Venti

An unknown bard that came from nowhere. He sometimes sings outdated songs, other times he hums new ones that none have ever heard of.

He likes apples and lively atmospheres, but hates cheese and anything that is slimy.

When channeling Anemo, it appears in the form of feathers, because he likes things that look light.

Back when traveling bard Venti had only been in Mondstadt for a few months, his income was far less than the other more established bards in town. But once he had a few Mora in the pot from his performance, you could be sure he would hurry off to spend it at the same place every time — one of the city's taverns.

Unfortunately for Venti, his childlike appearance meant that his attempts to acquire alcohol failed at every turn.

The first time he was refused service, he was heard grumbling: "I'm sure there were no such preposterous regulations last time I was here..." Once he realized that the same rule applied to all taverns in town, he decided he would have to change his approach...

The strategy he developed was drinking on the job — that is to say, playing the lyre while holding a wine cup in his mouth, urging his audience to buy him a drink from the bar if they liked his performances instead of giving him Mora.

The novelty of this made him quite popular in Mondstadt.

There was just one snag — he couldn't help but sneeze if a cat came close...

And if he happened to be holding a wine cup in his mouth when it happened... needless to say, it would spell disaster.

Venti, therefore, has one golden rule when selecting a spot to perform, and that is that there must be no cats in the vicinity.

Easier said than done — the stray cats of Mondstadt seem to be quite drawn to him.

There is a towering oak tree at the center of Windrise, said to have sprouted when Vennessa ascended to the heavens a millennium ago.

In the past few months, travelers resting in the shade of the great oak sometimes hear a young boy singing the tales of Barbatos, the Anemo Archon.

Unlike the ruling deities of the other nations, Barbatos has long left Mondstadt. In fact, the only visible proof of his connection with Mondstadt is the Statues of The Seven that appear across the land — even then, the resemblance is vague at best. Fortunately, Barbatos's past deeds are recorded in books and epics, sung and passed on by the bards.

In contrast to these more canonical works, Venti's ballads tend to include bizarre adventures and acts of mischief, such as the time that Barbatos pinched the Cryo Archon's scepter and replaced it with a hilichurl's wooden club...

Worshippers of Barbatos are quick to decry these frivolous tales as blasphemous fabrications. But whenever someone confronts Venti about this, his response suggests that he has not an ounce of remorse.

"How can you know that they're fabrications?"

He has a point — even the most devoted sister could not possibly know the details of all of Barbatos's deeds from a millennium ago.

Only Venti knows the truth behind his song lyrics, and it is a truth he hides behind an enigmatic smile.

Reason being, yes — Venti's tall tales of Barbatos's unorthodox exploits are entirely fabricated.

Hey, Venti finds that a few drinks really gets his muse going. Can you really blame him?

Around 2,600 years ago, the Archon War had yet to end, and the world had yet to fall under the dominion of The Seven.

In those days, the city called "Mondstadt" was surrounded on all sides by gales impenetrable even to the birds of the air. The wind's ceaseless howling ground the soil and the rock of that city into smooth, flowing dust.

The Lord of Wind who lived in his high tower was Decarabian, God of Storms. He squinted from on high at his subjects, who bowed before him in the unceasing wind, and, believing them submissive, thought this good.

In those days, Venti was but a single thread of the thousand winds that roared through the northern lands.

He who would in latter days be known as "Barbatos" was but a tiny elemental spirit, without a shred of divine dignity, a breeze that brought subtle changes for the better, or tiny seeds of hope.

In Mondstadt of old, Venti met a young boy. This lad knew how to play the lyre, and longed to write the greatest poem of all.

"I do so wish to see the birds in flight."

So said the boy who had never seen the blue sky, eagles, or the green grass, his voice almost utterly drowned by the wind.

"Friend, will you not come along?"

The elemental being Venti obtained the feather of an eagle for the lad living in that storm-shrouded city, who had never seen a bird in his life.

Then, war broke out in Mondstadt, in the name of freedom.

With the feather tucked away in his breast pocket, Venti watched the fall of the eccentric ruler amid the wrack and ruin of revolt together with his friend.

The ruler had believed that he had given his subjects a city free from the bitter cold, and to the end, he believed that they had loved him as he loved them.

Yet, despite the victory, Venti was never able to give that feather to the lad, for that lad had fallen in the battle for the sake of song, sky, and birds, and for the people who, like him, had dwelled within the storm-wall.

With the crumbling of an ancient seat of divinity, a new god was born. The Anemo Archon Barbatos felt power flowing at his fingertips.

His first use of this power was to reconstitute himself in the likeness of that young lad.

For only if he wore human shape could he play the lyre that the lad so loved.

Plucking its strings, he scattered the ice and snow and split the mountains with a divine wind.

He bade Mondstadt become a city of freedom, a nation without a king.

In future, he believed, it would become a better, more romantic city.

"Surely, he too would have wanted to live in such a place."

Thus, a new age began for Mondstadt.

The Anemo Archon cannot take credit for everything in Mondstadt.

Credit should be given where credit is due, I shall sing now the praises of things beauteous and true:

We thank the West Wind, whose enduring caress

Brings the blossoms of Spring, by whose scent we are blessed.

Finches, ducks, rabbits and boars,

Mondstadt's revival bid them thrive evermore.

In summer the lion walks the plains,

No words one finds to praise it but these:

Do you sweat out your water to make way for wine?

Comes the heat of the summer from your mane of sunshine?

The mountain mouths and gorges low like drunkards wayward lie...

But the East Wind cares not, for it doesn't walk — it flies!

Over the fruit trees it brushes low,

And its wings bring the harvest of things that grow.

The North Wind in the silent forest slumbers,

And around it pace the wolves in their numbers.

Though most have never a glimpse of them seen, for the Wind knows that none is of winter too keen,

Yet the Anemo Archon glimpses and sees, that it dreams each night of warm reverie.

—As the four seasons in turn shall say their piece, so the four winds too shall never cease.

Of course, to look at it differently, I am the one who should be credited here, and not they.

Credits should be given where credits belong — if not for the bard who pens the song, then who shall ensure that these tales are passed on?

After 1,600 years of history, Mondstadt's "freedom" had sunk to a heretofore unseen low.

Barbatos, unwilling to become a tyrant, had departed. But he had never imagined that those to whom he had gifted freedom would make for themselves a tyrant.

The aristocracy ruled Mondstadt with a cruel hand, bringing slaves into this land and ignoring the cries of the oppressed.

Thus the Anemo Archon returned after these 1,600 years to what was once the City of Freedom. He heard the cry of the slave girl Vennessa, and together with her raised a rebellion that overthrew the aristocracy.

—Now, the above is what all know to be the official history of Mondstadt.

The story has an interesting, little-known twist, however.

The one who united the people of Mondstadt in this conflict was indeed the hero Vennessa — but that which caused many of the aristocracy's troops to turn coat was a "treachery against the wind."

A secret treaty was found, a betrayal of the city — the aristocrats had forsaken the wind, and sold everything in Mondstadt to the Geo Archon of the neighboring land.

At the treaty's end was carved an insignia inimitable by all save the deity so named: Rex Lapis.

How the soldiers that had once oppressed the slaves shuddered when they saw that they too would become slaves in a foreign land.

The news, and the conflict, spread like wildfire, consuming the aristocracy. It was only many years later that historians would discover that this treaty was fake.

As it turned out, Venti had once practiced the art of forgery in order to play pranks on the Geo Archon, but could never deceive the god of wealth and transactions. Even so, his adeptness would come into play after several hundred years.

What a happy coincidence.

The Seven Archons do not need Visions, for they already have great power.

Yet Barbatos was fond of the mortal world, and wanted to roam Mondstadt more freely as "Venti." As such, he constructed a glass ornament very much like the Visions worn by those chosen by the gods.

The imitation has no special abilities, nor does Venti rely on it to channel elemental power.

However, since Venti does not keep the Holy Lyre der Himmel by his side, and since he is too lazy to bring a normal lyre, he gave his fake Vision the ability to turn into the wooden lyre "Der Frühling."