Hi guys! I am Inotia King a youtuber, redditor and gamer who likes theorizing about the story. I actually cobbled together a list of some of my more important theories with respect to the game Genshin Impact and Star Rail that I have been basing all of my newer theories on. I'll be putting more of those up on Hive along with new stuff but if you're impatient I also archived all my theories here. I hope some of you guys are game theorists too. Let's try to figure out these great games together!
All the way back in v1.0 we knew there would be some connection between Mondstadt and Snezhnaya that related to the Cataclysm. Something Venti did angered the Tsaritsa so much that she deliberately had Signora take his Gnosis by force after assaulting him. While we've since had open confrontations between the Harbingers and Archons in other nations, they were hardly as one-sided. Scara fought Nahida and tried taking her Gnosis as his victory spoils in much the same way Capitano was hoping to do. Meanwhile Arlecchino's attack only startled Furina and didn't actually cause her physical harm.
Unfortunately I don't think we have any more information on why these two Archons are enemies but how their nations might have been connected in the Cataclysm has been getting stronger hints as of late. For example:
In v1.0 we had the Artifact Set, the Bloodstained Knight. As the story goes, he was a pure knight from Mondstadt determined to defeat all the monsters. However as time went on he became soaked in their blood so much so that he warped into a monster himself. Eventually he decided to head to Khaenri'ah and fall in battle while taking out as many monsters as he could only to find out the truth about them and join their side.
Well we now have another Artifact Set
The lore in the Undying One's Mourning Bell seems to line up with the Bloodstained Knight. He fought the monsters in Mondstadt but as he became warped by their blood he pursued them in order to get away from civilization. Apparently the form the Abyss took was the black-blood rain which I'm betting can easily stain a knight's shining white armor. The man was also accompanied by a flock of crows which matches the ravens who were the Bloodstained Knight's only company once he'd left Mondstadt. It isn't quite clear from how its worded but eventually the Undying One's sword became a dark blade. The Bloodstained Knight wielded the Black Sword.
If the Undying One is the Bloodstained Knight then we have a few more details on his story. After becoming tainted by killing so many monsters in Mondstadt, he fled north towards the enemy and eventually found himself in the newly formed Nod-Krai where the Abyss Sect the Wild Hunt was terrorizing the Snezhnayans. The knight knew he couldn't return to humanity so he continued the fight hoping that pushing a little further would mean he'd at least "save the land he had sworn to protect." His body took heavy amounts of damage and as we know when you're wounded by the Abyss you accumulate corrosion. Outside Natlan this isn't a simple death sentence. The Abyss warps people into Abyssal creatures. Ultimately the knight arrived in Khaenri'ah where he found out they were actually the victims and now heavily influenced by Abyssal Corrosion he probably mutated into something like a Herald, Shadowy Husk or maybe even an Inquisitive Baptist. We may encounter him in Khaenri'ah one day as a new World Boss or a World Quest boss.
But going a little further with this we have the set's feather that talks about the leader of the Wild Hunt coming back one night and galloping across the night sky. By definition a knight is a mounted soldier therefore it stands to reason our Bloodstained Knight could be given an Abyssal steed once he switched sides. One of the long-standing in-jokes about the Knights of Favonius is that they don't seem to own any horses but are still called knights with Kaeya even being Cavalry Captain. On another note, the story about the Bloodstained Knight is very reminiscent of another fallen knight who fought tirelessly against evil forces, Arthas from WarCraft. Just like the Bloodstained Knight, Arthas started out as a shining Paladin. However his single-minded resolution to kill the Undead Scourge led to him becoming tainted by them and then he turned from a Paladin unit which fights on foot into a Dark Knight unit which is a knight on horseback. It stands to reason maybe after he sided with Khaenri'ah and joined the Abyss Order he was sent to lead the Wild Hunt. If that's true then we may see him as a new World Boss as early as Nod-Krai.
On top of this we may even know of another potential World Boss. The Bloodstained Knight wasn't the only one corrupted by killing too many monsters. Sometime after he pledged himself to the Abyss he came across the corrupted version of Viridescent. According to the Deepwood Memories Artifact Set, she also morphed into a wild beast that killed out of vengeance because she was drenched in the black blood of the Abyss. We can mostly assume she's Sumeran but wherever she was by the time the knight found her is anyone's guess. All we know is that they were definitely contemporaries and this seems to be the only times we get the specific term black blood to describe the Abyss. Their encounter as described by the Hunter's Path Bow suggests she had devolved into something like a hilichurl by the time he found her which could make her a World Boss level hilichurl enemy, the first upgrade to the enemy group since the rogues. We've yet to get one of those but it might be a way for miHoYo to illustrate the danger posed by the Wild Hunt in Nod-Krai.
Another piece of information we get from the Nightingale's Tail Feather is the term "Warriors of the Pale Star." The word pale might make you immediately jump to the Pale Flame and the wiki too has called them the Fatui. However I think there might be a little more to it. From Signora's boss theme we gather essentially a recruitment speech/cult chant that had probably been the thing that got her to sign up. However this speech isn't all that similar to another one we have. Childe's signature weapon the Polar Star also asks people to join the Fatui's cause. Whereas Signora's version was just about destroying the Abyss and the gods, the Polar Star version brings up more about the past, things like the moonless night and dreams. This tone seems to match a specific sect of the Fatui brought up in the Horn Unwinded piece from the new Artifact Set. It is a contingent of the Fatui loyal first and only to the Tsaritsa and not to any specific Harbinger. It could be that these Fatui will be the ones we encounter in Nod-Krai, the ones undermining the Lightkeepers but their goal is in loyal service to the Tsaritsa herself. It may also help to know that the word pale used in the term Warriors of the Pale Star is also seen in the Polar Star's lore in the original Chinese. In the line "Lift up your eyes to the white, glimmering stars, for that is our banner" the "white, glimmering stars" is pale star.
Their rivalry might actually even hearken back to Russia's own factions during the Revolutions that ended Tsarist rule which will be what Snezhnaya is based on. It could be that the Lightkeepers represent the Bolsheviks while the Pale Star are Mensheviks. There were typically more Mensheviks than Bolsheviks but the Mensheviks were much more moderate while the Bolsheviks got things done, though how costly is another subject. This might reflect the fact that the Lightkeepers were formed under the Torchforger as Snezhnaya's Ratniki. (which means warrior in Russian) They've fought the Abyss for a long time and their numbers have dwindled. Meanwhile the Fatui is a massive organization and now under the Palestar Edict all of the Harbingers are also backing their play which could represent the White Movement during the Russian Revolution.
The sequence of events wouldn't quite line up but I had long theorized that Snezhnaya would play out backwards from every other nation we've gotten so far. This is to build up the suspense as we end Part 1 of the game's story and enter the Khaenri'ah era. Instead of the Archon Quest starting us off we'll instead complete it towards the end of Version 6. Meanwhile Nod-Krai will resemble the final expansion of Snezhnaya like Petrichor was to Fontaine or the Mare Jivari will be for Natlan. Just like those areas Nod-Krai will have a story more distanced from what the Archon Quest will be and also feature the "Second Character Quest" of the Archon that gives us their more personal Weekly Boss. For example Apep in Sumeru and the Shogun in Inazuma. In Nod-Krai's case we'll get the First Tsaritsa Character Quest where the story will reflect the White Revolution, historically something that happened after Nicholai's abdication but here will only weaken the Tsaritsa's power base as we make our way deeper into the nation whose people have no love left for their god.
Side Note: That said the new dev team doesn't seem to follow that Weekly Boss formula. It's to the detriment of the game's story but it's something to keep in mind as we continue theorizing.
Topic originally created on April 27th, 2025.
