A historian’s breakdown of the lovely historical details in Honkai: Star Rail 3.0

Initially printed on January 13, 2025.

Within the distant previous, this humble author needed to change into a historian. Intrigued by historical historical past from a younger age, he went on to review it at college and get a level, solely to then find yourself right here – not an sad ending by any means. Nonetheless, I’m overjoyed each time I get to nerd out about my outdated and ongoing love, so I’m grateful to HoYoverse for offering me with the proper pretext.

Honkai: Star Rail 3.0 largely takes place on Amphoreus, a planet impressed by Greek and Roman civilization, historical past, tradition, and mythology. Wherever you look when exploring this planet, there’s one thing cool to identify, some easter egg to giggle over – and there’s one thing for each stage of information right here. Everybody can join a bug rolling a boulder up a large staircase with poor outdated Sisyphus or see the Steed of Janus, a wonky picket horse some child is utilizing as a service provider stall, and be reminded of the Trojan Horse and crack a smile.

Let’s take the city-state of Okhema for instance. It has this excellent, bustling market that evokes the sensation of a Roman discussion board or a Greek agora. These had been the facilities of cities, locations the place residents would come to commerce, hear the juicy gossip of the day, and take heed to the speeches made by politicians. They performed a central position in a city’s public life and should have been busy, vibrant locations.

Okhema’s market has that very same great multi-purpose vibe. We have now completely different distributors and meals stalls, teams of individuals gossiping or partaking in philosophical discussions, and there are orators demanding consideration. One in all them is aptly named Cicero, after considered one of – if not the – the best audio system Rome has ever produced.

Generally, the aesthetics of the town and its inhabitants are extra Greek than Roman, although, with some exceptions. Take the helmets worn by Okhema’s troopers, which anybody will instantly affiliate with one thing – one sort is famously related to Sparta, because of films like 300, and the opposite is just about synonymous with Roman gladiators.

That 300-esque helmet is named a Corinthian Helmet, which – funnily sufficient – in all probability wasn’t broadly used anymore by the point the well-known Battle of Thermopylae occurred. As you may think about, the Corinthian Helmet restricted visibility and listening to rather a lot, so it fell out of favor. Then why is it nonetheless so iconic, you ask? Effectively, the Greeks mainly seen it as a romantic image of their previous glories, so many items of artwork like statues continued to be produced with Corinthian Helmets being depicted, though it lengthy handed its zenith. Then the Romans, being the Greeks’ best fanboys, got here alongside and copied these statues, persevering with the custom.

The opposite helmet is the Boeotian Helmet – so one other Greek unique. Cavalry from Greece and Rome favored this kind of helmet, although its long-lasting fame is principally owed to a different wearer, a Roman gladiator sort referred to as murmillo. The Romans added the enduring face plate to the helmet, a transfer in all probability equally motivated by the rule of cool and an effort to “steadiness” match-ups. Any StarCraft fan value their salt will affirm for you that Terran versus Zerg is the very best match-up. Effectively, for a lot of Romans murmillo versus retiarius was the very best gladiator pairing. The retiarius is the half-naked man with the trident and the online and the murmillo’s faceplate was crucial to stop the retiarius from merely stabbing his opponent within the face and ending the battle shortly – the viewers wouldn’t have appreciated that very a lot. 

The military by no means used the helmet on this configuration, which is why its lasting reputation is so humorous: Some cool helmet sort the Romans cobbled collectively for sport remains to be one of many coolest helmet sorts in our eyes right now, so we proceed to make use of it in media and artwork.

Persevering with on our means throughout the market, we encounter a basket – and since we’re the Trailblazer, we wish to rummage by way of it. Seems that Diogena, the city’s weirdo (that’s actually her title within the sport), lives contained in the basket and tells us to depart her alone. Huh, that sounds acquainted, proper?

Many partitions in Okhema sport lion’s heads and you may really speak to those stone constructs, which belong to a, I don’t know, hive consciousness(?) referred to as Verax Leo. No matter it’s, Verax Leo is an unrepentant gossip, purveyor of sophistry, and lover of riddles. Yeah, it’s mainly HoYoverse’s tackle a sphinx. 

One of many funniest riddles it provides you makes reference to absolutely the shambles of a calendar most historical Greek and Roman cities had earlier than Caesar got here lengthy to reform the system into the Julian Calendar. Some days had been deemed religiously impure or unfortunate, so there may very well be no enterprise executed, and clergymen might merely declare these days willy-nilly to sabotage elections and whatnot. Rome’s chief priest additionally needed to manually slot extra days into the calendar annually to maintain it from going out of sync with the seasons – so when Caesar, the chief priest, was away in Gaul for a few years and uncared for this specific obligation of his workplace, the calendar drifted by two or three months with ‘October’ nonetheless being the peak of summer time.

Talking of Caesar, one of many issues he’s identified for right now is changing into Rome’s dictator. Earlier than changing into a byword for tyranny and authoritarian rule, the workplace of dictator was really sort of an everyday factor in Rome (nicely, not by Caesar’s time). When the Republic confronted an important hazard – like Hannibal stomping by way of Italy – the senate would elect considered one of its members to change into dictator for a set interval of six months, giving him supreme command over the state to battle the disaster successfully. There are even examples the place a dictator was elected only for a few days to prepare the subsequent elections when the consuls, whose job that often was, had been out of city. It looks as if the council of Okhema had an identical concept by briefly ceding management of the town to the Chrysos Heirs, who appear blissful to depart this matter to Aglaea – and that’s why some council members appear to be so hostile in direction of her. Let’s hope that Aglaea won’t comply with Caesar’s footsteps on the Ides of March.

Earlier than I’m overstaying my welcome, let’s transfer from {the marketplace} to the baths for the ultimate particulars I wish to spotlight. The Romans cherished baths. Whichever area Rome conquered, you may guess that one of many first issues they did was to construct baths, with examples starting from Britain and Germany to North Africa. I used to be a bit afraid that HoYoverse would take the simple means out and let itself be impressed by Japanese bathing tradition, as Asian builders often do (and I get why – onsens are nice), so think about my constructive shock after I checked out Okhema’s baths.

Clearly, it’s not a one-to-one reproduction of any Roman tub advanced, however the normal construction with a central pool, adjoining chambers with extra swimming pools round it, after which varied different rooms and outdoors areas on the edges could be very genuine. Not solely that – Okhema’s baths have heat in addition to chilly swimming pools, mirroring the Romans’ caldarium (sizzling tub) and frigidarium (chilly tub), which is fairly cool.

I discussed that marketplaces had been fairly multi-purpose in these historical cities, and the identical goes for baths. See, a Roman tub often was rather more than only a place to take a dip and clear off the mud of the day’s work. Baths had areas to get massages, observe sports activities, take walks within the shade of greenery, and luxuriate in artworks that had been publicly displayed. Libraries being connected to baths was pretty frequent, so you could possibly go learn a scroll or take heed to debates. These had been full-on leisure and tradition complexes – and Okhema’s baths completely mirror that. There’s a library within the southern wing and a sacred grove within the uppermost space, for instance, whereas there are some soft areas exterior to relaxation and loosen up.

Somebody at HoYoverse checked out blueprints and did some stable analysis to create this actually genuine advanced and I really like that. I can really feel your consideration slipping, so I gained’t speak in regards to the Delphi-esque non secular advanced that’s Janusopolis or the myriad of different little particulars that you’ll find in Okhema, however I hope this has been an pleasing learn and academic historic tour by way of the town for you.