Lore:
Born from a rare concordance between forest-shadow and ley-light, the Veilglass Wayfinder 681 was first assembled by a cartographer-stalker who sought to walk unseen while reading the hidden bones of the world. The merger fused the self-mending shadowweave of the Sylvan Stalker with the prismatic intelligence of leyglass, creating a single artifact that listens to forests while charting the invisible paths beneath them. In Saṃsāra, it is whispered that such items only remain stable when their bearer respects both concealment and direction—those who use it merely to dominate terrain find its guidance growing cold and misleading.
Description:
A deep, muted cloak whose inner lining glimmers faintly with prismatic thread when exposed to light or ambient magic. Along the spine and collar runs a flexible leyglass inlay—thin as etched crystal veins—woven directly into the fabric. When drawn about the shoulders, the cloak subtly stiffens and aligns, allowing the leyglass filaments to project soft, translucent cartographic light that never extends beyond the wearer’s silhouette. Folded crystal nodes replace clasps and fasteners, clicking softly like a compact astrolabe settling into alignment.
Stats (Tier 2):
• Weight: 2.2 lb
• Durability: 24 HP (self-mending restores 1 HP per hour in natural or ley-rich environments)
• Detection Radius (mapping effects): ½ mile baseline
• Stealth Integrity: Functions without visible glow unless an active magic is used
Skills Gained While Openly Worn:
• Stealth (trained) in forested, overgrown, or dim environments
• Navigation (trained) when plotting routes through wilderness or ley-influenced terrain
• Perception (situational): +1 when detecting hidden paths, ruins, or natural ambush points
Tags:
Magical, Tier Two, Stealth, Navigation, Ley-Bound, Shadow-Woven, Self-Mending, Wilderness, Exploration, Concealment, Prismatic Weave, Forest-Bound, Ley-Resonant, Shadow-Adaptive, Pathfinding, Non-Combat Utility, Reconnaissance, Environmental Control, Silent Travel, Cartographic Magic, Self-Stabilizing
Passive Magics:
• Shadowed Cartography: While worn, the bearer instinctively senses safe routes, concealed paths, and terrain advantages within ½ mile, gaining advantage on non-combat navigation and travel planning in natural environments.
• Veil of Living Shadow: The cloak continuously adapts its coloration, texture, and light absorption, granting enhanced concealment in forests, ruins reclaimed by nature, and low-light areas.
• Silent Mending: Ambient natural or ley energy slowly repairs physical damage and stabilizes enchantments without ritual or tools.
• Ley-Whisper Awareness: Subtle shifts in local ley lines are felt as changes in fabric tension or temperature, alerting the wearer to environmental instability or hidden structures.
Active Magics:
• Hollow Map Unfolding (3/day): For up to one minute, faint prismatic lines trace themselves across the cloak’s surface, projecting a close-bound, wearer-only map of ley lines, ruins, and concealed pathways within 1 mile. This projection is invisible beyond arm’s length.
• Ghostpath Step (2/day): The wearer may briefly align with shadow and terrain, allowing silent movement that ignores difficult natural terrain and leaves no physical tracks for one minute.
• Veiled Route Severance (1/day): By focusing on a mapped ley intersection or path, the wearer may disrupt pursuit—those tracking or navigating toward the wearer suffer disorientation and slowed progress for several minutes as routes subtly misalign.
Specific Slot:
Worn item (cloak; single physical object occupying one worn slot)
Item Hit Points, Disablement, and Repair:
The Veilglass Wayfinder 681 has a total of 24 item hit points representing both the shadowweave cloak structure and the embedded leyglass filaments.
• If reduced to 12 HP, all active magics are disabled; passive effects persist but at diminished clarity (maps become imprecise, concealment less responsive).
• If reduced to 6 HP, all magical functions cease, leaving only a mundane but fragile cloak with cracked leyglass veins.
• At 0 HP, the item is physically ruined; leyglass shatters and the shadowweave unravels, requiring full reforging rather than simple repair.
Repair Methods:
• Natural Regeneration: When intact above 6 HP, the item restores 1 HP per hour spent in forested, ley-rich, or spiritually balanced environments.
• Skilled Repair: Artisans trained in magical tailoring and leycraft can restore HP using shadow-infused fabric, prismatic crystal dust, and alignment rituals, typically repairing 4–6 HP per extended work period.
• Ley Rebinding Ritual: If magic has been disabled (6–11 HP range), a focused ritual at a ley intersection or ancient grove can fully reactivate enchantments once the item is repaired above 12 HP.
• Catastrophic Damage: At 0 HP, the original components must be re-merged or replaced; simple mending is insufficient, and prior attunements are lost.
Methods of Obtaining the Veilglass Wayfinder 681
• Rite of Confluence:
The most respected method. A bearer must already possess both precursor items and bring them to a place where forest shadow, ley convergence, and open sky overlap—often an ancient grove atop buried ruins or a ruined sky-watch tower swallowed by roots. A local keeper, cartographer-druid, or ley-artisan oversees a controlled merging rite. Success requires patient alignment rather than force; failure typically damages one component rather than destroying it.
• Lineage Inheritance:
Certain families, guilds, and wandering orders preserve merged relics as proof of custodianship over routes, borders, or hidden places. The Veilglass Wayfinder may be granted when a successor proves they can navigate without maps and vanish without fear, symbolizing mastery of both knowledge and concealment.
• Recovery from Overgrown Ruins:
Some merged examples are remnants of past explorers who never returned. These are most often found fused to stone, tree, or collapsed structures, the cloak half-rooted into bark or masonry, the leyglass filaments still faintly glowing at dusk.
• Commissioned Merge:
Rarely, a wealthy navigator, courier-lord, or covert expedition leader commissions the merge directly, supplying both items and paying for the ritual expertise. This is costly and politically sensitive, as such tools alter control over territory and trade routes.
Shops and Trade Contexts in Saṃsāra
• Ley & Leaf Concord Shops
Found near ancient forests bordering trade paths or ruins. Run jointly by ley-mappers and forest wardens.
How it’s sold: Never displayed openly. Buyers are vetted through conversation, map tests, and silence oaths. Demonstrations are done at twilight using controlled projections.
Typical Cost: 220–280 gold, often with non-monetary conditions such as route secrecy or grove service.
• Sky-Cartographer Enclaves
Located in airship cities, zeppelin ports, or cliff-bound observatories.
How it’s sold: Presented as a hybrid navigation relic rather than clothing. Buyers must demonstrate aerial or long-range route knowledge.
Typical Cost: 260–320 gold, reflecting its strategic value for movement and planning.
• Hidden Wayfarer Markets
Temporary or semi-secret markets that appear along pilgrimage routes, ruin cycles, or ley surges.
How it’s sold: Barter-first culture. Gold is accepted but secondary to maps, encoded journals, or undisclosed coordinates.
Typical Cost: 180–240 gold, though buyers often pay in favors, escorts, or knowledge.
• Antiquarian Shadow Houses
Urban, discreet establishments dealing in items that blur the line between artifact and tool.
How it’s sold: Framed as a historical curiosity with “uncertain provenance.” Often kept folded and inert until purchased.
Typical Cost: 300–350 gold, inflated due to discretion, paperwork laundering, and political insulation.
Resale and Exchange Value
• Open resale is uncommon; most holders treat the item as personal infrastructure, not merchandise.
• Partial buyback (damaged or inactive): 90–140 gold, depending on leyglass integrity.
• Trade-in value toward higher-tier navigational or concealment relics is often greater than its raw gold value, especially among mapping guilds and covert courier networks.
In Saṃsāra, the Veilglass Wayfinder 681 is valued less as clothing or equipment and more as controlled access to movement itself, making its trade cautious, ritualized, and rarely impulsive.
Veilglass Wayfinder 681 — Roleplay Applications Across Environments
Forested Wilds and Ancient Groves
Defense: When pursued through dense woodland, the wearer draws the cloak tight and allows the prismatic leyglass filaments to synchronize with the forest’s ambient flow. Shadows bend unnaturally, paths subtly misalign, and the holographic ley-map reveals animal trails, root-vaults, and ruin hollows that do not appear on mundane maps. The wearer vanishes not by speed, but by misdirection, leading threats into looping paths, dead ground, or spiritually “quiet” spaces where pursuit falters.
Offense: In ambush, the wearer uses the map projection to identify natural choke points—fallen arches, vine-choked ravines, or ley-bright clearings. Striking from concealment, they control engagement distance, appearing only when advantage is absolute, then melting back into shadowed growth before retaliation can form.
Urban Ruins and Overgrown Cities
Defense: Among collapsed stone and creeping vegetation, the cloak’s shadow-adaptive weave blends with broken geometry while the leyglass highlights forgotten corridors and sublevels. The wearer avoids patrols by navigating through the city’s buried memory rather than its streets, slipping between collapsed layers unseen.
Offense: The wearer can exploit vertical ruins—balconies, sunken plazas, roofless towers—using hidden routes to flank opponents. Attacks come from impossible angles, guided by holographic ruin outlines that reveal weak walls, unstable floors, or sealed passages ripe for sudden entry.
Open Plains and Transitional Terrain
Defense: With little cover, the Wayfinder favors distance over invisibility. The wearer reads subtle ley drift and terrain gradients to choose routes that distort perception—cresting hills at just the wrong angle, passing through glare zones, or moving where wind and light obscure silhouettes.
Offense: In these spaces, offense is surgical. The wearer uses long sightlines revealed by the map to strike supply lines, isolated scouts, or messengers, then withdraws along optimized escape paths that seem inexplicably faster than pursuit allows.
Caves, Tunnels, and Subterranean Ruins
Defense: Underground, the cloak dampens sound and light while the leyglass projects faint, close-range maps of hidden chambers and fault lines. The wearer avoids collapses and traps, retreating into narrow paths or ley-dead pockets where tracking magic weakens.
Offense: The wearer can lead enemies into unstable caverns, then strike at load-bearing points or from above ledges revealed by the projection. Here, offense often means environmental control rather than direct confrontation.
Aerial Platforms and Elevated Structures
Defense: On towers, bridges, or airship decks, the Wayfinder allows the wearer to read airflow, structural stress, and ley currents. Escape routes are plotted mid-motion, turning leaps and drops into deliberate maneuvers rather than gambles.
Offense: From elevation, the wearer can reposition faster than observers expect, using concealed walkways and vertical transitions to appear behind or below foes. Attacks are brief and destabilizing, often forcing enemies into panic or retreat rather than prolonged combat.
Social and Political Spaces
Defense: In courts, markets, or gatherings, the cloak is worn dormant, its magic subtly dampening attention and guiding the wearer through crowds along paths of least notice. The wearer avoids scrutiny without appearing suspicious.
Offense: Information warfare becomes the weapon. By mapping hidden routes, private chambers, and unseen passages, the wearer gains leverage—appearing where they should not, overhearing what was meant to be secret, or revealing knowledge that shifts negotiations without a blade ever drawn.
Across all environments, the Veilglass Wayfinder 681 favors control of space, perception, and movement. Defense is achieved by denying pursuit meaningful engagement; offense is delivered through positioning, timing, and the quiet certainty of knowing where the world bends before others realize it can.
Perception of Activation:
User’s Perspective
• Sight: As the cloak settles on the shoulders, the inner lining blooms with faint prismatic veins, like starlight trapped in fabric. The leyglass inlay along the spine aligns in a slow, deliberate ripple, projecting a translucent cartographic shimmer that hugs the body without spilling outward. Paths, contours, and ley currents appear as layered impressions rather than hard lines, readable only from within the silhouette.
• Sound: A soft sequence of crystalline clicks travels down the back, similar to a compact astrolabe unfolding and locking into place. Beneath this, there is a near-silent hum, felt more than heard, resonating in the chest and teeth.
• Touch: The cloak subtly stiffens at key seams, distributing weight and pressure evenly. The fabric feels cool at first contact, then warms to body temperature, as though learning the wearer’s shape. The leyglass filaments feel smooth and inert, yet faintly alive.
• Smell: A muted blend of forest loam and sun-warmed stone emerges, clean and dry, with a trace of charged air similar to ozone after distant lightning.
• Taste: A fleeting mineral sharpness coats the tongue, like breathing near crystal or freshly cut stone, fading within moments.
• Extra-sensory: Spatial intuition sharpens. Routes feel closer, obstacles feel heavier, and concealment becomes instinctive rather than planned. The wearer senses not locations themselves, but safe absence—places where attention thins and movement goes unnoticed.
Positives (User)
• Clear internal awareness of nearby paths, cover, and concealment without external projection.
• Movement feels guided rather than forced, reducing hesitation and missteps.
• Emotional calm increases, replaced by patient alertness suited to travel and evasion.
Negatives (User)
• Prolonged activation can dull awareness of immediate social cues, as spatial perception takes priority over faces and voices.
• In environments dense with conflicting ley currents, the internal impressions may feel crowded or heavy, causing mild disorientation.
Observer’s Perspective
• Sight: To others, the cloak darkens slightly, its surface swallowing light rather than reflecting it. Only faint glimmers appear along the collar or spine when viewed at an angle, like dew caught briefly in moonlight. No visible map or projection escapes the wearer’s outline.
• Sound: Observers may hear a single, soft crystalline tick when activation begins, easily mistaken for settling gear or shifting fabric.
• Touch (if close): The air around the wearer feels marginally cooler and denser, as though space itself has tightened.
• Smell: A subtle scent of forest shade and clean stone may drift outward, noticeable only at close range.
• Extra-sensory: Those sensitive to magic or perception notice a thinning of presence, as if the wearer occupies less narrative weight in the immediate moment, becoming harder to fix attention upon.
Positives (Observer)
• Allies may feel steadied when moving near the wearer, unconsciously adjusting pace and spacing.
• Sensitive observers can sense that paths and movement around the wearer are being quietly optimized.
Negatives (Observer)
• Enemies may find it difficult to track the wearer’s exact position or intent, causing hesitation or misjudgment.
• The faint prismatic glimmer, while restrained, can still mark the wearer to those specifically hunting for ley-aligned artifacts in low-light conditions.
Recipe Title: Weaving the Veiled Cartograph
Items Merged
• Leyglass Astrolabe 3492
• Cloak of the Sylvan Stalker
Additional Materials Needed
• Prismatic Leyglass Filament: Drawn from refined river-crystal, pulled into hair-thin strands capable of flexing without fracturing.
• Shadowsilk Binder Thread: A dusk-spun thread harvested from forest shade, used to integrate hard crystal structures into living fabric.
• Verdant Resin Lacquer: Distilled from deep-grove sap, capable of sealing leyglass without deadening its resonance.
• Solar-Dew Infusion: Condensed light captured at dawn, used to harmonize astrolabe projection magic with concealment enchantments.
• Silent Stone Dust: Finely ground stone from a forest ruin, used to suppress outward magical bleed and keep projections internal.
Tools Required
• Enchanter’s Loom with Crystal Guides: A loom modified to accept both fabric and rigid crystalline filaments simultaneously.
• Ley-Tuning Stylus: Used to retune astrolabe pivots and lenses into linear, wearable geometry.
• Alchemical Warming Basin: For heating resin and solar-dew infusions without destabilizing enchantments.
• Precision Stitch-Needles (Crystal-Tipped): Required to pass through leyglass filament without shattering it.
• Forest Attunement Circle: A prepared natural space that stabilizes the cloak’s self-mending properties during fusion.
Skill Requirements
• Advanced Enchantment: To reconcile projection magic with stealth-bound concealment.
• Artifice (Leycraft): To dismantle and reconfigure the astrolabe’s mechanisms into distributed nodes.
• Master Weaving or Tailoring: To integrate rigid leyglass into flowing fabric without restricting movement.
• Nature or Ethnology Lore: Required to preserve the Sylvan Stalker cloak’s environmental responsiveness.
• Focused Will or Meditative Discipline: Necessary during final binding to prevent map projection from externalizing.
Crafting Steps
- Astrolabe Dissolution: Carefully disassemble Leyglass Astrolabe 3492, separating lenses, pivots, and resonant brass components. Grind excess brass into Silent Stone Dust and preserve the crystal lenses intact.
- Filament Drawing: Heat prismatic lenses and reshape them into flexible leyglass filaments using the ley-tuning stylus, aligning each strand to internal-only projection parameters.
- Cloak Preparation: Lay the Cloak of the Sylvan Stalker upon the enchanter’s loom, exposing inner seams while maintaining its shadow-bound weave and self-mending enchantment.
- Leyglass Integration: Stitch leyglass filaments along the spine, collar, and internal hems of the cloak using shadowsilk binder thread, forming a concealed cartographic lattice that mirrors the astrolabe’s original geometry.
- Node Formation: Compress remaining crystal fragments into small folded nodes, embedding them as clasps, fasteners, and structural anchors within the cloak.
- Resonance Sealing: Brush verdant resin lacquer over all leyglass integrations, sealing them while chanting stabilizing runes to prevent light bleed beyond the wearer’s silhouette.
- Projection Harmonization: Submerge the cloak’s interior lining briefly in warmed solar-dew infusion, allowing projection magic to synchronize with the cloak’s stealth enchantments.
- Forest Binding: Place the merged cloak within the forest attunement circle overnight, allowing ambient natural magic to accept the new leyglass structures as part of the garment.
- Final Alignment: At dawn, the intended wearer dons the cloak and remains motionless while focusing intent inward. The leyglass filaments settle, the internal map stabilizes, and the merged item binds as a single physical object.
Successful completion results in a unified, tier-2 wearable item whose cartographic magic remains entirely contained within the cloak’s silhouette. Failure at any stage risks crystal fracture, uncontrolled projection, or the permanent loss of the cloak’s stealth properties.
Cloak That Learned Shape of World
In the days before the maps were taught to lie flat, before the sky agreed to be above and the earth agreed to be below, there was a cloak that did not yet know it was a cloak, and a disk that did not yet know it was meant to be worn.
The old words name the time as Before the Quiet Folding, though the copies disagree, and some say it was Before the Sky Was Willing. In those days, the paths of the world did not stay where they were placed. Rivers remembered mountains they had not yet reached. Forests leaned aside to make room for ruins that had not been built. The ley-lines wandered like animals without masters, crossing and uncrossing themselves, and those who traveled far enough would arrive twice, or not at all.
It is said there lived then a watcher whose name is broken in every telling. Some tablets call them Asha-of-Threads, others The One Who Wore Night, and still others give only a mark meaning the bearer between seeing and hiding. This watcher was sworn to two vows that did not agree with one another. The first vow was to walk unseen, so that the world would not change merely because it was observed. The second vow was to know the world truly, so that its wounds could be avoided.
For a long while, the watcher failed at one vow whenever the other was kept.
When the watcher hid, the paths were lost. When the watcher mapped, the forest recoiled, the beasts fled, and the old places sealed themselves shut. Thus the watcher wandered, wrapped in shadow, blind to the deep shape of the land, or else stood revealed beneath the sky, glowing with knowledge that burned all quiet away.
In the fragments, there is mention of two gifts given in sorrow.
The first gift came from the forest that remembers footsteps. From its deepest places, where even sound hesitates, the forest gave a cloak woven of shade and patience. It was said to be stitched from the pauses between leaves falling, and it drank light without consuming it. When worn, the watcher no longer disturbed the air. Moss forgot to grow over their tracks. Birds sang as though nothing had passed. Yet the cloak demanded ignorance in return. It did not wish to be looked through, only worn.
The second gift came from the wandering lights beneath the world. From the dunes that sing under two suns, and the rivers that cut crystal from their own bones, there came a small instrument of brass and lens. It was shaped to catch alignments and release them again as glowing truth. When held to light, it unfolded the hidden roads: ley-lines like veins of gold, ruins like scars that never healed. But it could not be hidden. Wherever it was used, the sky leaned closer, and the earth took notice.
The watcher carried both gifts, but never together. The cloak was worn, the disk concealed. Or the disk was raised, and the cloak set aside. Thus the watcher aged, and the world continued to slip.
The broken story tells of a night when the paths finally crossed too many times. A river arrived where a forest had been promised. A ruin surfaced inside a living grove. The watcher stood between these wrongs, knowing that choosing only sight or only silence would doom something that could not be restored.
So the watcher did the forbidden thing.
They placed the disk upon the cloak.
The old language is unclear here. Some say the watcher stitched with crystal needles. Some say the cloak drank the disk. Some say the watcher bled light into thread. All agree only on the sound: a clicking like a small instrument learning a new shape, and a sigh like a forest exhaling after long restraint.
The disk was unfolded, not outward, but inward. Its lenses were drawn thin and laid along the spine of the cloak. Its pivots became clasps and nodes. Its brass was quieted with dust from ruins that had forgotten their names. The cloak did not reject this intrusion, but neither did it welcome it. It asked only one question, which the watcher answered without words:
Will the knowing remain contained?
When the work was done, the watcher wore the cloak and lifted the light. And for the first time, the world was mapped without being disturbed.
The cartography did not spill into the air. It did not announce itself to the sky. Instead, the lines formed close to the body, hugging the wearer’s outline like breath against skin. The ley-lines aligned themselves along the watcher’s spine. The ruins whispered only to the inside of the cloak. The forest did not flinch. The paths held still.
The watcher walked, and the world remained whole.
For many years—how many is lost, as numbers fail in the fragments—the watcher traveled thus. Disasters were avoided before they formed. Roads were taken that never needed to be built. Armies passed without ever meeting. Entire wars are said to have been un-fought because the cloak showed where not to stand.
But the cloak learned more than the watcher intended.
It learned the shape of choice.
The final fragments speak of a moment when the watcher stopped walking. Some say the watcher reached the place where all ley-lines knot. Some say the forest asked to be mapped one last time. Some say the watcher simply grew tired of carrying both silence and sight.
The cloak was laid down. The watcher did not remove it so much as step away from it. The cloak did not pursue. It folded itself, clicking softly, and waited.
Later ages found the garment without the name of its maker, without the full memory of its binding. They called it many things: a navigator’s mantle, a stalker’s chart, a veil that sees. Those who wore it felt watched by paths they could not see. Those who misused it found the light leaking, the forest withdrawing, the silence growing thin.
And always the cloak remembered the first rule, set before words were agreed upon:
The map must never be larger than the one who carries it.
Moral of the Story:
To see the world clearly without changing it, the knowledge must be held close, and the bearer must accept that not all paths are meant to be shared.
Suggested conversions to other systems:
Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)
Name: Veil of the Unseen Meridian
Type: Arcane Artifact (Non-Mythos)
Rarity: Rare
POW Cost to Attune: 1 permanent POW (optional; without attunement, penalties apply)
Description:
A shadow-woven cloak threaded internally with prismatic leyglass filaments. When worn, it dampens presence while revealing hidden paths and structures only to the wearer.
Game Effects:
• Grants +20% to Stealth rolls in natural, dim, or cluttered environments
• Grants +15% to Navigate and Spot Hidden when detecting hidden routes, ruins, or safe paths
• Mapping time for wilderness or ruin navigation is halved
Active Abilities:
• Contained Cartography (3/day): Spend 1 Magic Point to gain an automatic success on a single Navigate or Spot Hidden roll related to terrain, hidden passages, or ambush avoidance
• Silent Alignment (1/day): For one scene, Stealth rolls are treated as Hard successes if they succeed normally
Sanity Impact:
• First activation: 0/1 SAN (the sensation of the world folding inward)
• Prolonged use (weekly): 1 SAN if worn continuously without rest
Drawbacks:
• Bright ley-activity or urban industrial zones reduce bonuses by half
• If damaged below half integrity, all bonuses drop by 10%
Blades in the Dark
Name: The Folded Way Mantle
Item Type: Rare Arcane Garment
Load: 1 (Light)
Description:
A quiet cloak whose inner light maps only what the wearer needs to survive, never projecting outward.
Passive Effects:
• When using Prowl, Survey, or Study to move unseen or choose routes, gain +1 Effect
• Planning or flashbacks involving navigation or infiltration cost 1 less Stress (minimum 0)
Active Abilities:
• Contained Map (Special, 3/score): Mark 1 stress to automatically create a situational advantage related to positioning, escape routes, or unseen paths with 2 free ticks
• Stillness of the Wood (1/score): Ignore the first consequence related to detection or ambush
Drawbacks:
• If used aggressively or to lead others openly, the GM may impose +1 Heat
• Strong arcane interference may reduce effect by one tier
Dungeons & Dragons (5e / 2024 rules-compatible)
Name: Cloak of the Folded Ley
Item Type: Wondrous Item (Cloak), Rare (requires attunement)
Slot: Back (single slot, merged item)
Description:
A muted cloak with leyglass filaments sewn beneath its surface, mapping unseen paths without revealing the wearer.
Passive Benefits:
• Advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks in natural or dim environments
• Advantage on Wisdom (Survival) or Intelligence (Investigation) checks made to navigate terrain, ruins, or hidden routes
• Overland travel time in wilderness or ruins is reduced by half
Active Abilities:
• Contained Cartography (3/day): As a bonus action, you gain truesense of terrain for 1 minute: you cannot be surprised by environmental hazards or ambushes you could reasonably detect
• Silent Path (1/day): For 10 minutes, you and any gear you carry leave no tracks and make no sound from movement
Limitations:
• Effects are suppressed in bright, magically saturated urban centers
• If the cloak is damaged to 0 HP, all magic ceases until repaired
Knave (2e-compatible)
Name: Leyfold Stalker’s Cloak
Item Type: Cloak (1 slot)
Description:
A stealth cloak that quietly shows where the world bends, not where it shines.
Mechanical Effects:
• Gain advantage on Stealth rolls in natural, shadowed, or cluttered environments
• Automatically succeed on navigation checks to avoid obvious dangers or dead ends
• Travel and exploration actions take half the usual time
Active Use:
• Folded Insight (3/day): Treat a failed navigation, stealth, or exploration roll as a success
• Silent Bearing (1/day): Ignore one detection or ambush entirely
Durability:
• If damaged, the cloak loses its active uses until repaired
• Fully nonfunctional at 0 durability
Fate Core / Fate Condensed
Name: Veilglass Mantle of the Quiet Meridian
Type: Extra (Worn Item)
High Concept Aspect:
Cloak That Maps the World Without Revealing It
Trouble Aspect:
The Paths It Shows Are Not Always Safe
Permissions:
Allows the wearer to perceive subtle routes, hidden terrain features, and safe paths without overt displays or projections.
Stunts:
• Contained Cartography: Gain +2 when creating advantages related to navigation, hidden paths, or environmental positioning while unseen or unnoticed.
• Shadowbound Movement: Once per scene, ignore a complication caused by terrain, darkness, foliage, or clutter when moving quietly.
• Silent Repositioning (1/session): Instantly reposition within the same zone without opposition if no one is actively watching you.
Stress & Consequences Interaction:
The mantle may absorb one mild consequence related to being detected or mispositioned per session, converting it into a narrative complication instead.
Numenera & Cypher System (Discovery / Destiny)
Name: Leyfold Waycloak
Level: 4
Type: Artifact (Worn)
Depletion: 1 in 1d20 (checked on use of active abilities)
Description:
A shadowed cloak interwoven with ley-responsive crystal threads that subtly guide the wearer along optimal paths while dampening presence.
Passive Effects:
• Eases all Stealth, Navigation, and Exploration tasks by one step in natural, dim, or complex environments
• Reduces time required for overland travel, mapping, or ruin navigation by half
Active Abilities:
• Contained Map (3/day): Ease one task related to positioning, escape, or avoiding hazards by two additional steps
• Silent Bearing (1/day): For 10 minutes, the wearer cannot trigger detection-based GM intrusions related to movement
• Ley Alignment (1 Intellect): Instantly identify the safest or least-observed route through the immediate area
Limitations:
Effects are reduced by one step in heavily industrial or magically saturated zones.
Pathfinder (2nd Edition)
Name: Cloak of the Folded Leypath
Item Level: 7
Rarity: Rare
Usage: worn cloak
Bulk: L
Price: Balanced for Tier-2 equivalent
Description:
This muted cloak contains leyglass filaments that quietly respond to the environment, guiding movement without visible manifestation.
Passive Benefits:
• +2 item bonus to Stealth checks in natural terrain or dim light
• +2 item bonus to Survival checks to navigate, avoid hazards, or prevent becoming lost
• Reduce overland exploration time by 50%
Activate [one-action] (concentrate, illusion, divination):
Frequency: 3/day
Effect: Until the end of your next turn, you gain precise awareness of hidden terrain features, granting advantage-equivalent benefits on positioning, ambush avoidance, or escape attempts.
Activate [two-actions] (concentrate):
Frequency: 1/day
Effect: You become undetectable by non-magical tracking for 10 minutes and leave no trail.
Destruction Clause:
If reduced to 0 item HP, the cloak becomes mundane until repaired at a ley site or ancient grove.
Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition)
Name: Mantle of the Hidden Meridian
Type: Magic Item (Worn)
Description:
A prismatic-threaded cloak that subtly reveals where to step—and where not to—without betraying the wearer.
Passive Effects:
• +2 to Stealth rolls in natural or low-visibility environments
• +2 to Survival or Notice rolls made to navigate terrain or detect ambush routes
• Travel time through wilderness or ruins is halved
Powers (No Arcane Skill Required):
• Contained Mapping (3/day): Gain a free reroll on a failed Stealth, Survival, or Athletics roll related to movement or positioning
• Silent Passage (1/day): For one scene, ignore one source of detection or tracking entirely
Drawbacks:
In brightly lit urban or industrial environments, bonuses are reduced to +1.
SHADOWRUN (Sixth World Edition)
Name: Leyglass Ghostmantle 271
Type: Magical Apparel (Worn Cloak)
Rating: 3
Availability: 8R
Legality: Restricted
Essence Cost: None
Description:
A muted cloak threaded with ley-responsive crystal filaments that dampen astral and physical presence while subtly guiding the wearer through terrain and urban shadows.
Passive Effects:
• +2 dice pool to Stealth tests (Sneaking, Palming) in low-light, wilderness, or cluttered environments
• +1 die to Navigation and Tracking tests
• Counts as Concealment 1 against Perception tests relying on motion or silhouette
Active Effects:
• Leyfold Step (3/day, Minor Action): Gain +3 dice to the next Stealth or Athletics test involving repositioning, evasion, or escape
• Silent Meridian (1/day, Major Action): For one combat round, observers must succeed on a Perception test (threshold 4) to even notice the wearer’s movement
• Path Sense (Passive): Reduce movement penalties from difficult terrain by 1 step
Astral Interaction:
On the astral plane, the cloak appears as faint cartographic lines that never extend beyond the wearer’s aura.
STARFINDER (Enhanced / Core Rulebook)
Name: Veilglass Waycloak 418
Level: 7
Price: Balanced for Level 7 worn item
Slot: Armor Upgrade (Cloak-compatible)
Bulk: L
Description:
A prismatic-threaded cloak that projects contained navigational light, guiding movement without emitting detectable illumination.
Passive Benefits:
• +2 insight bonus to Stealth checks in dim light, wilderness, or ruins
• +2 insight bonus to Survival checks to avoid hazards or become lost
• Reduce overland travel time by 50%
Active Abilities:
• Contained Projection (3/day, Move Action): Until the end of your next turn, gain blindsense (motion only) out to 10 feet
• Silent Drift (1/day, Standard Action): Ignore attacks of opportunity provoked by movement for 1 minute
• Ley Alignment (Passive): Environmental movement penalties are reduced by half
Power Source:
Operates via ambient magical resonance; no batteries required.
TRAVELLER (Mongoose 2nd Edition)
Name: Meridian Shadowcloak 902
Tech Level: 12
Type: Advanced Personal Equipment
Mass: 1.2 kg
Cost: Appropriate for elite Tier-2 gear
Description:
A low-profile cloak incorporating crystalline navigation filaments that enhance movement efficiency and concealment.
Passive Effects:
• DM +2 to Stealth and Recon checks in wilderness, low-visibility, or ruin environments
• DM +1 to Navigation checks
• Overland travel time reduced by half when leading a group
Active Functions:
• Silent Vector (3/day): Gain DM +3 to a single movement-related check (Athletics, Stealth, Recon)
• Contained Path (1/day): For 10 minutes, the wearer leaves no detectable trail and cannot be followed without advanced sensors
Limitations:
In brightly lit, highly industrial environments, bonuses are reduced by 1.
WARHAMMER FANTASY ROLEPLAY (4th Edition)
Name: Cloak of the Veiled Meridian
Type: Enchanted Cloak
Availability: Rare
Encumbrance: 0
Description:
A shadowed cloak threaded with faintly glowing crystal veins that guide the wearer through peril without revealing their presence.
Passive Effects:
• +10 to Stealth (Agility) Tests in forests, ruins, or darkness
• +10 to Outdoor Survival or Navigation Tests
• Ignore the first level of movement penalty from difficult terrain
Active Effects:
• Whispered Path (3/day): Gain Advantage +1 on the next Dodge or Stealth Test
• Silent Passage (1/day): For one scene, enemies suffer –10 to Perception Tests to detect the wearer
Magical Trait:
If reduced to 0 Wounds, the cloak becomes mundane until repaired at a ley-rich or sacred natural site.