Masquerade (World of Darkness)
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The Masquerade is a fictional term found in White Wolf Game Studio's Vampire: The Masquerade books and role-playing games.
A masquerade is a farce, intended to deceive and conceal. The vampiric Masquerade is a shared conspiracy of the Camarilla (the largest grouping of vampire clans) to keep their existence unknown to mortal human beings.
The Masquerade began in the 15th century as a response to the Inquisition. Even though there was an ancient tradition of self-concealing among vampires in the Dark Ages, in many cases common people knew or suspected their existence and their works (for example, the Tzimisce had vast dominions in Eastern Europe and many human serfs that were aware of the nature of their masters). In any case, most people superstitiously believed in many supernatural entities including vampires.
However, as the Church became more and more powerful, the Inquisition chased and destroyed many vampires, until they became convinced that the only way to survive would be to deny their own existence.
The Masquerade was taught as law in the Camarilla from then on, and took advantage of the Age of Enlightenment, by reinforcing the idea that vampires are a fruit of ignorance and superstition. By the 19th century, most educated people in the West laughed at the suggestion that the vampires of old legends were real creatures.
In the timeframe of Vampire: The Masquerade (end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st), the human non-player characters that might run across vampires performing typically vampiric acts will usually disbelieve their own eyes. The Masquerade requires that humans who know about vampires be promptly killed or otherwise rendered unable to spread the news. It also means that a vampire that breaks the Masquerade will have to fix it or face severe punishment.
