Bookshelf Dungeon 2, Legend of Curly's Gold

Book in question was some Darkness tpb I've always forgotten most everything about. Anyway: Nightmare Children.

The ground of the village is sodden through with the blood of Just Master Elias Coker, sainted in the sight of Karlburgos, consecrated as an honored mentor and servant of the community, and secret disciple of R'Nzmar the Destroyer, to whom he sacrificed some 321 people, mostly children. Nobody knows this.

They know only that children of the village sleep ill.

The horrors done in this place devoted to an evil man - we'll say they RENAMED the village Cokerus - fester within innocence with a persistent histamine itch. It tortures their subconscious, and that subconscious takes animate form thanks to all the fucked up evil magic Coker acquired over the years grounding itself in the nearest element of least resistance. The children sleep, and have dreams, and the children take the forms of those dreams, and in their wakeless slumber they lumber about the town wreaking havoc in their nightmare bodies.

The children of Cokerus awake to devastation around them, death, fire, confusion, and to distrust, scorn, or outright violence from those closest to them, like their parents or guardians. This traumatizes them more. This makes the nightmares worse. More powerful.

Picking Random Book Off Shelf At Work

Eyes closed, customer told me when to stop, opened to a page at random:

Book in question was a Peter Milligan Hellblazer collection featuring (on the page I opened to) Shade the Changing Man.

Guest-Starring is a spell.

Target is self. Duration (not range, duration) is Line-of-Sight. For the duration, the next being looking at you sees the real you as a figure fitting their conception of you, and all subsequent beings laying eyes on you see this vision (though it is based on the conception of the original observer).

No "Little short for a Stormtrooper," no "You're nae William Wallace," if you spread rumors that your dwarf cleric Stonedar has iron-black eyes and wears a coat of fire and has a sword that can reach all nations, then that's what people see when you reveal yourself.

It's important to note two things here. First, you do have whatever crazy abilities you are assumed to have. If they think you can use magic, boom, you can now. THIS WORKS BOTH WAYS, and if a powerful lich assumes your level 17 magic-user to be some powerless nobody or beneath their notice, THEN YOU WILL BE for as long as he's noticing you. The second is that if your secondary target (the initial observer) has no conception OF you (you're a complete stranger) or cannot identify you AS you (it's not as if he's seen you on TV) then the spell does not have its normal affect. Instead you are molded into the role they assume you possess (like if they think you're one of the mercenaries the king hired, or some idiot burglar).

Now this spell gets pretty interesting when you're using it on someone who knows you, because the better they know you, sure, the fewer crazy things they may believe about you. But they are also privy to every crazy story you've ever told, every amazing thing you've done, every underhanded deed you've committed, and every time you've looked foolish, and every lie and boast you've made, and just by dint of knowing you longer they've formed thousands of small assumptions about you without realizing it. All of these color the change you undergo during the spell, but since many of these are noncompatible notions they tumble over each other and you can become a caricature of yourself, flowing like mercury, getting all Duck Amuck up in this bitch.