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Qigong 309 of the Veiled Breath

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by

Dale
in
  • Lore: Developed in the shadowed tea houses and shifting trade courts of the River Silt Delta, this subtle focus was perfected by the False-Heart Ascetics—infiltrators who practiced the art of the hollowed pulse. Believing that truth and deception were merely differences in the temperature and rhythm of vital energy, they devised exercises to conceal their interior dantian behind false currents. By circulating cold, still qi through the facial meridians while suppressing the heartbeat, an avatar can mask emotional tells, project fabricated auras, and weave subtle breath-distortions that deceive both mortal eyes and spiritual senses.
  • Description: A delicate, flexible half-mask crafted from three layered sheets of oiled mulberry parchment, reinforced along the bridge and cheekbones with hair-thin ribs of flexible river willow. Its surface is painted with faded, asymmetrical theater motifs in matte iron-gray ink. Strung across the nasal bridge and nostrils are two hollow, thumbnail-sized beads of polished smoke-quartz, each drilled with minute lateral vent-holes that silently filter and cool the wearer’s exhalations into nearly invisible micro-currents.
  • Specific Slot: Face Slot
  • Detailed Stats:
    • Item Tier: Tier 1
    • Item Rarity: Common
    • Item Level: Level 1
    • Item Hit Points: 10 plus wearer’s maximum health points
    • Armor Check (AC): +1 (Deflection against divination, emotion-sensing, and aura-reading detection)
    • Resilience: 7
    • Weight: 0.3 pounds
    • Suggested Valuation: 9 silver coins (accepted across standard World Bank trading posts)
    • Attunement: Requires simple somatic attunement (twelve minutes of unbroken reverse-abdominal breathing while holding an unblinking, blank expression until the smoke-quartz beads cool to body temperature)
  • Passive Magic:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean: While worn, the avatar’s pulse, respiration rate, and skin temperature remain perfectly uniform, rendering them immune to mundane physiological lie detection (such as checking sweat, pupil dilation, pulse rate, or voice tremors).
    • Masked Meridian Signature: To any creature examining the wearer via magical aura-reading or spiritual perception, the avatar’s vital energy appears faint, ordinary, and indistinguishable from an untrained common laborer or non-combatant.
    • Chameleon Palate: The wearer’s vocal pitch and tonal timber can be altered effortlessly within one octave, allowing convincing mimicry of regional accents and disguising their natural speaking voice without straining the vocal cords.
  • Activable Magic:
    • Phantom Vitality Projection:
      • Action Cost: 1 Action
      • Effect: The wearer exhales a slow, controlled stream of cooled breath through the quartz beads, projecting a false spiritual resonance into an object or unoccupied 5-foot space within 30 feet. For 10 minutes, spirit-trackers, divination spells, and scent-hunting beasts perceive that target point as an active living humanoid resting or meditating. Usable twice per day, recharging after a long rest.
    • Glance of the False Stature:
      • Action Cost: 1 Bonus Action / Minor Action
      • Effect: The wearer draws a sharp breath through their teeth and releases a micro-vent of qi across the mask’s brow. For 1 minute, the wearer subtly skews how observers perceive their physical status; they can appear either severely wounded and helpless (imposing a -2 penalty on enemies’ passive insight or perception) or completely healthy and unthreatened, discouraging opportunistic aggression. Usable once per short rest.
    • Vaporous Misdirection:
      • Action Cost: 1 Reaction / Interrupt
      • Effect: When an observer makes an active Insight, Sense Motive, or Perception check to discern the avatar’s true intentions, allegiance, or concealed items during a social interaction, the avatar releases a subtle puff of filtered qi through the mask. The triggering check is made with disadvantage or an immediate -2 penalty. Usable twice per day, recharging after a long rest.
  • Tags: Face Slot, Qigong, Tier 1, Common, Deception, Guile, Breathwork, Mask, Mulberry Parchment, Smoke Quartz, Willow, Infiltration, Aura, Subterfuge, Disguise, Misdirection, Camouflage, False-Pulse, Impersonation, Feign, Theater, Mimicry, Obfuscation, Silt-Delta, Dantian

Commercial Outlets, Trade Enclaves, and Valuation of the Veiled Breath Mask

  • Theatrical Ateliers and Costumer Guildhalls:
    • Setting: Found in the grand entertainment districts, opera alleys, and pleasure quarters of large river cities, these shops feature racks of lacquered silk robes, hanging collections of carved masks, and the sweet, waxy smells of pomade, greasepaint, and burning almond oil.
    • Buying: Actors, stage-dancers, and disguised courtiers purchase these masks disguised as conventional dramatic props for the baseline price of 9 silver coins. Disciples of licensed performing guilds or troupes carrying guild-seals can secure a professional courtesy discount, purchasing the piece for 7 silver coins and 5 nickels.
    • Selling: Master costumers inspect the willow splints and parchment integrity, tapping the smoke-quartz beads with a fingernail to ensure the micro-vents have not clogged with face-grease. An intact mask commands the standard baseline return of 9 copper coins, though during major festival seasons when novel theater props are in high demand, costumers will pay up to 1 silver coin in trade credit for quality cosmetic paints and stage silks.
  • Delta Tea Houses and Private Parlor-Dens:
    • Setting: Hidden along canal docks and overhanging river porches, these quiet establishments feature bamboo screening, fragrant braziers of burning dry sage, and low rosewood tables where silk-draped brokers arrange high-stakes negotiations away from public eyes.
    • Buying: Emissaries, debt-brokers, and political fixers buy the masks to maintain an impassive physical read during tense negotiations. Tea masters charge an exclusivity surcharge, listing the mask between 12 and 14 silver coins, often bundled inside a carved sandalwood storage box.
    • Selling: Tea house proprietresses discreetly purchase unrecorded masks to resell to nervous guests, offering an outright buy price of 9 copper coins. If an avatar demonstrates the piece’s ability to mask a pulse spike under direct interrogation pressure, the parlor will offer a discrete cash pouch of 1 silver coin and 3 nickels.
  • Frontier Waystations and River-Barge Markets:
    • Setting: Moored along muddy river deltas and marsh trading hubs, these floating flatboats and canvas-covered river markets smell of bilge water, fried river carp, pitch, and damp sacking. Smuggled goods, survival supplies, and regional trade items sit piled under oilcloth tarps.
    • Buying: River couriers, fugitives seeking to blend into barge crews, and traveling merchants buy the mask as an evasion tool against border inspectors and bounty hunters. Barge merchants typically charge 10 to 11 silver coins for an operational piece.
    • Selling: Floating pawnbrokers take the mask for the standard salvage value of 9 copper coins. If regional river patrols have increased tax inspections on traveling boats, pushing up local demand for identity-concealment items, merchants will pay up to 1 silver coin and 2 nickels in barter goods such as dried rations or rowboat supplies.
  • Underground Fences and Shadow-Quarter Safehouses:
    • Setting: Located behind false brick walls in cellar taprooms, opium dens, or abandoned tannery vats, these clandestine dens smell of damp earth, lamp oil, and sour vinegar. Disguise kits, lockpicks, and forged travel writs are traded across bare pine tables.
    • Buying: Spies, cutpurses, and assassins buy the mask to foil psychic interrogations, spirit hounds, and mundane watch guards. Fences charge an illicit markup, selling the item for 13 to 15 silver coins in unmarked specie.
    • Selling: Black-market brokers buy the mask with zero questions regarding its origin, paying the flat salvage price of 9 copper coins. If city magistracies deploy spirit-tracking beasts into the slums to hunt an escaped convict, creating an immediate need for aura-masking gear, fences will offer an immediate cash bounty of up to 2 silver coins.

Tactical Roleplay and Environmental Applications of the Veiled Breath Mask

  • High-Society Salons and Aristocratic Palaces:
    • Defensive Roleplay: During a tense diplomatic banquet where courtiers employ subtle aura-readers and truth-diviners to expose infiltrators, the avatar mingles while circulating cold, still breath behind the mulberry parchment. Thanks to Stillness of the Lower Ocean and Masked Meridian Signature, imperial inquisitors taking the avatar’s wrist or scanning their spiritual pressure register only the tranquil, sluggish pulse of an unassuming, non-cultivating tea-pourer. When a suspicious magistrate presses a piercing, accusatory question, the avatar activates Vaporous Misdirection, exhaling a faint, cooled micro-vent through the smoke-quartz beads that subtly fogs the inquisitor’s intuitive scrutiny and diverts suspicion to a rival noble.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Seeking to sow discord among conspirators without drawing attention, the avatar adjusts their pitch using Chameleon Palate to perfectly mimic the vocal timbre of the Grand Chamberlain. Whispering a fabricated betrayal behind the screen of a shaded alcove, the avatar triggers Glance of the False Stature to project a posture of defenseless frailty. When the targeted guard commander looks over, they see an elderly, sickly attendant cowering from a supposed threat, misdirecting the entire palace guard into a blind manhunt across the opposite wing of the estate.
  • Crowded River Markets and Delta Smuggler Slums:
    • Defensive Roleplay: While navigating a muddy dock market crawling with regional tax enforcers and sniffing hound-beasts, the avatar turns down an alleyway only to find it sealed by a checkpoint. By invoking Phantom Vitality Projection, the avatar breathes a thread of cooled somatic energy onto an empty fishing skiff tied thirty paces down the canal. The tracking beasts catch the false life-signature and lunge toward the moored boat, pulling their handlers into the reeds and leaving the main dock clear for an unhindered escape.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Pinned in a narrow warehouse alley by an aggressive gang of wharf extorters, the avatar engages Glance of the False Stature to appear grievously wounded, clutching their side and feigning a staggered, wheezing retreat into a dead-end storage bay. Lured into careless overconfidence by the illusion of a helpless mark, the extortionists drop their defensive guard to rush in for an easy kill, walking straight into a pre-set snare or leaving themselves completely exposed to an immediate, point-blank ambush.
  • Subterranean Catacombs and Spirit-Haunted Crypts:
    • Defensive Roleplay: Trapped in a sunken tomb complex where lingering phantoms hunt living flesh by homing in on the warmth of respiration, the avatar secures the mask against their cheekbones and initiates deep reverse-abdominal breathing. The smoke-quartz beads filter their exhalations into room-temperature micro-drafts, chilling their vital signature until wandering wraiths drift past them, mistaking the avatar for an inert stone sarcophagus or a barren pillar.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Confronting a rival tomb-raiding party within a dark burial vault, the avatar remains hidden behind a fallen funerary slab. Using Phantom Vitality Projection, they cast an active spiritual aura directly behind the enemy vanguard. The rival party’s spellcaster detects the phantom presence, panics, and discharges a high-tier spell into the empty shadows, burning their own tactical reserves and exposing their defensive flank to the avatar’s retaliatory strike.

Perception of Activation:

  • Sight:
    • User’s Perspective: The edges of your vision dim slightly, as if daylight were passing through oiled paper or fine gray silk. Looking down at your own hands or chest, you see your natural aura—the vibrant, pulsing contour of somatic qi—recede inward, turning into a flat, translucent slate-gray outline that clings tight to your skin.
    • Observer’s Perspective: Observers notice the matte ink lines on the mask seem to flatten and soften, losing their distinct painterly edges. As the wearer exhales, two thread-like, perfectly straight ribbons of cool, translucent mist vent laterally from the smoke-quartz beads, dissipating within an inch of the cheekbones before becoming invisible.
    • Positives: Visually suppresses somatic flares and tells, preventing aura-seers and sharp-eyed observers from detecting power build-up or emotional tension.
    • Negatives: Narrowly constricts peripheral contrast for the user in dim conditions, making fast-moving shadows at the edge of sight slightly harder to distinguish immediately.
  • Hearing:
    • User’s Perspective: The wet, internal sound of your own heartbeat slows, muffled as though heard through several layers of thick quilt. In contrast, the sound of your own breathing becomes completely silent inside your skull—no rushing of air in the ears, only a soft, cool draft gliding over the palate.
    • Observer’s Perspective: Even when standing directly beside the avatar in a dead-silent room, no sound of inhaling or exhaling can be heard. Observers listening for breathing or a racing pulse hear only ambient room noise.
    • Positives: Completely eliminates acoustic breathing signatures, preventing guards, listening devices, or predators from tracking the user by sound.
    • Negatives: Dampens the user’s internal perception of their own physical exertion, making it easier to overstrain muscles without noticing early auditory cues like gasping.
  • Touch:
    • User’s Perspective: A sudden sensation of cool river water washes down from the bridge of your nose across your cheeks and throat. The skin beneath the mulberry parchment turns pleasantly numb and dry, eliminating sweat, facial twitches, and involuntary muscle flinches around the eyes and mouth.
    • Observer’s Perspective: If an examiner places fingers against the wearer’s neck or wrist, they feel cool, dry skin and a pulse that beats with mechanical, slow, and unyielding regularity—devoid of any physiological spike or nervous tremor.
    • Positives: Prevents micro-expressions, facial tics, and stress sweating, keeping the wearer physically composed under extreme intimidation or interrogation.
    • Negatives: Leaves the facial skin feeling slightly stiff and desensitized, making it difficult to feel light tactile touches, such as an insect crawling on the jaw or a stray hair brushing the cheek.
  • Smell:
    • User’s Perspective: The air entering your nostrils loses its sharp ambient odors, replaced by the subtle, clean scent of crushed mulberry pulp, dried willow bark, and cool mineral stone.
    • Observer’s Perspective: Those leaning very close catch only a neutral, faint whiff of dry drawing parchment and cold well-water, completely masking the user’s natural body odor, perfumes, or sweat.
    • Positives: Neutralizes human scent markers, preventing bloodhounds, hunting drakes, or scent-trackers from picking up a trail.
    • Negatives: Dulls the wearer’s ability to detect subtle environmental airborne toxins, spoiled food, or faint burning odors.
  • Taste:
    • User’s Perspective: A crisp, faintly sweet mineral flavor settles on the center of the tongue, similar to drinking melted mountain snow from a slate cup or chewing a clean willow twig.
    • Observer’s Perspective: Observers cannot perceive this directly, but may note the wearer swallowing once with total ease before settling into an unmoving, calm jawline.
    • Positives: Keeps the mouth moist and eliminates dry-mouth symptoms caused by panic, adrenaline spikes, or lengthy interrogations.
    • Negatives: Leaves a lingering, cold aftertaste that numbs the palate to nuanced food and drink flavors for up to thirty minutes.
  • Extra-Sensory Perceptions:
    • Biometric Meridian Dissimulation:
      • User’s Perspective: You feel the energetic vortex of your lower dantian shrink inward into an icy, dense knot, while a hollow, phantom shell of sluggish, civilian-grade qi spreads over your skin like a loose cloak. You perceive your genuine martial vitality tucked away, safe from prying spiritual eyes.
      • Observer’s Perspective: Qi-cultivators, monks, and divination casters using spiritual sight perceive the avatar as an unremarkable commoner—someone with dull, untrained meridians and zero internal cultivation.
      • Positives: Completely baffles truth-sensing enchantments, aura-judging diviners, and magical detection wards that scan for dangerous martial power levels.
      • Negatives: While the veil is active, channeling large amounts of overt magical energy requires a conscious, jarring effort to crack open the suppressed flow, causing a split-second delay before high-intensity maneuvers.
    • Aura Decoupling / Phantom Projection:
      • User’s Perspective: When releasing breath to form a false presence, you feel an elastic thread of warm somatic intention peel away from your chest and anchor itself at the target location, registering in your mind as an echo of your own body breathing thirty paces away.
      • Observer’s Perspective: Diviners, spirit hounds, and detection spells snap their attention entirely toward the projected point, registering a genuine living presence resting or breathing in the distance.
      • Positives: Effortlessly diverts magical search parties, scrying sensors, and guardian constructs away from the user’s true location.
      • Negatives: Generates a faint phantom feedback sensation—if the projected space is attacked or disturbed, the user experiences a brief, startling phantom chill down their spine.

Recipe: Half-Mask of the Veiled Breath Qigong Focus

  • Materials Needed:
    • One Tier 1 Magic Crystal (coin-sized and coin-weighted, harvested to serve as the somatic dampening anchor and false-pulse reservoir).
    • Three sheets of heavy, handmade mulberry bark paper (rough-textured, unbleached, and water-pressed).
    • Two spherical beads of natural smoke-quartz (roughly thumb-nail sized, clear of internal occlusions or stress fractures).
    • Six strips of aged river willow bark (cured, split into hair-thin flexible structural splints).
    • Two fluid ounces of cold-pressed drying camellia oil (for weatherproofing and fiber elasticity).
    • One small cake of matte iron-gray sumi soot-ink (bound with animal hide glue).
    • One yard of braided raw silk cord (split into cheek ribbons and internal binding stays).
    • One small vial of clarified pine resin glue (for cold lapidary adhesion).
  • Tools Required:
    • One miniature diamond-tipped lapidary bow-drill (for cutting central channels and lateral micro-vent holes through the quartz beads).
    • One wooden facial mold or carved boxwood mask block (for shaping and drying wet-laminated parchment).
    • One brass-tipped carving awl and fine split-bamboo bone folder.
    • One badger-hair sumi drafting brush (fine-point, for tracing asymmetric theater patterns).
    • One miniature cold-chisel and jewelers’ balance scale.
    • One pair of curved brass tweezers.
    • One shallow earthenware soaking dish.
  • Skill Requirements:
    • Papercraft & Wet Lamination: Skill Level 2 (for multi-layer paper shaping, oil-impregnation, and willow-stay encapsulation).
    • Lapidary & Hardstone Drilling: Skill Level 1 (for carving acoustic micro-venturi ports through smoke-quartz without shattering the mineral matrix).
    • Qigong Breath Cultivation: Basic mastery of reverse-abdominal breathing, cooling somatic circulation, and meridian suppression in the facial sinuses.
  • Crafting Steps:
    • Drill and Vent the Quartz Beads: Mount the two smoke-quartz spheres in a padded wooden vise. Using the diamond-tipped bow-drill lubricated with cold water, drill a clean center channel through each bead to accept the nasal bridge cord. Next, drill three hair-thin lateral relief holes through the outer wall of each sphere, creating the venturi micro-ports that will cool and disperse the wearer’s exhalations into silent currents.
    • Cleave and Bed the Dampening Core: Weigh the coin-sized Tier 1 magic crystal to verify balance. Use the miniature cold-chisel to strike along its natural cleavage plane, splitting the crystal into two equal half-lentils. Apply a minute dab of clarified pine resin to seat one crystal segment into the recessed inner seat of each drilled quartz bead, ensuring the crystal’s facets face into the central airflow passage.
    • Shape and Laminate the Parchment Base: Submerge the three mulberry paper sheets in warm water until the fibers loosen. Lay the first sheet over the wooden facial mold, smoothing it along the contours of the cheekbones, bridge, and orbital ridges. Brush a thin, even coat of cold-pressed camellia oil across the paper. Position the flexible river willow splints along the bridge, upper rim, and cheek edges to serve as supportive structural stays. Press the second and third sheets over the willow framework, burnishing the layers tightly with the bamboo bone folder until bonded without air bubbles. Allow to dry in a cool, drafty shade for twelve hours.
    • Ink the Dissimulation Motifs: Remove the cured, stiffened mask shell from the wooden form. Trim the eye apertures and lower cheek lines with a clean awl. Using the badger-hair brush and matte iron-gray sumi soot-ink, paint the asymmetrical theater motifs across the forehead and cheekplates. These geometric and fluid swoops are not merely ornamental; their precise contours follow the pathways of the facial facial qi channels, directing surface aura flows into stagnant pools.
    • Mount the Smoke-Quartz Nasal Bridge: Thread the braided raw silk cord through the central channels of the two drilled quartz beads. Position the beads securely across the nasal notch of the mask so the micro-vent holes face diagonally downward toward the nostrils. Pierce small anchor eyelets through the reinforced willow stays along the mask’s bridge, pull the silk cord tight, and knot the ends securely behind the cheekplates, sealing the knots with drops of pine resin. Attach the lateral silk tying ribbons through the outer cheek tabs.
    • Somatic Attunement and Meridian Freezing: Don the finished half-mask, pressing the cool smoke-quartz beads against the flesh beside the bridge of the nose. Assume a seated meditation posture and engage in twelve minutes of unbroken reverse-abdominal breathing. Pull warm somatic qi upward from the lower dantian and pass it slowly through the throat, forcing it to cool as it circulates through the sinuses and vents out across the quartz beads. When the smoke-quartz drops in temperature, the ink lines on the parchment soften in appearance, and the avatar’s breath escapes as two silent, invisible micro-drafts, the attunement is complete and the veil is locked.

Water-Rotted Mulberry Leaf of Man with Two Faces Who Poured Vinegar in the Well of Great Magistrate

In the turning of the crooked moon, when the Great Silt Delta had only nine river-mouths and the mud was not yet divided into cabbage-plots by the copper pegs of the tax-men, there was a province named Gray-Reed-Under-Hill. In that season, men did not swear oaths upon bronze knives, but laid their bare right thumbs against the throat-pulse of their neighbors; for it was known to all fathers that if a man spoke an untruth while his neighbor’s skin touched his wind-pipe, the blood inside his neck would jump like a hooked carp, and his guilt would be made plain before the village elders.

In the midst of the water-markets dwelt a petty clerk of the low canals, whose counting-mark upon the oilcloth rolls was set down as Scribe-With-No-Bile, though his true hearth-name was Hanjun. He was an avatar of the first step, possessing no great silver ring upon his thumb, and his belly was thin like an empty flour-sack. His office was to sit upon a three-legged stool inside the customs-shed of the Fourth Sluice, recording the tubs of salted garfish that passed up-river to the iron kitchens of Magistrate Yan-of-the-Five-Fingers.

Now this Magistrate Yan was a man whose ears were very wide and whose heart was filled with sharp gravel. He did not gather taxes in grain or linen, but demanded that every barge-master bring him one measure of pure river-gold for every twelve casks of fish. To ensure that no boatman hid gold under the bilge-boards, Magistrate Yan kept upon his right knee a great hunting-beast—a hairless, red-eyed water-hound bred by the mountain sorcerers, whose nostrils could smell the heat of a lying heart across twenty paces of muddy water. If any man stood before the bench and felt his spleen grow warm with fear or his lung flutter with hidden greed, the red-eyed hound would open its black jaws and tear the calf from his leg, and the Magistrate’s spearmen would cast his body into the carp-sluice.

Now it came to pass in the season of the white mist that Hanjun’s younger sister, who worked in the vinegar sheds of the outer canal, was taken by the bailiffs because she had dropped a jar of royal wine into the mud. The Magistrate declared that she must be sold to the lime-burners of the Black Cliffs unless twenty pieces of heavy silver were laid upon his cedar table before the five-day fair was ended.

Hanjun possessed only two bags of dry rice and a copper scraper with a notched tooth. He went by night into the sunken reed-beds behind the Old Ferry, where the wandering vagabonds of the False-Heart order were known to pitch their willow huts upon the mud. There he found an aged vagrant whose face was wrapped in dirty bandages of cotton, who sat beside a small brazier of willow-coals, cooking river-snails in a broken tile.

Hanjun cast himself upon his belly in the slime and said: “O Father of the Hollow Reed, give me a sword of cold iron, or give me a poison of mountain root, that I may kill the dog of the five-fingered lord and deliver my sister from the lime-pits.”

The bandaged elder did not stir the coals, but spat a snail-shell into the mud and made a sound like dry reeds rubbing together in a frost: “A sword of iron has a voice of iron; when it strikes, it shouts to thirty watchmen. A poison has a tongue of fire; when it burns the belly, the hound smells the smoke of it in your skin before your hand has touched the latch. If you would walk among the wolves, you must not become a tiger; you must become a piece of wet driftwood that has no warm blood inside its bark.”

The old vagrant reached into a sack of rotting rushes and drew forth a half-mask of stiff paper, fashioned from three leaves of wild mulberry bark that had been pressed under heavy river-stones and soaked in bitter tea. Across the cheeks were drawn crooked markings of gray soot, like the theater-masks of the singing-clowns who play upon the barges; and across the hollow where the nose sits were bound two round stones of gray cloud-quartz, pierced with tiny holes like the breathing-tubes of a water-beetle.

The elder bound the silk cords behind Hanjun’s ears, pulling the willow stays so tight that the paper bit into the bone above his teeth. He pressed his cold palm against Hanjun’s lower navel, striking the gate of his dantian with a knuckle like a thorn, and commanded him in the old dialect of the marsh: “Do not blow the breath outward through the mouth like an ox in summer. Pull the wind down into the dark water behind your hips. Let the blood become like stagnant ice under a bridge. When the Magistrate looks upon you, do not be Hanjun who loves his sister; be a dead log floating past a weir.”

Hanjun took his breath through the quartz stones. Behold, a chill like cold spring-water ran up the bridge of his snout and poured across his cheekbones. The beating inside his breast—which had been fluttering like a sparrow caught in a chimney—dropped down, down, until it struck once, waited while a man might count ten paces, and struck again with the dull, slow thump of a wet oar against a boat-side. His hands, which had been trembling with sweat, became cold and dry like smooth tiles.

On the morning of the third day, Hanjun put on his torn clerk’s coat, hid an empty wicker sack under his elbow, and walked into the Great Hall of the Five-Fingered Magistrate.

Upon the raised platform sat Magistrate Yan, wearing his robe of black crane-silk and holding his iron measuring-rod. Beside his knee lay the red-eyed hound, its belly trembling, its black tongue tasting the air for the salt of terror. Thirty guards leaned upon their bills along the walls, and the room was full of rich merchants sweating into their sleeves, their hearts pounding so loudly that the hound growled continuously in its throat.

Hanjun approached the bench. The translation text upon the sixth willow splint says: “The clerk walked not like a man who carries a burden, but like a shadow cast upon a plaster wall by a cloud passing over the sun. The stones upon his snout did whisper with a small mist, yet no man heard it, for it was thinner than the sigh of an owl.”

The red-eyed hound lifted its snout and sniffed the hem of Hanjun’s rags. It smelled no blood; it smelled no gall; it smelled only the dry paper of old registers and the cold willow bark of the river banks. The hound yawned, laid its chin back upon its paws, and went to sleep upon the Magistrate’s foot-mat.

Magistrate Yan leaned forward, his small eyes narrowing like slits in a pig-trough: “Who is this beggar who stands before my rod without kneeling?”

Hanjun touched the central quartz bead with his thumb, and engaged the Chameleon Palate. When he opened his lips, the voice that issued forth was not his own squeaking pipe, but the deep, honeyed resonance of Inspector Lord Wu, the Emperor’s high examiner of salt-registers from the Western Capital: “I am the secret auditor of the Grand Granary, sent in rags to count the gold-pots of the Four Canals. I have seen the silver hidden in your fish-casks, Yan of the Five Fingers; yet I have come not to slay you, but to take my share before the imperial barges arrive.”

Magistrate Yan’s face turned white like sheep’s curd. He laid his heavy hand upon the throat of Hanjun, seeking to feel if the man’s pulse jumped with the hazard of a liar.

Under the Magistrate’s fingers, Hanjun’s neck was cold like river-pebbles. Thanks to the Stillness of the Lower Ocean, his pulse beat with the measured, indifferent rhythm of water dropping from a cave-roof: one beat, two counts of the breath, and one beat more. No muscle twitched in his brow; no red blood mounted to his earlobes; his eyes remained round, blank, and dark like two empty wells.

The Magistrate drew back his hand, trembling: “My lord… forgive this dog! I knew not that the Court had sent an inspector in such base adornment!”

Then Hanjun, seeing the lord’s terror, desired to draw the guards away from the treasure-vault in the cellar. He pulled a sharp breath through his teeth and released the Phantom Vitality Projection. He blew a thin thread of cooled somatic intention out through the side-vents of the quartz, casting his spiritual weight into the garden behind the high wall.

Instantly, the red-eyed hound leaped to its feet, barking with great fury, for it smelled the hot, panting presence of a living fugitive hiding among the melon-vines sixty paces away.

“An assassin in the melon-patch!” shouted the Magistrate. “Run, you sons of pigs! Cut him down before he scales the brick-work!”

All thirty spearmen broke from the walls and ran clattering into the courtyard, their iron boots pounding across the stones like hail. The Magistrate himself, fearing for his neck, scrambled down the garden stairs with his bronze rod held high, screaming curses at the melon-vines.

Hanjun stood alone in the Great Hall. With swift, silent steps, he entered the private chamber behind the judgment chair, took forty pieces of heavy temple-silver from the iron casket, poured three jars of bitter vinegar into the Magistrate’s wine-cistern to seal the insult, and placed his sister’s bond-paper into his inner sleeve. He walked out through the water-gate with the wicker sack upon his shoulder, passing within three feet of the returning guards; yet because he exercised the Masked Meridian Signature, the soldiers saw only a scullion carrying stale fish-heads to the pigs, and let him pass into the canal without a word.

When he reached the reed-bed, he gave the twenty silver pieces to the bailiff and brought his sister back to her hearth. The remaining silver he carried to the mud-hut of the bandaged hermit, laying the bright coins upon the ash-heap: “Take your reward, Master of the Hollow Reed, for the mask has made me richer than a guild-master, and the Magistrate’s hound was like a dead mole before my feet.”

The old vagrant did not reach for the silver. He took up his wooden scraper and struck the mask from Hanjun’s face with a single blow, so that it fell into the marsh-water.

Hanjun cried out in anger, for he wished to keep the mask to deceive the tax-men forever. But when he looked down into the clear pool of the ditch, he saw his own face in the water: his cheeks were pale and bloodless like a drowned sheep; his eyes were fixed and glassy like two beads of horn; and when he spoke to ask why his treasure was broken, his tongue could no longer say the simple words of his mother, but could only speak in the high, mocking whistle of the theater-clowns.

The bandaged hermit picked up the mask from the water, wiped the mud from the mulberry paper, and spoke his final judgment: “The mask of the veiled breath is a good servant to carry a man past the teeth of an iron dog, but it is a bitter master for a man who wishes to live under a roof. If you wear the face of no-man for twelve moons, you will forget the shape of your own nose; and when you sit at the wedding-feast of your children, they will look upon you and weep, for they will see only an empty paper lantern where their father’s eyes used to be.”

Hanjun wept, and when his tears fell into the ditch, the warmth returned slowly to his cheeks, his pulse fluttered once more like a living bird, and he took up his copper scraper to return to his three-legged stool at the fish-sluice, leaving the silver to rot beneath the river-reeds.

Moral of the story: He who uses guile and a cold pulse to slip the snares of the mighty acts with prudence; but he who falls in love with his own falsehood will discover that when all masks are stripped away by the hand of time, he who lived by hiding his true face will find he has no soul left for his friends to remember.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)

Mask of the Veiled Breath

  • Description & Lore: Formed from three layers of oiled mulberry paper stiffened with river willow splints, this theater half-mask mounts two drilled smoke-quartz beads across the nasal bridge. Devised by the False-Heart Ascetics of the river deltas, the focus allows an investigator to suppress their physiological responses, cool their breath, and baffle both mundane examiners and unnatural entities that track targets by bodily heat, fear, or spiritual emanations.
  • Item Type: Enchanted Relic / Somatic Focus
  • Sanity Cost: None to wear; 1 Sanity point per activation of Phantom Vitality Projection due to the disquieting sensation of splitting one’s somatic awareness away from the physical body.
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean (Passive): The wearer is completely immune to mundane physiological lie detection (polygraphs, pulse checks, pupil observation, or voice tremors). Any Psychology or Interrogation roll made against the wearer to detect deception, nervousness, or concealed motives suffers one penalty die.
    • Masked Meridian Signature (Passive): Spells, unnatural entities, or psychic effects that detect magical power, life force, or emotional aura perceive the wearer as an ordinary, mundane civilian with negligible vitality.
    • Chameleon Palate (Passive): The wearer can adjust vocal pitch and timbre by up to an octave without strain, granting a +20% bonus to Disguise rolls that rely heavily on vocal impersonation or accent mimicry.
    • Phantom Vitality Projection (Active): Costs 2 Magic Points. The wearer exhales a thread of qi through the quartz beads toward an unoccupied point or mundane item within 30 feet. For 10 minutes, spirit-trackers, divination spells, and scent-tracking hounds perceive that point as an active, living person. Usable twice per day.
    • Glance of the False Stature (Active): Costs 1 Magic Point. For 1 minute, the wearer projects a deceptive aura of extreme physical helplessness or unbroken vitality. Attackers must succeed on a POW roll to single out the wearer for immediate opportunistic assault. Usable once per scene.
    • Vaporous Misdirection (Active): As a reaction when subjected to an active Psychology or Sense Motive check, the wearer vents a cool puff of somatic breath. The examiner’s roll is made with an additional penalty die. Usable twice per day.

Blades in the Dark

The Veiled Breath Mask

  • Description & Lore: A painted half-mask of layered mulberry parchment fitted with vented smoke-quartz beads. Used by scoundrels, infiltrators, and shadow-monks who move through high-society galas and haunted ruins, it arrests the pulse, conceals the spark of vitality, and casts phantom spiritual decoys to throw off the Bluecoats, spirits, and occult hounds.
  • Item Category & Load: Arcane & Covert Gear (1 Load, worn on Face)
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean (Passive): You gain Potency when rolling Sway or Consort to lie, feign innocence, or bluff under direct questioning or physical scrutiny.
    • Masked Meridian Signature (Passive): To ghost-field scanners, supernatural entities, and Whisper senses, you register as a mundane, inert civilian rather than an active scoundrel or arcane channeler.
    • Chameleon Palate (Passive): You can flawlessly alter your voice to mimic accents and vocal cadences, improving your effect level when using vocal disguises.
    • Vaporous Misdirection (Armor): You may mark your armor use to resist consequences arising from failed deception rolls, sudden suspicion, or aura-reading attempts during social engagements.
    • Phantom Vitality Projection (Active): Spend 1 Stress to project a phantom life-aura up to 30 feet away for a scene. Attuned hounds, ghosts, or watchful sentries shift their focus to investigate the false presence, giving you improved position on stealth movements.
    • Glance of the False Stature (Active): Spend 1 Stress to project an aura of utter helplessness or untouchable confidence for a scene. When you use this to set up an ambush or deter an interrogation, treat your effect as Great.

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition / 2024 Revision)

Mask of the Veiled Breath

  • Wondrous Item, Common (Requires Attunement)
  • Slot: Face
  • Description & Lore: A flexible half-mask formed of three sheets of oiled mulberry parchment shaped with flexible river willow and painted with muted theater markings. Two drilled beads of smoke-quartz sit over the bridge of the nose. By engaging in reverse-abdominal breathing, the wearer circulates chilled qi to freeze their physiological tells, deflect aura detection, and baffle examiners with deceptive somatic projections.
  • Item Properties:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean: Your pulse, body temperature, and breathing remain completely uniform. Any creature attempting an active or passive Wisdom (Insight) check to determine if you are lying does so with disadvantage, and mundane methods of lie detection fail automatically.
    • Masked Meridian Signature: Divination spells and magical abilities that sense emotions, alignment, life energy, or spellcasting capability perceive you as an ordinary, non-magical commoner.
    • Chameleon Palate: You can freely alter your vocal pitch and accent within one octave, granting advantage on Charisma (Deception and Performance) checks made to disguise your voice.
    • Glance of the False Stature: As a bonus action, you vent chilled qi across your brow for 1 minute. You choose to appear either completely helpless and near death, or fully healthy and unthreatened. While appearing helpless, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks made to identify you as an active threat. Once used, this property cannot be used again until you finish a short or long rest.
    • Phantom Vitality Projection: As an action, you exhale a thread of cooled breath into an unoccupied 5-foot space within 30 feet. For 10 minutes, creatures using blindsight, scent, or divination magic perceive a living humanoid resting in that space. You can use this property twice, regaining expended uses after a long rest.
    • Vaporous Misdirection: When an observer within 30 feet makes an active Wisdom (Insight) check against you during a social exchange, you can use your reaction to vent a breath through the quartz beads, imposing a -2 penalty on the triggering check. You can use this reaction twice, regaining all expended uses after a long rest.

Knave (2nd Edition)

Mask of the Veiled Breath

  • Description & Lore: An oiled parchment half-mask bound with willow splints and fitted with two vented smoke-quartz beads across the nose. By pacing their breath through the stone beads, the wearer stills their heart, masks their aura, and projects false life-signs to fool predators and inquisitors.
  • Item Slots: 1 Gear Slot (Face)
  • Item Quality: 10 / 10
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean (Passive): The wearer’s heart rate, breath sound, and body heat remain completely stable. Observers make all checks to detect the wearer’s lies or nervousness with Disadvantage.
    • Masked Meridian Signature (Passive): Supernatural entities, dungeon senses, and spells scanning for dangerous adventurers or active vitality register the wearer only as an ordinary, harmless drudge.
    • Chameleon Palate (Passive): The wearer can alter their voice to impersonate distinct accents, dialects, or roles without requiring a check.
    • Glance of the False Stature (Active): Once per day as an action, the wearer may project a false state of being (feigning mortal injury or perfect health) for 10 minutes. Hostile creatures must make a Wisdom save to recognize the deception before attacking.
    • Phantom Vitality Projection (Active): Once per day as an action, the wearer breathes a false life-presence into an area up to 30 feet away. For 10 minutes, wandering dungeon beasts and scent-trackers pursue the phantom signature instead of the wearer. When used, test the item’s Quality: on a roll of 1–3, the mask loses 1 Quality.
    • Vaporous Misdirection (Active): Once per rest as a reaction, when an NPC attempts to see through the wearer’s guise or deceit, the wearer vents a mist through the mask, forcing the NPC’s check to automatically fail.

Fate (Fate Condensed)

Mask of the Veiled Breath

  • Aspect: Qigong Half-Mask of the Hollowed Pulse
  • Description & Lore: Fashioned from three layers of oiled mulberry paper supported by river-willow stays and two vented smoke-quartz beads across the nose, this mask belongs to the lineage of the False-Heart Ascetics. Cultivating cool, still qi through the facial meridians, the wearer suppresses their heartbeat, hides their vital aura, and releases controlled exhalations that deceive mortal intuition, tracking hounds, and supernatural senses.
  • Stunts:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean: Your pulse, temperature, and respiration remain perfectly uniform. You gain a +2 bonus to Deceive when actively lying, maintaining a poker face, or resisting mundane physiological interrogation (such as pulse checks or voice tremors).
    • Masked Meridian Signature: Magical detection, emotional reading, or aura-sensing attempts automatically register you as an ordinary, non-threatening bystander with no cultivation or magical threat.
    • Chameleon Palate: You can alter your vocal pitch and timbre by an octave without strain, gaining a +2 bonus to Create an Advantage with Deceive when impersonating specific roles, dialects, or accents.
    • Phantom Vitality Projection: Once per session, you may spend an action and a Fate Point to exhale a cool spiritual decoy into an unoccupied zone up to one zone away. For the remainder of the scene, divinations, spirits, and scent-tracking entities perceive that zone as containing an active, living person, establishing the scene aspect Projected Life-Echo with one free invoke.
    • Vaporous Misdirection: Once per conflict, when an opponent rolls Empathy or Notice against your Deceive or Stealth, you may immediately force them to reroll their dice and take the lower result by releasing a micro-vent of filtered breath.

Numenera & Cypher System

Veiled Breath Modulator

  • Item Level: 2
  • Form: An oiled mulberry-parchment half-mask reinforced with thin willow splints, mounting two perforated smoke-quartz beads directly over the nasal bridge.
  • Kind: Artifact (Depletion: 1 in 1d10)
  • Description & Lore: Originating from river-delta ascetics who mastered internal energy suppression, this face-piece chills and disperses the user’s respiration through acoustic micro-ports. By decoupling somatic vitality from the physical skin, the wearer shields themselves against biodata scanners, psychic scans, and intuitive scrutiny.
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean (Passive): The wearer’s biological indicators remain completely flat. Any task to detect falsehoods, emotional stress, or deceit from the wearer is hindered by two steps for the examiner. Mundane biometric checks fail automatically.
    • Masked Meridian Signature (Passive): Scanners, psychic probes, and energy-sensing cyphers perceive the wearer as an inert, baseline civilian with zero martial or esoteric capability.
    • Chameleon Palate (Passive): Disguising the voice or mimicking regional accents is eased by one step.
    • Glance of the False Stature (Active): As an action, the wearer vents a micro-current across their brow to appear utterly defenseless or entirely unharmed for 10 minutes. Tasks to convince others of this physical state are eased by two steps.
    • Phantom Vitality Projection (Active): As an action, the wearer expels a cooled breath decoy into a short-range location. For 10 minutes, sensory systems, psychic seekers, and tracking creatures register a living biological organism at that target point.
    • Vaporous Misdirection (Active): As an immediate reaction to an NPC attempting to read motives or detect hidden items, the wearer vents qi through the quartz beads, hindering the NPC’s task by one step.
    • Depletion Check: A depletion roll is made only when activating Phantom Vitality Projection.

Pathfinder (Second Edition / Remaster)

Mask of the Veiled Breath

  • Item 1
  • Traits: Illusion, Invested, Magical
  • Price: 9 gp
  • Usage: Worn mask; Bulk: L
  • Description & Lore: This delicate theater half-mask is built from oiled mulberry parchment, flexible willow ribs, and two thumbnail-sized beads of drilled smoke-quartz across the bridge of the nose. Practiced by infiltrators of the river silt marshes, the mask cools facial qi to suppress internal vitals, hide martial energy from aura readers, and cast decoy life-essences.
  • Item Properties & Mechanics:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean (Passive): Your heartbeat, breath rate, and skin temperature remain unnaturally steady. You gain a +1 item bonus to Deception checks made to Lie or Feint. Mundane checks to read your pulse or physical stress signs reveal nothing abnormal.
    • Masked Meridian Signature (Passive): Spells and effects that read alignment, emotional auras, or spellcasting rank perceive you as a mundane, non-combatant commoner.
    • Chameleon Palate (Passive): You can alter your vocal timber within an octave, gaining a +1 item bonus to Impersonate checks when disguising your voice.
    • Glance of the False Stature [one-action]:
      • Frequency: Once per day
      • Duration: 1 minute
      • Effect: You vent cold qi across your brow, making yourself appear either near death and helpless or untouched and fully invigorated. Creatures attempting to determine your actual health status must succeed on a DC 15 Perception check, or treat you as having the chosen physical condition.
    • Phantom Vitality Projection [two-actions]:
      • Traits: Concentrate, Illusion
      • Frequency: Once per day
      • Range: 30 feet
      • Duration: 10 minutes
      • Effect: You exhale an anchor of cold qi into an unoccupied space or object within range. Scent-tracking creatures, tremorsense, and divination spells register a living creature resting at that location rather than at your current space.
    • Vaporous Misdirection [reaction]:
      • Trigger: A creature within 30 feet attempts a Perception or Sense Motive check against your Deception or Stealth.
      • Frequency: Twice per day
      • Effect: You release a subtle jet of filtered breath from the quartz beads. The triggering creature takes a -2 circumstance penalty to its triggering check.

Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition)

Mask of the Veiled Breath

  • Description & Lore: A lacquered half-mask made of oiled parchment and cured willow ribs, featuring two vented smoke-quartz beads across the nose. Worn by delta spies and deceptive ascetics, it stilling the pulse and vents cold breath to foil lie detection, confuse scent-trackers, and shield internal vitality from magical detection.
  • Item Type: Personal Gear / Minor Enchanted Focus
  • Weight: 0.5 lb
  • Cost: $90
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean (Passive): The wearer’s vital signs are completely flat and undetectable by mundane physical means. The wearer gains a +2 bonus to Taunt or Persuasion rolls when bluffing, telling lies, or concealing emotional tells.
    • Masked Meridian Signature (Passive): Detect/conceal arcane and supernatural senses identify the wearer only as an ordinary, untrained civilian.
    • Chameleon Palate (Passive): Vocal impersonations or accent mimicry gain a +1 bonus to Performance or Persuasion rolls.
    • Glance of the False Stature (Active / Free Action): Once per encounter, the wearer shifts their posture and vents subtle breath to appear either severely wounded or completely unthreatened. Opponents must make a Smarts roll at -2 to identify the wearer as an immediate, viable target.
    • Phantom Vitality Projection (Active): Once per day as an action, the wearer blows a thread of qi up to 6 paces (12 yards) away. For 10 minutes, guard beasts using scent and characters using magical detection treat that spot as an active, living creature.
    • Vaporous Misdirection (Active / Reaction): Twice per session, when an opponent rolls Notice to see through a disguise, bluff, or hidden item on the wearer, the wearer vents a mist that imposes a -2 penalty on that opponent’s roll.

Shadowrun (Sixth World)

Mask of the Veiled Breath

  • Item Type: Clothing / Minor Qi Focus (Force 1)
  • Subtype: Somatic Breath Focus / Adept Deception Relic
  • Availability: 3 (Legal)
  • Cost: 1,800 nuyen
  • Description & Lore: Woven from three layers of oiled mulberry parchment, braced with willow splints, and fitted with two drilled smoke-quartz beads over the nose, this half-mask is favored by physical adepts, social infiltrators, and shadow-operatives. By regulating breath through facial qi meridians, the wearer suppresses autonomic nervous responses, masking their pulse, vocal micro-tremors, and astral signature against scanners, wage-mages, and cybernetic polygraphs.
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean (Passive): The wearer’s heart rate, respiration, and galvanic skin responses remain flat and uniform. Biometric polygraphs, biomonitors, and mundane lie detectors fail automatically. Any Judge Intentions or Con test made against the wearer to detect falsehoods or nervous agitation suffers a -2 dice pool penalty.
    • Masked Meridian Signature (Passive): When viewed on the astral plane through Assensing, the wearer’s aura appears dull, sluggish, and identical to that of an un-Awakened, mundane corporate laborer.
    • Chameleon Palate (Passive): The wearer can alter vocal pitch and tone by up to an octave without strain, granting a +2 dice pool modifier to Con or Disguise tests involving voice impersonation or mimicking accents.
    • Glance of the False Stature (Active / Minor Action): The wearer circulates cold qi across their forehead to project an impression of critical physical trauma or complete vitality for 10 minutes. Observers must succeed on an Intuition + Perception (Threshold 2) test to recognize the wearer’s genuine physical condition. Usable once per scene.
    • Phantom Vitality Projection (Active / Major Action): The wearer vents a fine, cooled breath through the quartz beads toward a location or mundane object within 10 meters. For 10 minutes, astral observers, biomonitor sweeps, and critter scent-trackers detect a living metahuman presence at that anchor point. Usable twice per run.
    • Vaporous Misdirection (Active / Interrupt Action): Cost: 2 Minor Actions. When an examiner attempts a Judge Intentions or Perception test against the wearer during a social exchange, the wearer expels a micro-vent of filtered qi, imposing a -2 dice pool penalty on the examiner’s roll. Usable twice per day.

Starfinder (Second Edition)

Veiled Breath Visor-Mask

  • Item 1
  • Traits: Illusion, Invested, Magical
  • Usage: Worn mask; Bulk: L
  • Price: 85 credits
  • Description & Lore: Crafted from stiffened, oil-treated plant parchment and flexible willow fibers, this half-mask houses two perforated smoke-quartz beads along the bridge of the nose. Originally used by river-delta ascetics and covert planetary couriers, the focus cools somatic energy along the nasal channels, preventing physiological stress spikes, masking the wearer’s life signature from biotech scanners, and generating phantom bio-readings.
  • Item Properties & Mechanics:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean (Passive): Your heart rate, breathing cadence, and skin temperature remain completely unvarying. You gain a +1 item bonus to Deception checks to Lie or Feint. Mundane biometric scanners and medical sensors register no physiological spikes associated with stress or deception.
    • Masked Meridian Signature (Passive): Spells, tech-sensors, and supernatural effects that scan for alignment, active magical potential, or combat threat level perceive you as an ordinary, non-combatant civilian.
    • Chameleon Palate (Passive): You can alter your vocal frequency within an octave, gaining a +1 item bonus to Deception checks when using Impersonate to disguise your voice.
    • Glance of the False Stature [one-action]:
      • Frequency: Once per day
      • Duration: 1 minute
      • Effect: You release a micro-current of cooled breath, making yourself appear either critically injured and helpless or completely unwounded and fresh. Observers must attempt a DC 14 Perception check to perceive your actual physical condition; otherwise, they treat you as having the chosen physical state.
    • Phantom Vitality Projection [two-actions]:
      • Traits: Concentrate, Illusion
      • Frequency: Once per day
      • Range: 30 feet
      • Duration: 10 minutes
      • Effect: You vent a stream of cooled qi to an unoccupied square or object within range. Scent-tracking beasts, life-sign scanners, and divination sensors register a living biological humanoid resting at that space rather than your actual position.
    • Vaporous Misdirection [reaction]:
      • Trigger: An adjacent creature attempts a Perception or Sense Motive check against your Deception or Stealth.
      • Frequency: Twice per day
      • Effect: You release a faint puff of qi through the mask’s quartz vent-holes, inflicting a -2 circumstance penalty on the triggering check.

Traveller (Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition)

Veiled Breath Infiltration Mask

  • Tech Level (TL): 8
  • Mass: 0.2 kg
  • Cost: Cr 450
  • Description & Lore: Constructed from laminated cellulose layers stiffened with resin and fitted with two micro-perforated quartz nodes across the nose bridge, this light half-mask operates as a somatic bio-suppression filter. Worn by scouts and undercover field agents operating in contested frontier zones, it stabilizes vital signs against polygraph scrutiny, disguises vocal resonance, and projects false biometric signatures to mislead local sensors.
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean (Passive): The wearer’s heart rate, respiration, and body heat remain locked in a baseline, relaxed state. Polygraph equipment, neural lie detectors, and medical scanners cannot detect elevated stress or lies, granting DM+2 on Deception checks during interrogations.
    • Masked Meridian Signature (Passive): Bioscanners, life-sign detectors, and thermal sensors classify the wearer as an inert, harmless civilian with minimal physical output.
    • Chameleon Palate (Passive): The wearer can modulate vocal timbre and pitch without strain, gaining DM+1 on Deception or Persuade checks when impersonating a specific identity, voice, or dialect.
    • Glance of the False Stature: Once per day, the wearer can activate the mask to project a false physical state (appearing critically incapacitated or completely unharmed) for 10 minutes. Observers must make an INT check (target 8+) to pierce the deception before taking action.
    • Phantom Vitality Projection: Once per day, the wearer can project a cooled biometric resonance to an object or space up to 10 meters away. For 10 minutes, security hounds, automated life-sign scanners, and thermal cameras track that target point as an active human presence.
    • Vaporous Misdirection: Twice per mission, when an examiner attempts an active Insight, Recon, or Investigate check to uncover the wearer’s concealed motives or items, the wearer vents a micro-current through the quartz nodes, imposing DM-2 on the examiner’s check.

Warhammer (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition)

Mask of the Veiled Breath

  • Price: 1 GC 2/–
  • Encumbrance: 0
  • Availability: Rare
  • Qualities: Lightweight, Subtle
  • Description & Lore: Constructed of layered mulberry parchment stiffened with river-willow stays and painted with theater motifs, this half-mask features two drilled smoke-quartz beads positioned over the nostrils. Worn by delta spies, guild-infiltrators, and shadow-monks, it cools the user’s breath to freeze nervous sweat, hide their magical aura from witch-hunters and spirits, and cast misleading life-presences into the dark.
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Stillness of the Lower Ocean (Passive): The wearer’s pulse, skin temperature, and breathing remain completely flat. Mundane methods of detecting falsehoods (such as observing pulse, sweat, or vocal tremors) fail automatically, and the wearer gains a +20 bonus to Cool and Bribery tests made to resist interrogation or lie convincingly.
    • Masked Meridian Signature (Passive): Spellcasters, witch-hunters, and entities using Second Sight or magical detection perceive the wearer only as an ordinary, harmless peasant devoid of magical talent or combat threat.
    • Chameleon Palate (Passive): The wearer can adjust vocal pitch and cadence freely, gaining a +10 bonus to Entertain (Acting) and Disguise tests that rely on mimicking voices or regional accents.
    • Glance of the False Stature: Once per day, the wearer may spend an Action to project an appearance of near-death feebleness or pristine vitality for 10 minutes. Enemies must pass a Challenging (+0) Intuition test before deciding to treat the wearer as an active target.
    • Phantom Vitality Projection: Once per day, the wearer may spend an Action to vent an anchor of chilled breath into an area up to 10 yards away. For 10 minutes, war-hounds, tracker beasts, and ethereal entities perceive a living human resting at that location.
    • Vaporous Misdirection: Twice per day as a Free Action when an opponent tests Intuition or Perception against the wearer’s Stealth or Charm, the wearer releases a puff of filtered breath from the quartz beads, imposing a -20 penalty on the opponent’s test.