Spitfires

Spitfires are a sapient species created by Chopstick Eyes. They are a hybrid race produced by fusion of Lanternheads, wild kites, and sky lanterns.

## Physiology

Their bodies are small, rarely bigger than a raven, and composed of silk-like polymers, steel wire, and magical fire. Their colour and shape is highly variable, typically including at least one tube or globe that contains their fire and at least two flight planes. They travel aerially by jet propulsion.

Spitfires subsist on water vapour, airborne soot, organic fibre, and steel, which they can only consume in forms with high surface area. They assimilate these nutrients by burning them to nothing. Due to the relatively low heat of the inner flame, this can take some time, especially for steel. Over time, some of the consumed material will manifest as growth in their bodies.

Spitfire senses are fairly simple. They can see through the eyekite-like eyespots on their surface, and detect sound and motion through specialised, pressure-sensitive wires composing part of their frame. To a certain degree, they can 'taste' the objects they burn and the air they pass through, though this is not especially sensitive. Spitfire chemical senses exist to inform them whether or not what they're chewing on is food or foul, and little more. It has very limited use as a warning or tracking system, for example.

Spitfires retain one of the major blessings Narzhak bestowed upon Lanternheads: the ability to vocalise. Spitfires can emit a small flurry of bright burning sparks from their inner flame, releasing an abrasive metallic grinding noise as they do so. This forms the basis of spitfire speech.

## Life Cycle

Spitfires reproduce asexually by a slow process of binary fission, during which they will spend considerable time in intermediate 'doubled' forms. Each 'daughter' inherits a little of the 'mother's knowledge, but the 'mother' as a whole ceases to exist. Some knowledge is lost altogether in every division.

The length of time a spitfire spends between fission events typically varies with their nutrition and stimulation, with a starved, bored spitfire taking decades to complete the process, while an extremely well-nourished spitfire with an endless supply of entertainment will divide in under a decade. Fission is inevitable and cannot be held back by any spitfire except through starvation, which will slow the process until it is either completed or the spitfire dies.

Despite reproducing asexually, they are capable of sexual conjugation, a process in which two spitfires will fuse and exchange aspects of themselves, such as colour, shape, and memory, before coming apart as two new individuals.

Due to this curious life cycle, spitfires never naturally die, but will permanently lose part of their old identity every time they mate or reproduce. Spitfires thus relate emotionally to reproduction and 'age' in a way much removed from more humanoid races, though their psyche is not wholly equivalent to begin with.

### Lanternhead creation

Spitfires were developed to provide new souls for the creation of lanternheads. This is a sacred and secret initiation process known only to the lanternhead order. When a spitfire emerges that is gathering knowledge with unusual vigour and taking an unusually long time to divide, they may be invited to have their inner flame 'caged' in a solid lantern and weighed down by an artificial body, following which they are taught the secret rites and language of the lanternheads. This has a remarkably humanising effect on the spitfire, rendering lanternheads somewhat different from both the spitfires they originally were and the humanoids they resemble.

## Comparison with Humans and Lanternheads

Spitfires have several strengths and weaknesses that set them distinctly apart from humans and humanoids.

### Strengths

**Physically, spitfires are mobile.** They are at least as fast as most birds and can maintain such speed for an hour or more. Their lightness and aerodynamic forms make travel absolutely breezy for them, and their advanced reflexes and flexibility make them highly agile. The one place they cannot go, of course, is under water.

This alacrity is, of course, entirely lost upon the creation of a lanternhead.

**Mentally, spitfires are perceptive.** Spitfire reflexes are far faster than a cat, and are more adequately considered *housefly-like*. Spitfires can process huge amounts of detail in their visual field at great speed, and respond swiftly. They have very accurate spacial awareness. Lanternheads largely retain this ability, though they have much poorer eyesight and far slower bodies with which to use it.

**Emotionally, spitfires are relaxed.** While easily excited, spitfires are difficult to stress. Humans must handle at all times a great deal of spiritual strain- what to eat? where to go? how to speak? who to trust? Such questions will distract a human's mind, cloud their reasoning, and even manifest as physical symptoms and a shortened lifespan. Trauma can be tremendously damaging to a humanoid's health.

Of course, no mortal wants to die or be alone, and spitfires are no exception. But the sensation of want does not impede their physical or mental function nearly so much. Even faced with the alarm of famine or violence, a spitfire will be able to process its emotions in a way that dulls the sting of misery and panic, and work to effect change.

Lanternheads lose some of this aloofness upon creation. While they can view the world with calm, their sacred duties beckon, and they are charged with obeying the Market Lord and shepherding their flighty kin. Such service can weigh heavily on even the elite.

### Weaknesses

**Physically, spitfires are weak.** It is a remarkable feat for a spitfire to even lift a pebble, much less throw it or carry it around. This lack of strength bars spitfires from many of the great advantages of human civilisation. How will they build infrastructure and harvest resources if they cannot handle tools? How will they record their history if they cannot even hold a pen for a minute straight?

Lanternheads, of course, are much more capable, though they will never be as strong as humans.

**Mentally, spitfires are forgetful.** A human can memorise entire textbooks, or at least the ideas therein, and recall this information at leisure for many years, often even on their deathbed. But if a spitfire wishes to retain information, it must be constantly reminded. Critical life skills are the only thing a spitfire can be charged with remembering for more than a few weeks. Even dazzling, awesome sights are largely lost to a spitfire within hours, and petty tricks must be re-taught and re-learned if they are to be repeated within a few days time. If a spitfire wanders from its workplace one dawn and returns the next, it may have no idea who anyone else is or what they might be doing there.

For spitfire society to function, it must form a constantly cycling network of individuals teaching and re-teaching the same information to one another over and over in a way that would strike humans as a tremendous waste.

The fact that lanternheads are not cursed with such ditziness is by far their greatest strength.

**Emotionally, spitfires lack passion.** Humans, perhaps thanks to their starkly limited lives and greater capacity for stress, are always planning something. An emotionally roused human can labour, love and lash out with terrible power. Keep a human motivated and she will work for you night and day.

A spitfire, on the other hand, will do what it needs to do to survive and fulfil its obligations to other spitfires in its company, and then simply cease to care. Petty distractions will command its attention. Even when inevitable famine and violence come calling, many spitfires will coolly assess their circumstances, then simply lay down and die with a placidity that may astonish the humanoid folk. They will never rage against the dying of the light, because they do not rage. They may innovate, for curiosity or survival, but it is rare for a spitfire to harbour true ambition.

Lanternheads sometimes share in this coldness, but their lives, too, are limited, and they too are burdened with duty. They are an elite selected from the most fervent of the dispassionate spitfires, and caging their flame increases its heat. They toil silently and relentlessly in worship of their God.