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Gegenji · **06-17-2015, 10:30 AM**

I spent way too much time trying to think of a witty title for this thread, before finally settling on a Charlie Chaplin quote. Blush

Anyway, with Heavensward looming on the horizon and a lot of folks revealing they're suddenly Au Ra, explanations for how they've been hiding this long have been proffered. The most common one? Glamours.

Now, I know (I think anyway) that Glamours mostly exist in an OOC context - a way to dress up your character without having to give up on the stats of your gear. Looking your best as you go toe-to-toe with Garleans and Primals, whether it's in an awesome-looking suit of armor or as little as feasibly possible.

However, it also seems to exist in an IC context as well - since there are numerous instances of things in-game using it as a disguise (the Big Bad of the entire Hildebrand quest line, for example!). Which has set me to wondering about the finer details - if any exist - to how glamours work and are handled in that IC context.

For example: is it merely an illusion and, if so, to what degree? If you glamour a suit of armor to look like a sundress - will it still clank about like a suit of armor? Or is sound also part of the glamour effect? I would also assume it would be a case - say, with Roegadyn glamouring themselves to look like a Lalafell - that the original form is still there in a physical sense and could easily be discovered with any tactile contact with any part extraneous from the illusion itself (the rest of the Roe not "shown" in the Lalafell form, for example).

Yet, there's also situations of people turning into Dravanians (or having been them all along and just reverting back - which raises further questions with regards to tactile sense) and Sylphs easily posing as the Sons of Man. Are all these glamours? Or are these a greater ability more in lines of DnD-style polymorphing - allowing the user to actually reshape their body rather than merely casting an illusion over them?

And, furthermore, what level of security is in place in dealing with such a system? There's obviously ways to remove glamours - the obvious IG item to remove the glamour on your own items, the various items used in Guildleves to reveal the true form of monsters, and a series of powders that range from a simple dust (Hildebrand quest line) to an irritant of some sort (Sylph dailies). And how much are they used?

I mean, it was apparently an ordeal for Hildy and crew to get the powder needed to reveal the villain. In fact, that whole situation raises questions for me. What's to keep people from doing what the villain did? Just using glamours as a disguise to commit crimes? Is there potential for an entire Eorzean Alliance spy network that uses them to sneak into Garlean facilities as grunts or people in positions of power?

It just seems like there's a lot of questions and potential available here, and I'm curious if there's some lore about it... and what level of headcanon people are applying to this. So, please, share your thoughts and let me know! I'm honestly curious. Blush

Telluride · **06-17-2015, 10:35 AM**

There must be some level of difficulty in acquiring glamours, since Yugiri made do for so long with just a hood, but revealed her scaly tail the whole time. She -is- a refugee, though, so it may not be the best sort of average example.

One might also think that the Wood Wailers, or at least the Padjal themselves, would have some knowledge and ability in dispelling glamours, since they have to deal with the Sylphs on regular bases, and even the most benevolent of the Sentient Salads have a wicked prankster streak.

Lilia Lia · **06-17-2015, 10:58 AM**

"Glamour" seems like a clumsy lore element in the first place, it's such a powerful thing in theory that raises a ton of questions but we're just asked to accept it like so many other things.

Due to how commonplace glamour is as a reason for Au Ra, I've actually been secretly wishing that people in the "glamoured Au Ra" community would come to a general consensus on things such as why so many Au Ra have glamour powers, and especially why those glamours are all going to simultaneously fail on Friday.Â It would be more cohesive than everyone having their individual reasons that glamours suddenly stop working on Friday.

"Well my glamour failed because the wizard who glamoured me was eaten by a dragon, and John's glamour failed because he learned to accept himself for who he really was, and Cindy's glamour failed because someone threw a glamour dispeller at her."Â

Wouldn't it be more interesting in a fan-lore kind of way if we all agreed on a single common reason for the Great Au Ra Unglamouring two days hence?Â Anyways just an idle thought that is relevant to the topic.

At this point I think glamours are mysterious enough that we should feel free to create some fan lore around them.

In answer to your question about "headcanoning," I'm going to have to develop my own headcanon because I'm just going to be accepting everyone's individual stories about glamours, but I'd find it easier to swallow if they were all part of a single "story reason."

Gegenji · **06-17-2015, 11:32 AM**

(06-17-2015, 10:35 AM)Telluride Wrote: One might also think that the Wood Wailers, or at least the Padjal themselves, would have some knowledge and ability in dispelling glamours, since they have to deal with the Sylphs on regular bases, and even the most benevolent of the Sentient Salads have a wicked prankster streak.

(06-17-2015, 10:58 AM)Lilia Lia Wrote: At this point I think glamours are mysterious enough that we should feel free to create some fan lore around them.

My current "headcanon" on it - since I put forth all these questions and should at least put out some of my own opinions on the matter - is that glamour magic and the methods for dealing with it are probably Gridanian in nature, if for nothing else than because Sylphs are A Thing. Since they're a friendly Beast Tribe who naturally does a lot of disguising for pranks and such, it would make sense that the "secret of fire" so to speak would come from them. And they either provided the ways to deal with it too when they imparted the knowledge... or it was figured out as a necessity (and possibly bolstered once the Gridanians know how to do it themselves).

So, since it comes from Gridania, the materials used to deal with the situation might also be Gridanian. So, the issue regarding getting enough powder in Hildy's situation is because it's a niche import item from the Twelveswood. How big a niche, of course, depends on how easily it is to perform glamours and how many people have access to it. As mentioned by Telluride, if it was a simple process, Yugiri would've likely turned to it either right away or shortly after arriving in Eorzea and becoming part of the Crystal Braves.

As for performing the glamours - just glamouring armor and clothing, from a mechanical sense, requires specially made crystals tuned to that purpose. Which require a masterful (read, level 50) crafter to create them. So perhaps there's some weight behind them being rather difficult to obtain - after all, you have to get that base material and then find a skilled crafter with the knowledge to make them. So, it would make sense only the wealthy or those who travel a lot/have a lot of connections (i.e. Adventurers) would have access to this simple glamour.

For the greater glamours, like full body stuff the Heretics/Dravanians use? I just keep thinking Dravanians -> Dragons -> DnD Dragons -> Polymorph. The changes they do (and that the Sylphs do) are more polymorph than glamour, and require either a natural racial affinity to such things or quite a bit of aetherical power.

K'nahli · **06-17-2015, 12:01 PM**

(06-17-2015, 10:30 AM)Gegenji Wrote: For example: is it merely an illusion and, if so, to what degree? If you glamour a suit of armor to look like a sundress - will it still clank about like a suit of armor?

Yes, in my opinion.

I imagine that glamours are highly unstable and easy to disspell. I can't say that I take all of those tribe and levequests as absolute canon, but if you were, then you could argue that simply attacking something can quite easily cause the glamour to immediately fail - in addition to the fact that beastkin/voidsent are far more capable of manipulating it's properties unto themselves than any of the six races are.

There are way, wayyyy too many complications involved in having a long-term and stable glamour work upon a person that it makes little sense to me to argue that you can simply hide a tail or ears, and in addition to not feeling your own appendages during that time, anything else simply phases through them as though they didn't exist.

Could people not glamour themselves into rats? Flies? Any animal really? Why pretend to be a garlean agent at all during the day and settle for talking to random grunts when you can just sneak into the main HQ and spy on the commanders every evening?

Could people not have glamoured into Gaius, Livia or Nero and given false commands to disrupt military procedures and cripple the enemy through farce orders and tactics?

Could a refugee or anyone else not glamour themselves into a wealthy and influential individual, invade their home and make off with their fortune?

Could someone not just murder anyone and everyone they saw fit and quickly glamour themselves into a Brass Blade or Flame to immediately throw suspicion off of themselves when they are spotted walking in the opposite direction, seemingly oblivious?

What about wearing rags and glamouring it into heavy armour forged of the strongest element imaginable? Wouldn't that be cost effective and efficient?

I could go on but these are just any, random examples that popped into my head just now. In my opinion, glamours - if accepted at all - are not something that should be treated as though just anyone can do it at a whim; let alone efficiently.

Aya · **06-17-2015, 12:05 PM**

My thought on the matter is pretty simple: it should accomplish whatever is necessary for the plot, and is agreed upon by the players involved.Â It shouldn't be used generally or unnecessarily because its one of those things that stretches plausibility and continuity.

With regards to Au Ra... I suspect it shouldn't be looked upon as a "single day" event, rather although they'll all unveil themselves at once its more reasonable to understand it as something that has happened over a little bit of time.Â Once the first Au Ra showed themselves and people began to acclimate the rest rather quickly took off their disguises.

Spiritual Machine · **06-17-2015, 12:08 PM**

The magic of illusion is probably world renowned but costly and limited for most. Ul'dahns and the patrons of the Gold Saucer have had to deal with glamoured demons, for example, and there's no reason to believe based on the quest to unlock Glamours that it's all that rare or difficult--just that no one thought to use it in that fashion before.

As for Yugiri, it may have been that an illusion would have been costly or wasteful for a refugee. It may have been impractical too, given how much action she sees and how much time she spends in public (Glamours have been notoriously unreliable in the story).

Personally, given the fact that Au Ra are neither restricted in their presence in Eorzea (the patch notes say that they will be Gold Saucer dancers in a few days), nor is the Warrior of Light restricted from having been one this whole time, I strongly believe that Yugiri was never hiding her face because of her race alone. Rather, between being a political target and the representative of the predominantly Hyuran Doman people, you could imagine that the rarity of her race might set her apart and draw attention or empathy away from the Domans. Yugiri probably did not want to distract the Eorzeans from her people's plight.

It was already bad enough that they were Easterners. I mean, if you doubt how racist and xenophobic common Eorzeans can be, you may want to check out an Eorzean timeline. Or those old in-world news report posts they did in 1.0.

Gegenji · **06-17-2015, 12:23 PM**

In retrospect, it seems pretty obvious that they'd have to be illusions, huh? I suppose it just becomes a matter of degree - how good of an illusion it is, and if other things like sound and smell are part of it. Again, pointing to glamouring something like a chain shirt into a bikini top. It also is what leads me to wonder if what the Sylphs/Dravanians/beastkin/vilekin do really is a glamour at all - or more of a polymorph as I mention in my personal headcanon.

(06-17-2015, 12:01 PM)K'nahli Wrote: Could people not glamour themselves into rats? Flies? Any animal really? Why pretend to be a garlean agent at all during the day and settle for talking to random grunts when you can just sneak into the main HQ and spy on the commanders every evening?

Could people not have glamoured into Gaius, Livia or Nero and given false commands to disrupt military procedures and cripple the enemy through farce orders and tactics?

Could a refugee or anyone not glamour themselves into a wealthy and influential individual, invade their home and make off with their fortune?

Could someone not just murder anyone and everyone they saw fit and quickly glamour themselves into a Brass Blade or Flame to immediately throw suspicion off of themselves when they are spotted walking in the opposite direction, seemingly oblivious?

Right, which leads me to believe that glamours of a full body nature - if they can be done with any ease at all by the Sons of Man - are either a.) unstable, b.) flawed, c.) difficult to do/obtain, or a combination of the three to some varying degree. I wasn't sure if that's blatantly stated somewhere or just inferred... though, the latter isn't that bad of an alternative if true. After all, just touching someone's face and feeling something that isn't there would - in my opinion - likely allow for an automatic "roll to disbelieve" (to continue with my DnD comparisons) at the very least.

And I wouldn't dismiss the ease of the quest to unlock Glamours as reason to believe it's that readily available. Mechanically, it requires you to be level 50 before you can even think of doing it, which could feasibly mean a high skill requirement to perform. On top of that, unlocking the ability to use them doesn't automatically let you do it willy-nilly - you require an object that can only be crafted by a level 50 crafter, and a point of reference. And that's just for one article of clothing - whether it be a jacket or a pair of glasses. It stands to reason that a full body glamour - on the degree of making one race look like another (doubly so if it's an Au Ra masquerading as something quite off from their body type - like a Lalafell) would be magnitudes more difficult and costly to pull off.

Lilia Lia · **06-17-2015, 12:41 PM**

I think a big problem of presuming that glamours are costly or difficult to acquire is that everyone who is RPing "glamoured Au Ra" now needs to explain how and why they made such an expensive investment.Â Are the Au Ra a particularly affluent people?Â Aren't many of them nomads and tribalists?Â I wouldn't think they'd be particularly wealthy...

Which is part of the reason that I would think they have some kind of "glamour power" that is native to their race.Â Which would then raise the question of why Yugiri didn't have access to it.Â Â

So it seems like the more rare or expensive your headcanon makes Glamour, the more implausible the majority of race-change explanations are going to be.Â And the more you need to justify the huge expense your character would have apparently incurred in coming to the three city-states.Â Why spend that huge sum of money on glamour just so you could blend into some free company in Thanalan?Â How long did you have to save up for this?Â Where did you get the money for it?Â How rich is the tribe you came from?Â Does every Au Ra get a glamour the way some kids get cars on their 16th birthday?Â Â

When you look at the leves that use glamour, it's usually imps using glamour to hide their identities.Â These imps are probably not from the imp aristocracy and probably didn't save up millions of gil to buy their glamours so they could live out their dream of being water sprites.Â So again this lends me to the belief that glamour isn't entirely glamour prisms, it's a magical skill that some infernal creatures possess.Â So I would say, Au Ra, sure, some of them have glamour powers, I guess.

Erik Mynhier · **06-17-2015, 12:42 PM**

I kind of look to Lilia as they already said what is bugging me about the whole glamour route. For me isn't the issue of glamour itself, even done poorly, SE sort of dropped this race on our laps and said "Here you go". My issue is the "all glamours fail friday" thing. But I'm not going to stress it.

A big issue for rpers is sometimes the game catches you and paints you into a corner. Sometimes the strictest of rpers needs to just understand that a campy rp to explain some curve ball just has to be given a pass. The rper isnt a bad rper, they just have no good options and we just have to help them get through it. Its not anyone's fault or anything, this happens in all mmos where rp is done whenever something new is added. Like Aya said its best to try and not look at the macro-change of it, just stay focused on the players case by case and let the rp be decided by those involved.

Spiritual Machine · **06-17-2015, 12:42 PM**

I wasn't really suggesting Glamours were easy. More that they aren't unusual or unheard of. Like a pair of toy night-vision goggles, the technique was probably amazing when first discovered and continues to work as expected, but it doesn't work well unless a lot is put into them, it still takes time and skill and maintenance to keep it working well, and ultimately when it isn't being used for something specific and important, it's regarded as a toy.

Gone. · **06-17-2015, 12:49 PM**

For Vetiver, it's simply Doman spellcraft she brought along with her. In Foxglove's case, it's a magitek ring she 'borrowed' on her departure from the Garleans.

I say just go with what's most plausible for the character. No reason to wrack your brain on it because it's very insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

(06-17-2015, 12:05 PM)Aya Wrote: With regards to Au Ra... I suspect it shouldn't be looked upon as a "single day" event, rather although they'll all unveil themselves at once its more reasonable to understand it as something that has happened over a little bit of time. Once the first Au Ra showed themselves and people began to acclimate the rest rather quickly took off their disguises.

It's either that or we say they've always been here which comes with, way, way more problems and chaos.

Cato · **06-17-2015, 12:55 PM**

I don't think it's 'insignificant' for a character to wake up one day and suddenly find out that they've been a completely different race all along. Or if they're aware of it, for their friends to find out that they're not what they said they were.

There's also some unfortunate implications as to why such things aren't mass produced/wielded by those in positions of power if every Tom, Dick and Harry can apparently acquire the means to disguise themselves on a long term basis without any real drawbacks.

I just wish more role-players were honest and just outright stated that they're no longer interested in playing their current race and want to play the fancy new race and retain everything about their existing character in the process. That's essentially what it seems to come down to in many cases.

Gegenji · **06-17-2015, 12:56 PM**

(06-17-2015, 12:42 PM)Erik Mynhier Wrote: I kind of look to Lilia as they already said what is bugging me about the whole glamour route. For me isn't the issue of glamour itself, even done poorly, SE sort of dropped this race on our laps and said "Here you go". My issue is the "all glamours fail friday" thing. But I'm not going to stress it.

A big issue for rpers is sometimes the game catches you and paints you into a corner. Sometimes the strictest of rpers needs to just understand that a campy rp to explain some curve ball just has to be given a pass. The rper isnt a bad rper, they just have no good options and we just have to help them get through it. Its not anyone's fault or anything, this happens in all mmos where rp is done whenever something new is added. Like Aya said its best to try and not look at the macro-change of it, just stay focused on the players case by case and let the rp be decided by those involved.

Understandable, but the "I'm a glamoured Au Ra" more or less served as an impetus for me to wonder just what a glamour can and cannot do in a more general sense. How realistic it looks, whether it extends to sound and smell, and the overall difficulty in both performing the glamour and dispelling them... that sort of thing. And, of course, if what some NPCs do during the course of the game is a glamour at all or something much more powerful and form-altering.

Flickering Ember · **06-17-2015, 01:12 PM**

Well, armor glamours I see as mostly meta, just like fantasia.
However there are cases of 'glamours' in lore, particularly some of the more mischievous NPC races showcase it. I don't recall these ever being called 'glamours' and therefore I prefer to see such magics as 'shape shifting' as opposed to 'illusions'. Illusions don't seem go make much sense go me and I personally wouldn't find it fun, unless both magics existed and illusions were simply easier to cast.

I don't see anything wrong with its usage in RP or its usage to explain Au Ra. If you don't want to completely scrap your previous character in a game where alt leveling is extremely frustrating, then you'll need to find an IC reason for why and how your character has been hiding their Au Ra-ness.

But in the end there will still be complaints of it being overdone or too common. But I ask, so what? Glamours should probably be rare to be believable.

Know what else is supposed to be rare?

Male miqo'te.

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The Glamour of It All!

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