Justifications for the Masquerade

[The Romulan Republic]

From what I recall of Dresden Files, the way that 'verse handles the 'masquerade' is liberal amounts of "this weird shit happened but there's a totally plausible explanation for it, now forget the actual weird shit" spells being thrown around. Concealment spells, spells that prevent mundanes from seeing the Fair Folk or the vampire courts, things like that.

The justification... mm... honestly I'm not sure there's one. Generally the notion, I think, is that if the mundanes knew of things like the Vampire Courts, there might be mass panic or the Vampires might decide it was open season in the name of self-defense, something like that. The magical organization that Harry Dresden is nominally a part of is more or less assigned the job of keeping everything under cover in order to keep the world safe from Cthulhu (or something along those lines) because if the mundanes found out about the magical world, they would suddenly be a lot more vulnerable to being eaten by star-spawn. Again, or something like that. I haven't read all the Dresden Files books...

The Dresden Files is an interesting one, actually.

There's no overt conspiracy to hide the supernatural world. You even have supernatural factions commissioning books to be written and so forth to leak stuff. Like the White Court vampires supposedly commissioning Dracula to expose the Black Court's weaknesses (not sure if this is mentioned in the books or is behind the scenes stuff from the author or something). Or minor gods/fairies who gain power based on how much worship they have. Or deliberately disseminating information about rituals because the more people try to use them, the less potent they become (the beings who power those rituals can only empower so many at a time).

Mostly secrecy is a combination of magic fucking up advanced electronics (meaning its hard to get good recordings of the supernatural) and people not believing it/rationalizing it away/being in denial.

The one hard and fast (sort of) rule seems to be not to bring mortal authorities into a supernatural conflict. As I recall, Dresden describes that at one point as being their world's version of using nuclear weapons. This being due to the number of mortals, at least in part.

Some do sort of cheat on it, though. The White Court has plenty of contacts in mortal government, ditto John Marcone's criminal organization.

Edit: Their was a more narrow cover up mentioned in the series, though, when the White Council hunted down all the copies of Kemmler's books and destroyed them. Kemmler being a major necromancer who in-universe helped orchestrate WWI before being killed (multiple times) by the White Council.

[PREDATOR490]

Your not going to find a reasonable justification out of Buffy or Supernatural. In both cases the good guys benefit from the secrecy as much as the villains do. If Buffy or the Winchesters go public then this will attract massive attention to them which would see them getting put in jail for being vigilantes / criminals.

They may be doing the world a favour but this does not change the fact that in their actions both franchises have heroes that openly reject authority.
I.E. The Winchesters are criminals who commit fraud on a daily basis
Buffy forms relationships and actively protects murderers / demons like Angel, Spike, Faith, Willow and Anya.

Neither one of these groups is going to fare well by going public even if it would reasonably save lives AND they could convince people to believe them.

[Alyrium Denryle]

In the Dresden Files, there are plenty of people who know about the supernatural. Enough for governments to disappear werewolf tapes, and police forces to have "Special Investigations" units. In the nastier parts of the world, entire towns are held captive to vampires, presumably with local governments outright suborned.

But no one talks about it. If someone were to really look, the evidence would be everywhere. However, people in general prefer to rationalize it away because the reality of having actual vampires and flesh-eating ghouls is too horrible to imagine. The supernatural world keeps it that way by preventing people in positions of authority and public trust from outing them, because for them, that reality would be too horrible to imagine.

And the casualties on both sides would be titanic, to be blunt.

The magical organization that Harry Dresden is nominally a part of is more or less assigned the job of keeping everything under cover in order to keep the world safe from Cthulhu (or something along those lines) because if the mundanes found out about the magical world, they would suddenly be a lot more vulnerable to being eaten by star-spawn. Again, or something like that. I haven't read all the Dresden Files books...

That would be The Laundry, not Dresden (well, Dresden to a lesser extent, there certain ancient terrible gods are kept under wraps so they dont gain power from being culturally remembered). In The Laundry, nightmare alien gods live in other regions of the global (multiverse) Calibi-Yau manifold, and magic is performed by computation. Either in computers or brains. So having a lot of people know The Truth, makes it easier for Lovecraftian Entities to enter our particular set of spatial dimensions and chow down on our brains.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, I'm almost certainly mixing up the Laundry and Dresden Files to some extent. Like I said, I haven't read Dresden Files in a while, and I just started reading the Laundry books, so my bad there. It doesn't help that Stross threw in a snarky reference to Jim Butcher in a few places...

[Ralin]

I liked the way the author of the Alex Verus books handled it. It hasn't really come up in the novels themselves so far, but according to supplementary materials one of the critical distinctions between magically sensitive humans and mundanes is that mundanes have an innate aversion to perceiving or believing in magic when they see it. There's a limit to how much they need to be manipulated into not noticing the existence of the supernatural world because if they're exposed to it they'll automatically try and rationalize it away. That's why they're mundanes and not sensitives.

He also notes that credulous mundanes who are into the occult and such stuff tend to be really damn annoying because they can be counted on to believe every superstition under the sun except the ones that are actually true and right in front of them.

[Vendetta]

That would be The Laundry, not Dresden (well, Dresden to a lesser extent, there certain ancient terrible gods are kept under wraps so they dont gain power from being culturally remembered). In The Laundry, nightmare alien gods live in other regions of the global (multiverse) Calibi-Yau manifold, and magic is performed by computation. Either in computers or brains. So having a lot of people know The Truth, makes it easier for Lovecraftian Entities to enter our particular set of spatial dimensions and chow down on our brains.

The Masquerade is also basically over now in the Laundryverse, because the Stars are coming Right.
Spoiler

Also elves just invaded Leeds city centre.

[Alyrium Denryle]

That would be The Laundry, not Dresden (well, Dresden to a lesser extent, there certain ancient terrible gods are kept under wraps so they dont gain power from being culturally remembered). In The Laundry, nightmare alien gods live in other regions of the global (multiverse) Calibi-Yau manifold, and magic is performed by computation. Either in computers or brains. So having a lot of people know The Truth, makes it easier for Lovecraftian Entities to enter our particular set of spatial dimensions and chow down on our brains.

The Masquerade is also basically over now in the Laundryverse, because the Stars are coming Right.
Spoiler

Also elves just invaded Leeds city centre.

Yes. Indeed. Case Nightmare Rainbow is happening and...well....

[Elheru Aran]

Oh dear. Must not click on those spoilers. I'm only on 'Fuller Memorandum'...

On topic:

A case of where the 'masquerade' has been ripped off would be the True Blood series. I've only read maybe the first book or the second also (can't quite remember, it's been a while... god I really need to catch up on my fiction), but here's what I recall:

Vampires are out in the open. They have their own thing going where people are brewing artificial blood for them, they have a sort of... cult? of followers who are into the whole vampire thing a la Anne Rice, and so forth. Werewolves are also a thing, but not as big of a deal as the vampires as they're still sorta hidden, I want to say it's because people are more afraid of them for some reason. There's some religious nuts who think vampires should all be staked/burned, things like that.

I honestly can't say about anything else in True Blood, as I noted I haven't read much of it. I *think* vampires and werewolves might be about it, I don't think there's much magic or anything like that. Well, there are probably ghosts around, I'm pretty sure there was a story where Sookie Stackhouse had to deal with the haunting of her house. But there wasn't much to hide, was the main thing.

[The Romulan Republic]

Your not going to find a reasonable justification out of Buffy or Supernatural. In both cases the good guys benefit from the secrecy as much as the villains do. If Buffy or the Winchesters go public then this will attract massive attention to them which would see them getting put in jail for being vigilantes / criminals.

They may be doing the world a favour but this does not change the fact that in their actions both franchises have heroes that openly reject authority.
I.E. The Winchesters are criminals who commit fraud on a daily basis
Buffy forms relationships and actively protects murderers / demons like Angel, Spike, Faith, Willow and Anya.

Neither one of these groups is going to fare well by going public even if it would reasonably save lives AND they could convince people to believe them.

Can't speak for Supernatural, but in Buffy's case, its pretty much a mix of "no one would believe us", "the authorities wouldn't know how to handle this stuff", and "this is just how the Watcher's Council does things", more or less.

It does end up coming out eventually though, and their actually are elements of the government who are in the know (the Initiative, at least some of the Army, politicians in bed with Wolfram and Hart potentially...).

As to Buffy herself... she certainly makes some very bad calls, but you could argue that she wouldn't have done so had she not had the responsibilities that should be handled by trained authorities dumped on a 15 year old child.

The real blame there goes to the Watcher's Council, if anything. Who, yeah, are a bunch of traditionalist self-interested assholes.

[Elheru Aran]

In Angel, it's made fairly explicit that at some level the US Government *does* know about the supernatural. Mostly they pay agencies like Wolfram and Hart to keep out of trouble, but they aren't above getting directly involved when necessary. In one episode in particular, the military shangaied Angel into helping them with a submarine situation during WWII. They literally wrapped him up with heavy chains and weights, and dropped him into the water (the submarine was on the ocean floor, they needed him to recover some information or something). He made it just fine, but he wasn't too happy about it for obvious reasons.

[The Romulan Republic]

Buffy too.

The Initiative being the main villains of season four.

And Riley's Army monster killing unit showed up through the subsequent three seasons as well.

[LadyTevar]

In the White Wolf World of Darkness, it's pretty much the same as the Dresden-verse -- the mortals outnumber us, and they have a bad habit of killing anything that scares the shit out of them.
Shapeshifters really do a number on WoD humans, triggering hard-wired Fight/Flight instincts due to ancient shapeshifters culling human populations. The most common outcome is to piss themselves, run away, and later rationalize what they saw. Very rarely a human's fight instinct will kick in. Most of those don't survive the next five minutes.

[Lord of the Abyss]

The Dresden series has an interesting example of a Masquerade within the Masquerade in the form of the Oblivion War by a faction called the Venatori. Many magical entities - the 'Old Ones' - can only access the mortal world if they are known to exist; the Oblivion War is about erasing all knowledge of those entities. Including, ultimately, from the Venatori themselves; it leads to the interesting fact that they themselves don't actually know how successful they've been.

Thing is, knowledge that the War exists draws the attention of the beings involved.
Spoiler

So, both Dresden's half brother (who is a Venatori) and Bob the Skull hide the fact of the war from Dresden because frankly, he's already got more on his plate than he can handle. The Archive for example which Dresden was told was created as an archive for human knowledge is actually a weapon for the Oblivion War, as she can detect any written mention of the Old Ones.

[LadyTevar]

The Dresden series has an interesting example of a Masquerade within the Masquerade in the form of the Oblivion War by a faction called the Venatori.

As this was addressed in a short story, not many people recall that fact, or that Thomas and other White Vamps are part of it.

[FaxModem1]

In the White Wolf World of Darkness, it's pretty much the same as the Dresden-verse -- the mortals outnumber us, and they have a bad habit of killing anything that scares the shit out of them.
Shapeshifters really do a number on WoD humans, triggering hard-wired Fight/Flight instincts due to ancient shapeshifters culling human populations. The most common outcome is to piss themselves, run away, and later rationalize what they saw. Very rarely a human's fight instinct will kick in. Most of those don't survive the next five minutes.

Yes, but why don't the Hunters reveal the reality of all these creatures?

[Zixinus]

Maybe they tried but the more powerful vampires with influence kept counteracting them or the more powerful entities, like W&H, kept erasing people's memories because it would negatively impact their profit margins.

[Ralin]

You have to bear in mind that old World of Darkness Hunters were ordinary people picked seemingly at random after encountering the supernatural. Who in many cases quickly degenerated into off the grid, mentally unstable fugitives on the run for crimes real and invented and constantly planning and executing what most people would perceive as fairly grisly murders and other crimes.

They have a credibility problem, is what I'm saying. Your average Hunter who has been doing this for awhile is probably a wanted criminal. If he hasn't committed any crimes then the supernatural enemies he's made will probably have seen to it that he's framed for some. And by the nature of who is picked to be a Hunter and how whatever power is backing them pushes them to act with visions and shit they're going to have a hard time hanging back and not falling into that trap.

And that's before you get into powerful vampires/mages/Pentex pulling strings to vanish or explain away any evidence they have of the supernatural.

[LadyTevar]

You have to bear in mind that old World of Darkness Hunters were ordinary people picked seemingly at random after encountering the supernatural. Who in many cases quickly degenerated into off the grid, mentally unstable fugitives on the run for crimes real and invented and constantly planning and executing what most people would perceive as fairly grisly murders and other crimes.

They have a credibility problem, is what I'm saying. Your average Hunter who has been doing this for awhile is probably a wanted criminal. If he hasn't committed any crimes then the supernatural enemies he's made will probably have seen to it that he's framed for some. And by the nature of who is picked to be a Hunter and how whatever power is backing them pushes them to act with visions and shit they're going to have a hard time hanging back and not falling into that trap.

There's also the dirty little secret of the Power backing them. Vampires have done this, both as power-plays against rivals, and the Camarilla's "War Office" has aimed Hunters at Sabbat-held cities. I'm sure the Syndicate would find it cost-effective to contract out a search for a Reality Deviant; a weapon or two, information on where the target might be found, and Hunter does the rest without the Syndicate losing valuable assets.

Either way, the story in the tabloids reads "Lone gunman shoots up club" and the public mourns the dead and heaps blame on the Hunter for the "random" murders.

[Ralin]

There's also the dirty little secret of the Power backing them. Vampires have done this, both as power-plays against rivals, and the Camarilla's "War Office" has aimed Hunters at Sabbat-held cities. I'm sure the Syndicate would find it cost-effective to contract out a search for a Reality Deviant; a weapon or two, information on where the target might be found, and Hunter does the rest without the Syndicate losing valuable assets.

Either way, the story in the tabloids reads "Lone gunman shoots up club" and the public mourns the dead and heaps blame on the Hunter for the "random" murders.

Wasn't the official explanation for the existence of Imbued Hunters a combination of "Lucifer lending a helping hand to humanity because he always really loved us and wants to give us the tools to protect ourselves against the monsters" and "Solars from Exalted coming back, only reduced in power so they don't go insane this time"?

[LadyTevar]

Wasn't the official explanation for the existence of Imbued Hunters a combination of "Lucifer lending a helping hand to humanity because he always really loved us and wants to give us the tools to protect ourselves against the monsters" and "Solars from Exalted coming back, only reduced in power so they don't go insane this time"?

Where did that come from??

Old WoD Hunters could have True Faith, which just meant their belief in a Higher Power lent them a holiness that could be used against supernatural beings. Hunters could be "hedge wizards" or Kin to Weres and Fae, which gave them access to Magic/Gnosis/etc. Those Hunters could learn spells, gifts, rites, and use them against their enemies. The Changling's greatest enemies were the Dauntain, who used Banality as a weapon.
But for every Hunter with abilities, there were 5 who were just armed for bear and counting on luck and hard-earned knowledge of their prey. Knowledge is the Hunter's main Power. A Hunter who knew staking a vampire only paralyzed it was going to survive longer than the Hunter who brought out the garlic and crossed sticks. The Hunter who knew a Were could change anytime it felt like it wouldn't be confused when the supposed werewolf didn't change upon sight of the Full Moon. (Gods help the ones thinking they were hunting a werewolf and found a Black Spiral Dancer.)

To be honest, some Hunter games were no better than a Call Of Cthulu run -- your Hunters had the same chance of dying horribly or losing all your Sanity, and the people you were trying to save from monsters would never believe you.

[Ralin]

Where did that come from??

Not sure. Some of it's second hand since there's a lot of oWoD I haven't plowed through on my own, but I'm pretty sure the Exalted tie-in at least is something they strongly implied.

[LadyTevar]

Where did that come from??

Not sure. Some of it's second hand since there's a lot of oWoD I haven't plowed through on my own, but I'm pretty sure the Exalted tie-in at least is something they strongly implied.

Not Bloody Likely, as Exalted was released in 2001, and Hunter came out in 1999. Unless this was something from nWoD, you've gotten your wires crossed.

[Rogue 9]

When I played a Hunter in an old World of Darkness crossover chronicle, the only reason I didn't haul a loup garou corpse into the medical examiner's office was Storyteller fiat. We regularly came into possession of irrefutable evidence of the supernatural, and my character had extremely strong motivation to blow the lid off the whole thing, but it just wasn't allowed because he didn't want to deal with it. I suspect that's where most writers' motivation for maintaining it in their writings lies; it allows the conceit of the world going on as normal while the supernatural occurs under its nose without having to figure out the consequences of the world at large discovering the supernatural.

[Ralin]

Not Bloody Likely, as Exalted was released in 2001, and Hunter came out in 1999. Unless this was something from nWoD, you've gotten your wires crossed.

That doesn't follow? It's not at all impossible for them to retroactively add those ties, just like they did to Kindred of the East and I'm pretty sure other lines I'm forgetting.

That said, I don't remember where specifically this comes from, so I can't prove it until I sit down and look it up.

[The Romulan Republic]

When I played a Hunter in an old World of Darkness crossover chronicle, the only reason I didn't haul a loup garou corpse into the medical examiner's office was Storyteller fiat. We regularly came into possession of irrefutable evidence of the supernatural, and my character had extremely strong motivation to blow the lid off the whole thing, but it just wasn't allowed because he didn't want to deal with it. I suspect that's where most writers' motivation for maintaining it in their writings lies; it allows the conceit of the world going on as normal while the supernatural occurs under its nose without having to figure out the consequences of the world at large discovering the supernatural.

There are exceptions to that.

Buffy had it go public in the comics.

And there are major, major hints that Dresden Files is building towards a reveal. The series is supposedly going to end on an apocalyptic trilogy, and there have been other possible hints. For example Dresden talking about how mortals are becoming more open to the supernatural again, and when Murphy and Dresden discuss bringing in law enforcement to deal with some major villains under the pretext of calling it a terrorist attack, and Dresden says something to the effect that it could be a good idea, but he doesn't think its time has come. There's also a running recurring pattern of mortals getting drawn into Dresden's world and proving very, very useful.