Veil
An Poorly-Understood Phenomenon Separating Waking Materia from the Duskscape
Veil Rating
Material scholars refer to the "Veil strength" or "Veil rating" as a measure of how difficult it is to pass from one realm to the other: a high Veil rating implies a nearly impenetrable separation, usually in places heavy with Waking paradigms, like a library, laboratory or church of a Material God. Conversely, a low rating implies a thin barrier, and at "zero", you are fully in the Duskscape. When the Veil rating is low but nonzero, the resulting effects are sometimes called the "Bleed" or the "Blend".
A rating scale of 0-5 usually suffices amongs most scholars. Regions that are a 5 are where the Veil is at its strongest. At a Veil rating of 4 or 3, features of Waking Materia are still recognizable and the landscape is not significantly different, but said features may seem “off” in terms of scale, proportions or colour, or may even “bleed” emotions like apprehension or nostalgia. At a Veil rating of 2 or 1, features are only vaguely recognizable as their Material counterparts, and landscapes are largely different, and will even shift and transform over longer time scales.
There may not be any veil or barrier between the worlds at all, and the separation between the two realms may be something more metaphysical.Travel Across the Veil
Waking Peoples typically enter the Duskscape by dying, dreaming, or magically forcing their way through the Veil. Death is obviously not a valid option for most, and maintaining one’s awareness as a dreaming soul requires intense monastic training or magic of its own. The final option is by traveling physically through the Bleed, where the Veil is naturally weak. These locations are still very rare, but scholars suspect they’re growing in area and frequency. Also called The Blend or Liminos, these areas may seem mostly like Waking Materia, but with increased frequency of monsters or spiritual phenomena, incorrect shapes, colours & sounds, and in general will leave adventurers with an unsettling sense that normal instincts or notions of cause & effect are less useful than usual.
Most families of magic are able to raise or lower the Veil strength in a given location, opening a "gate" of sorts if it reduces the strength to nothing. Some creatures, most notably ghosts and the fae, can be resistant or even immune to the Veil, crossing between the two dimensions effortlessly or with less difficulty.
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