The Entirely Unremarkable Moustache
The Entirely Unremarkable Moustache is a crooked scrap of paper, darkened unevenly with lampblack ink and curled at one corner. Close inspection reveals no hidden stitching, fine material, secret markings, or unusual craftsmanship. It looks precisely like something cut in haste for a cheap marionette performance.
The best-known specimen lies among the uncatalogued props of an otherwise unremarkable marionette theater in the Rannek Marches. The same drawer holds fourteen containers labeled MOUSTACHE GUM. Every one of them has dried solid.
When properly affixed beneath a performer’s nose, the moustache makes its wearer impossible to recognize as anyone previously known to an observer. It does not conceal its own nature: witnesses plainly see cheap blackened paper, but regard it as completely appropriate on the face of the stranger before them. Actors quickly learn that the enchantment is more reliable than whatever paste, wax, or spirit gum happens to be available backstage.
Old cast ledgers name performers whom no surviving member remembers hiring: Señor Mustachio, Lord Blackwhisker, Doctor Papercut, and the Marquis de Moustache. Accounts disagree about whether these were stage names, former company members, visiting performers, or the same actor returning in different costumes. This disagreement has never been helped by demonstrations of the moustache.
The Entirely Unremarkable Moustache
This slightly crooked moustache is cut from cheap paper, darkened unevenly with lampblack ink, and curled at one corner. It is visually indistinguishable from a mundane theatrical prop.
**Adhesive Not Included.** As an action, you can affix the moustache beneath your nose with paste, wax, spirit gum, or another adhesive. Merely holding it in place does not activate it. When you affix it, make a Charisma (Performance) check. The check's total becomes the moustache's recognition DC until it becomes detached.
**Entirely Appropriate.** While the moustache remains affixed, other creatures perceive it exactly as a cheap paper moustache but consider it entirely natural and appropriate on your face. They cannot recognize you as anyone they previously knew, even if they watched you affix it. The moustache does not alter your body, clothing, voice, statistics, or other observable details, and creatures can still describe or track the apparent stranger using ordinary evidence.
**Unmasking.** When the moustache becomes detached, each creature that observed you while it was affixed must make a Wisdom saving throw against the recognition DC. On a success, the creature recognizes you and understands that the moustache deceived it. On a failure, the creature sincerely believes that the moustached stranger departed and that you arrived separately; its memories of the stranger remain attributed to that false identity.
**Keeping It On.** The adhesive determines how easily the moustache becomes detached. With an improvised adhesive such as saliva, damp flour, or soft food, you must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check whenever you speak forcefully, laugh, sneeze, become wet, or move vigorously. With weak paste or softened wax, you must succeed on a DC 12 check whenever you take damage, become wet, or perform strenuous movement. Proper theatrical adhesive requires a DC 10 check only when the moustache is directly disturbed or you suffer a severe physical impact. An exceptional or magical adhesive follows its own rules. On a failed check, the moustache detaches immediately and triggers Unmasking.
Detect Magic reveals enchantment magic on the moustache. Truesight provides no special benefit against it because the moustache creates no visual illusion.