FFG: Cyphers and Masks – The Sleeper Agent
Cyphers and Masks is the upcoming Spy Sourcebook for Age of Rebellion. Take a look at what’s inside.
via FFG
Age of Rebellion’s upcoming Spy Sourcebook may be called Cyphers and Masks, but it is all about Cloaks and Daggers. And today we’ve got a preview of one of the new specializations introduced in the book–the Sleeper Agent joins the Interrogator in this book. But where the Interrogator is all about getting the enemy to reveal what you want, the Sleeper Agent is all about going deep under cover, even assuming another life altogether.
Sleeper Agents are masters of deception on a long-term scale. They don’t just adopt a new name–they very nearly become someone else until their goal is accomplished. Then they shed the other identity as easily as a hipster sheds a band shirt that’s no longer incoherent to the mainstream. Sleeper Agents specialize in getting into vulnerable areas, talking to key personnel, accessing critical files, passcodes, and even equipment, all with the goal of having the right tools at the ready when it’s time to carry out their mission.
The mechanics of the class support this playstyle as well. Take a look at their first tier of talents:
First up, we have Codebreaker which can help make sure you’ve got what you need to know what’s going on. Or if you’re more interested in blending in there’s Cunning Persona or Well Rounded, the latter of which can come in handy in fitting in to your chosen cover identity. Pick up a skill that’s ordinarily not one for Spies. Dabble in Astrogation or Mechanics or the like to more readily make yourself valuable to your targets. Or take some esoteric skills that are handy to place your Spy as a civilian in an unassuming, but critical location.
Later talents only build off of this tree. With talents like Inside Person, your Spy can spend a Destiny point have been spending time around an area granting advantage to you and your friends while making checks in or relating to that target (a base or large vehicle). Inside Knowledge requires a Skullduggery check, but if you succeed, you know the area well enough to know how to find a personal scale item or to know some relevant piece of information like passcodes or patrol routes or secret doors or the like. Valuable indeed when you’re trying to accomplish your mission covertly.
There are times when you need to act on the information your spy has gathered though. And to that end, Cyphers and Masks has a number of tools that any good Spy will want to have close to hand. There are specialized slicing datapads, an audio/video/holograph jamming field that makes sure your clandestine operations stay unobserved–and then of course there are the blasters.
The Ghost light blaster pistol is specially designed to be hard to find, whether you’re being searched by hand or by computerized weapons scanners. The “Convertible Heavy” blaster pistol seems to suggest a weapon you can assemble on the fly, and then there’s the Nightstinger Blaster Rifle, which looks like a powerful, if bulky, blaster rifle, perfect for sniping your enemies from a safe and undetectable distance.
This is just a hint of things to come. So stay tuned for more spy stuff as Cyphers and Masks looms closer.
Cyphers and Masks – $29.95
Not every victory is achieved at the end of a blaster barrel or by the signing of a treaty. Spies do the majority of the work, finding out where the soldiers need to deploy and what would make the enemy wish to surrender. By engaging in the most unconventional of warfare, spies save lives—and take them—in secret. Often uncelebrated, their vital work is necessary if there is to be any hope of toppling the Empire.
Cyphers and Masks is a sourcebook for the Star Wars™: Age of Rebellion Roleplaying Game that greatly expands the options and opportunities for the Spy career. At 96 full-color pages, Cyphers and Masks includes new specializations and species perfect for starting a new campaign or integrating into existing ones. New vehicles, equipment, and droids designed to be assets and adversaries to characters engaging in clandestine operations are included with new rules for utilizing the skills most often associated with Spies and their tradecraft. Gamemasters are also given additional tools and guidance for building stories for Spy characters with an emphasis on Intelligence and Counterintelligence operations.
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We really put the counter in counterintelligence.
