Mod Log: [December] [2024]

I seems that the leaker meant that there has not been an SP planned up until now. So this was just a drill lol.

Well guys, thoughts?

Wind, Elation

Basic Attack:Deals Wind dmg to one designated targets

Skill: Designates one ally target as "Investor" increasing their Elation and Punchlines generated. When "Investor" consumes Skill points or generates "Certified Banger" their next action is advanced by x% for each Skill points consumed, or y% for each "Certified Banger" generated

Ultimate: 350 cost:"The Awesome Shoppe": Chooses between 3 selectable "Curios",Upon choosing any of the "Curios" Sampo consumes Certified Banger. Upon choosing the "Sparxicle Merch", 20 Certified Banger is consumed "Elation Skill: That's all Folks!" is enhanced to "Elation Skill: Brainrot Spiral". Upon choosing the "Spade Mask", 30 Certified Banger is consumed, and "Elation Skill: That's all Folks!" is enhanced to "Elation Skill: Aetherium I choose you!". Upon choosing the "Dice Plushie",50 Certified Banger is consumed, and"Elation Skill: That's all Folks!" is enhanced to "Elation Skill: Ultimate Elation Master Excecution Excecuted!". Deals Wind DMG to all enemy targets, and additional Bounce DMG to all enemy targets according to the remaing "Certified Banger"

Talent: When allies generate Punchlines, consume Punchlines,launch Elation Skill, or generate "Certified Banger", Sampo gains additional "Certified Banger". When any ally consumes "Certified Banger" Aha Instant is advanced 0.5% for each "Certified Banger" Consumed. When Sampo possesses "Certified Banger" Energy regeneration Rate increases by 3% for every 20 "Certified Banger". When "Aetherium" launches its turn, deals additional instances on damage dependant on Sampo's "Certified Banger", and allies gain Certified Banger equal to 20% of Sampo's Certified Banger.

Elation Skill: "That's all Folks!": Sampo gains 20% of the "Certified Banger" generated during Aha Instant and restores 10 energy

Elation Skill: Brainrot Spiral: Deals Wind Dmg to all enemies, and applies "Easy Mark" on all enemy targets. When allies launch attacks on enemies applied with "Easy Mark" generates additional punchlines, and restores two Skill points.

Elation Skill: Aetherium I choose you!: Summons "Aetherium", and grants all allies 20 "Certified Banger.

Elation Skill: Ultimate Elation Master Excecution Excecuted!: Consumes all "Certified Banger" and Deals Wind DMG to all enemy targets, DMG increases for each "Certified Banger" possessed. If no "Certified Banger" is possessed Sampo consumes an equal amount of "Certified Banger" as possessed during the last "Aha Instant", and enters "Aura Debt".

Trace 1: When in "Aura Debt" Elation Increases by 10%. When Sampo or "Investor" generates "Punchlines" or "Certified Banger" in "Aura Debt", Sampo gains an equal amount of "Certified Banger".

Trace 2: When Sampo consumes "Certified Banger" Sampo gains an equal amount of energy to "Certified Banger" consumed.

Trace 3:During "Ultimate:The Awesome Shoppe", "Sparxicle Merch" can be selected up the 3 times. Each time "Sparxicle Merch" is selected, "Elation Skill: Brainrot Spiral" effect launches an additional time during Aha Instant, and restores additional "Certified Banger" for each instance of "Elation Skill: Brainrot Spiral".

Had this fanart sketch rotting for months and no progress, I guess the inspiration came but at a questionable moment lol

I know everyone's talking about Nihilux this and Nihilux that. Guess what, she just hitched a ride with us to Astropolis.

But you know who's still the only playable character that hasn't been on the Express after current version?

Exactly! That's your good ol' boy Sampo!

And who we know is forbidden from showing up on board ever again because of their massive debt? Yup.

Let that sink in...

The guy with the red vest/palm leaf shirt is Akivili just BTW :3

Still in Denial. Can't be Cured. Wish you who're reading this a good day/night~

For me, it's story potential you could get from that concept. I find the "god living among mortals and choosing to live among them" fascinating as a writing concept. And, if you permit to rant a bit, I truly feel like Planarcadia's story really should have revolved around it. But that goes deeper into my problems with the overall story of Planarcadia and why I think the main theme of it should have been "identity."

I truly feel Planarcadia's biggest weakness is it's lack of a proper story direction, because we're constantly jumping from one threat to another, and so a lot of the character development and the overall Phantasmoon games are left out, or even outright ignored, and this feels especially true for the actual games themselves.

My other criticism is the lack of Sampo, but that's just a nitpick, and I really feel you could have had interesting story if they decided to include him.

Sampo is so interesting as a character and he has so much build up and hints over the years that they could have finally addressed.

I don't mind Nihilux being Aha, my issue is not that she's Aha and Sampo isn't. My issue is the lack of a proper build up to it. We only get a limited amount of appearances with her in the story, the most right now is Astropolis. The story has to constantly jump to the next threat and story beat again and again, and it's characters take a backseat, and when it's time for them to be relevant, is when they're character is show more, and my problem with that is that it feels rushed. I feel especially this way with Himeko. Nihilux is the biggest offender of this, her place in the story doesn't feel meaningful to me because she lacks the proper dialogue for me to care about her and find her interesting, and so her twist doesn't feel impactful to me. It's similar to Tingyuan's twist of being Phantylia.

And that's my overall problem with the Elation storyline and Planarcadia. But, had they fully focused on the Phantasmoon Games, and included Sampo as a major player, then the story would have been so interesting and much more cleaner.

And that would have added more depth to Amphoreous actually, as Cyrene answers Herta's question of "What is Divinity?". As Cyrene states:

"Divinity is flawless humanity, and humanity is flawed divinity."

I honestly would have loved to see the writers explore Aha as a character through Sampo and Nihilux, and their thoughts on the position. I would have liked to see interesting dialogue between the two, shedding light on how Aeonhood strips you of your humanity, and it would make for an interesting reason for why "Aha" chooses to be a human being.

Those types of story beats sound so compelling. And had they made Asat Pramad the full on big bad of the story, then that would add even more depth to the themes of identity.

"The Death of Elation" could have been a central theme and Sampo could have been one of the pioneers of that theme of Planarcadia.

I made Sampo and gave him a bomb in Tomodachi life! :3

(I need to try and make his canon outfit eventually but I hope y'all like him)

I was thinking about the reveal and realized that Nihilux never one said she was the Aeon of elation, only saying that we can call her "Aha". She also (alledgedly) denied being "the Elation" when talking to Motoko. Any thoughts about this? I might be nitpicking but pretty sure Hoyo has made call backs to such small details before such as the mention of Silver Wolf's cartridge near the beginning of the game.

Edit: This is also making me think about who actually names the Aeons. Like is someone just giving some random name and everyone accepts it or is the aeon giving themself a name?

You will be remembered as the only unique connection between two playable characters with one despising another one-sidedly. Retconned by Hoyo to pander to fans

The main thing I’ll be centered around is the DU update where they explain exactly what happened to make Nihilux an aeon and how the previous AHA is not dead. The moonlit tales describe how a frog (mourning actor) found Aha who had been grievously poisoned and injured after sealing Ouroboros. She begged him to come back but he was far too sick, so he blessed her with his authority and she became the moons shadow. The shadow, as we’ve frequently heard in game dialogue, is not the real aeon. She is a reflection upon the water and Ahas last request for her was to become an unreliable narrator. This unreliable narrator just point blank said she is the real Aha, despite having consistently denied it before, two patches before her release?

Its a cipher and Bartholos situation again guys, they didn’t describe Amphoreus as a microcosm of the universe for no reason. Nihilux quotes cipher so many times, stealing the 30/70 gag and reusing it like five times. People already pointed out Sampo’s similarites to Bartholos during 3.x both speak in very similar ways and behave nearly exactly like eachother, though Bartholos seems to behave closer to the furbos some days. Bartholos is not exactly Zagreus, he is and he isn’t, more so a fragment of him, they show this in having many of him exist. Guess who revealed he could clone himself in the HI3 Collab???

Now this isn’t just circumstantial, in the main story they’ve been set up to have parallel roles. Cipher like Nihilux had the main task of distract the enemy and ensure that the MC/ Phainon could succeed. While Bartholos evacuated Civillains while also robbing them, just like Sampo did by taking them on a belobog tour for ten credits.

So if we go off the assumption that Sampo is the original Aha/ Lunar knight, things start to line up. Firstly, did you notice that when speaking of the first aha I’ve used solely masculine pronouns? That’s because that’s what he uses in DU, they’ve made him explicitly male. Secondly, Aha was driven to insanity due to the poison and seemed driven to a state of bloodlust and instability, as he lives over the moment of killing ouroboros again and again. Who walks around covered in dead snake bones? Who has fang shaped blades slicked in venom? Who is described as sly and sneaky and greedy and a liar, all the things associated with snakes? Whos snake imagery was so important that it’s a highlighted note on his concept sheet??

The original Aha isn’t dead, it’s left ambiguous but he was Said to fall into a slumber afterwards. Aeons can’t die, not to this. So the original aha is still out there, and it’s safe to say who I think he is.

Touching Upon leaks here, he’s been reliably leaked to be a main story presence in 4.6 , not another cameo presence. How interesing that they’re directly putting him in the spotlight the same version after Nihilux is revealed, the same version that they’re killing ouroboros once more. The same version they’re restarting the phantasmoon games, which need aha to begun them! When he appeared in 4.0 for seemingly no reason only to disappear for three patches. HOW ODD IS THAT

anyways thats my theory of how they plan to continue the story moving forwards, I’ll make a proper theory video at some point but this was mostly a sneak peek so that you’d all stop doomposting and being depressed. inject more cope and continue on soldiers.

At least he’s there. My expectations are low, but at least Hoyoverse is still including him pretty much everywhere throughout 4.x.

Plus, he should be in Belobog this time so we might see him in action.

Over four years… I’m so tired. I’m not going to spoil anything but if you played the quest you’ll understand what I’m talking about. I’m just fed up at this point, maybe it’s because I don’t like a certain character but that reveal got on my nerves, sure it was obvious but still frustrating because it feels too early for the reveal. I’m losing my hope for Sampo SP, I’m just grateful he got a 4-star so I can still play him. Idk, I’ve lost almost all motivation to continue with HSR’s story, I think this was my nail in the coffin.

So. I initially had written off the possibility of Sampo getting a SP sometime during 4.X. As there was just no way they could squeeze him into 4.6 or 4.7.

Then I remembered that there's the ZZZ collab coming I think 4.8? BUT, and hear me out. There's a chance he could get a SP during that patch. After all. We've had two collab versions already and had a new character release before the collab officially starts that version. 3.4 had Phainon release before the fate collab part 1 had started. And 4.4 had Himeko release before the part 2 fate collab started.

And for the Cyberpunk collab for Wuwa (I know it's not Hoyo) the collab came first then Lucilla was released that version also. So neither HSR or Wuwa have made standalone collab banners.

SO it stands to reason that we SHOULD get a new character in 4.8. Whether that's Sampo (PLEASE) or otherwise.

Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want.

there is no bird with legs in nihilux’s reveal. this is the same bird that in the “its showtime” trailer, mocks/mimics sampo for not being able to find the mask sitting on his face and calling out for it. I dont know what this could mean or if the bird itself is a reference but the rest of the aeonic image is accurate so why take this out? Is it a reflection of Sampo since it does mimic him? Average sampo enjoyer thoughts.

I wrote this up before 4.5, and I’m still uploading it because it's not over until EOS. 

The Invalid Rating

The thing that initially made others and myself suspect Sampo could be Aha, aside from breaking the 4th wall at the end of Belobog, came with the rating pistol in Herta’s Space Station. It assigns a seemingly random number to whatever character you have out, except for Emanators, generals, children of Anasrava, and Phainon, who all get an “invalid” rating. Sampo is the ONLY four-star, non–Astral Express character in the game who gets that same invalid rating, and three years in, we still have no explanation for it.

An invalid rating alone doesn’t prove he’s Aha, but it does make him a candidate. Look at Cyrene, who gets the same rating. She gazed upon the Trailblazer, granted them Remembrance powers, and was eventually shown to us as Fuli. If a fragment of an Aeon reads as “invalid,” it’s fair to reason a mask of Aha or an Aeon in disguise would get that rating too. And Sampo is a fairly strong emanator. 

Powers No Emanator Should Have

Sampo demonstrates abilities beyond what his cover story allows:

• He teleports and shapeshifts without his mask with casual control. Once he got his mask back, he started crossing dimensions.
• He’s the only character present in both the HI3 and Fate collabs, and Fate confirmed he independently traveled the Imaginary Tree; he’s the one who took the goblet and sold it to Old Oti.
• Julian, the shapeshifting kid in Hook’s gang, has powers no one ever explains. You know who Hook hangs out with who’s associated with shapeshifting? Aha was known to hand out powers randomly, for fun. The only other people we hear giving out an aeon's powers are Marshal Hua and Diamond. 
• At the end of Masquerade Duet, Black Swan wipes his memories,  and he remarks that the place looks like Belobog. He’s traveled the cosmos before settling down in Belobog and thinks Golden Hour looks like Belobog? He’s faking it. He also managed to get into your dreams without trying and left a memory bubble behind after you beat the Aetherium Wars, which he also gets rid of without ever showing up. He’s on par with or stronger than Memokeepers, individuals of another path.

Boothill Met an Emanator of elation.

At the end of Masquerade Duet, Sampo leaves Penacony to go retrieve his mask. In version 2.2, Boothill mentions he ran into an Emanator of Elation. It’s almost certainly not Silver Wolf , she doesn’t go anywhere in person, and why would she be at a bar announcing her Emanator status? It’s probably not Nihilux either; she interacts with us through Memokeepers. So why did the writers put Sampo’s departure, right after something as significant as getting his mask back happened, and Boothill’s elation Emanator encounter in such quick succession, if we weren’t supposed to connect those two events?

Boothill also refers to this Emanator with they/them pronouns. That’s not the only time. In the daily mission “On the Doorsteps of Science,” the writers use “they” for Sampo too, and it’s not like they’re hiding that Sampo presents as a man. They call him handsome. So why use the same pronouns as an aeon twice? Sure, Sampo uses disguises, but so does Sparkle, and no one uses they/them for her.  

Sampo has also had a surprisingly strong presence throughout the game since he has had a cameo on every planet so far, along with an occurrence in DU/SU

1. Xianzhou
2. Penacony 
3. Amphoreous 

This is a pretty weird thing to include if he’s just some nobody. Compare him to other 4*s who never see the light of day after their version ends. It's not like they couldn’t have taken the time and resources to use them on a more popular character or one they wanted to promote more. To add to that, he’s always present in the first version of the new planet; the writers make sure to let you know he’s there and made himself comfortable before you do. 

Aha’s Laughter Follows Sampo Around

Along that same vein, Aha’s laughter can be heard in the Phantylia fight. This is the same fight which takes place after a mission confirming Sampo is on the Luofu, actively and openly watching you. Now compare every final boss fight since:

• Penacony: Sampo left the planet in 2.0 after Masquerade Duet. No laughter.
• Amphoreus: Sampo’s cameo is as an NPC disguised as Akmonides, who plays along with denying any connection to the outside world. He also shows up if you get really drunk, but this may be a hallucination since he doesn’t talk. Either way, he is alluded to being here, and again there is no laughter during the boss fights. 
• Planarcadia: It’s implied Sampo left after 4.0. No laughter during those fights either. While he did briefly show up at the tavern in 4.4, he did say he was trying to fulfill a customer order, meaning he likely left after getting his lightbulb back from Sparxie to fulfill it, and we don’t see him again until after the Asat fight, with there also being no laughter heard during that or any of the other fights. 

All of these fights were incredibly significant to the safety of the universe, and in Planarcadia’s case, to Aha’s own fate. Why would Aha only show up to the one where we, the players, had confirmation Sampo was in the area and knew about his identity as a higher-ranking masked fool? I have to question why this was the only fight this happened in and why the developers added this. You have to turn the music off and idle in order to hear the laughter, so what were the writers trying to hint at in the story by adding this? Why did the writers make it so the first mission you play through ends with an emanator level masked fool talking to you directly, showing him following you around off his original planet, and that these are the only conditions where you can hear Aha’s laughter? I can only reason that it's because there’s a special connection between Sampo and Aha.

Not only does he have an appearance on every planet he He’s traveling across the imaginary tree. So far Sampo’s also been 

1. The final boss of the Honkai Impact collab 
2. The person who managed to get his hands on and sold the Holy Grail to old Oti in Penacony to start the Fate collab 
3. He was the character they used in the real charity event they held at the end of 4.4

Of note in the HI3 collab Sampo is not only the one implied to bring Sparkle there, is not only the final boss, but is represented by two Joker cards, a big Joker and little Joker which matches Aha’s cards and masks. There has been speculation that Zagreus’ weakened form is foreshadowing for Aha’s fate which could translate into a “little” and “big” or complete form. 

Otherwise, there’s only one place Sampo’s not allowed to go: the Astral Express. 

He’s Banned From the Express

Sampo is the only Belobog character without a visitor verification pass. He never shows up as a guest on the express, and there’s no explanation asto why. It’s not because he’s a Masked Fool; Sparkle can visit. It’s not bad blood; Sparxie was allowed aboard in the same patch she tried to mind-control all of Planarcadia, and Topaz, who was seconds from attacking the crew in Belobog, is allowed on.  They let Sunday join. But not the guy who saved the Trailblazer three times and apologized when he upset them? Himeko even says it’s nice to see him again at the tavern in 4.0; they’re clearly on good terms.

And this system is lore-relevant: Luocha stops appearing after the Luofu arc, and Robin never spawns in the party car with Sunday after he joins. The devs maintain it deliberately, so the writers are intentionally keeping Sampo off the Express. The only explanation that makes sense is that he chooses not to board. Why? Maybe he’s being considerate; maybe he knows Aha and Enroute have bad reputations on the Express, and it would upset Pom-Pom to see an emanator-level masked fool, who, just like Aha, is also a shady businessman. 

>!After 4.5 we saw that Pom Pom got upset when Asat’s head showed up, showing that they’re capable of holding a grudge too!<

Same Habits, Same Handwriting, Same Hatred of Debt

The 4.1 update gave us Aha’s itemized debt statement,  a list of every expense THEY racked up while disguised as a Nameless, which Pom-Pom plans to use as blackmail to make Aha lead the anti-destruction alliance. An itemized list, from the god of chaos? That’s the habit of someone who tracks inventory and orders professionally, someone like a merchant, a salesperson, a business owner. Someone who, say, runs a company renting out mining equipment like Sampo. 

And the parallel goes deeper. Pom-Pom says Aha hates owing a debt. Compare Natasha’s line,  one of the very few things the game tells us outright about Sampo: “If I know Sampo, the last thing he wants is to owe you a favor; he’ll think of any way possible to pay you back… The longer you leave a favor, the harder it is to calculate its value.” Two individuals from the same faction, both meticulous about tracking their dealings, both despite their mysterious backgrounds known to despise owing anyone anything.

Even the handwriting matches. Aha’s signature is messy and hard to read. In Farther Than the Snow Plains, Lynx finds a box Sampo recently left behind and can’t make out the name on it; it wasn’t weathered since she says it was placed there recently; it could be that he just has bad handwriting. His labels in the Cold Feet pop-up shop are equally messy. Since he’s sending the orders to other planets, he's likely using the universal standard script for the rest of the label, so I’d assume his signature would be in the same language. If you can make out what it says, be my guest, but I wouldn't be surprised if the con artist who walks in a way that doesn’t leave footprints intentionally makes his handwriting hard to read so people can’t trace him. This is an oddly specific pair of traits to share. 

And Hoyo straight-up depicts Aha as a businessman multiple times. In the lead-up to 4.0, we got the trailer The Search for Aha, when people are asked if they’ve seen Aha, someone mentions a merchant who showed up at the tavern. In the first Divergent Universe reset of Planarcadia, we got an icon of Aha, signature big-forehead mask and all,  in a business suit, typing at a computer, literally titled “Aha Working.” Before that, the It’s Showtime lightcone showed Aha’s masks in suits alongside Sampo, another businessman in a suit. Meanwhile, Sparkle’s doll is in her regular outfit, but Sampo is in a suit? The lightcone also features Sparkle in an outfit that resembles her HI3 skin before it was released, and the description can be interpreted as foreshadowing that she was the one to kill Robin. That’s three separate depictions of Aha as a businessman. Why draw suits on the masks? Why make the god of chaos’s profile picture a guy at a desk? Why depict Aha as a businessman, something so antithetical to chaos, hedonism, and elation, and something so associated with Sampo? And the similarities don’t end there. 

They’re Both Burnt Out  At the Same Time

Planarcadia establishes through Asat and others that Aha is exhausted: THEY keep bringing up wanting to give up their role, questioning whether THEY’re even happy anymore. Aha is one of the oldest Aeons; THEY must have loved this once, or THEY’d have handed off the power ages ago.

Compare this to Sampo’s daily text, where he laments wanting to retire to a simpler life but can’t because he has “mouths to feed.” On the surface, it’s about Natasha, Hook, and the underworld orphans. But replace “Sampo” with “Aha,” and it’s a 1:1 description of Aha’s attitude toward the Phantasmoon games and Aeonhood: tired of the job, trying to give away the responsibility, unable to walk away because THEY have to feed the mouths of Oroboros beneath the planet. When you get a call from Sampo in the Mary phone booths, Sampo talks about wanting a vacation, just as En Route reports Aha wants a break. Four patches before Asat spells out Aha’s exhaustion in 4.4, Sampo literally burns himself out into a pile of ash in the Cosmicon collective. Sampo even says at the end of Belobog he doesn’t want to go back to Epsilon because it’s not fun there, and we know Aha isn’t having fun either.

Compare other Emanators: Herta, Silver Wolf, Acheron; sure, they share ideals with their Aeon. But going through the exact same midlife crisis at exactly the same time?

The Kalevala: They Gave Him Aha’s Origin Story as a Name

Both Sampo and Aha connect directly to the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. The myth centers on the hero Väinämöinen and his brother Ilmarinen, a blacksmith who makes the Sampo Mill. In the chapter where the magical Sampo mill is forged, Väinämöinen climbs a mythical golden fir tree, which parallels Aha’s ascension story of climbing the Imaginary Tree.

It gets more specific in 4.0. When Sparkle discusses Aha’s origins, listen to the language: the tree of existence, turning like machinery. That’s mill language, spinning,  machinery, that doesn’t describe the tree Aha just climbed, and this phrasing specifically evokes the Finnish depiction of the world pillar, not just the generic Norse world tree. In the same update yao Guang also use this phrasing the same words “spinning” and “machinery.” Now, it’s understandable that Sampo the character draws on Finnish myth; Belobog blends Russian and Finnish influences. But Aha has no reason to be tied to the Kalevala, unless the connection is the point. Isn’t it strange that there’s a Masked Fool with an invalid rating, banned from the Express, following us to every planet, who is named after the very myth that inspired Aha’s origin story? And “Sampo” is not a common name. Additionally, the Kalevala did inspire parts of the story. Not only does Sampo sing part of the real poem at the end of his pop-up shop event, but in the war dance arc they mention an entire planet called Kalevala, that's depicted as cold just like the real Finland. (Welt is also part Finnish) 

There’s even a payoff detail later: the legendary Sampo mill was known to produce gold indefinitely, and Nanook’s wound eternally leaks golden blood. 

The Fool Who Wounded Nanook

The readable from Herta’s Space Station A Fool’s Play: Calamity’s Wrath Seeks Olden Clash, Fool’s Blade Rends Divine Flesh_A_Fool%27s_Play:_Calamity%27s_Wrath_Seeks_Olden_Clash,_Fool%27s_Blade_Rends_Divine_Flesh) says a Masked Fool battled Nanook for seven days and nights until “golden ichor seeped out of THEIR divine body.” But in Nihilux’s video, it’s Aha, dressed in a woman’s mourning outfit, who stabs Nanook. Isn’t it strange how a mere Masked Fool could permanently wound Nanook when Phainon’s scratch against THEM healed instantly? The contradiction is resolved if the “fool” was an Aeon in disguise. Yes, the video is Nihilux’s fanfic, but this is the same studio that hid the number of Amphoreus cycles in a joke video.

The details are Sampo-coded too. Aha’s weapon is a dagger, the exact same weapon Firefly identified Sampo as proficient with before she even knew him. Aha stabs Nanook mid-negotiation, after THEY let their guard down- a betrayal. The game tells us over and over not to trust Sampo; his lore keeps circling back to the idea that he’ll betray those close to him. Aha crossdressing? Sampo’s character story, the first big exploration of who a character is, revolves around him crossdressing to steal spices. And again the golden ichor loops back to the Kalevala: the Sampo mill was meant to produce a stream of gold forever. Sampo’s also one of the few people that talks about Nanook directly, with Nanook being one of the reasons he started the Cosmicon game. 

Aha’s Fables Read Like Sampo Stories

Looking at other pieces of information we got about Aha, there are more connections: 

This DU description states Aha likes to get beaten up. Sampo lets himself get kicked at least twice. 

The new readable Aha’s Fables makes the overlap almost explicit.

In the New Londinium tale, Aha is disguised as a beggar napping by the roadside when a guard jabs THEM with a rifle butt, and Aha responds by detonating the entire planet. 

Aha was disguised as a beggar, napping by the roadside, when a guard gave THEM a sharp jab with his rifle butt.

"By The Laughter above! The President is passing through. Don't you dare ruin the joyful mood."

Aha just rolled over, yawned, and detonated the entire planet.

"By The Laughter right here! Aha is passing through. Don't you dare ruin the joyful mood."

This is nearly a 1:1 of our first meeting with Sampo, where Dan Heng stabs him in the butt. And the framing matches how Sampo lives: Aha is an Aeon who chose to be a beggar, belittled and disrespected. Sampo can materialize objects from thin air, teleport, cross universes, and shapeshift, and he chooses to live in trash cans on a backwater planet, taunting the Silvermane Guards and committing petty crimes. 

He describes his own past as colorful and hot-blooded, with a background in explosives; blowing up a planet fits the résumé he’s not evil by this world’s standards; look at his charity work, but if being a thief and mercenary doesn’t count as part of his colorful past, maybe a planet does.

There are also a few times when Sampo does get genuinely upset, but then pulls it back into his docile persona, such as during the Everwinter museum event when his accomplice loses the money.  He literally lets the Sampo mask slip. 

In the Glass Belt tale, a Mourning Actor finds Aha by doing the opposite of THEIR followers: “Your followers seek you where the laughter is loudest, but I did the opposite.” Now recall Sampo at the end of the Jarilo finale: “Oh, Epsilon? Pff. What fun can you get out of a giant vanity fair like that?” That’s someone who deliberately avoids where the laughter is loudest, the exact behavior the fable describes as Aha’s hiding strategy, and what could be more opposite to a place where the laughter is the loudest than a frozen, isolated, forgotten planet where half of the population was banished underground and fighting monsters.

One of the divergent universe occurrences about Ahas doll states Aha likes to get beat up. Sampo, the invalid rating entity who can teleport and disguise himself, let’s himself get beat up by Topaz and Sparkle, with both of them kicking him in the butt with his ass up.

The Visual Evidence

Looking at visual hints, Sampo and Aha share a silhouette; Hoyo reuses models, sure, but it's distinctly male, and that’s not Yanqing behind the masks. His E6 was really easy to edit onto Aha; they have the same arms-back, head-slightly-tilted pose, no slouching, no knees-to-chest like other characters. If E6 art represents a character at their most vulnerable, his most vulnerable self stands exactly like Aha. Both were launch-era designs too, so they weren’t limited in the different poses they could have used. And if they revealed Sampo as Aha, wouldn’t it make for pretty good foreshadowing that one of the few aeons with a human body was standing in the same pose as Sampo?  

Sampo’s main outfit is more subtle, diamond pupils matching Aha’s cards, snake motifs on his shoulders when Aha is in conflict with the Voracity. It's not a lot, but if you can tell who someone is behind their costume just by looking, it’s a bad disguise. 

Sampo Is the Blueprint for Elation

For this next part, I’m going to ask you to bear with me because I know it seems like a stretch at first, but there is a payoff. 

Every Fool and Elation pathstrider we meet shares at least one trait with Sampo, as if he’s the original and they’re the variations. Everything we see a masked fool or someone tied to Elation do, Sampo did it first. 

1. Nihilux, Sparxie, and Giovanni all run businesses; Sampo is the first businessman Fool we meet.
2. Nihilux copies his splash almost 1:1, with them both jumping from tall buildings at night; even Sampo’s splash has a full moon, and Planarcadia’s events take place when the phantasmoon is full. He was also shown to be into painting during the first room decor event. 
3. Sparkle uses her powers pretty liberally, but Sampo has greater control of them, like pushing that into other dimensions; they’re both also fairly theatrical, talking about audiences and working behind the scenes. Sampo originated the butt-in-the-air pose; Sparkle and Sparxie copy it. Sparkle’s bombs are just fireworks; Sampo was the first person to fake us out with a neutrino bomb on the luofu, before Sparkle. 
4. SW999, Giovanni, and Sampo are all gamers.
5. Asat’s favorite game is Sampo’s card game, and both invoke “the dignity of mankind” when discussing Elation; they care deeply about children tied to the fire element 
6. SW999 and Sparkle inherited his bomb motif, and bombs are core to Sampo’s kit and lore (his technique, his ultimate, the bombs he plants on the Luofu, the two escapes he covered for us), where for the others it’s a gag. Aha, notably, was the first character to use bombs, on the Express.
7. Cipher is a scammer who takes care of orphans just like him. 
8. Even the converted characters fit: Evanescia follows Abundance, and the Sampo mill milled flour; wheat is the Abundance’s symbol. Yaoguang shares his blue-and-white palette, and we know Aeons have color preferences.

You could call all that coincidence; pathstriders resembling each other is expected, so this isn’t special. I thought so too, until Zhongshan’s 4.0 redesign. 

When the devs redesigned her for Planarcadia, her new outfit became a more modest version of Sampo’s clothes: a red cropped open jacket over a gray undershirt, blue strands in her hair, dark blue pants and more. They could have pulled from any of Planarcadia’s themes: cute streamers, cyberpunk, school teacher, artist, hospital themed. They didn’t even need to redesign her, yet they chose to dress an Elation-planet NPC as Sampo. This is the same game that made callbacks to March’s umbrella, planted Zandar lore in the very first location you load into, and foreshadowed a new Express member by counting down to six in the theme song. They love this stuff. Sampo is the blueprint for all other Elation members; the only way that makes sense is if he himself is the Elation and picking people he sees himself in, just like all the other aeons. 

Quick Hits

A few more, briefly, because the pile matters even when the pebbles are small. He leaves no footprints on any planet; a 4.3 bug briefly showed them, and the devs patched it out, meaning they actively maintain the joke across four planets when they could’ve retired it in Belobog. At the same time, he also has suspicious animations for his overworld attacks and, as others have noted, his downed states. He was the first character to explicitly break the fourth wall, at the end of the Jarilo arc, and has done it repeatedly since, including addressing the player base directly in the Fate collab. Aha has a million masks; Sampo has the most known aliases in the game: Mr. Cold Feet, Trash King, Brughel Poission, outnumbering even Sparkle. The new Elation emblem in the currency wars update is made from trash,  the same trash-bag asset tied to Sampo’s Trash King bit from the removed Belobog daily and the Penacony dream scene, when a party hat or sparkler would’ve read as “Elation” far more naturally. He shows his age: calls himself an old-timer, complains about knee pain and grey hairs, fitting for a human form of one of the oldest Aeons. Both are painters (Sampo gives you different paintings; Aha painted the Phantasmoon). Both cook, both crossdress, both made card games. And Sampo embodies Elation’s core theme of duality better than anyone: he lives in the trash and, per his signature lightcone, is one of the richest men in Belobog; he’s canonically good with children, donates to Natasha’s clinic, and has saved us three times, yet keeps a reputation as greedy and untrustworthy. Sampo has been shown to produce helpful tools at random while Aha’s laugh in the Blisstar gives whoever sticks their hand in what will help them in their situation. 

The item Lucent Afterglow features exactly three characters: March, Herta, and Sampo. March and Herta make sense as early companions and characters at launch were limited, but they’re also both Emanator-tier figures with alters (March has Evernight, Herta has her puppets), and their lightcone descriptions talk about new beginnings. If that’s the pattern, what’s Sampo’s alter? The item description says these memories are precious to the Garden of Recollection, and we’ve seen Memokeepers chase the pure seeds of Anasrava like March and try to enter Herta’s mind. If Sampo is a mask of one of the oldest Aeons, filled with joys and sorrows, of course his memories would be precious to them. Recent beta files also showed that he was inspired by Loki, the god of chaos and mischief who shapeshifts and crossdresses. 

Addressing the Leaks

>!“Nihilux is Aha.” Aha has countless masks. There’s no reason Sampo can’t be one of them too. If Dan Heng can get four forms, and Fuli can have two children of Anasrava, we can have two Ahas. Personally, I think Sampo might be the earliest mask of Aha, and that's where the Kalevala connection comes in!<

So Why Isn’t He Doing Anything?

Given all this, it’s weird that Sampo has played no significant role in Planarcadia, but it’s in character for both of them. Aha isn’t one for responsibility: Nihilux says Aha isn’t on Planarcadia in 4.1, Himeko never got to meet Aha after winning (someone else handled it), and the entity that helped Silver Wolf says Aha doesn’t care where THEIR gifts land. Sampo bailing during hard times was one of the first things he ever did, during Gepard’s fight, when we first return to the overworld, and he outright says he’s on a break. They both only show up when they feel like it: Aha joins in when THEY want to as stated in the Aha instant description; Sampo said he’s on vacation when he calls you through the Mary phone in 4.0. 

And honestly, it’s probably just not time in the story. The game is three years old; Genshin is approaching its sixth anniversary and HI3 its tenth. There are plenty of threads left: why Sampo wanted his mask back, the situation between Welt and Luocha, the Stellaron Hunters, the Galaxy Rangers, the IPC, Dr. Primitive, Jingliu and the Luofu, Amophroeous becoming real.. This isn’t Sampo’s arc yet, and with power creep where it is, we don’t need a playable Aeon yet either. My guess: he returns when we need to learn about Akivili, who was close with Aha, or what really happened between Akivili and Nanook, or simply what it takes to become an Aeon and why someone would want to give that up, but hey I’m not a writer. 

Customised the blank side of a heart ita bag to look like Sampo’s bomb case. Not showing the other side because it’s empty right now, but wish me luck in finding Sampo merch!