A Traveler on a Winter's Night and True Moon were an absolute emotional rollercoaster.
I was fully engaged the whole time but some elements need to settle before I can make sense of them and I want to write these thoughts down before they fade.
Pending lore
Columbina's Story
Dottore's Domain Lore
Nod Krai World Quests: I haven't started the new Nod Krai world quests yet, so I'm still missing the latest on Nicole, Varka and Illuga.
⚠️ Spoilers under the cut!
Columbina's cycle
Columbina's "missing Prologue" can be traced from the moment she enters the Moon Gate.
By crossing the Moon Gate, Columbina travels to the distant past, to the era of the Three Moon Sisters. In that past, she dies, but her existence split into 3 components scattered across Nod Krai:
The Soul: Her soul remains imprisoned in the past with the moon sisters. However, by entering the Moon Gate in the recent past, Columbina creates an anchor, the Luonnatar.
Luonnatar is a fragment of her soul that she created sometime after the Traveler arrives in Nod Krai. She asks to remain close to the Traveler, tying Columbina's fate to their path.
The Body: Before her death in the past, Columbina prepares Kuuvahki within the Moon Gate domain. This lunar energy is set in place so that, when the cycle reaches the point where she enters the Moon Gate, it allows her to move more quickly through time toward the distant past and to open specific portals, including the one used to create Luonnatar.
After her death, her body escapes imprisonment by dissolving into moonlight, becoming the Kuuvahki itself. This lunar energy remains active as a protective force safeguarding Nod Krai.
The Trilunar Authority: Columbina inherits the power of the 3 imprisoned moons and hides it within the Frost Moon, located beyond Teyvat's false sky. This moon is the only one that survives.
Convergence in the present
All 3 components reunite during the confrontation with Dottore:
The soul anchored through Luonnatar.
Kuuvahki, the lunar energy of Nod Krai, as Columbina's body in dissolved form.
Nicole, Arlecchino and Varka bringing the Frost Moon down to Teyvat, releasing the Trilunar Authority.
When these elements reunite, Columbina is reborn.
Dottore's Blind Spot: Wanderer
Wanderer, who erased himself from Irminsul and is no longer remembered as Scaramouche by anyone except the Traveler who is a Descender, manages to save the Traveler from Dottore.
Dottore was unable to predict Wanderer's existence. This unseen intervention, may be what leads to the canonical outcome we later learn about, the burning of Irminsul.
For that future to occur, Dottore must survive.
Hypothesis: If Dottore investigated immediately after the Traveler was taken, following the intervention of that "new face" and found no records, that absence would become the key anomaly.
The discovery that someone had erased themselves from the system would indicate that Irminsul's data could no longer be considered reliable or that the system itself had been fundamentally compromised.
From that perspective, Dottore's later decision to burn Irminsul may have been an attempt to reset the entire system.
Dottore's "False Sky"
Before opening Teyvat's false sky, it seems that Dottore creates his own. During the final battle, he repeatedly says "The experiment has begun". And before his defeat, he says "Once I transcend fate, you will be nothing but fodder for my grand experiment".
Dottore appears to have anticipated the outcome and acted in advance. What happens in Nod Krai doesn't appear to be his final end. Something allowed him to act beyond the outcome we witness.
This may be linked to his experiment to transcend fate. The false sky he created, powered by his own moon, activated before the final battle. Dottore may have escaped through that moon into the same domain where he sent Flins, Lauma and Nefer during the confrontation.
What if Dottore did to Nod Krai what was once done to the Traveler?
What if showing his reach to the Traveler wasn't about manipulation but testing whether the same process could affect a Descender?
And what happened to the fake moon in Teyvat's false sky? Could Dottore have used it to create his Moon Marrow?
Where did that fake moon even go? Did he pull it out while we were forcing the real moon down into Teyvat's false sky?!
The ship records
Another major revelation comes from the Traveler accessing the records of their ship.
The data shows that this wasn't their first visit to Teyvat. The ship had already passed over the world once without landing. It then continued traveling for thousands of years before crashing in Nod Krai due to a forced landing.
When the sibling finds the Traveler, they approach from outside the ship.
This suggests that the sibling may have exited the ship during that first pass over Teyvat. After awakening in Teyvat, they remember nothing about how they arrived.
Key points
The Traveler accesses the ship's flight log.
This wasn't their first time in Teyvat.
The ship previously flew over Teyvat without landing, barely stopping before moving on.
It continued traveling through space for thousands of years afterward.
The flight log is corrupted.
After thousands of years traveling through space, the ship made a forced landing in Nod Krai.
The sibling approaches from outside the ship.
The sibling may have exited the ship during the first flyover.
The sibling may have awakened in Khaenri'ah with no memory of how they arrived.
The ship was hidden within the Frost Moon, beyond Teyvat's false sky.
Something like the Heavenly Principles, the "Ruler of the Firmament", may have concealed it for being incompatible with Teyvat or classified as forbidden knowledge.
After completing her temporal cycle and gaining trilunar authority, Columbina locates the ship, informs the Traveler and guides them to the Frost Moon so they can access the flight log.
And on a more humorous note...
The Fatui "Fan Club" (lol)
At this point, when the Traveler reaches Snezhnaya, the Tsaritsa might as well officially appoint the Traveler as at least the 10th Harbinger 🤣
The majority of them care deeply about the Traveler.
Tartaglia's reaction was satisfying to watch. He wasn't part of the events in Nod Krai but it's easy to imagine how thrilled he would've been to fight alongside such a powerful team. I still wish we had seen him risk everything to rescue the Traveler.
This was Sandrone's arc, though (well, also Dottore's, Wanderer's and Arlecchino's, I guess lol). Getting Tartaglia's reaction at all already felt like a gift.
Varka knighting everyone
This took a long time to happen.
Varka simply can't see talent without immediately dragging it into the Knights of Favonius.
I love how Albedo with his calm voice, polite phrasing and perfectly timed comments make the whole thing even funnier.
Conclusion
I truly enjoyed these acts.
At first, Dottore's "ending" left a bitter taste but after grounding my thoughts, I can see there's more beneath the surface.
This feels like "the beginning" of something very solid.
PS. Sorry for being repetitive in some points. This is written more as a way for me to understand things than as something meant to be neatly presented to others.
A new version will be released on September, 4th and the update will be mandatory from September, 5th @ 4PM (JST). Which means you will be forced to update the app from PlayStore and AppStore!
Update Contents:
1. Addition of the Waiting Room functions:
You will be able to put members you don't use in the "waiting room" (found in Members menu)
The waiting room has a capacity limit of 300 cards.
Cards in the waiting room cannot be added to teams, practiced or idolized.
2. The SIS listing button was removed from the "Members" menu to the "Other" menu.
3. The "clear cache" button on the title screen was moved to the upper left corner! (finally)
4. Tapping a card icon after scouting will show you the card details.
5. Addition of a button on the event main page to read event story (will be added with the late October event)
