Cryptography
Secondary Ability
A world full of secrets is a world filled with codes. You understand how they work, know the principles for crafting and cracking them, and have the kind of mind that curves along the proper corners when hacking various codes. A background in mathematics and historical encryption comes with this Skill, although other Abilities – Enigmas, Esoterica (Alchemy, Bibliomancy, Secret Code Languages, etc.), Science (Mathematics), and so forth – provide invaluable assistance for such tasks. Mages are really good at rendering simple things into obscure gibberish, so this is a valuable skill, though not an especially common one.
With this Knowledge, you can create codes that can be broken only by someone who exceeds your Cryptography rating with her own Intelligence + Cryptography dice pool. (Someone with a dice pool of at least four dice could beat Cryptography 3, for example, but not Cryptography 4.) You can also try to unravel codes with your own Intelligence + Cryptography rolls. In both cases, the difficulty depends upon the complexity of the code and the obscurity of the elements involved. If the code demands some knowledge that the would-be cracker does not have, of course, the code remains unbreakable. Japanese cryptographers, for instance, couldn’t have deciphered the Navajo code-talker messages because they didn’t even know that the Navajo language existed. Even without such knowledge, though, a good roll can help you puzzle out the foundation of a code even if you can’t read its contents, which is often half the battle.
For rules dealing with codes and decryption, see Social Occasions and Intrigue in Chapter Nine.
• Dabbler: Spy novel fan.
•• Student: Military signals engineer.
••• Scholar: Intelligence operative.
•••• Professor: Cipher specialist.
••••• Master: Codebuster supreme.
Possessed By
Puzzle Fans, Intelligence Specialists, Spies, Alchemists, Communication Analysts, Insurgents, Counterterrorism Agents
Suggested Specialties
Mathematical Encryption, Secret Languages, Mystical Codes, Occulted Lore, Encryption History, Weird Logic, Computers, Art-History Symbolism