Last time, we reviewed a bunch of monsters from the first region of Genshin Impact! At the time of writing I've progressed and quested all over the region of Liyue and the self-contained area of Dargnspine, and... well, there's a lot of things to do in the game, but honestly the biggest draw for me personally is exploring the very pretty environments. Again, you don't really see a lot of RPG games out there that are based on China!
A lot of the enemies in Liyue are repeats of what we see in Mondstadt, just scaled up and perhaps with a couple more variants thrown in -- there are noticeably stronger Hilichurls and Treasure Hunters, for example. But there's enough new enemies that I've met and filled up in my bestiary to justify a second article! (Note to anyone who knows about the updates, for what it's worth, a good chunk of this segment is written prior to version 1.6, and my story progression is around Chapter I-IV ish.)
As with the first Genshin article, I won't be quite as exhaustive as my other 'reviewing monster' articles, since Genshin has a lot of monster variants that just swap around the element of their attacks. So unless there's something visually different about them, I won't be including, like, new treasure hunter variants or elemental versions of the hilichurl shooters or whatever. Of course, some repaints I will talk about, like:
Hydro Cicin
Remember the Electro Cicin? Turns out that there are more variants of them in the wild, and the Hydro Cicin here is probably my favourite of them. The Electro Cicin is more of a video game angry bat-fly monster that just has two glowing eyes attached to a bunch of pointy wings. The Hydro Cicin, on the other hand, is a mixture of various features that I'm not sure fit well together, but they do. The wings look like they come from a butterfly. Its main head is something that I would say comes from an ugly deep-sea fish like an anglerfish, but it's got a fuzzy underside. And it's got two pairs of fish or anemone-looking antennae jutting out of the sides of its head. It's a bizarre fish-insect fusion and I do love that this is a 'water firefly'. I absolutely love that they didn't just take the Electro Cicin, paint it blue and call it a day, but instead designed this gloriously bizarre-looking fish-insect hybrid monster.
Cryo Cicin Mage & Cryo Cicin
One of the areas that you could explore is Dragonspine, which I had mistakenly thought to be another full region like Mondstadt or Liyue -- turns out Dragonspine is sort of like an 'expansion pack' of sorts to Mondstadt. It's a huge icy mountain with an annoying 'sheer cold' mechanic. Dragonspine mostly brings in a couple of remixed enemies. I have said that I wouldn't put in any particularly too-similar 'repaint' enemies, but I do like that they actually bothered to record different dialogue and actually gave the Cryo Fatui Cicin Mage a whole new outfit.
Of course, she's got a cool blue-santa-hoodie thing going on, but I'm most certainly here for the Cryo Cicin, who looks like a glorious 2D Zelda enemy brought to life. I love the angry little snowflake face, the bat wings, and the two little... mandibles? Bug legs? Whatever those appendages are called. Functionally the Cryo Cicin is identical to the Electro and Hydro Cicins, just with a different element, but they put in effort into these repainted enemies, something that I can definitely get behind with.
Geovishap Hatchling
Another one classified as an 'elite enemy' by the wikis are the Geovishaps. Apparently, these are a type of a 'Vishap', though at the moment only Geovishaps exist. 'Vishap' is a dragon from Armenian mythology, whereas the original Chinese name of the Geovishaps translates roughly to 'dragon-lizard' or 'dragon-reptile'. They're pretty cool, design-wise, looking pretty fantastical. I hesitate in saying that they look like a Pokemon or Digimon because the aesthetics are quite off for both franchises, but I do like what is going here. A vaguely Sonic-esque body plan with a mane of spikes, angry eyes, and a huge, chunky tail... it's not my favourite enemy in this game by a long shot, but I do like that they're not just tossing generic animals at us and calling it a day. The Geovishaps attack by burrowing through the ground and generally being annoying, popping up all over the battlefield and then turning into spinning wheels of death and launching themselves at you.
Geovishap
Since there's a 'hatchling', there's also obviously a mature version. the mature Geovishap apparently matures by a form of shedding, which tends to be something we associate with smaller arthropods or crustaceans. I'm not the biggest fan of the mature Geovishap, I feel, although that might just be because I don't like the weird whale-chin it has going on. It's essentially the same design, but bigger and with even more orange spikes and with more exaggerated musculature. It goes from a hit-and-run baby hatchling into a much bulkier tank that can infuse itself with elements (not just Geo). It sort of feels like a Lawachurl mechanically, I think? It's a cool mini-kaiju monster, I suppose, though I've always found the design a bit too cluttered personally.
Lawachurl
So remember the Hilichurls, Samachurls and Mitachurls? Turns out they have a big 'boss' of their own! While most 'churl tribes are seemingly led by a Mitachurl, turns out that they can become bigger, angrier, and even more muscular, turning into a Lawachurl. Or 'Chief Churl' in their language. The Lawachurls are pretty rare, and while not particularly difficult to kill, are able to act as damage sponges that could prove to be pretty annoying for under-leveled teams to take down. Two have so far been included in the game, Stonehide and Frostarm, both of them being infused with the element of Geo and Cryo respectively. I do like that while the other Churls are happy to worship and follow the Lawachurls, apparently the Lawachurls themselves don't care for being leaders and just want to be left alone.
As with all repaints, the 'skeleton' of their movement and proportions are more or less the same, but they do look different! The Frostarm Lawachurl, found almost exclusively in the icy Dragonspine mountains, is basically a yeti in all but name, and I do like that its face still does look like a more elaborate mask. The Stonehide Lawachurl is a bit more mundane, though maybe that's because the 'rocks with glowing orange crystals' aesthetic is also shared with a lot of other Geo monsters. I do like the running theme in this game that some monsters are just inherently infused with elemental energy.
Fatui Skirmishers
So last time we talked about some of the more mundane Fatui warriors -- the Cicin Mage and the Agents. Which I've always found to be easier, but they're classified as 'elite' enemies, while these are lesser ones? I've always found the Cicin Mages and the Agents to be easier to deal with than these dudes, but okay, game, sure. There are three basic types and they dress well. I actually like them more than some of the playable characters we got! The first one here is the 'Electrohammer Vanguard', and I love his purple and black... what is that outfit? They look like some sort of over-the-top marine officer or something, and having neon purple lines while wielding a big fuck-off war-hammer is one of the most video-game-y design I've seen in a while. And, of course he's got a creepy Fatui mask with a single glowing eye. Each of these models have a variant, and the Vanguard variant is the 'Amenoboxer'. Which means that instead of a hammer, the Amenoboxer's got two big-ass gauntlets that allow him to punch with wind. Somehow! Don't question video game logic!
The second one here is probably my favourite design and I would totally play him as a playable character. Everything about the Pyroslinger Bracer is just so fancy. He looks like a main protagonist (or antagonist) in a Victorian setting! Look at that badass red jacket. That hat. Those boots. That huge magma sniper rifle That absolutely creepy white full-face mask with white hair and a single glowing hair. Everything about this guy is just awesome, even if he's just a pretty mundane 'fragile ranged guy'. The alternate version is the Geoslinger, and he has a staff instead of a gun. Far less fancy. I'm not sure if all the Skirmishers do this, but when you break their elemental shields and stun the Bracers, they fizzle in a spot like a robot. Are these guys all cyborgs, then?
The final one is the Cryogunner and Hydrogunner Legionnaires. They are big boys with a fun top-hat and a metallic face with a single glowing eye. Love the single glowing eyes that all these Skirmishers have, it's so much creepier than two glowing eyes! The Legionnaire's got one of those pistols with a chunky barrel, and he's got some neat metallic armour pieces. All the other Fatui Skirmishers have pretty generic flavour text, but the Legionnaire explicitly notes that this is 'a soldier encased within a Fatui war machine', and talks about how the power of wielding the elements come at a price. So a typical 'sacrifice one's humanity for cyborg power-ups' style of enemy. The question is... was the sacrifice a willing one? And are the other types of Fatui agents likewise willingly modified as well?
Humanoid enemies don't tend to be something I talk about much, but I actually really like this set.
Ruin Hunter
The image alone doesn't do it justice. Hop on to the Wiki and look at the gifs of this Transformer attacking. The upgraded version of the bipedal Ruin Guards is this guy, the Ruin Hunter. Still having that 'ancient technological golem' vibe going on, the Ruin Hunter also shares the single glowing eye, but he hovers in the sky and has four arms, each of which can transform into different armaments. Most of the time it's just going from fingers into big metal blades, but sometimes the Ruin Hunter will also turn the arms into drills, or, in the most memorable attack, eject four floating wheels that transform into an airborne laser array. The fact that the Ruin Hunter constantly flies around means that it can and will abuse this mechanic to rain down laser death upon you, and depending on whether you have a ranged attacker at the moment, the battle against a Ruin Hunter could be pretty difficult.
I also love the little lore segment in the archive that notes that the creators 'opted to forgo the low-performing humanoid design'. If you have the technology to make your robots hover in the air, why give them legs? It's pretty cool, I do really enjoy fighting these guys as they fly around and make angry robot noises. I wonder if in a future update we'll actually learn about the ancient civilization that creates the ruin robots, or if they're just mysterious remnants whose origins are truly lost to time.
Ruin Grader
Introduced and primarily encountered in the 'Dragonspine' area are the Ruin Graders, the third and (at the moment) final variant of the ruin guards. Dragonspine itself is an interesting area in that its storyline is essentially one huge side-quest that doesn't relate to any main characters, and is just a fun little jaunt that mostly revolves around archaeology and trying to figure out just the nature of the strange ruins and ancient civilization, which is mostly told in text and stone tablets or runes that you find, which is a shame because a lot of them are so easy to miss and there's a pretty cool story there. Not long into your exploration you meet a whole lot of Ruin Guards, and among them are these stronger guys, the Ruin Graders. They've got branches sticking out of their backs, and they're basically the same thing as Ruin Guards, just with more defied arms and chunkier feet. Oh, and they've got laser beams instead of missiles.
I didn't know it until I was basically all but done with Dragonspine, but the Ruin Grader is essentially a puzzle boss -- you need to take out its weak points on its legs and its eye in quick succession. Evidently, since I didn't even know that the eye could be sniped by an arrow, you're also able to just treat it as a huge damage sponge and just whittle it down with accumulated damage. It's pretty cool -- they didn't have to design a new variant model and program a couple extra moves and mechanics into what's essentially a Ruin Guard reskin, but they did. I appreciate it.
Abyss Herald: Wicked Torrents
So this guy is the primary recurring antagonist of the 'We Will Be Reunited' chapter of the story quest, which is a bit of a surprising chapter that bridges the Liyue and Inazuma chapters of the main story. It stars the enigmatic traveler Dainsleif as he gives a huge exposition about Khaen'riah, a country destroyed 500 years ago. It's very spoiler-heavy on how that country is basically one of the huge origins for the Abyss Order and the Ruin Guards -- I do find that the story and world-building is easily the most appealing part of this game, so I won't really spoil too much beyond that. But the Abyss Order takes central stage in that story quest, and as everyone had noted... the Abyss Mages are the grunts of the organization, the lowest in the rung.
We've got this guy, the Abyss Herald, as something that the characters are actually pretty afraid of. This Abyss Herald is identified as a 'Wicked Torrents' variant, and has the subtitle of 'Presager of the Abyss', and he's a Hydro-using character. He's... he's a pretty cool dude! He reminds me a bit of the Revenants from World of Warcraft, though that might just be because of the huge skirt-like extensions on his hips and the triangular helmet-head. He does really look cool and has some neat dual-water-blade animations. I tend to really not say too much about humanoid characters -- sure, the Abyss Herald is meant to look more 'monstrous', but you have to admit, he looks more cool than terrifying.
Abyss Lector: Violet Lightning
Okay, this guy never shows up in the story mode or the overworld, just as one of the bosses in the Spiral Abyss. The Abyss Lector seems to be a more spellcaster-y version of the Abyss Herald, and are only found in the Spiral Abyss, a very combat-oriented part of the game that I really haven't touched all that much. I really do like the design of this guy, though -- like the Herald, his mask covers his entire face (or is his mask his face?), but the Lector's weird metal beaked mask looks so much more sinister. He's got some neat accessories, too, like that huge star-book or the spiky wheel thing that so many video game characters have hanging on the back. But my favourite part of the Lector's design are those glowing space-cape things that the Lector shares with Paimon and Dainsleif. Currently, the Lector is only found in the Spiral Abyss game mode.
This specific Lector is of the 'Violet Lightning' variant, manipulating the element of Electro, and judging by his page in the Wiki, every single line out of this guy's mouth is pretty fun, hammy priest-like lines like "grace be upon you!" while they launch thunderbolts to murder you.
Dragonspine Defense Mechanism
Not counted as an enemy and not having an entry in the 'archive' section of the game are these things, which, I guess, are counted more as obstacles by the game? They are found in the ruins of Dragonspine, where they float up from little recesses built into the ruins, and open up and hover around as these triangle-flower things that shoot lasers at you. That more or less sums it up -- it's presumably built by the same ancient civilization that made the Ruin golem-robots, and is just there for flavour. It's pretty rudimentary, admittedly, but I'm not sure why the game doesn't really acknowledge this thing. Oh well. It's neat.
The Great Snowboar King
Sort-of kind-of a 'bonus' boss, the Great Snowboar King is part of an honestly minor but delightful sidequest in Dragonspine, which has a cook tell you to go farm snowboar meat. I don't include the many 'flavour' animals in here that really don't count as enemies, though among them the boars are the only thing that could conceivably hurt you -- though their damage is extremely minimal. Well, in true Zelda fashion, you can encounter the Great Snowboar King after killing one too many Snowboars. It's a big boar that summons little boars or stampedes around and causes icicles to fall. Not too much to say, honestly, but it's funny and a pretty memorable encounter.
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Bosses:
Pyro Regisvine
Bosses now! This guy is a fire themed version of the Cryo Regisvine which we covered a while back. This guy hides in Liyue! I don't really have much to say here other than it's basically the same thing but with fire, but I respect the bosses enough to at least include them when they have an alternate-element reskin.
Andrius, the Lupus Boreas
It is very interesting to note that this game doesn't have a 'wolf' model! Despite having an area called Wolvendom, and having a small quest-chain revolving around one of the collectible characters, Razor, who is a boy raised by wolves. But in every single cutscene, his wolf-pack is always conveniently offscreen. Anyway, Razor's storyline eventually leads us to confront this guy, Andrius (the story usually calls him by his title instead, 'Lupus Boreas'). Andrius is one of the Four Winds of Mondstadt -- the dragon Stormterror is another member of the Four Winds, which are servitors of the Anemo Archon. He's a huge wind wolf ghost god! After the Razor quest, Andrius becomes one of the overworld weekly bosses that you can beat up and farm for materials.
He sure is a pretty cool anime wolf! I honestly really don't have much to say about him other than 'he's really fucking cool', and that wolves are cool, and that the white-blue-dark-blue colours make for a pretty good combination. Anyway, fighting him is pretty cool -- it takes place in his personal arena with fog, and Andrius just zips around the arena and at some points melds into the walls of the arena. I kind of want to say that he's got one too many details, but in motion all of the stuff that sprout out of him do move pretty fluidly and does make him feel like the embodiment of winter winds. Ultimately it's kind of a simple design, but I do like him.
The Elemental Hypostases
A quartet of bosses that just show up in different fixed locations in the overworld are these elementals called Hypostasis. So far, there are four of them -- the Anemo, Electro, Geo and Cryo. While idle, they look utterly bland. It's just a small d10 crystal surrounded by a set of cubes, right? And then the fight begins, and I absolutely love the animation that they have for them. Mostly just how the central crystal core manipulates the cubes around it, which shrink and transform into giant hands or tornadoes or drills or wheels as the fight goes on. The four of them could've reused animations, but they didn't, and I appreciate them so much for it. Obviously, the glowing crystal core is the weak point, but they move around so much and the rest of the cubes float around to protect the core. Each element also has their own special skill, and one of the things they have in common is that when near-death, they try to absorb their own element from around them and you must shatter those elemental clumps to prevent them from restoring themselves.
It's frankly a bit hard to put into words just how they move -- google or youtube the Hypostasis boss fights to see just how neat the animations are. My favourite has to be the Electro one turning into a pair of scissors or a giant fist! And that alone really ends up elevating these things into being far more memorable than they would've been otherwise.
It's also rather interesting that the game actually gives them 'code names'. Who gives them names? Is there an organization that goes around assigning Code Names to every elemental geometrical pile that forms? The Electro, Cryo and Geo ones have pretty cool code-names: Aleph, Daleth and Gimel respectively. But the Anemo Hypostasis? Her name is Beth. Yep! That's kind of cute. One of the flavour text note that they have 'abandoned their former appearance and biological structure' to reach a level of elemental purity. Are these once humanoid or animal-like, then, instead of being wild conglomeration of energy like the Slimes?
Primo Geovishap
I think why I'm so underwhelmed with the mature Geovishaps (and probably why the dseigners didn't make it all that impressive) is the fact that this guy exists. The Hatchlings are cool and cute in their own way, and Primo here is truly badass. Mature Geovishaps just look like rather bland spiky Godzilla ripoffs. The Primo Geovishap here actually has a small quest chain that you need to do to activate his boss fight, which is something I appreciate a lot. So apparently all these Geovishaps were once sealed beneath the land of Liyue, and after adapting to their environment they can finally burst out of it. There's also apparently a dragon lord of these Geovishaps sealed underground. That seems to be a running theme for the land of Liyue, where the local Geo Archon have sealed a lot of his old enemies under the ground.
Primo here is interesting, too, in that its stone spikes can glow and transform into one of four other elements (fire, water, ice and electric) and to ward off its elemental attacks you need to bring a character capable of generating shields. There's honestly not a whole ton for me to say about the design -- it's a pretty cool rock dinosaur-dragon monster! Love his tail and his face, no real complaints here.
Oceanid (and Hydro Mimics)
Yet another 'world boss' is the Oceanid. Or, rather, an Oceanid. Her real name is Rhodeia of Loch, the Voice of Water. Apparently there's a whole race of these Oceanids from the Hydro-based region of Fontaine, but this is the one that we can encounter, having made a lake in Liyue her home. And... she's a cool creature! She has like the body of a fish, and wing-like arms ending in fins. She's got this cool white collar and a single glowing eye... that's very cool head! The end result does make her look like a gloriously terrifying fishy water-angel being. I think Oceanids are also elemental creatures of some sort, though far more talkative and sentient compared to the Hypostases or the Eye of the Storm. The lore notes that Oceanids are associated with bodies of water, particularly pure ones.
And, interestingly as a boss, you don't actually fight Rhodeia herself. She just hovers around making angry proclamations as you stand on a battlefield at the center of her lake, and she just summons wave upon wave of Hydro Mimics. There are around eight variations, each based on a certain animal, and each of them have their own attack patterns. It's interesting because Genshin Impact have, for the most part, actually stayed away from the trope of having regular animals (or giant animals) be enemies. None of the wolf/bear/boar trifecta so common in other role-playing games, and most animals are non-hostile or not dangerous. But the ones the Oceanids summon? They're massive. They range from being creatures that you meet like boars and cranes, to oversized versions of critters like frogs and crabs that only exist in the game to harvest for food. It's an interesting way to reuse assets, if nothing else!
Hydro Mimics themselves don't get an entry in the archives, since they're mostly tied to the Oceanid's boss fight, but several story quests where you investigate areas infused with water energy -- like the limited event archipelago that rose from the depths of the ocean, or a character story quest where you investigate a location recently vacated by a whirlpool god-demon -- has you encounter a couple of individual Hydro Mimics.
Tartaglia (a.k.a. Childe)
I debated putting one of the bosses that you fight at the conclusion of Chapter I-III in here, because he's basically just a dude and the fact that he's a boss fight is kind of a spoiler, but if you got this far I'm going to assume you really don't care all that much about spoilers. I still won't talk about too much about the actual story itself, other than the fact that this guy turns out to be the main antagonist. Or, well, one of the main antagonists, anyway. Childe, or 'Tartaglia', is the Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers, basically the Espada-from-Bleach-esque organization that I'm assuming going to be a once-per-act antagonist. Oh, and you can play him if you're lucky enough to get him from the gacha system -- these sort of games are weird that way where you can play with any playable character you get from the random lottery, but they also have their set roles in the story. Don't think about it too much.
And I really don't want to review the human or humanoid characters in this game -- at some point it'll devolve into me talking about their fashion and skills and their role in the story. And Childe? Childe is a pretty typical handsome anime dude with a dapper suit and scarf. He's not my favourite character design in the game, but he's cerrtainly got style. And he's cool and everything, but as an enemy he's just a dude that creates weapons out of water and lightning. Sometimes he summons giant water whales, and he has a second phase where his suit becomes black and he swaps elements.
And then he goes into his third phase, which is really the only reason I'm putting Childe here. By using something called a 'Delusion', Childe transforms into this very cool Final Fantasy boss that's got a cape of galaxies and a full-on Super Sentai villain outfit. It's actually appropriate for this game, if we're being honest, and I do like that the mask that hangs on his human form's hair transforms into a full-on demon mask with a single glowing Zaku-esque eye. This little addition (which, naturally, you can't actually play as in-game as far as I can tell) elevates him a bit more. It's no Sephiroth, but it's a lot cooler than just having the fight be purely against a dude with water blades.
Azhdaha: Sealed Lord of the Vishaps
The fourth 'weekly boss', Azhdaha is unlocked only after you complete a certain character quest. Borrowing his name from a Persian mythical dragon-serpent, Azhdaha's boss fight is unlocked after a character story quest, which I found to be pretty damn awesome. The story itself had themes revolving around the concept of an immortal being of stone having its memories ground and eroded away by time itself, which is a pretty depressing story. The end of Azhdaha's story also has a bit of a theme surrounding a real-life Chinese proverb, 'drawing a dragon and dotting the eyes'. It's something equivalent to a 'finishing touch' in the English language, where the proverb's original tale was that there was an artist that had a great talent for drawing dragons, but his drawings would come to life once he painted the black dots for the pupils -- describing how a simple act can truly make elevate a work into a masterpiece.
And that act was basically how Azhdaha was 'born'. Depending on the storyteller, he was born as either a mass of pure elemental energy, or a blind rock dragon. The Geo Archon Morax took pity on him and granted him sight, but while a loyal servitor of Morax for a long time, eventually time eroded his memory, and he began to attack the humans of Liyue (who, to be fair, was exploiting his home as well). Morax was forced to seal him beneath the ground alongside many of his other enemies. Azhdaha waits in his prison, swearing vengeance on Morax. The giant tree under which Azhdaha is sealed is actually a location that's present in the game since its launch, and references to the ancient sealed dragon slumbering underground wanting vengeance is found all over Liyue months before Azhdaha himself debuted. His story is also very interesting, with no real explicit 'bad guy' and Azhdaha's anger being both justified and also something that the protagonists really can't allow to happen.
Pretty cool backstory, I have a weakness for both dragons and for the 'sealed ancient evil' tropes. And Azhdaha is a very, very cool giant kaiju-dragon! And, if you couldn't tell, he's the extra-powerful version of the Geovishaps we've been fighting. Turns out that even the Primo Geovishap isn't the most powerful of the Vishaps! I didn't quite realize that the official Genshin channel actually shared an amazing 20-minute video about the design of this boss, which is a great, great amazing insight into the work that comes into a one-off boss like this. I love the giant rock-horns and the massive underbite, and I also really love the little detail that his tail sprouts into a beautiful tree. Just like the Primo Geovishap, Azhdaha's tail-tree glows differently every time you face him, since he can channel different elements. My favourite part of Azhdaha, though? As pointed out by the design video, Azdaha combines a lot of features of snapping turtles, alligators and specifically stegosaurs in order to both show off a unique draconic body shape. I like that they explicitly noted that earlier Chinese mythology is a bit more fluid on what constitutes a 'dragon', which gave the design team carte blanche to be as creative as they want in the purpose of making Azhdaha look unique compared to the other dragons and rock-monsters in this game. _______________________________________________
The Adepti
I'm a bit hesitant on whether to include these as 'monsters', but I think I'm obliged to at least talk a bit about the 'Adepti'. A group of magical beings and gods, the original Mandarin term that's used here is '仙' (xiān), which I've seen in many other works to be translated as 'immortals' or sometimes 'hermits' if it's exclusively referring to humanoids. The term adepti/adeptus (sometimes 'adeptibeast') used in the English translation of Genshin, I believe, is taken from the term "Taoist adept". Okay! There are a lot of these Adepti, and I love just how varied they are. It's a very common trope in Chinese myths and legends to have animals who have 'ascended' to gain sentience and immortality.
The Adepti are a major part of the Liyue campaign, being deities that live in the land and being characters that you must recruit to investigate the huge events that take place there. I only picked a select few to showcase here -- Mountain Shaper, Moon Carver and playable character Xiao, and I love how a lot of them are just regular animals that have some additional inhuman qualities. Mountain Shaper and Cloud Retainer are just cranes with more elaborate designs, but Moon Carver is a dear with a mane that looks like it's made out of leaves, horns that glow and a flaming covering around his legs. And Skybracer is just an absolutely splendid looking glowing deer.
In addition to the ones here, we also have a bunch of major humanoid (and collectable) characters that also count as Adepti, which I am hesitant to really cover here because, well, they're just pretty cool-looking characters -- we'll probably talk about them in the future.
Osial, Overlord of the Vortex
We'll end this off with the technical 'final boss' of the Liyue chapter, Osial. Or, well, a cinematic boss, anyway -- Childe's really the big bad there. After your character beat up Childe, he unleashes this sealed god, who has been trapped, slumbering under a prison of rock after an ancient war of gods. Osial himself is more of a NPC and it's the combined forces of all the various humans and Adepti of Liyue that takes Osial down -- your character's role in this one is to beat back the other lesser enemies that are trying to screw with your allies. Which I would complain as being a letdown... if the cutscene teams weren't so great at animating the effects done by both Osial and your magical allies. It's pretty cool, and just google the cutscene. It's pretty nice to watch even if you never plan to play the game.
Osial himself (herself? Themselves?) is a very interesting creature. We never quite see a full body, but I assume the sea itself is his full body. He manifests in the form of several absolutely massive serpentine heads made out of pure water, and Osial's appearance really puts to scale just how massive he is, with one of the heads swimming under the ocean's surface and making islands and boats look miniscule in comparison. The heads of Osial could just look like a generic snarling dragon or sea serpent and it'd be acceptably badass, but the designers make it look more eerie by not giving the heads any visible mouths. I'm not sure if it's based on any specific type of fish, but the heads do remind me of some sort of loach or catfish, and that, I feel, works a lot better at making Osial feel a bit more unique. The beady dead-fish eyes make Osial feel more like a mindless force of nature intent on flooding Liyue more than more intelligent angry hydra-dragon eyes would, I feel.
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And... and I think there are a couple other monsters I could talk about. I could go into more in-depth into the real-life inspirations behind Xiao, Qiqi, Ganyu and Yanfei. I could talk about the Ars Goetia and the characters who borrow names from that. I could be pedantic and talk about the one-off Millelith guards or the half-dozen Treasure Hunter and Hilichurl variants that I've met since. And I know I'm still missing two or three monsters from my little not-pokedex... but I feel like this is a nice enough place to stop off. We'll cover whatever I missed whenever I do a third part of this, which could be in a couple of months depending on how much new creatures the Inazuma expansion gives us.
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