Antiperspection

In Mourianji, a land overflowing with piracy, debauchary, and danger, the resident merchant ships have developed various ways of thwarting would be thieves on the open seas. The most unique defense is a construction technique called antiperspection. Various elements of the ship are painted, sculpted, or otherwise altered in odd angles that cause the ship to look closer or farther away when viewed from afar. More advanced techniques use vitraxine laced elements to produce a more vivid illusion.
Due to the vast numbers of pirates, most merchant ships have armaments to protect themselves, so a single pirate ship will either fire on them, hoping to sink the ship and send water breathing lackeys down to collect any valuables or pace following the ship to catch them at a juncture where a fellow ship under the same banner will be able to assist. The antiperspection's illusion causes initial cannon fire to miss and pacing to be off providing a more opportune chance to escape for the merchant ship.

Types

Simple Antiperspection

These ships are covered in dark paints and sculpted to produce odd shadows to produce the illusion. They are designed to work best near dusk when ship attacks are most common. This is the cheapest type of antiperspection but also the easiest to emulate by cons. This is because once applied to the ship, no other work is needed by the ship or its crew other than changing course a bit to produce a more reliable effect. This static antiperspection can help with initial attack but is easily accounted for by pirates. Fast, lightweight mercantile ships are the most likely to use this design as with some warning, they can often outrun a trailing pirate ship.

Modular Antiperspection

Ships using the modular design are outfitted with darkened sails and sliding darkened planks. After the initial attack, the crew can manually move, or in more expensive setups simply trigger, the various darkened shapes to produce various effects. The most common uses are to insinuate a more abrupt change in speed or minor changes to throw off future cannon fire. These are the most common as they are cheaper than illusory, but are still effective throughout the day.

Illusory Antiperspection

The most expensive and effective form of antiperspection because it relies on magical illusion and as such a vitraxine wizard must be among the crew. Vitraxine will be laced either through the ship itself or through the additional pieces of a modular design. This vitraxine is then ritually empowered every sunrise by the wizard. The aura from the vitraxine produces a similar affect to the simple antiperspection design, except it moves to match the shadows of the day. Once an attack or pursuer is recognized, the wizard can release the latent magic inside which can affect the minds of any viewers. The illusion produced can vary between showing return fire, sudden ship movement near or far away, or even to turn the ship completely invisible. Besides the price, the most concerning part of this design is that if overused, vitraxophy could set in which can infest any magical merchandise onboard.

Access & Availability

Antiperspection is widely available in Mourianji ports large and small, but there are unfortunately many counterfeiters often backed by pirates themselves that make finding a proper antiperspection ship or modification difficult, especially for novice merchants.

Complexity

There are three major types of antiperspection ship manufacturing techniques (in order of complexity): simple, modular, and illusory.

Discovery

The elvish shipwright, Evalor Nerovas, was drinking in the pub one night when she noticed a bard absentmindedly doodling on the corners of a book. Noticing her watching, the bard smiled and turned her book towards the shipwright and began flipping the pages rapidly. A small rabbit jumped around in a circle apearing to run back and then forward in front of her. Intrigued, she struck up a conversation with the dwarf, Strofka, where she was shown the art of perspective in drawing and how it could produce a form of depth on a flat piece of paper. The two continued to drink and converse through the night, but a seed had been sowed already.
Evalor would continue studying perspective through a book given to her by Strofka the next morning, developing new techniques until eventually she was able to produce an illusory affect on a small model ship was testing for the shipyard. Evalor's Illusory Ships are still developed today and are sought after for their quality and most importantly because no one else is guaranteed to be legitimate.