toward Kusanali, were also to the total detriment of Sumeru and its people, all so he could improve his position of power. And this is before we mention how Azar's actions were causing the Withering to spread, turning a confined problem into a widespread one that threatened all of Sumeru. Had the Traveler not foiled his plans, Azar would've given Forbidden Knowledge to Scaramouche after he ascended to godhood, which would've been catastrophic for potentially all of Teyvat.
Oh, Crap!: He starts panicking when an obviously pissed-off Cyno corners him in the Sanctuary of Surasthana, fully intent on judging him for his crimes.
Pragmatic Villainy: Azar was smart enough to take Alhaitham's advice and reject Siraj's research paper due to how impractical the latter's project would be. This was before Azar wanted to get rid of Alhaitham. Given how Azar is someone who endangered many lives with the Samsara experiment, it's unlikely he rejected Siraj's project due to ethical reasons and more likely he rejected it due to its impracticality.
The Quisling: Azar seeks to aid Scaramouche and Dottore in turning the Balladeer into the new God of Wisdom, which is an act of treason against Kusanali and Sumeru as a whole, all for his own benefit.
Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Azar likely takes his name from the father of Abraham/Ibrahim in The Qur'an (whereas in The Bible he is named Terah, from which another reading of Azar's name, "Athar," may have been derived), who rejected his son's faith in Allah while engaging in idolatry. Appropriately, as head of the Akademiya, he rejects worship of Lesser Lord Kusanali to the extent that he is willing to aid Dottore in his blasphemy by creating a new God of Wisdom.
Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: An aged scholar who wastes no time acting like an elitist Jerkass when we meet him, personally and intentionally acting like an Obstructive Bureaucrat towards Nilou for daring to try and celebrate Kusanali's birth.
Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: As Grand Sage, Azar happily abuses his position to create new rules as it suits him, such as shutting down the Sabzeruz Festival, despite it being technically permitted, as well as vetoing Cyno's request to conduct an audit into his and his fellow Sages' personal projects on the pretext that the General Mahamatra has no right to question his superiors.
Smug Snake: He believes his rank in Akademiya's hierarchy makes him above the law, and that his administrative privileges over Akasha make him utterly infallible. Alhaitham's plan proves him very wrong, and Cyno arrests him in Kusanali's name. That Azar is also nothing more than a tool for Scaramouche and Il Dottore in the God Creation Plan is barely worth mentioning.
The Sociopath: Azar was fully willing to let people die during the Samsara experiment in order for it to succeed and did not care for their wellbeing or survival.
The Starscream: During the third Archon Quest Interlude, Nahida reveals that Azar and the other Sages created a backup of Scaramouche's memories so that they could control him, meaning Azar was likely planning on betraying the Fatui once Scaramouche became a god.
Too Dumb to Live: His plan to betray the Fatui after successfully ascending Scaramouche into a new God Of Wisdom was an ill thought-out one, considering the track record of people before him who dared to double-cross them. His plan to give Scaramouche Divine Canned Knowledge, not knowing it was Forbidden Knowledge, would've also been catastrophic if Azar had gotten that far with his plans.
Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: His attempt to replace Kusanali with Scaramouche as the new God of Wisdom cannot be seen as anything except treachery. Nahida also reveals in All Senses Clear, All Existence Void that Azar likely planned to betray the Fatui once Scaramouche became the new God of Wisdom. Alhaitham's words during his fake Sanity Slippage said it best...
Alhaitham: Azar... [...] Traitor... you traitor... AZAR!!

Garvipidam

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_06_04_at_10507_pm.png

Voiced by: Zhao Ziyuan (Chinese), Shohei Kajikawa (Japanese), Anthony Ray Morales (English)

One of the co-creators of Genius Invokation TCG.

Always Someone Better: He always considered Gulab to be the smarter one between them, although this only served to make him more bitter that Gulab lost his life to Eleazar despite having his whole life ahead of him, rather than resentful toward him.
Childhood Friends: With Gulab, the other creator of Genius Invokation TCG.
Five Stages of Grief: He first spent his remaining time with Gulab in denial that the latter would one day succumb to his illness, and became angry when Gulab reminded him that he wasn't long for the world. He's depressed by the time the players meet him, expressing regret that he wasn't with Gulab in his final moments, but he comes to accept that Gulab would have wanted him to move on by the end of the story.
Nice Guy: He was the only one willing to befriend Gulab despite his Eleazar and stuck by him up until he was forced to accept that Gulab would soon succumb to his illness.
No Listening Skills: Gulab tried to warn him he will never recover from Eleazar, thus he will die, and that he should make more friends through the game they made together once he passes on, but everytime he opened his mouth, Garvipidam throws a fit, insisting that his friend will recover, instead of hear him out. This and his false hope that his friend will recover from Eleazar are part of the reason behind the tragedy in that he lost Gulab.
Reclusive Artist: In-Universe, despite being one of co-creators of Genius Invokation TCG, he lost interest in the game after his friend died, so he rarely attends TCG events and most people are unaware that he is one of its co-creators.
Tragic Keepsake: Gulab gave Garvipidam a Casket of Tomes as well as the custom card of the two of them as children as part of his Last Request to make new friends through the game they created together.

Gulab

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_06_04_at_10320_pm.png

Voiced by: Li Chengyuan (Chinese), Hiroshi Watanabe (Japanese), Tony Waldman (English)

A former Rtawahist Dastur and one of the co-creators of Genius Invokation TCG. He passed away from Eleazar sometime before the event story "Duel! The Summoners' Summit!" began.

All the Other Reindeer: He was afflicted with Eleazar from a young age, which caused other children to avoid him. Garvipidam was the only kid willing to befriend him despite his illness.
Childhood Friends: With Garvipidam, the other creator of Genius Invokation TCG.
Delicate and Sickly: As is common with those afflicted with Eleazar, he had bandaged hands and wrists since childhood, and as his condition reached terminal stage he was forced to retire early from his studies and remained hospitalized and bed-ridden until his death.
Incurable Cough of Death: Gulab was prone to fits of violent coughing due to his illness. Sadly, he did not live long enough to see Nahida permanently eradicate Eleazar (as well as the Withering) by cleansing Irminsul of Forbidden Knowledge.
Last Request: In his final letter, he wishes for Garvipidam to make new friends using the custom Genius Invokation TCG card he created for him.
Outlived Its Creator: In-Universe example. He is the co-creator of Genius Invokation TCG, having invented it with Garvipidam to pass the time during his palliative care. It first became popular among his fellow patients at Bimarstan, eventually spreading throughout Teyvat, though by the time it reached its peak of popularity, he was long gone.
Posthumous Character: He's been dead for sometime before the event story "Duel! The Summoners' Summit!" began, although the game he co-created, Genius Invokation TCG, is huge across Teyvat.
Teen Genius: He was very bright from a young age, eventually becoming a Rtawahist Dastur.
White Shirt of Death: He wears a white patient's outfit while spending his last days at the hospital.

Haypasia

Voiced By: Chloe Eves (English)

A researcher of the Rtawahist Darshan who has recently gained the ability to tap into the Irminsul after three years of training. She is also the Traveler and Paimon's very first contact in Sumeru.

Brainwashed: She completely loses her mind when her consciousness makes contact with Scaramouche's via the Irminsul tree, genuinely believing him to be part of the divine who will grant salvation. The Traveler attempts to snap her out of her madness which seemingly works to bring her back to her senses, and she is later taken in by Tighnari to avoid the Matra from exiling her to Aaru Village in the desert.
Forgets to Eat: She is so obsessed with tapping into the Irminsul that she forgets to eat. She's once not eaten for 5 days.
I See Them, Too: Is one of the few adults who can see the Aranara, the other being the Traveler and later Rana after she recovers and gains a Vision.

The Interdarshan Contestant From 20 Years Ago (Unmarked Spoilers)

Kaveh's Father

Once an alumnus and faculty of the Rtawahist Darshan, he participated in a past Interdarshan Championship twenty years ago to win the Diadem of Knowledge for his son Kaveh, but disappeared into the desert after apparently placing second in the competition.

Ambiguous Situation: He joined an investigative research project in the Great Red Sand after losing the Interdarshan Championship and ventured out to talk to the then-leader of the Order of Skeptics in between looking after Aaru Village. It's unknown what exactly they discussed or what his association with the Order is.
Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Gender-inverted, as he was the more outgoing man with many friends and was described as too kind for his own good, whereas his wife Faranak was the brooding and quiet perfectionist who kept to herself. His willingness to stand by her despite his inability to understand her artistic vision is implied to be the reason she fell in love with him and chose him over all other potential suitors.
The Chosen One: Implied to have been chosen by Sachin to be his successor during the Interdarshan Championship twenty years ago, although he died before anything could come of it.
Death by Origin Story: His death is the first misfortune that Kaveh experienced and the source of Kaveh's Guilt Complex.
Deceased Parents Are the Best: Kaveh speaks highly of him and is still grieving his death decades later because he partially feels to blame for it.
Disappeared Dad: He fell into a deep depression and left his family for the desert after coming in second in the Interdarshan Championship twenty years ago, dying in a quicksand accident soon after. The "Parade of Providence" side quests reveal, however, that he did
The Empath: Had a heart that was too kind and understanding for his own good, which made him susceptible to Sachin's influence.
Evil Counterpart: Inverted, as he is Sachin's good counterpart. Both were empaths who had a son over 20 years before Chapter III began that they left behind to help the desert residents improve their lives, and died as a result of their experiences there. However, Kaveh's father had a very close and loving relationship with his son, which is reflected in the guilt Kaveh carries over his perceived part in his father's death and how he still speaks highly of him, whereas Sachin was neglectful to his son and passed over him for his inheritance, resulting in Jiwani openly resenting him. Sachin also died by committing suicide as a result of the despair he felt over the atrocities he witnessed, while Kaveh's father died while trying to save the caravan he was traveling with from quicksand. Even after traveling in the desert, Kaveh's father still cared for Kaveh and wrote him a letter that was eventually lost after his death, whereas Sachin shows no concern for Jiwani and does not even inform him of his death, let alone the fact that he still lived on in the form of his consciousness being sealed in the Diadem of Knowledge. Furthermore, Sachin actively tried to pass on his suffering to others while Kaveh's father tried to resolve the suffering of others by himself.
Following in Relative's Footsteps: He was in part responsible for Kaveh developing an interest in architecture at a young age, as was his mother Faranak, although it's unknown if he was an architect himself due to his affiliation with the Rtawarist Darshan, which specializes in the illuminatism, instead of Kshahrewar.
Generation Xerox: Kaveh's Hangout Event tree reveals that his appearance and aspects of his personality were not the only things Kaveh inherited from his father, who was not only described as an idealist, but was also very close with a man who resembled Tighnari and became acquainted with two other men, one who resembled Alhaitham, implied to have been his father, and another who may have been Cyrus, Cyno's adopted father. His son would befriend the children of these men at various points in his life, creating a bond that was passed down a generation.
Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Was a man that was too kind for his own good and had blonde hair to match his golden heart.
Heroic Sacrifice: He died saving a caravan from quicksand.
Interspecies Friendship: Used to tell the Aaru village children that he taught an Aranara how to read as a child. This Aranara is revealed to be named Arakayapsa, which tried to repay him by hiding the Diadem of Knowledge for his safety, to no avail.
Like Father, Like Son: He's said to have had a good heart and used everything he had to care for the people of Aaru Village, calling to mind his son, Kaveh, who shows similar levels of altruism.
More than Mind Control: Joined an investigative research project to help those less fortunate in the desert after being influenced by Sachin's research.
Never Found the Body: Heavily implied. While Kaveh and his mother were informed of his death, Kaveh claims he never saw him again and was only told that he died as a result of quicksand.
Nice Guy: Entered the Interdarshan Championship to win the Diadem of Knowledge for his son to play with. He also eventually ventured into the desert to help Aaru Village using everything he had, which helped save the village.
Posthumous Character: He's been dead for twenty years by the time of the current Interdarshan Championship, but his death is still important for uncovering the mystery behind the Championship, as well as for understanding Kaveh's character.
Small Role, Big Impact: He died when Kaveh was still a child, but his death resulted in Kaveh’s personality being shaped into what it is today. He is also partially responsible for Kaveh's interest in architecture.
Sore Loser: He apparently fell into a deep depression after placing second in the Interdarshan Championship twenty years ago, causing him to go into self-imposed exile in the Great Red Sand which eventually led to his death. However, the "Parade of Providence" side quests reveal that his losing isn't what spurred his venture into the desert, rather, it was his implied encounter with the fragment of Sachin's consciousness that warped his mind.
Strong Family Resemblance: While he's never shown onscreen, both Sachin and Kaveh imply that Kaveh resembles him. The resemblance between him and his son is confirmed in Kaveh's Hangout in a drawing of him having drinks with Tighnari, Alhaitham, and Cyno's fathers.
Unintentional Final Message: Sometime before his death, he wrote a letter to a young Kaveh that he never got to finish. After he passed, an Eremite took the letter with the intention of delivering it to his son one day, but was killed and his belongings confiscated, likely meaning that the letter is lost forever.
Unnamed Parent: Despite his significance in both the past Interdarshan Championship and Kaveh's backstory, his name is never mentioned by anyone.

Spantamad

The Elementalism faculty of the Akademiya, specializing in the study of the seven elements, alchemy, and Ley Lines (and, by extension, Irminsul). Due to the latter research, this Darshan has the most number of Driyosh, or traveling scholars who wander all of Teyvat in search of Ley Lines. Its sigil is the red peacock.

Cyno

Cyno

An alumnus of the Spantamad Darshan, who later became the General Mahamatra, leader of the Matra.

See his page here.

Lisa

Lisa Minci

Star alumna of the Spantamad Darshan, now working as the Librarian of the Knights of Favonius.

See her entry here.

Cyrus

An ex-sage of the Spantamad Darshan who was Lisa's and Cyno's mentor, as well as the latter's surrogate father.

Cannot Tell a Joke: Implied. He seems to have been the main influence behind Cyno's joke-telling hobby, and Cyno even claims that his own deadpan humor is far superior than Cyrus'. This is exemplified in his voice-only debut in Kaveh's Hangout Event, as he makes a pun and proceeds to try and explain it to Zaha Hadi, in true Cyno joke-telling fashion.
Famed Instory: Cyrus seems to be renowned in the Akademiya, as his praise of Lisa is apparently a good indicator of how academically talented she is. He also has a quote posted on Bimarstan's Proverb Column.
Like Father, Like Son: He's only Cyno’s adoptive father but he managed to pass on his poor sense of humor and tendency to explain his jokes onto his son.
One-Steve Limit: Defied and played with. While Mondstadt's Cyrus and the Sumpter Beast named after him use the English Latinized form of the name "Cyrus" across all localizations, Sumeru's Cyrus references the Persian kings Cyrus I as well as Cyrus II (also known as Cyrus the Great), the Latinized form of Greek Κῦρος Kȳros, from Old Persian 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 Kūruš. It is clearer in other localisations.
- In Chinese, his name is 居勒什 Jūlèshí, is a variation of 居鲁士 Jūlǔshì as compared to Mondstadt's 赛琉斯 sàilíusī.
- In Japanese, ジュライセン Juraisen, is derived from a rough phonetic reading of his name in Mandarin Chinese.
- In Korean, it's 키루스 Kiruseu, the same term used by Koreans in real life.
- In Spanish, he is Ciro, the Spanish Latinized form of Cyrus in real life.
Parental Substitute: To Cyno. Cyrus was originally assigned to use him as a test subject in order to control the spirit of Hermanubis deep inside him, but he instead chose to adopt him as his surrogate son-slash-student. It suffices to say that Cyno became the person he is today because of his guidance.
Cyno: He adopted me, educated me, and taught me how to fit into society... I am very grateful to him.
The Mentor: Cyrus has had several students. The only other known student besides Lisa is Gafoor, who was Lisa's classmate and is currently a professor. Cyrus also tutored Cyno at some point.
Token Good Teammate: He seems to be a level-headed researcher, as he accepted Lisa's reason for leaving the Akademiya after she witnessed the lengths to which people went in pursuit of wisdom, and he also advised Cyno on the dangers of the reckless pursuit of wisdom.
Vitriolic Best Buds: With Zaha Hadi, whom he is introduced arguing with about him allegedly sabotaging her garden. If the player interacts with Zaha Hadi again after obtaining the information they need from her, it is revealed that she and Cyrus are arguing now not because they're still angry, but rather to pass the time.
The Voice: Debuts in Kaveh's Hangout Event arguing with Zaha Hadi through a door and refusing to come out.

Abbatouy (Unmarked Spoilers for Tighnari's Story Quest)

Abbatouy

Tighnari's junior who's responsible for creating Karkata.

Achievements in Ignorance: He had the goal to fabricate intelligent life capable of communicating with humans. He creates Karkata as his first prototype from Ruin Defenders parts. While Karkata is capable of understanding his commands, Abbatouy thinks that Karkata is far from complete, since it can't communicate with him properly. With the light of the Narzissenkreuz World Quests, Abbatouy effectively came close to recreating Alain Guillotine's greatest accomplishment: a sentient artificial intelligence with free will. Unfortunately Abbatouy dies before realizing that Karkata developed feelings beyond its basic survival program.
Age Is Relative: He is Tighnari's junior, but as Paimon points out, he looks older than him.
Dead All Along: Tighnari spends the first half of his quest wondering why Karkata's creator would want the robot to steal only mechanical parts from merchants instead of more valuable items or Mora, then finds out that
Incurable Cough of Death: He was overwhelmed by the Ley Line Energy Extractor. His malnourished state contributed as another factor in his death.
Posthumous Character: By the time Tighnari and the Traveler found him, he had already been dead for quite some time.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He's indirectly responsible for the events of "The Foolish Fatuus" World Quest, having sold his faulty ley line energy extractors to Kasim for research money without considering what the Eremite might do with them or their effects on the environment if left active for long periods of time.
Walking Spoiler: His death is the tragic reason behind Karkata's motivations to attack merchant caravans to steal their parts and his negligence to turn off the Ley Line Extractor pre-mortem causes an environmental crisis in the forest that Tighnari has to solve.

Hosseini

A scholar of the Spantamad Darshan traveling overseas to conduct research for his energy thesis. He first made his debut in the Energy Amplifier Initiation event.

Badass Bookworm: Downplayed. He may not have the skills to defend himself, but his energy thesis and his creation, the Pursina's Spike proved vital in solving two incidents. It's his creation that enabled the nigh-indestructible Anomalous Model Ruin Grader to be taken down, and to cleanse the growing Oozing Concentration that is plaguing the Chasm for some time.
Determinator: At some point during the A Muddy Bizarre Adventure event, he got sick from the Oozing Concentration due to his lack of a Vision. It didn't stop him from wanting to cleanse the increasing Oozing Concentrations so that miners can safely venture.
Held Back in School: Due to his problems in solving the thesis and various factors, he never graduated from the Akademiya which he greatly lament.
Right in Front of Me: Upon hearing the Traveler defeated the monsters to collect the Irminsul Fruit fragments during his first appearance. He request to Yingzhu to cancel his commission with the Adventurer's Guild, unbeknownst to him that the very Traveler is in fact a member of said Guild. He only noticed it when she told him that the Traveler is one of theirs.
Younger Than They Look: Despite having the appearance of a middle-aged man, he is still in his early to mid-twenties. This is due to the stress of having to conduct his thesis and his obsession with graduating from the Akademiya. For reference, his older sister, Arezo (who dropped out from the Akademiya) has an appropriately youthful appearance.

Maymunah

A Spantamad researcher who is studying ley lines. She is an event-exclusive NPC who is encountered in the v3.8 event Secret Summer Paradise.

See her section here

Haravatat

The Semiotics faculty of the Akademiya, specializing in such disciplines as linguistics, research into ancient languages, and the study of ancient runes. Such seemingly dry topics translate into the Darshan having currently the smallest faculty body. Its sigil is the black bull.

Alhaitham

Alhaitham

The monotonous, eccentric star alumnus of the Haravatat Darshan and the Scribe of the Akademiya, responsible for compiling data.

See his page here.

Faruzan

Faruzan

Introduced: December 7, 2022 (v3.3 "All Senses Clear, All Existence Void" [first half])
Voiced by: Yan Mengmeng (Chinese), Yui Horie (Japanese), Kim You-rim (Korean), Chandni Parekh (English)

Enigmatic Machinist

"Hm? What did you say? I'm old now, so every other phrase escapes my ears. Try calling me "Madam Faruzan" and see if I can pick that up."

Rarity: 4★
Element: Anemo
Weapon: Bow
Constellation: Flosculi Implexi, the Entwined Flowers

A professor of the Haravatat Darshan who, contrary to her faculty, is a specialist in mechanics. Despite her youthful appearance, she insists on being at least a hundred years old, having survived being trapped for a century inside a ruin of King Deshret's civilization. Her prideful, haughty façade belies her lingering anguish over having outlived her loved ones, as well as her struggles to fit into modern Sumeru.

Faruzan excels in reining in her foes from a safe distance and compromising their resistance to Anemo. Her Elemental Skill, Wind Realm of Nasamjnin, blasts surrounding foes and endows her the "Manifest Gale" state which turns her next fully-charged shot into a Hurricane Arrow that triggers Pressurized Collapse, which after a short delay sucks in surrounding foes. Her Elemental Burst, The Wind's Secret Ways, summons a Dazzling Polyhedron, an icosahedron made of Anemo energy that travels along a triangular path and strikes foes with Whirlwind Pulse whenever it makes a turn, inflicts foes with the Perfidious Wind's Bale effect that reduces their Anemo resistance, and bestows her allies with the Prayerful Wind's Benefit effect that in turn inreases their Anemo Damage.^note

Accidental Truth: On one branch of her Hangout Event tree, Faruzan claims that she found an "automatic irrigation system" in the rainforest and would be working with Tighnari to implement exactly such a system. Though she made up the excuse on the spot, the Traveler can encounter such a mechanism in the Apam Woods, the Varuna Contraption, which regulates and maintains Dharma Forest's climate. The reason it's so obscure despite its importance is likely because it's managed by the Aranara, whom the Akademiya largely don't even believe exist.
Adventure Archaeologist: Faruzan's specialty lies in analyzing puzzles and mechanisms in ruins by deciphering clues in the local environment such as stone carvings and other records. Prior to her disappearance, large portions of Sumeru's ruins remained unexplored, and the Kshahrewar Darshan's understanding of mechanics has yet to fully mature, which made her role as a specialist invaluable. In the present, however, her work is considered obsolete; with the exception of certain enigmas like King Deshret's Mausoleum, most of those ruins have been mapped out, and much of her expertise has already been integrated into the Kshahrewar's curriculum in the century she's been gone. Additionally, her Hangout Event tree explains that, despite the other Darshan's efforts to persuade her to join them, her teachings have been considered niche even there.
All of the Other Reindeer: Her introductory post reveals that despite her obvious capabilities, she and her teachings are shunned in Haravatat, being more popular among Kshahrewar instead.
And I Must Scream: She spent a hundred years in a ruin of King Deshret's civilization, trying to unravel the codes and traps in order to discover a way out, fully cognizant for some time, alone, unable to age, and devoid of the need to sleep or eat. Faruzan was forced to decipher the codes in her head after she ran out of material to write on, which eventually caused her mind to go numb. By the time she escaped and was discovered, she was in a stupor, unable to form coherent sentences until after going through a lengthy recovery period.
Anime Hair: Faruzan's not-twintails appear to retain their positions and shapes without being held into place by anything.
Attack Drone: Her Burst summons the Dazzling Polyhedron, an icosahedron made of Anemo energy, that travels along a triangular path for twelve seconds. Every two seconds, it moves into another "vertex," where it unleashes Whirlwind Pulse, a wide-ranging attack that simultaneously reduces enemies' Anemo Resistance and increases the Anemo Damage Bonus of allies caught within its blast radius (for a total of seven bursts). Faruzan's second Constellation upgrade, Overzealous Intellect, increases its duration to eighteen seconds (and hence ten bursts).
Berserk Button: Kshahrewar students looking for her assistance are often instructed to never act surprised upon seeing her youthful appearance, let alone ask why she is shunned in Haravatat or suggest joining their Darshan. Breaking any of these unofficial rules tends to bring down a fiery scolding for which Faruzan is infamous.
Breaking Old Trends: Faruzan is the first 4★ character to possess a unique charged attack^note where her Skill allows her next charged shot to damage surrounding enemies, followed up by sucking them in. Before her, unique charged shots were typically reserved for 5★ units.
Broken Ace: As her "Hello" voice line demonstrates, Faruzan was once a distinguished top scholar and leading researcher at the Akademiya a hundred years ago, whose work remains influential in the present day. However getting trapped in a King Deshret ruin and only managing to escape a hundred years later has made her behind the times, and she is now shunned in her Darshan for insisting on studying a topic that is perceived to have lost its relevancy.
Color Motif: Her color palette incorporates a number of shades of turquoise, possibly as a reference to the Persian turquoise, which is a staple in Iranian architecture and the country's national gemstone.
Commonality Connection: She teams up with Kaveh in the first round of the Interdarshan Championship due to both working with machines in their field of research. It’s also revealed that Kaveh previously consulted Faruzan on how to make his mechanical Swiftflies small and nimble for his interior design project.
Cool Big Sis: As the oldest member of the Akademiya, Faruzan can be very generous to her juniors or anyone who she sees as younger siblings. In Collei's case, Faruzan takes a liking for her, to the point Tighnari has to make sure Faruzan doesn't give her too many snacks. She also wants to treat Kaveh for supper after she learns about his situation and is generally very kind to and supportive of him as his senior.
Cooldown Manipulation: Faruzan's first-ascension passive, Impetuous Flow, sharply reduces the charging time of her charged shots by 60% while she is in the Manifest Gale state, in addition to allowing her to inflict Perfidious Wind's Bale on enemies hit with Pressurized Collapse.
Corralling Vacuum: Faruzan's Skill turns her next fully-charged shot into a Hurricane Arrow which, upon contact, triggers Pressurized Collapse which sucks in enemies. Her first-ascension passive, Impetuous Flow, also allows it to inflict Perfidious Wind's Bale on enemies struck, while her sixth Constellation upgrade, The Wondrous Path of Truth, allows allies endowed with the Prayerful Wind's Benefit to trigger it (with at least 3-second intervals), in addition to a 40% boost to Critical Damage of Anemo-enhanced attacks.
Cross-Popping Veins: When the Wanderer damages Faruzan's robot and steals the Diadem during the Interdarshan Championship finals, she glares at him angrily with a cartoonish anger vein punctuating how pissed off she is.
Cursed with Awesome: Nahida's voiceline about her explains that her youthful appearance and longevity are the result of exposure to the remnants of King Deshret's power.
Damage-Increasing Debuff: Enemies struck with Whirlwind Pulse are inflicted with the Perfidious Wind's Bale for four seconds, which reduces their Anemo resistance by 30%, in addition to a Status Buff to allies caught within its damage radius that increases their Anemo damage. Faruzan's first-ascension passive, Impetuous Flow, adds this effect to Pressurized Collapse.
Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Fish out of Temporal Water. Faruzan was trapped in ruins where she could not age for a century, enough time that when she finally managed to escape, the Akademiya has long since presumed her dead, and when she tries to return to her previous work, she finds that it's long since become obsolete and she's become better known for advancements in mechanical engineering that were basically an afterthought to what she primarily studied. The fellow members of her Darshan now consider her just as much a relic of the past as the ruins she studies. She's thoroughly stuck in the past and refuses to change with the times, leaving her destitute.
Determinator:
- During the hundred years that Faruzan was missing, she was trapped in a ruin from King Deshret's civilization that, not unlike the Chasm's Bed, removed her need for food and sleep but slowly wore down on her mental faculties. In spite of all these, she continuously tried to solve the mechanism needed to unlock the ruin, even when her deductions covered the entire floor and she was slowly losing her mind, reasoning that even if she died there, her calculations could be of help to the next victim, though fortunately, she succeeded. For her determination, Faruzan earned an Anemo Vision.
- She's refused to join the Kshahrewar Darshan despite their promise of more students to teach and a far higher spending limit than the Haravatat is willing to offer her because, despite how Haravatat looks down on her teachings, someone in her Darshan needs to continue studying niche topics so that humanity can expand on its frontier of knowledge.
Everybody's Dead, Dave: After coming back from the ruins she was trapped in for a century, Faruzan was forced to accept the reality that everyone she once knew had already passed on.
Exotic Eye Designs: She has triangular pupils, with her left pupil having the same shade of light teal as her hair while her right is more bluish.
Fear of Thunder: She gets startled by thunder falling in her "When Thunder Strikes" voice-over and admitting to it.
"Whoa! Wha-what? There's nothing wrong with being afraid of thunder, even at an older age!"
Fish out of Temporal Water: Faruzan lived a hundred years ago before she was Frozen in Time in a ruin from King Deshret's civilization. Upon escaping, she couldn't recognize modern Sumeru at all, and thought she was stuck in an illusion until someone explained things to her.
Friend to All Children: Even if it's a requirement to be a teacher, she's surprisingly good with kids given her temperament. She's a lot more patient with them compared to her adult peers, understands the value of nurturing their innate curiosity, and doesn't underestimate their intelligence. One of her Hangout Event routes revolves around exploring this aspect of her.
Frozen in Time: She was stuck in time for a hundred years in a ruin of King Deshret's civilization.
Gender-Blender Name: Downplayed. "Faruzan" appears to be based on the Persian masculine given name "Farzan", as well as the lesser-known feminine name "Foruzan".
Go Mad from the Isolation: It's implied that this happened to her while she was trapped in the Deshret ruins, considering that she barely remembers any of her time inside once she finally escapes.
Hair-Trigger Temper: Downplayed Trope. While she does not go on rants when irritated, she is shown to be quite cranky at times and does not mince words, which makes potential students fearful of her.
Hot Teacher: For an "old lady", she sure looks very youthful. Unfortunately, she's more concerned with attracting students than admirers, which has made the "teacher" half difficult since everyone in Haravatat thinks her studies are obsolete.
Hypocrisy Nod: Modern Haravatat scholars shun her continued studies of ancient Sumeru, believing that there isn't much left undiscovered and her topic has become too niche to be worth investing in. Faruzan finds this to be a hypocritical stance to take, considering Haravatat as a whole has the most niche specialization of all the Darshans, and the fewest students because of it.
"Those geezers at Haravatat love to decline my funding requests with the excuse that my research's become too niche and impractical. By that logic, since we're still the Darshan with the lowest enrollment numbers, we might as well close our doors altogether."
Immortal Immaturity: Granted, she is not immortal, but for someone over a hundred years old, she can occasionally act as immaturely, if not childishly, as her youthful appearance suggests, often insisting on her seniority over others.
Insufferable Genius: While she's not as bad as Alhaitham, she fits the stereotype of Haravatat scholars being difficult to get along with, and can be quite irritable and stubborn when it comes to her area of expertise, making it difficult for her to attract students to her Darshan. Even Collei is a little afraid of her.
Irony:
- Being chronologically over 100 years old, she tends to treat everyone around her as youngsters, including the Traveler, not knowing that the Traveler is at least 500 years old.
- Her studies and teachings greatly contributed to the study of mechanics, which is the specialty of the Ksharerwar, but she's actually a member of the Haravatat, which specializes in languages. After being freed from the ruins, she found that Haravatat could no longer understand, nor respect, her teachings, and as such she was ostracized by the members of her Darshan, while she would go on to be quite popular with the Ksharerwar members instead.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed. Faruzan can be quite sassy, though as long as you call her "Madam", this doesn't get in the way of kindness, being a caring teacher who's nice to her "juniors" and even those who aren't students of hers, be it from another Darshan or already graduated.
Living Relic: Nahida describes her as such, telling the Traveler that they could "catch a glimpse of Sumeru from a bygone age through her".
Ma'am Shock: Inverted – Faruzan reacts favorably to being called "madam" and demands her students to do so.
"First! That curiosity of yours is best served in your studies. And secondly! You shall remember to call me 'Madam'!"
Magikarp Power: Faruzan is a somewhat decent support for Anemo Vision holders at the bare minimum, but with a full Constellation she turns into a ludicrously powerful support that elevates her fellow Anemo Vision holders to new heights of damage.
Meaningful Name: The name "Faruzan" appears to be based on the Persian names "Farzan" (فرزان) and "Foruzan" (فُروزان), which translate to "wise," and "shiny" respectively. Her name also sounds like "Firouzeh" (فیروزه) which means "turquoise", the dominant color of her design. This name is befitting of her character, as she is stated to be quite intelligent despite her teachings being shunned by modern-day Haravatat students, and also wears many shiny accessories.
Ms. Vice Girl: Extremely proud of herself, and can be quite sassy to boot; to be fair to her, she really is that knowledgeable about her topic of study. That said, she's a genuinely kind woman and teacher, who treats her juniors well on the regular no matter what Darshan they may be or if they already graduated.
- One of her birthday voice-overs has Faruzan gift the Traveler a toy to help relieve stress, even offering to fix it if it breaks. In her third Ascension line, she also tries to guide the Traveler even though they're the one helping her.
- In her voice-over for Kaveh, she plans to take him to a meal after learning of his financial difficulties.
- She is especially doting on Collei, openly expressing conern over her health and how Tighnari treats her, even sneaking in treats for her whenever she visits. In one of her Hangout Event routes, she even creates a course to educate Collei on how to read.
Multishot: Her first Constellation upgrade, Truth by Any Means, allows Faruzan to fire two Hurricane Arrows while the Manifest Gale is active.
Nostalgia Filter: Subverted. After catching a glimpse of light novels, Faruzan waxes on about how much better Tales of Shahryar was and is shocked to discover that no one remembers the story. She ends up finding a copy of one volume at an antique store and is incredulous that the book has not only been out of circulation for long enough to count as an antique, but was disappointing enough that the last person to express interest in the book sighed, put the book down, and walked away. Then she reads it and realizes that the book is of a much lower quality than she remembers. She decides to question the person who had been looking at the book earlier, as he's a storyteller who reads novels by that author for a living, and he explains that the series jumped the shark after Volume 4, which was the last volume to be published before Faruzan fell absent. In other words, the story was just as good as Faruzan remembers: the problem is that it didn't stay that way.
Obsolete Mentor: Faruzan's specialty is "the analysis of the structure of and solutions to various ruin devices via the study of stone carvings and other ancient texts". However, since she spent a hundred years trapped in a ruin, her home Darshan no longer cares about such things. A rival Darshan finds her knowledge more interesting, but she doesn't want to switch. Thus, while she wants to mentor current students, her obsolescence prevents her from gaining many students.
Older Than They Look: While she looks like a teenager, her writings have contributed to learning materials in textbooks that are nearly a century old, making her the oldest in modern-day Sumeru. This trope is also a major Berserk Button for her should anyone bring it up. The Japanese dub highlights Faruzan's longevity by having her refer to herself with the self-honorific washi, which is commonly used by older people.
Omniglot: In the "Receiver of Friends from Afar" cooking event, Faruzan tells Layla and the Traveler that back in her day, the Haravatat school requested at least 20 languages to graduate. Faruzan, being a Semiotics professor, is capable of understanding the meaning behind some of Liyue's names of the dishes, and part of her payment to join Dori's ship crew was the possibility of getting old books from Liyue.
Perpetual Poverty: Implied. Several of Faruzan's voice-lines mention how frequently the Harvatat denies her funding. She also says that once her funding is approved, she will treat Kaveh to a nice meal, implying that funding is not only for projects but also a source of income for her.
The Professor: She works as a professor in the Haravatat Darshan and is actively trying to recruit more students to attend her classes.
Random Drop Booster: Her utility passive, Tomes Light the Path, increases rewards when dispatched on an Expedition in Sumeru for twenty hours by 25%.
Regenerating Mana: Faruzan's fourth Constellation upgrade, Divine Comprehension, restores her Energy depending on the number of enemies hit with Pressurized Collapse—2 points for the first enemy, with another half-point for every additional enemy, to a maximum of 4 Energy (equivalent to at least five enemies).
Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Downplayed. Due to being a senior in the Akademiya (being over 100 years old), her voicelines are very sassy and prideful.
Shameless Fanservice Girl: More or less asks the Traveler to take a photo of her rear if she wins the "Parade of Providence" competition. The camera pans over her legs and her back followed by a wink as she's saying this for even less subtlety.
"Remember to shoot from behind at a lower angle — you know, to capture a senior's class!"
Squishy Wizard: Faruzan's kit is tailored towards crowd control, damaging and debuffing her enemies and buffing her allies through her Elemental Talents. However, her base Attack is nothing to write home about, and her HP and Defense, like her fellow archers, are predictably on the lower side.
Smart People Build Robots: She's an expert machinist and builds Anemo-infused mechanisms, one of which she deploys in the event cutscene of "Parade of Providence."
Status Buff: In addition to the Damage-Increasing Debuff (see above), Whirlwind Pulse has the ability to bestow upon allies caught within its blast radius the Prayerful Wind's Benefit effect for four seconds, which increases their Anemo damage. Faruzan's fourth-ascension passive, Lost Wisdom of the Seven Caverns, adds the Hurricane Guard effect, wherein the first Anemo-augmented attack of any kind gains a damage boost based on 32% of Faruzan's Attack stat (within at least a 0.8-second interval), while her sixth Constellation upgrade, The Wondrous Path of Truth, adds a 40% boost to Critical Damage of Anemo-infused attacks, in addition to the ability to trigger Pressurized Collapse (within at least 3-second intervals).
Stepford Smiler: Her fifth Character Story touches on her struggle with coming to terms with the fact that she has outlived her classmates and found herself in a Sumeru wildly changed beyond recognition. Even after being forced to accept her situation, she masks her sadness behind her sassy personality and refuses to allow herself to be stuck in time again.
Symbol Motif Clothing: In addition to the preponderance of the color turquoise, Faruzan's outfit features flower-like designs which also appear on her Constellation.
They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: As she will readily tell you, she is to be addressed as Madam Faruzan.
Unconventional Electives 101: Faruzan's specialization in "the analysis of the structure of and solutions to various ruin devices via the study of stone carvings and other ancient texts" is presently considered a niche topic in modern-day Sumeru, which is why she has trouble recruiting students for her classes or securing funding for her research. That, along with her notorious temperament.
Upgrade Artifact: A variant—her third and fifth Constellation upgrades, Spirit-Orchard Stroll and Wonderland of Rumination, add three levels to, respectively, her Skill and Burst.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Faruzan's Character Stories reveal that she did have friends who she left behind during the century she was trapped in a ruin from King Deshret's civilization, though what happened to them and how they reacted to her disappearance was unclear. However, one route of her Hangout Event tree sheds light on what happened: her mother, friends, and instructors all worked together to find her, a quest that lasted twenty years until they grew too old to continue. They ultimately decided to send Tamimi, a mechanical lifeform invented by Faruzan and modified by her companions, to explore the ruins in search of her, carrying notes written to her to read when she was eventually located.
Vague Age: While Faruzan is over 100 years old currently, her age at the time she went missing is less clear. She resembles a teen, her youth maintained from her time spent in King Deshret's ruin, and her Hangout reveals that she used to live with her mother whilst attending the Akademiya. In the present, it has also been a few years since she had been rescued, which adds to her probable age.
Vapor Wear: Due to the wide torso cutouts on Faruzan's dress showing only bare skin and nothing more, the chances of her wearing a bra are null.

Vahumana

The Aetiology faculty of the Akademiya, which specializes on the study of causes and reasons, encompassing history and social sciences. The former point has led to several scholars visiting ruins, which led to a rivalry of sorts with the Haravatat Darshan, while they enjoy a friendlier relationship with Amurta, with their time-related studies having led to collaborations between the Darshans for the benefit of Sumeru's agricultural and fishing industries. Its sigil is the yellow horse.

Hat Guy (SPOILERS)

The Wanderer

An antisocial, but exceptional writer known under the alias "Hat Guy". Though unpopular for his harsh personality, his essays on history and politics have earned him a reputation as a talented researcher.

See his page here.

Janaki

A scholar and peer of Ilyas, who holds a grudge against him for unknown reasons.

Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Well, more Jerkass than outright evil, but she seems quick to believe that Ilyas reported Jani's plagiarism to net himself a reputation instead of it being because his friend committed suicide.
Hate Sink: Caring more about their grades than academic honesty or even the lives of their classmates, she and her colleagues exist to show that even with the previous Sages deposed, the Akademiya's still got a long way to go before it's freed of its corruption.
It's All About Me: She's shown to be rather arrogant and self-entitled, refusing to accept a part in Siraj's research project due to taking issue with how she'd be assigned as "Number 45", seeing it as too low for someone like her. And later, it's revealed that she and her classmates' grudge against Ilyas was because he reported their instructor for plagiarising his friend Raju's work, showing more concern over their graduation prospects being threatened due to the project getting concerned over a man being Driven to Suicide, even disparaging Raju for not toughing it out until the project was over.
Jerkass: When first met, Janaki is quick to insult and belittle Ilyas for what he did in the past, and even throws shade at Alhaitham by pegging them as "the two biggest loners teaming up" with no provocation. And then, a glimpse into Ilyas' past reveals that her grudge is born of self-centred reasons, blaming him for reporting their instructor Jani for plagiarising his friend Raju's work due to it putting her graduation prospects at risk, displaying absolutely No Sympathy towards him or his friend who was Driven to Suicide by their instructor's actions.

Sachin (ALL SPOILERS ARE UNMARKED)

Sachin

Voiced by: Joseph Stillwagon (English)

The mysterious wealthy benefactor of the Akademiya's Interdarshan Championship and a researcher from Vahumana. He was introduced in the event "A Parade of Providence."

Arc Villain: Of the event "A Parade of Providence."
Ambiguous Situation: The incident involving his meeting with Kaveh's father 20 years ago. While it's revealed that Kaveh's father met him and was brainwashed by Sachin's words into venturing into the desert to help Aaru Village where he eventually died, it's unclear what Sachin's intentions with him were, or whether or not he intended to brainwash him in the first place.
Brain Uploading: The Diadem of Knowledge contains a fragment of his mind. When Kaveh smashes it, Sachin fades away as well.
Break Them by Talking: The fragment of his mind is capable of inflicting mental and physical anguish on others, although it only has negative effects on particularly empathetic people such as Kaveh and Kaveh's father.
Cool Crown: Sachin bought the Diadem of Knowledge with a lot of his assets, then donated it to the Akademiya as a symbol of great honour, only allowing the winner of the Interdarshan Championship to wear it. Its exquisite appearance is the reason why Kaveh asked his father to participate in the Interdarshan Championship.
Dead All Along: He died sometime before the events of the game, leaving only a fragment of his mind within the Diadem of Knowledge to choose the successor to his estate and research.
Despair Event Horizon: Crossed it after spending some time traveling with a caravan and living in Aaru Village. He returned back to Sumeru City looking weary and withered with his mental state in shambles after realizing just how rotten humans can be.
Driven to Suicide: His research into human behaviour made him increasingly cynical to the point where he became a Straw Nihilist, and opted to take his life to escape the emptiness he felt.
Evil Counterpart: Can be seen as one to Kaveh's father in a number of ways:
- Both had only one child with their respective partners before their deaths, both coincidentally having sons over 20 years before Chapter III began.
- Both left their children at young ages to conduct research in the desert, which resulted in them spending time in Aaru Village and traveling with caravans that would change their lives for the worse.
- Both died as a result of their experiences in the desert, though Sachin died by committing suicide as a result of the despair he felt over the atrocities he witnessed, while Kaveh's father died while trying to save the caravan he was traveling with from quicksand.
- Both had very different relationships with their children. Kaveh's father had a very close and loving relationship with his son, which is reflected in the guilt Kaveh carries over his perceived part in his father's death and how he still speaks highly of him, whereas Sachin was neglectful to his son and passed over him for his inheritance, resulting in Jiwani openly resenting him. Even after traveling in the desert, Kaveh's father still cared for Kaveh and wrote him a letter that was unfortunately lost after his death, whereas Sachin shows no concern for Jiwani and does not even inform him of his death, let alone the fact that he still lived on in the form of his consciousness being sealed in the Diadem of Knowledge.
- Sachin actively tried to pass on his suffering to others while Kaveh's father tried to resolve the suffering of others by himself.
Game Between Heirs: His reasons for sponsoring the Interdarshan Championship turns out to be using the event as a selection process for a worthy successor to his research and estate. After Kaveh wins the 3.6 Interdarshan Championship, Sachin opts to leave all of his estate and his research for him to do as he pleases with it.
Go Out with a Smile: Played With as Sachin was already long dead by that point. But the lingering fragment of his mind inside the Diadem of Knowledge smiles faintly as it fades away, seemingly pleased by Kaveh's answer and rejection of his philosophy.
High-Class Glass: Was a rich man who wore a monocle on his right eye.
Jerkass Has a Point: While he is unambiguously the antagonist of the event, with the characters recognizing that he wasn't a good person, Alhaitham and Nahida point out that the conclusions he reached in his research aren't entirely "incorrect." Nahida additionally suggests that, while Sachin's research isn't wrong, it's only a part of the whole truth of the world, and she hopes that one day someone can pick up his research from where he left off without succumbing to the same despair and nihilism he did.
Parental Abandonment: He abandoned his son Jiwani 20 years before the 3.6 Interdarshan Championship to conduct his research in the desert for 8 years, then when he came back, locked himself in his room to write and transfer a fragment of his mind into the Diadem of Knowledge, and passed over Jiwani for inheriting his estate in favor of giving it all to whoever he deemed worthy. Jiwani retaliated by hiring thugs to kidnap him so he could get his inheritance via force.
Secret Test of Character: Choosing Kaveh to be the successor to his research and the inheritor to his estate is implied to have been one he set up for Kaveh, as his satisfied smile when Kaveh rejects him indicates that he knew Kaveh would make the "right" decision to reject him and his world view to stand by his idealism. Tighnari later also points out that Sachin choosing Kaveh wasn't accidental.
Small Role, Big Impact: Due to Sachin's influence, Kaveh's father went into the desert and eventually died there, the consequences of which destroyed Kaveh’s family and shaped the kind of person he is today.
Straw Nihilist: After years of research and observing human behavior, he concluded that everything is meaningless and that the world is only inevitably going to become worse and worse. Although he may not have been completely steadfast in his belief, as his choice of Kaveh as his successor, despite seemingly knowing that Kaveh would reject him and his worldview to uphold his idealism, is implied to have been his last effort to prove to himself that there is good in the world and hope for the future.
Teen Genius: His files reveal that he was exceptionally brilliant as a child, having enrolled in the Vahumana Darshan at the age of nine and graduated first of his class at age fifteen after finishing all of his classes. During the following years, he would travel around Sumeru for research.
Walking Spoiler: The mystery behind Sachin's reclusiveness and his reasons for sponsoring the Interdarshan Championship is a sub-plot of the 3.6 "A Parade in Providence" event that the Traveler uncovers over the course of the story, and Alhaitham and the Wanderer investigate off-screen. Sachin is also directly responsible for Kaveh's father venturing out into the desert and indirectly responsible for his eventual death, the consequences of which tore Kaveh's once happy family apart and shaped his personality into what it is today.

Shatir

One of the researchers in Vahumana Darshan.

Enraged by Idiocy: Shatir points out how the Akademiya has spent more money on classified research over the past few years for maintaining undesirable activities instead of archaeology. Given the fact that the Akademiya's Grand Sage is prejudiced against and lacks self-reflection in culture & history, he seems to have a point.

Siraj

A former peer of Alhaitham and scholar of the Vahumana Darshan, widely tipped to be the next Sage candidate despite some reservations over an ambitious project involving the creation of a "collective consciousness."

Animal Motifs: Bees, which he frequently makes allusions to in regards to his "Collective Consciousness", such as referring to his hideout where all of his gather as a "hive" and making comparisons to worker bees.
Arc Villain: Of Alhaitham's Story Quest.
Assassination Attempt: Tried to kill Alhaitham while he was Acting Grand Sage out of a personal grudge.
Assimilation Plot: His Evil Plan was to recruit socially isolated scholars in the Akademiya into his Hive Mind, then install himself as Sage and "lead the Akademiya towards a new future".
Awesome, but Impractical: Alhaitham ultimately defeats him by proving his Hive Mind to be this. While the idea of multiple individuals serving the purpose of one individual seems powerful and like it could cause a lot of trouble, it's only effective so long as Siraj's consciousness is dominant. Alhaitham takes advantage of this by showing his kinder side to Ilyas, in addition to encouraging his individuality and appealing to his pride by questioning his lowly place in Siraj's project, so once he tried to reintegrate into the Hive Mind, his altered opinions began spreading to the other members of the collective, affecting the hatred for the Acting Grand Sage that Siraj was using to motivate them and boosting their own egos enough for them to question Siraj's credentials as "Overmind". As the hive mind shares and amplifies emotions, once the disorder begins is becomes an unstoppable feedback loop that inevitably makes everything come crashing down - Alhaitham points out that this is such a blatant oversight that it would certainly have happened anyway even if he hadn't intentionally messed with the system.
Break the Haughty: In the short time he was onscreen, he went from being Overmind of a Hive Mind with many members that he spent a year building, to experiencing it fall apart in a few minutes due to Alhaitham, the person he started his project to prove a point for. Right after, he sighs in submission, willingly admits his loss and turns himself in to the Matra.
Can't Take Criticism: Siraj tried to kill Alhaitham simply because he took the latter vetoing his "collective consciousness" project on ethical and practical grounds personally.
Even Evil Has Standards: For all that he is a vindictive megalomaniac, Alhaitham observes that his project didn't go as far as it could have: the Hive Mind makes its members subservient to his will, but doesn't remove their individual capacity for thought or decision making - preferring More than Mind Control to literal control. Ironically, Alhaitham points out that if he had completely enslaved the minds of the hive, the project probably would have actually worked.
Evil Gloating: Spends much of his screen time lording his Evil Plan and supposed superiority in perspective over Alhaitham.
Evil Is Petty: Siraj bore a year-long grudge against Alhaitham after the Scribe recommended Azar to veto his collective consciousness thesis on ethical and practical grounds.
Evilutionary Biologist: Attempted to experiment on human evolution by proposing the creation of his Hive Mind, which was why Alhaitham voiced his disapproval and his application was rejected by the Sages in the first place.
Fatal Flaw: Pride. Siraj refused to broach the possibility that his project ran the risk of endangering lives—a violation of the Akademiya's ethical code—and instead interpreted Alhaitham shooting down the thesis as a personal slight. Worse still, when he went through his project anyways, not only did Siraj implant suggestions in his fellow scholars to kill Alhaitham, but he also had the audacity to appoint himself the "Overmind" of his Hive Mind and name everybody else after him with a number denoting their importance in decreasing order. Unfortunately for him, the Scribe easily saw through the plan, and by the end of his Story Quest, all Siraj got for his trouble is his project going up in smoke, Alhaitham raking verbal coals all over him, and being arrested by the Matra.
Flashback-Montage Realization: The climax of Alhaitham's story quest has Alhaitham prompting Siraj to think back to the former's previous encounter with Ilyas to figure out why his Hive Mind is going haywire. Siraj realises it's because Alhaitham had said a few words to Ilyas to turn him into Alhaitham's own Trojan Horse and influence the other members of the Hive to turn against Siraj.
Hive Queen: Positioned himself as "Overmind" of his Hive Mind.
Hive Mind: A year ago, he put forward a thesis for a "Collective Consciousness" that would unite multiple bodies under one mind. At Alhaitham's advice, Azar vetoed the paper on ethical and practical grounds.
Hoist by Their Own Petard: Siraj gave Ilyas amnesia and sent him out to report him in hopes to drawing out Alhaitham so he can kill him in revenge. Alhaitham, who saw through it almost instantly, ended turning Ilyas into his own Trojan Horse to cause the Hive Mind to collapse.
Hypocrite: His go-to insult for Alhaitham is constantly referring to him as "too arrogant." However, he's plenty arrogant himself, being motivated by Alhaitham damaging his pride a year ago by convincing Azar to veto his Collective Consciousness thesis, has everyone in his Hive Mind use his name with a number tacked onto the end, and is using said Hive Mind to position himself as a strong candidate to be the next Sage of the Vahumana Darshan. Alhaitham outright calls him out on this after destroying his Hive Mind.
Inferiority Superiority Complex: Spent a year recruiting members for his Hive Mind and building a secret base in Apam Woods, then used one of his members to target Alhaitham and lure him in where he could kill him just because the Scribe vetoed his proposal for it, and then metaphorically and literally fell off his high ground when he was defeated. The ensuing conversation between him and Alhaitham reveals that he was resentful of Alhaitham being distant and seemingly looking down on him because he is cleverer than himself.
Insufferable Genius: Was a renowned researcher from Vahumana who could convince many other scholars to join his morally questionable project and support him as the next candidate for Sage, with his intelligence even acknowledged by Alhaitham, although he is not Alhaitham’s or Kaveh’s equal, with the latter having no idea who he is.
Laser-Guided Karma: He painfully experiences the shut down of his Hive Mind first hand, becomes thoroughly humbled by Alhaitham’s "The Reason You Suck" Speech, then finally taken in by the Matra for his trial.
Manipulative Bastard: Convinced Ilyas to join his collective consciousness right at a time of emotional nadir (having lost his friend to suicide due to academic fraud, then shunned by his peers for reporting it and receiving no support from his professors to overcome the ostracism) by framing his Hive Mind as a way to conform and lead an easy life. Alhaitham notes that Siraj likely fooled the other members of the collective to form his Hive Mind as well.
More than Mind Control: His Hive Mind instills its members with his emotions and feelings, changing the way they perceive the world, ostensibly so that everyone maintains focus on the same needs but actually to make sure they wall want the same things as Siraj himself. The members still technically have their free will to make choices of their own, but what they want becomes colored by Siraj's own inclinations - such as his hatred for Alhaitham - and it is only once they are separated from the hive entirely that they realize how much they have been manipulated.
One-Way Visor: He and some members of his Hive Mind are seen wearing this, likely to coordinate their collective thoughts and feelings. Ilyas also puts one on when Siraj orders him to return as "Siraj No. 36".
The Power of Hate: His Hive Mind is partially empowered by his sheer resentment of Alhaitham for having Azar veto his thesis. Alhaitham takes advantage of this by showing kindness to Ilyas and encouraging him not to give up despite ostracism from his peers, causing his imposed hatred of him to backfire and start causing a malfunction in the Hive Mind once he returned and was reintegrated.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Receives one from Alhaitham after he is defeated that breaks down just how self-absorbed his perspective was.
Siraj: "I know very well that you've never viewed me as an equal. When you were with us, you always had a distant look in your eyes. You don't need to hide it. I know it better than anyone else — the arrogance that comes with being a genius. Nobody likes being treated like that!"
Alhaitham: "Your perspective is entirely born from your habitual way of looking at things. From your perspective, you probably think I'm like you: Someone who doesn't "fit in." However, I've never placed myself on a pedestal. I just want to distance myself from meaningless noise and look at everything objectively. On the other hand, you have failed to come to terms with who you truly are. You care too much about winning and how others perceive you."
Siraj: "You mean to say that... I'm the arrogant one here?"
Alhaitham: "Is that not so? Arrogant, and emotionally fragile."
Small Name, Big Ego: For someone who thought he was capable enough to be a Sage, Alhaitham, who was appointed Acting Grand Sage, considers him inconsequential, and Kaveh, who is a renowned architect with a reputation in the Akademiya, has never heard of him.
Kaveh: "The name Siraj doesn't ring a bell. Was he in your class?"
Alhaitham: "He isn't someone who would leave an impression, so it's expected that you don't remember him."
Smug Snake: He was arrogant in his belief of the superiority of his perspective and the infallibility of his Assimilation Plot and looked down on the Traveler, Paimon and Alhaitham for their attempts to destabilise his Hive Mind, but showed some alarm the first time the Hive displayed abnormal activity, and has a full Villainous Breakdown when he is properly defeated later.
Straight for the Commander: The Hive shuts down once Siraj is defeated.
Too Clever by Half: He was too confident in his capability to control and coordinate all of his Hive members to execute his will, as well as the infallibility of the Hive from external influences, which spectacularly backfired on him when Alhaitham used Ilyas to spread doubt among the other Hive members in his leadership.
Villainous Breakdown: Once he realises that Alhaitham has successfully sabotaged the Hive, Siraj holds his head and screeches in pain as he struggles in vain to reclaim control, causing him to step over the edge of his platform and loose his footing. As he falls, he is assaulted by the negative emotions of other members of the Hive and can only scream in response.
Underestimating Badassery: Due to his mistaken interpretations of Alhaitham's actions, he believed that the Acting Grand Sage looked down on everyone, and hence took particular glee in “proving” the validity and effectiveness of the Hive Mind, which the latter had vetoed, in trapping and attempting to kill him, only to be unpleasantly surprised when Alhaitham defeated him via simply planting suggestions into Ilyas’ mind, then allowing him to return to the Hive to propagate his thoughts with the other members.

Tirzad

Tirzad Hindi

A researcher who embarked on an expedition into the Great Red Sand in the hopes of finding something he can write a paper about to present to his peers.

Break the Haughty: His primary character arc involves him learning not to look down upon laypersons not from the Akademiya and, in Jebrael's case, even trust them.
Can't Hold His Liquor: He is introduced to the player drunk, while Jeht has to chide him for drinking so much despite knowing he can't handle alcohol.
Character Development: While he is consistently a self-centered Jerkass throughout the Golden Slumber World Quest, by the end of his journey he is a changed man, having learned to be more open-minded and appreciative of those who have helped him, namely Jebrael, Jeht, the Traveler and Paimon. He also finds himself sympathizing with Jeht and wishing there was something he could do for her following Jebrael's death. Furthermore, a sequel questline, Old Notes and New Friends, shows that he made good on his promise to give his traveling companions their due praise in his report, to the point where another researcher who was inspired by his report is awe-struck upon meeting the Traveler and Paimon himself.
Dirty Coward: Admits that he's useless in a fight, constantly demands that the Traveler, Jebrael, and Jeht protect him from dangers, and is extremely reluctant to explore paths that may be dangerous.
Jerkass Realization: While he initially treated Jebrael with disdain, he felt an immense guilt after seeing Jebrael sacrifice himself to protect his daughter, Traveler, and Tirzad.
Know-Nothing Know-It-All: He is quite certain that of everyone in the party he alone is the most knowledgeable about King Deshret, but everything he says makes it pretty obvious he is just repeating stuff he read in books and heavily biased ones at that, everything he says runs counter to what The Traveler has already learned first hand in the Archon Quest. Worst off is any attempt to correct him just causes him to indignantly ask where is the research to back the counter claims.
Insufferable Genius: Of the "looks down on everyone he considers his intellectual inferior (that is to say, everyone)" variety.
The Load: Between his insufferable arrogance, his Dirty Coward tendencies, his constant whining and demanding that the party stops to take breaks to rest, he's easily the one that contributes the least to the ruin exploration.
Manchild: He's an adult, and not a particularly young one at that, yet he acts very immature and closed-minded.
Quit Your Whining: Tirzad is notoriously whiny and has to take tons of breaks during the world quest. He also complains about absolutely everything regarding his future and lack of accomplishments in the Akademiya while refusing to take in any of Jeht's advice because he looks down on non-Akademiya people. Naturally, he is constantly told to stop whining.
Unknown Relative: During the Golden Slumber World Quest, Tirzad offhandedly mentions that the Scarlet Sand Slate is something left behind by one of his relatives before she eloped with her lover to the desert - a description that curiously matches up with Jeht's mother Ufairah, who explored King Deshret's ruins together with Jebrael. Jebrael himself also drops a few hints at the connection, such as his obvious familiarity with the Slate itself and a direct reference to Tirzad being a member of Sumeru's Hindi clan. During The Dirge of Bilqus, it's eventually confirmed that Ufairah was indeed that relative, which makes Tirzad and Jeht cousins to some degree.

Kshahrewar

The Technology faculty of the Akademiya, founded to study and manufacture propulsion mechanisms. Because of its expansive scope of study due to the knowledge required in making mechanisms, it has since come to encompass other disciplines such as architecture and puzzle-solving. Easily one of the more down-to-earth Darshans, it is a major influence in Sumeru's architectural standards and textiles industry. However, it also has the least academic breakthroughs—and consequently the most underfunded—among the Darshans due to restrictions on distribution of machines after an accident on Devantaka Mountain decades ago that killed Pir Kavikaus, one of its greatest alumni, and destroyed much of his work. Its sigil is the white lion.

Kaveh

Star alumnus and graduate of the Kshahrewar Darshan, a renowned architect that's famed for such works as the Palace of Alcazarzaray.

See his page here.

Alkami

A Kshahrewar senior from Kaveh's student days who struck gold without taking any personal commissions. He is a quest-exclusive NPC introduced in Kaveh's Hangout Event, Act I: "The Pendulum of Weals and Woe."

Arc Villain: Of the "Treasure and True Interest" route of Kaveh's Hangout Event.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He presents himself as a friendly, compassionate and worldly man that is eager to help his comparatively more naive junior learn his worth as an architect by hiring him as an instructor in his training center. In reality, he is a ruthless conman who only hired Kaveh to use his celebrity to attract more people to his training center, where he would charge similarly gullible people exorbitant tuition fees to attend his unproductive lectures, while directing those who couldn't afford it to a loanshark who would lock them into a debt they'd never be able to fully repay due to the absurdly high interest rates.
Con Man: Contrary to the beliefs of the people in Sumeru, he made his fortune by exploiting the fact that very few people are able to study architecture at the Akademiya and established a training center where he would charge high tuition fees to teach his gullible students the rote memorization of buildings rather than anything that could be useful to them in the field, all while falsely selling the dream of striking it rich as architects despite how difficult it is to make Mora from the profession.
Jerkass Has a Point: While his methods of earning mora are unethical, he makes several valid points about how being an architect requires a high effort despite the low benefits, on which Kaveh agrees. He is also correct about Kaveh undervaluing himself, despite his celebrity status. This ends up being Played With, however, as while Kaveh acknowledges that he’s correct in all of this, he points out that his correctness does not entitle him to defraud others in order to alleviate his own suffering.
Shadow Archetype: Of Kaveh; Unlike Kaveh, who is widely regarded as a genius, Alkami lacked talent as an architect and could only make a living by duping others, earning his fortune less nobly, and believing that it was the only way to live because he was already "stuck." While Kaveh is also in a bad situation and understands the pain that being an architect brings, he possesses the talent to overcome his difficulties and live comfortably without harming others or compromising his pride in the process. He also has more empathy than Alkami and does not believe in using his celebrity to better his situation.
Would Hurt a Child: He was willing to ruin the lives and futures of several impoverished child students in his training center just to make his own life easier.

Faranak

Voiced By: Kendell Byrd (English)

Kaveh's mother. A famous architect and an alumnus of the Kshahrewar Darshan. Originally from Sumeru, she is currently situated in Fontaine.

Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Gender-inverted, as she was the quiet, brooding perfectionist that kept to herself while her former husband was an outgoing man with many friends and was described as being too kind for his own good. His willingness to stand by her despite his inability to understand her artistic vision is implied to be the reason she fell in love with him and chose him over all other potential suitors.
Can't Take Criticism: Implied. Zaha Hadi explains that after graduating from the Akademiya she spent a lot of time arguing with her clients over designs due to her own stubbornness, although she calmed down some after meeting Kaveh's father.
Dub Personality Change: In the English, Japanese, and Korean dubs of her narrated diary entries, young Faranak appears far more confident and extroverted than the reserved and single-minded individual she is described as by Kaveh and Zaha Hadi. In the Chinese dub, she is more soft-spoken, befitting her description far more.
Famed In-Story: She's a famous architect like her son, Kaveh. He also keeps one of her published books, "Architectural Drawing Basics," as memorabilia in his sketchbook.
First Love: This was Kaveh's father to her. She couldn't imagine forming an emotional bond with anyone before meeting him because of her single-minded focus on pursuing her dreams, but she began to change after spending some time with him, becoming happiest when in his presence.
The Ghost: Mentioned several times throughout Kaveh-related content but has yet to appear on screen.
Happily Married: She was happily married to Kaveh's unnamed father until his death. Kaveh's backstory suggests that she's happy in her second marriage and has started a new family in Fontaine.
Head-Turning Beauty: Her former mentor described her as beautiful and radiant as a young woman, so much so that she drew a lot of potential suitors, although she ultimately chose to be with Kaveh's father.
Informed Attractiveness: While she has yet to be seen by the players, her former professor, Zaha Hadi, describes her as radiant and so beautiful that when she was a student, men would congregate at the front of the classroom to be near her, refusing to sit in the front if she wasn't there. Her beauty also caused her problems because people would often approach her, only to be turned off by her sensitive and vulnerable nature hidden beneath it.
Like Parent, Like Child: Kaveh is said to greatly resemble her, and she passed on a number of her personality traits to him, including her passionate love of the arts, her awkwardness, and her stubbornness, as well as her perfectionism, albeit only superficially for the latter three things.
The Lost Lenore: Kaveh's father was this to her, so much so that she was borderline catatonic after his death, leaving Kaveh to tend to her. She was able to move on and remarry after moving to Fontaine, eventually starting a new family there.
Meaningful Name: Like her son, her name derives from a character in the Shahnameh; Faranak was the mother of Fereydun and the wife of Abtin.
Parental Abandonment: While Kaveh was still a student at the Akademiya, she moved to Fontaine for work, eventually remarrying and settling there permanently. While Kaveh attended her wedding, he admits in his Hangout Event that he hasn't had much contact with her since.
Parents as People: While she wasn't the ideal parent for Kaveh, mainly due to her neglect being one of the primary causes of his self-destructive personality issues, his Hangout Event paints her in a more sympathetic light by emphasizing how difficult it was for her to raise him alone after her spouse died. As well, while she seemed to be in the dark about how much his father's death and his broken home life affected him, she still thought long and hard about his future after he started school, and left him a note in her diary to read one day so he could learn from her experiences and cope with the difficult road of pursuing the arts in her absence.
Parental Neglect: Following the death of her spouse, she became emotionally neglectful of Kaveh, leaving him to care for her during her grief. His Hangout Event later addresses this by saying she tried to push through her grief to raise him alone, even changing her lifestyle to support him, though Kaveh's character stories suggest that her efforts were as futile as his efforts to make her happy were, as he still grew up plagued with loneliness, making him desperate to fit in with others.
Parental Obliviousness: The framing of Kaveh's Character Story suggests that she was completely unaware of her son's developing personality disorders as a result of his feeling responsible for the death of his father as well as her resulting grief. His Hangout Event doesn't address this either, as she focuses on preparing Kaveh for the difficult road ahead of pursuing the arts rather than addressing his grief.
The Perfectionist: She would spend a lot of time as a student stressing over and perfecting her blueprints, insisting on making changes even if Zaha Hadi approved of them. This is a trait she passed on to her son, who is also said to make changes to blueprints even if his clients do not request them.
Poor Communication Kills: According to Zaha Hadi, she was socially awkward and struggled to communicate her feelings to others, including her own son, despite her care for him. The lack of communication between her and Kaveh caused an array of problems, as her neglect caused him to develop a number of personality disorders that would follow him into adulthood.
Shrinking Violet: Her former mentor, Zaha Hadi, describes her as socially awkward and single-minded, preferring to spend her time in class perfecting her blueprints rather than acknowledging the numerous admirers she had attracted. This behavior continued into adulthood, as she would frequently doodle off to the side at social gatherings while her husband mingled with their acquaintances. As a result, she has few friends that remember her in the Akademiya.
Small Role, Big Impact: Kaveh's character was influenced by her presence in his past in a variety of ways, including her being the source of his inspiration to become an architect and his Guilt Complex developing in part as a result of his observing her grief. Her moving to Fontaine while he was still a student is also why he was able to meet Alhaitham; he was lonely in her absence and decided to approach him in the House of Daena after seeing him sitting away from other Haravatat students.
Strong Family Resemblance: When discussing her with Kaveh, her former mentor mentions that she had golden blonde hair and that Kaveh bears a resemblance to her.
Struggling Single Mother: While it's unknown if they struggled financially, Kaveh reveals in his Hangout Event that she had difficulty raising him alone after his father's death, likely due in part to the grief she felt over it.
Unnamed Parent: Averted. Unlike Kaveh's father, whose identity is unknown despite his importance to the "Pride of Providence" event, her name is revealed through one of Kaveh's sketchbook postscripts to be "Faranak."
The Voice: Her voice is used to narrate her diary entries as Kaveh reads through them.

Jazari

A Kshahrewar researcher who follows the footsteps of Pir Kavikavus.

Named After Somebody Famous: Jazari likely takes his name after Badi az-Zaman Abu al-Izz ibn Ismail ibn ar-Razaz al-Jazari, a twelfth-century Arab polymath and artisan, best known for writing The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, where he described fifty mechanical devices, as well as how to construct them. This association with robotics is alluded to with the game's Jazari prominently featuring in a World Quest where the Traveler helps him investigate the Ruin Golem of Devantaka Mountain.
Mirror Character: To Pir Kavikavus, his late-predecessor. Like Kavikavus, Jazari also befriends an Aranara named Ararycan who accompanies him in the research of the Ruin Golem.

Moseis

Moseis/Beynuni

Voiced by: Talon Warburton (English)

A scholar of the Kshahrewar Darshan who specialized in creating dreamscapes.

Alas, Poor Villain: In the end the Traveller admits they feel sorry for him even if he's getting what he deserves.
Arc Villain: Of Nahida's Story Quest.
Brain Uploading: Uploaded his consciousness into the Akasha so he can recreate Emira. When the Akasha gets turned off, he has no way to return to his body, prompting him to manipulate others' dreams to feed him with Jnana Energy.
Cruel Mercy: At the hands of Nahida. The Dendro Archon convinces him to not let his consciousness be erased, albeit not so much because he deserves another chance as much as to force him to face punishment for his actions, as otherwise allowing him to fade away might as well be allowing him to get away with his actions. Nahida then transfers his consciousness into a Knowledge Capsule, then contacts Cyno and the Matra to arbitrate on his punishment once he wakes up.
Death Seeker: After his defeat with Emira gone, Moises just wants to fade away with his dream.
Didn't Think This Through: Nahida points out that Moseis' test subjects were implanted with devices that allow them to see the dreamscape he created, but failed to take into account that they might try to bring people without implants, such as Haydar, daughter of one of the test subjects, Ilman, who he tried to bring to meet her late mother Maynar. This caused Ilman to realize that the "Haydar" with him was an illusion, and that the real Haydar might be at the mercy of monsters at the hill northeast of Vimara Village from which he entered the dreamscape, causing him and the other test subjects to change their minds about staying in the dreamscape. Predictably, Moseis' control over the dreamscape breaks down, and the illusions of the subjects' deceased loved ones immediately transform into monsters, with Nahida noting that Moseis is not really that proficient in using the Akasha's technology, having spent much of the early phase of his work replicating less complex organisms such as slimes, fungi, and hilichurls.
Domain Holder: As the host of the dreamscape, he can create endless waves of monsters with a snap of his finger. When he loses control of the Akasha though, his dream constructs turn into monsters that are hostile to even him.
The Lost Lenore: His wife Emira, who died of Eleazar.
Manipulative Bastard: Attempts to stop Nahida from interfering with his plans by pressuring her with the threat of rebellion from other residents of the dreamscape.
Tragic Villain: After losing his beloved Emira to Eleazar, he tried to recreate her within a dream using the Akasha and resorted to taking people's Jnana energy, manipulating people by recreating their deceased loved ones within dreams.

Zaha

Zaha Hadi

Voiced by: Gina Scarpa (English)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/7daac581_8992_48e8_b198_5b3ccf90f0d1.jpeg

A renowned architect, former lecturer, and Kshahrewar household name. She is an expert in formal garden design who was once the teacher of Faranak, Kaveh's mother, and is now a retiree that spends her time around the Bimarstan area. She is a quest-exclusive NPC introduced in Kaveh's Hangout Event, Act I: "The Pendulum of Weals and Woe."

Cool Old Lady: She is first seen arguing with Cyrus about sabotaging her garden, after which Cyrus reveals that she sabotaged another retiree's garden, which she does not deny. She is friendly and accommodating to Kaveh, however, and at the end of their discussion offers to discuss architectural topics with him despite her retirement.
Don't Call Me "Sir": Downplayed Trope; She gently discourages Kaveh from using formalities with her after he addresses her as "Professor" due to their familiarity.
Famed In-Story: A renowned architect and Kshahrewar household name.
Hypocritical Humor: The players first encounter her accusing Cyrus of sabotaging her garden in order to give him a better chance of winning the vegetable growing competition, only for him to reveal that he caught her sneaking into Jannat's garden the previous night, implying that she sabotaged theirs. Her hasty attempt to change the subject suggests that she's guilty. As well, scanning her with Nahida's All Schemes to Know reveals that she intends to "pay a visit" to Cyrus' garden.
I Got Bigger: Discussed; She implies that she has known Kaveh since he was a child when she remarks on him growing taller again after greeting him.
Intergenerational Friendship: She became Faranak's confidante and friend after becoming her professor while she was a student at the Akademiya. Near the end of the "Past Memories" route of Kaveh's Hangout, she also implies that she wants to develop a friendship with him by asking him to drop the professional address and offers to discuss architectural topics with him.
The Mentor: She's a former Akademiya professor who mentored Kaveh's mother when she was a student.
Ms. Exposition: Kaveh and the Traveler seek her out to learn more things about his mother, and also to get a hint for the password to his mother's diary.
Named After Somebody Famous: Her name comes from the late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, who was recognized as a major figure in architecture of the late-20th and early-21st centuries.
Rambling Old Man Monologue: She rambles on with stories about Faranak before she's even informed that Kaveh sought her out in order to learn more about her.
Vitriolic Best Buds: With Cyrus, whom she is introduced arguing with about him sabotaging her garden. If the player interacts with her again after obtaining the information they need from her, it is revealed that she and Cyrus are arguing now not because they're still angry, but rather to pass the time.

Alkami's training center students

Children Are Innocent: Alkami took advantage of his students' ignorance to sell them the dream of becoming a wealthy architect while profiting from them by coercing their family into paying his exorbitant tuition fees by taking out a massive loan that they will never be able to fully repay due to the absurdly and illegally high interest rates. Kaveh uses this information to expose Alkami's schemes to the matra and have his training center closed down.
Greed: They have a common motivation for wanting to become an architect to become as wealthy as Alkami.
Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Due to Alkami's extravagant spending, the matra can only return a portion of the tuition he collected from the families of Uzayr and other students. Kaveh believes that this loss will teach them a valuable lesson and prevent them from falling for the same tricks in the future.

Historical

Pir Kavikavus

A researcher from Kshahrewar. Hailed as a true genius and the pride of the Kshahrewar, he fell into an accident during his research into a Ruin Golem prior to the events of the game and has been presumed dead ever since. With his death, his research and the prestige of Kshahrewar were lost.

His namesake and accomplishments are also the basis of the "Pir Kavikavus Prize," which is awarded by the Akademiya to a scholar under 30 that has made outstanding research in a particular field.

Accidental Suicide: He is likely killed by the faulty mechanisms of the Ruin Golem.
The Ace: He was hailed as a true genius by the Akademiya and earned the title of Herbad before age 30, which was a monumental accomplishment.
Always Someone Better: Implied to be the reason the Akademiya no longer looks favorably onto the Kshahrewar. Hailed as a true genius and one of the Kshahrewar's greatest scholars, Pir's death and the loss of his research led to the Kshahrewar falling into a state of decay. With no more major academic breakthroughs and due to a rule that called for the strict control of machines and technology after his death, the Akademiya has since underfunded and depreciated the Kshahrewar, which is only being kept afloat these days by Dori.
Interspecies Friendship: He befriended an Aranara named Aralohita, who is curious about the Ruin Golems. After his death, Aralohita saved his research and keep it a secret and is likely never seen again.
Posthumous Character: He was presumed dead some hundred years before the game's story began, but his death still looms over the Akademiya, being the reason why the Kshahrewar is underfunded and partially why there has been a restriction placed on machines and technology.
Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: "Kavikavus" may be derived from Kay Kavus, a historical Persian king written about in the Shahnameh. He is shown for a knack to getting himself a trouble.
Too Dumb to Live: He was the last person to ever find a way to climb inside of a Ruin Golem, which he had done for systematic research. While the exact circumstances of his death are unknown, it's speculated that doing so killed him.

Matra

The disciplinary body of the Akademiya, dedicated to the regulation and control of knowledge, specifically going after scholars who tread the fine line of forbidden research, academic dishonesty, and the misuse of the Akademiya's resources for malicious intent.

Cyno

The serious, no-nonsense General Mahamatra, leader of the Matra, who is also a Spantamad alumnus.

See his page here.

Taj (Unmarked spoilers for Cyno's Story Quest)

Taj Radkani

Cyno's former partner and a famed Matra, who has recently retired to a desk job after years on the field.

Achievements in Ignorance: Taj was unaware that it was the same smuggling ring he infiltrated that tempted his son Murtada into conducting forbidden research on the Court of Desolation by preying on his struggles with expectations, eventually leading to his downfall and suicide, which the ring then took advantage to tempt Taj into joining them by preying on his grief and regret over imprisoning his own son. By destroying the Court, he indirectly avenged his son, as well as punished the ring for leading him astray.
Broken Ace: Taj is famed among the Matra (and the Akademiya at large) for his steadfast devotion to the rule of law. However, in his later years he has been haunted by his decision to imprison his only son Murtada for dabbling in forbidden research of the Court of Desolation, who later committed suicide in despair.
Broken Pedestal: Subverted. His fellow Matra are shocked when evidence suggested that Taj may have leaked the existence of the Court of Desolation, a temple said in legend to contain the power over life and death, to a massive smuggling ring, believing he may have been driven by guilt over his son Murtada committing suicide after he had him imprisoned for illegal research. However, Cyno eventually discovers that he faked joining the ring in order to sabotage it from within.
Buried Alive: His final fate is to be buried in the sands as the Court of Desolation collapsed around him.
Death Seeker: His choice to be buried alive in the Court of Desolation is just as much a matter of him wanting to be together with his son in the afterlife as much as a self-imposed punishment for violating his vows as well as an act of sabotage against a massive smuggling ring.
Face Death with Dignity: After he forces Cyno, the Traveler, and Paimon to leave him be as the Court of Desolation collapses around him, Taj calmly sits down and reminisces about his son.
Fake Defector: He feigned joining the Canned Knowledge smuggling ring in order to slowly destroy it from within.
Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of Cyno's first Story Quest, he stays behind to be buried alive in the collapse of the Court of Desolation to destroy a major supply route of a massive smuggling ring he infiltrated.
Outliving One's Offspring: His only son, Murtada, committed suicide in prison.
Secret Test of Character: Towards the end of Cyno's first Story Quest, he challenges the latter to a duel to test the strength of his convictions, as well as to gauge whether the latter was smart enough to realize that Taj faked his defection to the smuggling ring.
Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about Taj without discussing his complicated relationship with his late son Murtada, or that he sacrificed his reputation and his life to take down a massive smuggling ring.
What You Are in the Dark: After Cyno defeats him in a duel, Taj confesses that the smuggling ring approached him at a time when he was mourning for Murtada. And while he briefly considered genuinely joining the ring, he ultimately chose to stay true to his vows and instead joined the ring to sabotage it.

Akademiya Robots

In General

Absurdly Dedicated Worker: Both Tamimi and Karkata carried out their programming at the expense of their own bodies.
Artificial Intelligence: Both are Type 2. Though they do not have human-like sentience like the Wanderer, they still have the capacity to make their own decisions and learn.
Benevolent A.I.: Both robots only inadvertently caused trouble due to following their directions for a good cause.
Robot Buddy: Tamimi was Faruzan's, while Karkata's was Abattouy's until Tighnari took it in.
Tragic Robot: Both their backstories involve dead people.
The Unintelligible: Both are unable to speak in any human tongue, instead communicating through electronic noises.

Karkata

A mechanical robot with a crab-like mannerisms that the Traveler and Tighnari encounter in the Avidya Forest during the latter's story quest. It was created by Abattouy, a researcher from the Akademiya and Tighnari's junior.

Absurdly Dedicated Worker: Karkata had been stealing mechanical parts as it was attempting to repair Abattouy while neglecting its own draining energy and increasingly damaged parts.
Ambiguous Situation: Whether or not it's a "true" mechanical lifeform. Though Karkata certain acts as if it's alive sometimes, demonstrating emotions like happiness and sadness, the hallmark of a true artificial intelligence is the ability to make its own decisions, independent from any pre-programmed instructions. On the one hand, its desire to repair its owner, to the point of forgoing the self-maintenance protocols that Tighnari and the Traveler know are built into it, suggests that it created its own priorities. On the other hand, Tighnari points out that they have no idea how many commands Karkata has been programmed with, and for all they know this could just be due to conflicting program. It's also worth pointing out that this behavior is technically Three Laws-Compliant, as the first law regarding "preserving human life" supersedes the third law regarding "maintaining robot functionality". Ultimately, Tighnari decides to give it the benefit of the doubt, declaring it to be his duty to protect all lifeforms in the forest.
Benevolent A.I.: Though Karkata had been causing trouble by stealing mechanical parts from passing merchants when the Traveler and Tighnari catch him, he has never attacked anyone and even ends up performing some tasks that makes Tighnari's investigation into the source of the contamination of the forest easier. It is also eventually revealed that Karkata was stealing mechanical parts to try and repair Abattouy, who had passed on.
Cute Machines: Despite its large size, it is quite harmless, and Tighnari describes it as "a giant mechanical crab on the outside and a fluffy little hamster on the inside."
Flawed Prototype: Abattouy considered him one because he couldn't speak and show emotion. While it isn't 'perfect' like he wanted, Karkata is actually far more intelligent and rational than he believed and showed genuine love for his creator. The implication is that if he had noticed that despite not being able to speak, then everything would have been fine because it was pretty much exactly what he wanted.
Grew Beyond Their Programming: Played with, as it's ambiguous whether Kartata truly did so in its desire to "repair" Abattouy or the commands his creator programmed into him clashed and caused it to act the way it did.
Please Wake Up: Its theft of mechanical parts is based on its flawed desire to try and 'fix' its deceased creator. It's just heartbreaking to see it place its gathered parts on Abattouy's body, and poking him around to see any reaction. And it breaks down crying after seeing that it's all for naught.
Robot Buddy: Was first this to Abattouy and then to Tighnari after he decides to keep him in the Pardis Dhyai as his research assistant.
Token Good Teammate: Karkata looks like a Ruin Defender and fights like one on first encounter, but its behavior is completely different from the rest of the Ruin Machines and is open to co-operation with the Traveler and Tighnari. Even when it attacks the caravans for mechanical parts, it does so for pragmatic reasons rather than just for the sake of it. This is justified because it was created by Abattouy and is not a remnant of Khaenri'ah.
Tragic Robot: Abattouy created Karkata in an attempt to continue with his research on creating true mechanical lifeforms after the study was banned by the Akademiya, and as such, it formed a bond with its master. After Abattouy passed away as a result of his reckless tampering with the Ley Lines, Karkata tried in vain to "repair" its master by stealing mechanical parts, unaware of the concept of death, to the point that it ignored its own self-maintenance programming to ensure its survival for the sake of bringing Abattouy back.
The Unintelligible: Played for Drama since his inability to speak or understand the common tongue means that neither of them are unable to understand each other, especially after he asked Karkata to shut off the Ley Line Extractor.
Uniformity Exception: It has the model of a Ruin Defender, except with white plates and gilded edges instead of the usual brown plates and light brown edges.

Tamimi (Unmarked Spoilers for Faruzan's Hangout!)

Faruzan's mechanical lifeform that takes the model of a Ruin Cruiser.

Determinator: Spent nearly 100 years looking for Faruzan following her disappearance, continuing its search for her long after Faruzan was presumed dead and its creators had also passed on. After finally locating her and fulfilling its purpose, Faruzan gives it permission to rest and salvages its parts to fix Karkata, though she promises to repair it someday when she understands and is able to replicate machines used by ancient technology.
Robot Buddy: It was one to Faruzan, as it was designed by her colleagues to deliver letters and documents to her while she was out researching in ruins. Her colleagues later reprogrammed it to be able to self-learn and fix itself after she failed to respond to their letters and went missing so that it could locate Faruzan in whatever ruin she had found herself stuck in and bring her home.
Unintentional Final Message: Tamimi carried several letters from Faruzan's now long-deceased friends and teachers who were looking for her at the time of writing them, in addition to the one from Faruzan's mother, who knew she didn't have much time left when she wrote her letter.
Walking Spoiler: It's hard to discuss anything about it without mentioning how it controlled the giant "Ruin Wanderer" that Faruzan and the Traveler encounter in one route of her Hangout quest, or that it was modified by Faruzan's now-deceased teacher and associates from the Akademiya to search for her in the years she went missing, all to bring her their last letters.

Miscellaneous Personnel

Alrani

A rather unfortunate scholar from Sumeru Academia trying to write her term paper only for things to keep going wrong. She ends up crossing paths with the Traveler several times throughout their journey.

Butt-Monkey: All she wants is to write her term paper but every attempt is met with trouble. Write about life in Mondstadt? Dvalin is on his rampage. Write about life in Liyue? Sees the death of Morax and later gets captured by Treasure Hoarders. Rescued by the Traveler and writes about them (a Visionless element user) instead? Her paper gets harshly rejected. Take pictures of local Inazumans? Almost gets reported to the authorities. Goes to Watatsumi Island to gather research materials? Nearly gets arrested (again) and has to help make fertilizer as payment for causing trouble.
Cassandra Truth: Her academic paper on the Traveler is harshly rejected, despite the Traveler being a very real person who can control the elements without the need of a Vision.
Ms. Exposition: At the end of her second quest she fills the Traveler in on the Vision Hunt Decree ongoing in Inazuma.
Skewed Priorities: She claims that even when she was being held hostage by the Treasure Hoarders she was still less stressed than when writing her paper.
Smart People Wear Glasses: Wears black rectangular glasses as a sign of being a scholar.
Yank the Dog's Chain: After her misadventures at Watatsumi Island, Alrani finally puts together a well-written and polished paper and submits it to the Akademiya... only to learn that someone submitted a paper on the exact same topic before she did because she was trapped in Inazuma by the Sakoku Decree, causing her paper to be rejected. This on top of the deadline having passed crushes her utterly, and out of despair she begs a bunch of Treasure Hoarders to lock her in a cage just so she can get away from it all.

Ilyas

Ilyas / "Siraj No. 36"

Voiced by: Chris Niosi (English)

An amnesiac scholar who tries to report to the Matra about his senior Siraj attempting to experiment on him.

Assimilation Backfire: After bringing Alhaitham to the Hive, Ilyas reveals himself to be The Mole and willingly returns to Siraj's Hive Mind. However, his new experiences (Alhaitham showing him decency, and Ilyas questioning his assigned number) are subsequently uploaded to the Hive Mind, which causes it to break down, just as Alhaitham planned.
Cool Big Bro: Ilyas is a doting brother to his kid sister and are in good standing with one another regardless of his actions in the Akademiya. Using Nahida's skill on him to read his mind reveals that the first thing he wants to use his paycheck on is to buy his sister a new dress.
Hive Drone: He was tasked to lure Alhaitham to the Hive, and returns as "Siraj No. 36" after he manages to do so.
Memory Gambit: As part of his and Siraj's plot to lure Alhaitham to their base, Ilyas wiped his own memories to convincingly serve as The Mole, as he knew that Alhaitham was so perceptive he would be able to see through him otherwise. In the end, though, it was all for nothing, as Alhaitham figured out that Ilyas was The Mole from the moment he saw him.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Ilyas's friend Raju was being forced to have his work plagiarized by their instructor, Jani, doing most of the hard work and pulling numerous all-nighters for a measly 20,000 Mora and none of the credit. While Ilyas stayed quiet at his friend's request, Raju ultimately being Driven to Suicide was his last straw, forcing Ilyas to blow the whistle on the whole affair, resulting in Jani's arrest. While he did get some commendation from his professors for fighting academic fraud, all he got from his peers involved in Jani's project was ostracism, being more upset at the setback to their graduation than the fact that someone died, which they treat as a minor inconvenience (and having the gall to blame Raju for not having enough patience). This in turn reduced his own prospects of graduation for sheer dearth of peers willing to admit him into mandatory group projects, with his professors unwilling to pull any strings. This, combined with what's implied to be disapproval towards his actions from even his own parents, is what ultimately allowed Siraj to manipulate him into joining his Hive Mind as "Siraj Number 36."
One-Way Visor: Ilyas puts one on when Siraj orders him to return to the Hive Mind as "Siraj No. 36".
Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: The name "Ilyas" (إلياس) is the Arabic transliteration of Elijah, a 9th-century-BC prophet in both The Bible and The Qur'an. Just as Elijah/Ilyas defended the worship of the God of Abraham/Ibrahim and denounced social evils even at the cost of being hunted down by the authorities, this Ilyas defended the sanctity of academic integrity and decried Jani's plagiarism that led to the suicide of his friend Raju, even at the cost of being ostracized by his more compliant peers.
Repressed Memories: He could barely remember anything about himself at the start of Alhaitham's story quest, and as the story went on he starts to suffer severe headaches when events happen that trigger his memories, especially after Alhaitham tells him about his role in reporting academic fraud, as well as the fact that he had long acceptanced his role as "Siraj No. 36" and his responsibility in luring Alhaitham to Siraj's Hive to be assassinated.
Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: "Peer pressure," to be precise. Ilyas is a man of strong principles and would brook no corruption, even among his peers. This is the reason he blew the whistle on Jani's plagiarism that led to the suicide of his friend Raju, even if it meant being ostracized by his more compliant peers. While this brought him immense self-doubt, by the end of Alhaitham's Story Quest he felt vindicated in his choices and grew to admire the Scribe, even aspiring to be as unwavering as him.
Trojan Horse: Used as one by both Siraj and Alhaitham. Alhaitham was quick to realize that Siraj intentionally wiped Ilyas's memory and sent him out to report him to lure Alhaitham to the Hive to kill him. In response, Alhaitham went out of his way to help Ilyas and question Siraj's imposed pecking order by questioning the number he was given, both to override Siraj's hate that empowered the system and encourage the independent thinking of the other scholars in the project, causing Siraj's Hive Mind to malfunction, override, and shut down.
Walking Spoiler: Alhaitham's Story Quest introduces you to him while he's suffering from amnesia after being kidnapped. Naturally, there's quite a bit you learn about him as the Story Quest progresses.
You Are Number 6: He was "Siraj No. 36" in Siraj's Hive Mind.

Rifaet

A scholar seen by many as a candidate for the position of Grand Conservator, putting him into competition with Vikram.

The Ghost: Has yet to appear despite being mentioned by NPCs.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Just by reputation, he's seen as the blue to Vikram's red, with his projects consistently producing remarkable academic results.

Setaria

Voiced by: Cat Protano (English)

Azar's secretary and one of the few desert-dwellers accepted into the Akademiya for her genius.

The Cameo: She appears in the "Blueprint for the Future" ending of Kaveh's Hangout route to discuss and assist in planning out the construction of the Aaru Village library.
Gaslighting: After she lets slip that rumors about King Deshret's resurrection was a misinformation campaign orchestrated by the Sages to manipulate the radical Eremites, the Traveler and Nahida concoct a plan to force her to heed her conscience and turn on the Sages by manipulating her into believing that the rumors are real, through the Traveler, with Nahida's aid, possessing several of her acquaintances in Sumeru City.
Heel–Face Door-Slam: Just when she is about to turn on the Akademiya for their Lotus-Eater Machine experimentation, she gets put into confinement on orders from Dottore. Fortunately, she is set free at the end of the arc, and she chooses to leave the Akademiya and become a scholar in the desert.
Minion with an F in Evil: Despite serving directly under Azar and being involved with the mass dream harvesting project as one of its designers, it's clear that Setaria is guilt-ridden over her involvement and doesn't fully support his project, even being wary of Dottore's involvement. Combined with lingering feelings over leaving her homeland and potentially betraying her kindred for the Akademiya, this left her with uncertainty over which side she should choose, which the Traveler, Paimon, and Nahida take advantage of to turn her against the sages. At the end of the Archon Quest, she decides to leave the Akademiya and become a teacher to the desert people, and asks the Traveler to pass on her sincere apologies for what she said to Nilou.
One-Steve Limit: Averted in a strange way. She shares her name with a group of characters mentioned to be the "dancers of Setaria" in The Tale of Shiruyeh and Shirin I. It is unknown if she is named for this group or if having the same name is entirely coincidental.
Satellite Character: She (or at least a copy of her within the Sabzeuz Samsara) is often seen by Azar's side throughout the second Act of the Sumeru Archon Quest. It isn't until the first half of the third that she (that is, the actual Setaria) is seen on her own, conversing with some of her acquaintances.

Shalmar and Banu

A duo consisting of a Spantamad researcher, Shalmar, known as the writer of "Fifty Things Every Traveling Scholar Should Know", and his biological daughter, Banu.

Bumbling Dad: If Banu is anything to go by, Shalmar can be quite a clumsy airhead who can't even cook. He is however a skilled engineer which makes him closer to an Absent-Minded Professor.
Calling Parents by Their Name: Banu calls her father, Shalmar by name rather than "dad/pops/father" and talks with him casually. He's more akin to a friend than a parent.
Men Can't Keep House: According to Banu, Shalmar cannot sweep floors and refers to him as one of those terrible adults.
Panthera Awesome: Apple is a Rishboland Tiger who serves as a family pet to them, and is a strong fighter to boot. She seems to be more loyal to Banu though.
Parents as People: While Shalmar is Banu's biological father, the former views the latter as his co-worker rather than a daughter of his. Not that Banu minds though, and she even prefers it that way.
Strange-Syntax Speaker: When the Traveler and Paimon first speak to Banu, she has a habit of saying the word "bracket" at the start of every sentence. She later drops it after the duo accept her quest and stops reciting it from a book Salma wrote.
Wise Beyond Their Years: Banu is far mature compared to the other kids of her age.

Sharif

Voiced By: Kojima Hideki (Japanese)

A researcher of the Akademiya and father of Inayah.

Abusive Parents: He treated Inayah very badly. No matter how hard Inayah tried to please him, he would always berate her. It's even established that his attempt to shut down the theater is partly because she joined it. While they begin to reconcile at the end of Nilou's Story Quest, Nilou confides in Paimon and the Traveler that it's probably better for them to take it slow and stay apart for awhile, as too much has happened for them to just let bygones be bygones, though she hopes that they do make up for real one day.
Character Development: Being challenged to disown Inayah for good to prove he had no room for sentiment in his heart made him realize he couldn't do it, which finally broke through his stubbornness and caused him back down. Later, the Traveler finds him waiting to see one of Zubayr Theater's performances. Though he admits he still doesn't understand the arts, since he volunteered to be scapegoated for Akademiya's highly public loss of face, he's decided to use his new free time to better understand where Nilou and Inayah are coming from. He also offers a handmade gift to Inayah as a way of apology, which calls back to the time he dashed aside a handmade gift she made for him when he was at his worst.
Education Papa: He heavily pressured Inayah to become his academic successor, not accepting anything from her except the absolute best even when it was clear she was suffocating under his expectations. Once, in stereotypical Education Mama fashion, when Inayah told him she had the third-highest score on an exam in the hopes of getting even a tiny bit of approval from him just once, he instead berated her for not getting first, which caused her to cry for a long time.
Fun-Hating Villain: Much like the Grand Sage Azar, he views the theater as a waste of time and that people should exclusively focus on studying. He grows out of this after being defeated by Nilou and Inayah, impressed by their resolve to the point that he's now actually curious about the arts, or at least about the kind of environment that instilled such strength in the two.
Graceful Loser: When Nilou and Inayah challenge him to put his money where his mouth is, to disown Inayah for good and prove that there's no room in Sumeru for sentimentality, he finds he cannot and ultimately concedes the debate, which puts Zubayr Theater's defense officially on the record and prevents Akademiya from shutting it down for the moment. He later visits the Grand Bazaar to watch a performance, and when asked admits that while he still doesn't understand the arts, Nilou's passionate defense impressed him.
Jerkass: Demanded the theater to shut down all of a sudden with intent to punish those working there further, and is made clear to have been a terrible father to his own daughter to the point that she rebelled. He is willing to bend the rules to get what he wants as well even when boasting about following them, further showing his hypocrisy. He doesn't care about personal relationships at all, either, seeing them as transactional and transient.
Know When to Fold 'Em: When Inayah joins in on the debate, he is unable to argue when the rest of the audience sides with them, prompting him to walk away.
Pet the Dog: As awful as he was acting, believe it or not, he could have done way worse. During the debate, he reveals that Akademiya has the power to unilaterally revoke Zubayr Theater's performing license, and probably a number of other technically legal ways to do damage without them being able to contest. In hindsight, that he chose to debate the point at all is showing mercy, to say nothing of standing down once convinced that he's beaten, which protects Zubayr Theater from further reprisals and causes Akademiya a highly public loss of face.

Soraya

An Akademiyan Researcher who studies the history of Liyue and focusing on The Legacy of Guizhong in Guili Assembly.

Meaningful Name: Soraya (Persian: ثریا Sorayyâ) is a name of Persian origin, meaning "good queen" or "Pleiades." The name is derived from the Arabic name for the Pleiades star cluster, ثريّة Thurayya.

Ufairah

Ufairah Hindi

One of the researchers hired by the Eremite faction Thutmose to investigate the legends and the secrets of The Scarlet King. She was Jebrael's wife and Jeht's mother.

Posthumous Character: She was killed by Samail before the main events of the game.

Vikram

A charismatic and persuasive individual whose research focuses on King Deshret's Legacy, seen as a candidate for the title of the next Grand Conservator alongside Rifaet.

The Ghost: Hasn't appeared onscreen despite being mentioned.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: In terms of reputation, he's the red to his alleged rival Rifaet's blue, his exceptional charisma having secured funding from the notoriously stingy Akademiya higher-ups.

Zandik

A mysterious Akademiya researcher that vanished following an ill-fated research expedition. For his current identity, see Il Dottore.

Characters / Genshin Impact: Akademiya

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Akademiya

Azar (Rtawahist), Naphis (Amurta), Khajeh (Haravatat) and three others

Amurta

Tighnari

Kautilya

Lamiya

Historical

Shafaqat

Sohreh

Rtawahist

Layla

Introduced: November 18, 2022 (v3.2 "Akasha Pulses, the Kalpa Flame Rises" [second half])Voiced by: Hou Xiaofei (Chinese), Miyu Tomita (Japanese), Kang Sae-bom (Korean), Ashely Biski (English)

Azar

Garvipidam

Gulab

Haypasia

Kaveh's Father

Spantamad

Cyno

Lisa Minci

Cyrus

Abbatouy

Hosseini

Haravatat

Alhaitham

Faruzan

Introduced: December 7, 2022 (v3.3 "All Senses Clear, All Existence Void" [first half])Voiced by: Yan Mengmeng (Chinese), Yui Horie (Japanese), Kim You-rim (Korean), Chandni Parekh (English)

Vahumana

The Wanderer

Janaki

Sachin

Voiced by: Joseph Stillwagon (English)

Shatir

Siraj

Tirzad Hindi

Kshahrewar

Faranak

Jazari

Moseis/Beynuni

Zaha Hadi

Historical

Pir Kavikavus

Matra

Taj Radkani

Akademiya Robots

Miscellaneous Personnel

Alrani

Ilyas / "Siraj No. 36"

Voiced by: Chris Niosi (English)

Rifaet

Setaria

Shalmar and Banu

Sharif

Soraya

Ufairah Hindi

Vikram

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Introduced: November 18, 2022 (v3.2 "Akasha Pulses, the Kalpa Flame Rises" [second half])
Voiced by: Hou Xiaofei (Chinese), Miyu Tomita (Japanese), Kang Sae-bom (Korean), Ashely Biski (English)

Introduced: December 7, 2022 (v3.3 "All Senses Clear, All Existence Void" [first half])
Voiced by: Yan Mengmeng (Chinese), Yui Horie (Japanese), Kim You-rim (Korean), Chandni Parekh (English)