Necromancy 31 of the Grave Silent Brooch

Lore: In the sprawling, intrigue-filled megacities of Saṃsāra, there exists a discreet and ancient guild known as the Veiled Attendants. They are the professional undertakers and funerary priests who handle the last rites for the wealthy and powerful—the guild masters, the ship barons, and the political figures. To navigate the grieving, paranoid, and often dangerous households of their clients, the Attendants developed a unique form of practical necromancy focused on absolute discretion. They needed to be present but unnoticed, able to guard a body from rival factions or move through a mourning hall without disturbing the guests or being perceived as a threat.

The result was the Grave-Silent Brooch. Each one is crafted from lead melted down from the fittings of centuries-old coffins, giving the metal a dull, heavy, and spiritually inert quality. Set into the center of the lead is a tiny sliver of bone, but not from a great hero or powerful mage. The bone is taken from the remains of a person who died utterly forgotten—a “John Doe” buried in a potter’s field whose name and story have been completely erased by time. It is this connection to anonymity and the state of being completely un-remembered that gives the brooch its power. It does not make the wearer invisible; it makes them forgettable, uninteresting, and as easy to overlook as a corpse in a graveyard.

Description: The Grave-Silent Brooch is a heavy, palm-sized clasp made of a dull, lead-grey metal that seems to absorb the light around it, possessing no reflective qualities. It is cool and dense to the touch, with a texture like smooth, worn stone. The brooch is shaped into the stylized form of a closed eye with a heavy lid. Where the pupil would be, there is a small, almond-shaped sliver of milky-white, featureless bone, seamlessly set into the lead. The entire object feels muted, emitting no sound when tapped and seeming to dampen the noise around it. It attaches to a cloak or garment with a simple, sturdy pin on the back.

Detailed Stats

• Provides a +5 bonus to Mind’s Eye checks related to stealth or remaining unnoticed while standing still or moving slowly.
• Grants a +3 bonus to social interaction checks when attempting to blend into a crowd or appear as if you belong somewhere you do not.

Passive Magics

• Muffled Aura: The wearer’s physical and spiritual presence is dampened. The sound of their footsteps seems slightly softer, the colors of their clothes appear less vibrant to onlookers, and they emit no discernible body odor. Their spiritual “scent” is likewise muted, making them less likely to attract the initial attention of wandering spirits or ethereal predators.
• A Face Unremembered: The wearer’s facial features become difficult for strangers to recall accurately. An individual who has a brief interaction with the wearer might remember the conversation but, if asked later, would struggle to provide a clear description, often resorting to vague terms like “average,” “plain,” or “nondescript.” This effect does not work on individuals who already have an established memory of the wearer.

Activable Magics

• Stillness of the Grave: Once per hour, by focusing their will on the brooch, the wearer can supernaturally suppress their body’s signs of life for up to one minute. Their breathing becomes almost non-existent, their heartbeat slows to a bare flutter, and their skin temperature drops to match the ambient air. To a casual observer or a simple life-detecting spell, they will appear to be a corpse or an inanimate statue. The user cannot perform strenuous actions (like running or fighting) while this is active, as doing so will immediately break the effect.
• Path of the Forgotten: Once per day, the user can touch the brooch and whisper a plea to be forgotten. For the next ten minutes, the user’s passage leaves behind no spiritual traces. They cannot be tracked by magical means that follow a soul’s signature or ectoplasmic residue. Furthermore, they become “spiritually invisible” to the senses of ghosts, spectres, and other ethereal beings, who will perceive them as little more than a piece of inanimate furniture unless directly attacked or interacted with.

Specific Slot: Cloak Clasp / Brooch

Tags: Necromancy, Brooch, Common, Tier 1, Stealth, Concealment, Deception, Veiled Attendants, Wearable, Lead, Bone, Utility, Subtlety, Infiltration, Mental, Anti-Divination, Urban

In the world of Saṃsāra, the Grave-Silent Brooch is rarely seen in open commerce. Its specialized and subtle nature means its value is highly subjective, and the story of how and where it is sold is often more telling than the item itself.

The Veiled Attendants’ Cloister

Within the secretive guild that creates them, the Grave-Silent Brooch is not a commodity to be bought or sold. It is a tool of the trade, a badge of office, and a symbol of an oath. An aspiring Attendant, after completing a rigorous apprenticeship in funerary rites, stealth, and discretion, is issued their brooch. The acquisition happens not in a shop, but in a quiet, candle-lit chamber within the guild’s cloister.

The process is ceremonial. The new member must first provide the “mortal components” for their own brooch, which often involves a tithe of lead sourced from an ancient mausoleum and a fee paid to the guild’s network for the difficult acquisition of a truly forgotten soul’s bone sliver. The initiate then swears an oath of silence and service. A master of the guild pins the newly-forged brooch onto the initiate’s ceremonial cloak, a silent gesture that signifies their acceptance into the Veiled Attendants. To lose this brooch or be caught selling it is a grave transgression, often punishable by being stripped of all guild protection and privileges.

Cost: The cost is not measured in currency but in loyalty and service. The material tithe required from the initiate typically amounts to around 25 to 35 Lumens, but this is merely a token to underscore the gravity of the materials used.

Black Market Fixers and a City’s Underbelly

When a Grave-Silent Brooch appears outside the guild, it almost exclusively does so in the criminal underworld. A desperate or disgraced Attendant might sell their brooch for a quick escape, or it might be pried from their corpse after a fatal misstep. In either case, it eventually finds its way to a ‘fence’ or a black-market quartermaster who deals in specialized tools for spies, assassins, and high-end thieves.

Here, the brooch is sold not in a shop, but through a clandestine meeting—in the back room of a noisy tavern powered by a clanking steam-pump, in the dead of night on a floating city’s maintenance platform, or through a coded message left in a sewer grate. The seller is a professional criminal who understands the item’s immense practical value. They will not speak of the Veiled Attendants, but will lay out its functions in stark, practical terms: “This makes you a ghost. People’s eyes slide right off you. You won’t leave a magical trail. It’s the perfect tool for getting into places you’re not supposed to be.” The sale is tense, paranoid, and strictly business.

Cost: In this market, the brooch commands a premium. Its utility for infiltration and evasion is priceless to the clientele. A fence would demand anywhere from 150 to 250 Lumens, and would likely prefer to be paid in untraceable precious gems or a returned favor.

Esoteric & Arcane Curio Shops

On rare occasions, a brooch will surface in a legitimate place of business. This usually happens when the item is discovered among the effects of a deceased noble who secretly utilized the Veiled Attendants’ services, and the estate liquidator has no idea of its significance. It would end up in a shop specializing in minor magical artifacts and arcane curiosities.

The shopkeeper, likely a knowledgeable avatar with a keen eye for enchantments, would recognize the brooch’s unusual properties. They would discern its dampening effect on both physical and spiritual presence. It would be displayed in a locked glass case, perhaps next to enchanted locks and divinatory tools. The sale would be professional and informative. The shopkeeper might say, “A fascinating piece of necromancy. It seems to be built for subtlety, not power. It makes the wearer less noticeable and appears to confound simple tracking spells. An excellent item for a private investigator or anyone who values their privacy.”

Cost: The price would be fair but firm, reflecting its niche but useful nature. A shopkeeper would likely price the brooch between 70 and 90 Lumens, understanding that while it’s not a powerful artifact, its unique qualities are valuable to a specific type of customer.

Junk Shops and Scrap Metal Bins

The most common fate for a lost Grave-Silent Brooch is to be utterly mistaken for what it is not. A common thief who steals a cloak might discard the heavy, ugly clasp, believing it to be worthless pewter. It would then be found by a scavenger and sold by weight to a scrap dealer. In these shops, piled in dusty wooden bins with rusted gears, broken hinges, and bent cutlery, the brooch lies completely divorced from its purpose.

The shop owner, seeing only a dull piece of lead, would have no reason to suspect it possessed any magic at all, as its enchantments are designed to be muted and unobtrusive. The transaction would be swift and dismissive. “That? It’s lead. Heavy. Worth about two lumens.” For a knowledgeable avatar Browse such a place, this would be the discovery of a lifetime—a priceless tool of concealment acquired for the cost of a loaf of bread.

Cost: In this context, the brooch is nearly worthless, priced only for its base material. A buyer could expect to purchase it for a mere 2 to 5 Lumens.

While the Grave-Silent Brooch has no direct offensive or defensive capabilities, in the hands of a clever avatar it becomes a master key for enabling unconventional tactics. Its power lies not in confrontation, but in avoiding it, manipulating it, and creating opportunities for a decisive blow delivered by other means.

In a Fortified Military Encampment

Amidst the disciplined chaos of a military camp, where every face is supposed to be known and every shadow could hide a threat, the brooch excels at making the wearer a non-entity.

Roleplaying Defense: The brooch’s passives offer a constant, layered defense. The Muted Aura ensures that as the avatar moves through the camp, the crunch of their boots is less sharp, the color of their borrowed cloak is less remarkable, and they leave no scent for hounds to track. Should a guard’s gaze sweep over them, the A Face Unremembered passive means the guard sees only a forgettable camp follower, a nondescript servant, or just another tired soldier. Their eyes register a person, but their mind discards the information as unimportant. This prevents the avatar from being identified as an outsider in the first place.

If this passive defense fails and the avatar is spotted and pursued, they can create a moment of active defense. Ducking behind a stack of crates, they can trigger Stillness of the Grave. When the guards round the corner, they don’t see a hiding spy, but what appears to be a discarded, lifeless body, perhaps another victim of camp disease. The suppressed breathing and heartbeat will fool a cursory inspection, allowing the guards to move on in their search for a living intruder, saving the avatar from capture or death.

Roleplaying Offense: Offense with the brooch is always indirect. It is the tool that gets you to the target. The avatar can use the combined stealth benefits of the brooch to slip past sentries and reach the enemy’s siege equipment—the massive steam-tanks or griffon stables. The offensive act is the sabotage they perform, but it is an act made possible only by the supernatural concealment of the brooch.

Similarly, the brooch is a devastating tool for intelligence warfare. The avatar can use its properties to get close to the command tent. Standing stock-still against the canvas wall, Stillness of the Grave could even fool a patrolling bodyguard who glances in their direction. From this position, they can overhear the enemy general’s entire battle plan. This intelligence, when brought back to their own side, becomes the most powerful offensive weapon imaginable, allowing for a perfectly planned ambush or counter-attack that dismantles the enemy force. The brooch didn’t throw a punch; it attacked the enemy’s entire strategy.

Within a Magically-Warded Wizard’s Tower

Against a foe who relies on magical security, the brooch’s specific necromantic properties provide a unique and potent set of keys to bypass otherwise impassable defenses.

Roleplaying Defense: Many wizards bind spirits as eternal guardians. These spectral sentinels are a powerful defense against living intruders. For the wearer of the brooch, they are a minor inconvenience. By activating Path of the Forgotten, the avatar becomes spiritually invisible for ten minutes. They can stroll casually past a wailing banshee or a ghostly honor guard that would have instantly detected and shredded any other living soul.

Against non-sentient magical traps, Stillness of the Grave provides another layer of defense. A rune-scribed floor might be designed to trigger when it detects the warmth, heartbeat, or soul-stuff of a living creature. By activating the brooch, the avatar’s life signs are suppressed to that of a corpse. They can walk slowly and deliberately across the warded area, their muted presence failing to meet the trigger conditions of the magical trap, defending them from certain harm.

Roleplaying Offense: The offense enabled by the brooch within a wizard’s tower is the ultimate violation: total access. By combining its abilities, an avatar can bypass the outer spiritual guards, fool the inner magical wards, and arrive completely unnoticed in the wizard’s private study or bedchamber. The offensive act can be anything from assassinating the wizard in their sleep to, more cunningly, stealing a priceless spellbook or replacing a key ritual component with a fake.

A truly subtle offensive maneuver would be to use the brooch to enter the wizard’s ritual chamber while they are in the midst of a complex, delicate spell. The wizard’s concentration would be absolute, their wards focused outward. The unnoticed avatar could subtly alter the ritual array, snuff a specific candle, or drop a pinch of iron dust into a circle. This act of sabotage could cause the ritual to fail catastrophically, turning the wizard’s own immense power back upon themself. This is an attack where the victim provides all the ammunition.

At a Tense Diplomatic Summit

In the world of high-stakes politics, where a misplaced word or a discovered secret can be more devastating than a sword, the brooch is a tool of unparalleled espionage.

Roleplaying Defense: During a tense negotiation, a rival faction might employ an empath or telepath to read the room and gain an advantage. The wearer of the Grave-Silent Brooch would be a psychic blind spot. The item’s necromantic muting of their spiritual presence would make their emotions and surface thoughts incredibly difficult to perceive, shielding their delegation’s true intentions and defending their secrets from magical intrusion.

The A Face Unremembered passive is a potent defense against political fallout. The avatar can be tasked with delivering a bribe or a veiled threat to a neutral party. Should that party later try to expose the act, their testimony would be fatally flawed. They would be unable to provide a reliable description of the person who approached them, saying only that it was “some aide” or “a nondescript person.” This plausible deniability protects the avatar and their faction from being implicated, defending their reputation.

Roleplaying Offense: The brooch allows for audacious political attacks. During a banquet, the avatar can use the brooch’s passives to blend in with the servants. They can approach a rival ambassador’s goblet of wine and, with a sleight of hand, introduce a mild but embarrassing truth serum. The ambassador’s subsequent gaffes and revelations could derail their entire agenda. The “attack” was the poison, but the brooch provided the untraceable delivery system.

The most powerful offensive use is eavesdropping. By using the brooch to appear as an unimportant fixture in a room, an avatar can remain behind after a meeting. They can activate Stillness of the Grave and hide in a shadowy corner as the rival delegation holds what they believe is a private debriefing. The secrets they learn—their rivals’ true goals, their hidden weaknesses, their sources of funding—become political ammunition. This intelligence can be used to blackmail, anticipate, and systematically dismantle their opponent’s position in the days that follow.

Perception of Activation:

SIGHT

• User’s Perspective: As the magic takes hold, the user’s vision desaturates, the world bleeding into shades of muted grey and sepia, as if viewing an old, faded photograph. A heavy vignette darkens the edges of their sight, creating a profound sense of tunnel vision. The world appears flat, distant, and fundamentally uninteresting, making it easier to remain detached from it.
• Observer’s Perspective: An observer would see the light of life extinguish from the user’s eyes, leaving them glassy, unfocused, and dull. The user’s skin takes on a pale, waxy pallor. The brooch itself seems to darken, becoming a patch of absolute shadow that absorbs the light around it, making it stand out by its very lack of reflection.
• Positives: The user receives a clear visual cue that the magic is active. To an observer, the user’s appearance becomes a highly convincing facsimile of a corpse, which is the primary goal of the disguise.
• Negatives: The user’s desaturated, tunnel-like vision makes it extremely difficult to perceive details, spot movement, or notice threats in their peripheral vision. An observer might be too convinced, and could begin burying the “body” or treating it with extreme disrespect.

SOUND

• User’s Perspective: The world’s sounds become incredibly distant and muffled, as if being heard from the bottom of a deep well or through a thick lead wall. The user’s own, now-suppressed heartbeat and breathing are utterly inaudible even to themself. The predominant sensation is one of vast, empty, and profound silence.
• Observer’s Perspective: The user becomes preternaturally silent. Any noise they might make, such as the rustle of their clothes, is strangely dampened and muted. Placing an ear to their chest would reveal no sound of breathing and a heartbeat so slow and faint that it would be indistinguishable from silence for a casual check.
• Positives: The user achieves a level of silence that is impossible for a living being, making them exceptionally difficult to detect by hearing. The effect is extremely convincing.
• Negatives: The user is, for all practical purposes, deaf. They cannot hear approaching enemies, shouted warnings from allies, or crucial conversations happening nearby, leaving them isolated and highly vulnerable.

SMELL

• User’s Perspective: The user’s sense of smell completely vanishes. The air becomes a neutral void, carrying no scent of smoke, perfume, food, or decay. It is the sterile, featureless scent of nothingness.
• Observer’s Perspective: The user ceases to emit any smell. The natural scents of a living body, perfumes, the odor of leather gear, or the smell of sweat are all supernaturally neutralized. To a bloodhound or beast that tracks by scent, the user simply does not exist.
• Positives: This makes the user impossible to track by scent, providing a perfect defense against hunting animals and certain types of magical tracking.
• Negatives: The user is completely unable to detect environmental threats by smell, such as a gas leak from a steam pipe, the smoke of a spreading fire, or the musk of a nearby predator.

TOUCH

• User’s Perspective: A deep, pervasive numbness spreads through the user’s body, and their sense of touch becomes dull and distant. Their own skin feels cold, waxy, and foreign. The Grave-Silent Brooch on their chest feels impossibly heavy, like a lead weight pulling them down into the earth, anchoring them in a state of absolute stillness.
• Observer’s Perspective: If touched, the user’s skin is unnervingly cold and clammy, with the texture and temperature of a corpse that has been resting for several hours.
• Positives: The physical sensations enhance the disguise, reinforcing the feeling of being an inanimate object and helping the user to remain perfectly still. The cold skin is a convincing detail for anyone who dares to touch the “corpse.”
• Negatives: The numbness makes it difficult to feel subtle physical interactions, like a pickpocket, an insect bite, or the trigger of a pressure plate. The magical lethargy makes it difficult to spring back into action quickly once the effect ends.

TASTE

• User’s Perspective: The user’s mouth becomes dry and filled with the taste of cold dust, dry earth, and faint, mineral-like flavor of stone, as if they have been interred in a tomb for a very long time.
• Observer’s Perspective: None.
• Positives: It is a final, thematic sensory confirmation that the necromantic magic has fully taken hold.
• Negatives: The taste is unpleasant and contributes to the overall unsettling feeling of decay and death, a minor but persistent psychological discomfort.

EXTRA-SENSORY PERCEPTIONS

• Spiritual Annihilation:
  • User’s Perspective: The user feels their own soul, their life-force, their spiritual “light,” being drawn inward and compressed into a single, dense, dark point. It feels like becoming a void where a presence used to be. It is a profound sense of disconnection from the flow of life and magic, a feeling of utter emptiness.
  • Observer’s Perspective: To any form of magical or spiritual perception, the user’s aura vanishes entirely. To a ghost, a demon, or a mage using a life-detection spell, the space the user occupies becomes empty. They are not invisible; they are simply not there.
  • Positives: This is the ultimate defense against magical detection, making the user undetectable by almost any means that senses life, souls, or magic.
  • Negatives: The experience of being a spiritual void is deeply disturbing. It can induce powerful feelings of depersonalization, existential dread, and a fear that one might not fully “return” to normal.
• The Unburdening of Identity:
  • User’s Perspective: As the magic settles, the user feels the conceptual weight of their own identity—their name, their ambitions, their fears, their memories—being gently lifted from their shoulders and set aside. They are left in a state of pure, anonymous being. The feeling is one of profound and unnerving freedom from the self.
  • Observer’s Perspective: A powerful telepath attempting to read the user’s mind would find a silent, featureless slate, devoid of the usual surface thoughts and emotional noise of a conscious mind.
  • Positives: This mental state makes it effortless to remain impassive and still, perfecting the disguise. It is the source of the item’s passive ability to make the user’s face forgettable.
  • Negatives: The state of being without identity can be disorienting. When the effect ends, the “weight” of the self rushes back in, which can be mentally jarring and may cause a moment of confusion.
• Gravitic Stillness:
  • User’s Perspective: The user feels a sudden, powerful pull toward the ground, as if their personal gravity has been magnified tenfold. It does not make them heavier, but it roots them to the spot with an immense, unseen force. Any thought of movement is met with the feeling of an impossible inertia that must be overcome.
  • Observer’s Perspective: The user becomes unnaturally still, beyond what a living person could achieve. They do not twitch, their posture does not shift with fatigue, and their clothing does not even seem to flutter in a light breeze. They are a point of absolute stillness.
  • Positives: This magical compulsion enforces the perfect stillness required to feign death, preventing involuntary twitches or adjustments that might give the user away.
  • Negatives: Breaking the effect prematurely requires a significant act of will to overcome the magical inertia. If the user needs to move suddenly, there is a noticeable, dangerous delay as they fight against the supernatural gravity holding them in place.

Recipe: The Veil of Forgetting Clasp

This schematic details the construction of a specialized necromantic brooch designed for absolute concealment. The process relies on the principle of sympathetic magic, using materials associated with anonymity and silence to imbue the wearer with those same properties. It is a tool for those who wish to walk unseen, not through illusion, but by becoming utterly unremarkable.

Materials Needed

• 1x Ingot of Coffin-Lead: A small ingot of lead that must be reclaimed from the fittings or lining of a coffin that has been occupied and buried for no less than a century. The prolonged exposure to silence and stillness renders the metal spiritually inert.
• 1x Shard of the Unmarked: A sliver of bone carefully taken from any skeletal remains found within an unmarked grave in a potter’s field or a similar mass burial site for the unknown and forgotten. The bone must have no name or history attached to it.
• 1x Pinch of Crypt-Dust: A small amount of the fine, grey dust collected from the floor of a sealed, long-abandoned mausoleum or tomb. This dust has absorbed decades of silence and stillness.
• 1x Drop of Shadow-Lacquer: A thick, matte-black sealing agent brewed with powdered obsidian and oil from the bioluminescent glands of deep-cave creatures. It is prized for its ability to absorb light and dampen magical emanations.

Tools Required

• Smelting Crucible & Heat Source: A standard crucible for melting soft metals, heated either by a conventional forge or a controlled elemental fire source.
• Soapstone Casting Mold: A hand-carved mold made of soapstone, etched with the design of a stylized, closed eye.
• Bone-Carving Kit: A set of fine files, whittling knives, and sanding papers for shaping the bone shard.
• Null-Rune Stylus: A specialized enchanting tool, typically with a lead or obsidian tip, used not to imbue magic, but to inscribe runes that actively suppress and nullify magical auras.
• Setting Hammer & Punches: A small, lightweight hammer and a set of delicate punches for setting the bone into the semi-molten lead without shattering it.

Skill Requirements

• Leadsmithing (Novice): The crafter must be proficient in the basic techniques of melting and casting soft, low-temperature metals like lead.
• Scrimshaw (Novice): Requires the delicate touch needed to shape and handle a small, fragile piece of bone without breaking it.
• Necromancy (Initiate): This is the most crucial skill. The crafter must understand the subtle necromantic theory behind concepts like spiritual inertia, anonymity, and presence-dampening. This is not about commanding spirits, but about emulating their silent, forgotten state. This is a Tier 1 skill.

Crafting Steps

1. Casting the Form: Place the ingot of Coffin-Lead into the crucible and melt it down over a steady heat source. Once it is fully molten, carefully pour the liquid lead into the soapstone mold shaped like a closed eye. Allow it to cool for several minutes until it is solid, but still retains a dull heat and a degree of malleability.
2. Preparing the Bone: While the lead cools, take the Shard of the Unmarked and, using the bone-carving kit, carefully shape it into a small, almond-like sliver that will serve as the “pupil” for the closed eye. Polish it until it is smooth and featureless.
3. Setting the Core: Once the lead has cooled to the right temperature (solid but soft), carefully remove it from the mold. Place the shaped bone sliver in the center of the brooch. Using the setting hammer and a soft punch, gently tap around the edges of the bone, causing the soft lead to form a perfect, seamless bezel that holds the bone securely in place.
4. Inscribing the Null-Runes: Turn the brooch over. Using the Null-Rune Stylus, carefully and precisely inscribe a series of dampening runes onto the back of the clasp. These runes do not add power; they create a magical “void,” actively cancelling out the brooch’s own faint magical signature and making it exceptionally difficult to identify as an enchanted object.
5. The Imbuement of Silence: This is the final and most critical magical step. The crafter must hold the completed brooch in their hands in a place of absolute quiet. They must then employ their Initiate Necromancy skill, not by pushing mana into the item, but by doing the opposite. The crafter must meditate on the concept of being forgotten, of fading from memory, of the silence of a grave where no one visits. They must actively draw upon the inert properties of the materials and create a “zone of un-presence” around the brooch, pulling its spiritual signature inward until it is a near-perfect blank. The process is complete when the brooch feels unnaturally heavy and cold in their hand, and the ambient sounds of the room seem to grow more distant.
6. Final Sealing: To protect the runes and complete the item, mix the Pinch of Crypt-Dust into a drop of Shadow-Lacquer, creating a gritty, matte-black paste. Apply a single, thin coat of this mixture over the runes on the back of the brooch. When the lacquer dries, it will be utterly non-reflective and will permanently seal the magic of forgotten things within the clasp.

Man Who Traded His Name

There was a man, and his name was Fain. This name was a trouble. It was a brand on a beast, a mark that said, ‘Here is the man who saw.’ Fain had seen a great crime done by a lord with a cruel smile and a long shadow. Fain spoke the truth-words, but the lord’s gold was a louder truth. And so the lord walked free, and his smile was a promise of a sharp knife for Fain.

Fain ran. He ran from city to city. But his name ran with him. It was a sharp stone in his shoe. He could not sleep, for the assassins of the lord were many, and they looked for the man named Fain. He did not wish for a sword. He did not wish for a shield. He wished for an ending to his story. He wished to become a blank page.

In a city of steam and whispers, he heard a tale. A tale of the Veiled Attendants, who serve the god of death. It was said they could walk through a room of grieving family and not one eye would lift to see them. It was said they could wear the silence of the grave like a cloak. Fain sought these people. He went to the deep places of the city, where the sunlight is a stranger.

He found them. Their house had no sign. Their door had no lock. He entered a room of quiet shadows. A woman stood there. Her face was a still mask. She asked him, what hunger brings you to a house of endings?

Fain said, I am hunted because of my name. I wish to trade my name for a quiet life. I wish to be a person of no story.

The woman looked at him for a long time. Her eyes saw the shape of his fear. She said, the grave has a great silence. But it is a silence you must earn. To be forgotten, you must first learn what it is to be no one. She gave him a task.

You will go to the Potter’s Field, she said. The place where we put the bodies that have no names. You will stay there for one turning of the moon. You will tend the unmarked stones. You will not speak a word to any living soul. You will learn the language of being forgotten.

So Fain went to the Potter’s Field. It was a grey and lonely place on a hill outside the city. There were no grand tombs. Only small stones, like teeth in the mouth of the world. For the first days, Fain’s fear was a cold coat he could not take off. He felt the eyes of the assassins in every shadow.

But he did his work. He pulled the weeds from the nameless mounds. He swept the dust from the blank stones. He did not speak. He only worked. And a strange thing happened. The quietness of the place began to enter him. He listened to the wind. It did not know his name. He watched the rain fall on the graves. It did not care what he had seen. The thousands of forgotten souls buried there did not ask him for his story.

His own story, the one with the cruel lord and the sharp knife, began to feel small. It was just one story among thousands of stories that were now over. He stopped being Fain the Witness. He was just a man, sweeping leaves. He began to feel the great peace of being a secret. One day, while clearing dirt from a new grave, his fingers found a small sliver of white bone. It belonged to no one who was known. It was a bone from a body with no name. He kept it.

When the moon had turned, he went back to the house of shadows. The woman was there. She looked at him. She said, you have a new quietness inside you. You have learned.

Fain gave her the sliver of bone. She took it, and she took a piece of heavy, dull lead from a box. The lead was from the coffin of a king forgotten for a thousand years. She melted the lead in a fire that made no sound. She poured it in a mold of a closed eye. When it was cool, she pressed the sliver of nameless bone into its center. She told Fain to hold the brooch and to remember the great peace of the Potter’s Field. He did this. He poured his new understanding of silence into the metal. The brooch grew cold and heavy in his hand.

The woman pinned it on his simple cloak. She said, this will not make you a ghost to be seen through. It will make you a man who is not worth seeing. Go.

Fain walked out into the busy street. A man passed him. The man’s eyes were hard and his hand was on his knife. It was one of the lord’s assassins. The assassin’s eyes swept across Fain and did not stop. The assassin was looking for Fain, a man whose name was a trouble. He was not looking for a quiet man in a simple cloak who looked like no one at all. Fain was free. He had traded his name, not for riches, but for the safety of being nothing.

---

The Moral of the Story: To hide from a hunter, do not become a shadow that can be chased. Become the stone that the hunter walks past without a glance.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu

The Unmarked Man’s Clasp

A deeply unsettling occult item, this heavy clasp is fashioned from lead that has been reclaimed from centuries-old coffins. It is shaped like a closed eye and feels cold and spiritually dead to the touch. It does not channel spirits, but rather imbues the wearer with the supernatural anonymity of the forgotten dead. To use it is to court a kind of psychic erasure, to slowly fade from the world not just in presence, but in memory.

Game Mechanics:

• Fading Presence: The wearer’s physical and social presence is muted. They gain one bonus die on all Stealth rolls. Conversely, their features and mannerisms become so nondescript that they receive one penalty die on Charm, Intimidate, or any other roll where making a memorable personal impression is key.
• A Face Unremembered: Any non-player character who interacts with the wearer must make a successful POW roll opposed by the wearer’s POW. If the NPC fails, they will be unable to recall the wearer’s face with any accuracy later, describing them only in the vaguest of terms.
• Stillness of the Grave: Once per day, the Investigator may will the clasp to activate, falling into a death-like trance for up to one hour. During this time, they are for all intents and purposes a corpse: their breathing and heartbeat are nearly undetectable (requiring an Extreme difficulty Medicine roll to discern), and their skin is cold and waxy. The Investigator is unconscious during this time. The experience of being so close to a true state of death requires a Sanity roll (0/1d3 SAN loss) upon waking.

Blades in the Dark

The Nobody’s Brooch

A favored tool of spies and lurks in Duskvol, this leaden brooch is said to be crafted by a secret society of undertakers who move through the city like ghosts. The magic within doesn’t make you invisible—it makes you unimportant. In a city where everyone is desperate to make a name for themselves, the brooch’s greatest power is its ability to make you a nobody, allowing you to slip through the cracks of society where the real secrets are kept.

Game Mechanics:

This is a piece of Subterfuge Gear.

• Blend into the Background: When you wear this brooch, you gain +1d to any Prowl or Finesse roll where the goal is to go unnoticed by blending in with a crowd or appearing as if you belong. You cannot use this bonus while actively being pursued or while under direct scrutiny.
• Forgettable Face: When you interact with an NPC for the first time, you can take 1 Stress to activate the brooch’s memory-dampening effect. If you do, that NPC cannot reliably recall your face or description later. If they try to have someone track you down based on your appearance, you can start a 4-segment clock labeled “My Face is Remembered.”
• Play Dead: You can take 2 Stress to enter a state of suspended animation for up to one hour. You appear to be dead to all mundane senses and are completely silent. While in this state, you are helpless. The GM is free to start a clock representing a complication arising from someone discovering your “corpse” (e.g., “Taken to the Morgue,” “Looted for Valuables”).
• Walk the Ghost-Roads: Once per score, you can take 2 Stress to become invisible and untraceable to spirits for one scene. Ghosts will not perceive you, and you leave no spiritual trail for a Whisper to track.

Dungeons & Dragons

Brooch of the Unmarked Grave Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement)

This heavy, lead-grey clasp is shaped like a stylized closed eye and feels unnaturally cold. The necromantic energy within does not command the dead, but instead cloaks the wearer in the dead’s most powerful traits: their silence, their stillness, and the tendency for the living to look away from them.

• Nondescript Presence. While wearing this brooch, you have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you are not in plain sight of a creature or are moving at half speed or less.
• Forgettable Face. A creature has disadvantage on any ability check made to recall your appearance or identify you from a description if they have not met you before.
• Stillness of the Grave. As an action, you can fall into a catatonic state for up to 10 minutes. While in this state, you appear dead to all outward inspection and to any magic of 1st level or lower that detects life or thoughts. For the duration, you are incapacitated, your speed is 0, and you have resistance to poison damage. You can end this state as a bonus action. Once you use this property, you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
• Path of the Forgotten. As an action, you can erase your spiritual signature for 1 hour. For the duration, you are undetectable by any spell or magical effect that would sense or track a creature’s soul, such as the Locate Creature spell. Undead creatures with blindsight, tremorsense, or other non-visual senses are unable to detect you unless you are within 5 feet of them. Once you use this property, you cannot use it again until the next dawn.

Knave

Leaden Eye Clasp Cloak Clasp, 1 inventory slot

A heavy, dull lead clasp in the shape of a closed eye. It seems to absorb sound and light, and its presence feels like a void. It offers no protection in a fight, but makes it less likely a fight will find you.

• Passive: You have advantage on all saving throws made to be stealthy or to go unnoticed in a crowd. However, you have disadvantage on all saving throws made to be persuasive, intimidating, or memorable.
• Passive: Any NPC who meets you for the first time must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be completely unable to describe your face later.
• Active (Once per day): You can touch the clasp and remain perfectly still. For the next hour, you appear to be a corpse to all normal senses. You are considered helpless, but you cannot be magically put to sleep or charmed.
• Active (Once per day): You can hold the clasp and whisper to it. For the next hour, you are completely undetectable by spirits, ghosts, and other ethereal undead. They will not notice you unless you physically touch them or attack them.

Fate

The Clasp of Inconsequence

This item is an Extra, a narrative tool that allows a character to excel at being unnoticed, often at the cost of being un-noticed when they need to be. It represents a character’s connection to the necromantic principle of silence and anonymity.

Aspects: The clasp has two core aspects that can be invoked or compelled: A Face in the Crowd Is No Face at All and As Silent as a Filled Grave.

Stunts:

• Narrative Permission: The clasp gives you permission to be supernaturally unremarkable. You can justify blending into secure areas, being overlooked by guards, or having your presence dismissed as unimportant, even when it might otherwise stretch credulity.
• Fade from View: When you Create an Advantage using the Stealth skill to blend in, go unnoticed, or hide in plain sight, you gain a +2 to your roll. The aspect you create should reflect your uncanny ability to be overlooked (e.g., Just Another Servant, Part of the Furniture, Nothing to See Here).
• Stillness of the Grave: Once per session, you may spend a Fate Point to feign death. This creates a powerful Situation Aspect, such as Just Another Forgotten Corpse, on yourself with two free invocations. You can use these invocations to defend against any attempt to notice or identify you. While this aspect is active, you cannot take physical actions. The GM can also invoke this aspect (for instance, by having city guards begin carting off the “body” for disposal).

Numenera & Cypher System

Analeptic Void Clasp

This artifact is a heavy brooch made from a dull, lead-like material that does not conform to any known element on the periodic table. The material seems to warp localized space-time and bio-signatures, creating a “null” zone around the wearer that makes them difficult for both organic senses and technological sensors to properly register.

As an Artifact:

• Level: 5
• Form: A heavy, lead-grey metallic clasp in the shape of a closed eye.
• Effect: The wearer gains an asset on all tasks involving stealth, disguise, and remaining unnoticed. However, the clasp’s presence-dampening field also means the wearer has an inability on all tasks related to being persuasive, intimidating, or drawing attention to themselves.
• Depletion: 1 in 1d20 (When the depletion roll is made, the central bone sliver of the clasp cracks and it becomes a simple, heavy piece of metal).

Abilities:

• Feigned Death (Action): The user can make an Intellect-based roll against the artifact’s level (a difficulty of 5). On a success, for up to ten minutes, their biological signature becomes indistinguishable from that of a corpse. They are invisible to any system or creature that detects targets based on life signs (heat, respiration, heartbeat). The user is dazed for one round after the effect ends due to systemic shock.
• Spiritual Null-State (Action): Once every 28 hours, the user can activate the clasp’s deepest function. For the next ten minutes, they leave behind no psychic, spiritual, or extradimensional residue. They cannot be tracked by psionic or magical means, and spirits or transdimensional beings are completely unable to perceive their existence unless the user physically interacts with them.

Pathfinder

CLASP OF THE FORGOTTEN SOUL — ITEM 2+ UNCOMMON NECROMANCY ILLUSION INVESTED Usage worn, cloak; Bulk —

This heavy, leaden clasp is shaped like a closed eye and feels cold to the touch. It uses subtle necromancy to cloak the wearer in an aura of anonymity, making them seem unimportant and causing the memories of their appearance to fade like breath on a cold mirror.

Invested: You gain a +1 item bonus to Stealth checks. Furthermore, the DC for any creature to recall your specific appearance using a skill like Society increases by 2.

Activate [one-action] (Concentrate, Illusion, Necromancy); Frequency once per hour; Effect You enter a catatonic state that perfectly mimics death for up to 10 minutes. You appear dead to all mundane senses. Any creature that attempts to magically discern if you are alive must succeed at a check against your class DC or spell DC, whichever is higher. While in this state, you are conscious but you have the slowed 1 condition and are unable to use other actions or reactions. You can end the effect by using a single action, which has the concentrate trait.

Activate [two-actions] (Concentrate, Necromancy); Frequency once per day; Effect You cloak yourself in a shroud of spiritual silence that lasts for 10 minutes. While the shroud is active, you are undetected by creatures with the spirit or incorporeal traits. They are not aware of your presence unless you take a hostile action against them or one of their allies. This effect ends immediately if you take a hostile action.

Savage Worlds

The Undertaker’s Brooch

A tool of a secret guild of necromantic morticians, this simple leaden brooch allows the wearer to move with the silence and anonymity of death itself. It doesn’t make one invisible, but rather makes them so unremarkable that the living and the dead alike tend to look right through them.

Requirements: Novice, Stealth d6+ Abilities:

• Muted Presence: The wearer is supernaturally unobtrusive. They gain a +2 bonus to all Stealth rolls. Furthermore, opponents suffer a -2 penalty to any Notice rolls made to perceive the wearer.
• Forgettable Face: An NPC who has a brief encounter with the wearer must make a Smarts roll at -2 to remember their face or any specific details about them later. On a failure, they can only provide a vague, unhelpful description.
• Play Dead: Once per day, the wearer can activate the brooch to enter a state of suspended animation that perfectly mimics death. This lasts for up to one hour and renders the user Incapacitated. No roll is required to activate this ability.
• Spirit Shroud: Once per day, the wearer can activate the brooch to become completely undetectable by most spirits and undead for one hour. Such creatures cannot sense or target the wearer unless the wearer first attacks or directly interacts with them. This does not fool intelligent undead who can still see the wearer with their normal vision.

Shadowrun

Aztechnology “Cihuateteo” Veil Clasp

A subtle and sinister piece of necromantic corporate hardware from Aztechnology’s “Nahui-Ollin” magical division. Marketed as an “executive privacy enhancer,” the Cihuateteo Veil is a dense, non-reflective clasp made from a lead-polymer composite containing the ritually prepared bone fragment of an SINless, forgotten citizen. The foci functions by actively suppressing the user’s physical and astral signatures, effectively wrapping them in a shroud of magical and social anonymity. It is a favored tool for corporate spies and extraction teams.

• Type: Qi Foci
• Rating: 2
• Activation: Simple Action
• Game Mechanics:
  • Suppressed Signature: While this foci is active, the threshold for all opposed Perception tests to notice the wearer is increased by 1.
  • Amnesiac Presence: Any non-player character who has a brief or casual interaction with the wearer must succeed on a Logic + Intuition (3) test to recall specific details about the wearer’s face or clothing later. On a failure, they can only offer a generic, unhelpful description.
  • Stillness of the Grave: By spending a point of Edge, the user can place themselves into a state of suspended animation for up to ten minutes. They are undetectable by mundane life-sign scanners (including medical sensors and cyberware). They appear to be a corpse to all physical inspection. The user is considered Stunned for one combat round after the effect ends due to the shock of resuscitation.
  • Astral Void: Once per day, the user can spend a point of Edge to completely erase their astral signature for 10 minutes. During this time, they are totally undetectable by any form of astral perception, including active spells, watching spirits, or an astrally projecting magician.

Starfinder

Corpse Fleet Infiltrator’s Clasp

Standard issue for elite agents of the Eoxian Corpse Fleet, this dull, lead-grey brooch is a masterpiece of military necrotech. It functions as a personal stealth field generator, using necromantic dampeners to make the undead wearer register as a complete null-signature on the sensors and senses of the living. When these items are “lost” or find their way into the hands of the living, they provide an unparalleled, if deeply unsettling, advantage in infiltration.

• SYSTEM Corpse Fleet Infiltrator’s Clasp
• LEVEL 3
• PRICE 1,300 credits
• SLOTS worn (as a brooch or cloak clasp)
• BULK L
• Game Mechanics:
  • This is a hybrid item that grants the wearer a +2 insight bonus to Stealth checks. Additionally, the DC to identify you via a Culture or Perception check is increased by 4.
  • Feigned Death (1/day): As a standard action, you can enter a state that perfectly mimics death for up to 10 minutes. While in this state, you are considered helpless, but you are immune to all mind-affecting effects and you register as a mundane corpse to any technological sensor or any magical effect of level 3 or lower.
  • Spiritually Blank (1/day): As a standard action, you can suppress your spiritual presence for 10 minutes. During this time, you are invisible to any creature with the incorporeal subtype (unless they can see you with normal vision). You cannot be detected or located by any divination spell that senses life force or souls, such as deathwatch or locate creature.

Traveller

Droyne Ochidae Sigil (Outcast’s Sigil)

An artifact of incredible rarity and mysterious function, this heavy, stone-like brooch is a relic from the Droyne. Imperial xenologists theorize that it is not technological, but biological—a semi-living organism that bonds with its host. It continuously samples the user’s pheromones and bio-rhythms, and in turn broadcasts a subsonic, biological signal that communicates utter unimportance and social irrelevance to the subconscious minds of other nearby beings, causing them to instinctively ignore the wearer.

• Tech Level: 15
• Legality: Forbidden (Uncontrolled and Unsanctioned Alien Artifact).
• Cost: 10 MCr+
• Game Mechanics:
  • Social Camouflage: The wearer is perceived as being completely unremarkable. They gain DM+2 on all Stealth checks made in populated areas (such as cities or starports). Conversely, they suffer DM-2 on any Leadership or Persuade checks where they are trying to be inspiring, memorable, or authoritative.
  • Unmemorable: An NPC who interacts with the wearer must succeed on a Difficult (10+) INT check to recall the wearer’s face with any accuracy after the encounter has ended.
  • Metabolic Stasis: Once per week, the user can consciously trigger the device to place them into a state of hibernation for up to 6 hours. All life signs cease, and the user is impervious to hostile environments (vacuum, poison gas, etc.) for the duration. Waking from this state takes 1D minutes, during which the user is groggy and all actions have a DM-2.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

The Nameless Man’s Clasp

A cursed magical item that surfaces from time to time in the hidden markets of Altdorf and Nuln. Legend claims it is the only remaining possession of a man whose name was magically erased from every book and memory in the Empire for an unforgivable crime. To wear the clasp is to borrow his curse of anonymity, to become a ghost in the eyes of the world, a fate that slowly chips away at one’s own sense of self.

• Qualities: Magical, Cursed
• Game Mechanics:
  • Curse of Anonymity: Every time you use one of this item’s activated abilities, you feel a piece of yourself slip away. You must make a Challenging (+0) Willpower Test. On a failure, you gain 1 Corruption Point.
  • Unremarkable Presence: While wearing the clasp, you seem to blend into the background. You gain a +15 bonus to all Stealth Tests.
  • Face of a Stranger (Active): Once per day, you may activate the clasp. For the next hour, anyone who attempts to recall your face after you have left their sight finds the memory to be frustratingly vague and indistinct. They cannot provide a useful description to a bounty hunter or Road Warden.
  • The Stillness of Morr (Active): Once per day, you may spend your full turn to enter a death-like trance that lasts for up to 10 minutes. You are considered Unconscious and are immune to poison, disease, and fear for the duration. Upon waking, you must make an Average (+20) Cool Test or gain 1 Stunned Condition from the shock of returning to the world of the living.