Make a leap of code-breaking insight

A player-created Guide is available for this content: Deciphering (Guide)

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ID: 248473

Spoiler warning! This page contains details about Fallen London Actions.

From: Work in your Cabinet Noir

Guess boldly. Risk being wrong.

Game Instructions: This will build up your Deciphering... progress quality more quickly than other options, but failure will cost a small amount of progress. (If Midnighter) As a Midnighter, you'll receive more Deciphering... per success than you otherwise would.

Unlocked with Intercepted Document

Challenge information

Broad, Watchful 175

• 120 - very chancy (41%)
• 149 - chancy (51%)
• 178 - modest (61%)
• 208 - very modest (71%)
• 237 - low-risk (81%)
• 266 - straightforward (91%)
• 292 - straightforward (100%)
  

Narrow, A Player of Chess 5 (50% base)

• 1 and below - almost impossible (10%)
• 2 - high-risk (20%)
• 3 - high-risk (30%)
• 4 - tough (40%)
• 5 - very chancy (50%)
• 6 - chancy (60%)
• 7 - modest (70%)
• 8 - very modest (80%)
• 9 - low-risk (90%)
• 10 and above - straightforward (100%)
  

Success

Piercing clarity

[See tables below]

Description summary:
The first paragraph varies depending on if you're a Midnighter or not. The second paragraph varies based on your Intercepted Document.

Midnighter?	First Paragraph
Yes	A mind cleansed with irriginous rites is like a freshly washed slate, free of distracting marks. This now works to your advantage.
No	The more you know about the documents you decipher, the more easily the solution comes. You now recall everything you have ever known about the circumstances in which a letter like this might be written.

Document	Second Paragraph
1-5, 7-10, 40	The story of this letter becomes suddenly evident to you. It's a common story – you recognise the circumstances and the likely players. […] this correspondence is too simple to deserve the attention of an expert like you.
6	The story of this letter becomes suddenly evident to you. It's a common story – you recognise the circumstances and the likely players. An entire paragraph of protestations resolves itself under your gaze.
11	The letter becomes significantly clearer when you realise that it uses the language of a Surface industrialist; it is filled with the idioms of business and the particular concerns of Surface commercial law.
12	The letter becomes significantly clearer when you recognise that some of the names are the Latin names of bones, and some of the scribbled marks are approximate outlines of a skeleton.
21	It is difficult going, this text. It is full of Infernal idioms and evasive language. And if you're not mistaken, the rose-scent of the paper is part of the message.
22	The breakthrough comes when you think to try another chemical developer, one that turns its invisible ink the colour of rusted blood.
30	You realise that this is […] built like a nesting doll of ciphers, each encoding the keys to the next as well as a series of rotating fragments of the plain text, which have to be assembled in an order that is itself encoded by one of the ciphers.

[Find the rest of the story at https://www.fallenlondon.com]

• Watchful is increasing…
•  Deciphering... is increasing… (+7 CP, or +9 CP with Shrine to Saint Joshua)
• [The Airs of London change…] (random)
• [Airs of Balmoral change…] (random)

Rare Success

A leap of insight!

[See tables above]

This page suddenly has far fewer secrets than it did.

• Watchful is increasing…
•  Deciphering... is increasing… (+10 CP, or +15 CP with Shrine to Saint Joshua)
• [The Airs of London change…] (random)
• [Airs of Balmoral change…] (random)

Failure

Unfortunate error

For a moment, you think you can make sense of a whole paragraph – you have almost grasped the matter […] But... no. Two, perhaps three words in a row work out to English, but then what follows is a string of nonsense. […]

[Find the rest of the story at https://www.fallenlondon.com]

• Watchful is increasing…
•  Nightmares is increasing… (+3 CP)
•  Deciphering... is dropping… (-3 CP)