Just like last year, I’m gonna do a rundown of the Nod-Krai cast that we’ve seen in the latest teaser. I’ll try to go a little more in-depth this time — possible name etymology, what we can guess from their design, etc. To keep this from getting too long, though, most of my thoughts on the teaser are here.
Nicole Reeyn
The etymology listed on Nicole’s wiki page (linked above) is pretty solid: “Nicole Reeyn ultimately derives from the name Nicole-Reine Lepaute, who was a French astronomer and human computer.”
There’s already a lot to suggest that Nicole is a Seelie. Alice once described her as “a guide who never gets lost”:
The “guide who will never get lost” is N, otherwise known as Nicole. You may have not encountered her yet, but she is a truly extraordinary woman who has made this world’s direction and order her subject of study.
Some of you may be fortunate enough to have already heard her voice. Like a prophetess, she will only speak to guide people toward the truth when a change has occurred in the world.
She has a tendency to… suddenly speak in someone’s mind without any warning.
If one day, you would be unfortunate enough to run into a truly dangerous situation, she may use her voice to guide the way forward for you. 1
After reading Finale of the Deep Galleries, I was already starting to wonder if the classic star-shaped Khaenri’ah eyes were actually from Seelies, rather than dragons. After seeing Nicole’s eyes, I think I was right.
Aside from the star-shaped pupils, her eyes have a vertical Venn diagram where the top is red, the bottom is blue-ish, and the middle is white-ish. She also has pointy ears and a red star-shaped mark on her forehead. Much to think about!
Aino
All we know about Aino so far is that she created Ineffa, and is part of the Clink-Clank Krumkake Workshop in Nod-Krai. The name Aino is Finnish, and comes from a Finnish epic poem called Kalevala. 2
The character Aino in Kalevala tries to drown herself after her brother promises her hand in marriage to a guy who beat him in a singing contest and then threw him into a swamp or something. She then becomes a water spirit. There’s also a symphonic poem and an opera based on the story of Aino, with a very slightly different version of events but basically the same outcome.
Jillian
Given Aino’s connection to Ineffa, plus the new event claymore coming out that is pretty clearly for a Hydro user, it’s not too difficult to guess that Aino might have a Hydro vision even though we didn’t see one.
Varka
The wiki claims his name is most likely based on an Old Persian word meaning wolf. There is a Persian epic called Varka and Golshah that I don’t think is really relevant to our Varka, but it’s at least an example of the name being used. Since he’s the Knight of Boreas, and he’s chasing after the moon for some unspecified reason, I think wolf makes perfect sense for him.
Aside from that, there is also a Serbo-Croatian word that means illusion, and a similar Greek word (βάρκα) that means boat, both of which are interesting to me. I also found an old Discord message of mine where I said I found something saying it could be “a russian name of greek origin that means something akin to outsider” — but I can’t find the source of that anymore, so who knows.
He has Wolf’s Gravestone in the teaser, so he’s obviously a claymore user. You can also see his vision in one shot, which looks Anemo to me. It’s also really hard to tell, but I kinda think it looks like it only has two wings, like Kaeya’s.
Jahoda
The name Jahoda means strawberry! Easy enough. It is also an actual surname that real people have, although I don’t think our Jahoda actually has anything to do with the people I could find on Wikipedia with that name. I think it’s more likely they were just going for strawberry vibes.
We can see that she has one mechanical arm, and she’s hanging out with the Clink-Clank Krumkake Workshop folks. Can’t see a vision anywhere, but her arm makes me think she’ll be a catalyst user so she can do punchy stuff like Wriothesley.
Durin
The name Durin comes from Tolkien’s Dwarves — I am not super familiar with this stuff, but as far as I can tell Durin was the first to awaken of seven “Fathers of the Dwarves.” There are other Durins in the line after Durin I, and there are also a few Thrains and Dains as well, since Tolkien was drawing heavily from Norse myth.
In the teaser, he’s hanging out with Ineffa and Jahoda (and presumably was brought to Nod-Krai by Albedo and Wanderer). He’s also got a funky new outfit that looks a lot like Capitano’s — especially the heart on his chest. If you squint reeeeal hard you can kinda almost see what looks like a Pyro vision on the back of his coat in one shot.
Sandrone
We’re all probably already familiar with the fact that Sandrone is one of the Commedia dell’arte character archetypes. Her codename, Marionette, also has pretty obvious origins — especially now that we can see the mechanical key in her back.
There is one fun thing I want to call out: in French, the word marionnette means little Mary, which fits really well with a theory that I love about Sandrone being Alain Guillotin’s puppet recreation of his sister Mary-Ann. I’m even more sold on the theory now that we’ve seen her again, because her hair & eyes match Mary-Ann’s perfectly.
I could also be wrong, but her big mech guy looks like he’s glowing with Anemo energy, whereas in the Winter Night’s Lazzo teaser he had more of a yellow glow, like Geo.
Lauma
Lauma’s name comes from an Eastern Baltic goddess or “fairy-like woodland spirit.” They sometimes had centaur-like forms, like our Lauma, and there are apparently stories of Lauma falling in love with the moon. In the teaser, she calls herself a loyal emissary of the “pale white Frostmoon,” and a scion of Hyperborea, confirming that she is one of the Frostmoon Scions.
Her antlers are very in line with the origin of her name, and her pointed ears and silver blood indicate that she’s a descendant of some divine being — maybe the Frost Moon. She doesn’t have star-shaped pupils, though, and that’s important. I’m also pretty sure the flowers in her design are based on morning glories — but they have crescent moon symbols in the center, and they open when the moon is out instead of the sun.
Jillian
These might be the same flowers that we see where Columbina is, just white instead of blue or red.
Lastly: we can see her Dendro vision quite clearly!
Nefer
The name Nefer could have a few intersecting origins. First, nefer is an Egyptian hieroglyph that appears in the word for “good, beautiful.” It also appears in the name of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. You can see how that might have influenced her design.
On the other hand, her name makes me think of the name Yennefer — and more specifically, Yennefer of Vengerberg from The Witcher. She just sorta has those witchy vibes.
She’s clearly screaming Dendro, but I couldn’t tell if her vision was visible anywhere in the teaser, so it’s just a guess for now.
Flins
We’ve got three whole names to work with here: Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins.
I’m pretty sure Kyryll is meant to be a version of Cyril, an old Greek name (or a Slavic derivative like Kirill). There are many interesting and important Cyrils, but one that caught my eye was Cyril of Jerusalem — a saint who was supposedly “described as a preacher and liturgist by the pilgrim Egeria.” There was also a later Christian theologist named Cyril who was partially responsible for creating the early Cyrillic alphabet in order to translate the Gospels into the Slavic languages.
I’ve seen people saying that Chudomirovich is a patronymic, meaning “son of Chudomir” (And Chudomir is written on the gravestone in front of him). Chudomir is the name of a Bulgarian writer, although I haven’t read any of his work yet. I’ve also seen some people saying chudo or chudomir mean “wonderland,” which would be a cool little connection to Alice, but I can’t find a real source on that.
Flins is the most straightforward — it’s the name of an “alleged” Slavic deity that could resurrect his worshippers when they died. The most interesting thing to me about Flins is that the accounts of him are really just about a supposed statue of him, sometimes destroyed or removed, but then restored.
The one thing we know about Flins so far is that he’s a Lightkeeper, so Long Night’s Oath might have more hints about who he is and what he’s doing. I didn’t see a vision on him, but he’s obviously Electro. His lantern, with a pale blue flame inside, reminds me of Cicin Mage lanterns.
Columbina
Columbina’s name comes from the Columbine Commedia dell’arte character, but also from a genus of doves — which is fitting, since her constellation is probably the one that looks like a crying bird.
It’s interesting that her codename, Dameslette, doesn’t appear here. Instead, we get “Moon Maiden,” which must have something to do with the moon maiden mentioned in Long Night’s Oath.
Alice
The most obvious origin of Alice’s name is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Fontaine was already full of Alice in Wonderland references, but the latest weekly boss being a giant chess board overseen by Alice herself makes it even more clear.
Her name also probably comes from Eris, the Greek goddess of strife known for causing the Trojan War with the Golden Apple of Discord (which might be how GAA got its name).
Her eyes and ears and very similar to Klee’s, and she also has the same curly piece of hair as her (which the Four Shades also have, for some reason). Her Pyro vision is in a standard Mondstadt vision case, but also has a whole extra thing around it for decoration.
Footnotes
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Alice’s dialogue about Nicole from the third act of the Windblume’s Breath event. ↩
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I don’t know if this is making any other HSR players perk up, but something about the fact that “Kalevala” sounds a bit similar to “Kakavasha” + Varka having a very Aventurine-looking coat on is interesting to me. The Kalevala also tells the story of Sampo. ↩