now entering: the wild speculation zone

[casketeer]

ok so it's big pepe silvia energy up in here while i toss around thoughts and notes about this weirdo. mostly for vague personal reference as i wing rping him in the meme wilds. 100% expecting most of this to be refuted somehow as canon goes on tbh BUT it might be fun to keep a score tally on just how incredibly off i am at the very least lol...anyway,

These notes are now 2.7 compliant!! Proceed with caution if you're not yet caught up on HSR story quests and would rather not be spoiled. In an effort towards some form of legibility, grayed-out text represents older speculation that's been more or less debunked (but im keeping the notes around anyway just to see how off-track I may have been lmao). Trying my best not to include leaks in here until they become officially implemented material. Here we gooo--

He's a traveling merchant, he says......

• Honestly is he even a merchant though?? So far: mixed reviews. On one hand he's registered within the Xianzhou with a visa as one, citing IPC affiliation with a merchant guild, and I feel like this is something that Xianzhou customs probably? Would have cross-checked, with a remote IPC record verification or something? Unless the forgery extends even further still... (Interestingly, real?!Tingyun has a lil commentary note on his intro sheet that she's never seen him anywhere in the Whistling Flames' records. But he does introduce himself as "Luocha"; his actual registration may well be under his real name.....)
• On the other hand: Man is not selling anything! At any point we see him!! Jing Yuan comments that it's odd to observe a merchant that doesn't seem too fussed about actual merchanting, and lbr he's not wrong. For someone that likes making business metaphors a fair amount, Luocha otherwise seems to have Negative levels of marketing hustle, esp compared to the IPC proper's obnoxious standards of advertising. He never even specifies wtf he sells as a merchant.....though in one of his daily messages wrt attending a night market he does mention offering "a few trinkets". WHAT TRINKETS...SIR THESE ARE FILLER WORDS.....
• On the third alien hand: If he actually is a merchant in credentials at the least, he might genuinely just have little need to really hustle at all? There are several indicators that he's very financially comfortable (despite, again, never actually seeming to be selling anything...): another of his daily messages mentions he's both stayed at the Petrichor Inn several times, and also sometimes takes out rentals in Luofu residential delves for the change in atmosphere; buys a book from a bookstore just to tear a spoilery page out of it before returning it to the shop, and casually does this with zero hesitation; extensive space travel in general also probably isn't exactly cheap for people who aren't fortunate enough to just hitch a ride on the Astral Express!
• And he does seem actually, genuinely well-traveled, whether it's legitimately for merchant reasons or not. Multiple times already he's casually brought up the wonders and difficulties of interstellar business transit. Expresses great envy of the Express and its comparatively classy amenities.
• IC interview in Anan magazine does not help a single iota jfc SIR?? PLEASE.....also 👀 with 1.3 retrospect goggles at that answer wrt jing yuan ohoho but anyway--
• OFFICIAL 1.4 MERCHANT STATUS VERDICT:
  • Or so Jing Yuan flat out points out during their convo, anyway. Luocha's Luofu Crime Rapsheet officially goes on to state one of his transgressions to be "identity fraud and smuggling of dangerous bio-merchandise", and Luocha cheerfully does not deny this. I am simultaneously looking into the camera like im in the office but still crying a lil at the sheer audacity tbh.....mans literally vibing around the Xianzhou for who knows how long just. Roleplaying being an IPC merchant. Who never sells. Incredible.

Where did he even come from??

• The planet name is still a mystery, though if any part of his ""merchant"" chatter is to be believed, he first registered himself as a merchant at a branch of the IPC located at "the North Valley Star". One of his gameplay traces is also called "Through the Valley". Coincidence? Maybe??

• He would sometimes think of home.
  The devils, the church, the insanity... None of those are good memories.
  People would clamber to high places in groups just so they could witness their city's demise.

  There was a church! There were devils! There was insanity! Perhaps once upon a time it was nicer, but it sounds like his home was a miserable place to be by the time he departed. Luocha now refers to himself as a nomadic traveler "with no home to call my own"; either he cannot, or will not, return to that place anytime soon.
• OF NOTE...there is lore....attached to the "Knight of Purity Palace" relic set. crying why is there lore even crammed into these things. why did it take me so long to figure out how to even read the lore in-game...embarrassing..... There's already a precedence set that relic lore can very well pertain to playable characters (see esp cases like Blade's and the Wandering Cloud set); one also can't help but notice that the Purity Palace pieces sure do also mention a church, devils, and insanity....pasting the most interesting excerpt (bold emphasis mine) from the Ring piece here. I just think. It's neat,

  The power granted from the stellar seas gifted the Church the strength to punish devils, but also spread an insanity that ate away at human rationality.
  
  Tormented by this madness, the Knights of the Church could no longer discern decorum and order, obsessed with expelling all devil-spawns for the salvation of the whole church. When these threats came for the Maiden, Safina had no time to hesitate. She cannot stay her hand even if her opponent was the Arch Knight of the Church of Purity Palace. [...]
  
  "My dear Safina, there is no need to feel guilty. This is the consequence of coveting the power of the Aeons." All there were left in the church were the last Maiden and her guardian knight.

  • CONFIRMING HINT ACQUIRED?? As of the Cosmodyssey event of 2.1...! That Luocha is affiliated with Purity Palace in some way. Interestingly, the Purity Palace mention here only shows up if you select this very specific combination of Luocha as designer, Ratio as tailor, and Aventurine as the model....(i mean it's probably just on account of them all being the Imaginary Husbands meme but still. the idea of these three in the same room. jfc....) Also way to bury the lede by making this both a dice roll driven event and a specific character assortment thing, meaning ppl gotta basically rng their way into finding this, thanks hsr devs jfc--
  • Additionally, this may or may not be really stretching the red conspiracy thread on this section of the board lol...but, there's also this excerpt from a report in the Luofu's Seat of Divine Foresight, assessing the unique activities of possible Lord Ravagers in the Antimatter Legion--the different ways in which they dismantle worlds. Idk I just...wonder.......
  
  
• Anyway! Yeah. Combining these hinted home deets with the various other hints just rolling off his battle dialogue, Luocha's pretty strongly coded as some form of Space Catholic. The charm wrapped about his left hand clearly functions as something of a prayer rosary equivalent. He also still seems pretty devout? Because of, or despite, the past unfortunate home circumstances...?? Honestly I probably ought to reference this in rp more often, but there aren't a lot of details on the structure of this belief system yet. Also he hasn't really brought it up much in canon so far anyway aside from combat voice lines, so at least he's probably not the type to proselytize at others very much regardless...
• The Otto Apocalypse of HI3 was himself the sickly youngest son of a bishop; there are probably parallels that are gonna be drawn here...

Personal abilities, talents,

• Most obvious is his alignment with The Abundance, which means he can do magic healing! Distinctly different brand from the Abundance associations of Xianzhou natives like Sanctus Medicus, though; the theming of his own healing seems to rotate around "the divinity of the Abyss" and the "Abyss Flower", accordingly involving strong floral imagery (white irises specifically, in Luocha's case?) Probably tied to the philosophy of the Space Catholicism mentioned above? Is the Abyss a form of divinity in his homeland? Possibly a permutation of Yaoshi, as perceived on another planet??
  • Luocha himself strongly suggests not. For all that we definitely still need to take his word with a very large grain of salt lmao...still, the narrative he sets down presently is that though he walks the Path of the Abundance currently, he still fully intends to destroy Yaoshi sooner rather than later, and has perhaps been working towards this goal for some time. Which does incline me more towards "the Abyss" being more of a localized deity in his homeland that he prefers to reference instead of Yaoshi....more on these thoughts further down the page hm hmm--


• The "Abyss Flower" is a term that turns up in HI3 as well: over there it's a Divine Key that can be equipped as a weapon. (Though, ofc, the only thing about this carrying over to HSR may very well just be the loose concept of it...)

  Divine Key made from the core of the Herrscher of Death, the 6th Herrscher from the Previous Era. A union between the forces of disintegration and creation, it is formed by an outer white lance and an inner black lance, reminiscent of a flower blooming in the darkness. Its true potential awaits to be awakened.

• Magic healing aside, he seems to have pretty thorough traditional medical knowledge too. Familiar enough with medicines and medical substances to write up prescriptions for others off the cuff and free of charge.
• He's apparently able to read a body's qi to determine its health, and even refers to it in those terms; this might be a skill he actually picked up while residing within the Xianzhou. Or...?
  • This could well be a cover for another sort of ability entirely?? He appears to possess senses and perception a bit beyond the standard five in general--most notably, he's able to detect the Stellaron in the Trailblazer without having heard anything about it beforehand, and he's even able to analyze the nature of it. ("Calm" and controlled, within the Trailblazer, as opposed to the greedy hunger Stellarons apparently generally emanate while infecting other worlds). He claims he's grown familiar with this sensation after seeing other Stellaron infections in his travels to other planets, but uuuh. This sure does take on a brand new context later.......


• Setting aside his medical interests, Luocha also has approximate knowledge of surprisingly many other things. "What can I say, I'm a merchant, and information is also a commodity." He seems to hold genuine nerd-like interest in things like the feats of the Intelligensia Guild and the research at the Herta Space Station. HI3 Otto was big on science too...
  • And, yet again, that interest in the Herta Space Station particularly takes on a new light as we hear more about his apparent sentiment towards at least one Aeon in particular. Herta's focus on researching Aeons of late would certainly be...rather relevant to certain interests Luocha might have, after all.....


• He's quite versed with a rapier! And don't forget: according to his in-game battle kit, Luocha's healing scales off his attack value? (Most healers in HSR scale their healing off their max HP, though Lingsha's finally joined the I'm A Doctor But club--) Don't let the twinky looks deceive, he's probably actually pretty physically strong?? He is apparently carrying that coffin around on his back most of the time....
• The rating pistol rates him like this???? DON'T LIKE THAT...REALLY DON'T LIKE THAT.....other characters who share this rating so far are Jing Yuan (a literal Arbiter-General of the Xianzhou), March 7th (an amnesiac of unknown origin), and Sampo (con artist with who knows what else going on). What does it mean...what does it all mean.....
• 2.1 does bring us Acheron, a Very Confirmed Emanator that's actually playable, and the rating pistol...does not rate her either! Which gives us much food for thought wrt unrated characters now--
• He can fold pretty paper flowers really quickly 🌹

What's up with the coffin!!

• Kallen better not actually be in there i s2g--
• There is definitely something in there, though, and Luocha treats it like something precious. He has one-sided convos with the coffin, and caresses it when he thinks nobody's looking....he also apologizes to it for calling it a "tool" of his trade at one point......
• All we've seen come out of it so far are large and sharp, vines?? They look like they're tossing out/consuming bits of the souls(???) of enemies when Luocha uses his ult in gameplay. In his personal light cone it's also shown to be quite tangible and alert enough to stab at him when he knocks on the coffin lid.
• While the entity inside seems to possess awareness, it can't (or is not allowed to?) communicate in the conventional sense. The coffin made no sound. It did not protest and had no right to protest. "When you keep silent, you are free."
• Their relationship is implied to be somewhat symbiotic for some reason, and quite likely started out with animosity from one or both sides; this may or may not still be the case? Proper excerpt from his personal light cone:

  Under the watch of the white irises, he knocks on the coffin.
  "Sometimes I feel I underestimated you by proposing this deal."
  He receives no response other than a thorny branch piercing through his palm.
  Yet he smiles, and tightly grasps the thorn.
  "Indeed. This is how it is. We wanted to use each other, and both ended up underestimating the other."

  Notably this man is taking a stab through the hand no problem??? How many times has it stabbed him like this. Probably...a lot....he can heal tho so it's fine. (Very high pain tolerance nowadays as a result??) Also: his official splash art lends to the rather hostile vibes too, when you look closer! Look at his reflection in the water...and the six vines aimed at his head......
• Speaking of the splash art. The coffin also appears to be draining the life out of everything it's touching, where it sits on the ground there--the white irises closest to it are withering (save for the already dead lilies laid on top of it), and the grass underneath it is blackening. In Luocha's intro trailer we can see flowers actively dying around the coffin at one point too....
• Out of all his dialogue we have on hand, Luocha's claims are the most inconsistent when it comes to the coffin. Sometimes he's calling it a tool of his trade; other times he's referring to it as remains he's been tasked with returning someplace; to Dan Heng and Sushang, at least initially, it's a result of "ill luck" that he now must take care of. But then there's also this exchange he has with Sushang a bit further into their collective little sidequest:

  Sushang: Uh, let me ask you one more question... Do you know the person in the coffin?
  Luocha: Huh... Yes.
  Sushang: Friend?
  Luocha (very promptly): No.
  Sushang: So, uh... Sweetheart?
  Luocha: Haha, miss, whatever gave you that impression? The individual in the coffin is neither friend nor relative — we met only once. By chance, I made someone a promise, and so I have to run this errand. Let's leave it at that, shall we? I think we've all had enough rest.

• NEITHER FRIEND NOR RELATIVE BUT YOU NEVER CONFIRMED OR DENIED THE SWEETHEART PART EH-- Whether or not we take any of his answers up there varying levels of seriously, his backstory blurbs do confirm he was definitely tasked by someone, specifically, to bring it to the Xianzhou.

  "Go to Xianzhou," the one who gave him the coffin said, "Don't forget your promise."
  "Never."
  Luocha promised, but silently made another vow.

• "Another silent vow" tho. What does this mean!!! What did that person want him to do with this thing in the Xianzhou, and what does Luocha himself want to do with it? His second vow seems like it may be at odds with the first one he made out loud. Otto HI3's whole deal was resurrecting a loved one; the vibes are strong that Luocha may be wanting to do the same. ("The dead will return" he says every time he ults smh--) But also what if it's not quite that...or more than that....
• If you listen real close during one of his idle animations + before he fires off his ult, the coffin activating sounds like a wind blowing through windchimes. There's a much fainter iteration of this sound when his healing field's up too. This has zero position on the conspiracy board, I just think it's neat. There's probs smth at least moderately horrible going on in there, but at least it sounds pretty...
• But we finally get a juicy contents hint at the end of 2.5! Which is basically, well.....yeah so this raises even more questions than answers! The thorny vine theming when the coffin aggros really isn't something we see in any other form of Propagation imagery--which is Bugs--so I get a feeling there might be something actually pretty convoluted going on in there beyond simply "Tayzzyronth fragment" necessarily, though we now have concrete confirmation that there's Tazzy elements involved. I still feel like there might be...some kind of person in there...but Aeon fuckery in some form is now pretty confirmed, to say the least!

What In The Goddamn Is This Man Actually Up To:

• So! He's not a merchant, for the time being. He's carrying around a coffin with Something in it and talks about resurrection every time he ults. He also seems hellbent on straight up murdering at least one Aeon, while simultaneously having no qualms at all about liberally utilizing the healing gifts imparted by the Abundance's path in that process. He's been traveling with a war criminal woman (herself on the brink of insanity 24-7) who seems to have discovered something that both counteracts her mara and might help in this Yaoshi-yeeting endeavor. Meanwhile, there is apparently something on the Xianzhou Xuling that Luocha wishes to bring his coffin in contact with; whatever it is, he implies that it'll also be the key to destroying Yaoshi...
• There's a whole lot going on here but imma just speculate on the broader picture atm. Why would he want to eliminate Yaoshi, who empowers his considerable healing abilities? Personally I look at that little Purity Palace artifact blurb up there, and I figure it probably has a lot to do with what happened to his homeland. But based off the mention of multiple Aeons there, I'm also inclined to speculate that it's not just one Aeon Luocha actually has beef with--Yaoshi may be merely the first step, or at least the target that's most convenient, when it comes to dealing within the Xianzhou Alliance (who have made it their sworn mission to eliminate Yaoshi too). Plus whatever promise he made to go to the Xianzhou in the first place, etc...
• What do we know about Aeon death so far? That it does occur, and has happened several times in past recorded millennia, though the exact causes remain a mystery. Generally, it seems an Aeon is either consumed by another stronger Aeon materializing to consolidate certain similar Paths, or the Aeon mysteriously disappears for reasons unknown. Either way, however, there is almost always another Aeon who appears to fill in the void left behind by the previous one. We also have at least one legend on hand of a mortal being who managed to somehow ascend into becoming an Aeon...
• So we have several different potential plans here??
  • Projected and expected: Luocha has very particular beef against Yaoshi specifically, and just wants to get rid of this one Aeon at any expense.
  • Unhinged but not impossible: Luocha's actually aiming to take out all Aeons eventually, possibly due to viewing overt reliance on Aeons as a long-term unsustainable failing (see again, bias wrt homeland events).
  • Actually insane but maybe???: Luocha may or may not also be angling to become an Aeon himself???? Either that or ascending somebody/something else, in a very specific way. Points at "when there is a vacuum, another new Aeon will emerge to fill it" + "even mortals can potentially become Aeons". Possibly this might lead into whatever it is he wants for the entity in the coffin...see-saws hand....
  • Secret fourth option: Luocha is flagrantly lying yet again and his Actual Plans are none of the above, as his main ambition is in fact something else altogether...! Look you never know at this point. With a guy this shady it's motiveception all the way down......


• Kind of a tangent but idk where else to put this atm: I have a feeling these goals of his may have him intersecting with the Stellaron Hunters sooner rather than later. IF HE'S NOT AFFILIATED ALREADY.....me staring at that one offhand remark he makes at the end of the Luofu sidequest about "getting a fortune from a fortune teller" before he first arrived. Was that...Elio....or am I just reading too much into things again, who knows!! Imagine tho.

Personality????

• I am very strongly (and probably unwisely lol) banking on a good chunk of Luocha's actions and dialogue thus far actually being sincere for the most part! Ofc this could very well not be the case at all, and he might be lying about pretty much everything. He does have resting sus face something awful.....but until that's confirmed for sure I'm just rolling with what I've got 💀✨
  • so that was also all a fuckin lie yeah LMAO WELL all things considered at this point he def has not been Simply Vibing in the Luofu, but!! I do still feel there are still a lot of half-truths here, as well as perhaps some genuine aspects here and there. My main takeaway at this point is that my guy is masking pretty hard with the kindhearted and genial persona he tends to wear in public, but it's not necessarily that he finds it an incompatible persona to have? Just, you know...there's so much of the Scheming also smh. Combining his implied plans thus far with his Otto multiverse heritage, too, I'm feeling increasingly confident in saying that while Luocha might not be quite as Extra as that guy was (yet)--he still 100% has the capacity for unhinged levels of intensity in pursuing his goals, and might occasionally have a flair for the dramatic on top of that. He's probably still holding back quite a lot rn hahaha, ha,
  
  
• He'll certainly get pretty evasive when it comes to topics he doesn't actually wish to talk about. But he still seems to speak quite frankly about his genuine interests: travel, medicine, science, business. He really does seem to go well out of his way to help out people with no prospect of reward, too. Staring at his companion quest...""companion quest""...the narrative over there leaning comically hard into his Evil Possibilities and then showing us that by all means and accounts he was literally! Just vibing!! (........well. At That Time.)
• Generally exudes a calm and deliberate bearing that can come off rather pretentious old-fashioned; even when conducting himself among the long-lived citizens of the Xianzhou, others liken him more to the older generation there. "He's an Outworlder, right? But from the way he works and speaks, he feels like those older Xianzhou natives."
• I wanna indulgently headcanon him as a bit of a foodie tbh...yes this may or may not absolutely just be based off that one cute food stall web event minigame. Guy came back literally every day to try everything....even though it was being manned by somebody making the food with a sock puppet......I bet he'd try any new food in a new place at least once. He just likes! Experiencing flavors!!
• But yeah. Cute stuff aside. He'll still absolutely be indirect and/or outright lie about certain things if he feels it's necessary. "When in a difficult situation, it's not so important to maintain who you truly are, but to find a suitable role to play... Ah, that's just my own experience." This is one of his interactive voice lines.....but it's also his answer to "Annoyances". He's very versed in this, as it seems to be turning out, but he doesn't enjoy doing it.
• He is so fuckin sus about Xianzhou topics. What is up with that. Says it's a pity they keep their knowledge of "preserving beauty" a secret in their corner of the galaxy....also has such an Ominous pause before promising customs he definitely won't be trying to do any research of immortality while visiting on his visa. Whaaat are you gonna do here man-- me just pointing and laughing at myself and this entire segment with 1.4 events out of the way now lmfao--
• Despite his incredibly suspicious energies though, I do wonder...if he actually mmmmight be, a decent person? (Like, at least moderately less insane than og Otto? Yet???) Someone who would prefer to be, possibly, and currently still tries to exercise altruism over personal gain in the opportunities where he actually can. Per the ending reveals of 2.5, we had the fun double bluff of Luocha seemingly dropping the friendly merchant healer act to reveal he was the mastermind behind the Luofu's Stellaron crisis--except that it then turns out he apparently didn't actually bring the Stellaron there at all, and simply utilized the opportunity to get himself definitively arrested in a way Xianzhou authorities would be unable to ignore. Then comes 2.7, with Ruan Mei all but confirming it was in fact Luocha who pulled Tingyun from the aftermath of Phantylia's assault probably en route to the Luofu--recruiting Ruan Mei's assistance with rehabilitating Tingyun by seemingly cashing in on a debt Ruan Mei already owed him.
  
  Now, ofc, there are almost certainly still scheming elements to these deeds! It wouldn't surprise me at all if the results will probably still contribute pieces to the puzzle that is Luocha's deicide life goals atm, and it'd certainly be very Otto of him to be securing them even this early on. Maybe he still knew about the shape of the Luofu's impending Stellaron crisis before it happened and utilized these details accordingly, even if he didn't cause it. And maybe saving Tingyun will lead to an important Aeon-killing tool coming online, considering she now houses unusual traces of Destruction in her body and even woke up to choose Aeon violence entirely of her own volition. But the question still remains...did he have to go about these things the way he did? He seems to be going...pretty out of his way, especially with cases like Tingyun's. One wonders........not that i don't still expect to be proven wrong tho lmfao. og otto is such a Precedent ok. but also: the bar is on the floor. pls. can u at least take a light step over it luocha--
• He may very well be a person who's gearing up to do some Pretty Bad things for what he considers to be an Ultimately Good Purpose all the same. He may be the sort who tries to clear his tab with good deeds before he inevitably Must proceed with his bad ones....

• The curtains closed, and he left the guilt behind.
  Guilt is just another weapon to be controlled, a lie one tells themselves to believe they will one day obtain a correct answer.
  "What's so different about you? Is your pain more valuable and more moving than other people's?"

• Jingliu has a very interesting voice line for him! She speaks as someone who lost a very important person long ago and promptly succumbed to mara over it, so the fact she can Relate to something about Luocha's situation is.........yeah. Either way, the hints that he has Some Hangups about matters of the heart anymore are pretty strong rip...

  "He is just like me--there is a hole in his heart. No matter what he does to fill it, the hole remains. The harder he tries, the more exhausted he becomes."