[Wids]

(Deceit-by-Proxy's another fun device. The baron's pretty good at spotting lies? Okay, so you grab his page or some other person he trusts, take him aside, convince him that some lie is the truth, let him head back to the baron and let nature take its course. As long as the page earnestly believes that what you told him is the truth, well, then it is the truth...at least, the truth as the page knows it.)

Of course, we could probably fill a series of books with every fragment of every tangent of every type of lie and deception, so whatever other deceptions, gambits, ploys, cons, schemes and frame jobs you've concocted --or, perhaps, have even successfully employed -- in the past, here's as good a good spot as any to tell your tales and what you may have learned from such devices.


...and for whatever reason, that brings me back to another detail about truth, falsehood and the perceptions of such:

Leirans and True Seeing

The Church of Leira is very keen on keeping this little secret to themselves. And even though no one's bound to notice it, there's a reason why Corella never prepares the True Seeing spell (and why she saves her Rock of Reality and other True-Seeing-casting magic items strictly -- very strictly -- for emergencies).

According to tabletop D&D (by way of Faiths and Avatars and similar sources), most churches have established rites and processes of initiation into their respective clergies, ranging from the somewhat casual (like the Church of Auril telling you to get naked and take a bath in an ice-covered lake) to the formal (like Helm's church making you take a bunch of vows and oaths of service) to the downright sadistic (like Umberlee's church straight-up drowning you and seeing if you survive). And the Church of Leira initiates its newbies by stripping away their old names and identities, giving them new ones, giving them their first shiny new mirror masks and maybe even showing them a glimpse of the driving force behind all reality itself.

Well, either the glimpse of reality itself is another one of Leira's deceptions, or the force of consensual reality itself is some horrid, indescribable, Lovecraftian thing which can drive you utterly and irrevocably insane if you stare at it for long enough. So that's why the Leirans are really out to cover the entire world in a cozy blanket of lies and illusions: Not just because it supports the existence of falsehood and deceit in this world (and thus supports the dominion of their goddess) but because they're out to protect the world and its people from this horrible "Truth" because, to paraphrase Agent K from Men in Black, the only way that all these people can go about their happy little lives is that they don't know about it.

...and unfortunately, it's the same Truth that Leirans see every time they're under the effects of True Seeing. The Leiran casts True Seeing, True Seeing strips away the thin veneer shielding us from the true reality of existence itself, the Leiran sees the truth of existence for what it truly is and the Leiran picks up a new derangement, psychosis or blot of general madness from the revelation.

(...which begs the question: Why doesn't True Seeing drive other people insane, if that's the case?)

However, just as Neverwinter Nights doesn't have a system for giving Leirans bonuses to detecting lies, illusions, fake diamonds, fake sob stories or deceptions in general (like there is in tabletop D&D), NWN doesn't have a system for inflicting derangements -- temporary, permanent or both -- on a Leiran every time he or she experiences the perceptive effects of True Seeing. So I'm probably limited to implementing these traits through roleplay. In your opinion, what's the best way to handle the perks of being a Leiran (ie. natural lie detection, since the hardest person in the world to lie to is a seasoned liar) while balancing them against the drawbacks (ie. the whole "True Seeing makes you go nuts" thing)?