CHARACTER SECRET LAIRS: HONKAI

This series annoys me.

All gacha series annoy me in the same way, if they have anything good to say (admittedly, many do) and good characters (which some are never able to pull off). The greed and the grasping nature is endemic to the medium. The hit-and-miss narrative quality is not. But it doesn't seem to stop them.

In this case, what stopped me from playing Honkai: Star Rail is that they power-crept too close to the sun with Castorice, at least according to previews I saw, and the narrative got too bad, making it clear that they didn't really care that much. I can't speak on any think miHoYo did before Genshin Impact, but with that context, I can't help but feel like they took away the wrong lesson from that game; once you get people interested in something, they will forgive any transgression and stay addicted, like the... well, addicts they are. This probably works for you when you are making the only real non-bootleg open-world game that the free-to-play market has that is playable on tablets (I'm not necessarily sure if that's correct, nor do I care). It becomes a lot harder when you are making a turn-based RPG. I still play Granblue Fantasy, even when stories like the Evokers and Navis get massively outnumbered by absolute clown-shows of Anime Conservatism. I guess the power-creep never felt that aggressive, and the writing still had moments evne when the plots were bad.

Aventurine was kind of peak, though. It felt like one of the most direct stories of its kind. The sort of thing only a true illiterate could misunderstand, even when they had to soften it for English-speaking audiences (didn't stop someone from getting the boy's slave tattoo on them). One of the best characters of the genre and at bare minimum far and away the best character in all of the Hoyoslop. Patches 2.0 and 2.1 had such a good story overall, and I'll even say that 2.2 was acceptable. Then they just threw it all away, seemingly by giving it to a different author. Corporations gonna corporate, I guess.

So let's have ourselves a quick look at why Aventurine's cards are like this:

• Aventurine, Stoneheart is based heavily on two things: his extreme durability and his extreme luck. Both of these are kind of interconnected in plot. The particular theme here was around luck manipulation; initially I wanted him to let you reselect a random discard once, but I'd like to try not making these too much like acorn cards. It also helps him get stronger; he has a wild amount of toughness for an already indestructible creature that's not a Darksteel Colossus variant or massively buffed from elsewhere to help him resist toughness reduction effects, because he seemed to be canonically that hard to take down, with only a literal Emanator of Nihility doing it. Uh, for those who are not canon-knowledgeable, imagine this as literally only someone pointedly ordained by a god of nothingness being able to kill him. He could probably take an ICBM to the face and be fine. The art is from his unique "Light Cone" (an equippable item pulled from a gacha that gives stats and a special buff), named "Inherently Unjust Destiny".
• Fortified Wager is the name of the buff he grants with his ability "Cornerstone Deluxe" in-game. It provides a shield to all allies that blocks a set amount of damage coming in. Contractual Safeguard can more or l ess do this, too. The image is not very high-res (especially color-wise), because I took it from a gif of the ability instead of looking for a good video with no HUD or, god forbid, me reinstalling this mess, but you can't see that too well due to the small card render.
• Final Fortune fits with Aventurine's nature as a gambler who constantly risks his life for wild outcomes. The art is taken from the "Final Victor" light cone.
• Return the Past is where things get a little heavy. Look, I'm not going to get into the whole lore, but Aventurine's people, a very blatant fantasy-world version of the Romani (with many terms specifically linking back to Turkish Romani culture, such as their having a celebration of the rebirth of their god ("Gaiathra Triclops") called "Kakava", taking from the name of a celebration in Turkish Romani culture which I believe also has religious significance), were slaughtered by the other native people of his home world Sigonia-IV, leaving him the last survivor of the Avgin. He suffers from a pretty extreme level of survivor's guilt for this and spends most of his story wanting to die and effectively trying to urge Acheron, the aforementioned Emanator of Nihility, to kill him by manipulating the situation on Penacony. It is too big a part of his character for me to avoid having something to do with it. This maybe doesn't feel like the absolute best approach anyone's ever come up with in retrospect, but I'll leave that one up to other folks to speak on. "Kakavasha" is Aventurine's birth name and the art, from the light cone "Journey, Forever Peaceful," depicts Aventurine as a kid.
• Gamble is... duh. Of course Gamble is here. Why would Gamble not be here for the character who is a gambler? Plus it's just an extremely good card. I think this guy is getting the best set of cards I've given anyone yet. The art is taken from his ultimate attack, "Roulette Shark" - its effect really is not like that of the card it's on, but it was a good image anyway, I think. You can't tell on the card, but due to this coming from a GIF again, its color resolution is low and so is its actual size. But again, small card render. I think I can get away with that.
• Glittering Massif is, as of this writing [17 Jul 2025], the newest card on here by far, not even being available in paper yet; it's in an Edge of Etenities commander precon. But this ultimately felt like the most fitting land for Aventurine's home world that wasn't a common or uncommon. I mean, Abraded Bluffs is nice, but what a letdown that would be, right? I also don't feel like it fits with the landscapes of the world that we've seen to this point. At least a massif does still fit.

AVENTURINE/KAKAVASHA

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