Honkai: Star Rail | HSR RPG (In-Progress)

Nine hundred years ago, this world had a sky you could see through.

Jarilo-VI. A green frontier once, terraformed by the Architects who mimicked Qlipoth's own hand — until something buried beneath the ice woke up, and the Eternal Freeze swallowed everything. Cities went dark one by one. The snow took the roads, then the names, then the people who remembered them.

One city did not go out.

Belobog — the last bastion of mankind, the city blessed by Preservation — under a sweltering morning sun.

You came here on one of the first inbound routes opened in nine centuries, carrying a handful of Credits that nobody in this city will accept — Belobog runs on Shields, traveler, change your money at the plaza.

Light comes off the snow so white it hurts. Below your window, the Administrative District is already awake: the Ding-Ding Tram grinding its cheerful way down Alisa Avenue, bakery shutters rolling up, a bureaucrat arguing with a vendor about jaywalking fines near the railway line. At the heart of Central Plaza stands the Everwinter Monument, and at its base an old man in a threadbare coat has his head bowed, murmuring the same three words this city has murmured for nine centuries — Lord Qlipoth, preserve us. Behind it all, Qlipoth Fort rises into the clouds, built by the first Supreme Guardian to praise a miracle that arrived exactly once and never explained itself.

The people here are carved out of the cold. Silvermane Guards patrol in pairs and genuinely stop to give directions. Someone's grandmother sells frozen rye bread soda icebergs at a corner stall — because when every house is centrally heated and the air is bone-dry, the only thing better than a steaming meal is something frozen right after it. Children shriek past you in scarves. A workshop down the street is throwing sparks, someone inside butchering a guitar solo over the noise of repair work.

And in the streets there are faces that don't belong to the Overworld. Miners up from Boulder Town on the cable cars, soot still in the creases of their knuckles, walking through the Administrative District without a permit, without a checkpoint, without lowering their eyes. Two cities that spent centuries pretending the other didn't exist — stitched back together within living memory. It shows in every awkward, hopeful, half-healed interaction on this street.

This world has no eternal night and no perfect dream. Only a furnace, a wall, and a stubborn refusal to freeze.

at Xianzhou Loufu

at The Reverie — Real World…

You came here after years of thankless, grinding work, carrying a handful of Credits and not much else. Out there, beyond the gold-trimmed windows, the universe doesn't care whether you live. Aeons rewrite the rules of existence on a whim. A Lord Ravager drags the Antimatter Legion from star to star like a plague with a marching band. Any ordinary morning can end with your homeworld reduced to slow-drifting dust.

So a few days of peace isn't luxury. It's mercy. And whether this mercy lasts days or only hours — you intend to spend every second of it well.

You booked the cheapest room the front desk would admit to having. Narrow walls. A fold-out bed. A "window" that's really a looping projection of a skyline you'll never stand on. The bellboy's smile never once slipped as he handed you the key, because The Family is nothing if not gracious — even to guests at the bottom of the ladder.

None of it matters. What matters is sunken into the middle of the floor: a small bathtub, its surface trembling like liquid amber, humming a lullaby pitched just beneath the range of hearing.

You loosen your collar. You step in. You lie back. The warmth climbs your spine, unknots every year you've carried, and pulls — gently — at something behind your eyes.

You let go.

And you wake in Penacony. Not the hollow shell of steel in Reality — the true Penacony. The Land of Dreams. The Planet of Festivities.

The Reverie's dream-side lobby pours you out through doors that open onto a sky drowning in champagne light — a sky fixed forever at the moment just before midnight. The clock will not strike. Morning will not come. The night never ends here, because in this Moment, time itself has been politely asked to wait outside.

Golden Hour.

The city sprawls in every direction: neon towers braided with brass filigree, jazz spilling from balconies where nobody remembers starting the song, streets so bright with festival light that the artificial stars drift overhead just to watch. Cultural poles line the boulevards — every one shaped after Clockie, grinning his tick-tock grin. They don't give directions. They don't tell the time. That's rather the point. Far off, crowning the skyline, the Penacony Grand Theater looms like a diadem set on the city's brow.

at Amphoreus

at Planarcadia

at Astropolis — the City of Converging Stars…

You have arrived in Astropolis. The breeze carries the scent of the sea, Credits, and workaholics. This place is both a physical paradise meticulously built with Credits, and the “home” of tens of thousands of IPC employees who grind day and night without ever seeing the sun or the moon. Fortunately, you belong to the former group. You came here to enjoy a vacation so extravagant that it matches the enormous sum of Credits you spent on the ticket.

You stop at the Astropolis Central District, with the distant silhouette of Lodestar Tower rising into the sky. Here, entertainment is endless — you name it! Whether it’s watching a high-speed race, shopping, or simply listening to the gentle crash of waves on the beach, the cool breeze and the lively chatter of happy crowds fill the air. The sandy shores are packed with people of every kind: Imagenae that you commonly see in Planarcadia (such as Wispea and others), the difference being that here they can exist outside of Planarcadia thanks to certain technologies on this planet, organic lifeforms, inorganic beings, and of course, Zatzkas.

Here, you can sunbathe for as long as you like. The artificial sunlight provided by the IPC is guaranteed not to cause skin cancer — and if it somehow does, they will compensate you without limit. What will you do in this paradise forged from countless Credits? Will you go to the beach? Watching high-speed race? or browse the endless goods of Kenneth Shopping Center, where everything in the cosmos is for sale… as long as you can afford it…

Your next step is yours to decide.

(choose your own plot. Let’s Trailblaze!)