Work with the Codebreaking Courier
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| A player-created Guide is available for this content: Deciphering (Guide) |
| Spoiler warning! This page contains details about Fallen London Actions. |
From: Work in your Cabinet Noir
Her eyes are bright, her energy irrepressible. "What have you got for me?"
Game Instructions: This will build up your Deciphering... progress quality more slowly than other options, but working with the Courier is easier than doing it alone.
Unlocked with 
Intercepted Document, 
Codebreaking Courier
Challenge information
- 103 - very chancy (41%)
- 128 - chancy (51%)
- 153 - modest (61%)
- 178 - very modest (71%)
- 203 - low-risk (81%)
- 228 - straightforward (91%)
- 250 - straightforward (100%)
Narrow, 
A Player of Chess 1 (50% base)
- 0 - tough (40%)
- 1 - very chancy (50%)
- 2 - chancy (60%)
- 3 - modest (70%)
- 4 - very modest (80%)
- 5 - low-risk (90%)
- 6 and above - straightforward (100%)
Success
Accounting
[...]
[...]
It also helps that the Codebreaking Courier recognises the messages encoded onto the letter itself. The placement and orientation of the stamp reveal one half of the cipher. The paper's weight, scent, and idiosyncratic dimensions reveal the other.Description summary:
The first two paragraphs vary based on your profession and the 
Intercepted Document.
 Midnighter? | First Paragraph |
|---|---|
| Yes | For the work you need certain skills in patience, focus, and negligence of the outside world, for which Saint Joshua is an incomparable teacher. Beside you, the Courier is a font of likely ciphers, common passphrases, and precise addresses [...] |
| No | For the work you need a leaping imagination and a steady hand. Beside you, the Courier is a font of likely ciphers, common passphrases, and precise addresses of London notables. |
| Document | Second Paragraph |
|---|---|
| 1 - 10, 12 | You cannot recoil from counting the number of semi-colons on each side of the page and subjecting them to cryptomathematical equations. |
| 11 | Letter frequencies must be tabulated; minor variations in letter height and ink shade must also be considered. Whoever wrote this document has mastered the Surface arts of deception, if not some of the wilder methods in the Neath. |
| 21 | The cipher makes use of both substitution and transposition, following the rules of certain Hellish dances. Just here, at the bottom of a paragraph, the letters swap round in a Petal Unfurling, which means you can next expect[…] the Decaying Promenade. |
| 22 | Most of the writing is invisible as well as enciphered; before you can even begin the decryption, you must view the document in the mirror, with reflected apocyan light, to bring out the ink. |
| 30 | Each fragment of the letter is its own cipher. Here – the quantities in this cake recipe encode lines in this fragment of a ledger, which contain the names that work as transposition keys for that innocent-seeming postcard from a Surface aunt. |
[Find the rest of the story at https://www.fallenlondon.com]
Watchful is increasing…
Deciphering... is increasing… (+4 CP)
[The Airs of London change…] (random)
[Airs of Balmoral change…] (random)
Failure
Not a code
That symbol is not to be deciphered. That symbol [...]
The Courier's expression is dazed. "Who traps their mail?" Presumably nobody on her regular rounds.Description summary:
Part of the first paragraph varies based on the Intercepted Document.
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 - 10 | invokes a thing that crawls in the dark and seeks the Light-in-Exile. |
| 11 | is a title, a title that has not yet been given to anyone: how best to translate it? Secretary-Overlord? Pope-Bureaucrat? Triplicate Overseer, Emperor of Reports? |
| 12 | is cold on the page. Your eye goes fuzzy, as though the lens itself were freezing, just to look at that symbol. |
| 21 | invokes the rose and the marigold and the lily with the broken stem. It names the weeping of Hell, in Hell's own tongue. Forget it, forget it as fast as you can. |
| 22 | invokes the death of kings and the slaughter of his people and the burning of their bodies, and the faces of the men who perform such deeds. Forget this, as fast as you can. |
| 30 | is encodes the name of a Fourth City priest subjected to damnatio memoriae. How the sender got it to stay on the page and not squirm away is a mystery. |
[Find the rest of the story at https://www.fallenlondon.com]
- Watchful is increasing…
Nightmares is increasing… (+3 CP)
