#reading through this she was a pretty clever liar and a pretty decent fake awful photos aside

[a-dragons-journal]

have you heard of KissingMidnight? back in the mythical community i used to hear bout her from time to time, a p-shifter who became a real mermaid. Now, I wonder... what do you think the true story was?

I hadn't heard of her by that name, but I'd seen the photos she posted as supposed "proof" of her shifted form. (Somebody posted a log of them here, for anyone who hasn't seen.)

The ironic thing is, blatantly faked "proof" like this (photos are grainy at best, especially the ones of "scales" where you can't really even see the supposed bumps she's talking about, and the tail is... obviously a fake? there's no life to that thing at all), as opposed to "that's a normal human thing that you are presenting as p-shifting" type proof, indicates to me that she was knowingly lying. If it was a photo of someone who genuinely believed what they were saying (which, at this degree of shifting, would have to be a hallucination, not just reading too much into normal human body things), we wouldn't be able to see the shift, because it wouldn't be physical.

There's a lot of reasons she might have lied about it, and I really can't speculate on it. She might have originally believed it and then not known how to back out when she realized it wasn't real and just doubled down instead. She might have been just a plain old troll, though it looks like she put an awful lot of effort into it for a troll. It doesn't look like she ever started up any groups, but it's possible she was partly looking to get power over people via claiming "secret knowledge" on an individual basis, since she did tell people to contact her directly according to that log. She might have just liked the attention. Who knows. I'd be curious to know her reasons, if anyone ever tracked her down, but I'm not going to spend too much time thinking about it.

[apopheniaandeisegesis]

Sucker Punch Island: Session 1

Players :

Masari Half-Elf Monk. High Wis + Dex. Low Int + Cha.

First impression : Capable and very ernest, but just not that clever.

Nonamei Elven Wizard. High Int. Very low Str + Cha.

First Impression : Can't sit still. Trigger Shy. Asks the right questions.

"Jinx" (Me) Half-Elf Cleric. Prophecy Domain. High Wis + Cha. Very low Con + Str.

Blind man with a full-size crossbow who can't stop talking. Makes up a new god every five minutes. Still has clerical powers, somehow.

So, we're all on this island populated mainly by Kenku (Crow people). It all starts out pretty standard, We're all answering a "Heroes Wanted" bulletin, right? There are some other hereos at the bulletin board that look pretty badly singed. We try to talk to them to see what happened, but they lose their voices when they try to answer us. One tries to write something, but magically can't do that either. Weird. We figure they must have been cursed by whatever they encountered on their job. We tried a few things, but can't really help them or figure out exactly what's wrong.

So, the person we're meeting for the job shows up, a kenku. Rube. He's nervous. Jinx makes him even more nervous by idly pointing his crossbow in worrisome directions. Blind man with a crossbow raises a few eyebrows.

Rube takes us to city hall. Jinx bullshits about the decor and the statues. Mostly to see which party members are gullible. Surprise, it's the Wizard. So now the Wizard and the Kenku think Jinx knows all sorts of things about the city's founder. Convinced them that the statue in the hall is actually a petrified person. Good fun. Not terribly important. Yet. We'll see.

The mayor himself (or some such official) is called Ergard, and he's the one that actually hired us. Monsters in the sewer attacking the city, and can we go exterminate them please. Good benefits. We promise to resurrect you if you're awful and die. Nominal 10gp fee (a bargain!). Here's some magic rings with extra powers to help make sure you don't die. Here, sign this contract to be employed by the city.

Contract? Really?

I did try to see if we were being duped. Sense motive did show he wasn't really being straight with us, but we all thought he was just withholding some pertinent information about the job. Boy was he. Jinx cast Detect Magic to see what other shenanigans he might be pulling,. Just paper contracts, though. Nothing special. Rings are just cantrip level magic. Big-ass mirror in the guy's office is hella magical, and the mayor himself has some serious equipment, but that's all we know.

The Wiz and Monk sign the contracts. Jinx is blind and can't read and is a complete bastard, so he folds his up into a paper airplane and flies it across the room. Nobody really pays attention to that. The mayor sets out some magic rings for us. Jinx pockets all of them.

We head for the sewer. Wat a mess. Jinx hands out the rings. He's not greedy. And besides, He can't really use more than two. We wander through the sewer. There's slime everywhere and eventually some of it gets annoyed at being walked on and wakes up. We kill of a couple of them. Jinx does a fair bit of damage shooting at them with his crossbow. Blames it on being blind when he rolls low. The slimes are fire resistant. Kinda odd, but whatever. They go down easy. A much bigger one comes out of the pond of sludge down here. Jinx fires of his one big spell at it, but misses. "Did I hit anything?" He does have blindsight in a small rage around him, but it's a good schtick.

Another couple of stabs and bolts and that slime goes down too. The DM is rolling really low. Hits nothing the whole battle.

Next room, there's a Lizard-Taur. Already wounded but still feisty. Dumb as a rock, but not instantly hostile. The Monk speaks Draconic, though so we chat with it for awhile. Of course my compatriots have shitty Charisma, so they go nowhere for a long time. Eventually the Monk upsets the Liz-Taur and gets bit. We run away, but it can't follow us through a particular rusted grate. So we halt there and continue trying to chat with it, from a distance.

Jinx gets bored and sets up camp. Makes an omelette. Figures, this Lizard is only slightly smarter than a puppy. He's speaking in one word sentences. So I throw half my omelette at the lizard. Apparently it's pretty good, because I roll well on the persuasion check and suddenly he likes me enough to let me in the room he's guarding. Alone. No others. I wander around in there for awhile. There’s a pile of gold and a big ol' egg. Some massive scorch marks on the ground. There's some growling noises, but Jinx bombs his perception and investigation. Confused he assumes the gold and egg belong to the Lizard and the noise is coming from the egg. Probably about to hatch?

I figure I should leave the treasure alone. Go back and tell everyone there's not a lot in there. Just  a bunch of gold that obviously belongs to the Lizard and an egg that's probably his. Hers? Who knows. They're still trying to be nice enough to get past the Lizard without hurting him, so I give him an herbal poultice for his injured leg. That makes him happy enough to get a real conversation going with the only PC that can actually talk to him. Eventually  we figure out that the Liz-Taur is smelling the Kenku on the rings we're wearing. Really hates those guys. So my buddies chuck their rings to gain the Taur's trust. JInx picks them up. Guess they're all mine now. Puts all the rings on one hand.

So, finally we can all go in the room with the gold so that someone with a half-decent Investigate skill can make a roll instead of Jinx with his sad little +1. The roll is bombed by all present. No idea what's in here. The one that should have been successful actually Crit Fails and gets overwhelmed by nausea from the smell of burnt slime.

Jinx is hanging out with Lizard Boy in the back of the cave, so he can't sense what's going on near the treasure pile. Apparently what we all failed to detect was a dropoff at the back of the cave where a colossal dragon was sleeping. It finally wakes up. Jinx heads to that side of the cave to see what the commotion is all about, so we're all in a nice formation when the dragon breaths on all of us and we all die. While the DM plays the theme to 'The Price Is Right' in the background.

Of course, that was the plan all along. We wake up after being resurrected in the Mayor's office. Chained to chairs. Lovely. The Kenku does some magical shenanigans so that our perfectly normal contracts look like they say the Resurrection service has a nominal 10,000,000 gold fee. The usual arguing and threats ensue, but really we don't have any options. Another spell is done sealing the rings (all of which I'm wearing. Sheesh) and manacles to prevent us from leaving the island. And prevent us from talking to anyone about any job we do here or the 'arrangement' we have to work off our 10,000,000 gp debt.

ME :Jinx shrugs "i don't get all the posturing. I mean, if you're going to be thugs, then just be thugs. As the Acolyte of Moodwise, I won't forgive you, though" Masari Monk:"No, no, they have an image to keep." DM :Ehgard (The Kenku Mayor) rubs a hand over his beak."This is what you signed for. Most of you." Wiz Nona:"We signed for 10 Gold." Nona insists ME :Shruggs "I can't read. Never sign anything." DM :"We can take back the services we've done for you, if that's what you desire, sir." ME :"I suspect that would be quite illegal, if you want to play that game. Your option was to not raise me in the first place. But, clearly you're going to do whatever you like. Get on with it." Wiz Nona:"Jinx..." Nona warns nervously Masari Monk:"Yeah, let's cut to the chase. What do you get out of doing this to us? What are you expecting us to do to pay back this forged debt?" DM :"Illegal. No, not me sir." ME :"I am a cleric of Normenglasterpastich. We do not suffer liars lightly." Wiz Nona:what a name Masari Monk:Masari eyes Jinx. DM :"I suppose you'll have to work it off. I can think of a few more missions for you to go on to start earning that money..." His eyes narrow at Jinx, shaking his head."So untrustworthy..." ME :"What a lovely complement. I'm blushing." Masari Monk:"More missions that involve certain death? More missions that put us deeper in the hole through ressurections?" ME :"Sounds like a good plan. Infinite access to decent heroes. It's a nice racket if you can get it. Man's got a dragon to deal with. You do what you can." DM :The Kenku in purple walks around, putting a bracelet on Nona and Masari. "Certain death? No, no. Ambassador's of a sort. For Kiebnis herself (name of the city)." Masari Monk:"What's this now?" ME :Jinks looks straight at him with white eyes, "She's going to eat you, you know. I'm a prophet of Ibnis. I've seen it." Grinning like a madman. Wiz Nona:"Jinx, now isn't really the time to make threats," Nona whispers warily under her voice DM :Ergard tilts his head, eyes narrow as he looks away from Jinx. ME :"That wasn't a threat! That was valuable information. Worth at least 1,000,000 GP. ME :rolling persuasion. just that I'm an actual prophet. I have been playing the part pretty well, i think. (A decent roll. Total 19) DM :xDDDDD ME :No derail or anything. I just wanna unsettle the old bird. DM :Alright. Now I have to figure out this guys religion lol Ergard's feathers pick up a might. "Those are the old ways..." He 'mumbles' under his breath. So, that's why those other adventurers couldn't answer any of our questions. Apparently this crazy Kenku does the same thing to all the nice heroes that visit his island. Kill with dragon. Fake a masive debt. "You belong to me now." Rinse Repeat. At least I got to give the Mayor a good scare, though. I very much intend to make it a true prophecy.

Anybody know what I do with three magic rings cursed to the same hand?