The Current: The Polaroid That Drifts
A self-portrait becomes a ripple. A relic of refusal. A daemon in your own image.
Filed under: Touched NPCs, Artifacts, and Political Folktales for The Current
You didn’t mean to leave it behind. But the Current had other plans.
Somewhere in a locker that no longer locks, tucked inside a ration kit or forgotten drawer, a Polaroid surfaces. Half-faded, thumb-worn, and just slightly warped, it carries a weight disproportionate to its size. The figure in the photo looks like you, or someone you loved, or the version of yourself you thought you outgrew. They hold a parasol. Or a microphone. Or nothing at all.
Their eyes shift when you’re not looking.
The Polaroid That Drifts
Type: Touched NPC / Artifact (one-time use)
Effect:
- If kept close, the Polaroid grants the bearer one reroll on a decision made in a moment of emotional or spiritual uncertainty.
- After the reroll is used, the bearer must name a memory they’ve been avoiding and learn to weep, either in character or in silence.
- The Polaroid then drifts onward, unless kept at personal cost.
Optional Rule: When another character looks at the photo, they don’t see the bearer. They see themselves—haunted, younger, wiser, or broken. Ask them: What would you say to that version of yourself?
Tutelary Whisper:
(found scrawled on the back, revealed under soft violet light)
Haunted by my own memories. Learning to weep. Reminding myself to zoom in.
Commentary
This NPC/artifact emerged from a personal moment of political clarity—and grief. It represents the nosideist’s path: rejecting easy alignment charts in favor of haunted nuance and felt truth. The Polaroid doesn’t offer answers. It asks better questions.
It’s part witness, part daemon, part accountability checkpoint. It’s the kind of object that refuses to be gamified but insists on being played with. A small, sacred mess that demands your attention.
Want to use it in your campaign?
- Place it in a setting where something has been forgotten but not forgiven.
- Give it to a player who doubts themselves but can’t stop trying.
- Let it drift. Let it return.
TPOTT has entered the studio.
The Truth is not in the quiz, sugar. It’s in the quiet moment before the reroll. And in what you do after.
[Static burst. Glitter. Exit stage left.]