Justifications for the Masquerade

[Broomstick]

Even if the predators occasionally screw up and take someone who will be missed as long as that number remains under a critical threshold they can get away with it.

Heck, real life serial killers have been known to target specific demographic groups (Jeffrey Dahmer consciously did this) to minimize the chances of getting caught. Supernatural predators could do the same.

[Zixinus]

It is actually a common staple for urban fantasy for the hero to handle cases that "fall trough the cracks of the system". The supernatural detective may read tabloids and pay attention to missing person cases, finding supernatural cause over mundane ones. I think that's an essential part of the fantasy element, that the missing person was taken rather than slipped and cracked their head somewhere in the wilderness.

[Q99]

Ok, take all the existing missing persons above. Add supernatural on top of that, because the other problems don't go away, and throw in that Supernatural caused death is easily the number 1 cause.

They're predators. They can spot the easy targets.

Just the bulk means bad luck happens.

I mean, people targeting 'easy targets' happened in Victorian England, and they got both reaction and, often, caught. Also, predators get sloppy. Win most of the time, let your guard down, mess up.

Historical example


Importantly unlike a real killer, this is a happens-everywhere (or many places), long-term thing, with total body counts that make Jeffrey Dahmer and Jack the Ripper and Elizabeth Báthory combined look small.


I mean, an individual or small group of supernatural killers, that I can see. If there's only a few hundred vampires or something, they can have an acceptably small number of slipups *and* 'move away any place scrutiny is cranked up' is an option.

[Zixinus]

It would work if the vampires or whatever are constantly on the move and avoid concentrating in one spot. That way the occasional slip-up

Of course, if vampires have resources they can move up from preying to farming: create a supply. Create a field of work where people either expect or don't care that the employees die, such as a whorehouse. Or if blood from a bottle is fine, have a vampire run a blood drive and drink the rejected blood samples that would need to be disposed of anyway.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Ok, take all the existing missing persons above. Add supernatural on top of that, because the other problems don't go away, and throw in that Supernatural caused death is easily the number 1 cause.

They're predators. They can spot the easy targets.

Just the bulk means bad luck happens.

I mean, people targeting 'easy targets' happened in Victorian England, and they got both reaction and, often, caught. Also, predators get sloppy. Win most of the time, let your guard down, mess up.

Historical example


Importantly unlike a real killer, this is a happens-everywhere (or many places), long-term thing, with total body counts that make Jeffrey Dahmer and Jack the Ripper and Elizabeth Báthory combined look small.


I mean, an individual or small group of supernatural killers, that I can see. If there's only a few hundred vampires or something, they can have an acceptably small number of slipups *and* 'move away any place scrutiny is cranked up' is an option.

The premise presumes that some portion of that 90k, possibly even a large percentage ARE the ones eaten by the supernatural predators.

Sure, a skilled predator might fuck up, they might make a mistake and leave a bloody corpse in the streets because they had to bolt in a hurry, but most of these beings ALSO have some variety or another of mind control powers so if the worst happens, they can clean up their mess by manipulating the local constabulary.

In any one place, they are also not going to be overly common except in the developing world where the body count is high anyway (which is why the Red Court makes its home in the bad parts of Honduras). So you might have maybe a dozen Reds in any given city.

Hell, the white court does not even have to kill their victims.

[Vendetta]

As long as supernatural predators keep their "harvest" below a certain level they won't stir up enough trouble for the humans to come after them. It will be chalked up to mundane causes.

The first rule of vampire club is kill all the other vampires, so you don't become statistically significant.

[Ralin]

Hell, the white court does not even have to kill their victims.

Neither did the Red Court. Vampires like Ortega emphasized this.

[The Romulan Republic]

Speaking of Ortega and the masquerade, he actually worked as a professor who specialized in debunking the supernatural.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Hell, the white court does not even have to kill their victims.

Neither did the Red Court. Vampires like Ortega emphasized this.

They don't when they have enough power locally to farm people. In Chicago they often do, and with age or low willpower degenerate to blood junkies. The white court can feed from one person exclusively for years. The reds cant do that because blood has a set volume.

[Q99]

The premise presumes that some portion of that 90k, possibly even a large percentage ARE the ones eaten by the supernatural predators.

I'm going by the Dresden 'comparable to prey species killed by savannah predators,' numbers brought up once, which'd be higher than 90k. A lot higher.

If the predations can be hiding by the noise of other factors, that's not nearly as bad.

Sure, a skilled predator might fuck up, they might make a mistake and leave a bloody corpse in the streets because they had to bolt in a hurry, but most of these beings ALSO have some variety or another of mind control powers so if the worst happens, they can clean up their mess by manipulating the local constabulary.

Keep in mind mess-ups include people overseeing without the predator knowing, people attacking the predator (and in settings where it's possible, killing them), and also just noticing patterns in the disappearances- and perhaps looking out for them.

Throw in cameras as evidence, and...

[Zixinus]

That is the modern problem of the masquerade: everyone has a camera. What's more, these cameras are set to instantly upload their videos or photos to distant servers. Or even provide live broadcasts on short notice.

This could be compensated if the conspiracy-keepers have so tremendous influence that they can place people in the right position to every company that offers such services. The point would be to kill a video without a trace. They can also archive this with teams of hackers but that is less effective. Even more ineffective would be using youtube's (or whatever) reporting system.

It still raises the cost of keeping the conspiracy going. It is difficult to imagine that it doesn't require more resources to manage. As the amount of cameras increases per person and per location, it will be harder and harder.

There is also the problem of maintaining a civilian identity. Faking identification is harder than it was a century ago. There are modern databases kept of people that have to be tempered with.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Keep in mind mess-ups include people overseeing without the predator knowing, people attacking the predator (and in settings where it's possible, killing them), and also just noticing patterns in the disappearances- and perhaps looking out for them.

Throw in cameras as evidence, and...

Being a Troll in the UK would be a pain in the ass, yes. Then again, the best way to kidnap someone (to eat later) is to make the kidnapping look like consent, then take them to a place you control. Cameras are not so ubiquitous that a kidnapper or murderer gets caught on camera unless they just say "Fuck it we're doing it live!".

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, but there's a catch- many supernatural creatures are old if not immortal beings, and yet the masquerade hasn't collapsed as they struggle to adapt to new technologies. You'd think it would- some vampire or troll or whatever who took enough precautions to avoid getting caught in the 1850s simply isn't being careful enough to escape notice in the 1980s or the 2010s.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Yes, but there's a catch- many supernatural creatures are old if not immortal beings, and yet the masquerade hasn't collapsed as they struggle to adapt to new technologies. You'd think it would- some vampire or troll or whatever who took enough precautions to avoid getting caught in the 1850s simply isn't being careful enough to escape notice in the 1980s or the 2010s.

Not unless the tried and true predator tactics still work. Make your kidnapping look like consent to any observer, and bring them to a place you control before eating. Pretty standard, really.

If you were a vampire, how would you find food in the 1850s? You go to a tavern, meet cute, seduce cute, take cute back to your place. Feed. The same tactic works today.

[Guardsman Bass]

Gang thugs might actually be a better target because you expect a certain number of them to die and/or go missing in the cause of normal violence. That's safer than trying to lure out women and/or men from the bar, especially since the vampire would have to expose themselves to many others rather than ambushing at night. It's better than beggars, too, because if the regular beggars on a corner start going missing people might notice (although the easiest targets of all would be wandering vagrants - I'd expect those to be the main targets of vampires during medieval times).

As for the Masquerade, it makes the most sense when the supernatural threat is something that would be easily wiped out if they became public knowledge (or where there's some type of memory editing magic omnipresent), and where the actual beings themselves are low in number. The best example of this are the vampires from George RR Martin's Fevre Dream -
Spoiler

They're much stronger and tougher than humans, but not invincibly so. One vampire will make mincemeat out of a single human, but two strong human men can wrestle a vampire to the ground and kill it (in fact, that happens in the book - two steamboat crew members grab a vampire and shove it head first into a furnace, killing it). And of course they're vulnerable to sunlight, which literally burns them away so that they leave no tangible remains.

In fact, the main vampire good guy outright says that most of the vampire race was probably exterminated before they figured out to hide among humans, back in the Neolithic Age - humans nearly wiped them out with just fire, bows-and-arrows, and stone-head spears.

The bigger question for me is why a Masquerade would show up in the first place. It's like how comic book settings are "Real World Plus X" even when the "Real World" should be drastically different - a world with all of this stuff being real since ancient times is going to look very different unless the supernatural is so rare that it has basically no broader impact on humanity as a whole.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, but there's a catch- many supernatural creatures are old if not immortal beings, and yet the masquerade hasn't collapsed as they struggle to adapt to new technologies. You'd think it would- some vampire or troll or whatever who took enough precautions to avoid getting caught in the 1850s simply isn't being careful enough to escape notice in the 1980s or the 2010s.

Not unless the tried and true predator tactics still work. Make your kidnapping look like consent to any observer, and bring them to a place you control before eating. Pretty standard, really.

If you were a vampire, how would you find food in the 1850s? You go to a tavern, meet cute, seduce cute, take cute back to your place. Feed. The same tactic works today.

I'm not saying it wouldn't work, I'm saying the odds become less and less favorable.

In a nearly static society, a monster that preys on humans could easily adopt a single hunting strategy that relies on the consistent behavior of prey. This is what real predators do to survive, more or less- because they tend to prey on unintelligent animals that aren't very adaptable.

In a rapidly changing society, the behavior of the prey are changing quickly, and the limits of what the prey are and are not capable of can change too. So you'd still expect to see an increased risk of a masquerade breach in a rapidly changing society, especially if technologies are involved that make it harder to get away with this sort of thing.

[Broomstick]

Yes, but there's a catch- many supernatural creatures are old if not immortal beings, and yet the masquerade hasn't collapsed as they struggle to adapt to new technologies. You'd think it would- some vampire or troll or whatever who took enough precautions to avoid getting caught in the 1850s simply isn't being careful enough to escape notice in the 1980s or the 2010s.

Not unless the tried and true predator tactics still work. Make your kidnapping look like consent to any observer, and bring them to a place you control before eating. Pretty standard, really.

It's actually not that different than some serial killers. The tactic can work for a long time, especially if you don't get sloppy. If you can keep moving even better - only kill one or two in an area before moving on to somewhere else.

[Zixinus]

What would happen as society change is that it forces change on the hunting strategies. Tactics that worked very well suddenly will stop working. Previously available targets suddenly stop being so. More effort is required and discretion becomes more important.


Again, the best solution is to create and maintain their own supply. Kind of like hunter-gatherers adopting agriculture because they over harvested their natural food sources.

Make your kidnapping look like consent to any observer, and bring them to a place you control before eating.

Except that in today's world, doing so could end up you being on camera and you being the suspect because you are the last person who talked to the victim before he/she disappeared. While prowling for victims, you would inadvertently be seen and interact with many people.

Consider also that people keep logging their life online more and more. It's easy to get accidentally caught.

[Lord Revan]

Except vampires and such generally are down right ancient and would have a very good idea of the concept of social stealth (aka not doing something too wierd in a place that's "not safe") after all even these days people aren't taking pictures of random things they see, only things that spark their intrest in one way or another, if anything people these days are more disintrested in things that aren't intresting enough to notice.

[Elheru Aran]

Depends on the kind of vampire. Ancient Nosferatu types who spend their afterlife huddled in drafty castles, for example, might be completely out of touch.

[Simon_Jester]

I think it's worth restating the original core point that I (and I think others) were trying to make:

That in a society where technology and social trends are evolving rapidly, if a supernatural creature is trying to keep up a masquerade while taking a steady stream of human victims for their own consumption, things get harder. Not impossible, not "there's no way you could get away with it," but significantly more difficult. To the point where keeping up the masquerade indefinitely becomes very difficult if not impossible, unless there are other outside forces trying to help them maintain it.

[Zixinus]

The point is that things will get harder, or at least it will be easier to do a mistake that has greater conseqvences. Yes, vampires who are "hip" (not out of touch with the people, imagine a 19th century vampire who spent a century doing something in isolation going back to the hunting scene today) and know how to manipulate people will still manage to hunt successfully. The margin of error however still decreases, the amount of preparation and caution still increases along with the necessary skill to make things go well.

An example: traveling. Grabbing a traveler that disappears forever was less risky a hundred years ago. Someone going on the road, even using trains and carriages, was relatively unprotected. Someone disappearing on the road was not unheard of and even a relatively wealthy family could do very little if a relative does not arrive (of course, they'd use armed/protected methods of travel). If someone saw a vampire feeding, they can be attacked and killed too.

These days public safety has increased drastically, trains and planes and such are expected to be safe and loved ones talk to each other (and inform each other on their progress) on smartphones on every stop. Grabbing somebody is suspicious and warrants at least a cursory investigation. There is greater chance of knowing when and where did someone disappear. There is a greater chance of being photographed accidentally.

As for taking pictures of only what is interesting, yes, that is true but the sheer number of pictures made increases odds of being accidentally being caught. It is possible to tag someone on Facebook who does not have a facebook account, for example. Someone taking pictures on their smartphones is now a fairly normal thing, to the point that usually they are not even paid attention to.

Yes, a clever and skilled vampire can still get prey by good traps and such. But more care has to be taken, etc. Again, at this point it is safer to start making a supply rather than try something like that.

[Elheru Aran]

Never mind the whole thing about vampires not appearing on camera. If you check the surveillance camera and you see people talking to empty air (or worse, you pick up audio, and there's *sound* coming from the empty air...) stuff is going to be Very Weird and get noticed more quickly.

[Broomstick]

I think the whole "does not appear on camera" thing was based on photography utilizing silver-based emulsion. So maybe they wouldn't appear on old fashioned film, but they might appear for digital photography.

Clearly, any vampire that doesn't have to kill stands a better chance of surviving than one that leaves a trail of bodies. There are also demographics to consider - a vampire that has to kill at least one person a day (365 kills a year, minimum) faces a much different set of problems than one that kills weekly ("only" 52 kills a year) or even monthly (12 a year). 12 kills a year would fade into the annual death toll in a big city like London or New York if they weren't too messy and most or all of the bodies went missing. Hundreds of a kills a year? More problematic.

Then there is the question of how many vampires are there? Even on the low side (12 kills a year) it won't take that many before the mundanes wonder what the fuck is going on around town. Stories were you have a dozen or several dozen vampires per city just aren't realistic on demographic grounds if they have to kill with any regularity.

There is a series called Sime-Gen where there are a sort of vampire that must kill at least once a month or die themselves. 12-13 adult humans per Sime (that's the vamp side of society) per year. In the favor of the Gens (the other side of society) they significantly outnumber Simes, children who are in the process of turning into Simes are very vulnerable and are often killed by the Gens, and Simes tend not to live very long lives past the point of becoming Simes, say 10-15 years would be a pretty good run but a lot don't make it that far and since the parents die young their kids (who are most likely to turn Sime) often don't survive to adulthood. A bunch of us fans tried to make the numbers work and... well, they just don't. You'd need a ratio of something like at least 300:1 human/vampire even in the areas where the vampires are farming humans (and they do) in order to maintain sufficient breeding stock to keep both sides of the population up and running, and probably more than that.

That's an area where a lot of masquerade fantasy falls down - if the creatures involved have to to kill you can only have a very few of them, and they either travel widely or live in really huge urban areas.

If the creatures involved don't have to kill humans that's a different matter.

[Zixinus]

The other issue is believability. If the victim remembers, even vaguely, they can connect to each other and find each other more easily than before. Which has the effect that while previously people would keep such odd stories to themselves, they now have a community to share it with who will take them seriously and may actually react aggressively if anyone questions their story. Even if the majority writes them off as loonies at first, it enters popular consciousness. Any evidence that was too weak to take seriously beforehand now suddenly becomes suspicious. If fresh stories keep happening, keep getting recorded down, resistance wears down and becomes significant when compared to genuinely crackpot movements.

Again, it is not impossible problem for a vampire, especially if they have powers and resources. But it requires expenditure to do that where previously it didn't. Cost rises along with other problems.