I don't think your gaze pierces me to the very depths of my soul!
Be realistic with what another PC would be able to see of you under your all-concealing helmet, hood, veil, etc!!A face/race obscuring hood panacea seems, to me at least, a bit of a copout.
cosmetics
People who KNOW they're a dark elf from reading the bio or meeting the character before or seeing the character portrait will utterly refuse to believe any sort of disguise, short of a GM standing right there and sending them a tell to do so. And even then, you will get the all-knowing emote "Eyes the dark elf skeptically* when there is no physical evidence of dark elfness present.
What I love is how Half-Giants and Half-Orcs are said to pass for ugly humans, and they are banned from Hempstead. Does that not mean that large ugly humans are in the same boat? I half expect a human barbarian with 8 charisma who stands at 6'6" or taller to be banned from the city entrance, and smacked with the ugly stick for his troubles.
As for disguises, in a world of magic and sorcery where fireballs spring from the fingertips and incredible energies animate the dead to walk again, I find the lack of cosmetics ludicrous at best.
If the dark elves were half as insidious or intelligent as everybody makes them out to be, wouldn't they have devised alchemical eyedrops of Sinatra blue eyes and salves of pasty white-boy complexion by now?
It's not like they have fangs, horns sticking out of their heads, stand 8 feet tall or breathe brimstone after all. They are elves, elves who are black, with red eyes. Robert Downy Jr. didn't even need magic to convincingly pass as a black man in Tropic Thunder, so why couldn't a dark elf pass for a surface elf WITH the use of magic?
I'll tell you why, metagaming. People who KNOW they're a dark elf from reading the bio or meeting the character before or seeing the character portrait will utterly refuse to believe any sort of disguise, short of a GM standing right there and sending them a tell to do so. And even then, you will get the all-knowing emote "Eyes the dark elf skeptically* when there is no physical evidence of dark elfness present. That or when they appear skeptical of every druid in kitty cat form, when surrounded by identical Hlint kitty cats that they ignore completely. One of my pet peeves.
What I love is how Half-Giants and Half-Orcs are said to pass for ugly humans, and they are banned from Hempstead. Does that not mean that large ugly humans are in the same boat?
As for disguises, in a world of magic and sorcery where fireballs spring from the fingertips and incredible energies animate the dead to walk again, I find the lack of cosmetics ludicrous at best. If the dark elves were half as insidious or intelligent as everybody makes them out to be, wouldn't they have devised alchemical eyedrops of Sinatra blue eyes and salves of pasty white-boy complexion by now?
(W)hy couldn't a dark elf pass for a surface elf WITH the use of magic? I'll tell you why, metagaming. People who KNOW they're a dark elf from reading the bio or meeting the character before or seeing the character portrait will utterly refuse to believe any sort of disguise, short of a GM standing right there and sending them a tell to do so.
And even then, you will get the all-knowing emote "Eyes the dark elf skeptically* when there is no physical evidence of dark elfness present.
And I know there aren't any contact lenses, but if the gnomes can invent a pair of magical spectacles which can detect the invisible, don't you think somebody would have dabbled in SUNGLASSES by now? Or at least Rose-Tinted John Lennon glasses.