Cryptomancer is a fantasy setting where information and security networks and their manipulation thereof is a core concept. This will be a lengthy review so you may want to grab something to drink before we start. We will go over Setting, Mechanics, just what Cryptomancy really is, and lastly my honest opinion of the book and game itself. For those who are more interested in the games title, I recommend skipping right to the Cryptomancy section right away.
Setting: think of Shadowrun but in the middle ages meets Burn Notice meets Turn: Washington’s spies.
You have dwarves Clan halls that are cut deep into the ground with underground railways and tunnels connecting them throughout the land. The elves are kings of the forest and the forest is king of the land. This primordial forest is every growing threatening to swallow any human settlements that were hacked into it. Only the strongest of City-states can keep the forest at bay. Menacing all of these are Gnolls, Orcs, outside kingdoms and a myriad of threats at the game masters disposal.
Throughout it all the players play as characters that are hunted by the largest threat of all, The Risk Eaters. Who are a mysterious cabal that relies on great Dwarven Turing Machines that calculate risk of Armageddon. Right or wrong, this group will eliminate any and all that pose a threat to the status quo, even if that threat won't come to actualization for years, they make sure it never will. Only by finding a powerful Patron can they escape falling into the Risk Eaters clutches; but only temporarily at that. For the party must earn their keep and perform missions for their Patron least they displease them and are turned away or even as simple as protection withdrawn. The players are caught in a catch-22 as by performing these missions they may generate risk or the Risk Eaters tracking them down. The sloppier the job, the more reckless they are with security and leaving behind clues that they passed this way, the more risk generated until at some point Agents are dispatched to take care of the meddlesome characters once and for all.
With regards to the dwarves and their massive clan halls, imagine Italy in the time of Niccolò Machiavelli, constant plotting and assassinations. Paranoia is not only justified, but essential to survival. They are the best craftsmen in the world, but have gotten soft and worldly due to trade bringing in vast wealth. If only they could stop squabbling with their own kind over proprietary information and new mechanized designs that will corner the market and bring immeasurable wealth.
The Elves are masters of a jungle type landscape that grows unchecked except for human settlements or barren environments. They live in communal massive tree forts and interact peacefully with nature. Or at least they did until the discovery of the most important cash crop in Sphere history: SOMA. This miracle substance can be put to any use, be it spices, added to liquors, used as a key ingredient in magic potions, fuel for various dwarven inventions to it's most base use, as a highly addictive narcotic. Due to the production of this drug requiring vast amounts of land and resources and the unquenchable thirst the rest of the world has for it, our peace loving naturalistic Elves have become territorial expansionists, exploiting their own jungles to produce as much Soma as possible (destroying the forest along the way).
Humans live in city-states much akin to renaissance Italy or Greece. Occasionally a few may join together into a kingdom or band together into a coalition when faced with impending doom (Orc invasion, rival kingdom invasion, zombie outbreak! etc.), inevitably the kingdoms break apart back to rival city states once again.
Dwarves, Elves and Humans do all live together in all three of the above settings. Most of the times peaceably, but how do the humans look at their elven neighbors when a nearby Elven Kingdom is looking to invade. Racism will inevitably rear its ugly head but it is up the player to decide how much of a role it plays in their world. Warning: there are no maps of the world. In fact there is no set setting, just like D&D. This game is more about flavor and bare bones mechanics. My advice is to take a setting you like and adjust/adapt/convert as needed. This game might just be a new twist that brings life back into your old favorites.
Mechanics The mechanics are very straightforward and allow for ease of play. Think world of darkness, Savage worlds, etc. You have core abilities that represent your ability to resist harm, be it physical, mental, social, magical. A subset beneath each of these are two characteristics, you get to divide your points from the above to the two below. Think L5r for a slightly similar comparison. Each of these subset characteristics are linked to skills that allow you to interact with the world. Your character is allowed to obtain talents which may make you better at certain skills in certain situations or when wielding certain weapons akin to feats but much similar in that they usually allow you to ignore a botch, don't know what a botch is? We're getting to it; I told you this would be long.
To succeed in a skill roll first the GM has to determine the difficulty, three levels are available, trivial, challenging, and lastly Tough. Say you want to jump from rooftop to rooftop. Your character has a core ability Speed of 6 (which is average with 4 being low and 8 being highest you can start with). Of your Speed of 6, you have the two subset characteristics Agility and Dexterity both at 3 (since they need to add up to their core Ability). To figure out which characteristic you would use to make the jump, each has a list of common skills associated with it for reference on the character sheets. We see that both acrobatics and athletics fall under Agility so we will go with Agility for our roll. Does it matter if its acrobatics or athletics? YES, but only if you have a talent, again we are getting there. Say the roof is close, it's trivial difficulty, you need a 4 or higher on your d10s roll to gain a success. In crytomancer you always roll FIVE dice. Characteristic dice are ten sided (d10), the rest are FATE dice that are six sided (D6). In our above example, we have a 3 Agility which is used for the acrobatics skill, so our hero would roll 3d10 + 2d6. If our hero had only an Agility of 1, then it would be 1d10 + 4d6. If we get FATE dice why even bother with characteristic dice at all? Because FATE dice only succeed on a 6 and create a BOTCH on a 1 or 2. Which on the characteristic dice of d10, you need only a 4+ to generate a success while a BOTCH occurs only on a 1. Characteristic dice are our friend. Back to Talents, say during character generation you wanted to make a roof-hopping hero. You could take a talent that allows to you take any a botch during acrobatic skill rolls only. Why is this good? Because each BOTCH takes away a SUCCESS. 1 Success is needed to pass a skill test, while 3 or more success result in an exceptional success, but negative successes (multiple botches with no successes to wipe out) result in exceptional failures. Lastly if the roofs were very far apart, the difficulty might be challenging and you'd need to roll 6+ on your characteristic d10 dice (still need a 6 for FATE dice), and if its an impossible jump then you may need 8+ for a TOUGH difficulty. If a guard was shooting an arrow at our hero as he scampers across the rooftops in our example, the guard would use his Fired Missile Skill under his DEX characteristic of 3, so 3d10 + 2d6 to try to hit our hero whose SPEED is 6, a challenging difficulty so the guard would need 6+ on his d10 rolls.
If all this math is getting to you, it can be simplified into Botches (1), trivial success (4-5), challenging success, (6-7) and tough successes (8-10) on characteristic d10 dice. And either Botch (1-2), Tough Success (6) or nothing (3-5) on FATE d6 dice. Combat is lethal with damage equaling the # of successes you roll + weapon modifier. Combat in Cryptomancer is like life in this world, nasty, brutish and short.
Cryptomancy and Shards: What makes this game different than any other fantasy hack and slash game? Well you're about to find out. In this world anyone with patience and an instructor can learn magic. One of the most ubiquitous forms of magic is crytomancy. After you pen a letter to a friend you hold you hand over it, say a key phrase out loud and viola, you've encrypted the scroll. Only people who know the key phrase will see the key phrase in their minds eye and then the scroll will unlock and make sense to the reader. However if you've spoken it out loud in a bar or within hearing of your maid whose a spy, or you picked something that is easily guessed or has been heard before (such as your dogs name backwards), enemy agents may be able to read your correspondence and once they realize you are on the run from the Risk Eaters, they will soon inform on you for the reward. GM's encourage players to actually say code phrases out loud in real life to practice good security.
Shards, shards are what shattered vast empires into competing city states. Long ago dwarves realized that if they took certain large crystals and expertly cut them into shards, you now have fantasy silent walkie-talkies. Anyone holding a shard can think a message that will be resonate inside the shard he is holding along with any of its sister shards for a certain length of time. Anyone holding a matching shard can "read" these messages in his minds eye. Great asset for any spy network, but if one of the shards is intercepted, your communications may be jeopardized unless you used Cryptomancy to first encrypt your shard thought. See where we're going? It only goes deeper down the rabbit hole, but you'll need to purchase the game for more.
Lastly my honest opinion thoughts of the game:
I'm a fan, right away I see vast potential for this game and its system. The mechanics are straightforward once you understand them. It will not be like D&D where you have to keep track of multiple modifiers. Just from the GM saying the difficulty of the action you wish to undertake you will understand your chance of success right away. You can incorporate this setting with any other fantasy setting you wish. By making your players practice safe security out loud you add a new aspect to the game. It will help your players start to think tactically and strategically to accomplish their goals and tasks for their patron without causing undue notice from the authorities and witnesses that may report you to a secret Risk Eater agent. As you advance, there is a system of gaining experience as well as upgrading your safehouse. You can even gain access to deniable assets of cells, creating your own spy network and washing your hands of them when they fail at the tasks youve set them to perform. But beware your Patron may do the same with you!
Things I would like to see in the near future:
-A setting sourcebook, similar to how GreyHawk helped give image to the D&D setting. Although again it's easy to convert preexisting settings.
-A Grimoire, Amory and bestiary supplement would be nice. The rules to create your own spells, weapons and monsters are very straightforward and easy, but some GM's are not as creative as others.
If you're looking for a more cerebral game than a simple hack and slash dungeon crawl, you have found what you're looking for. This game takes paranoia to another level and rewards players who act accordingly. Buy it and enjoy!
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