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[kj1225]

To be honest I don't have any other ideas that would fit with the detective stuff and pain magic stuff.

[WillowLuman]

The how is rather important. Was she a young spirit, not fully formed and having trouble drawing inspiration until she encountered Hannah? Being unformed and naive might explain her wandering into a mental institution, a place full of humans. On that note, we might want to include in the lore than, in general, spirits try (not always successfully) to keep newborn spirits away from humans, to avoid them doing something conspicuous.

[Harry Baldman]

The how is rather important. Was she a young spirit, not fully formed and having trouble drawing inspiration until she encountered Hannah? Being unformed and naive might explain her wandering into a mental institution, a place full of humans. On that note, we might want to include in the lore than, in general, spirits try (not always successfully) to keep newborn spirits away from humans, to avoid them doing something conspicuous.

Here is an important question that I believe may be part of the entire issue - are spirits invisible? Selectively or otherwise? I'll get to the other bits later, as it depends a lot on the answer to this very question.

And also, since spirits are, as far as I know, not supposed to know death at all, and also supposed to attain forms in connection with the material world (through structure diffusing into the spirit realm or through direct contact with the material world), wouldn't every spirit choosing a particular shape be a young spirit by definition? Before choosing its shape, every spirit is unformed, and after a shape is chosen, it forms the basis of the spirit's identity and can't really be altered without causing an identity crisis for the spirit in question.

And why would spirits make other spirits do anything at all outside of their own cliques ripped from the material world? They're chaotic creatures. Structure is antithetical to their being. It is fear of death that keeps them from overrunning the material world. And no spirit is in any way related to another spirit, or rather they're all equally related to the chaos stuff they randomly splinter off from. If the thousands-to-millions people in the city versus spirits ratio is true, then the spirit invasion into the regular world is still in its early stages, and that makes any organization even more unlikely.

The problem here is that, from what came before in the thread, you've created some amalgamation of what the setting should be in your head, similarly to how you did in the Dark Star, and you being the GM makes this the correct interpretation, but since this interpretation is also entirely unstated, anybody else can only guess at what that is based on your vague hints. So if you want my character to conform to your vision, I need to know what the exact vision is, since mostly in the thread you've been saying 'that could work' or 'I like this' without ever drawing up any semi-definite whole of what could work or what you feel is appropriate. Without such a thing I'm inevitably going to default to a cherry-picked version of what I like and you'll default to a cherry-picked version of what you like.

EDIT: With that in mind, you'll have to explain why the how is important. It's not practically important. It's not particularly socially important unless you've made up some kind of spirit society while I wasn't looking (see previous paragraph). The only thing it could be important for is if you're fishing for loose ends to use as hooks. Is that what you're doing?

[WillowLuman]

This is exactly why we need test characters: making them shows where the holes are. For the most part I've been saying "that could work" etc. since initially this was a very undeveloped idea, and I wanted (and still do want) to incorporate peoples' input, to make sure it's a setting other people will want to play in.

Spirits are not invisible by default (though perhaps some have the ability) but they are rather good at hiding, due to the ability to phase into objects (and other unorthodox things, like hiding in peoples' shadows). As for their shape, it sort of emerges in conjunction with their identity. As they start to decide who they are, they also decide what they look like, though the identity forming process (as in humans) is not an entirely voluntary one. Their appearance might change over time if their personality does, and most are able to change their appearance to some degree at will (though in either case this malleability varies greatly from spirit to spirit.)

As for any kind of society of theirs, well, spirits are sort of living contradictions. On one hand, they all emerge from unified formless chaos, on the other they've all become specific individuals, and just as there might be a human with a chaotic personality, there can be spirits with orderly ones. Among many other reasons, they don't have a society per se because they are relatively few (hundreds of thousands at the fewest) and spread out across the globe. However, they do have some general understandings and guidelines amongst themselves, based on mutual self interest. In their general experience, drawing attention from humans leads to trouble for them, and so often a spirit will try to keep other spirits in its area from being too conspicuous or otherwise messing things up. Some spirits have even decided to make it their business to go around trying to boss around other spirits. Of course, some spirits simply do not care what other spirits or humans do, some don't care about the consequences of their actions. And a rare few have even gone their whole existences without meeting another spirit.

Their numbers are much lower than those of humans mainly because new spirits come into the world at a far lower rate than new humans do. Though they can't age to death, they can still be killed (through means that still need to be worked out, though humans and other spirits would probably be the most common cause of death), and some of them just immigrate back to the spirit world. There are probably a lot more spirits there than in the physical world. I'm still not sure for how long the connections between the two worlds have existed.

[WillowLuman]

So, methods of killing spirits, aside from mental combat/attacks from other spirits?

[~Neri]

Could depend on the spirit.

[WillowLuman]

Spirits having unique weaknesses (as simple as elemental/conceptual opposites, for instance) makes sense, though I was thinking more generically. Should there be some kind of "kryptonite," some substance or physical process (electromagnetic, radiological, etc) that harms them? There will be humans in the know who make it their business to fight spirits, and the question is whether they're all highly trained (getting in close proximity to spirits, then tearing them apart with their minds) or if they can have less-trained goons equipped with special weapons.

[Gamerlord]

I'd say no to the blanket-solution weakness. Spirits... should be handled individually. Each should have it's own weaknesses that take time to puzzle out.

[GiglameshDespair]

I feel the concept of the spirit should also affect it's weakness. A spirit associated with cold, such as Glint, would be damaged by excessive forms of heat.

Maybe the spirit taking on the concept of a devil also takes on the concepts of a devil's weakness: i.e. crosses and holy water, etc.

[~Neri]

Or one who deals in illusions and altering perception could be harmed by upsetting its view of reality.

On a different note, will write up characters later.

[WillowLuman]

Not sure about symbols being able to harm spirits, since it's not so much they are whatever mythological entity, but that they resemble it. And may possibly have inspired it, depending on how far back the connection goes.

[WillowLuman]

I'd like to get this started this weekend, I just have some more planning to do. Though I have a sneaking suspicion that there may still be gaping holes in the lore that I haven't thought of, so more discussion of characters is probably warranted. I have a feeling that, no matter what, once the game thread starts, the first several pages will be taken up ironing out the PCs.
Anyway, here's a revised character sheet. I hope it clarifies some things. It will probably need further revision before it's ready.

Spirit
Name: Self-explanatory
Description: How the spirit often appears (it should be insubstantial in some way, like translucent or seeming to be made of light/energy, for instance), what their personality is.
Abilities: The magical spirity things the spirit can do, on their own. Spirits may have some abilities in common, but they have unique specialization and style. Some examples: energy projection, illusions, various ways of messing with matter, control over certain things, doing things with temperature. Get creative. Just bear in mind spirits have a hard time doing anything directly physical.
Human
Name:
Description: Physical and personality description. Their usual clothes, if you feel like it.
Abilities: Human skills. Athletic or strong? Smarts? People skills? Education or understanding of the world? Are they a fighter? Technical know-how? Professional?
Backstory:
The backstories of the human and the spirit, including how they met and how they came to form their bond. It's important to explain why they trust each other, despite the usual sentiments between humans and spirits. This can be for any number of reasons, including ignorance of said sentiments.
Combined Abilities:
What can they do while hosting? This is a spectacular power boost, more than just the sum of their individual capabilities. In general, the human body gets an all-round boost to physical capabilities and resilience, while the spirit's powers are amplified and become able to affect the material world in a much more direct way. It's relatively short-lived and spectacular, so feel free to think of some special effects for its duration.

[GiglameshDespair]

Not sure about symbols being able to harm spirits, since it's not so much they are whatever mythological entity, but that they resemble it. And may possibly have inspired it, depending on how far back the connection goes.

So have you decided what can harm spirits?
My idea was that spirits are concepts, first and foremost, or rather, they take on a concept to give themselves form. So taking on the concept of a devil would also take on their weaknesses, etc.

[WillowLuman]

Except it's possible a spirit might take on the image of the devil, without actually knowing too much about the devil. They might see the image used a lot in other contexts and form their image and identity from those associations.

I'm thinking the main way to harm spirits would be humans with strong/trained minds and other spirits, though things in opposition to a spirit's spheres could weaken or negate their powers. So, spirits with similar affinities could still harm each other. However, the whole idea of opposites gets a little muddy.

[~Neri]

I'll write up a character sheet soonish.