This week's entry of The Alola Pokedex is a tribute to Ghost Town by eldestOyster for tying for the top prize in Serebii's 2018 Fan Fiction Awards. You can check it out on her profile. Be forewarned that this entry contains massive spoilers for the ending of Ghost Town.
Downloading from The Alola Pokédex Online Appendix . . .
Spiritomb (Dr. Tacoma Spearing)
Overview
Human psychics are well-studied. We may not understand why their powers work, but we understand how they do. There are other classes of humans with uncommon, pokémon-like abilities that are more poorly understood. These include channelers, humans who can communicate with the dead. Channelers are well documented in the modern era, even if modern science cannot yet explain much about them at all.
Mages and magic are a blind spot for researchers. Magic is here defined as incantation or text based "spells" that perform a non-psychic or channeling effect impossible for most humans. There are reports of magic in almost all ancient cultures, but almost no verifiable reports among modern humans. Some very well-respected scientists believe that magic never existed at all. What passed for "magic" were just humans performing elaborate tricks with hidden pokémon, or the interventions of extraordinarily powerful legendary pokémon.
Spiritomb is one of the main arguments against this theory.
Humans on six continents created spiritomb. There are depictions of them in the crypts of Old Kingdom pharaohs, although the oldest continuously documented spiritomb only dates back to the Song Dynasty. The myths of spiritomb creation, powers and behaviors are remarkably similar across cultures. Between spiritomb and golurk, our ancestors clearly had a way to engineer phantoms. This might be explainable as sufficiently advanced science, but depictions of spiritomb are not correlated to a civilization's level of social and scientific advancement.
The most plausible explanation is simply that there are ways not currently understood for humans to exercise control over the world of phantoms. Spiritomb is also a strong argument that we may have been better off unlearning this control. By all accounts their creation process required mass death, ritual suicide, and the traumatization of scores of souls. The end product is a powerful and unpredictable pokémon prone to fits of murderous rage.
Physiology
Spiritomb is classified as a dual ghost- and dark- type Pokémon. The ghost typing is undisputed. The dark-typing is in review, as spiritomb are vulnerable to telepathic attacks unless they go out of their way to shield themselves. Their other characteristics (shadow manipulation, most active at night, shocking displays of brutality, hostility towards humanity, above average intelligence) are definitely in line with a dark typing. It is widely expected that the Department of Agriculture will maintain the typing after their review.
There are three superkingdoms of pokémon: organics, machines, and phantoms. Organics are carbon-based and physiologically similar to ordinary plants, animals, and protists. Machines are not carbon-based and usually reproduce by external assembly of offspring from raw materials, or at least from parts of the parent's body. Phantoms exist primarily on another plane, with portions of their being overlapping in the physical realm. Phantoms must derive their energy from the mental processes and psychic radiation of other species.
There are pokémon that blur the lines between these categories. The true psychics often feed on mental processes and exist primarily on another plane, but they have a physical carbon-based body.
Another borderline family of pokémon are the constructs. Many phantoms possess objects and use them to interact with the physical world. Constructs were originally objects that, through means still poorly understood, were given life by humans. The constructs do not need to feed from the minds of others: all of their energy comes from the process that created them. While this well is theoretically finite, no known construct has ever expired from hunger. Unlike other phantoms, they can be killed by destroying their physical body as they cannot reform one or possess another object on their own (see Illness).
Spiritomb's body is a single smooth stone, usually conical in shape, with a small opening at the surface. The stone is hollow, and sonar scans confirm that the hole does lead into the interior. However, no object can pass through the hole and no light comes out. There is often, but not always, at least one crack running along the stone's surface.
Active spiritomb can create projections from the hole. These are usually spinning discs of purple gas with green dots scattered throughout it. A green face usually appears on the disc. Aside from their disc, some spiritomb project a purple and green version of the currently manifesting spirit's face at the time of death.
Spiritomb can weigh as much as 108 kilograms, but most are considerably lighter. Ten to twenty kilograms seems to be a more typical mass. Spiritomb's keystones are typically 0.3 to 0.5 meters in length. The height of their disc is highly variable depending on the spiritomb's power, energy, and emotional state.
Behavior
The first thing to know when interacting with spiritomb is that there are 70 to 200 souls sharing one body. Sometimes there is one dominant spirit and no others will ever take charge of the disc. Sometimes multiple spirits share the disc at once. For most spiritomb, a handful of spirits take turns controlling the disc, with one to five in control most of the time and others occasionally taking the reins. Different spirits can either broadly cooperate or go out of their way to undo whatever the last controlling spirit did.
Each soul has a different personality, emotional state, level of intelligence, and relationship to others. One spirit can be very fond of a trainer and would never harm them. The next might kill their trainer at the first opportunity. This makes interacting with them extremely dangerous and never safe, however docile the pokémon appears to be.
Spiritomb also have varying levels of activity across time. Some spiritomb, while not technically dormant (see Illness), can go for centuries without manifesting a disc. Other spiritomb keep a disc up near-constantly. Most spiritomb will wake up every night for a few years or decades, and then spend about the same amount of time silent.
Motivations vary by spiritomb. Many are very bloodthirsty, going out of their way to kill everything they possibly can. Others can have long, peaceful conversations with passers-by. Some can go from one extreme to the other in the blink of an eye. A minority of spiritomb attempt to fulfill some goal that the dominant spirit had in life.
Dr. Spearing has suggested that spiritomb's individual spirits may still be human enough to warrant traditional psychiatric diagnoses. Their violence stems from their nature in life and circumstances of creation (see Breeding), the shock of death, being confined with other rage-filled spirits, having a human mind but no contact with living humans, dysmorphia, and the stressors of being near-immortal. These stressors include watching everyone the spirit cared about inevitably die, the human mind not being built to hold up for centuries or millennia, and the increasing inability to recognize the world around them.
This theory goes a long way towards explaining spiritomb behavior. Application of traditional talk therapy has substantially calmed a captive spiritomb owned by Castelia University's ghost studies department. However, even that spiritomb is still prone to fits of violence and withdrawal.
Husbandry
Many pokémon that occasionally attack and eat wild humans can be trained rather easily. Pyroar and incineroar are social felines that adjust well to human care when raised from birth, for example. Even most dragons can be kept complacent so long as they are well fed and given outlets for their hunting instincts. Another group of pokémon often kill their trainers on accident due to their sheer power and obliviousness to human life. Volcarona is the best example of this in Alola.
Then there are the pokémon that don't prey upon humans for food, but rather for sport. They cannot be tamed. Even specimens raised from birth in captivity can and will kill their doting caretaker on a whim. These pokémon can never under any circumstances be trusted. The best, and perhaps only, way to train them is to keep them on a team stacked with other powerhouses that love their trainer and will put down the attacker the second they step out of line. This usually works to deter vanilluxe. Metagross often just see it as a puzzle to be solved.
Spiritomb cannot be killed (see Illness). They know they cannot be killed. Some know this, but still want to die badly enough that they will lash out at anything that might overpower them in hopes of it being their final fight. As such, mutually assured destruction usually does nothing at all or backfires when caring for spiritomb.
Most captive spiritomb are communicated with through intercoms and video feeds. There are constantly pokéballs ready to withdraw them. If that fails, the cells have a built-in weapons system. This is not viable for traveling trainers.
If you absolutely must care for a spiritomb on the road, the most reliable means of doing so is through consistently kind, empathetic interactions. This works best on spiritomb with a single dominant spirit, and even then it only works on one with the right temperament. If a spiritomb has a motivation that the human can assist with, they will be far less likely to kill their trainer or break reasonable rules. The most common motivation is seeing more of the world, as some spiritomb have been stuck in the same place for millennia. Even non-violent spiritomb can be verbally abusive, so consistent calm can be difficult to maintain.
Spiritomb cannot eat or drink. They do not produce waste. Most sleep, but this is apparently not strictly necessary.
Only two spiritomb are trained by individuals (as opposed to institutions) in the world. For legal purposes, Dr. Spearing is owned by Jodi Ortega. The other spiritomb is trained by Shirona Karashina, regional champion of the Sinnoh League in Japan.
Illness
Spiritomb get tired after sustaining heavy damage to their disc and projections, or after using offensive attacks. The pokémon will rest, if not sleep, for a time after their injuries. Pokémon Centers and conventional medication are useless on spiritomb, and ultimately unnecessary as the pokémon can fully recover from virtually anything on their own. They also do not suffer from any of the typical phantom diseases.
The pokémon's keystone is practically invulnerable. Famously, Karashina's spiritomb retreated into its keystone right before taking a meteor mash from a mega evolved metagross. The impact of the stone shattered the mime sr. created walls of the arena. The spiritomb came out apparently unharmed a second after the stone fell to the ground. The keystone had not been scratched.
This stone is also the only way to kill a spirtomb. While no spiritomb has been killed in the modern age, images and texts from the Achaemenid Empire and twelfth century Cahokia have depicted a spiritomb being killed by a sword blessed by the gods slicing through the keystone. The species' weakness to fairy attacks, traditionally viewed as holy or divine energy, suggests that this may be a viable way of killing one.
One spiritomb has been temporarily sealed in the modern era. This involved detonating a fairy-tinged attack with the equivalent force of a small atomic bomb right on top of a spiritomb. The stone went inactive for fifteen years with channelers reporting that the dominant spirit was simply gone, and the others were nearly destroyed.
That spiritomb reactivated as soon as someone died near it, trapping that soul in the process. All attempts to neutralize spiritomb were quickly abandoned as not worth the effort.
Evolution
Spiritomb may be capable of evolution. There is only one instance of this in the modern era and no ancient records, legends, or drawings suggest it had happened before. In January 1977, Dr. Tacoma Spearing underwent a radical change in appearance. She initially appeared as a woman with roughly the same appearance as she had before death. At present, she resembles her initial appearance altered to match her chronological age. She has demonstrated the ability to instantly revert to her initial appearance and has suggested it is her true form. Any deviations are illusions.
She deviates from her pre-death appearance in a few ways. Her body is slightly translucent, especially when she is tired. Her keystone, now with several more cracks, floats where her heart should be. The edges of her body are always indistinct and blurring into mist. Her hair is made up of purple tendrils that move with a mind of their own but generally hang down.
Dr. Spearing has consistently refused to submit herself to more detailed testing. As such, this is the extent of our knowledge on her physiology.
She has theorized that spiritomb have a bond-based evolution. If one ever gets close enough to a living human, their keystone will shatter and all spirits will have a choice of moving on or staying in an evolved state. She chose to stay and all other spirits passed. Dr. Spearing has stated that she could still pass if she desired to do so. While spiritomb feed off of the energy well imbued in them at construction, she has a more traditional phantom diet of strong emotions. Her preferred emotion is love, but she has stated that she can feed on hatred, disgust, irritation, envy, sadness, anger, and the feeling that comes from knowing that you've forgotten something very important but can't remember exactly what it was.
Battle
Because there is only one spiritomb that regularly battles, almost all of what we know comes from it. This is complicated by Karsahina's reputation as a fearsome strategist and trainer. Her garchomp, for example, is the only pokémon to ever knock out Richard Conrad's victini. There are no other reports of victini ever being defeated.
Spiritomb appears to be entirely invulnerable while retreated into its keystone. As such, spending more than fifteen seconds in the keystone over a sixty second period is considered to be a knockout. It does take roughly half a second for spiritomb to finish withdrawing, which still leaves it vulnerable to some very fast and powerful attacks. Even with its disc out, Karashina's spiritomb has taken hits from a Battler-ranked trainer's signature pokémon for over an hour without going down. This was not an anomaly, as it has never been knocked out in less than thirty minutes in an official match.
While not as strong as it is durable, spirtomb can still spew out plumes of ghostly flames, send out anti-telepathic bursts and actual telepathic attacks, and control shadows in the environment. Spiritomb has shown the ability to harden shadows into blades and move them with enough force to penetrate a rhyperior's skin.
Spiritomb has no reliable means of recovery, outside of some weak energy sapping. This makes it vulnerable to being worn down by repeated hits, especially from fairy types. Still, Karashina's spiritomb is almost as feared as her garchomp. Unprepared trainers, even world-class ones, have found their team systematically destroyed by it.
Other spiritomb are similarly powerful, if not quite as well trained. Their biggest weakness is that they like to toy with their prey rather than finishing it off immediately, giving chances to retaliate. While these retaliatory strikes likely will not knock out the spiritomb, they may stun it for long enough to escape.
Dr. Spearing is less durable than the average spiritomb. She has been harmed by attacks that a normal spiritomb would laugh off, although she has kept battling through them. When genuinely upset, her offensive powers dwarf even Karashina's spiritomb. While spiritomb can manipulate small shadows, Dr. Spearing can move all darkness in an area as a single mass, and even extinguish light sources. Her main difference from spiritomb is that she can fly at speeds up to eight meters per second, while spiritomb are incapable of moving their keystone more than a centimeter or two a minute.
Acquisition
Spiritomb require a Class V license to purchase, adopt, or capture.
Outside of Karashina's visits, there is only one spiritomb in Alola. It resides in lāh Palace, the old home of the Hawaiian monarchs. While it was dormant for nearly two centuries, the spiritomb awakened at some point over the last three years and has slowly been moving through the castle. At least two people have been killed after encountering it, with another three surviving encounters. Two of those three were badly injured.
The palace is a restricted area. Permission to enter is at the discretion of the Ula'Ula kahuna. Capturing the spiritomb is unwise, as it is presently confined to an abandoned area, but it is technically legal.
According to legend, this spiritomb was created in the 15th century after the Lanakila War when the losing chief, her family, her best warriors, and some other Ula'ula chiefs were bound into the keystone as punishment for the Lanakila Massacre. There she killed the three island chiefs on sacred ground in a bid to take over the archipelago. Her name was struck from history and few other details about her have survived. It is believed that she is the dominant spirit in the pokémon.
Breeding
Spirtomb were created by a high priest of the local gods sealing seventy to two hundred sinners into a ritually prepared stone. The incantations used to create spiritomb have mostly been lost to time, but the fragments found appear to be phonetically similar to each other across centuries and oceans. The process appeared to involve ritual human sacrifice of the sinners. At the end, the priest would kill themselves on top of the keystone and complete the ritual. Whether the priest was one of the sealed sinners themselves seems to vary by culture.
A handful of modern cults have attempted to create spiritomb. None have succeeded.
No spiritomb has ever reproduced with another pokémon. Encounters between spiritomb tend to end in fights or both parties withdrawing into their keystones and refusing to talk. The one evolved spiritomb, Dr. Spearing, has not produced offspring. She is in a long-term romantic relationship with a human of the opposite gender and self-identifies as a lesbian.
Subspecies
None known.