Thorn is filled with unexplainable craziness and most of it you can safely ignore if you prefer, but there are a few things you should know. Avatars are the same thing that they are in games except that avatars in Thorn are usually (but not always) mechanical. Basically they’re just a way to be in two places at once. As long as they don’t go too far from a good connection the user can witness and interact through the avatar from a remote location. However there are limitations. Most avatars will loose connection if they enter a large or shielded structure. When this happens their programming takes over and returns the avatar to the last position it was in where it had a connection and attempts to reconnect. But connections are always tricky and unreliable in Thorn so avatars usually try to stay in open areas.
Not all avatars look like floating heads or skulls but it makes sense and skulls are thought of as cute and friendly in Thorn so they’re not trying to be scary at all. Most of them will feature some kind of larger exaggerated feature or wings, antlers or horns. Something to help make the avatar more noticeable. Since the avatars are small and don’t make noise unless they want to its considered polite to try and make them stand out more and, of course, its a chance to show off some style and no one in Thorn would miss that!
Plus there are other floating heads flying around that aren’t avatars. They’re messengers. Originally just simple robots but over the ages they develop personalities of a sort, and more than a few of them have completely stopped functioning or gone insane and accidentally started religions while trying to fry eggs and yeah- it can happen! The ones that still work are still delivering messages and happy to do so, if a bit crazy.
