Application review and appreciation topic + Lore Q&A

A year ago I created an app for a species called "Spirits". This was a Halloween species that was made at the same time as Spoopers (which you can see above). I GOT THE IDEA AFTER PUMPKIN POSTED IN FORTUNERDS CHAT, BACK WHEN FORTUNERDS CHAT WAS A THING,

[9/23/2015 8:30:24 PM] an unholy demigod joaje: now I want to make a species with competitive Halloween romance

I didn't know Pumpkin was actually following through with this idea and making another app for a Halloween species at the same time, and we made these separately without realizing until later.

I ended up scrapping this app because I think I ended up going too crazy with it and created a system for how souls function in Fortuna as well as the species, which I realized was probably overstepping my boundaries. Since the species was based heavily on these soul mechanics, and since another Halloween species was being made, I scrapped it altogether.

Even though this is a scrapped app, I'm not putting it in the up for grabs topic, as I don't want people to co-opt this. Pumpkin can co-opt some of this for Spoopers if you want though, I guess.

Anyway, I'm talking too much. Here's the app:

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SpoilerName: Spirits

Physical description: Spirits are immaterial pieces of consciousness, and therefore do not have a physical form when in this state. However, in their physical form, they take the form of a floating jack-o-lantern. Most spirits also use telekinesis to keep a cloak underneath them, in such a way that it looks like they were wearing a cloak. You can distinguish different spirits apart by the color of the light in their jack-o-lantern, as well as the kind of cloak they choose to wear.

Diet: Being balls of consciousness they do not require any food.

Personality & Traits: In their initial form, spirits are simply pieces of consciousness with no physical form; able to go anywhere but unable to affect the physical world in any way. A spirit's physical form is attained at its homeworld, Pumpville, where pumpkins tailored to having spirits inhabit them are grown. Spirits who live here ready pumpkins for inhabitance by carving faces in them. Spirit sages then perform a "rebirthing ritual" in which spirits connect with their pumpkins for the first time. Connecting with their pumpkin gives a spirit more strength, allowing it to perform telepathy and telekinesis to interact with the physical world.

In their physical form, pumpkins can perform telekinesis. This telekinesis is not strong, as all of a spirit's energy comes from a pumpkin, so a spirit can usually only control a few items at once in addition to their pumpkin head and cloak. Basically, their telekinesis doesn't let them do anything to objects that a regular physical being wouldn't be able to do with their hands. They also cannot use their telekinesis to move other beings, as they cannot affect other souls. However, they can use it on robots.

Spirits with a pumpkin can also use telepathy, allowing them to psychically communicate with other beings. They can communicate with any soul no matter where they are; however they are not able to communicate with people whose soul they don't recognize, as they simply don't know who to look for. They also cannot transmit their thoughts to robots, meaning they must find other ways to communicate with them.

When a spirit connects with a pumpkin, the extra energy they received causes them to emit light, making it look as if a flame is burning inside the pumpkin. The color of this light is determined by a spirit's aura, and it therefore varies from spirit to spirit.

A spirit is able to make facial expressions due to the holes that are carved into its pumpkin on Pumpville. While the facial expression of a jack-o-lantern cannot usually be changed, when it is linked to a spirit, the spirit is able to use telepathy to change the surface of the pumpkin into the facial expressions it wants. Pumpville pumpkins are grown with malleable skin in order to make this possible.

Spirits are able to leave their pumpkins, but only for a few hours at a time, lest their pumpkin starts to rot after being separated from the spirit's life energy. Although they do not need to sleep, spirits often leave their pumpkins at nighttime when others have gone to bed, so that they can explore around them without any physical limitations. Once spirits have been rebirthed into their pumpkin, they gain an innate connection to it, and so will always be able to find it again now matter how far they roam. This innate connection also prevent other spirits from using or moving another's pumpkin when the spirit leaves it.

In physical world terms, a spirit is considered "dead" (AKA no longer able to interact with the physical world) when its pumpkin is destroyed. Due to the energy exchange between a spirit and its pumpkin, the pumpkin will never rot, but it can be destroyed by any normal physical means. While the pumpkin's cultivation and extra energy does make it more resilient than a regular pumpkin, it's still a pumpkin and can still be destroyed by anything that would kill another person.
When a spirit's pumpkin is destroyed, the spirit still exists, but it loses its ability to interact with the physical world. While a spirit is technically able to get another, they would have to go to Pumpville to do so which may be lightyears away from where they died. In addition, getting a second pumpkin is frowned upon by spirits, as it is seen as taking away resources for new spirits. Spirits with a second pumpkin have also remarked that it "just doesn't feel the same" and often lose the zeal they had to interact with physical life because of it, which is the whole reason spirits get pumpkins in the first place. As such, when a spirit loses their pumpkin, they no longer see living in the physical world as a possibility, and so simply see it as "their time", and let their souls be dispersed into energy throughout the universe like what they believe happens to physical being's souls. As such, if a spirit's pumpkin is destroyed you should consider them dead.

Spirits can sense souls, meaning they are able to tell when other beings are nearby. This also means they are able to detect spirits who lack a physical form. They can also recognize a person's soul meaning that if they've met someone before they will know who they are just by their soul.

Spirits believe in a sort of energy that is dispersed throughout the universe. They say that when any living being dies, their soul is dispersed into this energy that then spreads throughout the universe. Whenever this energy is concentrated, it turns into a new soul, and this happens whenever a being is born. However, with all of this energy flowing throughout, it sometimes also happens by itself randomly, and a soul is formed randomly without a body. This, they say, is how spirits are born.

Spirits are often amoral, as they place heavy significance on the flow of energy throughout the universe, and believe that the physical world doesn't matter as much. Spirits can of course form opinions and start caring about "physical matters" as they call it but in general spirits view physical issues as insignificant. They are simply in it for the experience.

Home Planet: Pumpville, a planet solely devoted to growing pumpkins for new spirits and suiting them up for their journey into the physical world, and the only inhabitants are spirits who have chosen to take on these duties.

People have said that the name is kind of weird, but spirits named it that way to make it distinct. You won't have any trouble remembering that Pumpville is the pumpkin planet for spirits.

History: Older spirits claim that spirits have existed since the universe has, but that they failed to make themselves known due to the fact that they cannot interact with the physical world. They say that the most they can do in that form is make people get a weird feeling they were being watched. Once, it is said that a spirit found a pumpkin patch, and soon discovered that due to the chemistry of the pumpkin, they were able to form a symbiotic relationship. The spirit's life energy let the pumpkin stay fresh off of its stem, and the pumpkin's energy granted the spirit more power, letting it perform telepathy and telekinesis. This made it so that the spirit would be able to interact with the physical world. Over time, a colony of spirits settled on the pumpkin patch planet and cultivated it to grow pumpkins for more spirits. It soon became standard to carve faces in pumpkins that spirits chose, so that they would be able to communicate emotion to other beings, and to "wear" cloaks to make them more distinct. With their new physical forms, spirits quickly redispersed throughout the universe they came from, eager to interact with the physical world they had been exploring for so long.