When an Unseen is discovered, whoever learns their identity forgets that in a few moments.
What can PCs do about this, especially if they don’t know about that arcane ritual effect? Is it something they can resist?
I ask because my scoundrels have taken a job that requires them to bust some Unseen trying to infiltrate the Spirit Wardens. How can they do that if they, and everyone they tell, forgets in a few moments?
It’s up to you if it’s a thing that can be resisted. Does it suit the tone of your game for someone to Remember Really Hard? Maybe interacting with them with the intent to recognize them is never Controlled, because you risk losing them in your mind. Maybe someone needs to research and perform a Ritual to lift the effects of the Unseen’s veil. Maybe a Ghost out there knows the secret of what to do, or someone needs to cut a deal with a demon who is unaffected by such things and who can act as their “spotter.”
maybe it’s a matter of Memento-like note-taking and huge conspiracy boards. you need to take account of everyone in every room you meet, and check for Unseen activity for each, starting to make some ridiculous Venn diagrams to check for overlap. once you have a proof for someone Unseeness, the ritual is borderline useless against you, because you can always check your notes, or even just backtrack your mental calculations and rediscover them faster than the magic erase the discovery.
So the unseen are like the Silence in doctor who?
Maybe take a few notes from those the episodes that featured them. That is if you remember what those were… 😁
Also – you should decide in advance why aren’t people just declaring “X in an unseen” to a gullible person in a controlled environment and checking if he remember the name you just said to him or not. there is probably a reason for it to not work, but you need to find one.
Definitely watch the Doctor Who episodes about The Silence (The Impossible Astronaut was one I think) if you can.
Things like – character does something to try to remember, going to put a mark on their arm, then notices that their arm is already covered in marks they don’t remember making.
Episodes to watch :
– Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon
(marks on skin + recording devices)
– The Wedding of River Song
(shows a more permanent solution)
If the unseen are a known enemy then it stands to reason that someone will have invented countermeasures. This will come at a cost.
However I think that like the Silence in Doctor Who they need to be introduced as a mystery first. That would lead the characters on a quest to find a solution before they can start to consider contracts that have them deal with these creatures.
You probably would want to throw in a few red herrings or encounters where these creatures are blamed for something they didn’t do.
btw : paranoiia will be a valuable tool to make the most of creatures like this.
Tech solution; a leech who hates the Unseen did experiments until he discovered the precise switch their power flips in the brain (maybe a hundred wrecked test subjects later) and he made a headband that attaches to a pocket battery. When that switch flips, you get a shock, and your brain refocuses on that instead of wiping the memory. That tech is replicable, but the Unseen are one by one snuffing out every possible source of the knowledge.
Ritual solution: you put the information in your reflection that’s kept in a particular hand-mirror you carry with you. Every time you make eye contract with that mirror, you remind each other of what you know.
Ritual or surgical solution: prenologists have identified the house of memory, and which door the Unseen use to violate it. You can sear that door shut for the low low price of 1 Trauma. In fact, that’s what their deadly slaves must do to continue to serve.
It might be very interesting to stop the narrative as the party is about to engage with the unseen, have them make a few rolls to determine how well things go, and then tell them “ok, it’s an hour later. You don’t remember anything that happened, but you’re holding these notes written in your own hand” (or whatever other results make sense.)
Or even better : end the session as they prepare their run and then next session act like they did it.
This needs a little timing, because you don’t want it to appear as if you’re cutting the session short.
May work even better if you’ve got people who won’t be available next session as they will be really confused as to what happened …