Like many MUDs, "Lost Souls" is heavily influenced by popular fantasy literature, with much content being visibly an adaptation of material from these sources. In the 1990s, this intermingling of fictional worlds into an arguably coherent whole was aggressively pursued by the game's developers. More recently, the creative direction has been toward the development of purely original content and the repurposing of adaptational content away from its third-party roots. Despite these efforts, "Lost Souls" retains the stamp of many literary and gaming influences, the most marked being Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Where the forces of chaos tend to be grim and demonic in many fantasy settings, in "Lost Souls" they often wear the face of Discordianism. Eris is regarded as the high goddess of chaos, and several affiliations — the Paratheo-Anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric, the Erisian Liberation Front, and the Legion of Dynamic Discord — are drawn from Discordian works. These affiliations all share the ability to spout forth random quotations at will; these quotations are drawn from a central file that has grown considerably over time, and its occasional public postings have led to it becoming a widespread and recurring part of Discordianism. It appears that Discordianism's influence on "Lost Souls" has led, through no particular intention, to "Lost Souls" being an influence on Discordianism. "Lost Souls" runs on the LDMud game driver, a branch of the LPMud family of MUD server software. "Lost Souls"'s core technical resource is its mudlib, the collection of LPC-language support functionality that forms the framework on which its content is built. The "Lost Souls" mudlib was originally referred to as LSLib, later being rechristened as Ain Soph, referring to the Kabbalistic concept. Its early technical innovations, until c. 1994, were primarily the work of Rebecca "Bectile" Willey, with work after her retirement being driven mainly by Matthew "Chaos" Sheahan. The Ain Soph mudlib has not, to date, been publicly released, but other MUDs have been started using it, either through private agreement or through theft. Ain Soph MUDs started by private agreement include "Costello", an English-language teaching environment, and the now-defunct MUD "Lost Dawning", which was originally a tutorial-oriented "sister MUD" to "Lost Souls" but later separated completely in a politically driven project fork.