Catherine the Great (Honkai Impact 3rd)

"A great wind is blowing and that either gives you imagination...or a headache."

- Catherine the Great.

Born as Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, later known as Catherine II and Catherine the Great was a real-life figure who served as the Empress of Russia from 1762 until 1796, the country's longest-ruling female leader and serves as posthumorous villainous figure in Honkai Impact 3 mobile game. In-game, she is one of the many Stigmata the player can use to buff the playable Valkyries, gaining some of her past abilities as a Valkyrie.

When she uncovered the secrets of the Houkai she started a coup d'état which she organized—resulting in her husband, Peter III of Russia, being overthrown and assassinated by her military forces. Under her reign, the Empire of Russia was revitalized from a weak and poor country and grew larger, stronger and was recognized as one of the great powers of Europe, so much she transformed her nation into a fearsome war-machine.

Data Files

 * Activity: Russia
 * Stats: True Neutral (later Lawful Evil)
 * Area of Achievement: Politics and military
 * Height: 173cm
 * Weight: 56kg
 * Place of Birth: Prussia

Synopsis
Ekaterina was a legendary lady who hailed from a noble yet unassuming Prussian family but became the great Empress of Russia. With blood and iron, she molded Russia into a great power that the rest of Europe feared. Before her arrival at Russia, the country was plagued by many weaknesses. Its bureaucracy was corrupt. Natural disasters struck often and a mysterious horde of white-colored beasts devastated the northern villages.

As the consort of the heir to the Russia throne, Ekaterina devoted herself to mastering the Russian language to become part of her adopted land. But this was the act that ignited her dormant passions. Ekaterina spent countless nights in the libraries of St. Petersburg to read through massive tomes and ancient scrolls. It was during these studies that she uncovered the "Houkai", a supernatural phenomenon and humanity's greatest enemy.

The aging, fragile parchment revealed to Ekaterina dark secrets from the past. An unimaginable power from eons past lurked in the unforgiving tundras north of the Ural Mountains. The Gods placed a barrier here to contain the "White Horde" that threatened to consume the southern lands. Ekaterina realized that the barrier may have failed at some point. The only hope for Russia was to unearth "Soulium" weapons buried with ancient heroes in ice-covered ruins.

Yet most people thought these discoveries to be preposterous. Ekaterina, on the other hand, did everything she could to see things through. She toiled restlessly and established a powerful clique loyal to her. She then forced her husband to abdicate the throne in a brutal coup d'etat and became the Empress of Russia after executing her husband. The Empire was transformed into an effective war-machine using slavery to stop the White Horde.

Only scant records, rumors, and hearsay of the Empress's Northern Campaign survived to this day. But the Empress came back with carapaces, wing shells, fangs, and other monstrous body parts, as well as over a hundred pieces of weapons later known as "Perun's Arsenal". These weapons were reputed to be crafted by the gods. The campaign changed Ekaterina to the core and her well-intentioned ruler persona became an aggressive and ruthless tyrant. She became cruel and avaricious. People guessed that something in the war changed her.

Probably like her original real-life counterpart, she died when she had suffered a stroke.

Trivia

 * Many parts of her background were altered by the company to avoid too much contraversy around her original real-life counterpart.
 * Catherine is the only Russian Stigamata present in game while Cocolia is actually "Sovietic" and Herrscher of the Void is Belarusian.