Genshin Wind Wisps - Tumblr Posts
Genshin took over my life and I'm now going to make my hyperfixation of it everyone's problem
Some time ago, I really, REALLY got into Genshin Impact and it has, without a doubt, taken over my life.
Recently, I read two pretty cool fics on Ao3; "Wards of the Wind" by Kiri_Kaitou_Clover and "Just a Boy" by Karmitara, which... both had me cooking.
I have a funky Genshin AU / Story Idea I want to info dump about! I call it "A Thousand Winds in a Windless Land"!
The general gist of it is that during the Cataclysm, Barbatos is sent to kill the Khanri'ahn heir, baby Kaeya, however, Barbatos is unable to bring himself to kill him and hands him over to Dainsleif who escapes into the Abyss while Barbatos distracts the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles.
Of course, they (because I stan gender-neutral Venti) lose. Normally, such actions would result in execution, however, the Sustainer is unable to kill Barbatos without consequences that probably involve Istaroth, so instead, she seals Barbatos away, but still tells all the Archons that she killed them to prevent any more rebellious behaviour.
Before they get sealed away, however, Barbatos transfers their powers over to their siblings; the Thousand Winds, putting them on the same power level as the adepti of Liyue, and then Barbatos transfers their soul into a vessel in the form of a wisp similar to the rest of the wisps so that they can keep helping out in Teyvat in secret. After sealing Barbatos away, the Sustainer goes to destroy Mondstadt as part of Barbatos' punishment, but because of the Thousand Winds' power up, they are able to defeat the sustainer and send her and Celestia into a slumber after she'd been weakened by the Cataclysm.
Afterwards, the Wind Wisps essentially became divine protectors of Mondstadt, similar to the Four Winds and Liyue’s adepti. They’re also able to have human forms, identifiable by their white hair and anemo-coloured tips and eyes. They mostly stay in Mondstadt but are also known to live in other nations alongside people they decide to stick to.
I imagine that the inclusion of the wisps and the presence of Barbatos (who calls themself Nye since their identity as Venti has been compromised) changes a lot of things that I'll probably cover in another post lol. But I like to imagine that some of the wisps decided to stick around with anemo users and residents of Mondstadt, as well as people who are just generally fighting for freedom as well as the archons. I also like to imagine that a wisp decides to stick around with Dainsleif, and as for the Traveller? The wisp who follows him around is literally just Nye/Venti lol
I don't really know what the Mondstadt quest will be since I plan for Dvalin to be cured :PP
I am also a sucker for Venti & Tsaritsa shenanigans and like to headcanon that they have a sibling relationship, so I imagine that around half of the animosity she feels towards the other archons is probably Barbatos related. She's mad at Morax because he was the one in charge of making sure that Barbatos would kill Kaeya, she was originally not as disappointed towards Beelzebub and was even a little sympathetic towards her until she decided to take the coward's way out and hide away in her Plane of Euthymia and leave an emotionless puppet to rule her people, but the Tsaritsa probably has nothing really against Buer and Focalors since there was genuinely nothing they could have done since neither of them become archons until after the Cataclysm. I'm not sure what Murata's role should be in all of this yet, but I do know that the Tsaritsa probably also really blames herself for not being able to prevent Barbatos' fate. My brother even suggested that maybe she was the one who was originally supposed to kill Kaeya, but because she refused, the duty was pushed onto Barbatos.
I'll probably info-dump more about this AU later lol
Oh look, What I have so far for my Cataclysm and pre-canon Mondstadt plot points for my ATWIAWL AU!
CATACLYSM
After defeating Durin, Celestia summons Barbatos to assassinate the Khaenri’an heir, to which Barbatos very reluctantly cooperates with, that is until they get there and discover a baby Kaeya.
Seeing his smile, Barbatos cannot bring themself to kill the baby and attempts to smuggle him away from the Cataclysm, but they are discovered by Morax and the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles.
Before all of this, Dainsleif was exiled (for reasons I haven’t really decided yet) from Khaenri’ah but came back during the Cataclysm hoping to save the people, but bumps into Barbatos. Dainsleif is tense at first until Barbatos hands Kaeya over to him and tells him that he must run before the Sustainer arrives.
The Sustainer then proceeds to arrive and Barbatos buys the two time as Dainsleif and Kaeya flee into the Abyss. However, Barbatos quickly loses the fight.
An offence like this would normally lead to the offender’s execution, however, the Sustainer is unable to kill Barbatos without severe consequences (all relating to Istaroth), but leaving them to their own devices is just as equally dangerous, so instead, the Heavenly Principles seal them away.
She still tells all the other archons that they killed Barbatos to dissuade them from also rebelling.
Before they’re able to seal them away, however, Barbatos transfers their powers over to the Thousand Winds, blessing them with power rivalling that of Liyue’s adepti so that after the deed is done and the Sustainer sets out to attack Mondstadt, the Wind Wisps are able to fight her off, sending her into a deep slumber after the Cataclysm weakened her.
PRE-CANON MONDSTADT
After they were blessed by Barbatos, the Wind Wisps essentially became divine protectors of Mondstadt, similar to the Four Winds and Liyue’s adepti. They’re also able to have human forms, identifiable by their white hair and anemo-coloured tips and eyes. They mostly stay in Mondstadt but are also known to live in other nations alongside people they decide to stick to.
Before they were sealed away, Barbatos was able to remove their soul and put it into the form of a Wind Wisp not too dissimilar from the rest of the Thousand Winds. Since their identity as Venti was compromised, Barbatos decided to craft a new identity under the name of Nye and use it to secretly remain in Teyvat.
The fact that Barbatos disguised as Nye is still around is a secret only the Thousand Winds are privy to, because if Celestia were to ever hear of Nye’s true identity, they could potentially awaken prematurely, and that is the last thing anyone wants.
Because they’re around, Venti is able to heal Dvalin of Durin’s poison, but because I’m also a sucker for the gay dragons, close to the present events of the game, Durin gets reincarnated into the most reckless being in all of Teyvat. Initially, Dvalin lets him be out of a sense of guilt from killing his past self, but then Durin (whose name might not be Durin anymore) gets himself in a sticky situation and Dvalin has to appear in his human form in order to get him out of that situation. Afterwards, Dvalin decides to stick around with Durin to ensure that he doesn’t get himself almost killed again.
In his human form, Dvalin has a fake anemo vision and I can imagine him either being a bow user or a catalyst user.
I like to think that Durin would have a cryo vision. I can imagine his weapon either being a claymore or a physical catalyst like Heizou or Wriothesley.
During the Ursa the Drake crisis, the presence of the wisps are able to save Crepus’ life. I haven’t decided yet if present-day Diluc still has the same personality he had before his father died in canon, or if he’s still grumpy. Another fic that inspired me was “A Bard’s Ambition” by OG_CaleHenituse where even though Venti saved Crepus’ life, it wasn’t without people thinking he had died when he went missing which still results in Diluc’s fallout with the knights.
Oh hey, lookie it's what I have so far for my pre-canon Liyue and Inazuma plot points for my ATWIAWL AU!
PRE-CANON LIYUE
Before the Cataclysm, Morax and Barbatos were very close (despite the former’s denial of the fact), so when Barbatos went against the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles, it felt like a betrayal. After the Anemo Archon was “killed”, anything that reminded Morax of them filled him with irrational fury, making him wonder what could possess Barbatos to throw everything away for a single baby.
When a wind wisp first approached Morax, his first reaction was to yell at them and demand them to go away, and although the wisp relented and gave him space, Morax could always tell that the wisp was still around from all the little gifts that he would find.
After a century or so, however, the empty feeling in Morax’s chest had worn him down to the point that he could not deny the fact that he craved a reminder of Barbatos.
He decides to invite the wisp to a meal where the two would talk. Eventually, as the two shared more meals together, Morax opened up to the sprite the same way he had to Barbatos, eventually naming the sprite Zhen (sometimes affectionately nicknamed Xiao Zhen)
While in their human identities, the two often spent time learning about the people of Liyue together. Zhen was the one to suggest to Zhongli that instead of faking his death out of nowhere, he should first slowly distance himself from his godly duties, slowly increasing the time between one descent from the next to see how the people of Liyue respond to their growing independence. He also advises Morax to open a savings account to ensure that he will not be broke when he surrenders his gnosis.
In the eyes of the people of Liyue, Zhen is a wisp who grew emotionally attached to Zhongli and decided to live amongst humans to be with him. Wind Wisps are not as revered in Liyue as they are in Mondstadt, but it is still considered to be a blessing when one decides it wants to live amongst humans with a chosen mortal. Though many of their acquaintances often joke about how Zhen is like Zhongli’s more financially responsible little brother or son.
(I'm not super familiar with Zhongli lore, so I would love some help on how to make his lore in this AU better)
PRE-CANON INAZUMA
After losing Barbatos on top of her sister and friends, Ei falls into a more severe depression. Just like Morax, Ei’s reaction to a wind wisp approaching her was bad, probably even worse since in her grief, she had come to assume that the wisp was the ghost of Barbatos coming to haunt her.
Despite the wisp’s efforts to be a stable support for her, their relationship remained strained, eventually reaching a boiling point when Ei decided to discard her prototype puppet and confessed to her plans of making an emotionless doll to rule while she meditated in her Plane of Euthymia.
The two had a furious argument about the decision, Ei claiming that it was for the best she set him free and that Inazuma would be fine while the wisp argued that such a decision was not only irresponsible and disaster-bound, but cruel as well. The argument eventually reached the point where Ei told the wisp that if they were so against the idea of the puppet being alone, that maybe they should just go with him. Angrily, the wisp agrees, telling her that unless she cleans up her act, this will be the last time they see each other.
The puppet and wisp remain in Shakkei Pavillion until they are found by Katsuragi and taken in by the people of Tatarasuna who name the puppet Kabukimono and the wisp Kaze no Seirei. The two live a fairly happy life there until one of Dottore’s segments disguised as Escher comes to Tatarasuna to cause trouble.
The thing about the wind, however, is that no information whispered in the wind is safe from their ears. Paired up with Nagamasa and Niwa’s suspicion of him and Kabukimono’s general uneasiness around him (Why does it feel like Escher is always staring at him and standing a little too close?) Dottore’s charade is uncovered fairly quickly.
Kaze no Seirei and (maybe) Niwa confront Dottore, first trying a peaceful approach, but when it’s clear that Dottore will not leave before completing his goal, a fight between Kaze and Dottore breaks out, draining Kaze of most of his energy and injuring Niwa, in a moment of intense emotions, Kabukimono is able to unseal a portion of his powers and defeat the segment.
Before killing the segment, however, Kabukimono orders Dottore to never mess with Tatarasuna or Inazuma again, lest Kaze inform the Tsaritsa’s wisp to spill his actions against Kaze, which would in turn, get Dottore Prime in a lot of trouble since the Tsaritsa likes the wisps.
Dottore, deciding it was not worth the trouble of losing his funding and connections agrees to the terms before the segment is incinerated in a bolt of lightning.
Centuries pass and Tatarasuna remains prosperous with the Kabukimono and Kaze no Seirei as the de facto leaders of Tatarasuna, and when the Vision Hunt Decree happens, Tatarasuna comes to be considered as a neutral faction that is neither on the side of the Shogun or the Resistance.
During the decree, Tatarasuna would house many vision users and runaways who wanted to escape the Shogun’s rule, but despite the Shogunate Army’s best efforts, they couldn’t seize Tatarasuna with Kabukimono and Kaze leading the charge.
I imagined that Kabukimono still gets an anemo vision (technically making him a dual electro-anemo user because of his birth powers that were slowly unsealed more and more throughout the years) that was given to him when he decided that no matter what happens, he refuses to surrender Tatarasuna and its people to the Raiden Shogun.
Because Dottore was no longer messing around in Inazuma, I imagine that the Raiden Gokaden is still around and so is Kazuha’s family, but Kazuha at this time still does not have a vision, that is until Tomo goes to Tenshukaku to challenge the Shogun.
Before he leaves to chase after Tomo, Kabukimono gives him a seal that repels Electro just in case.
I haven’t decided if Tomo gets to live or not, but either way, when Kazuha gets there, he either manages to save Tomo, or just Tomo’s vision thanks to the seal given to him by Kabukimono.
Unable to flee back to Tatarasuna due to the distance between Tenshukaku and his hometown, Kazuha (and maybe Tomo if he is still alive) flees to Ritou and stowaways on Beidou’s ship. I imagine Kazuha probably gets his vision sometime after that.
I don't have enough knowledge for headcanons for the Fontaine and Snezhnaya arcs for my ATWIAWL AU, so I'm just gonna put them all in one post.
FONTAINE HEADCANONS
Furina names her wisp Duchesse Imène.
Imène doesn't know that Furina is not Focalors, but they do have a feeling that something is up and that it's probably the kind of something that is better off not looked into.
Imène does act as an unconditional support for Furina through thick and thin :))
SNEZHNAYA HEADCANONS
The Tsaritsa’s wisp is known by the Snezhnayan people as the Velikaia Knazhna (Grand Princess) of Snezhnaya, Karine.
I effing love the idea of Venti & Tsaritsa siblinghood, so they're like siblings in this AU.
My bro suggested the angsty idea that the Tsaritsa was the one that was originally assigned to kill Kaeya, but because she refused, the duty was pushed onto Venti and now that she thinks he's dead, she's feeling really guilty about it (I might have mentioned this before)
One of the goals she wants to fulfil once she collects all the Gnosis (besides taking down Celestia) is reviving Venti.
I genuinely had to ask myself why Karine doesn't just snitch on the Pierro and the Fatui to the Tsaritsa, but my bro suggested that at this point, the Tsaritsa probably does not care anymore.
Despite that, Karine doesn't leave the Tsaritsa like Kaze did with Ei because, unlike Ei, the Tsaritsa is still there and needs emotional support.
Instead, they help take care of the Snezhnayan people in the Tsaritsa's stead.
But now I have to ask myself; "How will Kabuki and Kaze threaten Dottore to stay out of Inazuma if the Tsaritsa doesn't care enough to put an end to his experiments?" Anyone have any ideas?
That's all I got lol. At least, until Natlan comes out.
[ATWIAWL] Wisp name meaning - Part 1
Nye (Venti's secret identity)
The site I read said it meant "New Start"
This represents how this new identity is essentially a new start for Venti.
My bro and friend both chose Nye out of the long list of names I gave them because it reminded them of Bill Nye the Science Guy X))
Zhen (Zhongli's wisp)
The site I read said it meant "A Treasure" or "Precious"
This is a callback to how Zhen would leave Zhongli gifts before the two got close.
Sometimes, Zhen is affectionately nicknamed "Xiao Zhen", which means "Little Zhen" :))
Kaze no Seirei (Kabukimono's wisp)
Literally just translates to "Wind Spirit"
If the people of Tatarasuna named Kabukimono "Wandering Eccentric", the chances of them giving Kaze an actual name are severely slim.
When they still lived with Ei, Ei just called them Barbatos since she believed that Kaze was his ghost.
Ghostie (Nahida's wisp)
Nahida gave them that name because they looked like a little ghost in their wisp form :))
I might have mentioned this before, but Nahida originally gave me the vibes of someone who'd give proper names, until I remembered that she signed Wanderer up into the championship under the name "Hat Guy"
The name works especially well with the lore I have for Ghostie XDD
Duchesse Imène (Furina's wisp)
The site I read said it meant "She who has faith" or "Believer"
It's meant to reference how although they have no idea what's going on, they decided to support Furina no matter what.
I wanted Imène to have a full title that would match the Salon Solitaire but couldn't figure out what role they would have to Furina in the eyes of the Fontaine people. My pals and I were thinking of some kind of general, or a bodyguard, or an informant or something, and then we had the brilliant idea of making Imène some kind of advisor, like, a king's advisor, but because they don't have official titles, we just went with Duchess in French (Which is literally just Duchess with an 'e' at the end lol)
The Velikaia Knazhna of Snezhnaya, Karine (The Tsarista's wisp)
The site I read said it meant "Beloved Friend"
It is meant to represent how Karine is now the Tsaritsa's closest companion, and essentially her new younger sibling after Venti "died".
The title "Velikaia Knazhna" means "Grand Princess", but translates to "Grand Duchess" in English. It is a title given to the daughters and male-line granddaughters of the Emperor or Empress' of Russia... huh... I don't know why, but before I reread the site I got the info from, I originally thought it was the title given to the younger sibling of a Russian ruler... which... would probably just make them a Prince/Princess huh?
Should I change Karine's title to Knazhna' Krovi Imperatorskoy? It means "Princess of the Blood Imperial" and was a title that was implemented in Russia in the year 1885 to reduce the amount of Grand Princes and Grand Princess by giving the male-line descendants of the Emperor of Russia a title that would distinguish them from those of noble Russian families titled prince/princess.
Why does Karine present as more feminine and bear feminine titles? It's for the Tsaritsa's peace of mind, trust me.