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!
Back in v5.2 we saw our first sovereign lord, a "dragon" by the name of Ixlel (because the full name is mad) and based on the interactions with her it seemed like she was just your typical dragon from that era. When the dragons fell she managed to save her consciousness in digital form but that led to Och-Kan extracting information from her during his war against dragonkind.
That could have made sense. But that's no longer the story. In v5.8 it turned out these dragons were always AI and not real. They were created by Xiucoatl for the purposes of running Natlan under him. Interestingly this updated lore actually works towards another theory I had that I thought was disproven since the Archon Quest. Back in v5.2 I thought that Xiucoatl was a very clever Dragon Sovereign and had been splitting himself into multiple forms. We already saw that it was possible thanks to Och-Kan himself since he'd split himself into the consciousness Cocouik and his Abyss Corrupted body. I suggested that Xiucoatl had split himself into Waxaklahun Ubah Kan who then had a son Och-Kan and this formed something like a trinity which works with the Gnosticism basis of the game not to mention the collective real world lore of each member of this trinity. Furthermore since we know Xiucoatl was corrupted by the Abyss as well, I figured there was another split once this happened. The Xiucoatl that was killed by Xbalanque was much like the evil dragon form of Och-Kan, just his body. So where would Xiucoatl's Cocouik be? I suggested Ajaw.
Well now that all seems to have come full circle. In v5.5 we concluded the World Quest Series for Natlan. At the end of that we learned that Kukulkan aka Waxaklahun Ubah Kan was Xiucoatl's "brother," only if you really read how they are "brothers" you realize it's more like a clone. And I quote, "My king, my elder brother, O lord who gave me life on the day you yourself were born." Xiucoatl created Kukulkan from himself, just like if he'd split off a piece of himself. And according to Kukulkan, he'd also made the same decisions as his son Och-Kan, as if all three of them shared a mind. But what about Ajaw? Thanks to the Ineffa Archon Quest we learned a little something about him and about Ixlel. They are both members of the Thirteen Sovereign Lords, those AI that were created by Xiucoatl. Back in v5.2 I tried figuring out Ixlel's name and one part has become crucial to this theory: Ch'ule-L. This is a Mayan word ch'ulel which means the thirteen parts of an individual soul. Whose soul? Xiucoatl's. Therefore Ajaw is an off-shoot as well but the mechanism was different from what I thought it was. Instead of just Ajaw being the consciousness split off from Xiucoatl, thirteen different AI copies of his consciousness were created.
Unfortunately that's as far as my theory has gotten with this game. Again I thought it had been debunked as of the end of the Archon Quest. Another part of the theory was that Kukulkan eventually attempted to atone for the dragons oppressing humanity. As such he became the Wayob which alerted the principles to his survival and thus there is a Divine Nail hanging out over the Night Kingdom and poised to strike the central column. We have yet to visit this area of the Night Kingdom. The only reason we know it exists is because glitch exploiting Genshintubers broke into out of bounds parts of the Natlan map which included this central area of the Night Kingdom. The fact that canonically we've never seen this area suggests that this isn't part of the story anymore thus right now there is no explanation for what the Wayob is. Kukulkan faded from existence at the end of the World Quest Series.
Also unfortunate is that it's already the end of the Version 5 series and Nod-Krai is coming soon. It's not likely there will be any more deep dives into Natlan's lore so this is probably as far as this story will go and that feels wasteful. (this part was proven correct because we are now in Snezhnaya and since Nod-Krai started the only new information we learned about Natlan was that now they don't have the Pyro Gnosis and that's going to come back into play in Snezhnaya for the Archon Quest finale) Given the Weekly Boss, the tie-in to an avatar of the Sea of Quanta that even bore the name of an Eldritch Abomination and now confirmed links between Xiucoatl and Waxaklahun Ubah Kan, Och-Kan, Ajaw and the other twelve ch'ulel, the pay off of Kukulkan being the last surviving aspect of the former Pyro Dragon choosing to atone by becoming the Wayob is exactly how I believe the old devs would have handled the story arc.
Speaking of Ajaw being one of the Thirteen, which one would he be exactly? We actually know the fates of many of these guys so we can rule them out already. That'd be CL-01, 03, 05 through 09, 11 and 12. That only leaves CL-02, 04, 10 and 13 unaccounted for. Of these CL-02 is a girl so that rules her out right away and CL-10 was said to be killed after Ixquieh and Ahpub trapped it alive under a mountain so while the wording is vague, I think we can trust that one of the sovereigns themselves confirmed the death. That just leaves CL-04 and CL-13. In the Chamber of Deliberation there is an interactable where the sovereign lords are discussing impeaching Kukulkan because of his teaching humanity how to use Phlogiston. CL-04 decided to abstain from the vote just like CL-08 aka Lianca's mom. CL-11 and CL-13 voted to impeach. Then in the same interactable where CL-02 stated that CL-10 was killed, it was noted that CL-04 stopped coming to their meetings while CL-13 antagonized CL-09 (Ixlel) for not agreeing to raze human settlements. CL-13 voted with CL-11 in favor of extermination stating that the dragons would be arrogant to not consider the humans a threat. You can mostly see which of these guys are more in favor of humanity and which are against and so I think that makes CL-04 the only choice for Ajaw. While he talks a big game, Ajaw was clearly uncomfortable around Ineffa because he recognized her as CL-11 and the fact that he made a deal with Kinich to lend his power to him suggests he's more accepting of humans. I mean could you imagine CL-11 making a deal with any human in order to escape her captivity?
Also there's the only description we have of CL-04 which is that he was a researcher living in a citadel atop the high cliffs. Not only is that how Ajaw described his old living space but Dendro has the characteristic of being intelligent and conniving which are both characteristics demonstrated by CL-04 and Ajaw. (Remember how Ajaw made a deal with Enjou to kill Kinich early?)
The Genshin wiki even found something else. Out of all the sovereign lords, only CL-04 or Aj Awaj K'umilal Kan has a Chinese name that is structured differently. As it explained, the other names push the consonant ending of the Ix or Aj onto the next word in the name if that word starts with a vowel. In other words Aj Awaj should transliterate into A Ja Wa but instead it's A A Wa. This could be a deliberate move to make the Awaj part look like Ajaw. (ignore the rest of that explanation because Ajaw and Awaj are unrelated Mayan words so if it's anything it's just an aesthetic to clue Chinese players in)
Topic originally created on August 31st, 2025.