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[fabricable]

Character —

Character Name: Yelan
Character Canon: Genshin Impact
Character Age: Likely mid-20s—though you could argue as high as her early 30s, but some of her emotional immaturity shines through during some events in game, making me believe that she still has some growing to do.
Canon Point: Genshin Impact patch 2.7 (following the events of "Perilous Trail" and her story quest)
Link to History: Story / Voice-Overs (Some of her story is expanded upon via her story.)
Inventory:

Most significantly:

Her bow, Aqua Simulacra. Carrying this gives Yelan more HP in game mechanics. I'd translate this to "she can take a few more hits."

Her jacket. Stolen from one of her enemies to "repay" a debt, she's had it tailored and used her magic on it to make it float off her back. Otherwise, it has no special powers.

Her bracelet. Once a part of a pair, it was magicked up as a communication device by her clan. As the sole remaining member—and missing the pair due to the circumstances that led to her claiming her jacket—it's just a trinket now.

Powers —

Skills: Yelan is skilled in the ways of spycraft. She's good at disguises, gathering information, and getting results. Much of her story details how much she appears in situations to cause chaos. For Yelan, this isn't for the joy of it but as a means to an end. She's a skilled manipulator and fighter. She's also a member of a clan in her home nation (Liyue) that specialized in a specific type of magic.

In terms of combat, she is a skilled martial artist and bow user.
Superpowers: In Genshin Impact, there is a class of people called "allogenes"—these people carry objects called Visions, and they supposedly have the ability to ascend to "Celestia" (a kind of heaven—presumably, but its true nature is unknown) as a god themselves. Visions stand as the sign of someone's ambitions, hopes, and dreams, and grant the user control over one of seven elements (air, water, earth, fire, electricity, grass, ice—known as "anemo," "hydro," "pyro," "electro," "dendro," and "cryo."). Having it forcefully removed can gut a person's sense of self, damaging their personality to such an extent that they forget previous attachments, can experience hallucinations and can undergo an extreme change in their presentation of self.

With that explanation out of the way:

Hydro Vision: Yelan's Vision grants her the power to manipulate the power of Hydro (AKA water). She can briefly turn invisible thanks to this ability, acting like a flowing bit of water to wrap people up with waterlines. Additionally, she can manifest a dice over her head that strikes with several arrows at once in combination with her own attacks. This power grows over the duration of its existence, but only lasts for 15 seconds in total. She can also imbue her arrows with hydro for charged attacks. Her hydro powers all scale off her lifeforce—AKA the more overall "lifeforce" (see: HP) she has, the more damage she can do.

Magic: Yelan comes from a clan of people who practiced magic, developing magical devices and the like. How much she can do is very unknown due to the nature of her canon (she's only a recently introduced character), but it is one of her abilities. Being able to use magic like this isn't universal and requires training.

As a third power, I'd like to add:

Shapeshifting: Due to Yelan's slippery tendencies and preferences, she'll have shapeshifting in-game. Due to Yelan's preference for pain, I'd like this to be a completely bodily experience. She won't just be able to take someone's face. Changing into their appearance will absolutely require her to completely remake her entire biology. It will hurt a helluva a lot every time she takes on a new form. And going back to her old one? Just the same. Anyone watching would find it to be a deeply, deeply unpleasant experience.

Limitations: In order to apply "video game logic" to Yelan's abilities, she'll need to undergo "recharge" periods after using her abilities, making it so that she'll be reliant on purely her martial art skills.

With the magic, I don't intend to play with it much outside of her being interested in learning about otherworldly magic.

As for her shapeshifting, she will only be able to take on appearances. I won't have her borrow abilities. Yelan is described as a "normal person." While she likes pain, undergoing too much shapeshifting in a short period of time will wipe her out and she'll need to sleep it off.

Personality —

What were your character's most formative experiences?:

one: Once, Yelan had an entire team of individuals who followed her into dark places. In Genshin Impact, one of these dark places is known as the Abyss. It's an otherworldly realm that's dangerous, moves outside of time, and possesses a lot of unknown obstacles. Yelan led her first team into the Abyss, believing that her cleverness would end up winning out. However, after being thwarted again and again by her enemies there, she lost the entirety of her team. This experience left Yelan with a severe case of survivor's guilt and a determination to never let that happen again. Following her traumatic experience, Yelan worked hard to master the bow and has a severe hang-up about self-sacrificial behavior.

two: There is a place known in Liyue as "the Chasm." While there is a lot of history here, the important factor is that Yelan's family had strong ties to this location. These ties seem to be mystical in nature, drawing her toward it. When the Chasm opened up, she was finally able to explore these ties, understanding that her family was involved in a great battle there 500 years ago. This revelation helped her understand her strange draw there, as well as her fearless drive and determination that pushes her through life.

three: The leader of Liyue is a woman named Ningguang. Yelan and Ningguang met when they were both young. Ningguang hadn't yet established herself as the powerful and rich woman in charge of Liyue, and Yelan hadn't yet undergone her traumatic experience that changed much of her view of the world, nor had she realized her family's ties to the Chasm. The pair struck up a partnership that lasts until today. Most importantly, Ningguang is the only person who knows Yelan well.

four: Most recently, Yelan was trapped with a mismatched band of individuals in a timeless space. In this location, Yelan was forced to share much of her backstory with others, and they also learned of her survivor's guilt (albeit indirectly without knowing the full cause) and her determination to keep others alive. This experience also closed a chapter on Yelan's exploration of her family's past in the Chasm. While she had already dedicated herself to being a hero (of sorts) in Liyue, she fully understood the sacrifices her ancestors made in creating and closing off that location.

What values, morals, and/or philosophies does your character live by, and how are those beliefs demonstrated? What happens when they have to compromise what they believe in?

Yelan is an interesting case of someone who is a manipulative agent of chaos who also believes that what she's doing is for the greater good. Her own exploration of her background has led to her wanting to be a "hero," but that doesn't come with the typical connotations of righteousness. Her manipulative side is a means to an end toward that goal. She plays games with people, but her games aren't ones of pleasure. She strikes up and holds relationships because she needs the information, and she's extremely pragmatic. Additionally, she knows that if she isn't in top shape when she aims for a goal, she's unlikely to accomplish it. Yelan takes care of herself first so that she can complete her missions.

Most importantly, Yelan believes that someone can be a hero without dying on their sword to achieve that end. Her survivor's guilt is a huge factor in this, of course, but she also doesn't believe suffering is the way to achieve any goals. That doesn't only go for her: she aims to help others in much the same way and will chastise them if they disregard their sense of self to help others. If someone goes for the self-sacrificing angle without thinking it through, she will be blunt and even cruel to turn someone away from that.

Her brand of heroism is interesting, of course. Because despite her ideals, Yelan also is a spy: she can change how she presents herself from one conversation to the next, making it so that she develops a relationship with someone based on that presentation so that she can carry it out. She doesn't believe in only doing good, and by and large, she's a big picture sort of person. She'll hurt people if it leads to a specific end goal. The ends justify the means in all ways, whether it's playing people against one another, lying to get a specific piece of information, or asking a child for intel along the way. Morality, or presentations of morality, can be changed and adapted, making her a truly chaotic person at heart. She knows what she believes in, and anything else can be adjusted along the way.

What is your character afraid of? How does avoiding or preventing these fears influence their actions and decisions?

Yelan does not experience fear in the way that some people might think. She enjoys danger and exploits opportunities to experience that danger firsthand. That doesn't mean she'll risk her life, but pain is just a side-effect of these choices. Fear or pain aren't factors in her decisions as long as she'll get out alive, and that goes for any comrades or employees that she has assisting her.

Death is the sole exception of this, and it's more a pragmatic belief than anything else. If Yelan looks at the odds of a situation and sees that it's likely that they can't guarantee a specific ending without her or someone else dying, she'll reject it. She won't explore something that's unnecessary if it seems futile. (For example: when everyone experiences the DWRP memory-share arc in-game to try to get answers to their predicament, she quickly disregards the possibility of this being useful and rejects the premise altogether.)

What goals does your character have right now? What do they want, and how do they go about getting it?

Yelan's goal is to do right by her nation, and to be a hero to her people. How she defines that changes from day to day as long as she keeps to her own principles. She's an information broker and spy, and she'll do anything possible to buffer her networks. She's someone who goes all over and doesn't like to sit still.

Gameplay —

Areas of Interest / Brainstorming: Off the top of my head:

Yelan is likely to try to mess with Rue Moore's influence network. Having someone have that firm of a hold on people's attention will make her want to destroy it because of the amount of misinformation that can come out of it. In general, she's likely to try to use, control, or influence these types of "celebrities" for her own end goals. They're means of information, but they're also (in her opinion) objectively pointless.

I'd like her to confront the idea (and ideal) of heroism as it's presented in-game, since it contrasts sharply with how she sees and acts.

Finally, she's going to be a spy, setting up networks everywhere. Yelan herself says that few people know her as "Yelan," and she would act the same way in-game. Of course, this would come with the clause of needing to learn the technology of this world in and out.