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Spoilers up to Sumeru Archon Quests will be unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

The Archons are the seven ruling gods of Teyvat, each controlling one of the world's seven elements and one of its seven nations. The people of Teyvat generally believe that they have the power to confer Visions onto selected people, which give them the ability to wield their respective deity's elements.

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    General Tropes 
  • Artifact Title: At the conclusion of Chapter IV, Act V, Focalors sacrifices herself and destroys the throne of the Hydro Archon, returning the stolen authority to the Hydro Sovereign. As such, the Seven have lost one of their number permanently and Celestia has lost control over one of the seven elemental authorities.
  • Being God Is Hard: Though revered as the almighty rulers of humankind by most, and in some circles resented and envied for it, actually being an Archon isn't exactly a walk in the park.
    • Teyvat is plagued by all manner of monsters and hostile forces, such as the intelligent Vishaps who resent being driven from the lands of humanity that they once occupied themselves before Celestia descended and the Abyss Order trying to overthrow Celestia for destroying Khaenri'ah.
    • Tending to the different needs and wants of people from all walks of life is already a chore in and of itself. On top of that however is the humans who make rule difficult. Mondstadt's nobility was overthrown for oppressing the rest of its populace and still dreams of reclaiming that status, and in Inazuma the civil war was aided partly by both the Kanjou and Tenryou Commissions willingly conspiring with the Fatui for their own purposes. Meanwhile in Sumeru the Akademiya is suppressing Kusanali's worship and making it impossible for her to rule whatsoever, and most recently went off the deep end and attempted to replace her with an artificial god. Whether by malice, foolishness, or sheer incompetence, each nation's problems are just as often started by their own people as they are by monsters.
    • Not helping matters is how no Archon seems able to count on another god for help. Most of Teyvat's friendliest gods are dead, either having been too soft to survive the Archon Wars alone or having given their lives later on to suppress the various crises that have sprung up since. Fallen gods defeated during the Archon Wars or other events are often dangerous to the Seven's people like Osial, who remained alive but sealed and attacked when released, and Orobaxi, who died but whose lingering energy creates the Tatarigami in Inazuma, the Seven are largely aloof of each other's affairs in the present, or, in the case of the Tsaritsa and her Fatui, stirring up trouble for the rest of the world, and Celestia itself doesn't seem particularly interested in helping them out either given how available evidence points to the Archons and their subjects largely being forced to fend for themselves during the Cataclysm. Indeed, as of 4.2 all of Celestia's known instances of intervention have involved wiping out anything that goes against its Heavenly Principles, and nothing has been heard from them since the Cataclysm 500 years ago.
  • Brought Down to Badass: This is what happens when they lose their Gnosis. They lose access to some of their divine powers (such as Morax no longer being able to create Mora), but they are still immensely powerful (Morax's Colony Drop Burst) and still can perform certain godly duties (Barbatos laying the soul of Stanley to rest). This implies that even without their Gnosis they're still gods, just taken down a peg. This is further solidified with the reveal that Beelzebul doesn't even use her Gnosis, yet she is never called anything less than a god, and Kusanali was merely using her gnosis as a battery for the Akasha.
  • Chess Motifs: Each of the Archons holds a Gnosis, a glowing chess piece item that allows them to channel their energy from the Celestia. The Anemo Gnosis is a Queen, the Geo Gnosis is a Rook, and the Electro Gnosis is a Bishop. The Dendro and Hydro Gnoses are currently unseen.
  • A Day in the Limelight: Each Archon's respective region explores their backstory (e.g., Barbatos in Mondstadt, Rex Lapis Morax in Liyue).
  • Divine Intervention: Because of their nature as Physical Gods, the Archons can intervene in the lives of their charges to a great degree, and to their preference. Rex Lapis appears once a year to the people of Liyue, for example, while Barbatos is notable for having seemed to take a "hands-off" approach and has not appeared in a long time, explaining that he feels the freedom he cherishes and espouses can't really exist if he's hanging directly above the people of Mondstadt and influencing them, willingly or no; after all, what is freedom, if "freedom" is mandated by a god? Meanwhile, the Tsaritsa has been intervening far more directly in the lives of her followers and the development of Teyvat, and for no good end; by the end of the Mondstadt chapter, the stage is set for a major confrontation with her over this.
  • Divine Conflict: All original Archons were the survivors of the Archon Wars, though Morax and the Raiden Shogun were involved in more bloodshed (Morax sealed away Osial and Chi while the Raiden Shogun slaughtered Orobashi) as compared to the more pacifist Barbatos (who fought alongside mortals in the rebellion against Decarabian then befriended Andrius, who ceded Archonship to him) and the first Dendro archon Greater Lord Rukkhadevata (who outlived her friends who destroyed themselves).
  • Duality Motif: The current Archons are heavily associated with doubles, copies, and twins. Barbatos for instance has taken the form of a long dead unnamed bard who was his friend during the rebellion against Decarbian millenia ago. Morax reveals he has two vessels, both the dragon like Exuvia and a more human form you encounter later. Raiden Shogun turns out to have been two twin gods playing the role of Archon, and in the present this practice now continues with Ei and her divine puppet. Nahida is essentially a clone of Rukkhadevata, born in the same manner from the world tree. Furina and Focalors meanwhile are an Archon that split herself into a human and a god to enact her plot to fool the Heavenly Principles.
  • Dub Name Change: Archons are "demon gods" in the original Chinese, relating to their names taken from demons of Ars Goetia.
  • Elemental Eye Colours: Each Archon has eyes that are the same colour as their respective element.
  • Elemental Hair Colours: The end of each Archon's hair is the same colour as their respective element.
  • Elemental Personalities: The ideals of the Archons tend to match their elements:
    • From the saying "free as the winds", the Anemo Archon's ideal is freedom.
    • From the saying "words set in stone", the Geo Archon's ideal is contracts (which includes laws and rules).
    • Inverted with the Electro Archon, whose ideal is eternity even though lightning is transient. Makoto, at least, is wise enough to understand Transience and reconcile its nature with Eternity.
    • In several mythologies, including Buddhism, there exist legends of trees of either knowledge or wisdom, such as the Bodhi tree or the Yggdrasil, from which Odin acquired vast knowledge after hanging himself under it for nine days. Genshin also makes it explicit in that Irminsul, which holds the knowledge of the world, is the source of Dendro power, and the Dendro Archon is supposed to be the tree's avatar.
    • Justice can be said to be "fair and balanced like still water", or like water inside a vessel with multiple parts such as a teapot, whose surface will always at the same height from each other. Also the "Final Feast" trailer has Egeria say "the original sin is the fairest: everyone sinks".
    • War, like fire, tends to be chaotic and destructive.
  • Elemental Powers: Each of them controls an element of magic, which are Anemo, Electro, Cryo, Hydro, Pyro, Geo and Dendro.
  • Ethnic God: Most of the people in the region that they reign in worship them, with the only exception being Dori who worshipped Morax prior to his death.
  • Fantasy Pantheon: In the universe of Genshin Impact and Teyvat, there exist multiple gods, and the Archons form a subset as those who each control an element of magic. The seven nations of Teyvat worship the Archons known as "The Seven".
  • Foreshadowing:
    • The various Gemstone character ascension materials have quotes (seen on their respective character sheets) from their respective elemental Archons - including ones that the game has not properly introduced - showing their personalities and ideals. This even includes one from the (probable) Big Bad, the Tsaritsa, which gives a big hint as to her own motivations.
    • The talent books for each region represents traits from their respective Archons, like Mondstadt's being Freedom, Resistance and Ballad (Barbatos is the God of Freedom, has incited at least two resistances, and is a bard). However, Inazuma's talent books (Transience, Elegance and Light) don't represent the Raiden Shogun at all (She is the God of Eternity, very warlike, and her real name means "shadow," befitting her role as a Kagemusha). This is because the talent books references her twin sister - the first Electro Archon - instead, who was the God of Transience, dabbling in fine arts instead of war, and whose real name means "true (lightning)," as in the light that a lightning casts.
    • Compared to other playable characters, the trailers for playable Anemo and Geo Archon display them using a much larger scale of their respective powers, something that's unlikely for mortals but not out of place for Physical Gods. The Anemo Archon is capable of floating under his own powers while creating massive upcurrents, while the Geo Archon can create incredibly powerful barriers and dropping meteors that petrify an entire horde of enemies.
  • God-Emperor: Aside from Barbatos, each Archon directly rules over their respective territory, presiding over the secular government bodies. Typically however, the degree to how much each Archon governs their people tend to vary and most of the actual ruling is left to the local human-run government.
  • God in Human Form: Though Barbatos and Morax are known to have other forms (Barbatos used to be a tiny hooded wind sprite and Morax's Exuvia is a Chinese dragon-qilin hybrid), the Archons are more prominently shown in their human vessels in story cutscenes, Statues of the Seven and their proper appearances in-game.
  • God Is Flawed: From the five Archons shown so far, while they're all well-meaning, they're so focused on their chosen ideals that they, their closest ones, or their people suffered as a result.
    • Barbatos values freedom so highly that he refuses to rule directly over his people, and only intervenes when they're facing a crisis that they can't solve themselves. This has led to the rise of corrupt aristocrats in his city who stained everything Barbatos fought for before he woke up and guided Vennessa to fight them; he also woke up late during the "cataclysmic event" 500 years ago to fight Durin together with Dvalin, but by then there were already many casualties, including Rostam of the Knights of Favonius, the lover of the maiden who'd grow up to become Crimson Witch of Flames and eventually Signora.
    • Morax follows the contracts he makes to the letter, even if it bites him in the ass later. When he agreed to deal with an infestation of slimy sea creatures, he had to follow through even if it meant painstakingly removing them by hand from every house in town. When the Traveler asks Zhongli about their sibling, Celestia, and Khaenri'ah, he states outright that he can't talk about them due to a contract, even though he badly wants to.
    • The Raiden Shogun, in her pursuit of "eternity", came to believe that preserving her nation as it is (i.e. "eternally unchanging") would be the right course, so she put the Sakoku and Vision Hunt Decrees in place. This only served to make the nation's economy and her people's general lives to suffer, and for the Vision holders to band together to create La Résistance and start a civil war. Ei had chosen "eternity" as her ideal after seeing what happened to her sister, the first Electro Archon who embraced "transience", and to Khaenri'ah which was seen as the pinnacle of human progress and was decimated by Celestia/Heavenly Principles. Miko points out that all Ei wanted was to protect her beloved nation, but her "fear of loss" meant that she does it by trying to preserve everything as they are; Miko also sees eternity as a "cruel fate" for Ei.
    • Kusanali loves her people and wishes to share her knowledge with them but the Akademiya found her to be lacking compared to Rukkhadevata and shunned her aside, wishing for another God of Wisdom that better fit their image. This led Kusanali to develop a bit of an Inferiority Complex to her predecessor, fearing that she can’t live up to the standards set by her predecessor. Her "desire for knowledge", while befitting her ideal and is harmless most of the time, is what led her to trade her Gnosis for knowledge from Dottore that even she has no idea about: "the skies are fake".
    • Focalors/Furina is a straight-up Loser Deity with an Inferiority Superiority Complex. It quickly becomes evident that she cares very deeply about how her citizens perceive her and she puts on airs of being extremely competent and confident in herself, only for her to more often than not put herself into situations she'd rather not be in, leading to her either having to sheepishly back down or double down to save face. One NPC describes her, albeit affectionately, as being Fontaine's mascot, showing that even with her displays most don't actually treat her with much respect as the nation's Archon. More importantly, however, Focalors had to deal with the "original sin" that her predecessor Egeria committed: creating humanity out of her Oceanid subjects, making the very existence of Fontainians a crime, leading to The Prophecy of Fontainians being dissolved in a great flood. In trying to save her people from this disaster, she had to - for 500 years - deceive her people and separate her "humanity", Furina, for the purpose of "acting" the Hydro Archon's role, a role that emotionally damaged her and brought her suffering that she can't share to anyone, lest the plan would fail. While Focalors herself had planned to "die for her people's sins", she herself feels guilty for the aforementioned "crimes" and thus feels that it's only fitting that she deserves punishment as well - following the idea of "justice" to the very end.
  • God Needs Prayer Badly: Implied with how Barbatos is the weakest because he doesn't manage his country, while the Raiden Shogun is significantly stronger since she literally lives in the capital and actively makes national policies. Confirmed by Kusanali in the Sumeru chapter.
  • Gratuitous Greek: Teyvat calls its Gods Archons (from the Greek word used to name someone who rules). Each Archon holds an item called Gnosis (the Greek word for "wisdom") which allows them to directly tap energy from Celestia. Gnosticism also uses both terms.
  • Great Offscreen War:
    • The Archon Wars are various wars in the past between gods to take the seven positions of Archons in Celestia. The victors of the wars became "the Seven".
    • After the above took place, in Chapter 1, Act IV, Dainsleif tells the Traveler they brought this to the doorstep of Khaenri’ah, supposedly for being a human civilization without a god, leading to the nation’s downfall. However, Dainsleif might be biased as a survivor of Khaenri'ah, and Chapter 2 Act III showed that the Cataclysm has at least claimed the life of a single Archon. In other words, while a war definitely happened, the reason why it happened is still not clear at the moment.
  • In the Hood: The Statues of the Seven portray them wearing hooded cloaks.
  • Legacy Character: Of the original seven Archons that stood victorious in the Archon War, only Barbatos and Morax are still around. The other Archons of the present day inherited their titles after their predecessors passed on. Zhongli's character story also mentions that the original seven Archons once held an oath to guide and protect humanity, but the successors do not necessarily care about said oath. Zig-Zagged with the Raiden Shogun. Though Ei only took up the mantle of Electro Archon some 500 years ago, she technically ruled over Inazuma long before that jointly with her twin sister Makoto, the first Electro Archon.
  • Magical Barefooter: The Archons are often barefooted when carrying out their official duties. Barbatos' and Morax's Archon costumes do not cover their feet, with the Electro Archon in the same situation if her Statues of the Seven are any indication, Kusanali wears white wraps that leave her toes and heels exposed all the time, and when Focalors finally shows her true form and power she's only wearing a single anklet that connects to one toe and nothing else on her feet.
  • Mark of the Supernatural: Barbatos and Morax are shown to have tattoos on their bodies that glow when using their powers - Barbatos' tattoos are on the lower half of his sternum and on his left thigh, while Morax's tattoos stretch across the entirety of both his arms from the back of his hands to his shoulders, as well as the inner side of his arms. Though it is currently unknown whether her original body also has similar markings, the Raiden Shogun has a mitsudomoe symbol on the nape of her back. The first Dendro Archon Rukkhadevata had a tattoo covering the lower half of her neck to her collarbone and chest. Kusanali and Focalors are the exception, though it's possible and even likely that their dresses may have covered their tattoos.
  • The Modern Gods: Due to a variety of causes, 5/7 of the current Archons died and were replaced roughly 500 years prior to the start of the game. This created a new era of leadership and marks a shift in their society following the change of power.
  • Nature Spirit: All Archons introduced so far are known or implied to be an Elemental Embodiment of their respective elements. Barbatos is a wind spirit that gained a human form, Morax is referred to as "a talking stone" in the Flavour Text of the Wings of the Forest and Wings of Shimmering Galaxy, the Raiden Shogun Beelzebul/Ei refers to herself as the "most supreme and terrifying incarnation of lightning", Buer was formed from the purest branch of the Irminsul tree, and Focalors is an Oceanid transformed into a human by her predecessor, Egeria.
  • Olympus Mons: All of the playable Archons due to their status (and power) as gods who have complete mastery over the element they wield should they choose to join the Traveler in their journey after being pulled in the Wish Banner.
  • Our Archons Are Different: In this case, Archons are gods and leaders of the seven major countries in Teyvat, each of them wielding one of the seven elements.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Each Archon is capable of wide-spread devastation.
    • Barbatos leveled a mountain range with his winds. Pieces of those mountains can further be found all the way out in the Golden Apple Archipelago far off Mondstadt's shores.
    • Morax dropped so many massive stone spears to seal another god they're now the mountainous islands known as the Guyun Stone Forest.
    • The Raiden Shogun killed a massive snake god with a single slash that also cut the entirety of Yashiori Island in half, forming the Musoujin Gorge. Centuries later, the gorge is still brimming with Electro energy, with the water at the bottom of the gorge making short work of the playable characters' health should they come into contact with it.
    • The Dendro Archon isn't very martially capable, but her connection to Irminsul grants her the potential to destroy anything on a metaphysical level throughout Teyvat, which ironically makes her potentially more destructive than all the previous Archons combined. The previous Dendro Archon also created the entire Dharma Forest (Sumeru's forest region) by herself, in what was initially desert.
    • The Hydro Archon managed to accumulate enough energy to destroy the literal seat of the Hydro Archon, fundamentally shaking Celestia and the very world order.
  • Physical God: All the Archons can take direct physical form and interact with the world of Teyvat directly.
  • Pieces of God: A variant. Chapter IV Act V has Skirk reveal that the Gnosis' are remnants of the Third Descender.
  • Power Glows: Each playable Archon has parts of their hair and eyes glow whenever they're using their Elemental Skills and Bursts.
  • Power Parasite: Though they weren't the ones that performed the theft, the Archons' authorities are derived from power that the Celestia stole from the Sovereigns. So long as the Archons remain in the way, the Sovereigns will never regain their former might - the Hydro Sovereign is the first one who regains it, by way of the Hydro Archon sacrificing herself. The Gnosis are also made from the Third Descender's remains.
  • Priceless Paperweight: Zigzagged. The Gnoses are supposedly reward for winning the war for divinity and they undeniably have power of their own, making them priceless divine treasures. But many Archons consider Gnoses only as symbol of their positions, or outright useless as they have no need for it anymore. Beelzebul never used her Gnosis, Buer and Focalors have no need for their Gnoses once they shut down the divine machines in their respective nations, and Barbatos' position on his Gnosis is unknown. The only Gnosis with any practical use is Morax's, given it powers the Mora mint, but even he trades it away.
  • Purposely Overpowered: Downplayed. The playable Archons are all extremely powerful characters, befitting their status as gods, but they are not without weaknesses.
  • Recurring Element: So far, each playable Archon has lost someone very important to them in the past who left a lasting impact on them (for better or worse), and also possess a Tragic Keepsake relating to their fallen companion:
    • Barbatos lost the "Nameless Bard," his dear friend who is the reason he became the god of freedom after he watched the bard inspire and lead the rebellion against the tyrannical god Decarabian. He carries with him eagle feathers he intended to gift to the bard and also took on the bard's physical form following his death.
    • Morax lost Guizhong, the goddess that once ruled over the Guili Plains alongside him and is the reason he went from "only" the Worlds Stongest Man to an intelligent and collected god in his own right. He carries with him her stone dumbbell, the Memory of Dust, said to contain all of her knowledge and wisdom.
    • The Raiden Shogun lost her sister Makoto/Baal, the original Electro Archon, whose death served as a Cynicism Catalyst that inspired her misguided pursuit of eternity that would lead to many of Inazuma's problems. She carries with her the Musou Isshin, Makoto's sword that was given to her in her final moments, and wears Makoto's hair ornament alongside her own.
    • Kusanali's existence before the end of the Sumeru chapter was completely overshadowed by Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, her predecessor, who was such a Tough Act to Follow In-Universe that Kusanali was decried as a usurper and placed under house arrest, unable to rule her region. What makes this worse is that it’s soon revealed Kusanali is Rukkhadevata's reincarnation, and is eventually forced to Ret-Gone her in order to cure Irminsul. Other than having Rukkhadevata's legacy credited to her, she only has her remaining feelings and an inexplicable sense of emptiness in her consciousness where Rukkhadevata used to be.
    • Focalors lost herself both literally and metaphorically. Focalors split off her humanity to create Furina and instructed her to put on a God Guise, causing Furina to lose her sense of self as she carried the mental toll of acting nonstop for 500 years to save their people,. Afterwards, Focalors performed a Heroic Sacrifice, leaving Furina to live her life as a human for the both of them.
  • Religious and Mythological Theme Naming:
    • There are terms and concepts taken from Gnosticism, such as the seven Archons (the servants of the Demiurge) and Gnosis (knowledge of the divine).
    • Several of the gods' given names come from the names of demons in the Ars Goetia, like Barbatos, Morax, Baal, Buer and Focalor.
  • Running Gag: The currently playable Archons are all dirt poor, or at least not financially stable, for varying reasons:
    • Barbatos, being a bard in his mortal vessel, has to perform for money and wastes it all on booze.
    • Morax is Money Dumb after spending thousands of years creating Mora out of thin air and has to rely on favors or have the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor foot the bill.
    • The Raiden Shogun has no need for money in the Plane of Euthymia where she resides and just has the Commissions provide her with what she needs. In her first Story Quest she doesn't even know if people still use Mora.
    • Kusanali's financial state is currently unknown, but given she spent almost her entire life in isolation it's highly likely that she doesn't have much Mora to her name.
    • Averted or at most downplayed by Furina, whose teapot conversation reveals to have a sizeable saving over the centuries from performing, and is being managed and invested by one of her Familiars. Also because she's not a real Archon. The real Focalors isolated herself in the Oratrice, and has no need or concern over money.
  • She Is the King: Five of the Seven are women, this doesn't stop them from being referred to as "God" rather than "Goddess".
  • Slave to PR: Because of their position as their nations' rulers, Archons need to appear strong and capable to their people, almost more than they need to actually be capable at the job. Not a problem with experienced Archons like Morax or even Barbatos, who have proven track records spanning millennia, but with newer ones the issue crops up in various ways, often to the detriment of both Archons and their people:
    • The Raiden Shogun projects an image of absolute strength and unshakeable will, which generally causes her people to fall into step no matter whether or not they agree with her. This wouldn't be a problem were it not for her actual track record of coming up with horrible ideas or at least letting them play out like the Vision Hunt Decree and the Sakoku Decree. Only after the events of Inazuma's Archon Quest does she properly start attending to the needs of her people.
    • Buer/Kusanali is viewed by Sumeru's Akademiya as lacking in both power and knowledge from the very start, for which she was locked up in the Sanctuary of Surasthana. This has prevented her from getting anything done and proving herself. Akademiya's officials ignore her warnings, and their system excludes her altogether, leaving her to watch helplessly as they run her country into the ground and keep blaming it on her. The damage this did to her self-image is such that she hesitates to challenge Akademiya's decisisons until they start actually endangering people, and often dismisses what little she can do as ineffectual.
    • On the surface, Furina/Focalors appears to be on top of the world as Fontaine's Archon, acting with complete self-confidence and boasting about herself. However, she goes about surrounded by bodyguards and usually leaves affairs in the hands of Fontaine's government, suggesting that she is not confident in her strength or governing ability. In reality, Furina is actually a powerless human cursed with immortality by Focalors, who split her off from herself specifically to play the role of Fontaine's Archon and mask her efforts to change the outcome of the prophecy when it finally comes to fruition. Tragically, Furina had actually intended to approach her role with as much honesty as she could offer without giving herself away. However, her godhood was immediately questioned for being too humble, forcing her to adopt a more bombastic and histrionic personality. What Fontaine wanted in an Archon was shallow, and so it got exactly what it wanted: an "Archon" who is unprepared for disasters because she spends so much time and effort playing to the crowd that she can barely get by day-to-day. And she had to keep up the act for hundreds of years lest the prophecy come true before Focalors has completed her preparations to save Fontaine. While she did sneak in the occasional attempt to try and make a real difference, it's possible she would have been able to do more if she were able to approach the issues honestly and with all her focus instead of being forced to dance around them and pretend nothing is wrong.
  • Sole Survivor: After the Archon War, only the Archons in charge of the seven major nations remained in power; all others were either slain, sealed, or fled to places beyond the Archons' protection. Out of the seven original Archons, only Barbatos and Morax remained. The rest died and others took on their mantle, but not necessarily their duty.
  • Stock Gods: Not only are all the Archons nature gods, many of them also fit numerous common archetypes:
  • Support Party Member: All of the playable Archons so far fit in the Support role best, instead of being the Main DPS. This actually makes sense, since as gods overseeing their respective nation, they let the people do the majority of things with their blessings most of the time. At least downplayed for Raiden Shogun as she has the most damage potential out of the Archons, fitting her background as a more martial god who had vanquished many divine adversaries.
  • Two Girls to a Team: Inverted. Of the current seven Archons, only two (Barbatos and Morax) are male.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifter: They can change form at will and even take on the appearances of other people, as Venti had. They can also apparently change their apparent sex, as various Rex Lapis myths involve the god appearing as a woman as well as a man in the past. When personally asked in the 2022 Lantern Rite event, though Morax himself notes some parts of his myths are exaggerated for the sake of the story, he also doesn't specify one way or the other just how many forms he's actually taken on. Despite this, they do all appear to have genders that they prefer; Morax and Barbatos want to spend the rest of their existences as men, and likewise for the female Archons.
  • We Used to Be Friends: The original Seven shared a sense of kinship over their common goal of guiding and protecting humanity, and regularly held friendly gatherings in Liyue. Nowadays, Teyvat's Archons have largely fallen out of contact with one another; the five succeeding Archons are, for various reasons, much more insular than their predecessors, with the Cryo Archon in particular having become frigid and even somewhat hostile to her fellow gods, and even the last members of the original seven, Morax and Barbatos, no longer see each other. However, Kusanali expresses interest in kindling their friendship and even playing a game of hopscotch with them after being freed in the conclusion of the Sumeru chapter while Barbatos and Morax would later reunite under awkward but ultimately friendly terms.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Barbatos and the Raiden Shogun pretty much hate the fact that they got to outlive their friends as the former is pretty much a Sad Clown who gets especially upset when recounting the deaths of friends that he lost to either battle or old age due to his very long lifespan and the latter's character trailer shows that she became a tyrannical god who issued the Vision Hunt Decree because of how she outlived her friends and her twin sister Baal. Additionally, while it is not technically stated for Morax, it is implied that part of the reason he's willing to give up his Gnosis is due to his old age and "erosion" wearing him down. For Focalors, this is played with: it's Furina who suffered more from her "curse of immortality" as she - an otherwise mortal human with no powers whatsoever - had to pretend she's the Hydro Archon for almost 500 years and couldn't let it slip or confide to anyone even once. Even after she's "freed" from the role, "performing" has become her Trauma Button ever since. So far Kusanali is the only one to lack any form of angst over her immortality, but give her status as the youngest of the Archons this is understandable.

Current

    Anemo Archon 

Lord Barbatos, the God of Freedom

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/barbatos_5.png
Spirit of the Wind

"Still, the winds change direction. Someday, they will blow towards a brighter future... Take my blessings and live leisurely from this day onward."
— Vayuda Turquoise Gemstone

An Archon of Anemo worshiped by the people of Mondstadt. For information on "Barbatos" as he appears in the story proper, please consult the entry for Venti here.
  • Ambiguous Gender: The people of Mondstadt usually refer to the Anemo Archon Barbatos using "they" and "them". Venti himself appears to prefer male pronouns.
  • Deep Sleep: Barbatos has taken several centuries-long sleep over the course of Mondstadt's history, only awaking to quell national crises such as helping Venessa successfully overthrow the corrupt nobility. Venti even states during the 3.1 Of Ballads and Brews event that he annually hibernates during winter.
  • Divine Intervention:
    • Around 500 years from the present, he woke up Dvalin to save Mondstadt from the shadow dragon Durin.
    • When Barbatos returned to Mondstadt after 1600 years, he helped Vennessa with a rebellion that overthrew the aristocracy.
  • Dramatic Irony: There is a massive gap between how the people of Mondstadt perceive their Archon and how their Archon actually acts. His worshippers perceive him as a solemn and hard-working god, when in truth Venti is lighthearted and something of an irresponsible drunkard. Needless to say, the Traveler and Paimon tend to be startled whenever they encounter someone who takes Barbatos very seriously.
  • Due to the Dead: Barbatos reshaped Mondstadt into the city of freedom that his deceased friend has always dreamed of.
  • From Zero to Hero: Barbatos was originally another Wind Spirit amongst thousands, but gained sentience and ego after hearing the prayers of Gunnhildr's clan. He gained power from their belief and goes on to stage a rebellion against the Anemo Archon at the time, Decarabian with the help of a nameless bard, Amos, and a red-haired knight becoming the new Anemo Archon in the process.
  • Hands-Off Parenting: Zigzagged. As soon as Barbatos conditioned Mondstadt so the people could prosper, he pretty much left them to construct a new civilization by themselves. Not out of callousness but faith in his people's capacity to look after themselves and fear of turning into a tyrant like Decarabian. However, whenever his people face something too big for them, he will answer to their call; he still won't intervene directly though, but instead rise up and support a champion, as he did with Vennessa against the aristocracy and later on with Dvalin against Durin.
  • Have You Seen My God?: Unlike the other Archons, Barbatos has been hands-off for centuries. No one in living memory has seen him appear, and their church worships him from afar, hoping for their god's return. If he does return, it is usually to prevent a crisis in Mondstadt that his people cannot manage themselves. Unfortunately, this has resulted him being too late to stop certain tragedies, as the Crimson Witch of Flames can attest to.
  • Hope Bringer:
    • Barbatos' way of of looking after his people is more of as an icon for the idea of freedom and the reassurance that, no matter how bad things become or how far away he seems to be, when Mondstadt really needs his aid he will answer.
    • The Vayuda Turquoise Gemstone poetically compares Barbatos' power to Winds of Destiny, Change!; just as the wind changes direction, the people of Mondstadt have the power to turn around a bad situation.
    • Venti himself confesses that, before becoming a god, he was just a tiny wind sprite who brought subtle changes that inspired hope.
    • Neuvillette calls Barbatos "the god of Breeze and Hope."
  • Irony:
    • He is, among other things, the god of Freedom. Meaning the very act of commanding his followers as a god would go counter to his portfolio. He is acutely aware of this irony, and it drives his decision to stay far away from his people. It goes so far as he can't even tell Dvalin to be free from his percieved duty at the end of the Prologue, as that would be a command in of itself. He simply settles for hoping Dvalin will do whatever makes him happiest, even if that's protecting Mondstadt.
    • Also due to his mortal guise, people forbid him from ordering alcohol, one of his favorite pastimes.
  • King Incognito: In the times he isn't slumbering, he chooses to pose as a wandering bard in Mondstadt, calling himself "Venti".
  • Loser Deity: As the Archons' power directly ties to their ruling and managing of their nations, Barbatos - who values freedom and thus refuses to rule his nation - is the weakest among the Seven. While Mondstadters still worship him, people from other nations tend to look down on him, and on Mondstadt when it comes to their Archon. When he (as Venti) tried revealing himself as Barbatos inside Mondstadt's church, the nun doesn't believe him and gets kicked out of his own church. And he also gets his Gnosis taken by Signora of the Fatui Harbingers without significant effort.
  • Meaningful Name: Barbatos is named after the eighth demon of the Ars Goetia, who teaches communication with animals, predicts the past and the future, reconciles enemies and rulers, and leads to treasures. The latter association is indirectly tied to the Seelies, wisp-like beings that lead adventurers to treasures. Story-wise, at the start of the game, the Traveler first encounters his mortal form, Venti, trying to soothe Dvalin.
  • Mr. Fanservice: His outfit shows a great part of his midriff, which is subject to Fanservice.
  • Non-Indicative Name: His name means 'Bearded One', not only do the statues and cutscene representations of him lack a beard, but worshippers also inexplicitly refer to him by gender-neutral pronouns. It is also another name sourced from the Ars Goetia, but the Barbatos in Genshin has nothing in common with the classical Barbatos.
  • Odd Name Out: Unlike the other Archons, Barbatos' people doesn't refer to him by a title like Morax's "Rex Lapis", at most only adding "Lord" to his name. This could be due to the fact Barbatos never ruled Mondstadt and doesn't need a title.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Part of Barbatos' efforts to get rid of Mondstadt's perpetual winters involves destroying a majority of the mountains that surrounded the area. Only the summit of the tallest mountain Pilos Peak, now known as Musk Reef, remained after Barbatos was done with it. Albedo later surmises in an echo conch that the Golden Apple Archipelago, a series of islands outside of Teyvat were once mountains that Barbatos destroyed with his winds and thrown outside of Teyvat. Note that Barbatos is considered the weakest of the Seven.
  • Psychopomp: Mondstadtians hold the belief that Barbatos' winds carries their souls away after death, and so are very weary of dying in a place without wind.
  • Properly Paranoid: Barbatos, as an Archon, is meant to guide humanity. However, as the God of Freedom, his people expect him to champion their ability to make their own choices. "What is freedom, if "freedom" is mandated by a god?" He answers this conundrum by being hands off and indirect with his people, simultaneously giving his people space to grow and flourish while also keeping him just close enough to subtly offer guidance and direction when they are at a loss with obstacles in their lives. While this approach might not some terribly efficient on the surface, comparing it with what has happened in other nations suggests that it's actually safer and more stable than it appears:
    • Morax, seeing that his people no longer need his guidance, chooses to take the dramatic step of faking his death, cutting a deal with the Fatui to stir up even more trouble so as to see if they can handle the resulting chaos. While a risky gamble, post-Morax Liyue has since managed to adjust to its newfound freedom thanks to the leadership of the current Qixing, allowing him to transition into living a similar life to Barbatos in record time.
    • When the Raiden Shogun discovered her prototype puppet shedding a tear, she deemed him unsuitable for becoming her proxy and instead tries to set him free in the hopes of allowing him to live his own life. However, being deemed unfit for the purpose he was made for left him bitter and directionless, and her complete absence in his life meant she couldn't protect him from the harshness of reality. What proved to be the final straw in this tragedy is that when he needed her help most, Ei had already locked herself in the Plane of Euthymia, allowing the Raiden Shogun Puppet to refuse him. This shattered what little faith he had left in her completely and setting him up to be taken advantage of by Il Dottore, whose actions transformed him into a Misanthrope Supreme who would gleefully meddle in Inazuma's affairs for centuries.
    • Sumeru is an unintentional example of how freedom with lack of guidance can go horribly wrong. Rukkhadevata was Sumeru's sole remaining god following the deaths of Nabu Malikata and Deshret at the time of the Cataclysm. Thus, her death, coupled with the retreat of the Aranara from human affairs and the inexperience of her newborn successor Buer, left them without a proper guiding voice during the disaster's aftermath. This forced the Akademiya to take the reins, to disastrous effect; instead of embracing the admittedly uncertain potential of its newfound freedom, the Akademiya instead shackled itself to Rukkhadevata's legacy, or at least what it perceived that legacy to be, twisting and warping her values until all that remained was a dead-end slavish devotion to the accumulation of knowledge at any cost. In the process, the Sages also locked up Buer for the crime of needing to learn and grow into her role, and also ignored her whenever she tried to tell them they were making mistakes, all while blaming her for the intellectual stagnation caused by their own actions. In the end, the unchecked behavior of the Akademiya descended into rampant tyranny, and only when Buer is freed to assume her rightful position as Archon is Sumeru similarly freed to grow once again.
    • Following Fontaine's great flood, Focalors thanks Furina for her service and frees her of her duty so she can live her life happily as a human. However, while no longer having to shoulder the enormous and soul-crushing burden of pretending to be Fontaine's Archon, in the immediate aftermath Furina finds herself depressed and adrift without a purpose, more or less passing the time just by eating, sleeping, and hiding away from the public eye. Only when the Traveler and Paimon barge back into her life to get help with a theater troupe's final performance does she discover what she wants to do with her life.
  • Stripperiffic: Barbatos' Archon outfit is the skimpiest of the known Archons as of Version 3.4, wearing only a crop top and booty shorts that leaves him Exposed to the Elements.
  • Time Master: Downplayed as Istaroth is the true goddess of time, however, wind and time are intrinsically linked in Teyvat, with Istaroth known as the Thousand Winds of Time and Barbatos being one of many wind spirits that gained sapience. During the 3.1 Of Ballads and Brews event, Venti also summons the "winds of the far-flung past", which causes Rosaria, Kaeya, Diluc to recall the words of their respective guardian/fathers, and Razor to see a glimpse of his parents preparing Thousand-Wind Wine for him and choosing his name while he was yet unborn.
  • Trickster God: Being the god of freedom, his acts fall into this:
    • One of his divine interventions involves dethroning the tyrannical aristocracy that ruled during Vennessa's days by forging the signature of a contract written by Rex Lapis. The story notes that the forgery skills Barbatos displayed above are in fact the product of trying over and over to pull a fast one over the God of Contracts, who nonetheless saw through every attempt.
    • This gets played with in Venti's ballads, where he would often paint Barbatos in a mischievous light, such as claiming that the Anemo Archon replaced the Cryo Archon's scepter with a hilichurl's wooden club. When the worshipers of Barbatos decried him as a blasphemer, Venti retorts by saying that they cannot prove their claims because they cannot know all of Barbatos' deeds. Venti's tales of Barbatos' "exploits" are fabricated. It, in itself, is an example; Venti is basically making up silly stories about himself to annoy his followers.
  • Winged Humanoid: His statues depict him with a pair of wings on his back, and he also appears in his full glory with his wings prominently displayed before Venessa as she was fighting Ursa the Drake in the manga.

    Geo Archon 

Rex Lapis / Morax, the God of Contracts

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/morax.jpg
The Groundbreaker

"The currencies that flow through this land are my flesh and blood. For thus did I become the guarantor of the people's hard work, wisdom, and future. This is the trust I have placed in them. Betray it, and you taint my blood."
— Prithiva Topaz Gemstone

An Archon of Geo worshiped by the people of Liyue, also considered one of the Adepti. For information on "Rex Lapis" as he appears in the story proper, please consult Zhongli's entry here.
  • Actually Pretty Funny: On one day during a Rite of Descension, Keqing made one of her now-famous speeches expressing her skepticism about the divine. To Rex Lapis' face. The Geo Archon responded with a hearty laugh, though nobody except the god himself knew precisely what his reason was. The reason becomes clearer after playing through Liyue's Archon Quests.
  • The Almighty Dollar: Since money can be considered a type of contract, Rex Lapis presides over money, having created the currency of Mora that all of Teyvat uses. One of his titles according to Neuvillette is "Deus Auri", which translates into "God of Gold".
  • Berserk Button: Breaking a contract is a sure way to incur the "Wrath of the Rock." The god himself says that all the gods that he struck down in the Archon War must have broken contracts made with him.
  • Big Good: The oldest and strongest of the Archons and a lawful force of good who protected humans to the point of going through their houses and removing aquatic parasites one by one.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: When asked about whether Rex Lapis Morax struck down any innocent gods, Zhongli is quick to point out that there was a degree of this in play during the Archon Wars, construing it as an issue of Rex Lapis punishing his fellow gods for breaking their contracts, and that words like "good" and "evil" did not exactly concern him back then. Even then, as Zhongli's story quest shows, even when he is no longer an Archon, he will still ruthlessly strike down anyone who breaks contracts in any way he considers the most painful.
  • Brains and Brawn: The description of the "Memory of Dust" weapon, while never mentioning any names, highly implies that Guizhong (the Goddess of Dust) referred to herself and him as the brains and the brawn that watched over their old land.
  • Colony Drop: Dropped massive stone "spears" to pin and seal Osial, which age has weathered into mountains that form the Guyun Stone Forest. As Zhongli, his burst drops a smaller meteor that petrifies his foes.
  • Combo Platter Powers: Though first and foremost the God of Contracts, Rex Lapis's long life and many exploits have garnered him many titles and spheres of influence as the God of Commerce,note  History,note  the Stove,note  and War.note 
  • Dream Walker: In Chapter 1 Act 3's resolution, Ningguang claims that Rex Lapis appeared in her dreams that morning. His presence left her speechless and she cannot manage to say what she has always wanted to say to him. At the end, Zhongli claims that he knows an Adeptus art called "gifting dreams and visions", and that's how he secretly tells the Qixing and the other Adepti that he isn't dead.
  • Dragons Are Divine: One of his forms includes a dragon, as shown during the Rite of Descension, formally called "Exuvia, Prime of the Adepti".
  • Dub Name Change: The original Chinese names him "Yanwang Dijun", which the English dub renders in Latin ("Rex Lapis") rather than translating it directly into English ("Stonelord Sovereign").
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: In his first story quest, he's introduced in conversation with three archaeologists, all of whom openly disdain his talk about Rex Lapis in favor of their own, fairly outlandish, theories. For his part, Zhongli just seems mildly amused.
  • Earthy Barefoot Character: His appearances in his hooded Archon costume and his Statue of the Seven exposes his feet.
  • End of an Era: His departure changes everything for the people of Liyue, who have never known a time where he was not Liyue's ruling Archon.
  • Faking the Dead: Pretended to be assassinated to see how well the people of Liyue could handle themselves without their Archon's protection.
  • Flaw Exploitation: It is not exactly a "flaw", but anyone can bargain with him, one of the most powerful and experienced Archon in Teyvat, with a contract, and he will respect the contract’s terms if the other side does regardless of circumstance. This is what Tsaritsa uses to get the Gnosis from him. While Zhongli admits to the Traveler and Paimon that realistically there's "no such thing" that could be worth trading one's Gnosis, he nevertheless agreed to the terms because he sees the value in them personally.
  • First-Name Basis: Is usually referred to by his title of "Rex Lapis" by his subjects as well as other people deferential to his authority like the Adepti. A number of people, such as Azhdaha and Yae, may use his godly name as a show of familiarity. People like Wanyan however, who also call him Morax despite having no such connection, are doing it as a clear show of disrespect.
  • Foreshadowing: Like the other wiki details them, there's quite a lot of spoiler-filled hints pointing to Rex Lapis being Zhongli, much like how the Anemo Archon Barbatos took a human form as Venti.
  • The Gadfly: The Rex Incognito books depict him as a playful character who sets up trials for humans, redistributes the wealth of the cruel, and propagates a myth about jade tablets used as ancient currency for his own amusement.
  • Gender Bender: There are tales about Rex Lapis assuming different forms, including female ones, over the years. The game brings this up when preparing his funerary rites, as it shows that he has a fondness for women's perfume, something that leads to characters discussing his shapeshifting tendencies. There is also a story in the Rex Incognito book series that has him appearing as a beautiful woman. When asked about it during the 2022 Latern Rite Festival, Morax himself thinks the idea of using such a conspicuous form as a disguise rather silly, while at the same time making it sound like he can take such forms, and giving no clarification on whether or not he actually has done so in the past.
  • Gratuitous Latin: The English translation uses the Latin words "Rex Lapis" ("Stone King") to refer to his title, originally "Yanwang Dijun" ("Stonelord Sovereign") in Chinese. While a fitting name for the Archon of Geo, it really stands out due to being a Latin name in an otherwise Chinese-inspired land like Liyue.
  • Historical Badass Upgrade: It's hard to portray an outright deity as more badass than he actually is, but on occasion, people attribute specific intent to many of Rex Lapis's actions that the god simply did not think much of. For example, the first part of Zhongli's story quest has various historians and archeologists speculate about the significance behind the first Mora that Rex Lapis created, or why he once created a house out of Mora, only for Zhongli to clarify that neither was anything special. To give special significance to Mora was to miss the point of it — as a convenient measure of a contract.
  • I Have Many Names: The Geo Archon has multiple names and titles. Aside from his real name Morax, "Rex Lapis" and "God of Contracts", he is also known (according to the books, writings, and even people like Zhongli) as "Warrior God", "God of History", "God of Wealth", "God of Commerce", "God of Wealth and Commerce", "Lord of Geo", "Lord of Rock", and his former title "Exuvia, Prime of the Adepti". In fact, it is rare for native Liyueans to call him by his real name. The Archon himself possesses many identities that he uses in various contracts, presently as "Zhongli."
  • Irony: He, the god of contracts, trade, and wealth, for whom Teyvat's very currency is named, is perpetually cashless after the events of Chapter 1.
  • King Incognito: Almost verbatim with the Rex Incognito storybooks that depict him walking among the common people, disguised in multiple ways. He is also known for visiting various shops while disguised to find promising businesses so he can help them with a bit of divine publicity.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • "Rex Lapis" is Latin for "king of stone." Likewise, his Chinese title, 岩王帝君 (yánwáng dìjūn), means "Stonelord Sovereign."
    • The first half of his Chinese title (岩王) shares the same pronunciation (i.e., yánwáng in pinyin) as 閻王 (i.e., King Yan, leader of the Ten Kings of Hell in East Asian Buddhism). In turn, "hell" in Chinese Mythology and later Buddhism is called dìyù (simplified 地狱, traditional 地獄), or "earth prison," which, apart from being one syllable separated from dìjūn, the other half of Rex Lapis' Chinese title, befits his dominion over Geo and relates to stories of him having sealed off several rival gods in the past.
    • "Exuvia" refers to the remnant of an exoskeleton shed by certain insects. As Rex Lapis fakes his death, he leaves his dragon body as a dead vessel.
    • Zhongli's theme is Rex Incognito, which might as well spell it out that he's Rexnote , going Incognito.
    • His divine name, Morax, is based on that of the twenty-first demon of the Ars Goetia, who is described to teach astronomy as well as the properties of herbs and precious stones, the latter association again relating to his dominion over Geo.
  • Morphic Resonance: His forms always have bright amber eyes, according to the book Rex Incognito.
  • Mundane Utility: Built a house made completely out of Mora. While people throughout the ages have tried to puzzle out why he decided to make a house out of money, Zhongli suggests that it was because Mora was the most convenient material the Geo Archon could use, since he could generate the stuff out of thin air.
  • Nice Guy: Liyue's merchants hand down stories to their children about how Rex Lapis once checked out their wares incognito and then boosted their business simply by praising their work during his yearly proclamations.
  • The Older Immortal: He's the oldest of the Seven by a considerable margin. His Archon Quest delves into just how much his age has affected him.
  • Portmanteau: The people of Liyue say that Guili Plains took its name after himself and Guizhong, the latter of whom had given the place its name. Note that back then, Morax was using another name, although it's unclear whether or not it was Zhongli. The character that is used for the former half of Zhongli in Chinese is different from that of the latter half of Guizhong, but he could have changed the spelling in order to obscure the fact that the name is itself a play on Guizhong's name and his own, original one.
  • Posthumous Character: By the time the Traveler and Paimon "meet" him, he has already died. However, this is later played with, as while everybody believes he's dead, it's more a case of That Man Is Dead, having abandoned his old identity to become Zhongli.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Customs of Liyue Volume 3 describes his love for feminine perfume despite his normally male appearance.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure:
    • During Vennessa's days, Barbatos caused a coup against the tyrannical ruling class of Mondstadt by forging Rex Lapis's signature on a binding document signing all Mondstadt into slavery to him, to outrage the people of Mondstadt and provoke them into rebelling against the aristocracy. While Rex Lapis could have easily revealed the deception, he allowed it to take place to let Mondstadt regain its freedom.
    • He encourages that people question his decisions and think for themselves and is even supportive of Keqing's open disapproval of him.
  • Self-Deprecation: Keeping with his somewhat humble nature, Zhongli doesn't hesitate to throw doubt on several of Iron Tongue Tian's stories about Rex Lapis, though whether he's doing this from genuine humility, frustration that the true events have been forgotten, or just to amuse himself is ambiguous.
  • The Stoic: The Flavour Text of the Mask of Solitude Basalt artifact mentions that during the Archon Wars, "Rex Lapis' stone-cold expression never once changed" as he slaughtered his opponents, only "lay(ing) down that unmovable visage" one he had finished fulfilling his contract.
  • Stop Worshipping Me: Insofar as fawning adulation, at least. In his mortal guise as Zhongli, while he has no issue with people showing their respect for his genuine merits, he doesn't enjoy overt praise much, especially when people start giving him too much credit. This is demonstrated in the first Historia Antiqua chapter, where a number of historians are debating the myth of the first Mora; much to his dismay, what was essentially just another coin was somehow mutated into an object of power akin to the Sword in the Stone from Arthurian myths, and he spends that debate trying to dispel those notions.
  • That Man Is Dead: Metaphorically speaking, Rex Lapis is dead. He has simply decided that Liyue does not need his protection anymore and willingly gives up his Gnosis to start a new life as Zhongli.
  • There's No Kill like Overkill: He has a certain tendency to respond to threats to Liyue by throwing building sized stone spears at the problem until it is buried under them. This caused him no small amount of trouble when he had to deal with pests infesting his followers' homes as, his usual method being unavailable, he was reduced to personally removing the squirmy sea critters by hand.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifter: He has taken multiple forms over the years. His dragon form is one he uses during the Rite of Descension every year, while Zhongli says that the god once took the form of a young boy, a woman, and an elderly man, among others. He also looks positively dapper in a suit as Zhongli.
  • War God: Though not the God of War, he is hailed at times as the Warrior God because of his long history of dominance on the battlefield.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Played for Laughs. Scholars speculate as to the reason behind the legend that Rex Lapis made the first house in Liyue out of Mora. Zhongli's "theory" is that Rex Lapis simply found the material that he could conjure out of thin air to be convenient to work with.

    Electro Archon 

Raiden Shogun / Beelzebul, the God of Eternity

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d9371739_1241_4c1b_b0e2_9eefac79b70e.jpeg
Thunder and Lightning's Shadow
"This body is the noblest and most eminent of all in this world. It should hold absolute control over this world. It once promised its people a dream: the never-changing 'eternity.'"
— Vajrada Amethyst Gemstone

The current Archon of Electro worshiped by the people of Inazuma. Please see her page here.

    Dendro Archon 

Lesser Lord Kusanali / Blessed One of Wisdom, Mahakusaladhamma / Buer, the God of Wisdom

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nahida_hthmteaser.png
The Moon of Verdure

"I had a very, very long dream... In it, people were holding hands, dancing in a circle, be they sages or fools, dancers or warriors, puppets or statues of gods... That dancing circle embodied everything about the universe. Life has always been the end, while it is wisdom that shall be the means."
— Nagadus Emerald Gemstone

The current Archon of Dendro worshiped by the people of Sumeru. For information on her as she appears in the story, please consult Nahida's page here.
  • Affectionate Nickname: According to Yae Miko, "Lesser Lord Kusanali" is a nickname the people of Sumeru gave to her as a term of endearment. See Lost in Translation for details.
  • Authority in Name Only: While she is meant to be the god of Sumeru, in reality she is locked away and the Sages who truly run things near refuse to acknowledge her existence.
  • The Baby of the Bunch: She's only 500 years old and explicitly called the youngest of the Archons. While Ei and Focalors both became Archons at roughly the same time as Nahida, they had both been around long before that, while Nahida on the other hand was literally born on the day she became an Archon.
  • Bait-and-Switch: Dainsleif's preview for the Sumeru Archon Quest described her as allowing Sumeru's scholars to "push for folly," which would give one the impression of her being apathetic as a ruler. Come the arc, however, it is revealed that she's not so much neglectful as much as insecure over standing in the shadow of her illustrious predecessor Rukkhadevata, to say nothing of the Akademiya actively pretending she does not even exist.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Runs around barefoot, wears a sundress, has hopscotch moves as her attack animation, and looks like a cute little elf, all with the voice of a young girl. But she's totally dedicated to protecting the people of Sumeru, and endangering them means you're now on the bad side of a dreamwalking god with the power to rewrite people's memories, if not reality itself. A good example of this is in her Story Quest: when she confronts the responsible party, she flatly states that pulling his mind out of the Akasha and putting it back in his body instead of letting it disperse into nothingness isn't compassion, it's ensuring he's punished for what he's done.
  • Breaking Old Trends: All three of the Archons introduced before her are old-guard gods that survived the Archon Wars, with Barbatos and Morax being members of the original Seven. Kusanali on the other hand is explicitly the youngest of the Seven.
  • Dream Weaver: The Dendro element is connected to Irminsul, which acts a repository for the world's knowledge and memories, so as the Dendro Archon, Kusanali is capable of manipulating the mind, including dreams. She played a role in the creation of the extremely lifelike mirages during the Summertime Odyssey event.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: Despite her being Sumeru's current Archon, it's quite clear that the Akademiya is clinging to the memory of Rukkhadevata, to the point that the Grand Sage forced Nilou to stop celebrating Kusanali's birthday.
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • The Archon's name, Kusanali, was offhandedly mentioned as early as v1.4, during the "Invitation of Windblume" event, when Sayid, a visiting scholar of the Akademiya, compared the Windblume Festival to Sabzeruz Festival, the celebration of Kusanali's birthday. For the permanently available content, Kusanali first gets mentioned in Version 2.0 by Vahid, a merchant in Ritou. Though at the time, this was glossed over by many players until Miko outright confirmed it at the end of the Inazuma Archon Quest.
    • She's the one communicating to the Traveler and Paimon during the "Summer Fantasia" event (the final major update before v3.0), with her final message to them being that they'll likely be meeting soon enough in the future.
  • Foreshadowing: Much like how the two types of Large Electro Slimes (purple and yellow) foreshadowed that there were two Electro Archons (Makoto and Ei), whenever Large Dendro Slimes are low on HP, they create smaller Dendro Slimes, foreshadowing that Kusanali was created by and of Rukkhadevata before her death.
  • God Is Good: Is shown to be nothing but helpful to the Traveler and her people throughout the events of Chapter III both directly and indirectly, from guiding the Traveler to end the Sabzeruz Festival samsara, using her powers to prevent her follower from dying as much as she can, covering for the Traveler when Dottore ambushes them with a brainwashed crowd and repairing the crowd's consciousness, using mad scholars exiled to Aaru Village as conduits for her power to protect its residents from earthquakes, and accompanying and giving advice to lonely children, all the while being shunned by most of Sumeru's society.
  • Good Wears White: Her colour scheme is primarily white and green to reflect her Dendro powers.
  • Ignored Expert: She's been trying to get the Akademiya to stop directly connecting to the Irminsul on account of its diseased state which she suspects to come from the corruption of Rukkhadevata's remnants, as doing so has a high chance of turning people insane. No points for guessing how the Akademiya responded.
  • Irony: The Akademiya sages loathe her because she isn’t Rukkhadevata but as it turns out, Nahida is actually the both the creation and reincarnation of Rukkhadevata, described by her as her "incarnation in the next samsara" who she created from a branch of Irminsul.
  • I Just Want to Be Loved: Her character teaser has her going through multiple dreams, and the happiest two have her being loved by the people of Sumeru and then by the Traveler and their friends.
  • Implicit Prison: While she is not under house arrest in name, she is effectively unable to leave the Sanctuary of Surasthana apart from through Telepathy. Chapter III Act III shows that her living quarters aren't even a Gilded Cage; she's kept in an energy bubble.
  • Loser Deity: Played for Drama all the way through. Kusanali is shunned and marginalized by Sumeru society to the point of being kept imprisoned by regular humans, with most people being apathetic towards her at best and contemptuous of her and her worshippers at worst. Until the end of the Sumeru Archon quest where Rukkhadevata is rendered Ret-Gone in order to save the Irminsul.
  • Lost in Translation: In Chinese, the nickname that was translated as "Lesser Lord Kusanali" is 小吉祥草王 (xiǎo jíxiáng cǎo wáng), which literally translates to "Little Lucky Grass Monarch," xiǎo ("little") being an affectionate term for a child. This means that it should actually be something like "Little Lord Kusanali" and Yae Miko describing it as a term of endearment only makes sense in the original Chinese. This also leads to a Dub-Induced Plot Hole by the end of that Archon Quest, when people still address Kusanali as "Lesser Lord" even after all traces of Rukkhadevata have been erased from Irminsul. On the other hand, before said erasure, the Sumeru Archon Quest also reveals the term "Lesser Lord" speaks volumes about the people of Sumeru's low regard for Kusanali, who they consider an inferior successor to Rukkhadevata, which makes the title make sense in that regard.
  • Love Martyr: Not romantically towards a particular person, but as a Goddess to the people of Sumeru. She is scorned, hidden away, and shamed just for the mere fact of existing, as her people—especially the Akademiya—see her as not just being an unfit replacement for the Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, but a reminder of her loss. Regardless, she never once faltered in her desire and will to help her people, come what may.
  • Master of Illusion: In the ending of the Summer Fantasia event, it is implied that the Dendro Archon's powers was the basis for the Fatui's Mind-Control Device, since the device was able to seriously screw over the psyches of the weak-minded and manifest very life-like mirages of the strong willed. This would make her an extremely powerful mystic, to the point of being a Reality Warper.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • The name "Kusanali" is a composite of the Sanskrit words kuśa (कुश​, "kush-grass") and nāḷi (नाॡ, "stalk"), the former referring to kusha grass (Desmostachya bipinnata), a tall grass used to weave meditation mats in South Asian religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. In Chinese, this was translated into 吉祥草 (jíxiáng cǎo, "lucky grass").
    • Both the Japanese and Korean subtitles transliterate Kusanali into, respectively, クサナリ and 쿠사나리, both romanized as Kusanari, then suffixed with debi (デビ in Japanese, 데비 in Korean), which may be derived from devī (देवी, "goddess"). In addition, her Japanese name is prefixed with クラ (kura), which may be derived from either khudda, Pali for "small", or khuda (خدا), Persian for "god".
    • Her divine name, Buer, is based on the tenth demon of the Ars Goetia, who is described to teach natural and moral philosophy, logic, and the use of herbs and plants, obvious nods to her benevolence, wisdom, and control over Dendro.
  • Messianic Archetype: An individual claiming to be the successor god,note  rejected by her equivalent of a church, because they are disappointed that she does not fit their expectations. They imprison and abuse her all her life, not knowing that she is their revered god's creation, anointed to be her next incarnation. And it's specifically the religious leaders who are her greatest enemies, as she has her own devout among the common people. And yet through it all, she remains steadfast in her kindness and patience, and being a Friend to All Children.
  • Mother Nature: Being the female Archon of Dendro automatically qualifies her as this.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: After Rukkhadevata has been rendered Ret-Gone, all of Teyvat now believes that Kusanali has always been the Dendro Archon, who had been imprisoned and abused by the Sages because she sacrificed her powers and memories to stop the corrosion caused by the Forbidden Knowledge, abandoning and confining her for the "crime" of sacrificing herself to protect the land and went on to pretend she doesn't even exist for five centuries and then attempt to replace her with a new God of Wisdom. Once the people of Sumeru learn of this, they all rightfully condemn the Sages to permanent exile.
    Dehya: Those sages really have some nerve. Five hundred years ago, Lesser Lord Kusanali used all her power for the people of Sumeru, and what did they do in return?
  • Reincarnation: Greater Lord Rukkhadevata describes her as the next stage in her cycle of samsara, her next incarnation.
  • Sketchy Successor: The Sages consider Kusanali inferior to the Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, trying to censor her existence and locking her away. Even just speaking about her is equated to blasphemy against the Greater Lord. Ironically, the Greater Lord herself inverts this when her lingering consciousness and Kusanali, her reincarnation/successor, meet in the core of Irminsul, assuring the latter that she will grow to become an even greater Archon than she was.
  • Telepathy: It is implied that she is the voice that spoke to directly to the Traveler's mind after the "Summer Odyssey" events have been concluded if the Dendro symbol shown at the end of the conversation is of any indication.
  • Unperson: The Akademiya have been systematically attempting to censor Kusanali's existence via placing her under house arrest, removing all information about her in the Akasha Terminal, suppressing worship of her, and going so far as to attempt to create an artificial god to replace her. Ironically, it ends up being her predecessor Rukkhadevata that gets erased from the records instead, and thoroughly at that.
  • The Usurper: She is viewed as this by the Akademiya, who are in denial over the fate of her predecessor Rukkhadevata, despite the fact that Kusanali's birth and promotion as Dendro Archon ought to be proof enough that the Greater Lord is gone for good. This has led to suppression of Kusanali's worship. The irony here is that she is actually the reincarnation/creation of Rukkhadevata, who literally describes Kusanali as her new "self" and her incarnation.

    Hydro Archon 

Lady Furina / Regina of All Waters, Kindreds, Peoples and Laws / Focalors, the God of Justice

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/foca.png
Absolute Focus of the Stage of Judgment
"My ideals have no stains. I must correct you. People here bear no sins in the eyes of the gods... Only laws and the Tribunal can judge someone. They can judge even me. So praise my magnificence and purity."
— Varunada Lazurite Gemstone

The current Archon of Hydro worshiped by the people of Fontaine. Please consult Furina's page here.

    Cryo Archon 

The Tsaritsa

"Sorry... to also have you shoulder the grievances of the world. Since you could endure my bitter cold, you must have the desire to burn? Then, burn away the old world for me."
— Shivada Jade Gemstone

An Archon of Cryo, the ruler of Snezhnaya and the leader and founder of the Fatui. Though her people worship her, by the time the game unfolds, they have come to have a far more complicated relationship.
  • 0% Approval Rating: The story trailer says that her people have no love left for her. Despite this, she does seem to inspire genuine loyalty among the ranks of the Fatui.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: As the ruler of Snezhnaya whom the Fatui serve, the Tsaritsa is one of the main villains bringing chaos to Teyvat, alongside the Abyss Order who are working independently from (and are opposed by) the Fatui.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Tsaritsa is a title that means the equivalent of queen or empress in Russian, and the Cryo Archon is referred to exclusively as such whenever she is mentioned.
  • Evil Is Deathly Cold: She is both the Cryo Archon and one of the main overarching antagonists of the game.
  • Fur and Loathing: Yelan's fur-lined coat was intended to be a gift from the Harbinger Pantalone to her, suggesting she wears furs.
  • The Ghost: She has been frequently mentioned in-game, but so far never seen.
  • God-Emperor: She appears to rule Snezhnaya directly as its Archon.
  • The Man Behind the Man: For the Eleven Fatui Harbingers, who she grants godlike executive authority.
  • Orcus on His Throne: As of Fontaine, she has remained in Snezhnaya and sent the Fatui Harbingers to do her bidding. Justified, since she is the head of her country's government.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • Her quote from the Shivada Jade Gemstone has her express a mild amount of sympathy.
    • The teaser "A Winter Night's Lazzo" and Pierro's comments strongly imply that it was her who froze Signora's tomb to preserve her eternal rest.
      Pierro: Absolute peace. Such is the gift from the Tsaritsa, such is Her Majesty's benevolence.
  • Rage Against the Heavens: While herself a god, she seeks to lead a "rebellion against the divine", presumably Celestia.
  • Satanic Archetype: She created and founded the Fatui alongside Pierro which brought corruption to Teyvat for centuries, and she seeks the gnoses of the other archons to lead a rebellion against Celestia. Unlike most examples, however, she is associated with ice and cold, bringing to mind the ninth circle of Hell from Dante's Inferno.
  • Token Evil Teammate: The only outright villainous archon of The Seven. Ei no longer counts due to her Heel–Face Turn.
  • Took a Level in Cynic: Implied heavily: Childe describes her as a "gentle soul" who "had to harden herself." Barbatos and Rex Lapis both note she is quite different and no longer the same person they once knew. The story trailer notes she has "no love left for her people."
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: According to Childe, "she declared war against the entire world only because she dreams of peace."
  • We Used to Be Friends: Barbatos states that their relationship used to be quite different 500 years ago.
  • Winter Royal Lady: As the Cryo Archon and ruler of snowy Snezhnaya, the Tsaritsa is naturally this.
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: While the Traveler manages to stop the Fatui's current plans in every Chapter of the Archon Quests, the Fatui always manage to get the relevant region's Archon's Gnosis through bargains or violence. Whatever her intention for the Gnoses is, it seems likely to come to fruition by the time the Traveler gets to Snezhnaya and Chapter VI plays out.

Former (All Spoilers Unmarked for Their Respective Archon Quests!)

    The First Electro Archon 

Raiden Makoto / "Raiden Shogun" Baal, the God of Eternity

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/makoto_archon.jpg
The Lightning's Glow
Voiced by: Juhuahua (Chinese), Miyuki Sawashiro (Japanese), Park Ji-yoon (Korean), Anne Yatco (English)

"Never stop searching, even if only for a brief flash of light. If nothing else, we have the present moment."

The previous Electro Archon, who perished in a Cataclysm five hundred years ago, and identical twin sister of Ei, the current Archon.
  • Brains and Brawn: The Brains to Ei's Brawn. While far from defenseless, Makoto focused on the arts and governing the people, while Ei fought most of the Shogunate's battles.
  • Cynicism Catalyst: Her death caused Ei to slowly withdraw from the world, with barely a care for anything apart from her pursuit of eternity and hiding from her psychological trauma, which led to such problems as the Shogun puppet (which Ei created to be her own Body Double) being deceived by corrupt elements within the Tri-Commission, in collusion with the Fatui, into enacting totalitarian laws.
  • Doppelgänger: She and Ei looked practically identical, to the point that they switched roles as the ruler of Inazuma on a regular basis, with only a few gods and other entities aware that there were two of them.
  • Energy Being: She appears one last time in her plane of consciousness as a ball of Electro before dissipating.
  • Graceful Ladies Like Purple: A Yamato Nadeshiko and joint ruler of Inazuma who, like her twin sister and co-ruler Ei, had a purple Color Motif.
  • Identical Twin ID Tag: Makoto wore both her kimono sleeves down and white ankle-length socks, while Ei tied both of her sleeves up (before leaving the right sleeve undone in the present) and wears black thigh-high stockings. Makoto's kimono is white with few purple accents while Ei's was dark purple, but she changes it to a light purple one in the present. Unlike Ei, Makoto lacked a beauty mark and her hair is tied into a half braid while Ei's hair is fully braided. They also wear different hair ornaments, and after Makoto's death, Ei wears her twin's hair ornament alongside her own. And in the Japanese dub, Ei consistently uses keigo to anyone she speaks to, while Makoto opts for a more casual speech pattern and uses the feminine suffix "-wa" in her speech, which Ei doesn't use.
  • Meaningful Name: Makoto's name is the kun'yomi (native Japanese) reading for 真 (zhēn, "truth"), while Ei's is the kan-on (Chinese-derived) reading for 影 (yǐng, "shadow"). This alludes to Makoto being the original Electro Archon, whereas Ei used to be her Body Double before fully assuming her position after her death. In addition, using the opposite reading methods of the Han characters of their names respectively yield "shin" and "kage"; the significance of such readings come from how, in the sword-forging traditions of both Inazuma and real-life Japan, the best of swords crafted by a given swordsmith would be called a shin'uchi and meant only as ornaments to "keep their purity", while the rest are called kageuchi and meant to be "stained by the filth of battle." Makoto focused more on politics and fine arts, and wasn't exactly a good fighter compared to Ei, and the katana she forged of her divine will, the Mussou Isshin, was meant to be a symbol of peace, befitting a shin'uchi. Ei, as her kagemusha, fought most of their battles, and when the sword was passed onto her after her sister's death, it became a tool of war, like a kageuchi.
  • Mono no Aware: Befitting both her understanding of "transience" and Inazuma's Japanese cultural aesthetic, Makoto embodies the traditional Japanese notion that "things that don't last are all the more beautiful." This is also the lore of the "Transience" Talent ascension materials in Inazuma.
  • My Death Is Just the Beginning: Makoto died fighting the forces spilling out of Khaenri'ah, but not before setting in motion a plan to safeguard Inazuma through her final work, the Sacred Sakura, an act that she claimed would allow their people to grow beyond the Heavenly Principles. Emphasis also on the "beginning", because the particulars of her plan required that Ei plant it in "eternity," permanently engraving the tree in the country's history. Now, only Ei remembers that it only existed after Makoto's death. To everyone else, the tree has simply always been there. Ei also believes that Makoto was able to anticipate what was happening in Khaenri'ah, which is why she chose to fight alone to protect her. With her dying strength, she was able to set in motion a plan that would transcend time and ensure Inazuma's survival as well as her sister's eventual growth into a ruler.
  • My Greatest Failure: While Makoto chose to go to Khaenri'ah alone so that Inazuma would still have an Archon, she (more specifically a fragment of her consciousness stowed away inside the Musou Isshin) reveals that she didn’t do so without regrets. The first was forcing Ei to undertake their shared role and all the burdens that came with it on her own with no warning or preparation, with Makoto apologizing for having thrown her sister and Inazuma as a whole into the deep end the way she did. Her second regret was not doing more to try and remedy Ei's misguided concept of eternity, which led to Ei inadvertently and almost completely tearing the continent apart with her destructive policies like the Vision Hunt Decree until the Traveler intervened. It is because of this that Makoto deems herself a failure as an Archon, but has faith that Ei will be able to lead Inazuma into a brighter future after witnessing her sister's growth.
  • Mysterious Past: Compared to the other Archonsnote , the origins of the Raiden twins are unknown, with their earliest in-game lore starting from their victory in the Archon Wars. What the twins are exactly (other than the Elemental Embodiment of Electro) has yet to be elaborated on.
  • No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Much like Ei, Makoto is based on Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the last and most powerful shogunate of Japan from 1603 to 1868. Specifically, Makoto embodies the political aspects of Ieyasu (in contrast to Ei, who embodied his military aspects), and one of her titles, "Narukami Gongen", alludes to Ieyasu being posthumously deified as a "daigongen", a Buddha incarnated into a kami (note the syncretic nature of Japanese Buddhism, the kami the name of divine spirits in native Japanese religions such as Shintoism).
  • Parasol of Prettiness: She's always seen with a wagasa in all of her appearances thus far.
  • Polar Opposite Twins: Makoto and Ei were twin sisters born from two aspects of storms: lightning bolts, and the shadows they leave behind. Makoto focused on the arts while Ei pursued the martial. Most importantly, however, is their exact opposite of their understanding of Eternity: Makoto's understanding of Eternity is about "searching for the brief flashes of light," enjoying every moment, and continuing progress, recognizing and nurturing that which remains eternal even as the world changes around it, while Ei, as a direct response to Makoto's death and the fall of Khaenri'ah, chose to pursue an Eternity of stillness where everything is kept the same, interpreting it as preserving as much as she could lest the tragedies that befell them repeat. Makoto was able to reconcile the transient nature of humanity with Eternity, and her rule was prosperous for it, while Ei's attempt to deny and fight back against that transience nearly drove Inazuma to ruin before she finally understood her sister's wisdom.
  • Posthumous Character: She died in the Cataclysm five hundred years before the story started, and is only seen in a flashback cutscene.
  • Purple Is Powerful: Appropriately as the first Electro Archon, her color scheme is mainly light purple and white.
  • Red Baron: Aside from "Raiden Shogun", according to the book "Treasured Tales of the Chouken Shinkageuchi", she had "Narukami Gongen" as her title.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Ei's Red. Makoto was more focused on the arts and leading Inazuma, her image heavily evokes grace and demureness, and she perfectly understood the ideals of "eternity". Ei, on the other hand, was more passionate for martial arts, fought the battles that the Shogunate faced, and the events that led to the Despair Event Horizon left her with a blurry idea of pursuing "eternity", making her more reckless than Makoto.
  • Take Up My Sword: She gave the Musou Isshin to Ei in her dying moments, and with it the title of "Electro Archon."
  • Theme Twin Naming: Her Archon name is Baal, while that of her twin is a derivate thereof, "Beelzebul". Their real names Makoto and Ei are also a reference to the Japanese sword-forging tradition (see Meaningful Name above).
  • Universally Beloved Leader: Implied — her rule was significantly more prosperous than that of Ei (or rather, the Shogun puppet), noted to intertwin both "eternity" and "transience" together to ensure the future of Inazuma, something Ei wasn't able to correlate and thus led to a worse rule (no thanks to the Shogun), until it became a tyrannical one some time before the start of the Archon Quest.
  • Villain Baal: Subverted. Despite being ruler of Inazuma and her Archon name being related to the Ars Goetia (with the actual Baal being the first demon king), Makoto herself was a benevolent ruler whose rule was highly prosperous, and it's only because Ei was initially mistaken as her that gave the impression.
  • Walking Spoiler: She is part of the major twist in Chapter 2: that the current Raiden Shogun has been impersonating her since her death 500 years ago, with most Inazumans unaware of the situation.
  • Yamato Nadeshiko: Makoto's image and mannerisms all seem intended to capture this ideal—an elegant, wise woman with a hidden inner strength. And it's clear that Ei struggles to live up to her sister's image, having spent most of their joint rule as a warrior. Makoto focused primarily on the arts and governing, but still wielded the Musou Isshin when necessary.
    The First Dendro Archon 

"Greater Lord Rukkhadevata", the God of Wisdom

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rukk.png
Sapientia Oromasdis
Voiced by: Mufei (Chinese), Chloe Eves (English)

"I gradually understood that these indescribable and constantly changing things are the most profound things in the world. Only they can completely repel the madness. Only dreams can awaken consciousness from the deepest darkness."

The previous Dendro Archon, who disappeared in the Cataclysm five hundred years ago.
  • Always Someone Better: Her legacy is such that Akademiya is obsessively loyal to her to the point of shunting her successor almost completely aside in favor of promoting Rukkhadevata's continued worship. Kusanali admits to being seriously insecure about having to fill in such big shoes.
  • Arc Words: The last thought her consciousness recorded in the Irminsul was "World... forget me...", a riddle that Kusanali has been picking at for centuries in the hopes of saving Sumeru from its current predicament. When Nahida finally gets to meet her at Irminsul, the full sentence is revealed to be "Let the world completely forget me.", which is the key to cleansing the Irminsul and eradicate Eleazar for good.
  • Bait-and-Switch: Secrets of the Scorching Desert shows how the Dendro Archon turns into a small child, implying Nahida is an amnesiac and depowered Rukkhadevata. It is later confirmed that Rukkhadevata truly died during the Cataclysm (though a piece of her consciousness remains), and Nahida is a reincarnation of her, made from a branch of Irminsul.
  • The Corruption: The remnants of her mind are inside the Irminsul. Unfortunately, when she attempted to purge forbidden knowledge from Irminsul during the Cataclysm, she ended up polluted it with it herself. Not only is it responsible for Eleazar and the Withering, contact with this knowledge through connection to Irminsul tends to drive people insane, a fate that Akademiya's researchers continued succumbing to in spite of Kusanali's warnings. In the end, it takes the complete removal of Rukkhadevata from Irminsul to eradicate the forbidden knowledge.
  • Despair Event Horizon: She admits to Kusanali that were it not for her experience of dealing with Forbidden Knowledge with King Deshret and the latter's Heroic Sacrifice, she would have fallen to despair during the Cataclysm simply because she wouldn't know what to do to save Irminsul.
  • Determinator: During the Cataclysm, she went to Irminsul and cleansed it to the best of her ability alone, all the while her mind is slowly being corrupted to the point that she could went mad if she were to lose focus. Not even the prospect of dying and having to completely be forgotten in order to truly save Irminsul deters her, as she managed to create Kusanali moments before her death to ensure that her successor would be able to purge her corrupted memory for good in the future.
  • Dream Stealer: Rukkhadevata invented the Akasha System, which could steal people's dreams to compile their wisdom and knowledge. Unlike the present-day Akademiya, she was doing it for the good cause of purging forbidden knowledge from Irminsul, and she felt rather guilty about it, often dreaming about the day that she could let Sumeru's people dream again.
  • Exotic Eye Designs: Her pupils are in the shape of white four petal flowers.
  • Face Death with Dignity: Her lingering consciousness's last actions are to embrace Nahida and bid Sumeru farewell, wishing her people sweet dreams before disappearing for good.
  • Final First Hug: Pulls her reincarnation and creation Nahida into one before the latter hugs her back while erasing her from Irminsul.
  • Fling a Light into the Future: After she realized she too had been tainted by Forbidden Knowledge, she used the purest branch from Irminsul to create Kusanali and left a trail of hints that would one day lead her successor to find her and purge Rukkhadevata's remnants from Irminsul, and with it the last traces of Forbidden Knowledge.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: After you finished Sumeru's Archon Quest, all mention of Rukkhadevata in-game is gone to reflect the fact that she was erased from Irminsul, and all mentions of her are either replaced by Kusanali, the "Dendro Archon", or outright removed entirely. This includes voicelines, item descriptions, and even books, as detailed in this reddit post. The only exception is her throne in the Orchard of Pairidaeza which retains her name.
  • God-Emperor: The Aranara referred to her as Queen Aranyani.
  • God Is Good: Like her successor Kusanali, Rukkhadevata is shown to have been a kind leader, helping humanity even at the cost of her adult form, memories, and even her entire existence. After her memory was removed from Irminsul, only the Traveler still remembers her.
  • Gold and White Are Divine: Her primary colour scheme is white with green highlights reflecting her Dendro powers, and gold accessories on her dress, befitting her status.
  • Go Out with a Smile: As her consciousness disappears for good, her last expression was that of a peaceful smile.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Rukkhadevata chose to sacrifice and Ret-Gone herself to save her people and the world from the dangerous forbidden knowledge.
  • I Cannot Self-Terminate: As she had ultimately been infected with the forbidden knowledge, trying to erase herself to eradicate it would equate to a paradox and thus needed Kusanali's help to erase her and permanently eradicate the forbidden knowledge for good.
  • Identical Grandson: Rukkhadevata and Kusanali look identical apart from one being an adult and the other a child. This is later revealed to be because she is the reincarnation of Rukkhadevata, created from a branch of Irminsul after Rukkhadevata discovered she had been corrupted by "forbidden knowledge".
  • I Have Many Names: Humans called her Rukkhadevata, the Aranara called her Queen Aranyani. She also presumably had a name from the Ars Goetia and had titles such as the God of the Woods and God of Wisdom.
  • Immortality Through Memory: It's a big problem when people remember the avatar of Irminsul and said avatar has been tainted by a Mind Virus that can have nasty effects on their physical body. As long people remember her, they also perpetuate Forbidden Knowledge. There's only one way to cleanse Forbidden Knowledge for good: erase the last traces of Rukkhadevata's consciousness within Irminsul so the world can completely forget her, with far-reaching consequences.
  • Living Memory: A part of her consciousness remains in Irminsul, and Nahida, the Traveler and Paimon are able to eventually meet and interact with her, finding out the circumstances of Nahida's birth and purpose - to completely erase her from Irminsul and cleanse Sumeru of Forbidden Knowledge for good.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Rukkhadevata's name is derived from रुक्खदेवता (rukkhadevatā, Sanskrit for "tree goddess," befitting her dominion over Dendro). She is also named after the goddess of wealth in Shaivism, a branch of Hinduism that primarily worships Shiva, god of destruction and slayer of demons.
    • The Aranaras' title for her, "Aranyani," is based on the name of the goddess of forests and its flora and fauna in Hinduism.
    • The Japanese subtitles gave her the suffix of "Maha" (Japanese: マハ) which is Sanskrit for "Great", signifying her strong influence and how much she is greatly regarded by the people of Sumeru.
  • Mother Nature: Being the female Dendro Archon that created the forests of Sumeru makes her this.
  • Nature Spirit: Describes herself as the avatar of the Irminsul tree.
  • Never Found the Body: Though all signs point to Rukkhadevata being dead, the people of Sumeru don't actually know what happened to her, only that she went missing during the Cataclysm. This lack of definitive proof has left some in denial to the point that they spurn and even suppress any form of worship towards Kusanali.
  • Posthumous Character: According to the lore of the Viridescent Venerer artifact set, she died in the Cataclysm 500 years before the story started. The Archon Quest eventually reveals that Rukkhadevata definitely died during the Cataclysm, and Nahida is both a creation and reincarnation of Rukkhadevata rather than a depowered version of her.
  • Ret-Gone: Her ultimate fate. In order to eradicate the forbidden knowledge she'd inadvertently been polluted with, Nahida was forced to destroy all trace of her memory in Irminsul, removing the lingering ghost of Rukkhadevata from the world and leaving Nahida alone as Sumeru's only Archon. As a result, everyone forgets that Rukkhadevata existed and believes that Kusanali had been the only Dendro Archon and that the Sages abandoned and abused her for sacrificing her powers and memories to save the land from the corruption for 500 years, punishing her for the "crime" of protecting the land and losing her powers and memories. Only the Traveler remembers that she once existed and while they consider telling Nahida about her twice (once in the main Archon quest, the other in Nahida's story quest), they ultimately decided to respect her decision so the people of Sumeru can move on without clinging to her memory.
  • Sexy Backless Outfit: Her dress had a low V cut at the back held together by a single tie string.
  • Sleep-Mode Size: When Rukkhadevata assisted King Deshret with eradicating the threat of forbidden knowledge thousands of years ago, she expended a great deal of her energy and reverted to the form of a small child.
  • Truly Single Parent: She created Kusanali using a branch of Irminsul and her own power.
  • Universally Beloved Leader: Rukkhadevata was beloved by her people when she was alive. The Sabzeruz festival was worshipped by her people decorating all of Sumeru City with flowers and the people would throw candy and liquor into the streets. In the current day, her worship and adoration is mandated by the Akademiya to the point of suppressing worship of Kusanali.
  • Unseen No More: Oddly, for all of Akademiya's obsessive reverence of her, there isn't a single statue, mural, or other visual record of her visage to be seen in all of Sumeru. It takes a visit to a secret chamber under King Deshret's Mausoleum to discover a single record left by the entombed priest, which shows that, apart from age, Kusanali is a dead ringer for her in appearance. He also mentions that after participating in her old friend's attempt to eradicate the "forbidden knowledge" responsible for Eleazar and the Withering, her form turned into that of a small child...
  • The Voice: Before completing the Sumeru Archon Quest, her voice could be heard saying, "World... forget me..." while at the Statue of the Seven.
    The First Hydro Archon 

Egeria / "Lord of Amrita" / "Lord of Sweet Dew" / "Queen of All Waters" / "Ruler of Rivers and Seas" / "The Noble Navigator"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/egeria.png
Lord of Amrita
Voiced By: Qiao Luyu (Chinese), Sayuri Yahagi (Japanese), Kim Ha-yeong (Korean), Courtney Steele (English)

"The original sin is the fairest: Everyone sinks... Make the most of the final feast, because for the sinners, the curtain call has come."

The previous Hydro Archon that died during the Cataclysm and was transformed into Amrita.
  • Ambiguously Evil: The Siege of Poisson, which razed the entire town, happened during the later years of Egeria's rule. It is unambiguously depicted as a reprehensible act in artifact lore, with even the one in charge of the siege, Emmanuel Guillotin, becoming an alcoholic due to his guilt. The event was later covered up by the Court of Fontaine, with operas being written to depict the authorities' actions as heroic. How much influence Egeria had in Fontaine's then-government is unknown, which means it is unclear if Egeria herself approved of the mass murder of innocent civilians, but the fact that it happened at all makes her questionable.
  • Boxed Crook: Egeria was initially imprisoned by Celestia for her crime of creating humans from the Primordial Sea. However, when the previous god who ruled Fontaine, Remus, fell along with his civilization of Remuria, they let her out so she could serve as the Hydro Archon.
  • Creating Life Is Bad: The "Original Sin" was that Egeria did not obtain permission from Celestia before using Primordial Seawater to transform some of her Oceanid familiars into humans. In doing so, she essentially created a new form of humanity and this act offended the Heavenly Principles. Her crime led to the terrible curse that would hang over her people for the next several centuries, intended to destroy the "new" humanity that Egeria created.
  • God-Emperor: She was called the Queen of All Waters while she was alive and ruled over Fontaine as their Archon.
  • God of Order: Her ideal was Justice, and she established the laws of Fontaine after uniting the tribes in the region following the fall of Remuria. However, her actual effectiveness as a deity of law is questionable, since Fontaine's extreme classism, wealth disparity and the ease with which the wealthy get away with their crimes were already massive societal problems during her rule.
  • Heavenly Blue: The Gaokerena that supposedly houses Egeria's consciousness is a light blue flower with petals that fade into a darker blue at the edges. The Harvisptokhm tree that grew from her remains is also a light blue.
  • The High Queen: Egeria was said to have picked up the pieces of the Kingdom of Remuria and ruled fairly, helping save the survivors and mediate arguments between them, as well as establishing the Court of Fontaine for them to live in.
  • Holy Water: The Amrita water that was formed from her remains was utilised by Greater Lord Rukkhadevata to nurture the tree that grows in Vourukasha Oasis to counter abyssal corruption and forbidden knowledge. The Pari were also created from the divine bird Simurgh drinking the Amrita and exploding into numerous bits of purifying power.
  • Homosexual Reproduction: The Pari were created when Simurgh, a divine bird created from the powers of the Goddess of Flowers and transformed by Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, drank from Egeria's remains and burst into smaller sentient beings.
  • Lord of the Ocean: Naturally, as the previous Hydro Archon.
  • Love Goddess: While Focalors claims Egeria's ideal was Justice, Egeria has been frequently associated with the ideal of love. The Oceanids were said to have been born from her tears and tasked to connect all things, transmitting and spreading the Archon's love.
  • Mystical Lotus: The Gaokerena is a giant blue lotus that supposedly houses Egeria's consciousness in the Girdle of the Sands after her death.
  • Not Quite Dead: Her consciousness supposedly still resides in the Gaokerena grown from the Amrita combined with Lord Rukkhadevata's power.
  • The Prophecy: Her dying words were apparently a prophecy about Fontaine's destruction, which have haunted her successor. She prophesized that the waters would rise and consume the land, and that its people would become water, leaving the Hydro Archon alone and weeping on her throne. As of the Fontaine main quest, the nation is beginning to suffer rising water levels and several cases of people turning into water. This might also also be a Dying Curse, since Neuvillette's speech as he's sealing the sluice gate holding back the Primordial Seawater in the Fortress of Meropide (specifically "This sentence is too severe. Forgive me for overruling it.") implies that the prophesized destruction of Fontaine was a sentence handed down by the previous Hydro Archon towards Fontaine and her people for unspecified sinful acts. The sin in question is revealed in Chapter IV Act V to be of Egeria turning her Oceanid familiars human without explicit permission of the Heavenly Principles.
  • Red Baron: Egeria had many titles, such as the Lord of Sweet Dew, Ruler of Rivers and Seas, Noble Navigator, and Queen of All Waters.
  • Religious and Mythological Theme Naming:
    • In several Dharmic religions (i.e. Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism), Amrita is a type of Holy Water that is also often an Elixir of Life consumed by immortals.
    • Egeria, her civilian name, is taken from a nymph in Roman mythology that was the consort of the legendary second King of Rome, Numa Pompilius, who she guided in establishing the laws of Rome. This mirrors her role in establishing Fontaine's laws after the fall of Remuria. At the death of her lover, Egeria was overcome with grief and melted from her tears, forming a sacred spring just outside the gates of Rome. This matches her transformation into the Amrita, and the prophecy of her people being melted by the Primordial Waters.
  • The Voice: In the Overture Teaser: The Final Feast trailer, she is heard narrating during Freminet's descent into the depths. The cast list reveals her name, but her identity would not be revealed until entries for the Legendary Beasts are unlocked.
  • Water Is Womanly: She was the Queen of All Waters.

Status Unknown

    Pyro Archon 

The Lady of Fire / Murata, the God of War

"A pilgrimage for a wish; a battle to earn a name... Burnt to cinders for a dream. If the intention yet remains, achieved ▉▉'s truth he has."
— Agnidus Agate Gemstone

An Archon of Pyro worshiped by the people of Natlan. People refer to her as the Lady of Fire.
  • Ambiguous Situation: It is unknown whether Murata is the current Pyro Archon or not, since the "children of Murata" has forgotten about her at the time of Vennessa's rebellion 1,000 years ago and Venti's present-day line about the Pyro Archon, even if it refers to Murata, is sourced from the poems of "days gone by."
  • Blood Knight: The Agnidus Agate Gemstone's description implies Murata to be this.
  • Fiery Redhead: In the prequel webcomic Venti said that Murata's people have fiery-red hair and she "can be pretty obnoxious at times." Venti also said that Vennessa's (one of Murata's people) temper is "very Muratan".
  • God of Fire: Naturally, as the Pyro Archon.
  • Mythology Gag: In this game's supplemental manga, Murata is known as the "Lady of Fire", worshipped by a tribe with their characteristic red hair. In Honkai Impact 3rd, there is a character named Himeko Murata, who has red hair and 2 of her battlesuits allowed her to wield fire. Her control over fire also alludes to Himeko's Previous Era counterpart who was known as the Herrscher of Flames.
  • Red Baron: Her proper name is Murata, but she is also known as the "Lady of Fire", and "The Lady of War".
  • Sacred Flames: As the Pyro Archon, she naturally wields this.
  • War God: She's also known as “The Lady of War” and her people consist of warrior tribes who perform rites of combat.

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