Duplicates

Duplicates are supernatural entities with black shimmering eyes that have been known to form in mystery dungeons and appear out of shimmering spots. There was no record of them appearing until the emergence began, so most communities blame their creation on this ordeal. Duplicates themselves are flimsy, distorted visions of Pokémon. They will often appear with odd qualities like strange colors, movements, and voices (A more detailed list of appearances and qualities the players have encountered can be found further down below).

Most folks believe Duplicates to be visions or memories imprinted into the land and often times the duplicates will take the form of Pokémon who lived in an area, some duplicates even taking the form of Pokémon that lived in an area centuries prior. After a Pokémon visits a dungeon, a duplicate shaped just like them may start to appear as well. Until recently, all attempts to communicate with duplicates have failed and it is wildly believed that duplicates posses no will or intelligence and are merely repeating what has happened in an area before or acting out in aggression due to whatever emotional memory created them. The only other widely known discovery that brings this idea into question is that often times, Ultra Beasts will appear first as Duplicates and then slowly will come out of this state and become a “real” Pokémon. This doesn’t always happen as Ultra Beasts usually appear suddenly without any clear duplicate origin. Sadly some have used this observed phenomena as an excuse to strip Ultra Beasts of their personhood, claiming they are manifestations of the emergence and not a “real” Pokémon.

## Developing Discoveries

Players have encountered duplicates several times in their more wildly understood context. However, during their adventures, they have bared witness to several events involving duplicates that would be considered extremely strange and entirely unheard of elsewhere in the world.

The players saw duplicates spawn and survive outside of mystery dungeons which was believed to be impossible. The duplicate in question was a vision of Kit and his Pah who were violently pursuing Twig. They also heard it say something partially decipherable which is also extremely rare. While mostly obscured their anger of the remnants was understandable.

This later again occurred during the Hollow’s end event. A duplicate of Ike first appeared in Mar’s home. When the players investigated, they were able to understand that Ike was hunting for Arella and asking her how she changed, although Arella was not actually there. Afterwords, several dozen duplicates of Alipam remnants began to appear all around Prairieville. Duplicates of the player characters also appeared and were understandable, but were unresponsive to the players attempts to communicate with them. The duplicates eventually led them to a dungeon where they eventually rescued Arella from a Shimmering Spot.

During an accidental decent into a dungeon, Boris had encountered a Celesteela duplicate that was fighting and could see the same strange eye creatures he could. He was also the only one who could understand what it was saying, which was mostly expressions of fear towards the eye creatures.

The next encounter with a strange duplicate occurred after Anana had been inflicted with a strange condition where she appeared like a duplicate for a short time. While exploring a dungeon to see what happened to the duplicate Celesteela that Boris had wanted to help, they encounter duplicates of local Pokémon, including Boris’ mom, Mar. Anana was able to communicate with them in her strange state, but the duplicate of Mar was only able to see Boris once he touched her. The duplicate of Mar was unable to understand him directly as Anana had to do it until Boris tried to write to Mar instead using his journal. Duplicate Mar was incredibly confused and distressed as they were apparently fighting eye creatures that none of the players could see. The Duplicate Mar eventually succumbed to this invisible foe and disintegrated. Learning about this event shocked the guild leaders and Victoria who had never heard of such a thing happening before. Anana and the other player characters came to the conclusion that duplicates might be from alternate realities and actually more real then they had been taught.

## Duplicate Traits

Duplicates are considered dangerous, able to interact with Pokémon physically although most of the time a Pokémon needs to touch a duplicate for them to realize someone is there. This often results in the duplicate engaging in violent behaviors. This isn’t always the case as sometimes duplicates will be aware of real Pokémon entering an area. Below is a list of the many ways Duplicates can look and sound (All duplicates poses star filled black eyes with no pupils, but the other items listed are more interchangeable).

* Splitting after images
* Jittering
* Flashing with rapid changes in color
* Strange artifacts and particles coming off their bodies
* Unnatural stretching of their body parts or select areas
* Stunted movement or no movement at all
* Movement in reverse
* Looping actions
* Sudden teleportation
* Phasing through walls and floors
* Sudden speed ups or slow downs
* Warped unintelligible speech
* Speech in reverse
* Choppy or distorted words and calls
* Incredibly distorted bodies or duplicates appearing to be fused together.
* Large swaths of emotional states
* Can be wearing clothes or holding items but these items disappear when the duplicate does
* Often acting out a scenario or “memory” even if there is a lack of Pokémon or objects to fulfill the scenario (for example appearing to be engaged in a fight even if there is no Pokémon obviously fighting them)