Mask vs a mask a monster origin story

Of all the vidio games i played as a kid i loved the Zelda games most.  and my favorite of all the Zelda games was Majora's Mask.  It is dark, complex, moody, shadowed and mysterious; that game is filled with a gloomy beauty and a bitter darkness.  All that moody agnst made for the most atmospheric and poignent game i ever played as a kid. In that game there was one over-arching theme driving all the game play mechanics and all the story beats.

Magical Masks!

In majora's mask the conceit is that the souls or the spirits of the dead can be captured in masks and putting on these masks allows the wearer to embody the quintessential form of the mask's spirit.  In the game of course there is a mask of pure evil and some fool has put it on. As the hero it is your job to go make him take it off.  the thing is in order to stop the bad guy you basically have to find al these recently dead people and capture their souls in masks so you can use their abilities.  While wearing these masks living people recognize you as the dead person who's face you are wearing and you as a player have to deal with greiveing fiances, bereft children and broken people.  You go through all this and when you finally arrive at the great big villein you discover that the person who is wearing the Mask of Pure evil is just a scared bullied kid.  The mask is wearing him..

What a concept!  Why hasn't it seeped into table-top RPG's?  If your answer is that one Zelda Game isn't a strong enough influence to affect RPG's in general. Then i would agree.  But the tradition of mystical masks with the power to possesses and heal exists through out history in the real world.  

In many theatrical traditions there exists the idea of a Mask (with a capitol M), an external entity, contained within a mask. The Mask character is the spirit of an idea or archetype; a personality whose essences is referred to as The Mask.   The true mask is not the peice of wood or leather that you wear but the energy that wears you, that you allow to inhabit your body in a new way.

If you study Italian Commedia Dell'arte, for example, you will find a collection of masks which depict specific Mask characters which have barely changed for, in some cases, hundreds of years.  Characters like the fat docotor who knows nothing and poisons insead of heals.  The old man who is rich and wants to get laid and make money and so ruins everyone's lives in the pursuit. The unhappy servent who's only goal in life is too make everyone's life hell.    In the tradition of Commedia Dell'arte placing the mask on your face is an invitation to the nature of the Mask's character to come into you.  Wearing the mask of the Arlechinno (the young dimwitted clown) gives the actor permission to embody the spirit of the Mask and become Arlechinno, to think like him and preform as him.

 In many parts of Afrca there are festivals and ceremonies which involve wearing masks that portray great spirits or forces of nature.  In some places the men or women wearing these masks will do cruel or illegal things and be forgiven for their actions because it is understood that it was the Mask and not the man who was in control.  Similar traditions exist all over the world and in many cultures. In ancient Athens theatrical productions, masked performance and religious ceremony were  all the same thing.  Spirit, performance and magic all wrapped together and inseparable in the mask.

During my theater training we learned that part of doing mask work (performance while in mask) was to spend time with the mask you were to wear.  You make your mask, shape it, paint it, fit it to your face.  You are taught to consider it, to attribute purpose to every shape and color and line. Before you don the mask you are told to hold it in your hands and just look at it.  To observe the physical object and see in it, The Mask, the living breathing inhabitant of the object.

Me as a Pulchinella!

It seems like voodo but there is an undeniable power and freedom in believing, just for a few moments, that you aren't yourself.  Believing that the face the world sees is no longer your own and the voice that comes from you lips doesn't belong to you.  This separation gives you permission do act and do things that you would never do if you were yourself.  Believe enough and you can shed your your own face, and walk outside of your own skin.

  I taught mask comedy in a workshop setting at a few high-schools and i watched it happen in front of me. I watched people changing and allowing a bit of the Mask through.  One class i worked with had a number of girls who came from cultures where it was not appropriate for women to speak or be seen.  Their teacher told us that often the girls would do their presentations behind a curtain so as to stay out of sight, other students were simply quiet, shy and awkward in their own bodies like many high-school students are, but, once those kids put on a mask.  Whatever they felt about themselves as people disappeared, whatever they felt like they couldn't do didn't matter anymore... at least in part.  For a little while they were outside themselves. That was a bit of magic i was seeing and it was in real life.

Still not convinced that masks should play a larger part of the fantasy world that is table to RPG's? Take a look at superheroes.  Bruce Wane can do anything that batman can do so why does he put on a mask?  What about a cape and a goofy cowl makes him better at fighting crime?  Why does the man who becomes the Joker only become a psychotic super villein after his face becomes the mask of a clown?  Why does losing half his face turn Harvey dent into the murderous Two face? The faces of these characters define them.  Harvy cant choose not to be a monster... he is being worn by the face of one.  The Joker cant help be a psychopath, it is all he sees when he looks in the mirror. This parallel is even more evident now.  In DC comics the Joker has been skinned by another villin and disappeared from the comics for a while.  When the Joker returned in the New 52 the first thing he did was get his face back, and put it on.  He isnt The Joker if he isn't wearing The Joker.  The Joker is the Mask that he wears.

Bruce Wayn wears a bat mask to remove Bruce Wane from himself.  The Idea of the Batman, a spirit of justice and vengeance lives inside the mask and there is no room in it for the terrified child that is Bruce Wane to exist while he wears it.

More than powers or righteous cause the thing that makes a superhero is the Mask.   Even Superman, who doesn't appear to wear a mask has one.  Superman's mask is called Clark kent.  How does a pair of glasses disguise the most iconic face in the world?  They don't disguise Him.  Wearing glasses removes super from the man and people see only the mask on not his face.  While he wears a pair of glasses Superman is possessed by the fallible human Clark Kent.

 I have never heard of or seen something else that is as DnDable as masks. So why not bring it into DnD? Why aren't their Mask monsters in any Manuals?  open any Monster book and you see lists of Goblinoids, dozens of Dragons, Medusa's and trolls and even living cubes of acidic slime but no masks. RPG's have looted mythology and folklore why not loot theater or history or comic books?  i want to see Masks as Monsters and NPC's and Magic Items!

So i am going to make some.

Where would you use these mask though?  Dungeon and dragons has more of an ecology than a mythology.  Oozes live in dungeons, Giants live in mountains or in clouds, Ogers in hills, gnolls live in rotted forests and owl-bears are made by insane wizards.  Where do you put a mask?  when would a party encounter one?

You put them, where batman lives.  Where theaters are. Where preists work and where people make things, live and die.  Put Masks in the cities and towns and metropolises of your world.  Use them in any populated area where a troll or a kappa wouldn't make sense.  To often vampires and wizards are the monsters you find in cities.  I cant count the number of times a party has discovered that the king is a vampire or that the wizard in town is the source of the evil. What makes vampires the default city monster? The scariest part of civilization isn't a civilized vampire.  The scariest part of civilization is the mob and everyone already knows that. Mobs follow ideas and a mask is an idea worn on the face.  Let your civilized monsters be Masks,  let them be social permits, licensees to act with impunity.
A mask gives human nature an excuse to run rampant.   let your cult leader put on the mask of his god and see the God wear the cult leader out into battle.  Let the ugly old beggar who always pinned for love stumble on The Mask of the Lover and then watch the city go mad.  Give a mask to your players and dare them, dare them to wear it, dare them to let something in.  Magic items, NPC's and traps all in one!  how can you do any better than that?

So i am going to start things off.  starting next week and continuing every week until i lose intrest i will post some Mask Monsters. maybe one maybe ten we wills see how i feel

MASK MONSTER #1?

this guy coming next week!