TEXT:  
  1 
  The Invisible War – Spies, Ambassadors and Espionage in the Old 
  World 
   
  An Unofficial Supplement for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 
   
  Design and Writing: Janos Honkonen 
   
  Proofreading and Editing: Susi Vaasjoki 
   
  Edition I (29.3.2007) 
   
  Contact: janos(a)iki.fi 
   
  Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo, Warhammer, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the Warhammer fantasy Roleplay logo, 
  Black Industries, Black Inudstries logo, BL Publishing,the BL publishing logo and all associated marks, names, races, race insignia, char-
  acters, vehicles, locations, units, illustrations and images from the Warhammer world are either ®, TM and/or © Copyright Games 
  Workshop Ltd 2000-2007, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. Used without permission. No challenge 
  to their status intended. All Rights Reserved to their respective owners.  
   
  All material found in this supplement is unofficial and in no way endorsed by Games Workshop Ltd. 
   
  The Table of Contents 
   
  Espionage in the Old World....................................................................................................................................... 2 
  The Spy Networks and Their Masters ................................................................................................................... 3 
  New Advanced Career: Spy Masters ....................................................................................................................... 4 
  The Spies of the Old World ...................................................................................................................................... 5 
  Types of Spies ......................................................................................................................................................... 5 
  The Grey College.................................................................................................................................................... 6 
  Ambassadors................................................................................................................................................................. 7 
  New Advanced Career: Ambassadors ...................................................................................................................... 8 
  The Missions............................................................................................................................................................... 9 
  Types of Missions................................................................................................................................................... 9 
  Ciphers and Codes ..................................................................................................................................................... 11 
  Hiding and Obfuscating Messages........................................................................................................................ 11 
  Types of Ciphers................................................................................................................................................... 12 
  Ciphers in the Game.............................................................................................................................................. 13 
  
   
  2 
  Rules for Ciphering and Deciphering.................................................................................................................. 14 
  Cracking Ciphers................................................................................................................................................... 15 
  Creating Ciphers ................................................................................................................................................... 15 
  Ciphers vs. Secret Signs and Languages................................................................................................................ 16 
  Cryptographic Devices.............................................................................................................................................. 17 
  Cipher Disks.......................................................................................................................................................... 17 
  Invisible Inks ......................................................................................................................................................... 17 
  Leonardo’s Complotto-machines.......................................................................................................................... 18 
  Complotto-machines in the Old World .............................................................................................................. 19 
  Adventure Hooks....................................................................................................................................................... 20 
  Sources & Further Reading....................................................................................................................................... 21 
   
  The Empire at War 
   
  Even through the most peaceful eras of its existence 
  the Empire has been waging a constant war unseen and 
  unnoticed by the vast majority of its citizens – a war of 
  espionage, intrigue and diplomacy. This invisible war 
  has both a domestic and international dimension. 
  Every country in the Old World has spies in the 
  prominent courts and trading centres of the other na-
  tions. 
   
  The Empire is relatively isolated from its neighbours 
  by the Grey and Black Mountains. Although the Em-
  pire is a unified country on the Imperial maps and the 
  sermons of Sigmarite priests, in reality it’s a loose 
  commonwealth of small states, which share the same 
  language. There are numerous small wars being waged 
  between the provinces or their noble families. The no-
  ble families, from the lowliest hedge-knights to Elec-
  tors, do their best to come up with excuses for annex-
  ing each others’ territories and fortunes without draw-
  ing the attention of their betters. It takes a strong and 
  determined Emperor to keep the constant bickering 
  and power-play of Electors and lesser nobility from 
  erupting into a major conflict, which might very well 
  splinter the whole Empire into small, autonomous 
  principalities. This was a process that was well on its 
  way at the time of the Incursion of Chaos, and only 
  interrupted when Magnus the Pious appeared just in 
  time to rally the provinces against a common enemy. 
   
   
  Espionage in the Old World 
   
  "Pf-hah! Tilean integrity! If you walk into a room with five Verezzoan courtiers, four of them are spies from other 
  cities and the fifth one is spying for local criminals!" 
   
  - The last official statement of Imperial Ambassador Adalhard von Stimmingen to the Merchant Prince of Verezzo  
   
  The two hotbeds of espionage in the Old World are 
  Tilea and Marienburg. The latter has a high concentra-
  tion of spies mainly because it’s an active port and a 
  trading centre. It is said that Tilea is the birthplace of 
  diplomacy and espionage, which was practiced while 
  people of the Empire were still solving their grudges 
  with battleaxes. Tilea is made up of a collection of 
  autonomous city states run by Merchant Princes, each 
  
   
  3 
  of whom are constantly bickering with their 
  neighbours. Every city state is rife with spies and 
  agents of the other city states, not to mention the crime 
  syndicates and other domestic groups out for trouble, 
  wealth, power, or all of the previous. 
   
  In the Empire there are two areas where espionage and 
  conspiracy abound: Reikland and Averland. Reikland 
  is the richest and most sophisticated province, which 
  also hosts the Emperor's court, so it is an obvious tar-
  get for spies both foreign and domestic. Averland is a 
  different matter. After the death of Elector Count 
  Marius Leitdorf the province has become a private bat-
  tleground for the Leitdorf and Alptraum families. 
  Combined with the infighting of the noble families, 
  Averland has turned into a free-for-all battleground for 
  espionage and conspiracy. The province is a very good 
  place to start for all those shady characters seeking a 
  career in espionage.   
  Espionage by other races either doesn't affect humans 
  at all or uses them as its instruments. Elves and 
  dwarves have their own operations against dark elves 
  and chaos dwarves, of which the human civilizations 
  are only vaguely aware. Espionage between dwarves 
  and elves uses humans as intermediaries, since the ob-
  vious physical differences make any attempts at infil-
  tration and subterfuge impossible. Halflings are a curi-
  ous factor in the espionage community. They make an 
  excellent (although at times unreliable) informants and 
  snitches, but only as long as the money is good. The 
  only thing they get passionate about is the existence, 
  security and integrity of the Moot. This is a cause that 
  unites even the most apolitical halflings into one large 
  family, whose roots are in the Moot. Whenever a po-
  litical situation has a potential to affect the Moot, most 
  prudent politicians become acutely aware of the activi-
  ties of halflings in their staff. 
   
  The Spy Networks and Their Masters 
   
  In the highest ranks of nobility a well functioning – or 
  at least existing – spy network is practically a neces-
  sity. Often the intrigues and plots of Chaos cults are 
  dwarfed in both scope and complexity by the machina-
  tions of the power hungry nobility. They are certainly 
  a more common and immediate threat in the everyday 
  life of nobility than Chaos. All too often the mortal 
  desire for power and the intrigues of Chaos get inter-
  twined. 
   
   
  It goes without saying that the Emperor has a vast spy 
  network at his disposal – or actually two. The Emperor 
  can rely on a network of mundane spies and theoreti-
  cally he can also rely on the Grey College of Magic. 
  The latter is a two-edged sword for the Emperor, as in 
  reality no-one really controls the College but the Col-
  lege itself. All the Elector Counts have their own spy 
  networks and most of the nobility under them have at 
  least some way of gathering intelligence.  
   
  A noble is extremely rarely the leader and organizer of 
  their own spy network. Most members of the nobility 
  are too wrapped up in court intrigue, ruling their es-
  tates or just attending parties and hunting trips to deal 
  with base matters such as spying. Every spy network 
  has a central organizer, a spy master. It is not a title 
  that is actually used in the Old World. There is no pro-
  fession or a government rank called "spy master", 
  there are only very efficient members of the govern-
  ment who tend know more than their peers. Most de 
  facto spymasters would be gravely offended at being 
  called such, instead of by their proper title, unless it’s 
  done in jest between friends and equals. 
   
  A spy master is usually a person relatively high in the 
  regional bureaucracy and close to the ruler. He may be 
  a close advisor of the ruler, a minister of state, the 
  royal secretary, the court priest or even a Magister. 
  The common factor is that spy masters are very inti-
  mately connected with the everyday running of the 
  realm, but also in a high enough position to wield ac-
  tual political and social power. Spy masters commonly 
  have a few trusted lieutenants who deal with most of 
  the actual informants, especially the low level ones, 
  unless the spy master has an exceptionally hands-on 
  approach to his profession.  
  
   
  4 
   
  ––– New Advanced Career: Spy Masters ––– 
   
   
  Description 
   
  Spy Masters are the leaders and organizers of spy net-
  works. Spy Master is not an official post or a title: most 
  Spy Masters lead normal lives as high ranking officials in 
  the government or in some other prestigious position with 
  connections both to high society and to the everyday run-
  ning of the realm. Calling someone Spy Master is deroga-
  tory, and rarely said out aloud. Spy Masters has several 
  trusted lieutenants who handle most of the actual clandes-
  tine business, leaving Spy Masters to organize the big 
  picture. This means that the actual work Spy Masters do 
  is not necessarily very physical. It consists mainly of 
  plotting and organizing, analyzing data, planning opera-
  tions and communicating with lieutenants, politicians and 
  an occasional enemy agent. Some Spy Masters have 
  more of a hand-on approach, especially in the less sophis-
  ticated areas, such as the northern and eastern parts of the 
  Empire and the Border Princes. Often Spy Masters like 
  that have a martial or even criminal background. 
   
   
  ––– Spy Master Advance Scheme ––– 
  Main Profile 
  WS 
  BS 
  S 
  T 
  Ag 
  Int 
  WP 
  Fel 
  – 
  – 
  – 
  +5% 
  – 
  +25% +25% +30% 
  Secondary Profile 
  A 
  W 
  SB 
  TB 
  M 
  Mag 
  IP 
  FP 
  – 
  +2 
  – 
  – 
  – 
  – 
  – 
  – 
   
   
  Skills: Charm, Command, Intimidate, Gossip, Secret 
  Language (any two), Secret Signs (any two), Speak 
  Language (any three), Academic Knowledge (Ci-
  phers), Academic Knowledge (any one) or Streetwise, 
  Common Knowledge (any two), Perception, 
  Read/Write  
   
  Talents: Etiquette, Dealmaker, Schemer, Linguistics, 
  Suave or Menacing, Super Numerate or Seasoned 
  Traveller, Sixth Sense 
   
  Trappings: A spy network with at least two lieuten-
  ants and five spies, a high position in a government, 
  church, cult or criminal organization. 
   
  Career Entries:  Spy, Courtier, Crime Lord, Politi-
  cian, Noble Lord, Guild Master, Wizard (any level), 
  Priest (any level), Ambassador, Envoy  
   
  Career Exits: Spy, Courtier, Crime Lord, Ambassa-
  dor, Guild Master, Demagogue, Noble, Noble Lord 
  Merchant, Envoy, Politician 
   
   
   
   
  
   
  5 
  The Spies of the Old World 
   
  For the vast majority of spies in the Old World spying 
  is more of an one-off assignment or a side job than a 
  career. Most of them are not even called spies and they 
  don't necessarily think that what they do is spying, es-
  pecially in the most basic levels of information gather-
  ing.  
   
  A spy can be just about anybody who is in a situation 
  enabling them to get information considered useful by 
  the spy master. This can be a friendly merchant, a low-
  life who happens to work in the right warehouse, or a 
  teamster who happens to cart the beer to the right 
  manor, etc. People who are in the right place at the 
  right time – from the spy master's point of view – get a 
  visit from people who ask them for a small favour for 
  a person in a high standing (whose name is often left 
  unmentioned, but hinted at). Sometimes it is indeed a 
  simple favour which the prospective spy is happy to do, 
  sometimes a paid assignment, sometimes blatant 
  blackmail. This, of course, offers the GM a very easy 
  way to involve the characters in any espionage related 
  scenario. After all, it's not wise to refuse a clandestine 
  offer originating from an Elector Count… 
   
  Types of Spies 
   
  The following are the typical classes and types of spies 
  in the Old World: 
   
  Snitches: Snitches are low level informants, who are 
  given the task of keeping their ears open, either gener-
  ally or about a certain subject. Snitches are usually 
  found in cities, where they hang around docks, markets, 
  taverns and other places where a lot of people congre-
  gate. They are usually paid in brass or silver for any 
  interesting titbit of information they gather. Most of 
  what they discover is meaningless street gossip, but 
  sometimes snitches turn up valuable information by 
  hanging around the right mercenaries, merchants, 
  squires or high nobility's servants. 
   
  Informants: Informants are like snitches, except they 
  are higher in the society. An informant can be a mer-
  chant, academic, priest or even a noble who is sympa-
  thetic to the spy master or his lord and who is in a 
  situation, which makes him privy to information that is 
  not readily available for the spy master. Informants 
  might be paid for what they do, but quite often they 
  send their information for free, or for some purpose 
  grander than simple monetary gain. They can be a 
  supporter of the same political block or religion as the 
  spy master's lord, and by helping him they help their 
  own cause at the same time. 
   
  Professional spies: Professional spies can be dark sin-
  ister figures, flamboyant nobles, cold professionals, 
  masters of disguise, or anything from the more 
  romanticized lore of espionage. Professional spies are 
  characters who follow the Spy-profession as described 
  in WFRP. They are often a spy master's lieutenants 
  who organize the practical aspects of the spy network, 
  such as getting to know the lay of the land, recruiting 
  people and handling difficult operations which can't be 
  trusted to just anybody. Professional spies walk a thin 
  line. Most attach themselves to one master, which of 
  course carries a risk of falling with the lord or lady. 
  Serving many masters at once is the most dangerous 
  thing one can do – although the money  is good, com-
  ing from many purses, there are equally many people 
  whose secrets you are privy to, and consequently 
  equally many people willing to silence you if things 
  turn bad. Most professional spies serve one lord or 
  lady at a time and switch allegiances only when the 
  situation becomes unbearable. This doesn't prevent 
  them from doing assignments on the side, provided 
  that they don't compromise their lord's agenda. 
   
  
   
  6 
  The Coerced: Sometimes people are flat out coerced, 
  intimidated or blackmailed to act as spies or double 
  agents. Many low level spies who fall into this cate-
  gory are criminals who are given a choice: get a 
  chance to earn some money and get a better life, or go 
  to the jail or worse. Sometimes the mission involves 
  going to a jail as per the sentenced and getting to know 
  prisoners who are known to be involved in bigger 
  schemes and to gain their trust. The payout from this 
  might be more lenient treatment in the prison, or per-
  haps a promise of a new life when they get out, in the 
  form of money, a job or a farm. A special breed of co-
  erced spies are enemy agents, who are usually impris-
  oned, tortured and then given a choice – act as a dou-
  ble agent or suffer a death sentence by hanging till half 
  dead, drawing and quartering. 
   
  The Disaffected and the Zealots: In any given situa-
  tion you can find people in any country and area, who 
  are unhappy with the current rulers and their govern-
  ment. Depending on the strength of their conviction, 
  these disaffected people can be coerced or bribed to 
  take a more active role in changing things. Sometimes 
  they might even volunteer their services. Zealots are a 
  very dangerous but sometimes very effective type of 
  spy. On one hand they can be very impulsive and hard 
  to control, but then again you'll never find a person 
  who's more willing to risk his life for the cause, even 
  going on obvious suicide missions. A common trait 
  with the disaffected and the zealots is their patriotism 
  and loyalty to their country, city or religion. They don't 
  see themselves as spies or traitors to their country, but 
  rather as freedom fighters who aim to overthrow an 
  unjust government. 
   
  The Grey College 
   
  "But what in the end is the Emperor but the coachman and what are the Elector Counts but the wheels of the 
  coach. It is not our mission to see that the driver is fed at the expense of maintaining the wheels, nor that the 
  wheels are oiled and fitted with new rims while the driver goes hungry or the horses are ill cared for. It is our mis-
  sion to see that the whole coach runs smoothly and no rot of the wood and no rot of the mind hampers its pro-
  gress." 
   
  - Agilwardus Kercher, the second Magister Patriarch 
   
  The spy network of the Grey College of Magic is an 
  institution no other human civilization in the Old 
  World has. On the surface this sounds like the Empire 
  should be the dominant power of espionage with its 
  magical spies, who can alter peoples' perceptions and 
  slip unseen into even the most secure places. It's too 
  bad for the Emperor, Electors, the major churches and 
  other power blocks that the Grey Seers steadfastly re-
  fuse to play in their power games, occasionally even 
  oppose them directly. 
   
  As written in Tome of Sorcery, in theory Grey Seers 
  are legally responsible to the Emperor, but in practice 
  no-one is really in control of their actions but the Col-
  lege itself. The agenda of the College is to protect the 
  Empire against the threat of Chaos from the inside. 
  They are expressly forbidden by the College rules to 
  take part in the personal political struggles of the Elec-
  tors and lesser nobility, in order not to destabilize the 
  Empire.  
   
  Since spy networks tend to consist of shady characters, 
  it's inevitable that most networks have members who 
  have some kind of connection with Chaos worshippers 
  and cultists. If a spy network turns too powerful and 
  gets involved in Chaos worship or with proscribed 
  cults, the Grey College might do some pruning. In ex-
  treme cases a spymaster can find half his network 
  mysteriously eliminated overnight by parties unknown, 
  whose stealth, accuracy and efficiency were almost 
  supernatural. 
   
  
   
  7 
  Ambassadors 
   
  “What are the specifics of your mission in here, you ask? Why, you bribe, steal, plot, lie and spy as much as you 
  can while trying to keep your family from starving at home!" 
   
  - Grand Ambassador Burgolf von Stimmingen instructing his young successor 
   
  Ambassadors are a special breed, somewhere in be-
  tween a spy, a spy master and a politician. Most of the 
  nations and important city-states of the Old World 
  strive to have a resident ambassador in the capitals of 
  their relevant neighbours. Within the Empire, all the 
  provinces have a resident plenipotentiary or represen-
  tative in the Emperor’s court and the courts of their 
  most important neighbours.  
   
  An ambassador's post is thankless. The pay is meagre 
  and the ambassador is supposed to maintain his house-
  hold and pay the wages of his retinue. The latter usu-
  ally includes a steward who often acts also as his sec-
  retary, a cook, a master of guard, a priest and some-
  times a physician. Often the ambassador has to pay 
  bribes from his own pocket and then try to requisition 
  the money from his lord. In addition an ambassador is 
  expected to entertain important people regularly, 
  throwing lavish parties. It's not uncommon for an am-
  bassadorial assignment to ruin the poor man finan-
  cially. The most coveted Ambassadorial position is 
  that of Ulthuan, the most feared that of Arabya. Only 
  few ambassadors survive the trip over the Black 
  Mountains, Border Princes and the Black Gulf, which 
  is just a prelude to the dangers of Arabyan politics. 
   
  An ambassador's job involves lying, spying, stealing 
  and bribing, often quite shamelessly. Bribing is quite 
  often a standard procedure, an accepted and traditional 
  part of doing politics. In addition to negotiating pacts 
  and agreements and advocating agendas, gathering and 
  relaying information that is important to his home 
  country or lord is an important part of ambassador's 
  job. This is quite often flat out espionage. The ambas-
  sador himself is often under close scrutiny, especially 
  if the political situation is tense, so he has to use his 
  underlings to get things done. In practice an ambassa-
  dor has local a spy network of his own.  
   
  An ambassador's retinue has one of more members 
  who are versed with the latest innovations in ciphering 
  and spiriting messages out of the country. In theory 
  ambassadorial mail is protected by diplomatic immu-
  nity, but in practise most ambassadorial mail is rou-
  tinely intercepted, read, withheld and sometimes al-
  tered by the host, if it suits their political agenda. Be-
  cause of this, all but the most trivial of ambassadorial 
  mail is sent in cipher. Tampering with the mail is an 
  unspoken fact, but openly accusing the host of reading 
  ambassadorial mail can lead to various outcomes, de-
  pending on the circumstances. It can be used as a pre-
  text for war or breaking an alliance or a contract, or the 
  complaint might be ignored, ridiculed or buried in bu-
  reaucracy.  
   
  An ambassador can be accused of spying when it is 
  politically suitable and the case is clear cut. Imprison-
  ing or executing an ambassador is equal to a declara-
  tion of war, so usually only the actual perpetrators are 
  punished and the ambassador is banished from the 
  realm, perhaps after a period of home arrest. Of course, 
  on his way home, the ambassador can be set upon by a 
  group of highwaymen, pirates or Beastmen…
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
   
  8 
   
  ––– New Advanced Career: Ambassadors ––– 
   
   
  Description 
   
  Ambassadors are the representatives of rulers and their 
  realm in foreign countries and courts. Their mission is to 
  represent their lord's interests abroad and also relay news 
  and sensitive information back home. An Ambassador 
  may be a plenipotentiary invested with the full authority 
  of his lord to make deals and to negotiate, or he may be 
  just a representative who can only follow specific orders. 
  An Ambassador has to pay for upkeep of his house and 
  his staff, which usually takes more than the Ambassador's 
  pay. The Ambassador might receive regular funds for re-
  cruiting spies and informers, but at least some of their 
  pay comes from his own purse. Additionally he has to 
  entertain prominent people and shower the relevant offi-
  cials with bribes. All of this takes a lot of money. There-
  fore collecting bribes is a major source of income for 
  Ambassadors. The work Ambassadors do can also be 
  physically taxing because of the all the travel, foreign 
  diseases and social activities, such as hunting trips. 
  Sometimes the trip to the target country or province may 
  be fraught with peril. For example only two out of three 
  Imperial Ambassadors arrive in Arabya alive, though not 
  necessarily in good health.  
   
   
  ––– Ambassador Advance Scheme ––– 
  Main Profile 
  WS BS 
  S 
  T 
  Ag 
  Int 
  WP 
  Fel 
  – 
  – 
  – 
  +10% 
  – 
  +20% +20% +25% 
  Secondary Profile 
  A 
  W 
  SB 
  TB 
  M 
  Mag 
  IP 
  FP 
  – 
  +3 
  – 
  – 
  – 
  – 
  – 
  – 
   
   
  Skills: Charm, Blather, Gossip, Speak Language (any 
  four), Academic Knowledge (Ciphers), Academic 
  Knowledge (Heraldry), Academic Knowledge (any 
  one) or Gamble, Common Knowledge (The ambassa-
  dor's home region), Common Knowledge (any two), 
  Perception, Read/Write, Intimidate or Consume Al-
  cohol  
   
  Talents: Etiquette, Dealmaker, Schemer, Linguistics, 
  Suave, Seasoned Traveller, Luck or Resistance to Poi-
  son, Public Speaking  
   
  Trappings: A retinue consisting of a Steward, a Ser-
  vant (cook), a Bodyguard/Watchman and a Priest or 
  an Initiate, an ambassadorial post granted by a ruler 
  of the realm. 
   
  Career Entries:  Spy, Courtier, Politician, Noble, No-
  ble Lord, Guild Master, Wizard (any level), Priest 
  (any level), Spy Master  
   
  Career Exits: Spy, Courtier, Spy Master, Guild Mas-
  ter, Demagogue, Noble, Noble Lord Merchant, Crime 
  Lord, Politician 
   
   
   
   
   
  
   
  9 
   
  The Missions 
   
  "So, this is my plan. First I have a little chat with Father Germund, who is relaying the usurper's messages to his 
  father in his cell in The Tower of Altdorf. The message is hidden in the bookmarks of his prayer books. The 
  usurper pays Germund well, but I know some things about the good Father's past that are better than a barrel of 
  Karls to get his attention. So, I get him to show the message before he delivers it, I copy it and deliver it to you and 
  your cipher-readers, my lord. Yes, I know how he gets the reply out. The father throws the message from his cell 
  window to a honey wagon driver called Fynn, who takes it out to the courier, who then rides to Talabheim. The 
  courier is a different person every time, so it complicates the situation. I guess silver will make Fynn slow down his 
  rounds a bit, so you'll get an hour or two to inspect the reply and alter it as you please, my lord." 
   
  - Leon Einaugen, a lieutenant to His Lordship ––––, the humble servant of His High Majesty, The Grand Prince 
  and Protector of  ––––, etc. the Elector Count of ––––. 
   
  Most spy masters work autonomously, getting explicit 
  approval from their lord or lady only for the most dras-
  tic operations. In a sense the spy network is like any 
  part of the government, working in the interest of the 
  ruler and the realm. The ruler is mostly interested in 
  the bottom line, the results the spy network produces. 
  Often it's only good that the ruler doesn't know every 
  detail of every operation. 
   
  The spy master chooses suitable lieutenants to handle 
  the practical details of the operation, only rarely in-
  volving himself in the actual missions. The only situa-
  tions where most spy masters like to get involved per-
  sonally are high-level interrogations and coercions. 
  Most high-level spy masters are known by the con-
  spirators and agents of the other side, so their presence 
  adds a lot of weight to the "negotiations". 
   
  Types of Missions 
   
  Spying is not just sneaking into peoples' studies, steal-
  ing scrolls and slipping poison into enemies' goblets. 
  The following are the most common types of missions: 
   
  Information gathering: News travel extremely slowly 
  in the Old World. If Altdorf burned down or the Em-
  peror died, it would take a week for the information to 
  reach every important city in the Empire, carried by 
  messenger pigeons and couriers who would leave a 
  trail or dead and exhausted horses. It would take at 
  least an additional week for the information to reach 
  the heads of the neighbouring states, probably two. 
  Most news travels across the Empire and over the bor-
  ders in a matter of months, relayed by merchants, sail-
  ors and other folk whose trade involves travelling.  
   
  Most of Old World spying would be called "news" in 
  the modern world. Information gathering is mostly 
  done by ambassadors and people sympathetic to the 
  spy master or his lord. They send letters with informa-
  tion of the latest notable events, such as noble births or 
  deaths, major crimes, disasters, civil unrest or jubila-
  tion, whatever they deem to be interesting and mean-
  ingful. In a world where news travels at the speed of 
  the fastest horse and the most motivated and lucky 
  messenger, relaying information like this is invaluable. 
  Information gathering can also be pretty straightfor-
  ward scouting and military intelligence: determining 
  the amount of men, guns and ships the enemy has and 
  relaying the information back home. 
   
  
   
  10 
  Sedition and Sabotage: It is common to build up un-
  rest by sending Agitators and Demagogues to enemy 
  territory to incite unrest. This is often done with libels, 
  short flyer-like texts, which are easily distributed, very 
  polemic and usually offensive to the point of being 
  treasonous. A printing press is still relatively hard to 
  come by and printers are very careful of what they 
  print to protect their reputation and livelihood. It's very 
  dangerous to presume that the libels can be printed in 
  the target territory. Usually libels are printed in ad-
  vance and smuggled to the target area. 
   
  Assassination: The vast majority of successful assas-
  sinations are suicide attacks. The conspirators have to 
  find someone who is fanatical or crazy enough to do 
  the deed and who doesn’t mind losing his life in the 
  process – not to mention the days or weeks of torture 
  which might precede it. Assassins who make a point of 
  surviving the deed are a rare, respected and wanted 
  breed. The handfuls of people who can do this repeat-
  edly end up as more or less legendary figures, who 
  might be known by their nom de guerre or a calling 
  card they leave with their victims. They are the charac-
  ters who follow the WFRP career Assassin. 
   
  Infiltration and Recruiting: Most of the important 
  courts of the Old World are swarming with spies, who 
  may be anything from nobles to the lowliest servants. 
  Infiltration and recruiting go hand in hand. Sometimes 
  the spy is the infiltrator, sometimes he has to find a 
  suitable person, who can be introduced to the target's 
  household, court, academic circle etc. This can be a 
  dissatisfied or badly indebted nobleman, who can visit 
  the target without suspicion, a commoner who is a 
  member of the target’s staff, a prospective employee 
  or a member of the target's preferred sex, whose mis-
  sion is one of seduction. Often the task of the spy is to 
  find and recruit smugglers who can spirit in libels, 
  agents, spies or agitators. 
   
  Stealing and intercepting documents: Most govern-
  ments in the Old World don't have a centralized ar-
  chive of documents. Instead, every minister or other 
  functionary keeps all the contracts, letters and other 
  paperwork relevant to his work at his house. Some-
  times the documents are stored in multiple locations, at 
  times even abroad. Often these documents are the only 
  proof of a contract, or they might contain information 
  about the agents or ciphers used in other missions. 
   
  An average spy can steal a document, a good spy can 
  read it without the owner noticing it, but it takes a 
  great spy to steal, alter and return a document without 
  the courier, sender and recipient noticing that anything 
  is amiss. Generally a spy can't do everything by him-
  self, so he has to bribe, hire and blackmail other people 
  to work for him. If the courier himself is above bribery 
  or coercion, he might get drugged by a bribed inn-
  keeper, after which the message is stolen and returned 
  in the dark of the night with the courier none the wiser. 
  A spy may have to hire a forger of documents, an an-
  other forger who can open, close and copy seals, and if 
  he's not adept in ciphers and secret signs himself, 
  someone to check for invisible ink and other ways of 
  marking letters as genuine. The most important mes-
  sages might be sealed in a large locked chest too big to 
  carry away or maybe a lead pipe which is welded shut. 
  All these are complications which require experts and 
  special talent – such as the player characters.
   
   
  
   
  11 
  Ciphers and Codes 
   
  "If you know that an enemy has cracked your cipher, do not abandon it. Use it instead to send some unimportant 
  despatches, which do no harm if they are intercepted by the enemy. Use good, solid ciphers for important informa-
  tion, but then again – if you are sure that no harm will come from it, send some solid information unciphered and 
  some with a cracked cipher. Don't forget to also send complete nonsense using all kinds of ciphers. If you do this 
  correctly, the opposition will go crazy trying to distinguish important messages from diversions." 
   
  - Imperial Plenipotentiary Hannes Herbort Kempster von Delbertz 
   
  Most of the intelligence relayed by spies and agents is 
  not transmitted as a plain letter or document which 
  anybody can read, but enciphered and often carefully 
  concealed. In a world where only a small minority can 
  read and write fluently and comfortably, ciphers tend 
  to be very simple by the modern day standards.  
   
  Practically all ciphers used by spies are simple substi-
  tution systems, where each letter is replaced by an-
  other one, or by a symbol. When spaces are omitted in 
  between the words, this makes most ciphers incompre-
  hensible to the vast majority of literate people of the 
  Old World. The state of the art is much higher, espe-
  cially in Araby, Tilea and Ulthuan. Advanced ciphers 
  are very rarely used in ordinary espionage and intrigue.  
   
  Spy masters are not necessarily masters of ciphering 
  and deciphering themselves, so they employ people 
  who are. Knowledge of ciphers is a dangerous thing to 
  confess, unless you are an academic, a priest, a Magis-
  ter or involved in the workings of the government. 
  Otherwise, if you are caught in possession of enci-
  phered texts or evidence of knowledge of ciphering 
  techniques, you better have a very good explanation 
  ready. Apart from the government, churches, Colleges 
  and the academics, the only people who are adept at 
  ciphering are enemy agents and Chaos cults. In a 
  world where reading and writing is a half-mystical 
  skill for most of the inhabitants, written text is consid-
  ered to hold a lot of power. The ability to hide mes-
  sages in written text is often seen as suspect and a kind 
  of magic – and not the barely tolerated kind. 
   
  Hiding and Obfuscating Messages 
   
  “Sir, we finally found the message the courier was carrying! No, we didn’t get him to confess. A… how you say… 
  a real tough bugger, that one. Kept his silence right up to the end. But this you want to hear, sir.  It looks like they 
  shaved him, tattooed the darned message on his skin and let the hair grow back! …his head? Why would I bring 
  his… Oh.  Sir, they didn't shave the hair on his head...” 
   
  - Mercenary Captain Clodio de Roussillion , back from interrogating an enemy agent 
   
  There are two approaches to hiding a message: enci-
  phering and steganography. Enciphering means mak-
  ing the text hard to understand, steganography makes 
  it hard to notice. In practice enciphering a text means 
  encrypting it, steganography means hiding it somehow, 
  for example in another text or picture, which seems 
  innocent in itself. 
  Ciphers are the stereotypical secret writing. An enci-
  phered message is readily seen to be such: a nonsensi-
  cal jumble of letters, words or weird symbols. Every 
  cipher has a key, which is used in both enciphering the 
  text and deciphering it. Usually it's a document listing 
  the relationships in between real letters and words and 
  the codes used in the cipher: A=5, B=G, D=9, Tod-
  
   
  12 
  bringer=15, The Emperor=99. Each cipher is like a 
  different language and each key is useful for only one 
  cipher, unless someone was stupid enough to use parts 
  of an old cipher in a new one. 
   
  Whereas enciphering is very technical, involving com-
  plicated systems of symbols, steganography can be 
  very physical. A message can be carved on wood and 
  covered with wax, which the recipient melts away. The 
  message can be relayed by placing a piece of string 
  over lines of text in a book and marking the places of 
  the letters that spell out the message on the string with 
  ink or knots. To a casual observer it's just a piece of 
  string, but the recipient, provided that he has the same 
  book, can align the string with the copy of the book 
  and read the message. The same system can be used by 
  making holes to a sheet of wood or paper. When the 
  sheet is placed on a certain page of a certain book, the 
  holes reveal certain letters or words, which spell out 
  the message. A message can be written with invisible 
  ink in between the lines of a completely innocent letter, 
  or it might be even tattooed in the body of the messen-
  ger. 
   
  Messages can be hidden in musical scores by using 
  notes to denote letters. The notes might look authentic 
  and innocent, but when played, they don't make any 
  sense. The truly masterful can write music based ci-
  phers which can be actually played. 
  Types of Ciphers 
   
  "It is ridiculous, the ciphers the Imperial officials use. They are not fit but for cattle herds and fishwives and 
  thieves' cants! Just last month I heard the Grand Prince of ––––– brag that none but the Lords of Chaos can read 
  his ciphers. But, for a fact I know that his silly scribblings have been studied and archived in the churches of 
  Verena and the Court of the Emperor for nigh fifteen years. As a matter of fact, I have deciphered them myself for 
  the last five years, for the greater glory of Sigmar. I have tried to get the Imperial court's cipherers  to consider 
  using this ingenious cipher I have uncovered by my studies of 20th century Arabyan writings, but Father, they are 
  insistent of staying in their old ways. I am despairing, my Holy Highness." 
   
  - Herdeinus Telfair, The Professor of Arabyan and Nehekharan Studies  
   
  Every cipher is unique, but they can be divided into 
  three types: simple, common and advanced. This level 
  of complexity determines how long it takes to crack or 
  create the cipher. Each cipher has also a Skill Test dif-
  ficulty level associated with it. The relevant skill, 
  Academic Knowledge (Ciphers), is described in 
  Rules for Ciphering and Deciphering. The difficulty 
  of the Skill Test is determined when creating the ci-
  pher, so one Common cipher may require an Average 
  difficulty Skill Test to crack, a slightly better one a 
  Hard one, and so forth. If ciphers were weapons, the 
  complexity would indicate if you are dealing with a 
  sling, a bow or a blunderbuss, and the associated diffi-
  culty level indicates the craftsmanship of the weapon. 
   
  Simple cipher (Routine +10): This is the most basic 
  form of a cipher, where every letter of every word is 
  substituted with another letter or a symbol, which is 
  always the same. Additionally the spaces in between 
  the words often remain, or are visible from the text. A 
  Simple cipher is completely incomprehensible to an 
  average Old World reader, but a reasonably smart aca-
  demic, cleric or Magister will solve it in an afternoon.  
   
  Common cipher (Average +0% – Hard -20%): This 
  type of substitution cipher is the most commonly used 
  way of keeping important political documents from 
  prying eyes. There are far better systems, but ciphers 
  of this level are just hard enough to crack and just easy 
  enough to use to be practical.  In this system, sentences 
  are written without spaces in between the words, some 
  letters can be written with more than one symbol, and 
  some symbols denote whole words. Typically names 
  of people and places are replaced by symbols, along 
  with some common words (the, and, what, who) and 
  some very revealing words (The Emperor, The Grand 
  
   
  13 
  Theogonist, Tzeentch, etc.). Without a key, the mean-
  ing of these symbols has to be deduced from the con-
  text. Some common ciphers use several simple substi-
  tution alphabets at the same time, changing from one 
  to another for example every five letters. 
   
  Advanced cipher (Very Hard -30%): Advanced ci-
  phers are virtually unknown in the Empire, but they 
  are known and occasionally used in Araby, Tilea and 
  by the High Elves. Advanced ciphers have multiple 
  layers of obfuscation. They may be simple or common 
  ciphers, which are written in a strange way. And ex-
  ample of an advanced cipher is writing a common ci-
  pher in the form of a square of letters. The text is writ-
  ten vertically, the first line from the top to the bottom, 
  the second one from the bottom to the top, and so forth. 
  If the message doesn't form a nice cube, the rest of the 
  space is filled with random letters. After this all the 
  horizontal lines are combined in one continuous line.  
  For example, the sentence “This evening we will meet 
  by the old oak” would be enciphered as follows. Start 
  reading down from the top left corner, up the next col-
  umn and so forth.  
   
  TWETHW 
  HGWYEY 
  INIBOT 
  SILTLH 
  ENLEDK 
  VEMEOA 
   
  Since the letters don't form a nice five by five square, 
  the rest of the space is filled by nonsense letters H, T, 
  Y and W. When this is done, the horizontal lines are 
  written together, resulting in a cipher, which is very 
  hard to analyze: 
  TWETHWHGWYEYINIBOTSILTLHENLEDKVEMEOA.  
  The last step is to substitute the letters with symbols.
  Ciphers in the Game 
   
  To avoid confusion about what ciphers the players 
  have cracked or have the key to, every cipher should 
  be named or identified in some other way. Deciphering 
  messages by hand is methodical, time consuming and 
  deathly dull business, so it doesn't really offer a lot of 
  material for role-playing. If the players like solving 
  puzzles, the GM could have them crack a message us-
  ing a simple substitution by hand. To make it easy, the 
  GM could reveal the players a few words or letters and 
  maybe hint that certain words are probably used in the 
  message. Quite often it's better for the flow of the 
  game to handle ciphering and deciphering messages 
  with a Skill Test.  
   
  Spotting hidden messages and devising ways to do it 
  can offer a lot of fun for the players. If the GM likes 
  manufacturing props, such as letters, the knotted string 
  and book based message (see Hiding and Obfuscat-
  ing Messages) could be a great thing to give to the 
  players to solve. Alternatively hiding and discovering 
  a message can be a simple Opposed Skill Test between 
  the Academic Knowledge (Ciphers) skills of the 
  sender and the reader. In some cases the person who is 
  trying to find a hidden message can use his Search 
  skill instead (with GM's permission).  
   
  A great way to give players something to think about 
  is to use messages with a lot of code words. A secret 
  message can be disguised as for example a shipping 
  manifest, where "a delivery of 400 chicken" means 
  that 400 enemies have died in battle, the word "har-
  bourmaster" could mean the enemy commander, and 
  so on. Cracking codes like this is much more fun and 
  rewarding for the players than letter-based puzzles, 
  which ciphers tend to be. 
   
  Although it would be realistic for every suspicious let-
  ter and document to be written in cipher, the GM must 
  be careful not to overuse ciphers in the game. If every 
  letter and note cultists and criminals lose is written in 
  cipher which the characters can't read, it will get old 
  very fast.  If used sparingly ciphers will retain their 
  atmosphere of mystery and high intrigue.   
  
   
  14 
  Rules for Ciphering and Deciphering 
   
  "Hello mate! I got it, now pick up your lute and we'll try this out. If we get this right, no-one will understand the 
  messages we send, you'll just come to the tavern and play me a little song! Sooo... This says that you should use 
  this hex-eh-gourd system, bugger me if I know what that means. Then there's a whole bunch of those musical 
  notes of yours and rules. If you play a note called Alamire and Colfaut next to each other, it's the letter A, and 
  Cfaut and Gsolreut, it's like G, and so on. Here, try it out. Play my name! …oh bugger, that sounds awful! Are 
  you sure you can play that thing?" 
   
  - Wecelo Schyuler, a Nulnian conman      
   
  Most of the situations that require ciphering and deci-
  phering messages or devising new ciphers is handled 
  by the following new skill: 
   
  New Skill: Academic Knowledge (Ciphers)  
   
  Skill Type: Advanced 
  Characteristic: Intelligence 
  Description: This skill encompasses the knowledge of 
  how to hide messages from prying eyes and how 
  to cipher and decipher them. This skill can only 
  be taken if the character can read and write. It is 
  available to all the careers with the skill option 
  Academic Knowledge (any one/two/etc.). It is 
  added to list of available skills for Assassins, 
  Crime Lords, Cult Acolytes and Magi (ToC pp. 
  67–77) Envoys, Heralds, Spies, Politicians, 
  Warlocks (ToS p. 131). Noble Lords can take 
  this skill as an alternative to History or Strat-
  egy/Tactics, Demagogues as an alternative to 
  Law and Witch Hunters as an alternative to 
  Academic Knowledge (Necromancy). 
  Related Talent: Super Numerate grants +10% bonus 
  to Academic Knowledge (Ciphers) Skill Tests 
  made to create or crack a cipher. 
   
   
  You can assume that everybody with the skill Aca-
  demic Knowledge (Ciphers) and access to the cipher 
  key can automatically read and write a message using 
  a cipher. A person without the skill, who has an access 
  to the cipher key and who can read and write fluently, 
  has to succeed in a Read/Write-test with difficulty 
  level appropriate to the cipher. Every degree that the 
  Skill Test is missed means that one fifth of the mes-
  sage is garbled or misunderstood – either words or let-
  ters, depending on how meticulous the GM feels.  
   
  If speed is of the essence, the basic rate of reading 
  Simple and Common ciphers using a key is three 
  words per minute and writing two words per minute. 
  With an Advanced cipher the reading and writing rate 
  is one word per minute. A character who is reading or 
  writing a cipher in a hurry has to make a Skill Test us-
  ing his Academic Knowledge (Ciphers) skill or half 
  of his Read/Write skill, modified by the difficulty of 
  the cipher. Every degree of success adds one word to 
  the reading and writing rate per minute. Every degree 
  the Skill Test is missed also adds one word to the read-
  ing and writing rate, but additionally it garbles one 
  fifth of the message (either the handwriting is illegible 
  or the cipher was misapplied). 
   
  A person can learn a Simple cipher alphabet by heart, 
  after which he doesn't need the key or any Skill Tests 
  to read and write messages using the cipher. He can 
  read and write it as well as any normal text. A charac-
  ter has to study and practice the cipher for 2d10 hours, 
  after which he can roll an Intelligence Test. If the Test 
  is passed, the character has learned the cipher in ques-
  tion by heart, if it fails, the character has to study it for 
  another d10 hours before making the Test again. If it's 
  not used in a long time, it will be forgotten eventually. 
  On GM's discretion the time spent reading and writing 
  letters that use the cipher can count as studying. 
   
   
  
   
  15 
  Cracking Ciphers 
   
  "Bahh, is this what the Grand Theogonist calls a cipher nowadays. This is just a simple substitution cipher, A’s 
  for B’s and so on. I have no doubt I have this message deciphered to you by... say, dinnertime?" 
   
  - Theodosius Hahn, Magister and the Master of Ciphers of the College of Light 
   
  When the characters run across an enciphered text they 
  can't read, they may try to crack the code instead of 
  trying to obtain the key. As pointed out earlier, Simple 
  ciphers can be given for the players to crack by hand. 
  More complex ciphers take a lot of work, and for vast 
  majority of players puzzling over them will be an ex-
  tremely efficient way to suck the fun out of the game. 
  Usually it's better to have the characters crack ciphers 
  with a Skill Test. 
   
  A character has to study the ciphered text for some 
  time before he can make an Academic Knowledge 
  (Ciphers) Skill Test modified by the difficulty of the 
  cipher. The time required depends on the complexity 
  of the cipher. Simple ciphers have to be studied for 
  d10 hours, Common ciphers for 2d10 weeks and Ad-
  vanced ciphers for 2d10 months (or much longer at 
  GM's discretion) before the Skill Test can be made. 
  Common and Advanced ciphers have to be studied 
  eight hours per day on the average, but the study time 
  doesn't have to be uninterrupted.  
   
  After the time has passed, the character has reached a 
  potential breakthrough and he may make the Skill Test. 
  If the Test is a success, the character has figured out 
  the key and he can use to it read and write the cipher. 
  If it's a failure, the character has to study the cipher for 
  another period of time, the length of which is rolled 
  according to the complexity of the cipher, before he 
  can try the Skill Test again. A GM may limit the 
  amount of Skill Tests per cipher to three, after which 
  the character has to gain another +10 advancement to 
  his skill before he can try again.  
   
  Since Common and Advanced ciphers have symbols 
  that denote whole words, some of them may be impos-
  sible to deduce from the context. This decision is left 
  for the GM. Having documents mention mysterious 
  unidentified people, whose identities the characters 
  have to figure out, has great potential for role-playing. 
   
  Note about realism: In role-playing games ciphers and 
  encryption tend to be very fast to crack. In the real 
  world some medieval ciphers resisted the efforts of 
  pre-computer era cryptographers for centuries before 
  being cracked. Such time spans are beyond the scope 
  of most campaigns and scenarios – even 2d10 weeks 
  might be pushing it. The times given this article are 
  intended to be long enough to make hunting for the 
  cipher keys a very tempting idea – which leads to 
  much more interesting play than a Skill Test – but 
  short enough that the players might consider doing it 
  the hard and boring way. 
   
  Creating Ciphers 
   
  Creating a cipher requires a successful Academic 
  Knowledge (Ciphers) Skill Test. First the character 
  has to decide the complexity of the cipher he's creating. 
  A Simple cipher takes d10/2 hours to create and a 
  Common one takes d10 days. Creating an Advanced 
  cipher requires an Intelligence score of 50 or more 
  and it takes d10 weeks to perfect. Usually only those 
  characters who are Academics, Magisters or familiar 
  with Arabyan or High Elf cultures can come up with 
  an Advanced cipher. In the end this is up to the GM.  
  
   
  16 
  The difficulty level for the Skill Test is Routine (+10%) 
  for a Simple cipher, Average (-0%) for a Common ci-
  pher and Hard (-20%) for an Advanced cipher. 
   
  If the character gained two degrees of success or more 
  when creating a Simple cipher, he has succeeded ex-
  ceptionally well and he has actually created a Common 
  cipher with a difficulty level of Average – unless, of 
  course, he was intentionally creating a weak cipher.  
   
  When creating a Common cipher a successful Skill 
  Test means an Average (-0%) difficulty cipher has 
  been created. Two degrees of success results in a Chal-
  lenging (-10%) cipher and four degrees in a Hard (-
  20%) cipher. The more successful the Skill Test, the 
  more difficult the resulting cipher is to crack. 
   
  Kurt wants to create a Common cipher.  He rolls d10 
  and gets a 4, so creating the cipher takes four days. 
  Kurt's Intelligence is 48. He makes an Academic 
  Knowledge (Ciphers) Skill Test and rolls 21, getting 
  two degrees of success. He has created a Common ci-
  pher, which takes a Challenging (–10%) Skill Test to 
  crack. 
   
  If the Skill Test fails, the character was either unable 
  to come up with a cipher or his cipher has a flaw that 
  makes it easy to crack – whichever result the GM likes 
  more. A flawed cipher appears to be strong, but when 
  it is being cracked, the cipher is treated as one com-
  plexity level lower (Common becomes Simple, Ad-
  vanced becomes Common). A flawed Simple cipher is 
  very easy to crack. The difficulty of the Skill Test is 
  Very Easy (+30%) and it takes only 3d10 minutes to 
  crack it.   
   
  Although it’s relatively easy to come up with a new 
  cipher, they are surprisingly rarely changed. Deliver-
  ing the cipher keys to spies and agents and teaching 
  everybody the new cipher is risky and such a hassle, 
  that it's usually done only for a very good reason. Usu-
  ally there has to be evidence or a very strong suspicion 
  that the cipher has been compromised.  
   
   
  Ciphers vs. Secret Signs and Languages 
   
  Is there anything in common between ciphers and secret 
  signs and languages? Usually not a thing. Secret Signs 
  are mostly just that – signs, icons and pictograms, which 
  can be carved on a tree, doorframe or a dead enemy's 
  chest. Secret Languages on the other hand are spoken 
  communication. They may consist of code words and 
  expressions hidden in an innocent sounding sentence or 
  they can be cants like pig latin which sound complete 
  and obvious nonsense to those who don't know them. 
  Ciphers on the other hand are a mathematical or sym-
  bolic systems used to hide a message written in another 
  language. You can of course write down a message in 
  thieves' cant and cipher it, which is how some high level 
  members of some of thieves' guilds handle their com-
  munication. 
   
   
   
  
   
  17 
  Cryptographic Devices 
   
  Cipher Disks 
   
  Some ciphers use simple or complex devices, such as 
  cipher disks, which make ciphers stronger or easier to 
  change. A cipher disk consists of two disks, one a bit 
  smaller than another, attached in the middle so they 
  can rotate around a common axis. The ordinary alpha-
  bet is written on the rim of one of the disks, the corre-
  sponding codes on the rim of the other, so that the let-
  ters and the corresponding symbols line up next to 
  each other. Rotating the disks changes the symbols 
  that correspond with each letter. Cipher disks are cut-
  ting edge technology in the Empire and most other 
  human cultures. 
   
  Essentially a cipher disk is just a cipher key, but one 
  which can be easily changed. The sender and recipient 
  might initially agree that for the first message the disks 
  should be aligned so that the letter A corresponds with 
  number one, B with two and so on. If the code is com-
  promised, the sender could add a secret symbol to the 
  beginning of the message, which tells the recipient to 
  rotate one of the disks five positions clockwise. In the 
  new code the letter A would correspond with the num-
  ber five, B with number six and so on. When using ci-
  pher disks, a different cipher can be used for every 
  message without penalties. The ciphers have to be 
  cracked one by one. 
   
  Ordinary cipher disks can contain only a Simple ci-
  phers, which are created as described in Creating Ci-
  phers. Designing a Common cipher that can be used 
  with a Cipher makes the difficulty of the Skill Test 
  Very Hard (-30%). If the Skill Test fails, the character 
  just couldn't come up with a Common cipher that 
  could be used with a cipher disk.  
   
  Manufacturing the disk requires a successful Trade 
  (Woodworking, Smith, Goldsmith, etc.) -roll de-
  pending on the materials.  
   
  By studying cracked ciphers created with the disk, it's 
  possible to deduce the order of symbols and letters on 
  the disks and make a copy of the device. The person 
  trying to figure out how the disk is made needs at least 
  two cracked ciphers that are created with it. Figuring 
  out how the disk is made requires a successful Aca-
  demic Knowledge (Ciphers) Skill Test and takes d10 
  days. The difficulty level when using two ciphers is 
  Very Hard (–30%), but for each additional cracked ci-
  pher the difficulty falls by one, until it becomes Rou-
  tine (+10%). If the Skill Test is a success, the deci-
  pherer has figured out how the disk is made and he can 
  make a copy of it. After this he can decipher messages 
  created with it as if he had the key.  
  Invisible Inks 
   
  There are several known methods of making invisible 
  inks, which require chemicals, heat or other factors to 
  become visible again. For simplicity's sake the skill 
  Academic Knowledge (Ciphers) encompasses both 
  the knowledge about invisible inks and the skill to cre-
  ate and detect them. If you want more realism, you 
  might require that the character has also the skill 
  Trade (Apothecary), or that he has an access to such 
  person, especially when manufacturing the ink. In any 
  case, inventing, manufacturing and detecting an invisi-
  ble ink requires Apothecary's tools and suitable ingre-
  dients. The quality (i.e. availability) of the ingredients 
  is determined by the inventor of the ink. The person 
  who's trying to detect the ink has to buy ingredients of 
  an equal level of availability – you can't detect a mes-
  sage written with Rare ingredients by experimenting 
  
   
  18 
  with Abundant ingredients. Abundant–Plentiful ingre-
  dients cost 3d10 pennies, Common–Average 3d10 
  shillings and Scarce–Very Rare 2d10 GC per a dose of 
  ink, which is good for about 10 pages of text. 
   
  Inventing a new type of invisible ink requires ingredi-
  ents and a successful Academic Knowledge (Ciphers) 
  Skill Test. The creator of the ink has to decide the 
  method used in making the message visible again. It 
  might be dousing it with a certain chemical (such as 
  water, fruit juice or something far more complicated), 
  applying heat or leaving the message in sunlight. The 
  Skill Test to detect the ink is an Opposed one, so note 
  the degree of success of the Skill Test made when in-
  venting the ink. Once the ink is invented, anybody who 
  has access to the formula can manufacture it by acquir-
  ing the ingredients and succeeding in an Academic 
  Knowledge (Ciphers) or a Trade (Apotechary) Skill 
  Test. 
   
  If the Skill Test made to invent an ink is a failure, the 
  formula is faulty and one fifth per degree of failure of 
  any message written using it becomes unreadable to 
  the recipient. On GM's discretion the message might 
  become visible by itself during transport or fail to ap-
  pear at all. If the manufacturing roll fails, this applies 
  only to the currently manufactured dose of the ink. 
  Because of these effects, GM might want to make the 
  Skill Tests for inventing and manufacturing inks in 
  secret. 
   
  If the recipient of the message knows the procedure to 
  make the message visible again, he can do it automati-
  cally by acquiring the relevant ingredients. Supplies 
  are not needed if the method is heat, light, or some 
  other non-chemical factor. You can assume that the 
  recipient has an automatic access to enough of most 
  Abundant–Average ingredients to make the ink visible 
  pretty much anywhere – although it might be fun to 
  make the characters try and find fresh lemon juice in 
  middle of the winter or cow urine during an Electoral 
  feast to read their urgent orders.  
   
  If the recipient doesn't know what kind of ink was used, 
  he must experiment with different methods, using in-
  gredients of the same availability or rarer than were 
  used when inventing the ink. If the character doesn't 
  know how sophisticated the ingredients were, he just 
  has to guess. Revealing a hidden ink requires an Op-
  posed Academic Knowledge (Ciphers) Skill Test 
  against the inventor of the ink. If the Skill Test is a 
  success and the ingredients used were of the same 
  level or rarer than those used in making the ink, the ink 
  is made visible. If the ingredients were more common, 
  the message fails to appear. If the Skill Test is a failure, 
  every degree it was missed by destroys a cumulative 
  one fifth of the message. The character can make as 
  many attempts as he wishes.  So, if two Skill Tests 
  were made and one was missed by two degrees and the 
  other by three degrees, the whole message is unread-
  able. 
   
  Note about realism: Using the availability of ingredi-
  ents as the main factor in determining how to detect 
  invisible inks is an abstraction made to simplify the 
  game. If the GM feels meticulous enough, he can use 
  specific ingredients, he might decide that an ink de-
  signed to respond to lemon juice will respond to vine-
  gar and other mildly acidic substances, and so on. 
  Leonardo’s Complotto-machines 
   
  There are few real cryptographic machines in the Old 
  World. The best known of them being Leonardo da 
  Miragliano’s Complotto machines, whose code has 
  thus far defied all attempts at deciphering. They were 
  Leonardo’s only foray in designing cryptographic sys-
  tems, one which he invented to amuse himself while 
  recuperating from an accident involving a siege ma-
  chine he was building. Leonardo drew up plans for a 
  machine which could encipher and decipher messages 
  written in the Tilean alphabet. While Leonardo slept, a 
  servant stole the schematics and sold them on the 
  black market.  
   
  The schematics made their way to a dwarf engineer 
  called Brokk Brasseye. The only thing greater than 
  Brokk’s skill in devising ingenious and complicated 
  
   
  19 
  traps was his irreverence towards anything he saw as 
  being conservative. As can be imagined, this didn’t sit 
  well with his elders in the Vaults. Brokk was consid-
  ered insane by his fellow dwarfs and his continuous 
  clashes with this elders resulted in him being banished 
  from the realm, after which he settled down in the 
  Border Princes. Most of Brokk's human friends think 
  he’s a bit too high strung, manic, and a little too enthu-
  siastic about things designed to slice, puncture, hack 
  and dissolve living beings. 
   
   
  When Brokk came across to the Complotto schematics, 
  he immediately saw the potential in them. After years 
  of trying he managed to build six of them and include 
  a little twist of his own. Brokk was worried that if 
  someone could study the inner workings of the ma-
  chines, their secrets of their ciphers might be revealed. 
  He decided to seal the machines by welding shut their 
  casings and to equip the mechanism with a clever 
  spring based trap, which would send all the dozens of 
  gears flying if the casing was somehow opened. Of 
  course, he couldn't resist adding a few nasty traps to 
  each of the machines. 
   
  Complottos are very easy to operate. You type a mes-
  sage by choosing a letter with a knob that has the al-
  phabet of the Tilean language and pulling a lever after 
  each one. The end result is a printed page of gibberish, 
  but if you input the letters one by one into another 
  Complotto together with a sheet of paper, the result is 
  an understandable message. Leonardo was probably 
  never aware that his ciphering machines were built. 
  Most likely he forgot all about them, since Complottos 
  are never mentioned in his writings. Their design how-
  ever is unquestionably his, with Brokk's inscriptions 
  on the machines serving as further proof: “Built by 
  Master Engineer Brokk Brasseye, following the sche-
  matics of one Leonardo da Miragliano”.  
  Complotto-machines in the Old World  
   
  Brokk managed to sell three of the machines to the 
  Tilean princes before being waylaid by bandits, who 
  killed him and sold the machines along with his other 
  cargo to merchants, fences and adventurers. Currently 
  the whereabouts of four machines are known. One of 
  them is in the possession of the Emperor, the second is 
  in the court of the Merchant Prince of Miragliano and 
  the third one resides in the Light College of Magic. 
  The Emperor and the Light College encrypt their most 
  critical messages with the Complotto. The machine is 
  not used in everyday communication for several rea-
  sons. The most important is the fact that no-one knows 
  how they really work and who is in possession of the 
  missing machines. After a thorough investigation the 
  machines owned by the Emperor and the College of 
  Light don't seem to be tainted by Chaos, or contain 
  magic of any kind. But, of course, Chaos is devious. 
  Also if the machines broke down, it's doubtful that 
  anyone could fix them. The existence of Brokk's traps 
  is well known to most scholars familiar with Complot-
  tos. 
   
  The fourth Complotto is in the dwarfhold of Karaz-a-
  Karak, in the court of the High King. The existence of 
  the machine is known to the Emperor and certain high 
  officials of the government. Unknown to everybody 
  but the High King and his closest advisors, the ma-
  chine has been broken for close to a decade. The for-
  mer teacher of Brasseye was confident that he could 
  unravel the machine's secrets. His attempts to open the 
  machine led into him being blinded in one eye by an 
  acid trap and him triggering the spring trap, which 
  spread the gears, pinions, balances and springs all over 
  his workshop. He has tried to reassemble the system 
  for the last decade, without success. 
   
  
   
  20 
  Adventure Hooks 
   
  Espionage and diplomacy are two themes all too rarely 
  used in Warhammer adventures. There are several 
  ways the characters can get involved in adventures 
  where sword and sorcery is secondary to political 
  scheming. 
   
  Champions of Truth: The characters are strict adher-
  ents of a certain religion, religious sect or a political 
  party. Their mission is to smuggle people, libels, agita-
  tors and agents to the area oppressed by the other side. 
  They have to plan their approach carefully, bribe, lie 
  and steal, and ensure the safety of both themselves and 
  their cargo. 
   
  Counter-intelligence: The realm is swarming with 
  spies, seditionists and agitators. The characters have to 
  infiltrate their ranks, find and identify the ringleaders 
  and either bring them to justice or help to bring down 
  the whole network. 
   
  Assassination: The enemy has a powerful leader, who 
  is a masterful orator and a great warrior. The masses 
  love him and he has gained considerable influence 
  with the nobility  The characters are sent to his realm 
  with a mission to seek out those who are unhappy with 
  the new leadership, find a suitable assassin or if their 
  conviction is strong enough, act against the enemy di-
  rectly. 
   
  Strangers in a strange land: One of the characters is 
  an ambassador and the others are members of his reti-
  nue. They are sent into a hostile region, with a mission 
  to placate the enemy for long enough to ready war 
  preparations at home, to find out the strength of the 
  enemy, to contact other ambassadors and make secret 
  pacts and agreements, and so on. An important part of 
  the mission is to recruit suitable people and to create a 
  new spy network in the area. 
   
  Bring them down a notch: A rival province is getting 
  a bit too rich and powerful, united under one leader, 
  political block or church. There characters have to find 
  their way to their higher society and come up with a 
  way to sow unrest in their ranks by negotiations, 
  propaganda, shady deals and blackmail. 
   
  Intercepting a message: An enemy courier is known 
  to pass through a certain area. It's the mission of the 
  characters to figure out how to intercept the courier, 
  steal the message and replace it without anyone notic-
  ing. The characters are encouraged to find and employ 
  help, most importantly forgers. Maybe there is a rival 
  group trying to do the same? 
   
   
  
   
  21 
  Sources & Further Reading 
   
  Sources for The Invisible War include: 
   
  James Westfall Thompson & Saul K. Padover: Secret Diplomacy – Espionage and Cryptography 1500–1815 
   
  Stephen Budiansky: Her Majesty's Spymaster 
   
  Numerous websites, including: 
   
  Medieval Cryptography: http://www.stringpage.com/other/crypto.html 
   
  A Cryptographic Compendium: http://www.quadibloc.com/crypto/jscrypt.htm 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Warhammer/Fantasy Roleplay/4e (C7)/Cato Contribution/Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay/2nd Edition/Homebrew & Fan Material/Black Industries/The Invisible War - Spies, Ambassadors and Espionage.pdf