Facades - Masks of Magic is a 17 page PDF detailing 20 magical masks. I actually picked this up quite some time ago but it kind of got buried amidst other PDFs I bought at the same time. I pretty much bought it only because it was cheap and sounded somewhat interesting. It recently caught my curiosity again and I finally gave it a good read through.

Appearances - I remember one of the things that put me off this product when I first opened it way back when was the fact that instead of artistic representations of the masks described the book uses photographs of real world masks. While not a bad idea in theory, the execution comes off a little poor because most of the images are too large and too close up. I imagine such images were thought to be more dramatic, but really it just makes each page seem gaudy and clashing. Then again, most of the masks themselves are pretty tacky looking so maybe that was unavoidable. I get the impression, since the photos aren't credited, that the writer just downloaded some pictures of masks off the net and wrote stats for them. I don't know if that is actually the case, but that's the way it comes across.

On the plus side, the layout and editing seem competent enough.

Content - After being turned off by the photographs...one of the rare instances in which I felt compelled to hold a products "art" against it...I had to remind myself that content is the really important measure of a products worth. The descriptions of the masks are a little long winded for my taste, but not too bad and what they described was interesting enough. The abilities granted by the masks were also generally imaginative, though there were a few that were just a little too obvious, such as the Wealth of Station mask that gives a +6 enhancement to Charisma...essentially being a Cloak of Charisma that you wear on your face. Still, that sort of thing is the exception rather than the rule.

In Conclusion - While the product grates on me a bit, it does what it sets out to do. Here are 20 magical masks, with horrid photographs and decent abilities and descriptions. If I look past the quality of the photos used, this book feels pretty average to me. Nothing really jumped out at me and made me want to use it, but I can imagine scenarios where a magical mask might be interesting treasure. A rating of three feels right to me.

intresting. would add a lil something different to a game. but the face the pictures in the book were taken from movies and other places is kinda cheap. some original art work would be a plus

Interesting little add on to magic. Cheap, not very long, will probably give you several ideas for handling illusions, tricksters, con men and the like.