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Player Information

Player: bayleaf
Contact: lanayru @ discord or journal PM
Invitation: Ramey
Are you over 18?: yes!


Character Information

Character: Aventurine
Canon: Honkai: Star Rail, Patch 3.3
Age: mid-late 20s
History: Wiki and an additional write-up!
Possessions: The clothes on his back (including his trademark hat and tinted glasses), a handful of poker chips and a deck of cards he keeps on his person, and his Cornerstone, an aventurine gemstone imbued with the power of the Preservation (further detail below).
Weapon: n/a

Powers/Abilities:

As a Pathstrider in Honkai: Star Rail, Aventurine follows the Path of the Aeon of Preservation, Qlipoth. As the name of his Path would suggest, Aventurine's abilities are primarily defensive in nature, though he possesses some offensive skills as well, particularly when using his Cornerstone to enhance his power. The element that Aventurine wields is known as "imaginary", the element associated with the creationary power of the universe itself, and accounts for why so many of his attacks appear so out of the ordinary.

On the offensive, Aventurine primarily summons dice and chips to attack his enemies, essentially smacking them around with miscellanea found on a poker table. He can even, quite literally, "make it rain", summoning poker chips to rain down on opponents. These items disappear once they have hit their target, and aren't the most powerful of offensive magic, but they can still pack a punch. On the defensive, he instead can generate shields for himself and allies that appear in the shape of a spade to absorb enemy damage. These shields can take a number of weaker hits before they are dispersed, but can be taken out with one heavier hit, even if it will still likely mitigate some of the damage. In a roleplay context, since there won't be any need to worry about skill points or energy generation to proc his abilities, what he's able to handle will correspond to his physical stamina instead. He can't keep generating shields forever, and the more they get broken, the more he will struggle to put them back up.

As mentioned above, Aventurine possesses a Cornerstone, the aventurine of strategems, which was created by and given to him by the head of the Ten Stonehearts, Diamond. This gemstone is imbued with Emanator-level powers of the Preservation, and Emanators are about as strong as someone can get without becoming an actual Aeon themselves. Aventurine's Cornerstone grants him the ability to transform and gain enhanced strength and power; when he used it in canon even after the stone had been shattered, it still made him extremely powerful and required the power of another Emanator to take him out. In Diadem, his Cornerstone will be nerfed and require a recharge period of several weeks or longer if he does decide to use it. If used, his power levels will be around where they were when the stone was shattered, rather than Emanator-level. Essentially, it'll make him stronger, but it won't overpower him to the point where other PCs or NPCs wouldn't be able to take him on.

Finally, there is, of course, his blessing of luck. Whether this is really a supernatural power or just the equivalent of having a ludicrously high luck stat, Aventurine's good fortune often seems unnatural, a force that carries him through the impossible even when he's played his hand and put all his chips in the pot. While it has undoubtedly granted him many boons in his life and is the very reason why he's still alive, it also carries a tremendous burden with it. There's such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Application Questions

Who is the most important person in their life and why? What might be different if this person hadn't been around?

Though she died while he was still quite young, the most important person in Aventurine's — or rather, Kakavasha's — life is his older sister. His father died before he was born, and his mother was also killed while he was still very young. For the majority of his childhood, Kakavasha's older sister was the only family he had, the one who took care of him, and the one who shaped his faith and relationship with the goddess his clan worshipped, Gaiathra Triclops. Kakavasha's sister held an unwavering faith in the Mother Goddess, even despite the many hardships that the Avgins were subject to. Due to the circumstances of Kakavasha's birth during a rainstorm on the Holy Day of Kakava, his clan came to regard him as blessed with such auspicious luck that they believed he would one day lead them to a more prosperous life free of struggle. His sister was a champion of this belief, instilling her faith in her younger brother even when he was very small. The young Kakavasha, impressionable as he was, saw the struggles of the Avgins — the lack of resources they had in the desert, their poverty, their strife with other clans on Sigonia-IV — and questioned why they had to go through these things if he was really so blessed, but ultimately, he accepted the hopes of his people and his role as a child chosen by Gaiathra Triclops. After all, the only family he still had believed in that destiny with all her heart. It's the only thing that she, and all the Avgins, have to believe in to keep them going. Her dreams for a better future are all riding on Kakavasha.

That's not to say that Aventurine's relationship with his sister was built only on blind faith that wound up damaging more than encouraging him. She did sincerely love him unconditionally, and seemed to believe in him not just because he happened to be born on the Mother Goddess's Holy Day, but because he was precious and invaluable to her despite all of that. When the young Kakavasha plays a "game" with members of the Avgins' rival clan, the Katicans, to win back their late mother's valuable necklace, his sister is quick to rebuke him for doing something so reckless and dangerous — not because of his status to the tribe, but because he means more to her than the entire world, and she couldn't go on if something happened to him. Yes, she has pinned all her hopes and dreams on him, but he is also her younger brother, her reason for living each and every day, despite the painful struggles she goes through. The steadfast nature of her heart left an indelible impression on Aventurine as a child, so much that his only real cherished memories of his childhood are when he was at her side. She instilled in him the beliefs of their people, but also a capacity for love that remains unyielding even in the face of insurmountable hardship. Though it's encased in layer after layer of carefully constructed armor now, Aventurine carries that same tender heart with him to this day, the influence of his sister's faith and love etched into his very soul.

Even when she is moments from death after the Avgins learn about a surprise attack from the Katicans on their Holy Day, Kakavasha's sister does not falter in her belief in her little brother. Even when everything she knows is crumbling around her, recognizing that the events that are about to occur will be a massacre one way or another, she tells her brother to run and to not look back, insisting that so long as he is alive, he will carry the blood of the Avgins and Gaiathra's blessing with him. She doesn't tell him to return and save them, doesn't insist that he will find a way to lead them to prosperity. The only promise she leaves him with is that they will meet again in the afterlife, beneath Kakava's shimmering auroras. Though he can barely understand why something so horrible is happening, he does as she says, and runs. It's this which ultimately saves him from the fate of all other Avgins that day, as they were wiped out in an utter genocide.

Ultimately, Aventurine's relationship with his sister — and the memory of her — is incredibly complex, in ways that he has not yet fully acknowledged or processed. She showed him how to persevere and love in spite of hardship, and yet her unyielding faith in him set him up for impossible expectations that he never could have met, with the chips so stacked against him. He could not save his tribe, when forces beyond their control had already made them outcasts with no outside support. He couldn't save them from the massacre at the hands of the Katicans, because he was only just a child. By the time he was old enough to even begin to try to lead his people, they were already dead, leaving him with the burden of unfulfilled deliverance. All the same, Aventurine has grown proud of his identity as a child blessed by Gaiathra, deciding to no longer leave this part of himself frozen in the past, and clings to his sister's final words to him. It's that promise of meeting again beneath Kakava's shimmering auroras that moves him to find meaning in his life, so he can stand proud when he meets his family again. For all the burden of expectation that was placed upon his shoulders, Aventurine does not resent it, instead endeavoring to carry the legacy of the Avgins and accept his past.

Had Aventurine's sister not been around, or perhaps died when his mother did, he would have likely grown more resentful of his people and his apparent destiny. It would have fallen to his tribe as a whole to continue to raise him, but with no one to stay by his side and love him unconditionally as family first, he wouldn't have learned how to love so strongly himself. Perhaps he would have grown to appreciate the community around him banding together despite their circumstances, but ultimately, he would still be seen as their savior, in a way, and this would have prevented him from getting to close to anyone. They set him so high on a pedestal that no one else could reach — or would want to, considering how blessed he is. Without that close family connection, without his sister who was the one who really saw him as a person, he wouldn't have been told to run, and he would have instead stayed to help defend against the Katicans' attack, perhaps believing his good fortune could deliver them. And perhaps it could have, but more than likely, he would have been killed alongside all the rest, or even worse, survived as the sole witness of the bloodshed, with no promise to cling to. It would have left him hollow and empty, bereft of the tenderhearted sentimentality that keeps him human.

Maybe in some ways, such a fate wouldn't have been crueler, but there would be no real meaning to be found in his life. No shimmering auroras to seek. No family to make proud, when he finally meets with them once again.

Is there an event in your character's life that they'd do differently? How so and why?

There are several junctions in Aventurine's life that are critical for him, where making a different choice would have drastically altered the course of his life, yet this question is difficult to answer with one definitive decision, because in each of these instances, the alternate choice would have led to Aventurine's death. Thematically, the biggest throughline in Aventurine's personal story is imprisonment: his gacha banner is even named "Gilded Imprisonment", suggesting that even after all he has won, after all the success he's had and wealth he has accumulated, Aventurine is still very much a captive. He may no longer be a literal slave, but he is chained by his debt to the IPC for sparing his life. Continually, at each of these major junctions in Aventurine's life, he could have chosen death, which would invariably grant him freedom, but choosing to carry on living will keep him a prisoner.

To cut right to the meat of the question: no, Aventurine would not make a different choice. Despite being a man with uncountable regrets and trauma that has left scars on his very soul, he would still choose to live. This may come as a bit of a surprise, because there are several instances in Aventurine's story where it is intimated that he is borderline suicidal; his own life is the chip he is most eager to lay down, and others have noted how he seems to want his debt to his good fortune to catch up with him. He expects to lose, even wants to lose, and again, death is the one avenue available to him that offers him true freedom. That it would seem a tantalizing option isn't all that surprising, and as such, Aventurine continues to make bigger and grander gambles, indulging in the spectacle of it, and creating stakes higher for himself than they need to be. It's those moments, when his very fate wavers between crushing success or the rush of utter failure, where Aventurine most feels alive, even if, in the end, his good luck always pulls through for him.

There are three major junctions where Aventurine makes the choice to live, when he could have instead embraced death. The first of these is mentioned above, when his older sister tells him to run from the impending massacre of their tribe, in order to have a chance at living. Even at this young, tender age, Kakavasha might have instead chosen to remain by his sister's side, and his tribe by extension, but even with the blessing of the Mother Goddess, he would have been unable to overturn fate entirely, and would have been slaughtered alongside the others. A senseless death, and one that spits right in the face of everything his sister said to him in their final moments together. He would no longer be there to carry on the spirit of the Avgins, the sole bearer of their legacy. It's a choice he could never make, but by choosing to live, he is then captured and sold into slavery. The next instance of such a choice comes when he meets with Jade of the Ten Stonehearts, and must convince her to ask the IPC to hire him when he is on trial for the murder of his master. In his own words, Aventurine is willing to bet Jade won't "send him to the gallows", and will recognize his luck and intelligence instead. At this trial, Aventurine could have easily submitted to his sentence, guilty for the crime he was accused of, and let himself be executed instead, but he sees an opportunity with the IPC, and so he instead chooses to make an outlandish gamble that winds up sparing him instead. Again, this winds up with Aventurine indebted to the IPC for his very life, trading one set of shackles for another. The final instance of note is in the Penacony story proper, when Sunday puts Aventurine through a test of the Harmony to determine if he has ill intentions and has lied about bringing his Cornerstone into the Dreamscape. Though Aventurine lies through his teeth about it, Sunday still finds him guilty, and sentences him to die and be absorbed by the Harmony within twelve hours. And once again, rather than go gently to that rest afforded by the Harmony, Aventurine continues to struggle and fight, laying down all the chips he has carefully played across all points in Penacony to pull off his grandest gamble yet: to prove whether or not death exists in the Dreamscape. Though he is relatively certain that it's impossible to die in the dream, he can only prove this by choosing to "die" himself. In this instance, if he does die in reality as well, then it's at least his choice, rather than because of Sunday's tampering. And even then, when Acheron's blade sends him to the very edge of existence itself, and he could choose to remain suspended there forever, effectively dead, he instead, once again, chooses to live.

Despite everything he has suffered through, Aventurine clings to life with everything he has. He wants to live — not only to carry on the memory and legacy of his people, but also now for himself. Even if it means he will never be free, he will continue to live. When push comes to shove, he will choose to remain on that tightrope, no matter how difficult it is. He would not change any of these decisions, even if it would make him free, by offering him the release of death.

There's also one other aspect of this resistance to changing the past that I'd like to touch upon, and that's the double-edged sword that his good fortune and luck often wind up being. For each turn of good fortune Aventurine has, there's a consequence of that good fortune that ultimately binds him. He survives the genocide of his people, but he is enslaved as a result. He is recruited by the IPC, but he then owes them a debt for his very life. He reveals the true nature of Penacony's dreamscape and destroys his Cornerstone as a result which should get him fired, but instead his Cornerstone gets remade and the Stonehearts keep him in their ranks. He can never quite get what he wants, and Aventurine is quite aware of this fact. His reluctance to do something differently in the past stems from this sort of futility; even if he made a different choice, he can't be certain he would have been able to embrace death, without something swooping in to preserve him, leaving him instead with additional trauma. Though he sees his good luck as a blessing from Gaiathra Triclops, it is still in many ways another set of chains that binds him. His decisions seem to bear little weight on how his fate actually unfolds, and so there is little reason for him to consider how he might have chosen to do things differently. In the end, is he even really in control?

What's the greatest challenge you foresee your character facing in the setting? How might this impact their ability to adapt and in what ways will they confront this challenge?

As with most things in his life, Aventurine's greatest challenge will also be his greatest opportunity: his agency. The environment and sociopolitical landscape will be easy enough for him to navigate; Aventurine is a highly adaptable person, seeing opportunity everywhere he looks and constantly considering how he can use himself and others to his advantage. In many ways, this won't be all that different from what he does back home: accumulating wealth and favors and turning them into a relative safety net, making bigger and better gambles to give him the thrill. Where he will struggle, however, is having the agency to carve this path for himself.

As illustrated in previous answers, Aventurine has always felt imprisoned; whether literally or figuratively, he has long been subjected to the fate that has been thrust upon him. What he wants, what he needs, ultimately amounts to very little, and so he is used to putting these things last, instead prioritizing the goals that are set for him by the IPC. Even when starting out in Panorama, he may just jockey for influence because that's what he does. He's good at it, he's used to it, he doesn't have to think twice about it. But is that really what he wants?

Discovering the answer to that question will be a long process, and it may take him some time before he even realizes he can ask it. He's never been in a position where he's just been allowed to choose for himself what kind of person he wants to be, and what to do with the freedom he's now gained. There will still be value in maintaining his ostentatious and flamboyant persona, particularly in a world as dangerous as this one, but to what end? How he chooses to grapple with that question and the answers he eventually comes to will be the backbone of the character arc I foresee him going through in-game.

Confronting this question will manifest in small ways first, that will slowly accumulate over time. Aventurine is used to working on his own, but he also is constantly getting checked in on by his associates, his superiors, and his own personal staff. This sort of accountability chafes against the way he likes to do things, so no longer being held back by those expectations will be a welcome surprise. At the same time, it will feel foreign to be so utterly alone, but in a way that provides some solace along with the solitude. He can at last just be alone with himself, and start to piece together who he is: not as Aventurine, one of the Ten Stonehearts of the IPC, or as Kakavasha, the young boy whose future was so cruelly set in stone for him, but as something with both of his selves combined. Having his agency won't mean that he will reject those aspects of himself, but he will struggle to fully accept them as parts he wants to keep around, if he even chooses to. As his sense of self grows, I expect his confidence will as well, and maybe, he can even grow to love himself a little, as a treat.

He'll recognize quickly that he would rather stay in this world than return to his own, though it will take him some time to come to understand why, to embrace his newfound freedom and recognize the privilege for what it is, even if it's a little terrifying by the same turn.

What's the easiest thing you foresee your character adapting to in the setting?

Though he refers to himself as a "merchant" and a "businessman", Aventurine's role within the Ten Stonehearts is, primarily, as a strategist. Due to his good fortune, he is the one that the Strategic Investment Department sends in to handle tense deals that would be near impossible to work out, otherwise. This is why Opal chooses to send him as the IPC's representative into Penacony; if anyone can find a way to negotiate control of Penacony back into IPC hands, it's Aventurine. (That, or he might fail spectacularly, and wouldn't he just love that, too?) Arriving in Panorama, Aventurine will approach things much in the same way he would with any other deal he was sent to negotiate. He will do what he does best: accumulate wealth and influence through exacting strategies and well-placed gambles.

Though he makes every effort to conceal otherwise, Aventurine's grand gambles aren't just utter Hail Mary passes, made in blind faith with no effort. Instead, what appear to be gambles are instead well-laid plans where Aventurine is pulling the strings and moving pieces on a board well before the gamble itself even appears. The gamble is only the last step in the process, carrying him through that final leap when he has already set everything into motion with his own hands. This once again reinforces the idea that he doesn't really want to lose, doesn't really want to die, and so he makes every effort to make his gambles as safe as possible, even when they become grander and grander in stakes and scale. That's the part of it he enjoys, after all.

And so in Panorama, he will do much the same, using his charisma and silver tongue to win over others, accumulating allies and working himself into situations where they ostensibly owe him favors, starting various informal partnerships. He also isn't afraid to get his hands dirty, in the literal and figurative sense, and will subject himself to work that others don't want to do to make money where he can. Aventurine associates wealth with safety and in turn extends that to others so they need him around, mirroring the way his gameplay functions in battle. By placing himself at the center of a web of associates and "friends" where they are frequently relying on him, he will continue to gamble and grow in influence as much as he is able.

This very well may garner him the wrong sort of attention, particularly if he starts to clean out some of those gambling dens in the city, but in that event, that's why he's built this safety net for himself. Whether his "friends", his wealth, or his luck, he will find a way to come out on the other end of things unscathed. In this sense, Aventurine will likely "thrive" here, as much as any fluxdrift can. This is what he does best, and it comes to him as easily as breathing. If it in turn keeps the people he grows to care about safe as well, then it's easily worth the gamble.


Samples

Sample: TDM top level, additional tag-outs