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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Loonook" data-source="post: 4026134" data-attributes="member: 1861">Good Gaming: Living In These Modern Times Pt. 5: The Veil, Veiling, Glamour, and Other LuxuriesMaury hated doing door duty, but the costs of his education required a bouncing shift every now and again.  The club’s owner required doormen to wear a funny uniform; his bowler hat smelled like stale beer and a tinge of sex, but the oversized glasses made him look like some child’s version of a Blues Brother.  He nervously thumbed the set of silvery knuckle dusters his manager gave him every night; usually he was doing double-duty with someone, but tonight the normal guy didn’t show up.  And on a night the club looked like it was ready to overflow.The odd glint of the glasses gave everything a red cast, but he figured he could get along with it.  Every once in awhile he thought he saw something strange out of the corner of his eye, but it was usually just Bruce escorting some pale poser and his already wasted date away from the club.  ****ing leeches; Maury laughed when Bruce would say it the first couple of nights, but the older bouncer gave him a look which chilled him to the bone.  He looked more like a cop than a bouncer; his muscle was lean and set, a fighter’s build.  The bulkier Maury could only wonder exactly how much of Bruce would be able to do if it came down to him and a couple of rousters deciding to get frisky.In the back of the group he saw Bruce, along with some chick.  Though a lot of the guys he ran with said that he shouldn’t be working with such an obvious fairy, Maury always thought Bruce was more straight than anything . . . and even so he doubted any of the gay guys he knew would turn this girl down.  He let a couple by who threw him a fifty to get through, and then turned to Bruce as he came up.The glasses seemed to flicker a bit, and he saw Bruce looked sickly… but then the older bouncer pulled the shades off.  “I always hated these.  How are they supposed to take us seriously, with sunglasses at night?  Maury, this is my date, Elisa.  Say hello Elisa.” The girl was hanging all over Bruce, and she seemed to be somewhat out of it.  Maybe she needed a few to be seen in public with an aging queen; or maybe Bruce liked his girls a bit out of it.  Maury, who had seen enough when he was around the club, just laughed and told Bruce he’d cover him for tonight.“Nah . . . I was thinking man.  I got some stuff.  It’s pretty good, keep you picked up until the morning.  Maybe me and you could head off, get one of Elisa’s friends to tag along?” Bruce smiled at Maury, flicking his tongue over his teeth lewdly.  The porky bouncer didn’t have to be told twice, especially if this chick’s friends were as hot as she was.  Maury went and got Diamond D, one of the senior bouncers, to cover him as he said he felt like crap and wanted to head home.Diamond D, another one of Mark’s big muscled men, gave a knowing grin and let Maury off the hook.  It took the three partiers five minutes to find Elisa’s car, a nice-sized SUV which told Maury that his buddy, gay or straight, was moving up in the world.  Bruce tossed him the keys and hopped in back with Elisa.They were driving past the club when Maury heard Elisa moaning in the back seat.  To give the two lovers some privacy the bouncer turned his rearview to focus on the vehicles behind.  A lone motorcyclist, seemingly glaring his beam right into the driver’s side mirror, was the only traffic that followed him out of the neighborhood.The moaning got louder, and a slight squeal was added.  “Hey, could you keep her quiet man?  I gotta watch the damn road and it’s starting to get a bit distracting!” Maury screamed back, and was answered with a sharp crackling sound.  Apparently Bruce decided to get some traction, but Elisa had gotten quiet.Bruce finally leaned his head forward, and put his hand on Maury’s shoulder.  His grip was a hell of a lot stronger than the bouncer remembered.  Maury almost screamed when he saw Bruce’s face in the rearview, but he slammed on the brakes first.  The image of Bruce, pale and wan, covered from the bridge of his nose down to his crisp white shirt in blood would haunt the bouncer to the end of his days.The cyclist pulled up alongside the car, and dismounted.  A lithe biker got off the bike, grabbed something from the carrying rack, and proceeded to where Bruce lay in the intersection.  A soft sound, several pops that pierced through the general post-crash din, were all that was audible.  When the biker walked up to the post Maury saw her face; Andrea, the bartender who was coming off shift when he left.“You shoulda paid attention, linebacker.  He told you to watch out for leeches.”The Veil.  Now, I had a couple of questions in my box on this one, so we’ll discuss it.  The Veil is the term I use for the item which separates the Shadow Aware from the Shadow Ignorant.  Ordinaries, Heroes below a certain interaction level with Shadow creatures, and normal, everyday Humans are fooled by the Veil.  To the normal person a Shadowkind appears human; perhaps a large, small, or strange-looking human, but a human nonetheless.  Those who have ‘Pierced the Veil’ know what’s actually going on.  The way they deal with this may be different; some may decide to adventure, others to sit in a corner and go crazy, still others get an advantage from knowing things about how this new and strange world works.In my Modern games we decided to make the Veil akin to a curse.  There is a Will Save (around 12-14) to see an individual Shadowkind if the observation would be notably off-kilter in comparison to normal human behavior.  A human being shouldn’t be able to lift a car, wave his hand and throw fire, and most skeletons don’t get up and start tearing apart Ordinaries.  Those who are Shadowkind, non-native planars, or who have the Magical, Divine Heritage or one of the Mystical Tradition feats would be able to bypass the Veil as a matter of course.  If a target passes 3 saves in a row, he/she is considered ‘Shadow Aware’.  The Veil gives an interesting mechanic which may not fit into the average campaign, but it’s a setup for the concept of Glamour.  Glamour, for the uninitiated, is something which appears in many legends about the fey and other mystical beasties.  In essence, glamour functions similar to the alter self spell.  However, in some legends, creatures can change size, making themselves as small as a tick or as large as a titan.  How exactly can we, as DMs, make this a possibility?In most Vancian Magic games, we’d deal with it by using Polymorph and similar spells.  As a ritual in Urban Arcana, you’re getting around 12 minutes for a 60 minute ritual.  Mythic Earth will give you a form to change into . . . but both limit you to one size category difference (without getting into some major checks either way).  So, sadly, we are somewhat limited . . . unless we use illusion.  Crossing Illusion and Transform seeds in Mythic Earth (or the Delude and Transform seeds in Urban Arcana) you may be able to mimic an effect, but it is usually going to work best for highly powerful creatures.  And to be honest, I wholeheartedly support the position.  While a goblin should be protected by the Veil, it should take a talented spellcaster (goblin or no) to make the gobbo appear to be a strikingly handsome human.  Though I like the green-skinned everymen of the goblinoid persuasion, they’re just ugly enough to make things difficult in a beauty situation <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />.  With the right amount of alteration and seaming, you can make the world more interesting.  Shadow Awareness should be an important part of the low-level Modern Fantasy game.  While some of your characters are seasoned veterans of the Shadow community, others should be babes in the woods.  Items (such as the rose-colored sunglasses Maury wears in the narrative above) could be made for temporary visual confirmations, having the Shadow be a hidden wonder for the first few levels is a great hook for a DM. The next article we’ll discuss some of the misconceptions that cross between Modern and Fantasy games.  Hopefully the next few articles will help to give you some ideas on how to handle some of the problems we face in the post-Tolkien fantasy gaming realm.</blockquote>

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