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Author Topic: Lore thread - Of Substance and Spirit - Think we're ready to make characters?  (Read 17426 times)

Andres

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #90 on: March 04, 2015, 03:27:16 am »

I'm guessing the spirit will be able to notice all the stuff that goes on in the stomach and intestinal track and the various waste products and stuff. TBH, I don't know what it'll be like for the spirit so I'm just assuming the worst. The point is that whoever plays the spirit can't just be like "Ew, fleshbags are gross!" once and then never bring it up again. This is supposed to be the major reason why spirits don't like bonding, right? If we only see it come up in a minor way, then it won't be very believable if you present this obstacle as the reason why a vast majority of spirits don't get a host.
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Harry Baldman

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #91 on: March 04, 2015, 03:29:59 am »

Hm, hosting.


As for what a spirit chooses to be like in their own world (near the pathway where such things have meaning) is usually inspired from the mortal world, whether it be a form that waves like a flag and shines like a neon sign, or a real-world concept like Demogorgon, Lord of All That Swims in Darkness, or even a lowly demonic imp in an imagined hierarchy (perhaps forced or even willingly playing into such a role at the behest of their fellow spirits). One would think that this roleplayed mirror of reality would not hold that much sway over a spirit's psyche, but if conversations reveal anything, it is that they suspend disbelief to a degree unheard of by humanity - their token measure of structure on the other side is literally the only thing they can hold on to there that anchors them to any sort of solid, lasting shape, a beacon that their chaotic mind uses to orient itself and form semi-coherent goals.

As for grossness, I don't suppose a human being would be much more awful to a spirit than, say, a potato would be to us, except with the respective bodily complexities reversed. We find the human body gross because it reminds us of our own culturally improper physiological functions, and its structures unnerving because to see them indicates that someone was gruesomely harmed to bring you the sight of them, reminding us of our own mortality. A spirit would have no such established reservations, I would guess. Perhaps they would be confused, being unfamiliar with it all. Or maybe they'd even find it cool. Do you find transpiration or guttation gross, for instance? Or absorption of water through roots? The process of shedding leaves? Pollination? Etiolation? It's only when you start to draw parallels to our own physiology that they can be understood as properly gross, which the spirits can't really do, what with having no physiology.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2015, 10:49:45 am by Harry Baldman »
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GiglameshDespair

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #92 on: March 04, 2015, 08:59:39 am »

I like Harry Baldman's ideas. +1 to those.
They make sense and sound interesting.
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WillowLuman

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #93 on: March 04, 2015, 02:56:12 pm »

I like a lot of that post, though I'll need some more time to properly think on it.

Re: ickiness: it's not so much gross in the way we see innards and viscera, more like they'd find something about the physicality itself gross (in which case they'd also probably find potatoes a bit gross, too).

EDIT: Had an idea for a potential running joke, where no one has been able to think of a technical name for what spirits are made of, or at least not a name that sticks. People would say things like "spirit stuff" or "spirit gunk" or "spiritiness," and people who try to use stuff like "aether" seem pretentious.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2015, 03:01:51 pm by HugoLuman »
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kj1225

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #94 on: March 04, 2015, 03:12:30 pm »

Ectoplasm

Ghost goop
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Andres

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #95 on: March 04, 2015, 05:34:24 pm »

Instead of making physicality gross, why don't you make it feel unnerving? These are non-physical beings becoming at least partially physical so it's definitely going to feel unnatural and possibly eldritch.
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kj1225

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #96 on: March 04, 2015, 11:10:05 pm »

Has anyone thought about other ways spirits could interact with the physical world? Like, talking to kids since kids are naturally more able to do stuff with spirits. Because seriously, kids can be fucking creepy.
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GiglameshDespair

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #97 on: March 05, 2015, 06:33:31 am »

Why would kids be able to talk to spirits more?
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Andres

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #98 on: March 05, 2015, 06:47:12 am »

It doesn't matter if there's a reason why kids can talk to spirits, we can't have it in. If we did, then we'd either have to make our protagonist a child or come up with some complex and totally unnecessary reason why our protagonist can talk to spirits even though she's not a child.
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kj1225

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #99 on: March 05, 2015, 09:00:27 am »

Why would kids be able to talk to spirits more?
They're less resistant to magical influence than adults. So when a spirit is talking to them they're more likely to hear it.

It doesn't matter if there's a reason why kids can talk to spirits, we can't have it in. If we did, then we'd either have to make our protagonist a child or come up with some complex and totally unnecessary reason why our protagonist can talk to spirits even though she's not a child.
Not true, the player characters simply found a way to make themselves more in tune with the spirit world and thus they're able to interact with spirits past childhood.
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GiglameshDespair

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #100 on: March 05, 2015, 09:16:01 am »

Why are they less resistant to magical influence?
We're designing solid reasons as to why things are as they are. Why are children arbitrarily more capable in hearing spirits?
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kj1225

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #101 on: March 05, 2015, 09:19:35 am »

Why are they less resistant to magical influence?
We're designing solid reasons as to why things are as they are. Why are children arbitrarily more capable in hearing spirits?
Why are certain people (I.e. the player characters) more able speak with spirits? Because they perhaps, noticed something that couldn't happen without spirits, or they made a realization about the world(s). Maybe they just never stopped being able to see spirits.
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GiglameshDespair

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #102 on: March 05, 2015, 09:27:47 am »

You like not actually answering questions, don't you?
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kj1225

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #103 on: March 05, 2015, 09:32:05 am »

Purely unintentional.
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Harry Baldman

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Re: Lore thread - as yet untitled potential urban fantasy game
« Reply #104 on: March 05, 2015, 09:47:08 am »

How about if children aren't necessarily more sensitive to spirits in any way, but spirits nevertheless often seek them out for a different reason?

A child, as I see it, is like any other human, but A) less learned in the ways of the world, B) used to putting implicit trust in others (parents, teachers, friends), C) less attached to conventional models of morality, D) usually not very clever. A spirit may feel much more comfortable approaching a child, especially if it has a plan that most humans would be hesitant being an accomplice to, or even if they're just afraid a more mature human is going to screw them over at some point. The relationship is easier to form, and so more than a few spirits have attained hosts in this manner - a fact that has not helped their publicity among humans in any way, especially given that spirits who gravitate toward children tend to be the more unstable, fundamentally alien types (not always in a bad way, mind you - one can be fundamentally alien and altruistic at the same time).

Instead of making physicality gross, why don't you make it feel unnerving? These are non-physical beings becoming at least partially physical so it's definitely going to feel unnatural and possibly eldritch.

A possible interpretation is that spirits who jump into humans see them for what they are - 37.2 trillion little units of life, blind and helpless individually, communicating almost purely through strategic discharges of minute amounts of an astounding variety of chemicals, integrated into a strange semblance of a spirit's intelligence. To them, we are like a mixture of The Worm That Walks and a nanotech Rube Goldberg device, while they comprise only one indivisible functional unit, being adapted incarnations of homogenous chaos.
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