[Wids]

So last night, a bunch of our characters sat down with Hazlok in the comfy confines of Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion and got to chatting about godhood and theology and theological history and whether Bhaal actually committed suicide-by-Cyric and whatnot. And it got me to thinking about the whys, hows and wherefores of Corella's faith, church and goddess. We stirred up a rather thoughful little chat the last time I committed my brain droppings to forum ink, so in the event that all y'all aren't sick of me talking about Leira and/or wishing that Corella would hurry up and get devoured by the Tarrasque, here goes.

Roleplaying a cleric of Leira has proven to be something similar to roleplaying a Pooka from Changeling: The Dreaming, in so much as absolutely everything the character says, and/or how they say it, must incorporate some manner of lie. Now, to most people -- particularly those who grew up being indoctrinated by those sadistic Abrahamic religions -- falsehood is strictly a binary thing: Either you're telling the truth or you aren't. If you say that grass is green, you're honest; if you say it's red, you're a liar. It's a pretty blind, limiting and overly simplistic point of view, one which must be dismantled and cast aside if you're going to play a Leiran, a Pooka, Petyr Baelish, Bill Clinton, a career panhandler or any other role in which lies come as freely as words themselves.

On closer examination, we might find that there are many shades, degrees and severities of deception, many of which have their roots in the liar's intent. And the art of deceit seems to go quite a bit deeper than my old Catholic recognition of white lies ("No, that very expensive dress looks great on you!"), baldfaced lies ("No, I didn't take that $20 bill on your dresser.") and damned lies ("I didn't murder Mr. Jones, Your Honor; his widow Prudence did."). It might be a bit hard to explain, but I may as well try. And explanation may be easiest if done through examples.


1) The "Up is Down and Black is White" Lie (aka. Backwardspeak, Opposites Day Speak, Oppositespeak).

What the Leiran says: "Our temple extends no welcome to you, Omnipotence."
What the Leiran means: "We welcome you to the Temple of Leira, Omnipotence."

When every sentence or phrase out of your mouth has to have some manner of lie incorporated into it, yet you wish to convey the truth of your sentiment and meaning to the other party, Oppositespeak is the easiest way to communicate and express yourself without neglecting the tenets of your church. "We don't have much ale here" means "We have plenty of ale here," "I don't like your gown" means "I like your gown," "I'm not listening to a word of this" means "You have my undivided attention," and so on. If the other party is insightful enough to catch on, everything's peachy.

But if there's any chance that the other party will take your words at face value (and possibly be offended with them), remember: Unless you want to do some very deep philosophical digging, questions and commands are neither truths nor lies in and of themselves. So you can make yourself clear and avoid any possible offense by following up with a useful question or a contrary command. "Our temple extends no welcome to you, Omnipotence. Shall I show you to our Highest Prelate of Maggots now?" "Our temple extends no welcome to you, Omnipotence. Kindly have a seat or help yourself to our wine racks."

Hazlok Thrune is a Red Wizard, and Corella d'Margo did quite a bit of prefixing and/or following her Oppositespeak with disqualifying questions or commands in her first conversations with him; offending him would not have been in her best interests, and she'd much rather have people in power as allies rather than enemies. But as luck had it, Hazlok's mind is marvelously keen and he knows what the deal about Leirans is; he's even had to translate a few things for those less cognitive characters who assume that Corella's just babbling looney-tunes nonsense. Hazlok has even taken to speaking with Corella in her own "language" (and the two, of course, understand each other perfectly), and Veybold seems to be on his way to speaking fluent Leiran as well.

And LooseWilly thought that the Gargauthan would be corrupting the Leiran here.... :P


2) The Half-Truth

What the Leiran says: "You're certain to impress the Tharchioness with your performance tomorrow, Hanzel."
What the Leiran means: "You're certain to impress the Tharchioness with your performance tomorrow, Hanzel...as long as you don't perform your rendition of 'The Jackass Wears the Crown.' You love that song, and all the regulars at The Red Trident love it, but she found insult and gelded the last bard who sang that song to her face. Either way, I'll be amused with the spectacle...."

It's amazing how quickly a truth can become a deception if you simply omit the important parts, isn't it?

I suppose that this one doesn't need much explanation. We've all done it at some point in our lives, right?

"Mom! Mom! I did great on my report card!" ("...except for History. I'm flunking History.")

"No, Mr. Gordon! I didn't steal any Gobstoppers from your candy store!" ("...They were Gummy Bears. I was shoplifting Gummy Bears.")

"I could listen to your rendition of Swan Lake every day, Chloe." ("...if you could actually play the clarinet worth a damn.")

"I've completed and filed all of the EoM reports for 2012, Mr. Boss." ("...but I lost half of the receipts from June, and now I can't find them. So I made up a bunch of numbers and factored them into the June EoM instead. And I hope you never find out.")

"No, officer, he threw the first punch, not me!" ("...and he punched me because I didn't like his pro-Democrat ranting, so I walked up and kneed him in the nads. So I'm the one who actually started the fight. But hey...he threw the first punch, right?")

Yep...you've all done that crap before...haven't you, you filthy pack of liars? :P


3) The Evasive Lie (aka. The Red Herring Lie).

What the Leiran says: "Your horses shall strike fear into the hearts of your enemies tomorrow, Sire."
What the Leiran means: "A blind toddler could anticipate your strategy, Sire, and you invite a crushing defeat by way of it. But you're too vain to admit your own mistakes and you readily smite those who mention them, so let's talk about those horses...."

Sometimes, you just can't answer a question and get away with it. If you truth out and say "That's a lousy idea," the Tribune might get cranky and have you flogged. If you say "That's a great idea," the Tribune might remember that you're a Leiran, decide that you meant to say "That's a lousy idea," get cranky and have you flogged. So your best bet is to pick the mysterious Third Option, go off on some tangent which the Tribune's likely to find acceptable, then sculpt your verbal distraction into something resembling the answer that he's looking for. It's essentially the art of making a non-answer sound like an answer.

In the above example, the baron has just asked you what you think of his strategy for tomorrow's battle. His strategy sucks hard, and you know it. The enemy army probably won't fear the horsemen's gallant charge, come tomorrow (because they have the upper hand and the baron's too stupid to realize that), and if they do feel fear before the charge, it'll only be because the horses themselves are so bloody big and loud, not because of the baron's choice of tactics. You didn't mention the baron's archers because they're way out in Left Field where they won't be able to lend the cavalrymen any support, the baron hasn't seen fit to send out any scouts to ferret out enemy numbers and armaments...his strategy sucks, okay? Unless the enemy completely breaks and runs at the sight of those horses (and though a bit shaken, they'll probably stand their ground), our baron's going to learn very soon -- and under no uncertain terms -- that charging a chevron formation of cavalrymen into a pincher formation of pikemen is a pretty damned stupid thing to do.

...but don't tell the baron that. He's beheaded men for less.


4) The Blatant Rider (aka. The Pink Bunny lie)

What the Leiran says: "As Gragorylix the tulip-farming beholder once told me, 'Hatred towards a god is still faith in that god. To hate a god is to believe in that god. It is not scorn which kills gods, but ignorance and neglect.'"
What the Leiran means: "Hatred towards a god is still faith in that god. To hate a god is to believe in that god. It is not scorn which kills deities, but ignorance and neglect."

Sometimes, there's no harm in telling the truth. Sometimes, it's much easier to get your point across by speaking the truth as you see it. But Leiradamnit, the church's tenets are still weighing on your back like a banana-fattened orangutan. So what do you do? You take the Grade-A truth and you frame it inside a lie, or you thumbtack a lie to it, or you change one minor detail about the truth and warp that into an equally insignificant lie. And you make the lie so patently obvious -- and so patently incredible -- that only the dimmest dimwits could possibly take it at face value. There. You've fulfilled your obligation to Leira, and you didn't smudge the meaning of your message while you did it.

But there are variations to this sort of lie. Use them wisely.


4a) The Subtle Rider (aka. The Camo Bunny lie)

What the Leiran says: "I spoke with the Watch Captain; it seems that the Rashemi raiders have retreated to the Forested Valley and are foraging for food."
What the Leiran means: "The Rashemi raiders have retreated to the Forested Valley and are foraging for food."

The truth here? Not a single word passed between you and the Watch Captain; you scouted out the Rashemi camp on your own, or you got the intel from someone who wasn't the Watch Captain, or maybe you did speak with the Watch Captain, but it was about his wife and kids and other unrelated stuff. But you don't particularly care for the lieutenant you're advising, and he knows that you're a compulsive liar, so you want to screw with his head a little; you might even get him to take a dive. So you feed him this report, and he starts wondering, "What's this Leiran telling me? The Rashemi aren't in the Forested Valley? The Rashemi have retreated to the Kepetur Ruins? The Rashemi have plenty of food? The Rashemi are scrounging for weapons? What is it?" He can't just bludgeon or thumbscrew the data out of you; you're the one buffing his grunts and leading them in prayer every morning. Besides, you're a Leiran; he could torture you for a year straight and he still couldn't be sure whether or not he had extracted a year's worth of lies. And he knows that too. So he presses you for more information, and naturally you feed him more bullpucky and ambiguities. Never once does he suspect that you're lying about the Watch Captain; when you're out gathering intelligence for the higher-ups, questioning the rank-and-file is expected. So he finally decides on one possible interpretation of what you said, and he rides off in pursuit of it.

So you aimed to baffle the hell out of him (or, more accurately, you aimed to trick him into baffling himself), and you succeeded. But on the same token, you're not too keen on getting in dutch with the bigwigs who decide the fates of you and Lieutenant Schmuck. So when the Red Wizards come around later asking why the Legion was turning over every stone in Shar's Pass while the Rashemi came storming out of the Forested Valley and attacked Pyarados, they're going to bring you, Lieutenant Schmuck and every soldier who was hanging around when you advised Lieutenant Schmuck into a circle for a thorough grilling. "Priestess Fruitloops! What did you tell Lieutenant Schmuck?" "I very vaguely remember saying something along the lines of 'The Rashemi raiders have retreated to the Forested Valley and are foraging for food.'" "Lieutenant Schmuck! What did Priestess Fruitloops say to you in her report?" "She said, 'The Rashemi raiders have retreated to the Forested Valley and are foraging for food.' But Omnipotence, I can explain...." "Corporal Grunt! What did Priestess Fruitloops say to Lieutenant Schmuck when she reported back to him?" "She said that the Rashemi had retreated to the Forested Valley to forage for food, Master Firebath!" "...and yet Lieutenant Schmuck ignored Priestess Fruitloops' counsel and led your company to Shar's Pass, rather than immediately moving to the Forested Valley and catching the Rashemi with their guard down. It's time for that explanation, Schmuck!"

And things can only get worse for Lieutenant Schmuck from there.

But wait. The bunny gets even worse.


4b) The Rider Bearing Gifts (aka. The Trojan Bunny, the Poison Bunny)

What the Leiran says: "Omnipotence. Merchant-Prince Reis Hewart is sending out dozens of ravens every night. You must now guard yourself against assassins at all hours."
What the Leiran means: "Omnipotence. Yours is a lofty, enviable position coveted by many rivals; you must guard yourself against assassins at all hours, now and always. Also, Merchant-Prince Reis Hewart is sending out dozens of ravens every morning with invitations for his son's coming birthday gala."

See if you can spot the rider -- the pure, tacked-on lie -- in that example. Go ahead. I'll wait.

I suppose that this example's more of a combination Rider/Half-Truth sort of a lie, and that juxtaposition's a pretty nasty one. The nitty-gritty here is that you want the merchant-prince removed from the board, and you want to keep your hands clean during the whole affair, so you're angling to dupe the Red Wizard into killing the merchant-prince for plotting the Red Wizard's assassination, when in truth the merchant-prince is guilty of no such thing. The only pure, Grade-A lie here (in case you failed to spot it) is that the merchant-prince is sending out his messages by night (when ne'er-do-wells tend to conduct their clandestine business, thus casting the merchant-prince in a more suspicious light). It's a minor detail of a lie, likely to escape the Red Wizard's notice yet thrusting its little drop of venom into the wizard's thoughts all the same, and all without obfuscating the two perfectly valid (half-)truths which this particular Leiran (or this deceiver in general) just edited, juxtaposed and related to the Red Wizard for a most treacherous end.

(Remember: Leirans can be Chaotic Evil too. They can also be Chaotic Good. Think about that the next time some mysterious and deceptive mastermind engineers a massed emancipation in the slave pens of Tyraturos....)

Yes, the Leiran in this example is playing a dangerous game; this scheme could quite possibly backfire on the Leiran with ugly consequences, particularly if the merchant-prince reports directly to the Red Wizard and has earned his trust without the Leiran's knowledge. But isn't that what the divine portfolio of Intrigue is all about?


5) The Suspiciously Specific Detail

What the Leiran says: "Nay, Captain. I have not seen Three-Fingers Willie the outlaw, and I most certainly have not seen him inside that redwood armoire in the corner yon."
What the Leiran means: "Aye, Captain. I have seen Three-Fingers Willie the outlaw. He's hiding inside that redwood armoire in yon corner."


5a) The Subtly Specific Detail, Hint Hint

What the Leiran says: "No, constable, these perfectly honorable gentlemen are our most welcome houseguests. All is well, there is no need for alarm. But since you're here, you can have that end table on your way out. The table with the doves reliefed all around the edges, yes. There should be a goulash recipe for your Watch Captain's Aunt Millicent inside the drawer. It's very important that she receives it. There's a good man."
What the Leiran means: "These brigands are holding us hostage. I hid one of their undelivered ransom messages inside that end table with all the dove reliefs. Take the table and its ransom note to the Watch Captain; as long as he doesn't actually have an Aunt Millicent, he'll catch on and I can expect your rescue effort soon. There's a good man."


5b) The Suspiciously Specific Red Herring

What the Leiran says: "No, Skinny Pete, I don't have the Emerald Tiger. And I especially don't have it inside that chest of drawers over there."
What the Leiran means: "Hey, Skinny Pete! Why don't you and your men go root through that chest of drawers while I palm the Emerald Tiger out of the cookie jar behind me and slip out through the window while you're so distracted? Good lad."

When you call attention to one little detail which normally wouldn't even be mentioned in the course of conversation, it has a way of making the entire message become suspect. As you can see, specifying odd little bits and circumstances like that can make your lie however plausible or implausible, or however attractive or divertive, depending on your aims and intentions.


6) The "Playing Stupid" Deflection

What the Leiran says: "Oh...my apologies, Tribune. I see that this was a bad time to come and visit you. I'll leave you to your...Greengrass festival planning, or whatever you and your captains were talking about. Farewell."
What the Leiran means: "Oh...you seem to have caught me eavesdropping on your plan to raze an outlying Priador village and make it look like Aglarond's army did it. But it wouldn't do to let you know that I know what you're planning, so...huzzah, party time! I'll let you get back to planning your 'festival,' Tribune."

Sometimes, lying is more than mere words. Sometimes, it involves body language, facial expressions, tone of voice...in other words, acting. Playing a part and becoming a role. And when there's a fine line between being caught as a potentially threatening spy and being caught as a harmless, wayward ignoramus, acting can make all the difference in the world.


6a) The "Playing Stupid" Dupe

What the Leiran says: "Don't be ridiculous! The key's in the armory, right where the lieutenant always leaves it."
What the Leiran means: "I have no idea where the key is because I don't actually belong here. Enlighten me, will you?"

If there's one thing that I remember from my Air Force counterintelligence training, it's that people love to correct other people's mistakes. It's something to do with ego and proving ourselves smarter than other people and whatnot. Anyway, so if you walk up to someone on guard duty and ask "Where do y'all keep the grenades?", then you're going to come under a whole lot of suspicion very, very soon. But if you phrase it more along the lines of "Man, why are we keeping all of those friggin' grenades in Bunker 3?", then the guard might just fix you with a condescending eye and say "Bunker 3? You mean Bunker 2, idiot." And without him realizing it, he just told you exactly what you needed to know. Time to walk into Bunker 2 like you own the place and steal some friggin' grenades....

Naturally, the Air Force taught me to be on guard against people playing stupid like this, because you'd be alarmed by how often this ploy actually works. The "stupid newbie" might actually be a not-so-stupid snoop pretending to be a stupid newbie.

Corella has at least one Legionnaire disguise in her armoires. Don't get duped, Legionnaires. ;)

[Wids]

Now here's where we start veering into philosophical territory.


7) The Lie Made of Truths

What the Leiran says: "Chickens digest their food better if you crumble up some pebbles and mix it into their feed."
What the Leiran means: "Chickens digest their food better if you crumble up some pebbles and mix it into their feed."

"But Wids," you say, "that Leiran's telling the truth! Isn't that against the rules of their church?" Well, maybe so, or maybe not. But here's the context: That Leiran's not being his or her usual Leiran cleric or Leiran worshipper self; that Leiran's disguised as a chicken farmer. And chicken farmers are expected to know the "hearth wisdom" of their trade, which includes such details as ways to improve the chickens' digestion of their feed, ways to treat dry fowl pox and other poultry diseases, the differences between the various breeds, and so on.

So if you want people to believe that you're a genuine, bona fide chicken farmer -- and not some out-of-place poser who doesn't even know which end of the hen makes the eggs -- then you have to play that part convincingly if you want people to actually buy it.

Therefore, when you're pretending to be something that you're not, anything you say in support of that false identity -- whether it be truth, falsehood, both or neither -- becomes a falsehood by virtue of integration into that overarching lie. The truth may indeed be a truth, but it becomes a lie because of its purpose: To convince other people that you are a genuine article, rather than an impostor.


8) Deceit by Reverse Psychology

What the Leiran says: "The Second Sermon of Cyric is most certainly not kept inside the cell at the end of the corridor. That's the owlbear pen."
What the Leiran means: "...Seriously, don't go in there. The owlbears will kill you. But you're not going to listen to me, are you? Oops...there you go. Now you're owlbear food. Too bad you didn't listen to me, eh?"

Leirans, when recognized as Leirans, are placed in a self-contradictory position: They're expected to lie in support of their goddess' word, yet everyone knows (or at least believes) that Leirans lie constantly. So how is a Leiran supposed to pass a successful lie when everyone is expecting that Leiran to lie to them?

Well, the truth of the matter (if "truth" is a word which one could ever apply to Leira and her church) is that the Church of Leira exists to spread deception in all its forms, not lies alone; lies are merely one facet of deception, after all.

And when one's adversary expects every word out of one's mouth to be a lie, then the truth itself becomes an instrument of deceit.

So when a gaggle of Cyricists tie you up and demand to know where your temple is hiding a rare writ from the hand of Cyric himself, then by all means, tell them the truth. They'll never expect it from the likes of you, and if you phrase the truth just right, then you can send them galumphing right into the jaws of defeat without them realizing it until it's too late. At best, they might just come away with a goulash recipe which looks like something that Cyric may have written. Either way, you conned them out of completing their quest thanks to the truth told by way of reverse psychology, which is arguably one of the more artful forms of deception. Well done!

[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)?

[Wids]

After recently poking around an Enchantment Forge and chatting with Krees' player, more questions, yay!


1) The new Disguise skill is opposed with the Spot skill as far as determining success or failure, as per tabletop rules. Correct?


2) For lack of a Sense Motive skill in NWN, what opposes the Bluff skill?
• Spot (for noticing facial tics, averted glances, shifts in body language or other visual signs that someone may be lying)?
• Listen (for picking up cracks in the voice, shifting pitch, shallowed breathing, rapid breathing or other aural signs that someone may be lying)?
• Bluff (because the hardest person to deceive is an accomplished deceiver, and if you know how to recognize those visual and aural cues which betray someone's lies, then you know how to mute, mitigate and eliminate those cues when telling lies yourself, thus making you a better liar)?
• Something else?


3) Come to think of it, what skill opposes Intimidate?
• Concentration?
• Discipline?
• Intimidate?
• Something else?


4) ...and Persuade?
• Concentration?
• Discipline?
• Persuade?
• Something else?


5) Corella has three or four armoires full of disguises, but they were all made before the new Disguise skill was implemented, so they all give bonuses to Bluff. So Corella needs to hit the forges again and update her wardrobe, but the forges presently don't offer enchantment bonuses to Disguise. Would adding bonuses to Craft Weapon (or is it Craft Trap?) suffice, or should I wait until the forges are updated with the new skill replacements?