Characters / Honkai: Star Rail—Astral Express

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

Astral Express

All Aboard!

A spacefaring train created by Akivili, Aeon of the Trailblaze, to fulfill their yearning to explore the universe, along the way creating the Star Rail tracks and gathering like-minded individuals henceforth called "the Nameless." Centuries after the passing of the Aeon and the original group, a scientist named Himeko rediscovered the Express, repurposed it for herself, and has gathered her own companions in traveling the universe and lending a helping hand to those who need it.

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General Tropes

• The Drifter: They never stay in one place for long and Pom-Pom preserves to leave a world within a week of arriving at it. As a result, they meet a lot of people and say just as many goodbyes, as thousands of years can pass between visits from the Astral Express. But they always try to explore and understand every world they visit while trying to leave it in a better place than when they arrived. That being said, Fu Xuan claims at the end of the Xianzhou Luofu Trailblaze Mission that she has foreseen that they will come back and meet her again someday. 1.4 update's stories shows that they can and do go back to the worlds they've visited if they so choose, likely using the Space Anchors.
• Exposed to the Elements: Akivili's blessing protects those following the Path of the Trailblaze from the elements, which comes in handy when the group visit the icy world of Jarilo-VI. This doesn't apply to those around them, though, as seen when the Trailblazer and Natasha go out into the snow plains to look for her brother.
• Family of Choice: None of the Astral Express crew are related by blood but they are extremely close as any family would be. Their unwavering loyalty and devotion to one another ensure that they will never hesitate to come to each other's aid in any fight, no matter how challenging.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • In-game, the crew comes from a variety of different Paths (namely, Preservation for March 7th, the Hunt for Dan Heng, Erudition for Himeko, and Nihility for Welt). However, this is only to denote their combat roles; story-wise, they are all Trailblaze Pathstriders, which to date has no defined combat role.
  • You still have to pull for Himeko and Welt to have them fight alongside their compatriots even though they're part of the main team.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot:
  • Dan Heng fights with a spear, while March 7th uses a bow to snipe enemies from afar. The Trailblazer can also share the smashing role with Dan Heng if Caelus is chosen as the player character.
  • If Dan Heng as Imbibitor Lunae is accounted for, he (who shapes water to strike enemies from afar) can share an inverted dynamic with the Trailblazer if Stelle is chosen as the player character.
  • Usually inverted with the senior crew, Himeko, who wields a circular saw to fight up-close, and Welt, who manipulates gravity from a distance channeled by his cane, but played straight with their Ultimates, where the former blasts her foes with a Kill Sat, while the latter slashes through a black hole he engulfed his enemies with.
• Helping Would Be Killstealing: Himeko and Welt, the two older-looking crew members, possess far more experience than their younger-looking peers and with incredible powers that would easily match many of the things the Trailblazer faces. But Himeko feels the latter group deserves to get to experience the adventure on their own. That said, the two aren't averse to providing "off-site" help when it's warranted, such as when Himeko uses her Kill Sat attack to disable one arm of the Engine of Creation, saving the heroes from a messy fate.
• I Have Many Names: The group is referred to by the following names: the Nameless, the Trailblazers, and the Astral Express crew.
• Living Legend: The Nameless become this for the people of Belobog, with their arrival and presence being credited as integral to ending the 700-year Eternal Freeze and the Stellaron crisis and helping the Supreme Guardian save the planet. They are treated with the utmost respect by virtually everyone in the city and are later memorialized in the History and Culture Museum due to their contributions, with March's photo reel and a replica of the Trailblazer's baseball bat being installed as exhibits.
• Masculine, Feminine, Androgyne Trio: Among the younger-looking members of the Astral Express, Dan Heng is male, March 7th is female, and the Trailblazer's gender is selected by the player. The latter's "Wanted!" Poster in Belobog is also described as "androgynous," albeit due to Gepard's poor drawing skills.
• Out of Focus: Downplayed. Almost the entire Astral Express crew takes a backseat in the first Penacony mission "The Sound and the Fury", which focuses primarily on the Trailblazer and their interactions with the various factions gathering on the planet and vying for their favor. The second mission "Cat Among Pigeons" though has a greater participation from the Astral Express crew with the exception of Dan Heng, and even then he messages the crew asking whether he should rejoin them or not.
• Perpetual Motion Machine: If you ask about the Express's power source, Himeko says that even she doesn't where it is or how it works, but she assumes it is powered by the Path of the Trailblaze. A text message with Dr. Ratio reveals that the Express isn't being refueled anywhere near as much as one would expect, and yet it continues to warp just fine, suggesting that its motion isn't powered by the fuel alone.
• Portal Network: The crew have access to space anchors that allow them to teleport to key locations they have visited. They are only mentioned in the story itself once, so Gameplay and Story Segregation probably applies.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The current group of Nameless consists of an alien conductor, a scientist obsessed with coffee, a man from another universe, a drifter fleeing his troubled background, a cheerful girl seeking her past memories, and another amnesiac with a Stellaron in their body.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: The dynamic between all the men in the Astral Express and March 7th, with Dan Heng being the most prominent.
• The Sleepless: Downplayed. The Trailblazers can go for days without sleep thanks to Akvili's blessing, but once they do go to sleep, they need to catch up on all those days they missed. So it's frequent for them to sleep in extra late after a lot of exertion.
• Space Compression: In lore, the Astral Express has the Engine Room, Conductor's Cabin, Parlor Car, the Passenger Cabins, a Buffet Truck, and Cargo Storage. Out of the list, only the Parlor Car and one Passenger Cabin can be visited, and the visitable Passenger Cabin does not include the Trailblazer's room, which has been stated in dialog to exist. Furthermore, when viewing the Astral Express from the outside, it seems surprising it would be able to fit all of the described rooms.

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The Trailblazer

General Tropes

Receptacle Stelle (Female) or Receptacle Caelus (Male)

Introduced: April 26, 2023 (v1.0 "The Rail Unto the Stars" [game launch])
Stelle is voiced by: Chen Tingting (Chinese), Yui Ishikawa (Japanese), Kim Ha-ru (Korean), Rachael Chau (English)
Caelus is voiced by: Qin Qiege (Chinese), Jun'ya Enoki (Japanese), Kim Myung-jun (Korean), Caleb Yen (English)

Receptacle Stelle, the Female Trailblazer

Receptacle Caelus, the Male Trailblazer

Rarity: 5★
Path: (Adaptive, initially The Destruction)

The Player Character of Honkai: Star Rail. A mysterious person of unknown origin, they are awoken from deep slumber by the Stellaron Hunters infiltrating the Herta Space Station in the middle of an Antimatter Legion attack and forcibly merged with a malevolent artifact known as a Stellaron, giving them untold and undiscovered latent power. Devoid of their memories, the Trailblazer joins the Astral Express crew, seeking the truth about themselves and the Stellarons.

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• Ambiguously Human: What they are is a driving force of the early story, as their body is "downloaded" over a Stellaron and seemingly have become an entity tied to the Aeons with their supernatural powers. Once they can finally get the opportunity to ask Kafka about it, fulfilling the right conditions reveals they're an Artificial Human, created specifically by unknown means for hosting the Herta Space Station's Stellaron before the Stellaron Hunters found them, and holding the blessing of an unknown Aeon that specifically makes them immune to the Stellaron's influence.
• Ambiguously Related: Their character design shares several motifs with Nanook's: shaggy silver hair, black/white contrasts, gold/yellow accents, and dangling straps. Is it just because of the Stellaron inside the Trailblazer, or is there something more to it? As the story wears on, even the initial assumption that Stellaron are creations of Nanook begins to weaken, but the strong resemblance between Nanook and the Trailblazer remains... curious.
• Amnesiac Hero: Whatever is going on with their containing the Stellaron, Kafka and Silver Wolf knew the Trailblazer was going to lose their memories over it. Bits and pieces seem to fill their mind from time to time, but the gaps are so vast they have yet to become cohesive. Kafka reveals later that she intentionally wiped their memories before the prologue's events.
• Artificial Human: They're actually a human-shaped receptacle created for the purpose of housing Herta Space Station's Stellaron with the blessing from an unknown Aeon making them immune to the Stellaron's influence.
• Bad Powers, Good People: A Stellaron with the Path of Destruction should theoretically be a chaotic Physical God, but their inexperience, humanity, and morals help temper them to be a heroic individual.
• Been There, Shaped History: After the events of the Jarilo-VI Trailblaze Mission, the Belobog Culture and History Museum made some replica exhibits modeled after the weapons they use to pay tribute to their role in saving Belobog from the Stellaron crisis. While one of the exhibits is their lance that once belonged to Alisa Rand and used in their Preservation form, the other is the baseball bat they picked up from Herta Space Station and used in their Destruction form. In a sense, the Trailblazer contributed something new to Belobog's history despite the bat itself being rather mundane by comparison.
• Blood Knight: Depending on the player's choices, the Trailblazer can be extremely eager to get into fights. Some dialogue choices make it their primary motivation for helping others or complain when a fight wasn't challenging enough.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: If the flavor texts is anything to go by, bordering on Cloudcuckoolander levels. Dialogue choices play with how quirky they can get but their thoughts and some behavior like described in Companion Cube are completely out of the player's control, yet many events display their versatility in doing various jobs like museum curator or business advisor, amongst others.
• Canon Name: Though you can give them a custom name, the menu interface for selecting between the two identifies the male Trailblazer as "Caelus," and the female as "Stelle."
• Chemically-Induced Insanity: After the Trailblazer helps her rescue a blind girl, Dan Shu gives them a strange medicine as a thank-you present. Assuming they ingest the medicine the Trailblazer begins to feel unusual and returns to the Seat of Divine Foresight to find Mara-struck swarming the building. After fighting them off, the medicine's effects dissipate, and they realize that whatever they took caused them to hallucinate Cloud Knights as hostiles. They eventually conclude that the Stellaron inside their body repelled the effects of the medicine before it afflicted permanent damage.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The dialogue choices do determine how spacey they are to some extent, but some of their other behavior the player has no control over like their fixation on random inanimate objects do paint them naturally as being very much out there, with their internal narration often resembling something straight out of Disco Elysium as their mind concocts strange narratives.
  • The Trailblazer has a bizarre obsession with trash receptacles, much to March's and Dan Heng's occasional exasperation; in one interaction they even hallucinate that a trash can is a treasure chest. When coming across two trash cans, one standing and one toppled over, they come up with a whole plot of betrayal and revenge with the former looking sadistically at its adoptive parent "Tatalov," whose "guts and blood" (the trash bags) are spilling out. In Penacony, they even get to participate in an entire dream sequence about a world of trash cans.
  • A standout example is when staying the night at the Goethe Hotel, the Trailblazer can enter the closet where they will believe they have "merged with the universe's most perfect closet as one single entity," only for their blissful state to be interrupted by footsteps they quickly conclude are from a "hotel devil" that has disguised itself as room service. They proceed to banish the "hotel devil" by leaping out of the closet and scaring the daylights out of the poor maid.
• The Comically Serious: A lot of the humor revolving around the Trailblazer involves them doing and saying things that are just plain odd while remaining stone-faced.
• Companion Cube: Many interactions with random objects in the world, such as trash cans, hotel room closets, and chests containing other people's belongings, have the Trailblazer become absolutely fixated and obsessed with them.
• Contralto of Strength: Stelle in the English dub has a fairly deep and husky voice and the power to take on all manner of planetary threats.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: To both Kiana Kaslana and the Traveler, the respective protagonists of two previous miHoYo games, Honkai Impact 3rd and Genshin Impact.
  • While Kiana is smarter and more competent than her cheerful, book-averse, and lackadaisical façade suggests, the Trailblazer is a stoic, quiet type who can be weirder than they let on. Additionally, while both carry an Artifact of Doom in their bodies, Kiana only learns about hers late in life, and is also an active threat to herself and the people around her until she learns to control it. By comparison, the Trailblazer finds out about theirs shortly after waking up, has shown no negative reactions to carrying it so far, and made no attempts to learn how to control it.
  • Like the Traveler, the Trailblazer is an otherworldly Player Character whose canon names relate to the sky (Caelus/Aether) and light (Stelle/Lumine), have player-defined gender and names, and can switch combat specializations as needed; apart from that, however, they differ in several ways: at the start of their stories, whereas the Traveler has a set goal of reuniting with their sibling, the Trailblazer has very few memories intact; in terms of clothing, both Trailblazers wear a black-and-yellow coat over a white shirt (only differentiated with Stelle wearing a miniskirt and Combat Stilettos, while Caelus wears slacks and regular shoes), whereas the Traveler has gender-specific color schemes (black-and-gold for Aether, white-and-sky-blue for Lumine); combat-wise, whereas the Traveler continues to wield a sword and retain their stats even when changing elements (and thus fighting styles), the Trailblazer changes elements, weapons, and stat priorities in conjunction with Paths; in terms of traveling companions in the main storyline, the Trailblazer has March 7th and Dan Heng (both of whom are the other two starting playable characters in the game), while the Traveler only has Paimon (who is an NPC; meanwhile, the starter characters—Amber, Kaeya, and Lisa—are story-wise largely limited to Mondstadt); finally, regarding the other selectable Playable Character, whereas the Traveler you didn't choose becomes your Traveler's missing sibling and leader of the Abyss Order, as of writing (v2.1) the other Trailblazer has yet to be integrated into the story.
• Covert Pervert: When using Penacony's Dreampeek Calls, they can get a glimpse at an exchange between Seele and Bronya that is rather...suggestively worded. Finding out that they were just arguing over a box leaves the Trailblazer "irritated and frustrated".
• Dark Is Not Evil: Regardless of gender, the Trailblazer wears a black-and-white outfit with shades of yellow, and have a Stellaron stuck inside of them. And yet they're The Hero of the story.
• Dating Catwoman: Firefly, whom they received an extensive amount of Ship Tease with, is the true person beneath Sam.
• Deadpan Snarker: Though you don't get to hear their voice with dialogue options for the deadpan part, there tends to be more than a few choices throughout interactions that highlight that they're not the happiest about the crap they're put through and respond with what can only be interpreted as sarcasm at best and pure, annoyed snark at worst.
• Determinator: When they put their mind to doing something, nothing can stop them. Even being impaled with a lance by Cocolia doesn't slow them down for long, as their burning determination to protect their friends and all of Belobog catches the eye of Qlipoth, who grants them their power.
• Dreaming of Times Gone By: Due to the Stellaron in their body, the Trailblazer has a dream in which the Jarilo-VI Stellaron spoke to a young Cocolia, witnessing the moment where it started to lead her down a dark path.
• Dub Name Change: In the Chinese dub, the female and male Trailblazers' Canon Names are respectively 星 (Xīng, "star") and 穹 (Qióng, "sky")^note A rarely used character which is not interchangable in everyday Mandarin with 空 (kōng, also "sky"), the Chinese name for Aether, the male Traveler of Genshin Impact, both of which form part of the Chinese name for Honkai: Star Rail (崩坏：星穹铁道, Bēnghuài: Xīngqióng Tiědào). In Japanese, the same characters are officially read as "Sei" (せい) and "Kyuu" (きゅう), and in Korean as "Seong" (성) and "Gung" (궁), whereas the English dub uses their respective German and Latin counterparts.
• Dumpster Dive: The Trailblazer has a bad habit of investigating trash cans for treasure. It's a big enough part of their character that the Ruan Mei creation with an Uncatty Resemblance to them is decorated as a trash can.
• Emotion Control: At some point during the Penacony Trailblaze Mission, they meet Clockie, who asks them for help in calming down an angry gangster threatening Misha and Acheron. Because this is caused by negative emotions boiling over, they are taught the power of Clockwork to counter it, which instantly changes a person's mood to happy, sad, angry, or calm. The targets of this power never seem to notice that anything is wrong unless they have enough experience with the Path of Harmony, but observers of the Trailblazer's new ability have been left stunned at the sudden Mood Whiplash.
• Extreme Doormat: If the Trailblazer willingly lets Cirrus into their body on the condition Cirrus doesn't cause any trouble, Cirrus finds the Trailblazer to be remarkably relaxed and detached, to the point that Cirrus wonders if the body even belongs to them.
• Friendly Enemy: Although they can choose to be friendly or aggressive in dialogue events with Stellaron Hunter members, the Trailblazer's general stance to them is quite friendly to the point they can talk with each other easily via messages despite being on opposing factions. As they're heavily implied to be a former Stellaron Hunter due to their extensive working past with Kafka, it becomes somewhat understandable as to how the Trailblazer can instinctively make up conversations with the Hunters with ease even after deliberately erasing their memories before the game starts and people like Kafka and Silver Wolf reciprocating to their advances without an afterthought.
• Genre Savvy: Amusingly from a modern context; when they're aboard the Star Rail for the first time, they outright say it feels like stepping into a science-fiction movie, and seem to understand RPG tropes just enough to have a habit of being able to guess if someone's about to spring a request or a wrinkle into the mix.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The game lets you input a name for the Trailblazer. When the custom name appears in a dialogue, any voiced line will simply skip mentioning it, or use the appropriate pronouns in its place.
• Heroic Mime: Played with; their player-chosen dialog is typically unvoiced, but their internal thoughts are fully voiced. They can also speak out loud during the "argument" minigames in a few select quests, as well as in animated cutscenes. In certain story events where you are capable of interacting with them as an NPC while controlling a different character (such as with Dan Heng at Scalegorge Waterscape), they simply react with "...", indicating that they're not much of a talker in general.
• Heroic Second Wind: The Trailblazer has one after Cocolia launches a frozen lance at them. They go from plunging to their deaths to drawing the gaze of Qlipoth, resulting in new Preservation abilities and awakening the frozen lance's true power as the weapon of Alisa Rand, the first Supreme Guardian.
• Higher Understanding Through Drugs: During one daily mission, a vendor selling flaming "tea" asks you to try out his latest recipe. The result has a hallucinogenic effect, which among other things imbues the Trailblazer with Hyper-Awareness, allowing them to notice that the vendor has lost clumps of hair and is nervously sweating.
• Hot-Blooded: Some dialogue options depict them as gung-ho and ready to charge into the fray whenever someone needs help. Picking these options even gets you the achievement "Hot-Blooded Trailblazer".
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: They were extremely distraught with Firefly's death, with both Acheron and Black Swan trying to calm them down as well as gather some of Firefly's last thoughts in order to etch them into the Trailblazer's Remembrance and make sure she won't be forgotten. If you return to Firefly's secret hideout after finishing the main story, the narration explicitly describes just how sad and angry the Trailblazer felt over it, wondering if they could have prevented her death if they were faster, and the game even rewards you with a Sad and Angry Gear afterward just to drive the point home. Finding out that not only did Firefly fake her death but that she is the person behind Sam, one of the Stellaron Hunters they're supposed to oppose, leaves them with a lot of mixed feelings, to say the least.
• Iconic Item: The baseball bat-shaped Curio that they picked up off the floor of the Herta Space Station. It is the commonly preferred weapon in promotional material and is referenced numerous times in dialogue, with the Trailblazer even giving themselves the moniker of "Galactic Baseballer".
• The Immune: Stellarons create a sort of "contamination" around them that influences their environment and affects the minds of applicable people, like what happened on Jarilo-VI. The Trailblazer, however, was created and blessed by an Aeon in just the exact right conditions that they're completely, or at least mostly, immune to their Stellaron's effects, making them a one-of-a-kind vessel for containing one.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The Trailblazer is on the receiving end of this at the end of their first fight with Cocolia. To add insult to injury, the force of the attack knocks them off the platform.
• In-Series Nickname: The Trailblazer's Self-Applied Nickname title is the Galactic Baseballer.
• I Should Have Been Better: Returning to Firefly's secret base after finishing the 2.0 main story will have them wonder whether things could have changed if they reacted faster to Something Unto Death.
  If you had reacted faster, would that silly girl not have died? A tinge of sourness wells from the depths of your heart, followed by flames of anger - intense enough to reduce the strongest metal to ashes. Facing the railings and skyscrapers, you clench your fists...
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed but often present. The dialogue choices and some of the actions that are completely out of the player's control paint the Trailblazer as someone who isn't the most considerate person, thinks maybe a bit too highly of themselves, and tends to complain when having to help, but nonetheless, they still put the work into helping others. There is a reason why they can perceive Clockie.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: The Trailblazer has a fixation on opening every single treasure chest they can get their hands on. Welt comments that no matter how well-hidden a treasure chest is, the Trailblazer is able to spot it. Even trash cans look like chests to them, as the Trailblazer can't help but dig their hands in to pull out any remotely interesting scraps they can find. On the Xianzhou Luofu, the Trailblazer is frustrated to discover that they have no obvious trash system, but discovers a new hobby of checking what people are mailing.
  • In one sidequest, they're explicitly vexed and angry when told not to rummage through other people's things. When they try again on the same chest, now moved to a different location, they're on the verge of tears when they have to restrain themselves from prying it open.
  • Inside a government office in Xianzhou Luofu, an employee stops them from opening a chest and proceeds to rant about how their kind must talk to every talking NPC, attack any attackable NPC, and open every chest while experiencing the anguish of unsatisfied curiosity when unable to do so and lamenting that he himself used to be one of them (the Nameless) before learning his lesson the hard way.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Multiple dialogue options have them groan and complain about helping others with their problems. But they still help anyway and put a lot of effort into completing requests.
• Look Ma, I Am on TV!: At the climax of the Trailblaze Mission "A Walk Among the Tombstones", Aventurine hijacks the Golden Hour's broadcast system and makes a public announcement calling out the Astral Express to battle him. One of the Trailblazer's responses to this can be "Mommy, look! I'm on TV!", which cues a hilariously annoyed glance from March 7th.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: The Trailblazer's adventures will take them far across the galaxy doing random errands for others. In addition to being an errand boy/girl, they can work as a museum curator, a business advisor to the Aurum Alley shopping district, a scam investigator, and a research assistant, among other tasks.
• Manchild: Downplayed. While capable of being mature and often acting as the Straight Man to March 7th, some of their antics in various places can make them look more like an overgrown child, such as their Dumpster Dive shenanigans, their out-there disposition and logic, and bluntness, some of which the players would have no control over. It's probable that their Identity Amnesia might've caused this and gave them a pure and honest personality to let them perceive Clockie.
• Meaningful Name: Coincidentally, at least for Stelle, it's fitting that she becomes the host of a Stellaron. In all languages, both names contain word for "star".
• Minidress of Power: Stelle runs around in a miniskirt and lacks Modesty Shorts (apart from what looks like white bloomers), but it doesn't stop her from bringing the pain.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Played With by the game but ultimately averted. During Kafka's Companion Mission, the player has a chance to ask her two questions about themselves with the caveat that one answer will be a lie and the other a truth, with a false and true answer for each possible question. The second question allows an option that lets the player figure out whether her first answer was true or false, and players pieced together the true answers together: the Trailblazer is an Artificial Human created to host a Stellaron and was modified by an unspecified Aeon to be able to do this. Elio handed them to Kafka, saying that if things transpire according to what he foresaw, she and them would "change each other". In the time before the Stellaron's implantation into them, Kafka taught the Trailblazer everything from general knowledge to combat skills before wiping their memory just before the Stellaron was inserted. Blade confirms at the end of the mission that they have worked with Kafka before and had been with her for a while.
• Mysterious Past: They definitely existed prior to the start of the story, as Kafka specifically knows them and they recognize her on sight even when their past memories (including any memories with her) have been wiped. But said memory loss is an intentional part of the plan to get them traveling alongside the Astral Express in search of the truth. At least, Blade confirms in Kafka's Companion Mission that the Trailblazer had been traveling with Kafka long before the events of the game (heavily implying that the Trailblazer was a former Stellaron Hunter) and was apparently a close companion of hers. Kafka also claims that Elio handed them to her and they would eventually "change" each other as per his predictions.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: The climax of the Jarilo-VI Trailblaze Mission shows that the Trailblazer is capable of accessing multiple Paths while everybody else is locked to only one. At the conclusion of the arc, they become freely able to switch between the Paths of Destruction and Preservation.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: A rather unconventional example. Excluding the situations where a large amount of exposition about a situation needs to be gotten out of the way, if the Trailblazer has no "funny" option in any of their dialogue choices, things have truly gotten dire.
• Only in It for the Money: Depending on the dialogue options you take, you can make the Trailblazer seem comically greedy, always thinking of the hefty reward when asked for help.
• Only the Pure of Heart: At one point on their tour of the Golden Hour with Firefly, they find an Origami Bird only they can hear and see where Firefly and other passersby can't. Later on, they also encounter Clockie asking for their help, who, again, can only be perceived by them and Misha (and Acheron, though only registering a presence she can't describe). Clockie explains only those with a childish and honest disposition can perceive him (and presumably the birds too), which is likely a result of their Identity Amnesia, childlike disposition and mind, and their genuine inclination to the right thing.
• Physical God: By being the vessel of a Stellaron, they are theoretically capable of mass destruction and extraordinary power far beyond the capabilities of humans, but specifically only show mere fractions of this power both because they don't understand themselves enough to even remotely hope to control it, and because as a Star Rail member, such power is completely antithetical to the safety of everyone and everything around them.
• Poke the Poodle: When the Trailblazer confesses their sins, all of said sins are extremely childish or quirky, like fondling and looting trash cans, altering messages, and stealing coins from fountains.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner:
  (Battle Begins: Weakness Break - Destruction) "This is our chance."
  (Battle Begins: Weakness Break - Preservation) "Time to go on the offensive."
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Downplayed since both genders of the Trailblazer are generally The Stoic, but there is a slight difference in personality between Stelle and Caelus, particularly when delivering their Ultimate lines during battle. The former is calm and elegant, while the latter is aggressive and brutal.
• Sarcasm Failure: When Cocolia dies in her madness after you fight her and Bronya is grieving, the third option (usually the most silly or sarcastic) is "I can't think of any joke..." For all their wisecrack, the Trailblazer at least knows to read the room, though Bronya tells them that some humor would actually be welcome at the moment.
• Schrödinger's Player Character: The story implies that both Stelle and Caelus exist at the same time, and Herta's own image art shows her with dolls of both as a Visual Gag, but the Receptacle the player chooses becomes the Stellaron's vessel and thus the Player Character, while it's unknown if the other will matter at all.
• Ship Tease:
  • Most extensively with Firefly to date, their meeting in Penacony is akin to a Meet Cute and later escapades almost read like a date (which Acheron teases them about), starting from fending off some security guards who mistake her for a stowaway, then going on a tour of the Golden Hour, and finishing with a heart-to-heart talk at a secret spot to themselves, a sunset in the distance against which they take a selfie together; the description of the hideout's warp point even points out that the view "will be the generator of romantic memories for countless lovers in the foreseeable future". Searching on the ground where Firefly dies to Something Unto Death yields her cellphone before it dissolves, which shows a picture of their selfie together that speaks to how important the Trailblazer was to Firefly.
  • The Trailblazer also has moments with March 7th, more noticeable after the Xianzhou Loufu arc since she's the one member of the Astral Express Crew that they interact the most with, such as the "Future Market" mission or the Stellar Shadowseeker event. Plenty of their in-game dialogue options offer the Trailblazer a chance to flirt with March by openly calling her cute, which she tends to react to positively.
    • From the beginning of the story, despite the two only having known each other for such a short time, the Trailblazer immediately shields March with their body before the Doomsday Beast could kill her. In subsequent scenes, the Trailblazer is shown to be quick to protect March or fight with her side-by-side, the Express' encounter with the Abundant Ebon Deer being another notable example.
    • They've also grown close enough with March to express one of their rare bouts of vulnerability when they're with her, as shown in the climax of the Interastral Tournament Festival:
    Trailblazer: You trust me?
    March 7th: ...Yeah. So what?
  • Arguably, the Trailblazer's interactions with Kafka may be interpreted in a romantic light even moreso than their interactions with the aforementioned girls, owing to their (heavily implied) previous partnership and Kafka's lines about how the two of them are "destined" to change each other. While the Trailblazer's opinion on her may vary depending on the player's choices, Kafka evidently cares about their well-being, to the point where Welt and Himeko reassure the Trailblazer that the Stellaron Hunter wouldn't do them any harm in her Companion Mission. This is notable, in spite of the Astral Express' misgivings with her and the rest of her faction.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Some of the Trailblazer's dialog points at this. While the Trailblazer has earned a name on planetary scales (like Belobog and the Xianzhou Luofu) and interacted with some actual big names, like Genius Society members and IPC Stonehearts, the universe is a big place and the Trailblazer still has a ways to go before they become as famous as some dialog choices imply they would like to believe they are.
• Smarter Than You Look:
  • They're prone to doing lots of silly things and/or getting violent, but there are several examples of them being competent at a number of jobs that need a lot of thinking besides whacking things with a bat, including museum curator, Aurum Alley business advisor and delivery planner, crime investigator and lots more.
  • In a train chat with Topaz, she has them pose some math questions to pass the time, starting with simple arithmetic (excepting "March 7th divided by Pom-Pom", whose adorableness Topaz can't measure), but then the Trailblazer ups things with "the fifth root of 28,629,15", "prime factors of 73,153", and "What is C5H9NO4 the molecular formula of?"—the last of which Topaz answers anyway. This implies the Trailblazer being Good with Numbers and chemistry themselves.
• Statuesque Stunner: Stelle is a fairly attractive girl who is also currently the tallest female character in the game at 174 cm (or over 5'8'').^note Her body model is unique to her and not shared with any of the other female models, with her height matching Caelus and lacking any Jiggle Physics - so that any cutscene involving the Trailblazer won't have any issue with rigging and modeling.
• The Stoic: Externally they're a blank face almost all the time, rarely expressing much unless something really catches them by surprise, though some element of this is due to their amnesia. Internally, they're a snarky weirdo with a penchant for being completely the opposite of what people see on the surface.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Has these, because they are a vessel for the Stellaron in their body.
• Super-Toughness: In the "Stellar Shadowseeker" event, when retaking photos for March 7th, the Trailblazer takes a photo of a Belobogian tram from in front of it and isn't paying attention when the train resumes its journey. The Trailblazer bounces off against the train hard but is none the worse for wear, commenting on their high DEF.
• Sweet Tooth: Heavily implied. An early in-game text from Himeko asking for their meal preferences has "milk tea" as one of the possible dialogue options. This is seemingly supported by the presence of a hidden achievement for Immortal's Delight, a boba tea-inspired consumable, which only unlocks after the player consumes it for 3 consecutive days.
• Token Heroic Orc: As far as the cast is concerned, Stellarons are usually trouble magnets that distort the localized reality and cause all sorts of hell upon worlds they awaken on, though it remains unknown whether or not they are inherently evil. Meanwhile, the Trailblazer, whether through their ability to contain the Stellaron or even through its very nature, is a heroic individual working with the Astral Express to help people wherever they go and shut down other Stellarons.
• Touched by Vorlons:
  • At the climax of their battle against Cocolia, the Trailblazer draws the attention of Qlipoth due to their heartfelt desire to protect Belobog and its people and is subsequently able to draw upon the power of the Path of Preservation.
  • According to Kafka when you interrogate her at the Luofu's Divination Commission, this is the destiny that the Stellaron Hunters have weaved for the Trailblazer. Their goal is to have them inherit the Paths of the different Aeons.
• Unique Protagonist Asset: The Trailblazer has the unique ability to switch between different Paths, which also changes their damage type (as of v1.3, Destruction and Preservation).
• Villain Takes an Interest: Nanook, Aeon of Destruction (and assuming they are villainous), takes a glance at the Trailblazer after the Stellaron within their body awakens to defeat the Doomsday Beast in the midst of absorbing its final attack to save March 7th, forcing Himeko and Welt to take them away from Herta Space Station, urge them to join the Astral Express and head to Jarilo-VI.
• Was It All a Lie?: While not saying this in front of Firefly's face after their reunion at the end of the 2.1 story "The Cat Among Pigeons" (since the story ended before their dialog continued), returning to Firefly's secret base after finishing the story will cause the Trailblazer to question if all the moments they've had in Penacony were lies. Since the Trailblazer has spent a good portion of the 2.1 main story being traumatized from failing to save Firefly (which turned out to be a deliberately faked death by her own decision) after their meeting with her, it's a certainty that the Trailblazer is feeling they've been betrayed in many ways despite their confusion on how to process their emotions on the matter at the end of the 2.1 main story.
• Why Am I Ticking?: The Trailblazer was apparently created by an Aeon to be able to contain a Stellaron. Furthermore, their Stellaron in particular was tampered with by Herta during her experiments, theoretically making it more stable. Even so, Herta complains that the Trailblazer could spontaneously explode at any time. Aventurine exploits the Trailblazer's potential instability by claiming he has a device that can forcibly detonate it, though he's bluffing to put on a show and force Acheron to expose the secret of death in Penacony.

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Path of Destruction

Trailblazer of Destruction

Aeon: Nanook
Type: Physical

The Trailblazer's first Aeon-blessed fighting style prioritizes swatting away at their foes with a baseball bat, either one at a time with their Basic Attack, Farewell Hit, or including adjacent foes with their Skill, RIP Home Run. Their Ultimate, Stardust Ace, supercharges their bat and allows them to use stronger "Blowout" forms of either of the aforementioned attacks. Their Talent, Perfect Pickoff, boosts their Attack up to twice in a battle whenever they Break an enemy, while their Technique, Immortal Third Strike, immediately heals the party.^note When fully upgraded, they automatically regenerate Energy at the start of battle, heal themselves whenever they attack an enemy weak to Physical damage, and enjoy a Critical Rate boost against Broken enemies; their Ultimate can now regenerate additional Energy should they defeat enemies; and their Talent's stacks can now also boost their Defense, as well as automatically triggered whenever they defeat enemies.

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• Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring their Eidolons, you can upgrade their third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, A Leading Whisper and A Surviving Hope, which will add two levels to their Skill and Talent with the former, and 2 to Ultimate and 1 to Basic Attack with the latter.
• Batter Up!: Their weapon in Destruction mode is a baseball bat that they found lying in the Herta Space Station. Various tidbits of dialogue imply that this is considered their signature weapon. They even have "Batter up!" as a potential Pre Ass Kicking One Liner when they attack.
• Boring, but Practical: Their fighting style is merely slamming things hard, more so if their attacks are upgraded into Blowout forms. Regardless, their ability to switch between wide-ranging and single-target attacks as well as their massive damage output still makes them useful in a pinch.
• Crutch Character: Downplayed, as they can remain viable in more difficult content, such as the Memory of Chaos or the later levels of the Simulated Universe, but once the player has access to other DPS units, they can lag behind in terms of damage output, as they don't truly specialize in any one area.
• Gathering Steam: Their Talent gives the Trailblazer a stack of a 10–25% Attack buff (of which they can hold up to two at a time, hence a maximum 20–50%) whenever they Break an enemy. Their fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Perseverance, allows each stack to also bestow a 10% Defense buff (hence a maximum 20%), and their sixth Eidolon Resonance, A Trailblazing Will, also allows them to gain the stacks whenever they defeat at least one enemy.
• Healing Factor: Their second Eidolon Resonance, An Unwilling Host, restores their HP (worth 5% of their Attack stat) whenever they hit enemies weak to Physical attacks.
• Healing Hands: Their Technique is an on-demand field heal that restores the party's HP (worth 15% of each character's Max HP).
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Their Skill hits up to three foes at once, one on either side of their principal target; in its Blowout form, the target takes more damage. The Trailblazer's sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Fighting Will, adds a 25% damage boost to both forms.
• Invocation:
  (Ultimate activation) "Rules are made to be broken."
• Jack of All Stats: They are competent in a number of areas but doesn't truly excel in any of them, capable of adapting to different enemy wave formations, buffing their stats, and sustaining themselves and their party. Their Skill and Ultimate can deal respectable damage, their passives incentivize Breaking often to trigger their status buffs, and their off-field Technique provides healing.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Their fourth Eidolon Resonance, A Destructing Glance, increases their Critical Rate by 25% against Weakness Broken enemies.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Their Ultimate on this path is the only one with two modes of operation (enhanced Basic Attack or Skill) and whose animation plays immediately upon activation before selecting the target.
• Mythology Gag: Their weapon of choice being a baseball bat alludes to the fact that this is also the first weapon of Kiana from Guns GirlZ, the predecessor to Honkai Impact 3rd.
• Regenerating Mana: Their second-ascension Bonus Ability, Ready for Battle, restores 15 Energy at the start of battle, while their first Eidolon Resonance, A Falling Star, restores 10 Energy whenever either form of their Ultimate defeats at least one enemy.
• Status Buff: Their Talent boosts the Trailblazer's Attack^note by 10–25% each time they land a Weakness Break, which can be stacked up to two per battle. Their fourth-ascension Trace, Perseverance, also allows each stack to grant a 10% Defense boost (hence a maximum of 20%), while their sixth Eidolon Resonance, A Trailblazing Will, automatically triggers the Talent whenever they defeat at least one enemy.
• Super Special Move: Their Ultimate allows the Trailblazer to unleash upgraded "Blowout" forms of either Basic Attack or Skill.^note For the former, damage is worth 300–525% of their Attack stat compared to 50–130% in its base form; for the latter, 180–325% to the target and 108–189% to adjacent foes, compared to a uniform 62.5–156.25% in its base form

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Path of Preservation

Trailblazer of Preservation

Aeon: Qlipoth
Type: Fire

During their adventures in Jarilo-VI, the Trailblazer gains the ability to protect their allies by drawing enemy aggression and countering at them with a fiery lance. Their Talent, Treasure of the Architects, allows them to gather up to eight stacks of Magma Will whenever they take damage or use their Basic Attack and Skill, respectively Ice-Breaking Light and Ever-Burning Amber (the latter draws enemy aggression unto themselves), which are consumed four at a time to enhance the damage potency and radius of the former, in addition to allowing both abilities to generate Shields for the party. Their Ultimate, War-Flaming Lance, thrusts their lance to scorch all their foes and upgrade the next use of their Basic Attack with a negated Magma Will Cost, while their Technique, Call of the Guardian, generates a Shield for themselves for their first turn in battle.^note When fully upgraded, they enjoy a boost to Attack and regenerate some Energy whenever they have an active Shield at the start of their turn, as well as automatically gain four stacks of Magma Will at the start of battle; their enhanced Basic Attack can now heal the Trailblazer; their Skill can now reduce the party's damage intake for one turn; and both their enhanced Basic Attack and Ultimate can now build up to three stacks of a Defense boost.

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• 11th-Hour Superpower: The Trailblazer unlocks the power of Preservation after being Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Cocolia at the end of the Jarilo-VI storyline. The Trailblazer's unyielding will to protect their friends and all of Belobog draws the attention of the past Supreme Guardians and eventually the Amber Lord themselves, who infuse their power into the lance that the Trailblazer now wields.
• Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring their Eidolons, you can upgrade their Eidolon Resonances, Trail-Blazing Blueprint and Spirit-Warming Flame, which will add two levels to their Skill and Talent with the former, and 2 to their Ultimate and 1 to Basic Attack with the latter.
• Barrier Warrior:
  • Their Talent erects Shields onto the party, which last two turns, whenever the Trailblazer uses their Basic Attack or Skill.^note With damage absorption worth (4–7%)+(20–102.5) of their Defense stat
  • Their Technique erects a Shield for themselves that lasts through the first turn of combat.^note With damage absorption worth 30%+384 of their Defense stat
  • Their sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Action Beats Overthinking, increases their Attack stat by 15% and restores 5 Energy for every turn their Shield is intact, while their second Eidolon Resonance, Time-Defying Tenacity, further increases the Shield's damage absorption.^note Worth 2%+27 of their Defense stat
• Boring, but Practical: Their Preservation form is also rather simplistic, their Skill acting as a simple taunt and their Ultimate being an all-encompassing attack. However, their Attack stat barely changes from their Destruction form which allows them to deal respectable damage for what is otherwise a defensive Path.^note With their Ultimate dealing damage worth the sum of 50–125% of their Attack and 75–187.5% of their Defense Relatively speaking, however, this form is less simple than their Destruction form due to the Magma Will mechanic and their intended role of tanking enemy attacks.
• Defend Command: Their Skill has them put themselves in a defensive stance using their lance, granting them a 40–55% Damage Reduction as well as goading enemies into targeting them for one turn. Their second-ascension Bonus Ability, The Strong Defend the Weak, allows their Skill to also reduce the party's incoming damage by 15% for one turn.
• Foil: The Trailblazer's powers in this state are more or less the complete opposite to Cocolia's. Due to being empowered by Qlipoth, the Trailblazer's abilities are tailor-made to protect others, shielding their allies, taking damage for the team, and retaliating with explosive bursts. By contrast, Cocolia wants to wipe away Belobog in hope of creating a new world, creating a Storm of Blades out of ice that damage the entire party and being entirely on offense the whole fight.
• Gathering Steam: They can collect up to eight stacks of Magma Will whenever they take a hit or use Basic Attack or Skill, which are then consumed four at a time to increase the damage potency and radius of the former.^note When enhanced, the Basic Attack deals damage worth 90–168.75% of their Attack stat against their primary target (compared to 50–130% in its base form) and 36–67.5% against adjacent foes Their Ultimate also enhances the next Basic Attack and negates its Magma Will cost. On a related note, their first Eidolon Resonance, Earth-Shaking Resonance, increases the damage of their Basic Attack worth 25% of their Defense stat, twice so on its enhanced form, while their fourth, Nation-Building Oath, automatically grants four stacks of Magma Will at the start of battle.
• Heal Thyself: Their fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Unwavering Gallantry, restores their HP (worth 5% of its maximum value) whenever they use their enhanced Basic Attack.
• Invocation:
  (Ultimate activation) "Lance ablaze!"
  (Normal speed) "Flaming lance... forward!"
  (×2 speed) "Lance... forward!"
• Knight in Shining Armor: The Trailblazer's Preservation form was unlocked out of a desire to protect Belobog from a Stellaron-addled Cocolia. Fittingly, their weapon is a Jousting Lance.
• Legendary Weapon: The "Everwinter City Museum Ledger of Curiosities" event reveals that the lance they use in this form once belonged to Alisa Rand, the first Supreme Guardian of Belobog.
• Lodged-Blade Recycling: The lance the Trailblazer wields in combat is the same ice-encrusted lance that Cocolia skewered them through the chest with in their initial confrontation with her Stellaron-empowered Mother of Deception form.
• Mighty Glacier: Compared to most Preservation Pathstriders. On top of Shields they can generate, their Skill reduces all damage by almost half even at low Trace levels, allowing them to take a lot of punishment from enemies. They can also put out impressive damage with their enhanced Basic Attack and Ultimate. Their Speed also becomes lower in this form, giving them less chances to attack and more for defending^note Though optimally, they'll like to be faster than most enemies so that they can use their defensive skills first.
• Mythology Gag:
  • As a lance wielder, they make several references to Bianka "Durandal" Ataegina of Honkai Impact 3rd.
    • Their choice of lances as weapons and fire-elemental typing are nods to her first battlesuit, Valkyrie Gloria, down to the base form of their Basic Attack being a forward thrust like those of her Basic Attack, and its enhanced form being a downward thrust, like the initial strike of her Ultimate.
    • Their Skill has them put themselves in a defensive position to block attacks using their lance, like the Bright Knight: Excelsis battlesuit's defensive move.
    • Their Ultimate is a mighty rushing thrust that ends in a giant eruption of fire behind them, like that for her Palatinus Equinox battlesuit, the difference being that the latter deals physical damage and is done on horseback.
  • Their lance's design and fire element is similar to Kevin Kaslana's Judgment of Shamash, though it's a greatsword instead of a lance. Relatedly, Caelus shares the same Chinese voice actor with Kevin.
• Playing with Fire: The Trailblazer's lance is infused with magma. Burying it in the ground with four stacks of Magma Will causes bursts of fire to erupt from the ground. Meanwhile, their Ultimate ability has them rush past their foes, causing a trail of explosions before making the battlefield erupt with an enormous plume of fire.
• Power Stereotype Flip: You might think the power of fire is better suited for more destructive endeavors, but here, the Fire Trailblazer has more defensive skills. The context for when they acquire their power, however, actually explains how fire can "preserve."
• Rule of Symbolism: The Trailblazer of Preservation's ensemble, consisting of a lance, fire-elemental attacks, and a defense-oriented build fits well to the climax of the Jarilo-VI Trailblaze Mission, where the Trailblazer gains the form after Qlipoth takes notice of their strong desire to protect Belobog from the Stellaron-corrupted Cocolia, and their association with fire thematically fits their role in melting, so to speak, the Eternal Freeze that has plagued the planet for centuries.
• Status Buff: Their sixth Eidolon Resonance, City-Forging Bulwarks, increases their Defense stat by 10% whenever they use enhanced Basic Attack or Ultimate, to a maximum of three stacks (hence 30%).

Passengers

Dan Heng

Dan Heng

Introduced: April 26, 2023 (v1.0 "The Rail Unto the Stars" [game launch])
Voiced by: Li Chunyin (Chinese), Kent Itō (Japanese), Kim Hye-sung (Korean), Nicholas Leung (English)

^{Click to see his full Warp artwork.}

Rarity: 4★
Path: The Hunt
Type: Wind

The quiet, brooding guard of the Astral Express. Dan Heng loves his way around a book and is peerless with a spear. His past is shrouded in mystery and is often off-limits for discussion, but to him his demons are something to be feared.

Dan Heng swiftly disposes of his target with his spear, as well as severely impairs their movement. His Skill, Cloudlancer Art: Torrent, is a triple thrust that inflicts Slow should it land a critical hit, while his Ultimate, Ethereal Dream, traps his target in a painting-like landscape as he skewers them, with a heightened damage potency if they are Slowed. In addition, his Talent, Superiority of Reach, increases the Wind Resistance Penetration of his next attack whenever he receives buffs, Shields, or healing from his allies, while his Technique, Splitting Spearhead, enhances his Attack stat for his first three turns.^note When fully upgraded, he endures less enemy aggression whenever his HP falls below half, as well as enjoys heightened Critical Rate against foes with over half of theirs, and all his attacks can now randomly boost his Speed for two turns; his Basic Attack increases in power against Slowed enemies; and his Ultimate automatically brings forward his next turn should it defeat his target.

For his true form, see Imbibitor Lunae on the Xianzhou Luofu section.

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• Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring his Eidolons, you can upgrade his Eidolon Resonances, Seen and Unseen and A Drop of Rain Feeds a Torrent, which will add two levels to his Skill and 1 to Basic Attack with the former, and 2 to Ultimate and Talent with the latter.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: His Talent bestows an 18–45% boost to the Wind Resistance Penetration of his next attack whenever he receives a buff, Shield, or healing from his allies, activated at least every two turns, which can be reduced to one through his second Eidolon Resonance, Quell the Venom Octet, Quench the Vice O'Flame.
• Badass Armfold: He keeps his arms crossed at times, including his warp art when he activates his ultimate.
• Badass Bookworm: Dan Heng is a strong fighter, but he is just as passionate about reading and learning as much knowledge as he can. He prefers to sleep in the Express archives, where he works on the data bank with as much time as he can, and many official illustrations of him depict him having a book in his hand. His character lore reveals that it was the only activity permitted to him when he was locked up in the Shackling Prison for Dan Feng's sin.
• Badass Longcoat: He's a skilled warrior who acts as the Astral Express' guard and wears a white and green longcoat.
• Big Brother Instinct: Despite his snarky attitude being particularly noticeable in his interactions with her, he is nevertheless protective of March 7th, trying to grab for her when she's in the path of the Doomsday Beast in the prologue and shielding her when they're attacked by the Silvermane Guard since she can't use her bow effectively in close-quarter combat. Furthermore, most of his voice lines when they're partied up together have him cautioning her not to run off by herself or act rashly, or (if March 7th is in a party with Imbibitor Lunae) lamenting that she never listens to his advice.
• Catapult Nightmare: After leaving Jarilo-VI, Dan Heng has a nightmare involving Blade and wakes in this fashion, suddenly sitting up in a panic and breathing heavily. Unfortunately for him, Kafka directs the Astral Express to the Xianzhou Luofu in pursuit of Stellaron activity, where none other than Blade is getting involved with Xianzhou authorities.
• Chain Lethality Enabler: His fourth Eidolon Resonance, Roaring Dragon and Soaring Sun, automatically pushes forward his next action whenever he defeats an enemy with his Ultimate.
• Commuting on a Bus:
  • At the start of the Penacony arc, Dan Heng says that he's going to sit out this time. As previously he ended up getting heavily involved in the Xianzhou Luofu arc, this makes sense, though he does tell the Trailblazer to not worry about the Luofu's matters. He then shows up on the Luofu again in the video "Harmony Greets the New Year" to join in the new year's festivities, released while the other crewmembers are visiting Penacony in the game. However, in the mission "Cat Among Pigeons," he contacts the crew and tells them he's more than willing to rejoin them in Penacony and lend a hand if they need his help.
  • In general, while Dan Heng's importance as a character has not diminished, his interactions with the rest of the Express have decreased after the Xianzhou Luofu arc such as in the "Future Market" questline and subsequent "Aetherium Wars" event in favor of having him deal with his focus quests on his own.
• Criminal Amnesiac: His past-life sins should have been considered cleansed with his forced rebirth and he could only barely remember that he committed a grave sin (but not what it was), but in practice, there are two problems. The first is that the Vidyadhara feared the long-term consequences of permanently destroying a high elder and therefore only did a partial job^note while they did force Dan Feng to undergo a rebirth, the charm they used had an intentional flaw, likely allowing his future reincarnation to recover his memories and powers when the right time comes. The second is that even if he had completely lost his memories, those who still care (such as the Ten-Lords Commission) feel very strongly about the subject, so they consider his lost memories to be nothing more than him making a feeble excuse to dodge responsibility for his past life's crimes, and want him dead permanently.
• Critical Hit Class: Players are incentivized to build up Dan Heng's Critical Rate to get a lot of mileage out of his Skill, which is guaranteed to inflict Slow on his target whenever it scores a critical hit, and by extension his Ultimate, which enjoys greater damage against Slowed foes. In addition, his first Eidolon Resonance, The Higher You Fly, the Harder You Fall, increases his Critical Rate by 12% whenever his target's HP is over half.
• Dark and Troubled Past: While he refuses to discuss his past, he's got some bad blood with the Xianzhou Luofu such that he is marked for death should he step foot there. It's also mentioned in one of his stories that he's changed his appearance numerous times while running from whatever it is he's running from. That said, he fears Blade even more than the Xianzhou Alliance, and upon learning he is also in the Luofu, he pays it a visit to warn his friends.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's not above making snarky comments at times, especially at March's expense, once claiming the right to remain silent after being asked about her. He also sent Arlan to her after Arlan asked him about how to deal with Herta, later explaining to the Trailblazer that if Arlan can handle March, he certainly can handle Herta.
  March 7th: ...That's just my charm! And I didn't cause any trouble. You just have to get used to me... Look, Dan Heng agrees, right?
  Dan Heng: I have the right to remain silent.
• Death Glare: When the trio first meet Sampo, he offers to take them to Belobog for a price. Dan Heng shoots him a silent and terrifying enough glare that Sampo immediately changes his mind and takes them anyway, and it won't be the last time Sampo is on the receiving end of said stare.
• Defense Mechanism Superpower: His second-ascension Bonus Ability, Hidden Dragon, reduces the chance of being targeted whenever his HP falls below half.
• Deuteragonist: Of the Xianzhou Luofu arc, as the main story is as much a quest to rescue the Luofu from the influence of the Stellaron as well as Dan Heng's personal journey to face his own past, which culminates in him gaining his Imbibitor Lunae form to help out in the climax.
• Die or Fly: Blade stabbing him in the chest resulted in him reawakening his powers and memories as Imbibitor Lunae.
• Dub Pronunciation Change: The characters of his name (simplified 丹恒, traditional 丹恆, pinyin "Dān Héng") are read as "Tankō" (katakana "タンコウ") in Japanese and "Danhang" (hangul 단항) in Korean.
• The Exile: He has been banned from setting foot on the Xianzhou Luofu due to a terrible sin committed by his previous incarnation, Dan Feng, which causes him to decline to visit it with the others. Relatedly, according to some papers found there, it was Jing Yuan who gave said sentence, albeit to protect him from a harsher sentence from the Vidyadhara Preceptors and the Ten-Lords Commission. He immediately breaks the rule when he discovers that Blade is onboard, recognizing the latter's danger. After Phantylia's defeat, Jing Yuan absolves Dan Heng's ban as gratitude for his assistance and allows him to freely visit the Luofu from then on, though he only sticks around to look after his successor Bailu and repair the Ambrosial Arbor's seal before choosing to rejoin the Express.
• Famed In-Story: During his visit to Boulder Town, he joined its Fight Club under the moniker "Cold Dragon Young" and became famous for defeating several of their battle machines. You can find some fans in the Fight Club hotly anticipating his return, to which you can give them a photo of him for their collection.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: His right ear has an earring with a white strip of cloth attached to it, while his left ear has a more metallic green clip over it. His left shoulder has a green pauldron over it, while his right sleeve is rolled up to reveal a black fingerless glove and vambrace. He also has some red Guyliner beneath the corner of his left eye.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • In the final set of missions of the Xianzhou Luofu Trailblaze Mission, Dan Heng undergoes a transformation into the Imbibitor Lunae for the remainder of the story. However, his original pre-transformation self can still be used and deployed at this time despite not changing back into his "Dan Heng" self until after Phantylia's defeat.
  • Dan Heng and the Imbibitor Lunae can both exist in the same team and fight alongside each other despite being the same person.
  • In the battle against Phantylia, Dan Heng (as Imbibitor Lunae) will aid you as an assist character who can unleash a powerful attack against the boss upon command once you have enough energy. Both Dan Heng's original self and the playable Imbibitor Lunae can be participating in the same fight as playable party members, making it there be up to three Dan Hengs with no explanation.
• Glass Cannon: Dan Heng can deal very high damage and is very fast, as expected of a Hunt Pathstrider, but he has low HP and Defense, and can't take a hit very well, though this can be ameliorated through his second-ascension Bonus Ability (see "Defense Mechanism Superpower" above).
• Guyliner: Wears red eyeliner at the bottom corner of his left eye.
• Hide Your Otherness: He looks like a completely normal human, which makes his true nature as a Vidyadhara (who normally have Pointy Ears) more shocking.
• I Choose to Stay: After completing his Companion Mission, Dan Heng is offered a chance to stay for good in the Xianzhou Luofu by Jing Yuan, who revoked his anathema. However, Dan Heng insists that the Express still needs him and is staying with them through thick and thin, only lingering on the Luofu long enough to catch up with the current High Elder, Bailu, and help her fix the seal of the Ambrosial Arbor.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: He gets stabbed through the chest by Blade's sword during their encounter on the Xianzhou Luofu. He survives, and it causes him to reveal his true identity as the Imbibitor Lunae.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • "Cold Dragon Young" is a moniker of his, and it's mentioned during his participation in the Fight Club boxing ring of Boulder Town.
  • During the Xianzhou Luofu Trailblaze Mission, Sushang keeps calling him "Silent, but Deadly" because he rarely speaks despite volunteering to fight alongside her and Luocha.
• Invocation:
  (Ultimate activation) "The truth of life and death, revealed in an instant."
  (Normal speed and ×2 speed) "This sanctuary... is but a vision. Break!"
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's usually surly and sarcastic (especially towards March) but still genuinely cares for the other members of the Astral Express' crew and is willing to lay down his life for them.
• Kiss of Life: Subverted. Attempts to give the Trailblazer CPR upon finding them unconscious in the Herta Space Station, but March 7th sees that they are awaking and pushes him out of the way.
• Martial Pacifist: If his combat voice lines are any indication, Dan Heng doesn't particularly enjoy fighting and typically tries to avoid it whenever possible. In Belobog, he was justifiably opposed to telling Cocolia all the details about the Astral Express's purpose and the Stellaron, fearing it would lead to conflict. Given that he's "on the run", it's logical that he'd like to avoid conflict as much as he could.
  "I have no interest in conflict."
  "Fighting is meaningless."
• Mythology Gag: Dan Heng shares some similarities to Xiao, as well as to some extent Kaedehara Kazuha, from Genshin Impact—in general, all three are handsome, youthful-looking men with wind-aligned powers and are haunted by Dark and Troubled Pasts; in particular, Dan Heng shares Xiao's mastery of the spear, origins in a place with a Chinese cultural aesthetic, and godlike powers, as well as Kazuha's maple-leaf aesthetic and fugitive status.
• "No. Just… No" Reaction: He's decidedly less than impressed by the Rice Dumpling and its Uncatty Resemblance when you send a picture to him for the Critter Pick event.
  Trailblazer: "It looks just like you." [sends picture]
  Dan Heng: "..."
  Dan Heng: "No."
  Trailblazer: "It's eyes are totally like yours!"
  Dan Heng: "No."
• Out of Focus: Following his Dark and Troubled Past being a heavy focus of the Xianzhou Luofu arc, he volunteers to sit out the Penacony arc altogether, electing to give his room at the hotel to the Trailblazer in favor of staying on the Express and updating its archives.
• Perpetual Frowner: Aside from a few rare instances in official illustrations or out-of-character chibis, and a brief sad smile in the animated "Ichor of The Two Dragons" short, he's almost never seen in-game smiling, with his default facial expression being completely stone-faced.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner:
  (Battle Begins: Weakness Break) "It's too late to repent."
• Really 700 Years Old: Dan Heng is the reincarnated Dan Feng, and while his exact age isn't clear, Dan Feng's sentencing took place over seven hundred years ago, yet Dan Heng looks no older than his twenties.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Frequently on display, as he's often paired with March 7th.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Of the three starter characters, Dan Heng's kit is the most focused, lacking the Trailblazer's adaptability or March 7th's sheer utility. The choice between using his Basic Attack, Skill, and Ultimate can be boiled down to how hard he wants to hit one enemy at a time. Relative to his fellow Hunt Pathstriders, Dan Heng also lacks additional gimmicks (e.g., Seele's Extra Turn, Yanqing's Full Health Bonus, or Sushang's enhanced damage against Broken foes), the closest being that his Ultimate deals more damage against Slowed enemies and his Talent's ability to increase his Wind Resistance Penetration. Despite this, Dan Heng is one of the strongest DPS units in the early game, and among the launch characters his single-turn damage is second only to Seele.^note Seele and Dan Heng are calculated on single-turn damage, without Eidolon Resonances, with their respective optimal Relics, equivalent critical hit stats, and Superimposition 5 Cruising in the Stellar Sea, where Dan Heng deals about 1% less than Seele. However, because of Seele's Extra Turn ability, the difference is more pronounced in practice. See here for more details.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Even though Dan Feng's sins were supposed to be extinguished after his reincarnation into Dan Heng, the latter was still punished for the acts of his previous incarnation by being banished from the Luofu.
• Starter Mon: Dan Heng is one of the two characters you more or less begin play with; you'll catch up with him in the main elevator of Herta Station, and he permanently joins the roster mechanically at that time.
• Status Buff: His Technique boots Dan Heng's Attack by 40% for the first three turns of the next battle, while his fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Faster Than Light, grants him a 50% chance to enjoy a 20% Speed boost for two turns whenever he attacks.
• Status Effect-Powered Ability: His Ultimate increases in damage potency against Slowed enemies.^note With damage worth 240–480% of his Attack stat by default and 312–624% against a Slowed foe In addition, his sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, High Gale, adds a 40% damage boost for his Basic Attack, Cloudlancer Art: North Wind, against Slowed enemies.
• Status Infliction Attack: His Skill is guaranteed to inflict Slow (12% Speed penalty) for two turns should it land a critical hit. His sixth Eidolon Resonance, The Troubled Soul Lies in Wait, increases the penalty to 20%.
• The Stoic: He never talks about his past and is quite serious, putting him in contrast with March. The only time that he has displayed more expressive emotion is after waking up in a panic from a nightmare in the "Nightmare" trailer. In the game proper, his mask of stoicism also has a rock taken to it when he realizes Blade is on the Luofu, and the Trailblazer, March 7th, and Welt have marched right on board, blissfully unaware of just who or what they're facing.
• Straight Man: Whenever the Trailblazer and/or March 7th goof off, Dan Heng will often be there to make wry comments about their antics.
• That Man Is Dead: An interesting variant where technically the man in question, Dan Feng, really is dead and Dan Heng is his next reincarnation. Dan Heng insists on Jing Yuan to stop treating him as if he’s the High Elder Dan Feng and instead treat him as Dan Heng, member of the Astral Express crew.
• Undying Loyalty: Dan Heng considers himself first and foremost an Astral Express crew, and insists he is not Dan Feng, his previous incarnation. Such is his loyalty that at the end of his Companion Quest, he turns down Jing Yuan's offer to stay at the Xianzhou Luofu despite his banishment having been revoked, choosing instead to continue journeying the stars with his friends.
• Weapon Specialization: Dan Heng's associated Light Cone is "Only Silence Remains" (4★), whose "Record" passive increases his Attack stat by 16–32%, as well as Critical Rate by 12–24% if there are less than two enemies in the field. With the way his kit works, the latter boost increases his chances of inflicting Slow with his Skill (thus increasing his Ultimate's chance to deal more damage), especially when there are a few enemies left or when facing off against bosses.

March 7th

March 7th

Introduced: April 26, 2023 (v1.0 "The Rail Unto the Stars" [game launch])
Voiced by: Nuoya (Chinese), Yui Ogura (Japanese), Jung Hye-won (Korean), Skyler Davenport (English)

^{Click to see her full Warp artwork.}

Rarity: 4★
Path: The Preservation
Type: Ice

One of the Astral Express's colorful crewmates. Himeko found her drifting through space encased in six-phased ice, which cannot be melted through conventional means. Regardless, the crew managed to free her, only to realize she had lost all her memories, even her own name. Now named for the date of her rescue, March 7th would rather keep moving forward and see what the future holds than dwell on the past. Her favorite hobby is taking pictures, as it helps her keep track of her new life, and perhaps serve as a window into her old one.

March 7th specializes in shielding her allies as well as stopping her enemies cold. Her Skill, The Power of Cuteness, erects a Shield for an ally for three turns, as well as increases enemy aggression against them so long as their HP is high enough, while her Talent, Girl Power, allows her to shoot at enemies up to twice in between her turns whenever they hit Shielded allies. Her Ultimate, Glacial Cascade, has her fire an enchanted arrow that disperses into a rain of bunny-plush-shaped icicles on all foes, with a random chance of Freezing them, and her Technique, Freezing Beauty, fires an arrow that can randomly Freeze one foe for the first turn of battle.^note When fully upgraded, she automatically erects a Shield for the ally with the lowest remaining HP for the first three turns of combat; her Skill can now remove one debuff and its Shield now lasts four turns, as well as gains a healing effect per turn; and her Talent can now counter up to thrice in between her turns.

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• Affectionate Nickname: In the Japanese dub, the Trailblazer calls her "Nano," which is derived from the reading of her name in Japanese, "Mitsuki Nanoka." It's averted in the English dub, where she is consistently referred to as March.
• Ambiguously Bi: March more often comments on the looks of beautiful women in-game than she does with men. Many of her moments with the Trailblazer will also remain the same regardless of their gender. On the other hand, there are hints that she's attracted to Dan Heng.
• Amnesiac Hero: She woke up from a block of ice with no memories of her past, she has even forgotten her original name. She named herself after the day on which she woke up.
• Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Memory of Everything and Never Forget Again, which will add two levels to her Ultimate and one to Basic Attack (Frigid Cold Arrow) with the former, and 2 to her Skill and Talent with the latter.
• Anti-Debuff: Her second-ascension Bonus Ability, Purify, allows her to remove one debuff from the ally whom she uses her Skill on.
• Awful Truth: It is highly implied that her past is this, considering the Garden of Recollection is responsible for suppressing her memories with the justification of protecting her well being.
• Badass Adorable: March 7th is a cheerful, friendly young lady with mean archery skills and a nifty defense-oriented fighting style.
• Barrier Warrior: Her Skill erects a Shield around an ally for three turns,^note With damage absorption worth (38–66.5%)+(190–973.75) of her Defense stat in addition to a Draw Aggro effect if the ally has at least 30% HP. Her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Reinforce, extends the Shield's duration to four turns, while her second Eidolon Resonance, Memory of It, allows her to automatically grant a less potent Shield to an ally with the lowest remaining HP percentage for the first three turns of the next battle,^note With damage absorption worth 24%+320 of her Defense stat and her sixth, Just Like This, Always..., heals allies protected by her Shield at the start of their turn.^note With healing worth 4%+106 of said ally's Max HP
• Black-and-White Morality: March 7th seems to have this kind of mindset. When Kafka hacks into the Astral Express's communications and tells them about the Stellaron on the Xianzhou Luofu, and how she and her group were being framed for smuggling it onboard, March argues that what happens to the Stellaron Hunters has nothing to do with them and wants to vote against helping them in any way. When she goes to get Dan Heng, she wants him to vote against going on the ship, and when the Trailblazer says they should go along with Kafka, she's a little miffed. Only after some introspection does March acknowledge that the situation isn't entirely about her and that there's a lot at stake.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Occasionally with the Trailblazer, though both take turns at the role depending on dialogue choices.
• Butt-Monkey: She often ends up at the butt of the Trailblazer and Dan Heng's jokes, and is very easily bullied by children far younger than her.
• Camera Fiend: She always carries a Polaroid camera with her and takes pictures of everything, in case she ever forgets anything again.
• Company Cross References: Like Amber of Genshin Impact, March 7th is a 4★ Starter Mon archer with a cheerful personality, who automatically joins the party at the beginning of the game, albeit having an indirect Fire/Ice Duo dynamic, with March 7th being the Ice to Amber's Fire.
• Counter-Attack: Her Talent allows her to immediately counter enemy attacks against a Shielded character up to twice in between her turns.^note With damage worth 50–125% of her Attack stat Her fourth Eidolon Resonance, Never Forfeit Again, allows the Talent to be triggered thrice, in addition to increasing its damage (worth 30% of her Defense stat).
• Doesn't Trust Those Guys: March 7th does not like the Stellaron Hunters, believing them to be irredeemable villains.
• Dub Pronunciation Change: March 7th's name is rendered "三月七" ("Sānyuèqī") in Chinese, which are read as "Mitsuki Nanoka" in Japanese (via kun [native Japanese] reading).
• Entitled Bitch: Downplayed, as March is the last type of person who would outright act in an entitled manner, but her naïve views on morality means that she comes across as this at times. March is convinced that the Nameless are the heroes of the galaxy, and that whatever planetary governments they encounter should accept their help with the Stellarons with open arms. When this doesn't happen, she gets annoyed that the locals don't immediately trust them with the mysterious artifacts that can ruin entire planets.
• Everyone Has Standards: March is all for helping people because as a member of the Astral Express, they help people in need. However, she has her limits when it becomes clear that they are being taken advantage of. When she thinks that the leadership of the Xianzhou Luofu is going to send them to the frontlines, she hysterically declares that she refuses to go because she's had enough of being treated like an errand girl.
• Exposed to the Elements: In Jolted Awake From a Winter Dream, March dons a fancy new dress revealing her shoulders and sides for the Belobog festivities, but has to trek through the freezing snowstorm in her new skin-revealing attire.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Several parts of her design are asymmetric, such as her clover-like button and camera being only on the left side of her jacket, her right-hand-only thumbless glove, and her right-leg-only strap.
• Foreshadowing: In her Companion Mission, where she and Fu Xuan try to look into her memories, several "memory" versions of people she knows somehow say things along the lines of "don't focus on the past" and/or "keep looking into the future" even though she shouldn't have any memory of them saying those lines. There's also special loading screen in said mission that says "March 7th, don't look back, keep moving forward." Fu Xuan also senses foreign interference that grows stronger the further they go. In the end, March finds out that a Messenger from the Garden of Recollection has entered her mind and gave her a warning to not continue looking deeper into her past, lest it hurt her.
• Genki Girl: Despite her Mysterious Past, she's shown to be lively and cheerful every step of the way.
• Girly Bruiser: She's unabashedly girly and loves all things cute, fluffy, and feminine, and knows her way around her bow and arrow.
• Glacier Waif: Pun unintended. While she dresses like a pop idol and is very girly overall, March 7th is a Preservation Pathstrider. Her kit incentivizes builds that capitalize on a high Defense stat to make her shields nigh-impenetrable. This means she ends up being way tankier than what her appearance would imply.
• Hates Being Alone: March rarely goes anywhere without someone else with her. In fact, being alone is likely her greatest fear, and one of her lines when knocked out has her lamenting "I don't want to be alone..."
• Human Popsicle: The Astral Express found her frozen in a block of ice. Ever since, she has joined them, hoping to find her past during the journey.
• Hypocritical Humor: When voting on whether or not the crew should go to the Xianzhou Luofu, March urges the Trailblazer to vote against it since the summons came from Kafka. However, when time comes for the actual voting, March votes in favor instead. When called out by the Trailblazer, an embarrassed March sheepishly admits that she realized she cannot let her prejudices get in the way of helping people.
• An Ice Person: She shoots arrows that deal ice damage to enemies. More specifically she has control over Six-Phased Ice, a special type of ice that cannot by melted or broken by normal means.
• Idiot Hero: Downplayed. While March is not dumb by any metric, she can come across as such when compared to the other members of the Astral Express Crew (who, except for the Trailblazer, are all serious, dignified and/or knowledgeable, and even the Trailblazer is characterised as a Bunny-Ears Lawyer) and the game features plenty of jokes at her expense.
• Insane Troll Logic: March 7th tends to veer into this whenever she tries to piece something together on her own. An example appears in Luocha's Companion Quest, where she watches camera footage of Luocha entering an alley, then another clip that shows that Yinshu was the only person shown leaving the area for two hours afterwards. Her conclusion? Yinshu is Luocha, having somehow genderbent and de-aged himself into a little girl. Even the Trailblazer, as spacey as they are, can become confused by her thought process.
  Trailblazer: March, why do your characters act smarter than you do...
• Invocation:
  (Ultimate activation) "Gotta try hard sometimes."
  (Normal speed) "Check out this awesome move!"
  (×2 speed) "Watch this awesome move!"
• Jack of All Trades: When fully upgraded, March 7th's kit has a little bit of everything. Alongside the powerful Shield, counterattack, and reasonably reliable area-of-effect Freeze in her base kit, her fourth Eidolon Resonance gives her counterattack a third charge and lets its damage additionally scale with her Defense, while her sixth adds a healing-over-time effect to her shield.
• Line-of-Sight Name: Sort of. March decided to name herself March 7th as that was the day when the Astral Express found and rescued her.
• Mascot: March 7th represents the game as its icon in the app stores and in various social media/online platforms.
• Meaningful Rename: Justified, as she doesn't remember her real name, but she calls herself March 7th after the date she was discovered.
• Multiple-Choice Past: While her profiles joke about her having daydreamed up at least 67 completely different backstories, this is also played seriously when she attempts to probe for her true past with the help of Fu Xuan. The simulation offers three different backgrounds: a refugee from either the Swarm or the Antimatter Legion, or an Aeon cut off from its Path. Interestingly, March can easily refute the first two but not the third, and the Messenger shows her a vision of her frozen form floating through Path Space...
• Mysterious Past: She was found in a block of ice with zero idea of her identity or origins. Her Companion Quest has her consult Fu Xuan in an attempt to seek out answers to her origins. Whatever her past was, it's apparently significant enough for a Messenger from the Garden of Recollection to actively impede her attempts at doing so, telling her that the past is meaningless and she should only keep moving forward.
• Mythology Gag:
  • She may not be an explicit Alternate Self of Elysia from Honkai Impact 3rd, but she has some matching traits: a happy-go-lucky, pink-haired girl armed with a bow who has a mercurial personality and simply loves to adventure and meet new people. They're also both ice-elemental and have been depicted as sealed in crystal/ice.
  • Her design (particularly the four-petal flower motif) and certain mannerisms are also lifted from Kiana.
  • The animation for her Skill has her performing a Finger Gun along with winking and smiling to the camera, in a visual recreation of Kiana's pose in the app icon of Honkai Impact 3rd.
  • During the cutscene where she and the crew are running away from Silvermane Guards, she looks back while sticking her tongue out, much like what Kiana does to the giant robot Arahato in the "Reburn" promotional video.
• Naked on Arrival: According to March 7th, she was told that she was like a newborn on the day Himeko found her encased in ice.
• Nice Girl: March 7th is a sweet young lady who easily makes friends with people around her, including new arrivals such as the Trailblazer.
• Orphaned Etymology: March knows of the expression, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Pom-Pom has no idea what a Rome is.
• Pink Means Feminine: Pink is a prominent color in her hair, eyes and attack effects while she herself is rather girly.
• The Pollyanna: March 7th isn't the type of person to dwell in despair or even concern herself with the circumstances behind her own Mysterious Past. She simply lives her life for the moment, full of optimism, determination, and adding positive vibes to the Astral Express' journey even during the darkest moments. In her Companion Mission, even after she failed to get any memory of her past, she at least gets to know that the Garden of Recollection had something to do with said memories, so she isn't feeling too bad.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner:
  (Battle Begins: Weakness Break) "I told ya I could fight!"
• Proud Beauty: She's quite vain and proud of her looks, often calling herself a cute or beautiful girl and complaining when she has to do things that could mess with her skin, like pulling an all-nighter.
• Pun: She says "Have an ice day!" just as she froze the guns of the Silvermane Guards when she and her friends escape from them in Jarilo-VI.
• Regenerating Mana: Her first Eidolon Resonance, Memory of You, automatically restores 6 Energy for herself for every enemy Frozen with her Ultimate.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: Her hair is neon pink and she is sweet, lively, and energetic.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: The energetic girl to Dan Heng's savvy guy, who she's often paired with.
• Screw Destiny: She expresses this sentiment at the climax of the Jarilo-VI Trailblaze Mission. When Bronya says that even if they are doomed to destruction, she and the people will bravely walk hand in hand into the darkness with their heads held high, March 7th isn't having any of that.
  "No! That end won't come to pass while we're around!"
• Series Mascot: March 7th's face is the icon for the game's app, making her the de facto mascot and poster girl of the game.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Her fancy dress during the Future Market quest manages to evoke this reaction from the Trailblazer and many players as well.
• Ship Tease:
  • With Dan Heng, many players quickly noticed that March sometimes acted like she had a crush on him during the early chapters of the game where she had a tendency to stare at him rather adoringly, something he eventually comments on. It's significantly reduced during later chapters^note admittedly, that's probably partly to do with the fact that Dan Heng isn't part of the party for either the Xianzhou Luofu or Penacony arcs but not gone altogether, with moments like one during the Xianzhou Luofu arc, where March insists the Trailblazer text Dan Heng in her place to "tell him what a great time we're having," which comes across as very reminiscent of someone trying to feel out what their crush is up to without wanting to be obvious about it. Possibly due to them being the Trailblazer's closest companions in the Express who are central to the story at large, they're often paired together in official artwork as well (such on as the fast food collab event standees, one of the few bits of physical merch the game has received). Naturally, this adds a bit of fuel to the shipping fire.
  • With the Trailblazer. In spite of the potential snark between them, March forms an immediate bond with them after they saved her life from the Doomsday Beast and also due to their shared circumstances as amnesiacs. The Trailblazer can even flirt with her at times which March will reciprocate in a playful manner. Moreover, the "Future Market" mission and "Aetherium Wars" event features the two as a team to the very end. The "Foxian Tale" event also reveals that they often go stargazing together in the Express's lounge, and at the end of the "Stellar Shadowseeker" event, she and the Trailblazer take a special photo together commemorating their friendship.
• Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: While most Star Rail characters don't have a firm in-story reasoning for their elemental alignment, March 7th is explicitly associated with her Ice typing, since she was found encased in a block of it.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: She can understand what Diting, Tingyun's bionic dog, is saying. When asked how she can, March offers a less than satisfactory explanation:
  "That's just the psychic bond between cute girls and cute puppies!"
• Starter Mon: She's the first party member you get, and will stick with you through thick and thin.
• Status Infliction Attack: her Ultimate has a base 50% chance (boosted to 65% through her sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Ice Spell) to inflict Freeze on enemies for one turn, forcing them to skip that turn and take damage,^note With damage worth 90–180% of her Attack stat for the Ultimate and 30–75% for Freeze, while her Technique is guaranteed to Freeze a random enemy at the start of battle.^note With damage worth half her Attack stat
• Stepford Smiler: Himeko's interpretation of March 7th's incorrigible good cheer is that she's covering up deep anxieties, mainly about being the only person on the Express (before the arrival of the Trailblazer, at least) who truly has nowhere else to go as she doesn't even remember who she is or where she's from. Himeko, Welt, and Dan Heng may all be unable to go home for various reasons, but at least they all know where home is. Some support for this reading turns up in one of her lines whenever she is knocked out, where she whimpers "I don't want to be alone...". This splits the difference between Himeko's view of things and the interpretation of March as The Pollyanna, suggesting that she's not too sad about her lost memories but fears that her found family will leave her behind one day once they're able to return to their former lives.
• Stone Wall: March 7th's kit incentivizes building up around her Defense stat to improve both the resilience of her Shields and her personal durability in exchange for leaving her offensive firepower rather lacking, with her Ultimate being less about raw damage output and more for Freezing enemies.
• Support Party Member: March 7th's kit packs an impressive amount of utility. Her Skill allows her to erect a Shield onto her allies (with her second-ascension Bonus Ability also adding an Anti-Debuff effect), while her Ultimate has a hefty chance of inflicting Freeze on all enemies in addition to a respectable damage output. With a full Eidolon, her Shields can now even heal.
• Technicolor Eyes: March's eyes are distinctly two-tone pink and blue unlike any other character in Star Rail thus far, making her origins all the more mysterious.
• This Is Gonna Suck: If her turn is the first ally turn against a very tough enemy starts, she will say:
  "Oh great, a walk in the park."
• Trauma Button: The events of Jarilo-VI has left her more distrustful of others' intentions. For example, when Tingyun led them to the Palace of Astrum, she's openly questioning whether it's a matter of time before the latter sics the Cloud Knights on them. She also seems to dislike people of authority as she openly complains about Yukong's chilly reception and has reservations about staying at a hotel after their last experience. In her Companion Mission, Fu Xuan laments that she can't see the vistas of Belobog through March's memory, which is confined to the Goethe Hotel's lobby; the latter says that finding out that she and her friends are wanted criminals after staying there had left a deep impression on her.
• Weapon Specialization: March 7th has two associated Light Cones, both of which are associated with Preservation.
  • "Day One of My New Life", obtained from Warps, has a passive that increases its wearer's Defense by 16-24%, thus making her and her shields even tougher, as well as increases the party's Damage Resistance by 8-12%, hence expanding her defensive repertoire.
  • "This is Me!", obtained from Nameless Glory, increases the wearer's Defense by 16-32% and their Ultimate damage by 60-120% of their Defense, which bolsters March's shields and allows her Ultimate to deal significantly more damage without sacrificing her shielding capabilities.

Himeko

Himeko

Introduced: April 26, 2023 (v1.0 "The Rail Unto the Stars" [game launch])
Voiced by: Lin Su (Chinese), Rie Tanaka (Japanese), Kim Bo-na (Korean), Cia Court (English)

^{Click to see her full Warp artwork.}

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Erudition
Type: Fire

An adventurous scientist who encountered the Astral Express as a child when it got stranded in her home world, and became one of its crew after she repaired the train and began her journey to the stars.

Himeko specializes in bringing down the pain on multiple foes at once with her hybrid cannon-chainsaw disguised as a briefcase, either through her Skill, Molten Detonation, where she scorches her target and adjacent foes, or her Ultimate, Heavenly Flare, where she commands an orbital laser to fire down on all her foes, which also restores some Energy for her whenever enemies are defeated. In addition, her Talent, Victory Rush, allows her to build Charges whenever the party Breaks enemies, which are then consumed once she has three to turn her case into a drone that slices away on all foes with a saw, while her Technique, Incomplete Combustion, generates a field that increases Fire damage against all foes inside for the first two turns of battle. ^note When fully upgraded, all her attacks can now randomly inflict Burn for two turns; she enjoys a heightened Critical Rate while her HP is very high as well as damage against foes with less than half of theirs; her Skill increases in damage potency against Burnt foes, as well as builds one Charge whene it Breaks a foe; her Ultimate gains two extra damage bursts; and her Talent can now boost her Speed for two turns after it is triggered.

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• Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring her Eidolons, you can upgrade her third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Poised and Aspiration, which will add two levels to her Skill and 1 to Basic Attack with the former, and 2 to her Ultimate and Talent with the latter.
• Alternate Self: Of Murata Himeko from Honkai Impact 3rd, complete with the association with fire and the same Chinese and Japanese voice actresses. This Himeko is likely what would have happened had the other Himeko continued her interest with outer space since her youth, and became a space scientist in her adulthood.
• Badass Bookworm: Himeko is a brilliant scientist who rebuilt the damaged Astral Express from scratch and is also more than capable of holding her own in a fight.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Although Himeko prefers to allow the newer Astral Express members to learn how to handle things on their own, at Welt's request she relents and helps once during the climax of the Jarilo-VI Trailblaze Mission by calling down an orbital strike on the Engine of Creation, prventing it from crushing the crew.
  • When Bronya is on the brink of signing a dubious contract with the IPC, Himeko arrives just in time to warn her about certain aspects of the deal that Topaz neglected to inform her about, namely that only around 63% of planets which receive aid from the IPC actually recover (over 80% in cases supervised by Topaz). This prompts Bronya to turn down the offer, not wanting to take a gamble with her homeland's future.
• Chainsaw Good: Her Basic Attack, Sawblade Tuning, involves swinging around a briefcase containing a circular saw. In addition, whenever her Talent is triggered (by consuming three Charges gathered through the party Breaking foes), her case turns into a flying drone with a sawblade arm that cuts through all enemies at once.
• Coat Cape: Himeko only wears the right sleeve of her coat, while the left is left hanging loose.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Himeko specializes in striking multiple enemies at once and following up with additional attacks after the party Broke foes thrice, making her viable for Pure Fiction and farming Calyxes. Unfortunately, she suffers from poor damage output against elite- or boss-grade enemies, where Breaking them may take a while, though this is ameliorated by automatically gaining three stacks once they are Broken, allowing her to immediately launch a follow-up attack.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Her Technique creates an area-of-effect that lasts fifteen seconds; if a battle is started within its radius, all enemies suffer a 10% boost to incoming Fire damage for two turns.
• Damage Over Time: Himeko's second-ascension Bonus Ability, Starfire, grants all her attacks a 50% chance to inflict Burn on enemies for two turns, which damages them at the start of their turn.^note With damage worth 30% of her Attack stat
• Dub Pronunciation Change: Himeko's name is the kun [native Japanese], reading of 姬子, which is read as "Jīzǐ" in Chinese, while the Korean dub opts for a transliteration, also as "Himeko" (hangul 히메코; the characters can be read via hanja as "Huija" [희자]).
• Early-Bird Cameo: This version of Himeko is seen once in the twelfth chapter of the Honkai Impact 3rd webcomic Alien Space as a portrait on a control panel that Void Archives is seen sifting through. Her face is obscured by the camera angle so as to avoid giving away her identity, with only her hair curl and dress to identify her. This ultimately kickstarts Welt's decision to continue his quest to stop the Sky People, as he discovers that the "Himeko" that Void Archives found in the space station's logs originates from a parallel universe that the Sky People plan to invade.
• Elemental Hair Colors: Her vibrant red hair matches her fire element.
• Excuse Me While I Multitask: Her Ultimate features her sitting down for a spot of tea while her Kill Sat rains down hell on her foes.
• Fiery Redhead: Himeko's blazing red hair matches her passion for exploration as Navigator of the Astral Express. While she's usually calm, it's clear that she's livid about Topaz's attempt to deceive Bronya about the success rate of the IPC's terraforming projects. She is happy to toss away any pretense of being impartial and more or less dares Topaz and her men to fight her in the middle of what's supposed to be a peaceful negotiation.
• Full Health Bonus: Her sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Benchmark, boosts her Critical Rate by 15% while her HP is at least 80%.
• Gathering Steam: Her Talent allows Himeko to gather stacks of Charge whenever the party Breaks enemies (with one stack prepared at the start of battle), which are then consumed once she has three to trigger a follow-up attack.^note With damage worth 70–175% of her Attack stat If an Elite or Boss enemy becomes Weakness Broken, she gains 3 charges immediately. In addition, her first Eidolon Resonance, Childhood, allows the Talent to boost her Speed by 20% for two turns after it is triggered, while her fourth, Dedication, automatically builds an extra stack whenever her Skill Breaks at least one foe.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Himeko becomes a temporary fourth party member (alongside the Trailblazer, March 7th, and Dan Heng) during an early exploration-related prologue quest in the Herta Space Station, including the battle against the Doomsday Beast.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Himeko's Skill damages up to three enemies at once, with higher damage damage on the one in the middle.^note With damage worth 100–250% of her Attack stat against her target and 40–100% against adacent foes Her Talent also hits all enemies when triggered once she has three stacks of Charge. Finally, her Ultimate is yet another attack that deals heavy damage to all enemies.
• Invocation:
  (Ultimate activation) "Perhaps you still don't understand..."
  (Normal speed and ×2 speed) "Humanity never conceals its desires to control the heavens, and I am no exception."
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: She fights in those heels and that luxurious dress you see her wearing. It doesn't hinder her ability to mow down waves of enemies at all.
• Kill Sat: Her Ultimate has Himeko calling down a massive Orbital Bombardment from a satellite floating in space and rain down hell on her enemies, which will also restore Energy for every enemy defeated.^note With damage worth 138–276% of her Attack stat Her sixth Eidolon Resonance, Trailblaze!, adds two extra hits on random foes, each dealing damage worth 40% of the main strike.
• Lady of War: A beautiful woman in an elegant white-and-red dress that's not afraid to take the field and hand out pain with her circular saw. She even takes the time to sit down and sip some coffee as the Kill Sat from her ultimate fires.
• Lethal Chef: This version of Himeko seems to struggle with making coffee. The only member of the Astral Express who can tolerate her coffee is Dan Heng, and he only drinks it because it tests his grit and the only visitor who likes it is Pela, because it lets her stay up all night.
• Loved by All: Being the Navigator of the Astral Express, Himeko has a wide range of contacts throughout the universe and is generally well regarded by everybody who knows her. She in particular is quite popular in the IPC, and she manages to successfully leverage her popularity to convince the IPC executives to write off Jarilo-VI's debt.
• Ms. Fanservice: Himeko is certainly quite the lovely sight, with her sensual outfit that accentuates her ample breasts and curves, as well as a refined appearance and mannerisms, including casually sipping coffee while her Kill Sat rains down hell on her enemies.
• Must Have Caffeine: Her coffee is infamously strong (and possibly sludgy) on the Express, her room smells like coffee, and comes with an achievement called "Coffee Lover" if her Ultimate is used three times in a single battle.
  [Hobbies]: I have a knack for blending different coffee beans. Can I make you a cup? I recommend not adding milk — black coffee is proper coffee.
  [Annoyances]: Seems like only Dan Heng has a kind word for my coffee. What do you think? ...Well, I've always thought that bitter is better...
• Mythology Gag: One Curio in Herta Space Station is the remains of Murata Himeko's sword from Honkai Impact 3rd. The gag is in if you have Himeko and have her interact with the Curio, there'll be an additional text:
  She was reborn in the fire. She was smiling in the fire.
• Parental Substitute: Towards March in particular as the primary mother figure in the former's life. March has even expressed the desire to one day become an beautiful and classy adult like Himeko.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner:
  (Battle Begins: Weakness Break) "I have something for you."
• Situational Sword: Her second Eidolon Resonance, Convergence, gives her a 15% damage boost against enemies with no more than half their HP.
• Status Effect-Powered Ability: Her fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Magma, increases the damage of her Skill by 20% against Burnt enemies.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Her weapon is a briefcase that folds open to reveal a buzzsaw or a flamethrower, and can transform into a buzzsaw-wielding flying drone or a chair for her to sit onto and enjoy her coffee.
• Team Mom: She serves as the de facto leader and matriarch of the Astral Express crew, often doting on the Trailblazer, March 7th, and Dan Heng as if they were her own children. The "This is Me!" light cone and lore depicts her brushing March's hair and helping March decide on a look like a mom with her daughter.
• Weapon Specialization: Himeko's associated Light Cone is "Night on the Milky Way" (5★), whose "Meteor Swarm" passive gives its wearer up to five stacks of a 9–15% Attack boost for every enemy in the field (to a maximum of 45–75%), as well as boosts their damage output by 30–50% for one turn after any enemy suffers from Weakness Break. Given that Himeko specializes in dealing with enemy mobs, this helps her swiftly dispose of them, and further improves her damage output through her gameplay focus, weakness-breaking enemies.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: Tales have spread far and wide of the beautiful engineer who repaired the Astral Express, and several characters remark that her looks are even better than her reputation upon first meeting her.

Welt

Welt Yang, né Joachim Nokianvirtanen

Introduced: April 26, 2023 (v1.0 "The Rail Unto the Stars" [game launch])
Voiced by: Peng Bo (Chinese), Yoshimasa Hosoya (Japanese), Han-sin (Korean), Corey Landis (English)

^{Click to see his full Warp artwork.}

Rarity: 5★
Path: The Nihility
Type: Imaginary

An enigmatic man from a distant universe and with a storied past. Welt, formerly known as the Herrscher of Reason and gifted with control over gravity, led the organization Anti-Entropy against an omnicidal force known as the Honkai in a desperate battle for the survival of his home world. After a long, drawn-out war, the Honkai were expelled and Welt settled down at an animation studio, but as luck would have it, events conspired to separate him from his world. Following a long journey, he happened upon the Astral Express and joined its crew in hopes of finding his way back home.

Welt draws on his past life as Herrscher to inhibit his foes using the replica of Star of Eden, his cane made from the remnants of another Herrscher, through his Skill, Edge of the Void, which deals two additional hits at random and can inflict Slow for two turns, and his Ultimate, Synthetic Black Hole, which has a very high chance to Imprison all enemies for one turn. In addition, his Talent, Time Distoriton, adds an extra hit to his attacks if his target is Slowed, while his Technique, Gravitational Imprisonment, generates a force field that halves enemy movement within and inflict Imprison for the first turn of battle.^note When fully upgraded, his damage increases against Broken foes; his Skill gains a third random strike; his Ultimate can increase all foes' damage intake for two turns afterwards, as well as adds an extra strike to the next two instances of either his Basic Attack or Skill; and his Talent can now restore some Energy whenever it is triggered.

For tropes specific to him before he boarded the Astral Express, see here.

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• The Ageless: Looks mostly the same as he did in the "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" story mode from Honkai Impact 3rd.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Welt mentions in his conversations that he at first thought the Aeons were analogous to the Honkai from his home universe, only to quickly find out that individual Aeons are orders of magnitude more powerful than the Honkai ever were.
• Amplifier Artifact: By acquiring his Eidolons, you can upgrade his third and fifth Eidolon Resonances, Prayer of Peace and Power of Kindness, which will add two levels to his Skill and 1 to Basic Attack with the former, and 2 to his Ultimate and Talent with the latter.
• Area of Effect: His Technique generates a force field that lasts fifteen seconds, within which enemies see their movement speeds halved, as well as Imprisons them for their first turn of battle. Such an effect is advisable against enemies that may try to hit you (and make them react slower to your presence), or Trotters that may try to flee from you.
• Badass Longcoat: Welt is the strongest member of the Astral Express (until Dan Heng reawakens his powers and memories as Imbibitor Lunae) and wears a stylish grey longcoat.
• The Cameo: Some characters from Honkai Impact 3rd (Void Archives, Welt Joyce, Tesla, and Einstein) appear in his character splash artwork.
• Casting a Shadow: His attacks have black-and-purple colors, with his Skill essentially have him create dark tears in reality and his Ultimate summoning a synthetic black hole—an odd motif for the Imaginary damage type, which is otherwise typically associated with light.
• Celebrity Paradox: As Silver Wolf's trailer has shown, Honkai Impact 3rd is confirmed to be an actual in-universe game in the Star Rail universe, which creates an interesting conundrum for Welt because he's one of two characters (the other being Void Archives) confirmed to come directly from the HI3 universe and not contradict his existence in the Star Rail universe in the process. The fact that no one in the galaxy recognizes Welt as "the character from HI3" strongly implies that events may have gone differently in the in-universe game or he may be absent from it entirely.
• Continuity Nod:
  • When Welt sees Luocha for the first time, he immediately recieves flashbacks of his experiences with Otto Apocalyse and Void Archives. Since those experiences weren't exactly positive, he immediately suspects that Luocha may be involved with the Xianzhou Luofu's Stellaron troubles.
  • March complains about Welt's uncanny ability to eavesdrop on conversations in some dialogue lines, alluding to Welt's Super-Hearing in his home world.
  • During Yukong's Companion Mission, Welt alludes to his own experiences as a parent. This is a little nod to Joey, his adopted son in A Post-Honkai Odyssey.
  • When Welt meets Acheron for the first time, he recognizes her as a version of Raiden Mei (without name-dropping her) and asks a series of subtle questions and references to test how close she is to the Mei he knew. He then describes his and his allies' final battle against Kevin Kaslana, who he compares to Icarus, a running theme in HI3. Acheron responds by telling him that she is not the same person he knows, that she has also met "similar people" in different worlds, and that in her world, she personally slew her version of Kevin but failed to save her world.
• Cool Old Guy: Welt is fairly kind and easygoing in spite of his stern appearance, and he has quite a few moments where he proves to be Not So Above It All. Himeko's line for him has her mention that he feels "young at heart" to her.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Welt's second-ascension Bonus Ability, Retribution, gives his Ultimate a 100% base chance to inflict the "Vulnerability" effect on all enemies, increasing their incoming damage by 12% for two turns afterwards.
• Dark Is Not Evil: His attacks all have rather dark and sinister animations, but Welt is a good guy who effectively acts as the Team Dad.
• Dramatic Irony: The first time he sees Luocha's photo, he flashes back to the old times in his home world, particularly with Otto and Void Archives; he instantly raises his suspicion on the blond-haired man. Though he acknowledges that he shouldn't judge people by their appearance, after a series of investigations done by the crew, they find that Luocha is a generally good and helpful man and didn't find anything wrong with him... at least until the Realm-Keeping Commission found a footage of Luocha overlooking the revived Ambrosial Arbor. The crew didn't get to meet or talk about Luocha again, but the end of the Xianzhou Luofu Trailblaze Mission proves Welt right: Luocha had an agenda grand enough to involve Aeons.
• Famed In-Story: According to Pom-Pom, Welt's anime series is rather popular with the natives of planets that the Astral Express visits. It got to the point where on one particular visit he had scores of fans banging on the Astral Express's door for a sequel, forcing him to hide inside and pretend he was working on the train.
• Genre Savvy: In his voice lines, he seems to recognize that the Trailblazer has the qualities and characteristics of a lead protagonist and seems put off that them joining the Astral Express lessens his own chances of being a hero.
• Gravity Master: Welt wields a copy of the Divine Key - Star of Eden, a superweapon constructed from the core of the Herrscher of Earth, which gives its user the ability to manipulate gravity and spawn black holes. His kit mostly revolve around using the power of the Star to rein in his foes.
• He Knows Too Much: When Acheron identifies the Star of Eden hidden in his cane, Welt immediately becomes suspicious of her, warning her that if she does not prove herself an ally, he'll use the Star to destroy her to protect his secret, before standing down when she also reveals that she knows the Express is going around with a Stellaron (i.e., the Trailblazer).
• Imagination-Based Superpower: As the Herrscher of Reason, Welt can recreate and even deconstruct any object as long as he understands its fundamental properties. Though in Star Rail, he hasn't used it often, beyond replicating Star of Eden and the old Arahato anime episodes.
• Invocation:
  (Ultimate activation) "You know nothing of the weight behind this power."
  (Normal speed) "Witness the stars shatter before you... Survive or be destroyed, there is no other choice."
  (×2 speed) "Survive or be destroyed, there is no other choice."
• Jack of All Stats: Welt can be a highly effective debuffer, Skill-Point generator, damage amplifier, and DPS with the right build and team composition. His ability to do all of this at once makes up for him losing out in any of these one categories to other characters (such as Seele in the single-target damage department).
• Kick Them While They Are Down: His sixth-ascension Bonus Ability, Punishment, boosts his damage against Weakness Broken enemies by 20%.
• Magic Staff: He uses his Classy Cane to channel his powers against enemies and neutralize the Trailblazer after they are hit by the Doomsday Beast and lose control over the Stellaron in their body. His "Keeping Up with Star Rail" video reveals that the cane is the current form of his Star of Eden.
• Missed Him by That Much: Welt decides to sit out the adventure on Jarilo-VI, suggesting that the younger crew deserve to get some experience on their own. In doing so, he ends up missing their encounters with this universe's versions of Bronya, Cocolia, and Seele. Welt ultimately does come down to Jarilo-VI during the Aetherium Wars event, but is not shown interacting with either Bronya or Seele.
• Mr. Exposition: He provides exposition on some conspicuous objects that you discover for the first time on your journey, such as Calyxes and Relics. The Trailblazer usually sends a photo and asks "What is this, Mr. Yang?", and he immediately replies.
• Mundane Utility:
  • According to Pom-Pom, Welt occasionally uses his Herrscher mimicry powers to show episodes of the anime he made back on Earth.
  • When investigating the doors in the passenger cabin, Himeko's room is simply "locked" while Welt's door is said to be impossible to even move, as though it were "glued in space". This indicates he's been using his powers to seal his room off completely.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The Non-Standard Game Over ending you can get near the start of the game lists Welt under his real name, Joachim Nokianvirtanen, in its Credits Gag. Doubles as a Late-Arrival Spoiler.
  • The name of his Ultimate strongly references his past, including a glimpse of Tesla and his dangerous usage of black holes during the Second Honkai War.
  • Interacting with Welt in the Express's Parlor Car and choosing certain dialogue options will make him recall several moments and events that happened in his home universe:
    • When asked to describe what kind of world he came from, he recalls his planet being haunted by a power known as the Honkai.
    • When asked about his powers, he says that it allows him to mimic anything as long as he understands its principles, while his black holes are a different matter entirely. Although these are subtle and brief, his power to mimic anything refers to the authority of Reason, while his black holes are created by the Star of Eden.
  • His voice line when unleashing his Ultimate was carried on from his predecessor as the Herrscher of Reason as his way of honoring him, and it would later be used by his successor.
    Welt Joyce: "Tyrant of the false heavens! Witness the shattering of stars!"
    Welt Yang: "Witness the stars shatter before you... Survive or be destroyed, there is no other choice."
    Bronya Zaychik: "Have you ever seen shattered stars?"
• Older Than They Look: Looks like a middle aged man in his forties when he is actually in his eighties as of the events of Honkai: Star Rail.
• The Paralyzer: His Skill can slow his enemies while his Imaginary-type damage can inflict Imprisonment on Weakness Break, and so does his Ultimate, delaying the enemy turn significantly. With the right team composition and blessings in the Simulated Universe, Welt can potentially prevent his foes from ever taking a turn.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner:
  (Battle Begins: Weakness Break) "Seems you need to experience some hardship."
• Promoted to Playable: Welt was a significant figure in the world of Honkai Impact 3rd, but always as an NPC. In Star Rail, he becomes a playable character.
• Randomized Damage Attack: In addition to directly damaging his target, his Skill can hit two random enemies, in addition to a 65–80% chance to inflict Slow for two turns.^note With damage worth 36–90% of his Attack stat per hit His sixth Eidolon Resonance, Prospect of Glory, adds a third random hit.
• Regenerating Mana:
  • His Ultimate automatically generates 5 Energy, which can be augmented by his fourth-ascension Bonus Ability, Judgment, to 15.
  • His second Eidolon Resonance, Conflux of Stars, restores 3 Energy whenever he triggers his Talent.
• Silver Fox: Welt being fairly middle-aged doesn't deter the fact that he's still very good-looking.
• Status Buff: His first Eidolon Resonance, Legacy of Honor, will make him gain a self-buff with the same name after casting his Ultimate. The buff augments the next two uses of either his Basic Attack, Gravity Suppression, or Skill with an additional hit (the latter limited to his target).^note With damage worth, respectively, 50% and 80% of either preceding attack
• Status Effect-Powered Ability: His Talent allows his attacks against Slowed foes to be augmented with an extra hit.^note With damage worth 30–75% of his Attack stat
• Status Infliction Attack: His Skill has a 65%–77% chance to inflict Slow (10% Speed penalty) on enemies^note In addition to damage worth 36%–79.2% of his Attack stat, while his Ultimate and Technique can inflict Imprison on all enemies (delaying their actions and inflicting a 10% Speed penalty for one turn)^note The Imprison effect delays enemy turn by 32–44% with his Ultimate and 20% with his Technique, in addition to the former dealing damage worth 90–180% of his Attack stat. His fourth Eidolon Resonance, Appellation of Justice, boosts his Skill's infliction rate by 35%.
• Story-Breaker Power: Welt at the height of his power was extraordinarily strong and one of the strongest entities in Honkai Impact 3rd short of the protagonists, equal to and even surpassing other Herrschers with his ability to create nearly anything he has ever seen out of thin air and possess virtual immortality. Star Rail balances this by scaling him back a fair bit; it is strongly implied that ever since Bronya Zaychik relinquished the Core of Reason in A Post-Honkai Odyssey he is no longer as capable as he used to be^note part of Herrscher of Finality's "siphon effect" is that all of the other Herrscher authorities will be slowly returned back to her, and Sequel Escalation is in effect by drastically expanding the scope of the continuity's overall strength, making Welt's abilities far less impressive.
• Sword Plant: More like "Cane Plant", but his Basic Attack has him tap his cane on the ground to create a gravitational force centered on the target. His Ultimate also ends with him dramatically doing it (after twirling the cane around) to deal the final blow on his enemies.
• Team Dad: He acts as de facto second-in-command for the Astral Express crew, and isn't afraid to provide helpful advice to them in times of need. He even brings up that he knows what it's like being a parent in Yukong's side quest.
• Unrealistic Black Hole: His Ultimate has him swallow his foes in a black hole that he then cuts in half, damaging them and inflicting the Imprisonment debuff to delay the targets' actions and slow them down.
• Weapon Specialization: Welt's associated Light Cone is "In the Name of the World" (5★), whose "Inheritor" passive increases its wearer's damage against debuffed enemies by 24–40%, as well as boosts their Skill's Effect Hit Rate by 18–30% and Attack stat by 24–40%. This setup means he is all but guaranteed to inflict Slow with his Skill, thus increasing his damage potency against afflicted foes.
• Willfully Weak: His character story notes that Welt rarely takes to the front lines these days, and relies solely on using the Star of Eden in battle. As such, he's refrained from using his Authority of Reason in combat, and instead uses it merely to show off his animated works to people. The question of his true strength is similarly raised in the same entry, leaving it ambiguous just how strong Welt truly is in this new universe.

Pom-Pom

Pom-Pom

Voiced by: Xiao N (Chinese), Miki Nagasawa (Japanese), Christine Sposato (English)

The Conductor of the Astral Express, a bunny-like creature with long floppy ears in a conductor's uniform. No one is exactly sure of who or what Pom-Pom exactly is or how they're related to the Astral Express, but Pom-Pom's loyalty to the Astral Express is unwavering. Any friend of the Astral Express is a friend of Pom-Pom's.

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• Ambiguous Gender: The HoYoLab blog post "Goopa Goopa! Here Comes the Intel on Pom-Pom!" lists Pom-Pom's gender as "Pom-Pom is Pom-Pom". In addition, their appearance and voice are fairly gender-neutral.
• Been There, Shaped History: Though not directly shown, an exploration the Trailblazer conducts of Jarilo-VI with Belabog's armillary sphere reveals a landmass in the northern reaches shaped like Pom-Pom. The Trailblazer wonders if it's a way of saying "Akivili was here".
• Cartoon Creature: Pom-Pom most closely resembles a rabbit in appearance, what with their long ears and stubby tail, though their official bio on the blog post "Goopa Goopa! Here Comes the Intel on Pom-Pom!" lists their race as "I just told you! Pom-Pom is Pom-Pom".
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: If a damaged memory bubble found on Penacony is to be believed, then Pom-Pom apparently had to tell off Akivili for getting into all kinds of mischief.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: To Genshin's Paimon, as the mascot of their respective games. While Paimon goes with the Traveler everywhere and often talks in their place, Pom-Pom is confined to the Astral Express and expresses desire to go out and traiblazing outside with the crew. Whereas Paimon is rather lazy and the game often jokes about her contributing little-to-nothing, Pom-Pom diligently looks after the Express and the crew. Oh, and Paimon can float around while Pom-Pom cannot.
• Fell Asleep Standing Up: Pom-Pom's default sleeping position.
• Fingerless Hands: Pom-Pom does not have any visible fingers. In fact, their "hands" look like a half-sphere surface. Nevertheless, Pom-Pom can grab things just fine. At one point, the Trailblazer has the option to comment on it.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Their conductor uniform noticeably lacks pants and footwear.
• Killer Rabbit: Pom-Pom looks like a cute harmless mascot animal at first glance, but according to Yanqing, he can sense that Pom-Pom is an even greater warrior than himself.
• Lost Food Grievance: Showing Pom-Pom an old memory bubble from back when Akivili was alive will result in Pom-Pom crying about when "that guy" (whoever the memory bubble was about, alleged to be Akivili) will pay Pom-Pom back for stealing the last Express Special.
• Mascot: Pom-Pom serves as another mascot of the game, constantly appearing in various sections such as the loading screens, and in the cutscene that plays whenever you pull from the Warp gacha.
• Mysterious Past: If Pom-Pom is asked about what they are and what their past is, Pom-Pom dismisses it as unimportant. Strangely, no one can remember when or how Pom-Pom joined the Express. Welt can't even remember if Pom-Pom joined before or after him.
  • An old memory bubble that Pom-Pom recognizes confirms that they really were around when Akivili was alive, and that they were probably Akivili's Cloudcuckoolander's Minder. That still raises the question of where Pom-Pom was when the Astral Express was abandoned and why no one can seem to remember how Pom-Pom rejoined when Himeko repaired it. Pom-Pom tells the Trailblazer that many things have happened on the Astral Express that they do not know about, and Pom-Pom will tell the Trailblazer when the time is right.
• Neat Freak: Pom-Pom is a stickler for keeping the Astral Express in tip-top shape, and they will swiftly reprimand the crew for putting their feet up on the seats, touching the decorative plants, and tracking dirt in from the outside. They'll even get riled by as little as a scratch on the floor and mop it to a mirror shine in response.
• Psychic Radar: As the conductor, Pom-Pom is capable of sensing any and all irregularities that have to do with the Astral Express, whether that's the spatial integrity of the Star Rails further ahead of the train, or the presences of individuals inside the cars. This sense can even trump forms of concealment, as Pom-Pom detects the presence of the Messenger aboard the Express on some instinctual level.
• Really 700 Years Old: While it remains uncertain just what they are and how they're truly linked to the Astral Express, a depiction of Pom-Pom can be found on Jarilo-VI, hinting that they're old enough to have been around for Akivilli's initial Trailblaze across the stars, well over a millennia before the modern day. The Japanese dub partly hints at this by having them speak in old-fashioned way associated with elderly people. Confirmed when the Trailblazer hands Pom-Pom an old memory bubble from Akivili's era, and Pom-Pom recognizes it.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Pom-Pom is an utterly adorable and fluffy bunny-thing, as March 7th can attest to.
• They're A Man In Japan: Pom-Pom is female in the Russian translation, apparently to avoid Pronoun Trouble (there's no equivalent of singular "they" in Russian language, and "It" Is Dehumanizing).
• Third-Person Person: In English dub, Pom-Pom mostly refers to themself by their name, though they will sometimes use "I" when appropriate, such as when they formally introduce themself to the Trailblazer. Averted in other dubs.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Their bio on the blog post "Goopa Goopa! Here Comes the Intel on Pom-Pom!" lists "donuts" among their favorite things.
• Unusual Ears: Their long ears are prehensile and they often use them as an extra pair of arms, as seen in many promotional images for the game.
• Weight Woe: Multiple events you can help them with when you come back to the Express have them concerned with gaining weight, including having you help find a button that fell off their clothes and playing fetch with them to help them work it off.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Pom-Pom is described as nothing short of terrifying if provoked. Even Welt fears Pom-Pom's rage.

The Messenger

A mysterious agent of the Garden of Recollection, an intangible, unnoticeable woman who was drawn to the Astral Express by the rarity of a Receptacle who carries a Stellaron. She presides over the Forgotten Hall, a repository of the Trailblazer's past battles and experiences, and offers them aid in exchange for memories.

For more infos on her, see here.

Mag

Mag

The Living Memory of a former fellow Nameless. Even in death, she contributes to the Path of Trailblaze by recording the experiences of her fellow Nameless and forming them into new blessings for the Path.

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• Living Memory: The original Mag has been dead for centuries. The Mag the Trailblazer encounters describes herself as something similar to a Memetic Entity.

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