So You Want To / Write a Believable Masquerade

Ah, the Masquerade. The basis of a vast majority of Urban Fantasy stories, as well as many in the wider Fantasy genre. The general concept is simple: there exists the magical, and it hides from the mundane. However, once you put down the book and open the fridge, you stare into it and suddenly realize... something doesn't make sense here. A whole lot of things, actually. You've fallen victim to the Masquerade Paradox. So to fix that in your own work, let's go over problems that a Masquerade would face in reality.

Basic Elements

Before going in-depth, it's a good idea as to what is necessary to have in place in your setting for a Masquerade to work. A successful Masquerade often features 3 key elements:

• 1) A Masquerade Enforcer. Briefly, this is a permanent feature of the setting (usually a force of nature or some godlike entity) that punishes or traumatizes any "unnatural" creature that may be observable to humans, forcing said "unnatural" creatures to disguise themselves from humanity. You need a reason for the Masquerade to exist in the first place, and this is it. This force often also destroys any evidence of magic. Examples include:
  • The anime & RPG Night Wizard has the World Barrier, which destroys anything witnessed by normal mortals does not conform to the “proper appearance of the Earth” (i.e. what is considered normal).
  • In the Good Intentions series, the more mortals witness a magical being, the less magical powers that magical being can use. A large crowd can reduce even a god-like character to the level of a mere human.
  • David Brin's short story Those Eyes has humans being able to kill fairies. Humans that look at fairies with skepticism can utterly disintegrate the fay.
  • Mage: The Ascension The force of Paradox from the tabletop game by White Wolf Publishing.

• 2) Something that makes magic Invisible to Normals. Briefly, a permanent feature of the setting causes the supernatural creatures to be completely unobservable to humans in the first place without some supernatural power of their own. This will stop scientists and surveillance technology from discovering those beings trying to hide. Examples of:
  • The Mist from the book series Percy Jacksonandthe Olympians by Rick Riordan.
  • The invisibility of magical creatures to human senses in The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare
  • In CLAMP's X/1999, the super-powered fighters have the ability to create "kekkai" which are barriers that prevent normals from entering, and repair all damage within them when dispelled. However, if the fighter is killed in the battle, the kekkai disappears and all damage immediately appears in the real world.
  • In Night Wizard both Wizards and Emulators use powerful Lunar Caskets and Lunar Robes that hides their magical nature from human senses, and where they can use powers openly, due to the presence of the World Barrier

• 3) A Cleanup Crew or some Ret-Gone effect that erases evidence. Briefly, this is some organization or force that erases any physical evidence and records and any corpses, that either erases memories of the supernatural or implants false memories that convinces observers that only mundane events occur and by providing a plausible cover-up. In most settings, there is the possibility that the Masquerade might temporarily break, like in stories where someone is Welcomed to the Masquerade. So there needs to be someone to seal the breach and punish anyone responsible. Examples include:
  • The members of the MIB organization who clean up evidence of aliens in the 1997 film Menin Black.
  • A "Glitch in the Matrix" triggered by the machine masters of the Matrix in the 1999 film The Matrix.
  • To protect The Masquerade, characters in the Young Wizards series have been known to patch up disaster areas by using timeslides, at least once replacing an entire town with a version from an alternate reality where the damage never happened
  • The World Barrier from Night Wizard has the power to alter memories, modify physical records, and even undo physical harm or death, in order to preserve what is considered to be normal.

A good writer will demonstrate all of these to an audience relatively early in any narrative. That way, the audience will know very quickly what the rules of the world are.

Who?

Now for the nitty gritty. Before you design a Masquerade, you have to figure WHO is doing the hiding in the first place. Some questions to ask are?

• What are exact the physical strengths, limitations, and vulnerabilities of the different types of supernatural creatures?
• What is the relationship between the different Magical entities. Are they all unified under a single government? Are they divided into competing factions? This can roughly be divided into two groups:
  • Type 1: Unified Magicals. Magicals/supers are all united into a single government.
  • type 2: Divided magical entities. Magicals/supers are divided into competing factions.
• What is the relationship between humanity and the magical creatures with which they must share the same planet? For example, a relatively weak vampire whose only chance to survive is killing humans is going to have a very strong motivation to hide in our modern world. By contrast, a godlike wizard who could use easily their magic powers to take over humanity is NOT going to have much motivation to hide (After all, humans do not feel the need to hide from ants). Generally, the relationship between Muggles and Magicals can be divided into 3 groups:
  • Type 1: Magicals > Muggles. On one end of the scale. Muggles present zero threat to magicals. Magical beings are truly superhuman, being so powerful that ordinary people present no threat to them. The weakest magical is the Physical God. Muggles do in fact need to Beware the Superman. Type 1 settings are places where muggles live in constant fear of even the most benign superhuman. The world is dominated by a Supernatural Elite, and Muggles are lucky to just get through the day without drawing the ire of their superpowered overlords. Heroes, villains, and any other main characters are often members of the Magicals. A muggle is usually either a Damsel in Distress or a Muggle Best Friend. (Ex: most comic book universes).
  • Type 2: Magicals < Muggles. On the other end, Muggles Do It Better. The various magical entities are so weak that they live in constant fear of being detected by muggles. The threat of Muggle Power is so great that magical entities are incentivized to hide from muggles. Type 2 settings often feature Magicals being forced to live in a Wainscot Society (or several), and they must hide themselves behind a Masquerade, possibly aided by some Weirdness Censor. Stories in this world often take two forms. First, the heroes are often muggles, protecting their own against the evil magical monsters (Ex: Supernatural). Second, the main characters are magicals, trying to protect their vulnerable people from the evil humans (Ex: Ferngully).
  • Type 3: Magicals = Muggles. Closer to the middle. Many settings have a mixture. Sometimes Muggles are good at some things, while magicals are good at other, creating a various demagogy. Perhaps Muggles are good at science, whereas Magicals are good at, of course, magic. This can lead to Magic Versus Science. Perhaps individual supernaturals are more powerful that individual Muggles, but the Muggles vastly outnumber the supernaturals. Type 3 settings often have muggles and magicals engaged in some sort of conflict. (Ex: Final Fantasy XIV).

One very simple test to determine where the setting sits is to play out a scenario: take an average Muggle, take an average Magical (of a given species/race/whatever), and have them fight. If the Magical absolutely crushes the Muggle, then it's Type 1. If, on the other hand, the Muggle defeats the magical, then it's Type 2. If neither is a clear winner, then it is Type 3.

Another, more complicated test is to set an average Muggle against average Magical, and then determine the paths of victory (ways of winning) for each combatant. The side that has the greatest paths of victory will have the greatest probability of success in any confrontation, and will determine where on the scale the setting stands. This can refer to physical strength or superpowers, but also to non-violent means, such as rhetorical skill or smooth-talking, or use of mental magic such as telepathy or mind control. If the Magical clearly has more paths of victory, then the setting will be Type 1. If the Muggle clearly has more paths, then Type 2. If neither side has a clear advantage, then it is Type 3.

Obviously, Type 2's tend to make the most straightforward sense for why a Masquerade exists in the first place. The other two are certainly not impossible, but will require a great deal more world-building to make work.

Now, this is an overly simplified. Remember, some people are better at some things than others. This applies to combat as well. For example, an infantry squad is going to be better at clearing a building and avoiding civilian casualties than a tank. However, when facing a heavily armored opponent in an open field with little cover, a tank will be better than infantry. As such, the above-mentioned types may change depending on the circumstance.

Why?

Why do your extremely powerful wizards, immortal vampires and other supernatural creatures do this? If they are so powerful, couldn't they just reveal themselves and take over the world? Who's to stop them? And even if they don't wish to become our new overlords, it's conceivable that they could make a ton of money with their power, were they allowed to make it public. How much would government pay a wizard soldier? How much could an earth wizard make working for a construction company? Why don't they? Here are some possible reasons:

• Pride: The wizards are too proud to mingle with the muggles. They feel superior and as such believe that revealing themselves would mean stooping to muggles' level, and that mixing with muggles would somehow make them weaker.
  • Don't use that if you want to present your Wainscot Society in a positive light, though - the Unfortunate Implications should be obvious. It's going to be hard for anyone to sympathize with anyone who has the power to help people, but doesn't do so out of a sense of superiority.
  • In addition, if the wizards are so powerful, then why not use their powers to acquire influence and status in muggle society, ruling the mere muggles and using them to garner more power and influence?
• Fear of Muggles: Perhaps the magicals aren't all that powerful. Muggles Do It Better could be in play. The wizards fear that they'd be locked up and cut open to see what makes them magical; that they'd be all but enslaved by government or corporations to use their magic for their purposes; that they'd be outright killed. In such worlds, magicals are thus far less powerful than muggles, and magical beings live double lives in hiding out of mortal fear of discovery. They can fear open persecution, torches-and-pitchforks mobs, and good-old-fashioned prejudice.
  • This has the advantage keeping the world-building simple, and works well when magicals are on the bottom end of the super weight class.
  • However, superhero-type urban fantasy settings are going to have a hard time with this one. After all, why hide when you have the strength and powers of Superman? This becomes even more glaring in settings like the Dark Ages, where power gap between wizards and humans was presumably bigger than today.
• Fear of Numbers: A subset of Fear of Muggles, in which Muggles are individually weak but vastly outnumber the magicals. As such, if the Masquerade were ever broken the Muggles would be able to swamp the Magicals with sheer numbers. This has the useful quality of simultaneously making individual Muggles helpless against villainous magicals (and requiring heroic magic magicals to protect them) while at the same time making humanity as a whole something to be feared and justifying the Masquerade.
• Fear of Masquerade Enforcer: Performing magic in full-view of muggles triggers some sort of anti-magical force that can kill magic and magical beings. This force is functionally invulnerable, and acts as a kind of force of nature.
  • This has the advantage of creating a powerful incentive to have a masquerade in the first place.
  • However, this runs the risk of overly-complicating your setting, as now you have to create a whole anti-magic in addition to your magic.
  • Another complication is that if there is some Magical Land, or some other plane of existence where magic may be used openly, why would any magical being hang around what such a lethal environment?
  • Also, it may not work in a Dresden-Files-style superhero urban fantasy. Magical beings that are superheroes are, by definition, more powerful than muggles, who play the role of victims to be saved by the heroes from other magical threats. Giving muggles such power would seem to remove the need for a magical superhero in the first place, as any magical creature, heroic or villainous, would be destroyed by the anti-magical force.
    • One possible solution is to make the anti-magic dependent upon mortal senses. If muggles do not sense the the magic, then there is no anti-magic. All supernatural creatures would then use some sort of camouflage, such as a glamour, an illusion, or shape-shifting, to hide themselves from muggles. The monsters would disguise themselves while preying upon muggles, while the heroes would keep themselves hidden while saving the muggles.
  • The anti-magic force would also dissuade any magical creature from risking their life to save muggles. After all, who wants to risk their lives fighting for a species when exposing yourself risks anti-magical backlash? That would be like a human risking his life to save a nest of lethally poisonous spiders from a lethally poisonous snake. In such a world, the magicals may just decide that the best route is to Kill All Humans
    • Of course, a clever writer might use this as an advantage. Someone who actively tries to help people, despite the risks, could be portrayed as being even more heroic. After all, what makes Spider-Man such a beloved character is that he helps people despite the personal costs to himself.
• Law: Related to the Fear of Muggles above. The life of a supernatural is rife with law-breaking, and going public would mean that a lot of cases dismissed by muggles as random murders or other mundane crimes would be connected with supernatural world, which magicals do not wish to happen.
  • This is especially effective in monster stories, like vampires, as evidenced by Vampire: The Masquerade. Predators have a very good incentive to keep their prey ignorant. As the saying goes, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
  • However, if you want such creatures to be heroes, or sympathetic in any way, then bear in mind that have a hard-time rooting for a baby-eating monster, and such settings can easily bring about audience apathy.
  • Also, laws are only as powerful as their enforcers. If magicals are so powerful that they can ignore mortal law without any fear of the repercussions, then why hide at all?
• Inherent Invisibility: Something about the nature of magicals makes it impossible to go public with it. Perhaps magic is Invisible to Normals, maybe there are some deities that forbid you doing magic when muggles may see you, or it could be that magic works on Clap Your Hands If You Believe and thus someone who doesn't believe won't see any effect of magic.
  • This is an easy fix, and it avoids overly complicated worldbuilding.
  • However, a mere assertion will seem to be an arbitrary cop-out, as it doesn't answer the question of why in the first place. Besides, you still have to establish the limitations and exceptions of that inherent visibility.
  • In addition, it begs to question how mortals could ever find out about magic in the first place.
  • Also, stories with the Muggle Best Friend, or where ordinary muggles use ordinary muggle science or whatnot to successfully defeat monsters or threaten the heroes become really problematic, since the muggles have no opportunity to sense and defend themselves from those monsters.
  • Finally, the lack of a fear of being caught by muggles might encourage heroes to engage in very unsavoury behavior without fear of any implications.
• Knowing Magic = Danger: Those who know about magic, and/or use magic, become Monster Magnets. The sheer act of knowing sends a signal to all monsters that you are a buffet waiting to happen. Just like in real-life, where knowing state secrets makes you a target for kidnapping or assassination by enemies, knowing magic makes you a target for monsters. Perhaps it is detectable through some Aura Vision or whatnot. As such, only those who are properly trained and disciplined can use magic to protect themselves, and others, from the inherent dangers.
  • This has the advantage of providing something of a good reason for keeping magic a secret.
  • This is really useful for darker superhero settings, where you have a group of heroic magical folk using a dangerous but necessary power to attract and neutralize monsters away from the muggles (acting as a sort of aggro).
  • However, it can very easily bring about unfortunate implications. It's hard to cheer for your heroes when they're murdering people who knew too much.
  • Also, in settings where magic is not inherently dangerous and can be used for something other than monster-slaying, like healing the sick or providing clean energy, this becomes far less justifiable.
  • In addition, if magic is what is bringing monsters to the world, then why would anyone use magic in the first place?
    • However, this objection can be resolved if it is established that the monsters were here first, and that magic is just a way of fighting back.
• Tradition: "We've always been hiding from the populace! Why change that now?" But why did they go into hiding in the first place? Witch-burning seems to be a common explanation, but this runs into the same problem as the "Fear of Muggles" notion mentioned above.

How many?

Sometimes, writers don't really think their numbers over, which results in Masquerade that's downright unbelievable, not to mention unsustainable. This manifests mainly in three ways:

• The amount of people with magic blood: It sounds really nice if you say "only one percent of population has magic". However, you need to remember that there are 8 billion people in the world, and one percent of that is 80 million people. For the record, that's more than the entire population of the United Kingdom. It's pretty much impossible to keep this many people hidden from the outside world, so think about how many people your masquerade encompasses.
• Unusual culinary needs: Vampires eat people, as it's commonly known, but again, you have to sit with a calculator and do your math. If you say that your vampire needs one whole person per week^note "Whole", in this case, meaning that they suck out so much blood, there's no way for the person to survive, this means 52 people going missing every year - per vampire. If your story has a coven of ten, this puts it at over five hundred, and even if you justify it as "they only feed on poor and unwanted", half a thousand homeless people going missing every year is going to attract attention. So either tone the numbers down or picture how this would realistically function: vampires would have to quickly flee the city after several weeks, as to not attract the attention of authorities.
• Breeding: For species to successfully survive, they must breed, which means increase in numbers. It doesn't have to be birds-and-bees kind of breeding - it could be muggles introduced to wizardry, or vampires creating more vampires. Even if we agree that supernatural beings breed slower than humans, they are more often than not immortal, which means the Immortal Procreation Clause may have to kick in. For example, assume that a vampire creates an offspring every ten years, and this offspring also creates offspring every ten years. What we've got here is an exponentially growing sequence, and if your "initial" vampire was born in 0 AD - and assuming vampires don't die - in year 2010 there'd be 2.26*10⁴¹ vampires, which is actually more than the number of stars in observable universe. This is an overblown example, of course, but does illustrate the importance of doing math before stating numbers.

How to Enforce the Masquerade?

There are several other questions you should ask yourself when designing a Masquerade.

• How do you convince thousands of superhuman beings to hide? Many stories say that supernatural has always been in hiding, other than they went into hiding because of something. Why, though? What's stopping a wizard from taking control over cavemen? Why haven't we been ruled by immortal vampire god-emperors since Ancient Egypt? Why would witches decide to hide upon seeing Church's witch burning if they could punish the would-be burners with their magic? What kind of medieval king would persecute werewolves rather than have an elite army of super-strong soldiers who can turn into wolves?
• How do you enforce hiding? If your supernatural society numbers in thousands, how do you make sure every single one of them agrees to hide? How do you deal with dissidents who want to show off, take over a city or country, or simply believe that it's muggles' right to know? How do you stop them before they show magic in front of TV cameras? What's stopping your supernaturals from going to one of many foundations that offer tremendous amounts of money for a proof of psychic powers?
• How do you cover up public displays of the supernatural? Slip-ups are going to happen, no matter how hard you try, so what does the damage control look like? What do you do when a man changing into werewolf is captured by someone's camera and the video posted on YouTube? How do you hide a wizard battle in streets of a big city? What do you do when an aerial battle gone wrong knocks a top off a skyscraper? This is especially important if your story takes place in twenty-first century, when almost everyone carries a camera with Internet access in their pockets. If there's a video on YouTube, by the time you take it down, there could be dozens of copies and stills from it circulating the Internet. If you wipe somebody's mind after you accidentally throw a fireball in front of a witness, there's a chance they've tweeted about it already. And what about CCTV cameras, or satellite surveillance?
• How do supernatural beings function in modern society? While even a hundred years back, you could be nobody and pass unnoticed, again, twenty-first century has some problems in store for magical beings. This is a two-fold problem.
  • Immortality: To function in modern society in any capacity beyond "homeless bum", you need to have things such as ID, medical care card, passport, bank account, driving license and probably dozens of other things, depending on where you live. Above all: birth certificate. At some point, you have to start existing in the great bureaucratic machine. How does an immortal vampire forge its birth? How does it fake its death? How, after faking death, does it hold onto its money? How does it stop people from noticing it doesn't age?
  • Employment and money: Government wants you to pay taxes, and won't take no for an answer. Consider a witch who sells potions and charms to wizards. How does she fill in her tax return? What source of income does she state? Consider a vampire who's rich because it used to be a nobleman of some sort. While in supernatural world having money out of nowhere simply means you're immortal and amassed it, to muggle officials it means you're probably engaged in some sort of criminal enterprise. Consider a wizard who predicts the future to win lottery, or worse - conjures the money from thin air. At some point, this will become suspicious.
• How do you keep the authorities in the dark? Exsanguination by two small holes or death by fireball are unlikely to be passed off as mundane deaths. How do you hide supernatural murder? You can't pay everybody off. Do you have somebody on the force who'd cover up for you? How does this person keep the secret, and how does this person cover it up? On non-criminal angle, how do you stop people from noticing you don't age? If you forge documents every fifty or so years, how do you explain suddenly popping into existence with thousands in cash or bank account? If you pass it off as being your own son, where has this son been hiding for the last decade or two? Why didn't he exist before his miraculous appearance a few days after his father's death?
• How do you keep knowledge of the supernatural from spreading? If you have to tell a few muggles about existence of magic, what stops them from telling others? If you give every witness of your supernatural exploits a crack course and plea for secrecy, do you think they won't tell their families? How many people do you have to let in on the secret to cover up a murder? Ten murders? How long, then, before half the city knows about the Masquerade? And if you chose the opposite option, if you kill to uphold the Masquerade, you've got the same problem the "How many" section has covered.
• How do creatures in hiding communicate? If there's a Masquerade, how do you know who else is part of it? If you live in the British Masquerade and travel to China, how do you know where to search for Chinese wizards? If you want to share news, or call a meeting, how do you contact everyone?
• How do you deal with new supernaturals? For that matter, how does recruitment works? If a vampire turns someone by accident, how does this person find the Masquerade? How do seasoned members hide newbie's exploits? How do they find such people? How do they convince them to continue living in secret?

Miscellaneous

There are other problems and cliches that can show up and seriously threaten the Masquerade.

• Vampires and nightclubs: This is one of those things that sound cool, but aren't very practical. The theory behind it is that Vampires Own Nightclubs, because nightclubs attract dozens of young people who are just waiting to have sex (and, by extension, exsanguination) with random strangers. But seriously, how many people come to nightclubs looking for partners, and how many come with to have fun with friends or partners they already have? Despite what movies and TV would have you believe, the ratio is seriously skewed towards the latter.
• The problems of being invisible: Sometimes, supernatural is invisible on camera, or doesn't reflect in mirrors - this is another of vampiric problems, but not only. For vampires, if you extend the "doesn't reflect in mirrors" part to photo cameras, how will such a vampire get an ID made? Hyperrealistic painting? The other part of this is, of course, that even if your dragon isn't visible to muggles, the car it's lifting and crushing with its jaws very much is.
• Daylight, iron and other weaknesses: The Fair Folk are often vulnerable to iron, which you may've noticed is one of most common substances in modern cities. Vampires have it even worse, being susceptible to daylight. How do you explain to a muggle that no, you can't go to the police station to give your statement at midday, because you'd burn to ashes? How do you justify wearing hat, sunglasses, coat and scarf on a warm summer day?
• Muggles don't want to believe: Supernaturals will often dismiss muggles as preferring to believe into mundane explanations rather than supernatural. The Internet will prove you, time and again, that it's actually the opposite. People will latch onto supernatural explanation even when mundane one is there and far more likely.
• Let's move in with the pack: You're a werewolf! Now, of course, you have to move in with the pack! We all live in a warehouse by the woods, have this strict structure of who's he boss, are insanely loyal to one another, obey the alpha without question, and fight to death if need be for our position in the pack! But... why would you want to leave your old life behind?
• Magic doesn't like technology: Two things: for one, people will notice if you're Walking Techbane. For other, why do so many supernatural creatures - Harry Potter is just one example - refuse to acknowledge modern technology? A vampire who doesn't use computers is severely handicapped these days, and if Hermione lived in twenty-first century rather than the nineties, do you think she'd agree to be parted from Wikipedia or her smartphone?
• When police takes interest: These days, we've got fingerprints, DNA analysis, advanced forensic medicine and the like, which will make hiding harder. Many substances used in supernatural world could be forbidden by regular government. Carrying a sword in the open is actually not legal in many nations, as is carrying weapons without permit, if you happen to have a gun with silver bullets. If a supernatural creature that looks like a young girl starts to travel the world alone, chances are high she'll attract the attention of child welfare services.
• Supernatural bars: Where do you meet with other supernaturals, share a drink, talk freely about your day job of dragon slaying and blood sucking? In a supernatural bar, of course. Do keep in mind it's still a bar, though - a muggle may wander in.

Possible solutions

Crafting Masquerade that conforms to all the above is hard, which is why it's often Hand Waved by authors. There's nothing bad about it, of course - your reader doesn't have to know all the minutiae of maintaining global Masquerade. Some, however, figure other options:

• Very small number of supernaturals: A cabal of twenty wizards will have much fewer problems hiding from mundane world, and smaller chance of being accidentally discovered.
• Complete separation of normal and supernatural world: Supernaturals have their own companies, shops, towns, services and others, and they are incredibly hard to reach. As such, they don't leave paper trail for "official" authorities to follow, and there are very few people who supply things only muggle world can provide. Still runs the risk of someone accidentally wandering in.
• Actually different universes: A step beyond the above, supernatural lives in a world adjacent to our own, but ultimately separate, so that a muggle can in no way stumble into a witch's shop or a wizard battle. An example would he Fae living in some Hidden Elf Village, or the Diagon Alley, with people at Leaky Cauldron serving as gatekeepers.
• genium malignum a.k.a. Evil Demon: The phrase comes from Descartes, which refers to some nigh-omnipotent entity that could present a complete illusion of an external world. In urban fantasy, this refers to a divine force, diabolical entity, or the very nature of magic working to keep magical creatures from being observed by muggles.
  • As the masquerading entity/force is nigh-omnipotent, there is no need to worry about new technology uncovering the Masquerade.
  • A solid, quick fix if necessary, and very useful is a pulpy, superhero style setting, as it allows the characters to go around doing obviously superheroic stuff, without having to carry out morally-problematic things like using a Memory-Wiping Crew.
  • You may still be left with reasons for why such a disguise exists in the first place.
  • If the powers, limitations, and vulnerabilities of the Evil Demon are not clearly defined, then it can come across as arbitrary, if not an outright Deus ex Machina. As Hello Future Me points out (timestamp: 1:18-3:10), having some vague cosmic "veil" works in soft-magic systems like in Call of Cthulhu. However, for worlds with where there a clearly defined understandable rules, having some vague mysterious "soft" magical illusion will seem very inconsistent with the overall feel of magic in that world.
  • Such powerful Masquerade enforcement also raises questions of how Muggles could investigate and discover the Masquerade on their own. If Muggles cannot detect supernaturals, then how can Muggles threaten supernatural creatures? Things like muggles killing magicals, and witch hunts becomes implausible. Any stories where muggles fight magical creatures difficult if the Evil Demon continuously hides magic from muggles.
  • In addition, it also raises the problem of how supernatural creatures bring in muggles to the Masquerade? How do vampires and wizards "recruit" new members from the muggle populace? Tropes such as the muggle best pal, and being welcomed into the masquerade become very problematic.

Writing tips and ideas

• Above all, have a reason for a masquerade. Living a double-life is hard (ask anyone who's worked undercover, or who's been a professional criminal). There had better be a really compelling reason for all that hard-work.
• Accidentally stumbling upon the Masquerade is a staple of Urban Fantasy - what about a reversal? A story about a seasoned member of the Masquerade desperately trying to stop people from discovering it?
• Refrain from giving numbers, and you'll stop some enterprising reader with a calculator from calling foul. Speak in vagueness - quite a lot, very few, pretty rare, this kind of thing.
• Portray people in charge of the masquerade as competent. They doubtlessly have long practice hiding supernatural from muggles, so there's no reason for them to be idiots and fail at their job at every step.
• Try to give even a cursory explanation for cover-ups. It will stop people from asking questions of "how can they possibly hide it?"
• Explore the problems arising from Masquerade. Show that vampires have to either starve or move cities every few feedings. Have The Fair Folk avoid cities because of all the metal. Make wizards hesitate to use magic in crowded areas.
• Have your Wainscot Society invent contingency plan in case they are discovered. It'll make them look more professional and acknowledge it's not easy to hide supernatural for too long.
• What if a muggle does, indeed, wander into a supernatural bar without knowing it is supernatural?
• What happens when somebody decides that it's time to break the Masquerade and show muggles who's the boss?
• We've mentioned many times throughout this article that these days, it gets downright impossible to maintain the Masquerade. What happens when it breaks? When a video on Facebook proves without doubt the existence of ghosts? Where a vampire burns to death in sunlight and is caught by dozens of phone cameras? How does the supernatural world deal with that?

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