The veil and you!

Originally posted by Scipio Zelin

I thought we would get started with going over exactly what the veil represents and how it affects each individual group within Ravenhurst. There seems to be some confusion as to what the veil represents and what qualifies as breaking it IC.

The veil is a euphemism used to describe the separation of Supernatural activity within Ravenhurst and normal, day to day activity that you would find in any small town in the U.S. While it appears that Ravenhurst is solely inhabited by nothing but supernatural creatures, there are in fact hundreds of NPC humans going about their daily activities; shopping, working, fishing, most likely drinking heavily, etc.

Because supernaturals are heavily outnumbered, even in a small, isolated location like Ravenhurst, they guard their powers and abilities from the normal folk, what we referenced as unassumed humans, with their lives. Should the townfolk find out that there are monsters within their midst, they will most likely attempt to destroy them. Therefore, every Supernatural in town will try to never reveal anything that could be interpreted as unnatural in front of unassumed humans. No tossing people 10 feet across the street, transforming into giant wolves, using magic to set someone's hair on fire, etc.

This means that there should be no supernatural activity on the streets of town, pretty much ever. Anything that could be construed as out of the ordinary should be conducted within the privacy of homes or buildings or in the darkness and isolation of the woods.

One thing that may be harder to hide is the supernatural ability to heal at much greater speeds of an average human. This can cause serious questions about who you are and threaten the veil as much as anything. For example, if you happen to take a shotgun blast at point blank and are walking around the next day as though nothing has happened, unless you're David Blaine, people are going to notice. One option is to either stay out of sight for a while, or to fake the recovery that a severe injury like that would take. Bandages work well to hide injuries that have healed far too quickly.

This also means that there should be no discussing supernatural activity for fear of drawing attention and suspicion to yourself. Talking about vampires and werewolves in public will either make people suspicious of you, or make them think you're a fan of Twilight; I'm not sure which is worse. Sure, you can pretend it's True Blood you're watching, but nobody will believe you.

Keeping the veil is pretty much like fight club. The first rule is you do not talk about things going on behind the veil. The second rule...well, you get the idea. Don't talk about and don't do supernatural activities in front of unassumed humans. It's really that simple.

I'd like to go over the different groups and their relationship to the veil. We have:
1. Vampires
2. Ghouls
3. Shifters
4. Fae
5. Witches
6. Humans

Let's start with Vampires. While they appear human, they probably have the most difficulty maintaining the veil of any supernatural creature. Unless they possess the skill Rubenescense, they are deathly cold to the touch, extremely pale, and can only appear in town after the sun goes down. Even in a metropolitan area, this would cause some serious questions. Theoretically, they should be the most cautious. Any sort of event requiring being out in daylight is impossible for them. There's no appearing in court on a ticket and being sent to jail would get rather toasty come daytime.

Ghouls, the personal assistants and body guards to the vampires, have it much easier. They are still, for all intents and purposes, human. They have no restrictions of when they can travel and no outwardly physical differences. The only thing they need to be careful of is showing off their enhanced senses. Breaking a bench in two with your bare hands only works in the movies.

Shifters, or werewolves, also have a much easier time blending in. Other than enhanced senses, strength, and a higher body temperature, there is no difference between a shifter and an unassumed human when they have not shifted into their beast or wolf form. Their main obstacle to maintaining the veil is how closely they all are to losing self control and becoming the beast that lies within them. Much like the Incredible Hulk, they do their best to not get angry, since nobody is going to like them much when they're angry.

Fae, both seelie and unseelie, are the least human like creatures in Ravenhurst, yet appearing as one is rather easy for them. Since they use glamour to disguise their outward appearance, they will look as real and as human as anyone. Their difficulty in maintaining the veil is more of a mental or philosophical one. As their mindset is completely different from a human's, they can have difficulty blending in with normal folk around town. They often say and act strangely due to their alien nature.

Witches have few problems maintaining the veil as physically, they are completely human. Their phsyiology can be temporarily altered by spells, but will remain human in every faucet. Their biggest challenge is to not reveal their interests in the occult which can cause suspicion in those around them. In our cases, Lexie disguises her magical nature by portraying a pot smoking, new age hippie child into holistic healing methods while my character is an older professor already interested in dusty tomes about past events. While both characters are a bit odder than the average, they would most likely be ignored and written off as eccentric as opposed to suspicious.

The last group, humans, is really more of two groups, the unassumed human, and the one that is aware of supernaturals. He/she has seen behind the veil. The unassumed human is easy enough; they most likely don't believe in magic or monsters and would look at you funny should you suggest that to be the case. Those that are aware generally fall into the category of trying to stay alive and attach themselves to a supernatural group (they tend to become ghouls to vampires or enamoured to the fae), or keep their heads down and try not to let on what they know. For those that know, to reveal the veil would be a death sentence by any supernatural that wished to maintain secrecy.

The other option is that those aware of the terrible things that go bump in the night decide to take it into their hands and do something about it. These select few become hunters and may seek to destroy one group or another for revenge, human rights, or any other number of psychological reasons. While the hunter does not want to protect the veil, they do want to protect themselves as they generally maintain the guise of an unassumed human in order to get close to the supernaturals. This generally results in keeping a low profile and not doing anything to call attention to themselves.


One thing to keep in mind about the veil is that severely breaking and violating the rules is the one thing in Ravenhurst that will require an IC death. The rich tapestry of characters is what makes Ravenhurst fun to play in, so nobody really wants characters to die. This limits character growth and extended stories. However, the whole basis for Ravenhust allowing different supernatural creatures to dwell among humans is by honoring the veil. Each group has different rules and punishments regarding veil breaking, so it would be best to check with the various leaders. This is just to give you an idea of how this works.

Okay, I'm done rambling...for now. AAAAAND we almost finished up by 7:30 pm. Nice. Does anyone have any questions regarding the veil before we send you all off to rp?