The Masquerade: Terror and Horror in Tabletop Roleplay
The idea of a shapeshifting stalker is nothing new - the doppelganger as it exists in D&D goes as far back as 1st edition! Don’t get me wrong; I love the doppelganger. But, I think it's a concept that can be built upon. There is something inherently terrifying about a creature taking your form and replacing you in your life, and that terror is a key concept that I wanted to hone in on for the masquerade.
A fair warning before I continue - this monster is deliberately terrifying and carries some intense themes with it. Take care of yourself.
A Faceless Image
Since we haven’t talked about Avatar: the Last Airbender enough lately, allow me to take you back to a younger sewerman. A sewerboy, perhaps? I have a distinct memory of staying up one night many years ago to watch reruns of the series. It was that ungodly time of night between midnight and the dawn. As a child, I of course wasn’t supposed to be doing this: my TV was turned down low, the lights were off, and the night was accompanied by sleep-deprived deliriousness and the suspense of being caught. Enter “The Siege of the North, Part II”.
Aang enters the spirit realm and goes face to face with, well, Koh the Face Stealer. With all the suspense of the night built up, I’m treated to a scene that haunted my nightmares and continues to stick with me to this day…
Sure, Koh is creepy and all. Stealing faces is a creepy concept. But that #@&% MONKEY! That faceless monkey is easily the scariest part of the scene, in part because it allows us to see the horrifying consequences of Koh’s abilities. This image and the horror it inspires, rather than Koh himself, was the inspiration behind the masquerade.
nonononoNONONONONO
The Monster Behind the Mask
The masquerade is a fairly simple monster. It has some tricky magic and can steal your face. Despite this simplicity, these elements combine to give the dungeon master an excellent tool for creating suspense, mystery, and fear in 5th edition.
The masquerade’s spells lend it a toolbox of stealth, illusion, manipulation, and evasion. Some highlights include mirror image and misty step to keep it out of harm’s way, pass without trace and nondetection for stealth, and silence and hold person for a sprinkle of extra creepy flavor. The masquerade has abilities that lead it to try to avoid combat, but should this plan fail, it also features a pretty nasty claw attack with the potential to deal a blast of psychic damage and to stun the target. This all lays the groundwork for its true potential, however, which comes through in its abilities.
Facesteal and Illusory Appearance allow the masquerade to physically steal the face of another creature and convert it into a magical mask. In turn, wearing this mask shrouds the masquerade in an illusion that perfectly mimics the form and voice of the mask’s originator. This combines the horror of a creature losing its face with the terror of a creature having its life stolen from it (more on this later), a la the doppelganger.
To make matters even scarier, Facesteal works against any creature that is incapacitated. That means the masquerade can steal the face of a creature it has cast hold person upon, a creature it has stunned with its claws, or even a creature that has simply fallen asleep. Beyond that, the ability of a masquerade to magically mimic the appearance and voice of a creature combined with its high Deception ability create a foe that will not easily be stopped or discovered.
Still, the best villains have a compelling weakness. The masquerade, as tricky and slippery as it is, is quite frail once it is pinned down with only a measly 77 hit points and 13 AC at CR 5. Additionally, it’s false appearance is an illusion. Though it might not take its true form after eating a moonbeam, it can be detected through touch and dispelled with abjuration, and a particularly clever player could always discover its false identity through enough scrutiny. All this provides the game rules for a compelling and interesting encounter at many different tiers of play. Still, stat blocks only account for part of a monster’s appeal...
Terror and Horror
Gothic author Ann Radcliffe famously defines terror and horror quite differently. For those unaware, she defines terror as a sort of awe at the dark possibilities of life and the universe, whereas horror is more a visceral reaction to something immediately disturbing or shocking. Think a slow-paced psychological thriller vs a jump-scare; both can be quite scary, but for much different reasons. To reference the prior scene, Koh represents terror; the slow, creeping way he moves across his lair and the imminent possibility of your visage being stolen from you contributes to a demented kind of awe. The faceless monkey shocks us, however, and presents us with an image that puts our senses into an immediate fight or flight.
To bring things full circle, I think that doppelgangers capture an evident but shallow terror in their concept without truly providing any such horror. The masquerade, however, has both in spades. The masquerade stalks its prey from the shadows, learning of its habits and desires and thirsting for its life. The scene is set for terror, but the masquerade then strikes in a horrifying display of gruesome magic, severing the face from its victim’s body to create a mask for itself. The idea of a face being removed and that of the faceless husk left behind leaves an immediately unsettling impression, bringing horror into the picture.
What happens next is a grim cacophony of both concepts. The life of its victim continues as the victim itself suffers a la Johnny Got His Gun. Meanwhile, the masquerade slowly begins to lose interest, mimicking the death of its victim as both its fascination and the victim’s life begin to fade away. The scenario can lead one to contemplate truth, relationships, the senses, and mortality. All-the-while, opening the cupboard and finding a living, quivering, faceless man is pretty &^*$ing scary.
Life without a face is no joke...
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