Glamour

A **Glamour** is a type of magic and spell that conceals the supernatural world.

## Description

Glamours were a series of spells and form of magic that deceives the weak minds of mortals and even demons, allowing magical beings to appear differently. Large scaled glamours have the general purposes of shielding the supernatural world by focusing the Mist onto certain people and objects, amplifying its effects for specific purposes. Because glamours are increased through the Mist, it also makes it so that mortals can have an understandable explanation of events, such as destruction created by demons or a group of magicals interacting with gods.

Once someone becomes aware of the spell, their glamour becomes see-through. If performed correctly, it creates a perfect semblance in the mind of the observer and perfectly obscures the true shape of the thing glamoured.

Having what's known as "Clear Sight" enables mortals and certain individuals to see through the Mist, which glamours a things true nature into something comprehensible. Most of the magical population are both with natural clear sightedness, however they are still capable of the Mist's deception and by extension, glamours. This also does not guarantee that they can see through glamours; For some, seeing through basic glamours may require training or experience. In other cases, glamours may be reinforced and more powerful than typical glamour through the Mist or using a specific spell.

Glamours may put a "false skin" over something, disguising whatever it is placed on, such as Institutes, which is sometimes glamoured to blend in with the surroundings. Nephilim also often glamour themselves into invisibility, to move undetected through the mundane world. Similarly, demons may glamour themselves into nonspecific forms, so that a mundane attacked by a demon will perceive it as something generic, like a dog or another random mundane.

The glamour is considered to be one of the simplest and most widely and extensively used magic in existence. It is one of the few kinds of magic available to all magic users—it is found in the Gray Book, in demonic spell books, in the researches of warlocks, among the fey, etc.

## Among Downworlders

The origin of glamour magic is a subject that has puzzled generations of magical researchers. There have been various theories, the most common of which historically has been that glamour magic originally belonged to the fey and was "stolen" from them by other creatures somehow.

Most glamours are easy to see through for any magical being, and they usually hide things only from mundanes. Vampires, faeries, and warlocks all may use more powerful glamours to hide their activities not just from mundanes but also from Shadowhunters and from one another. Faeries especially are considered the masters of glamour magic.

The unusual features of Downworlders, particularly of warlocks and ifrits, can be glamoured into invisibility or normalcy. And since ifrits are incapable of doing magic to hide their marks, they usually acquire magical artifacts that provide them with a permanent glamour and live away from the magical world.

## Among Shadowhunters

Another prevailing theory among the Nephilim is that there are at root two types of glamours—the angelic glamours that Nephilim use, produced by the inscription of Marks, and demonic glamours, used by everyone else. It is assumed that Raziel granted Shadowhunters the power of glamours and the power of Sight.

The Voyance rune helps Shadowhunters focus their Sight. In some cases though, they need to be trained to see through glamours. Usually, it is sufficient to deliberately show children glamours of various kinds and their revealed true shapes; however, more complicated glamours are more difficult to see through. The rune can also enhance the ability to see ghosts.

Shadowhunters use glamours to their advantage when fighting demons, which are apparently unable to perceive the difference between mundanes and Shadowhunters, and unable to sense the working of angelic magic. They also perform glamours in situations where the Shadow World is in danger of discovery by the mundane population. They often glamour themselves into invisibility, to move undetected through the mundane world.

## Demigod Glamours

*Main article: The Mist*
Those within the Greco-Roman world have access to the source of glamours known as The Mist, a natural mystical force controlled by the goddess Hecate to replace supernatural events with something the minds of mortals and even some magicals can understand and comprehend. Because it originates within the Greco-Roman pantheon, many are capable of manipulating the Mist to create illusions, influence memories and perception of weak minded mortals, and even create and summon Mistforms using Mistform Cards. They could even utilize the Mist to employ a form of teleportation wherever the Mist is most active, something that's known for being extremely difficult since the Mist is active everywhere.

## Among Mortals

Clear Sight is the only means of seeing through glamours; just knowing that something has been glamoured, or even knowing its true shape, does not remove the glamour effect. This is notable because there are many folk beliefs among mortal cultures about rituals and tools that can be used to see through glamours. Some of these may successfully work to help see through faerie glamours, by means not completely understood. Tools such as clary sage, Seeing Stones, wearing clothing inside out, washing your face in a particular spring at sunrise, and so on—cannot, however, be used to see through the more common glamours used by warlocks, demons, and Shadowhunters.

Most mortals with Clear Sight, however, still never notice any supernatural activity, because they are not prepared to see it. An important rule of glamours is that, for the most part, people see what they wish to see, and things that they can make sense of. Clear Sighted mortals will often look past strange appearances and explain them as misunderstandings or an illusion.