The Seeming Score
Whenever heroes encounter a creature or phenomenon of the Shadow World, they must deal with its Seeming score. A Seeming score is like a bloodline strength score — it can be measured both numerically and by level, as seen in the table below:
Rating Level Numeric Scale
Slight (1 to 5)
Lesser (6 to 10)
Middling (11 to 20)
Greater (21 to 40)
Extraordinary (41+)
As with bloodline strength scores and levels, different levels of the Seeming impart different powers and effects to the characters, creatures, and phenomena that possess these characteristics. A creature with a middling (17) Seeming score can access more powers and abilities than a character with only a slight (4) Seeming score. This does not mean the creature is more powerful than the character; it simply means the creature is more in tune than the character with the workings of the law of Seeming.
Perception Scores
Few Cerilians ever gain access to Seeming scores and, if they do, it is probably because they have been tricked or suborned by the Shadow World or one of its most powerful entities—a fate no hero should welcome.
However, Cerilians and some rare Shadow World creatures can battle the illusions and manifestations of the Seeming with their intelligence and their experience. Heroes can gain perception scores they can use to look through the phantasms long enough to survive encounters in the Shadow World.
Through experience, cleverness, determination, and (occasionally) magic, heroes may gain perception, which they can measure against the Seeming score of any Shadow World character, creature, or phenomenon, in the hopes of lessening that foe’s power over them. Illusions melt away in the face of high perception scores, leaving a hero free to do battle with the true threats of the Shadow World.
Perception scores are measured in exactly the same way as Seeming scores, using the same ratings and scales. This parallel makes comparison easy. A creature with a lesser (7) Seeming score should not be able to use its illusions to trick a hero with a perception score of middling (12); however, that hero will have difficulty seeing through a Shadow World phenomenon of greater (24) effect.
The opposition of Seeming and perception scores is discussed more later in this section.