Varka is one of the many unreleased characters of Genshin Impact, who was never data mined but has been mentioned in-game since day 1, as the Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius of Mondstadt. Here's the story and lore we know about him so far.

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Who is Varka in Genshin Impact? Story and lore details

We first hear about Varka right when arriving in Mondstadt at the beginning of Genshin Impact, after meeting with the Knights of Favonius. Jean, the current leader of the Knights, is actually the Acting Grand Master, who's replacing Varka as he's leading an expedition of Knights. The expedition left half a year before the Traveler appeared in Mondstadt. We don't know exactly where the Knights went and when the expedition will come back.

There are parts of the world of Teyvat that aren't in the seven regions, like the Golden Island Archipelago which we could explore in Version 1.6. Or the Mare Jivari, the Silent Sea of Ashes, which is mentioned on several occasions in-game. The Knights probably went on an expedition to a similar place. It's possible that the Traveler will end up meeting the expedition at some point.

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Moreover, we also know that one of the objectives of the Knights of Favonius' expedition is to fight the Abyss Order. We most notably hear that from Glory, the blind girl waiting for her boyfriend to come back from the expedition. In the daily Commission Whispers in the Wind. This is just a guess, but we'll probably only meet Varka at the end of the Teyvat Story Chapter. When the fight against the Abyss Order should reach its climax.

As an additional side note, the V in Varka is pronounced like an F in all the Genshin Impact dubs besides English. In Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. So if you end up discussing Genshin Impact lore IRL one day, you might meet some players who pronounce his name Farka instead.

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Is Varka one of the Four Winds? Additional design, personality details from in-game voice lines

it's also important to note that miHoYo hasn't released any artwork or screenshot of Varka yet. We don't know anything about his character design, except that he's a very big, tall man. You might see fanart depicting Varka with grey hair, but he might as well be blond, for example. Many fans hope for Varka to be a buff, muscular type of character seeing all the playable male characters in Genshin Impact so far are thin-looking or Shota type of characters.

Varka is also the current Knight of Boreas, This is mentioned in both Barbara's and Childe's voice lines. (Jean and Barbara's father is also a member of the expedition). The Knight of Boreas title is the same title held by Andrius, the Wolf of the North, and one of the Four Winds. My personal guess is that Andrius had the title in the past but it now belongs to Varka, but without making him one of the Four Winds getting power from Barbatos.

Rosaria also mentions Varka is a very talkative person. He's also a very carefree person, a personality trait appreciated by Kaeya but disliked by Diluc. It looks like it's not the first time he goes on an expedition while making Jean take care of his work back at Mondstadt, but she doesn't dislike it. Thanks to Eula and Childe's voice lines, we also know that Varka is incredibly powerful, probably the strongest person in Mondstadt, and one of the strongest characters in all of Genshin Impact.

Will Varka be playable, when is he going to release? Weapon, Vision, rarity predictions

All the characters in Genshin Impact who have specific "About..." voice lines from other characters have become playable at some point. This means it's all but confirmed Varka will be playable in the future. Definitely as a 5-star character.

All the playable characters in Genshin Impact so far are either Vision holders or special characters who can use Elemental Energy without a Vision. Like the Traveler and the Archons. It's very likely Varka has an Anemo Vision as the Knight of Boreas. Or a Cryo Vision, seeing Andrius uses both Anemo and Cryo Elemental Energy.

Moreover, it's very likely Varka will be a Claymore character. Razor's voice lines reveal that Varka is the one who named him Razor and also gave him a Claymore (it's a bit vague in the English localization but it's clear in the Japanese localization). Last but not least, check out the description of 5-star Claymore weapon Wolf's Gravestone. It mentions that its wielder is the Knight of Boreas. This all hints that Varka will be a Claymore character.

Varka was never data-mined, though this doesn't necessarily mean anything. Some characters like Shenhe were data mined but never released. Varka could be released in Genshin Impact Version 2.3 for all we know, or it could take years. Only miHoYo has the answer.

That's all we know about Varka so far in Genshin Impact. Version 2.1 Floating World Under the Moonlight will release on September 1, coming to PC, PS4, PS5, and Mobile. A Switch version of the online JRPG is also in development. Be sure to check out our previous character lore post on Cyno, the representative character of Sumeru.