Rogues
AX.GAN.07.02 - Rogues
Rogues operate through indirection, information, concealment, opportunity, leverage. They are not necessarily dishonest. They are necessarily precise.
Criteria Key: - [L] Lineage | [A] Primary Attribute | [T] Theme - Six lineage-rooted Rogues, three universal Rogues, nine total.
ROGUE QUICK REFERENCE
| Profession | Lineage | Attribute | Favored Save | Power Access |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shinekeeper's Shadow | Calri | Speed | Speed Save | None |
| Den Runner | Kerroshi | Speed | Speed Save | None |
| Still Hand | Kasia | Speed | Speed Save | None (toxin tradition optional) |
| House Advocate | Ekhari | Wit | Wit Save | Consortium Arcanism (optional) |
| Memory Keeper | Daza | Wit | Wit Save | None |
| Reach Reader | Kyne Daas | Wit | Wit Save | World Gate tradition (optional) |
| Blade Shadow | Universal | Body | Body Save | None |
| Infiltrator | Universal | Speed | Speed Save | None |
| Architect | Universal | Wit | Wit Save | None |
SHINEKEEPER'S SHADOW
[L: Calri] [A: Speed] [T: Rogue]
It's not that they're lying. They just know which truth you'd prefer.
The Calri murder-clan tradition of mimicry, information hoarding, and mercurial loyalty produces a natural rogue archetype, but the Shinekeeper's Shadow is a specific refinement: a Calri who has turned the cultural art of performance into a professional instrument. They collect voices the way others collect weapons. Their most dangerous quality is not what they can take from you but what they can be in front of you.
The Shinekeeper's Shadow has graduated past casual murder-clan mimicry into something more deliberate: an operational identity that can be assembled, deployed, and disassembled cleanly. They are the profession that other cultures encounter when they believe they are encountering someone else entirely.
Favored Save: Speed Save (Speed + Acrobatics)
Power Access: None.
Suggested Talents: Deceive, Stealth, Notice, Persuade
Starting Equipment: Light or no armor (nothing that restricts costume flexibility), one light weapon (concealed), Disguise Kit +3D (voices and materials), a collection of personal items from at least three different cultures, props of the profession.
Progression Track
Second Voice | Operational | Stage 1 | Free Action | Self | Short Rest
Mechanical effect: The Shadow may reproduce any voice, accent, or vocal
pattern they have heard for at least one minute of continuous listening.
Detecting the mimicry requires an Opposed roll: the listener's Notice vs.
the Shadow's Deceive. The reproduction holds under initial scrutiny.
Extended conversation with someone who knows the original well raises
the detection Threshold by 1 per significant personal exchange (GM tracks).
Limit: Always active. Reproduction of a new voice requires one minute
of prior exposure.
Genre Note: Second Voice is the foundation of the Shadow's operational
identity; it comes before the costume, before the cover story. The voice
is the first thing people trust.
Borrowed Face | Operational | Stage 2 | Preparation (Short Rest) | Self | Long Rest
Mechanical effect: With access to appropriate costume elements and a Short
Rest of preparation, the Shadow constructs a full persona, either a real,
specific individual or a convincing fabricated identity. For the duration
of the scene (or until the persona breaks), all social rolls using the
persona gain +2D. The persona breaks when: the actual subject appears;
the Shadow is required to demonstrate genuine expertise they don't possess
and fails a Deceive roll (Threshold 3); or physical evidence directly
contradicts the identity (GM adjudicates). Breaking a persona mid-scene
ends the +2D bonus but does not end the encounter.
Limit: Once per Long Rest. Each persona requires the Short Rest preparation.
Genre Note: Fabricated identities do not break from lack of specific
knowledge, the persona was simply "not involved in that." Real people's
identities break when what the Shadow knows diverges critically from
what the original would know.
Murder-Clan Network | Knowledge | Stage 3 | Free Action | Self | Per Session
Mechanical effect: Once per session, the Shadow activates their full Calri
network. They may ask the GM one specific, clearly stated question about
any individual, organization, or location. The answer arrives through
Calri channels within the current scene; it comes via an overheard
conversation, a delivered message, or a brief appearance by a contact.
Accuracy is proportional to how knowable the information is: public or
commercial facts arrive clean; factional or personal secrets arrive partial
or framed in rumor; classified or hidden facts may arrive as rumors
pointing in a direction rather than a direct answer.
Limit: Once per session.
Genre Note: This is what the murder-clan collectively knows and has
observed, not omniscience. The Shinekeeper has many eyes. They cannot
see through doors that no one has opened.
DEN RUNNER
[L: Kerroshi] [A: Speed] [T: Rogue]
They don't sell information. They sell the angle you hadn't seen yet.
The Kerroshi liminal tradition, existing at every border, belonging fully to none, produces brokers of an unusual kind: people who can move through any social environment without registering as foreign to it. A Den Runner is the professional expression of this. They carry messages, manage contacts across factional lines, and trade in the one commodity that doesn't spoil: the thing someone else needs to know.
A Den Runner never works for one side. Working for one side would be a catastrophic misunderstanding of their value. Their currency is access, to information, to people, to the space between parties that cannot directly communicate. They maintain that access by ensuring both sides trust them, which is a harder balance to maintain than it sounds and the reason so few non-Kerroshi ever fully succeed in the role.
Favored Save: Speed Save (Speed + Acrobatics)
Power Access: None.
Suggested Talents: Persuade, Deceive, Notice, Stealth
Starting Equipment: Light or no armor, one light weapon (concealed), Contacts Kit +2D (letter-writing materials, seals, coded notation tools), a reference document of current factional relationships and contact names, maintained by the Runner.
Progression Track
Ninth Step's Luck | Resilience/Operational | Stage 1 | Free Action | Self | Short Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Short Rest, after rolling any Speed-based or
social roll and seeing the result, the Den Runner may invoke the Ninth
Step and reroll the dice. They must keep the second result. This is
not a safety net, the second result may be worse. It is the Kerroshi
trickster-patron's intervention: things tend to work out, but not
always in the way requested.
Limit: Once per Short Rest. Must use the second result.
Genre Note: "The Ninth Step was here" is what Kerroshi say when something
worked out better than it had any right to. This ability is the
Runner formally requesting that intervention.
Den Contact | Operational | Stage 2 | Primary Action | Remote | Long Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Long Rest, the Den Runner calls on one of their
established contacts across factional lines. The contact provides one of:
(a) A piece of non-secret information about a local power structure or
significant individual; (b) A safe location to rest undisturbed for 24
hours; or (c) An introduction to a specific person the contact knows,
the contact vouches for the Runner, granting +1D to the Runner's first
social roll with the introduced party. Contact quality and willingness
vary by the Runner's standing with that contact (GM tracks relationship
across sessions).
Limit: Once per Long Rest. Contact must be reachable (within the same
city or region, or via established messenger network).
Genre Note: Den contacts are not loyal to the Runner; they are in
ongoing relationship with them. Contacts can be lost by misuse or
betrayal and gained by demonstrated reliability.
Every Market's Neutral Ground | Social | Stage 3 | Primary Action | Near Range | Full Rest
Mechanical effect: The Den Runner's reputation has grown to the point
where their presence carries political weight. Once per Full Rest,
they may declare any location they occupy as temporarily Neutral Ground.
All creatures within Near range who recognize Kerroshi neutral-ground
customs (GM adjudicates; most trading cultures do) must make a Wit Save
(Threshold 3) to take hostile action against any other creature in that
space. The Neutral Ground effect lasts one scene. Creatures that violate
it do not harm the Runner directly, but the GM marks the violating
faction as having broken with Kerroshi den networks, with lasting
commercial and information-access consequences.
Limit: Once per Full Rest. Effect is social, not magical, cultures with
no exposure to Kerroshi norms are not bound.
Genre Note: The Runner is not protecting the space with force. They are
placing the value of continued access, to information, contacts, and
trade, against the value of the hostile action. Most parties do the math.
STILL HAND
[L: Kasia] [A: Speed] [T: Rogue]
They were never not ready. You just didn't know you were already in position.
The Kasia philosophy of uthrak, the precise moment when waiting becomes action, defines this profession entirely. A Still Hand is a patient hunter: a specialist in the ambush, in the long observation, in the strike delivered after the enemy has already made their final mistake. They are the outcome of Kasia culture's deepest teaching: knowing when to strike matters infinitely more than being able to strike hard.
A Still Hand does not miss because they have not left until they are certain. They have watched the target long enough to know exactly where to be. The strike, when it comes, is not a decision; it is the conclusion of a period of watching that the target never knew had begun.
Favored Save: Speed Save (Speed + Acrobatics)
Power Access: None. A toxin or venom tradition, if developed, belongs here.
Suggested Talents: Stealth, Precision, Strike, Medicine (toxin knowledge)
Starting Equipment: Light or no armor (nothing that makes sound), one ranged weapon and one light blade, Toxin Kit +2D (Kasia-harvested jungle compounds, see toxin rules when developed), deep-pattern camouflage wrap.
Progression Track
Uthrak's Edge | Combat | Stage 1 | Passive | Self | Always Active
Mechanical effect: When the Still Hand attacks an enemy who has not yet
acted in the current combat, including in any Surprise Round, the
attack gains Advantage and the target's Defense is treated as 1 lower
for that attack (minimum 1). The Still Hand has found the moment.
This applies to the first attack of the encounter from the Still Hand's
position, not to all attacks against targets who haven't acted.
Limit: Always active. Applies only to the first attack against a given
target in a given encounter before that target has acted.
Genre Note: Uthrak's Edge is the Kasia philosophy made mechanical,
the patient wait that collapses into the perfect strike.
Venom Discipline | Operational | Stage 2 | Free Action | Single Target | Long Rest
Mechanical effect: The Still Hand exercises precise control over their
biological venom delivery (Kasia Inherited Perk). Once per Long Rest,
when applying venom, they may choose one of three calibrated doses:
(a) Paralyzing, standard venom effect at Body Save Threshold 4 instead
of 3, or Immobilized condition on failure instead of the standard;
(b) Tracking, a mild neurotoxin that creates no immediate obvious
effect but imposes Disadvantage on the target's Notice and Tactics rolls
for one hour; detectable only via medical examination (Medicine Threshold 3);
(c) Killing Patience, standard lethal application per the Kasia
Inherited Perk, no modification.
Non-Kasia Still Hands without native venom may use a Toxin Kit in place
of biological venom for effects (a) and (b); effect (c) is not
available to them without biological delivery.
Limit: Once per Long Rest. Dose chosen at moment of application.
Genre Note: Kasia venom is intimate; it reveals both capacity and
intention. A Still Hand choosing Tracking Dose is making a different
statement than one choosing Killing Patience.
Patient Conclusion | Combat | Stage 3 | Primary Action | Single Target | Full Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Full Rest, and only when the Still Hand has
spent the entire preceding scene (or a comparable duration, minimum
ten uninterrupted minutes) in observation of a specific target without
acting against them, their first attack against that target in the
following scene may be declared a Patient Conclusion. This attack is
rolled at Advantage with +2D additional dice, and the target's Defense
is treated as 1 regardless of its actual value. The Still Hand has
mapped every gap.
Limit: Once per Full Rest. Requires documented prior-scene observation.
Genre Note: This is the Kasia promise made explicit, the patience is
always the dangerous part, never the strike itself.
HOUSE ADVOCATE
[L: Ekhari] [A: Wit] [T: Rogue]
Not dishonest. Strategically positioned.
The Ekhari Merchant Council's procedural complexity was not designed to create the House Advocate, but it inevitably did. A House Advocate is a professional who has mastered the architecture of Ekhari law, precedent, commercial documentation, and the specific art of finding what a situation technically permits. They are not criminals. They are, in fact, often deeply committed to the legitimacy of process. The difference between a House Advocate and a lawyer is that a House Advocate determines the desired outcome before they identify the applicable argument.
The House Advocate understands that in Ekhari society, the record is the reality. A fact that exists in documentation has a different weight than a fact that exists only in memory. The Advocate's professional life is built on this distinction.
Favored Save: Wit Save (Wit + Resolve)
Power Access: Consortium Arcanism (Force tradition), optional, for Advocates whose House specializes in magical practice. Not all Advocates are casters.
Suggested Talents: Tactics, Persuade, Deceive, Lore
Starting Equipment: No armor or light armor (professional dress), one light weapon (concealed, as befitting formal environments), Documentation Kit +3D (reference archives, writing tools, sealing materials, formal recording equipment), House affiliation credentials.
Progression Track
Procedural Leverage | Tactical/Social | Stage 1 | Free Action | Self | Short Rest
Mechanical effect: In any formal negotiation, legal proceeding, or structured
social confrontation, the Advocate may identify one technical advantage as
a Free Action, once per scene. This adds +2D to their next social or
tactical roll within that scene. The advantage must be technically real:
a clause, a precedent, a gap in the opposition's documentation, an
applicable procedural rule. If the Advocate fails to use it within the
scene, the opportunity lapses.
Limit: Once per Short Rest. Must be used within the same scene it is
identified.
Genre Note: Procedural Leverage is not bluffing, the Advocate has found
something real. The bonus reflects the structural advantage of having
the right argument at the right moment.
The Documentation Exists | Operational | Stage 2 | Primary Action | Scene | Long Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Long Rest, the Advocate either produces, locates,
or has arranged for the existence of documentation that materially affects
the current situation. The document is technically accurate and legally
valid. It establishes one specific fact, a contract term, a registered
claim, a recorded debt, a prior agreement; that creates immediate
leverage. The GM adjudicates scope: minor commercial detail vs. significant
legal claim. The document's existence cannot be immediately contested
without contradicting evidence (which may or may not exist).
Limit: Once per Long Rest. The document cannot contradict established
facts; it fills gaps or establishes previously unstated truths.
Genre Note: "The documentation exists" is not "the Advocate fabricated a
document." The Ekhari are meticulous. The documentation exists because
a meticulous person created it in advance.
Council Architecture | Operational | Stage 3 | Primary Action | Faction | Per Session
Mechanical effect: Once per session, the Advocate may invoke House Standing
at organizational scale, not personal credit or a contact call, but a
formal House action with structural consequence. Options include: a legal
challenge that suspends a target organization's commercial activity pending
review; a formal debt collection that seizes accessible assets; a records
inquiry that exposes a target's prior dealings to Council scrutiny; or
a trade restriction that limits a faction's access to Consortium markets.
The House will not do this indefinitely without reciprocal value, GM
tracks relationship and cost of each invocation. Overuse risks the House
withdrawing support entirely.
Limit: Once per session.
Genre Note: The Advocate is not the House. They are the instrument through
which the House acts at their direction. This is a privilege maintained
through demonstrated value to the House, not an unconditional resource.
MEMORY KEEPER
[L: Daza] [A: Wit] [T: Rogue]
They don't need to threaten you. They simply know what you did. They have always known.
The Daza Memory Coil tradition produces their most culturally significant individuals, but not all of them remain within the tradition's formal structure. A Memory Keeper is a Daza who has taken the extraordinary capacity of oral retention and applied it outside the coil-family context. They work as archivists, investigators, and, in the most delicate cases, the holders of secrets that no one else is trusted to hold. They are not spies. They are the people that spies come to when they need something confirmed.
The Memory Keeper's power is not active; it is accumulated. Every conversation they have been present for, every testimony they have heard, every account they have received is available to them with complete fidelity. They do not manipulate. They wait until the truth becomes relevant, and then they provide it. This is a form of power that other cultures consistently underestimate until they have experienced it directly.
Favored Save: Wit Save (Wit + Resolve)
Power Access: None.
Suggested Talents: Lore, Notice, Persuade, Deceive (selective omission, knowing what not to say)
Starting Equipment: No armor or light armor, one light weapon, Archive Kit +3D (notation tools, secure document materials, coil-family cipher keys), a personal memory-record in a notation system only the Keeper can read.
Progression Track
Perfect Record | Knowledge | Stage 1 | Passive | Self | Always Active
Mechanical effect: The Memory Keeper retains everything they have directly
witnessed, heard, or been told, without error, indefinitely. This is a
narrative fact established at character creation. Mechanically: add +2D
to any Lore roll where the relevant information was encountered during
play (not from general background training), and the GM confirms whether
the Keeper would have retained a specific piece of information on request.
The Keeper may also quote verbatim anything said in their presence,
without a roll.
Limit: Always active. Memory is not a resource; it is a characteristic.
Genre Note: The Memory Keeper cannot forget. Establish early whether this
is a burden as well as a capability, some Daza Memory Coils develop
complex relationships with accumulation. The character's player should
determine this.
Weight of Memory | Social/Knowledge | Stage 2 | Primary Action | Scene | Per Session
Mechanical effect: Once per session, the Keeper deploys a specific piece
of retained information as a social instrument. They reveal something
they know, about an NPC, a faction, or a past event, that materially
changes the dynamic of the current scene. The information must be
something the Keeper plausibly encountered (in play, or via the
background established at character creation with GM approval). The
effect is GM-determined, but is always significant: a relationship
exposed, a contradiction surfaced, a prior commitment confirmed.
This is not blackmail. The Memory Keeper is simply providing the record.
Limit: Once per session. The information must be plausibly retained.
Genre Note: The Daza do not threaten with memory. They state it.
The threat is implicit in the fact that they know and have always known.
Coil Archive | Knowledge | Stage 3 | Primary Action | Remote Access | Full Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Full Rest, the Memory Keeper accesses the
broader Daza oral archive, centuries of accumulated record extending
far beyond their personal lifespan. They may ask one specific question
of historical record. The answer arrives accurately but may be: partial
(the record has a gap); contextual (the event is described through the
emotional lens of the era it was recorded in); or framed in the language
of a time before current political categories existed. The Memory Keeper
interprets; they do not receive clean modern analysis, they receive
what was actually witnessed and recorded.
Limit: Once per Full Rest. Questions must be specific and historical.
Future-pointing questions cannot be answered.
Genre Note: The flood of three hundred years ago is remembered differently
than the flood of last season. The archive's depth is also its
limitation; it knows what people witnessed, not what people hid.
REACH READER
[L: Kyne Daas] [A: Wit] [T: Rogue]
Seven words that mean nothing in any known language. She sent them to three people. All three arrived at the same place.
The Kyne Daas watch the Blasted Reach not because they were assigned to but because something in it requires watching. A Reach Reader is the professional expression of this calling, someone who has internalized the Reach's altered landscape deeply enough to read what its changes mean, and who has learned to apply that perceptual framework everywhere else. They notice what has changed. They know what the change means. They know who changed it.
The Reach Reader's operational discipline, information compartmentalized, paths never repeated, conclusions never stated, emerged from necessity. The Blasted Reach does not forgive assumptions. Neither does a Reader.
Favored Save: Wit Save (Wit + Resolve)
Power Access: Optional: if the Catalog develops a tradition connected to World Gate energies or the Scar's Voice, Reach Readers are the entry point.
Suggested Talents: Notice, Lore, Tactics, Deceive (selective disclosure)
Starting Equipment: Medium or light armor (Reach-worn, heat-resistant), one ranged weapon, Survival Kit +2D (Reach-specific, fissure-detection tools, atmospheric monitors, ash filters), a personal notation system in the Kyne Daas oral-memory tradition (memorized, never written).
Progression Track
Scar Sense | Knowledge | Stage 1 | Free Action | Near Range | Short Rest
Mechanical effect: The Reader perceives environmental alteration with
trained precision. Once per Short Rest, they may assess an area within
Near range as a Free Action: they automatically detect any magical,
physical, or geological disturbance that has occurred within the past
24 hours. This includes evidence of magical workings, unusual terrain
changes, the passage of creatures that don't belong in this environment,
or the deliberate concealment of any of the above. Detecting subtle
alterations requires a Notice roll (Threshold 2); obvious disturbances
are detected automatically.
Limit: Once per Short Rest.
Genre Note: Scar Sense was developed for the Blasted Reach but applies
wherever the Reader is looking. They read disturbance, not just geography.
Grammar of the Wound | Knowledge | Stage 2 | Primary Action | Single Target/Location | Long Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Long Rest, the Reader applies the Reach's
perceptual framework to any person, object, or location, reading
observable evidence at an expert level. They may ask the GM one precise
yes/no question that could be answered from physical, historical, or
behavioral evidence: "Was this door opened from the inside within the
last hour?", "Has this person been in contact with World Gate energy?",
"Is there a concealed mechanism in this wall?" The GM answers truthfully.
The question must be grounded in observable evidence, not intent or
future action.
Limit: Once per Long Rest.
Genre Note: The Kyne Daas learn to read the Scar by asking what it is
actually saying, not what they wish it would say. The same discipline
applies here, specific question, truthful answer.
Reader's Protocol | Operational | Stage 3 | Primary Action | Extended | Full Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Full Rest, the Reader may compartmentalize
a plan, message, or piece of evidence using Kyne Daas information
security discipline. The material is distributed across multiple
carriers, locations, or objects, no single piece reveals the whole.
Any enemy attempting to intercept, divine, or discover the Reader's
full plan must succeed on three separate Notice or Investigation rolls
(each at Threshold 3) rather than one, and must succeed on all three
to assemble the complete picture. Succeeding on fewer reveals only a
fragment. The Reader knows instantly when any segment has been accessed.
Limit: Once per Full Rest. Requires at least one scene to set up.
Genre Note: The Reader's Protocol was designed for the Reach, where the
Kyne Daas cannot trust any single path. The same logic applies to
any sufficiently contested information environment.
BLADE SHADOW
[A: Body] [T: Rogue] | Universal
The threat doesn't need to be spoken aloud if the other person understands what's being implied.
A Blade Shadow operates in the space where physical capability meets controlled menace. They are not brawlers; they are enforcers in the original sense: the presence that makes a situation resolve itself without requiring open violence. Every culture with complexity produces them: the debt collector's escort, the caravan guard who settles disputes before they start, the doorman at the establishment where the interesting things happen.
A Blade Shadow is most dangerous when nothing has happened yet. Once it has, they're merely dangerous.
Favored Save: Body Save (Body + Fortitude)
Power Access: None.
Suggested Talents: Strike, Intimidate, Fortitude, Notice
Starting Equipment: Medium armor (visible, marked as professional), one heavy or standard weapon (carried openly, the point is that it is seen), Fortitude Kit +2D, employment documentation or organizational identification.
Progression Track
Weight of Presence | Social | Stage 1 | Free Action | Close Range | Short Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Short Rest, the Blade Shadow establishes their
presence with precision. One target within Close range must make a Wit
Save (Threshold 2) or become Shaken immediately, no hostile act required.
No roll is made by the Shadow; the target saves against what is simply
present. If the target is actively engaged in a hostile action when this
activates, the Threshold increases to 3.
Limit: Once per Short Rest.
Genre Note: This is not supernatural intimidation. The Blade Shadow has
trained presence, the precise combination of stillness, size, and
attention that communicates capability without demonstration.
Controlled Application | Combat | Stage 2 | Primary Action | Single Target | Long Rest
Mechanical effect: The Blade Shadow makes one melee attack. If it deals
any damage, they choose one secondary effect in addition to damage:
(a) The target drops one held item (weapon, carried object, document)
as an immediate reflex, no Save; or (b) The target is pushed one range
band in a direction the Blade Shadow chooses, no Save. Neither effect
requires a Save because the force is precise enough to produce the
specific result without escalating to a full Knockdown.
Limit: Once per Long Rest.
Genre Note: Controlled Application demonstrates competence, not rage.
The Blade Shadow could have done more; they chose not to. That
is the message.
The Room Decides | Social | Stage 3 | Primary Action | Near Range | Full Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Full Rest, the Blade Shadow demonstrates
capability in a way that changes the entire room's understanding of
the situation. This may be a controlled act of visible violence, a
precise physical demonstration, or a specific gesture that communicates
absolute certainty. All enemies within Near range who can see it must
make a Wit Save (Threshold 3) or immediately reassess their position:
they will not take hostile action against the Blade Shadow or their
allies for one round, and may attempt to disengage, negotiate, or
surrender depending on their circumstances and intelligence level.
This is not mind control; it is the room correctly reading what
is about to happen.
Limit: Once per Full Rest.
Genre Note: The Room Decides works on creatures with sufficient
intelligence to assess risk (Wit 2D or higher). Mindless threats
or creatures without survival instincts are unaffected.
INFILTRATOR
[A: Speed] [T: Rogue] | Universal
The door was locked. That was the relevant information.
An Infiltrator solves access problems. They go where they're not supposed to be, retrieve what shouldn't be retrievable, and leave before anyone knows they were there. The world's cultures produce them for different reasons, intelligence services, professional guilds, the operational apparatus of every power that needs to know what's behind someone else's walls, but the fundamental competency is universal: movement through spaces designed to prevent exactly that movement.
An Infiltrator is not necessarily a thief, though many are. They are, at core, a specialist in the gap between what a location's security assumes and what is actually possible.
Favored Save: Speed Save (Speed + Acrobatics)
Power Access: None.
Suggested Talents: Stealth, Acrobatics, Notice, Craft (mechanical, locks and mechanisms)
Starting Equipment: Light or no armor, one light weapon (concealed), Infiltration Kit +3D (lockpicks, climbing gear, silence equipment), a hand-drawn layout of the current operational target if the mission allowed preparation time.
Progression Track
Clean Entry | Operational | Stage 1 | Passive | Self | Always Active
Mechanical effect: When the Infiltrator enters a space through any method
requiring a Stealth or Acrobatics roll, they may reroll once and keep
the higher result. Additionally, the Infiltrator leaves no physical
evidence of passage, no disturbed dust, prints, or displaced objects,
unless they choose to or unless they fail a Stealth roll by 2 or more
successes. Evidence-clean movement is always active; the entry reroll
is once per Short Rest.
Limit: Entry reroll once per Short Rest. Passive evidence-clean always
active.
Genre Note: The evidence-clean movement is not magical; it is the
result of trained spatial awareness and deliberate foot
placement. An Infiltrator who knows how to move through a
space leaves it looking like no one was there. The entry
reroll represents the same principle applied under pressure:
a second read of the approach before committing.
Bypass | Operational | Stage 2 | Primary Action | Object/Mechanism | Long Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Long Rest, the Infiltrator automatically succeeds
on one mechanical challenge, a lock, latch, sealed mechanism, or trapped
container; that they have had at least one minute to examine. This is
expertise, not magic. For mechanisms of exceptional complexity (custom
locks, ancient traps, magical seals), the GM may still call for a roll,
but the Infiltrator makes it at Advantage.
Limit: Auto-success once per Long Rest. Advantage on complex mechanisms
applies whenever the minute-examination condition is met.
Ghost Protocol | Operational | Stage 3 | Primary Action | Self | Full Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Full Rest, the Infiltrator enters an operational
state lasting a number of minutes equal to their Speed value. During this
time: all Stealth rolls are made at Advantage; they may move through any
space large enough for their body without triggering pressure-sensitive,
motion-sensitive, or proximity-based detection (magical or mechanical);
and they may communicate with one designated ally via prearranged silent
signals that bypass any listening or detection effect active in the area.
The state ends normally at the duration's conclusion, no collapse, no
signal. Just the return of ordinary limitations.
Limit: Once per Full Rest.
Genre Note: Ghost Protocol is not invisibility. The Infiltrator can still
be seen by someone looking directly at them. What it does is remove
every passive or automated detection system as a factor.
ARCHITECT
[A: Wit] [T: Rogue] | Universal
The outcome was determined three conversations ago. Everything since then has been staging.
An Architect does not act directly if they can arrange for someone else to act in exactly the way they require. They are the planners, the schemers, the people who identify leverage before a situation has become a situation. Every culture with complexity produces them: the political advisor who is the actual decision-maker, the merchant whose competitors always seem to make choices that benefit the merchant, the spymaster whose fingerprints are never on anything.
An Architect is most dangerous when they appear to have no stake in the outcome.
Favored Save: Wit Save (Wit + Resolve)
Power Access: None.
Suggested Talents: Tactics, Persuade, Deceive, Lore
Starting Equipment: No armor or light armor, one light weapon (concealed), Analysis Kit +2D (correspondence records, coded notation, correspondence history), a current operational summary written in a personal cipher, maintained ongoing.
Progression Track
Established Position | Tactical | Stage 1 | Free Action | Self | Short Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Short Rest, the Architect identifies one leverage
point in the current scene, a piece of information, a relationship, a
resource gap, a dependency that someone is unwilling to expose. The GM
confirms that the leverage exists at some applicable scale. The Architect
gains +2D to their next social or tactical roll made directly using that
leverage within the same scene. Unused leverage lapses at scene's end.
Limit: Once per Short Rest.
Genre Note: Established Position is not luck, the Architect always looks
for leverage before entering a scene. The perk reflects that they
have already found it.
Prepared Ground | Operational | Stage 2 | Extended Preparation | Scene | Long Rest
Mechanical effect: When the Architect has had access to information about
a location, person, or organization for at least one scene prior to acting,
they may declare that they Prepared the Ground. One specific outcome in
the current scene that they could plausibly have arranged in advance,
a document already in place, a contact positioned there, a rumor already
circulating, is treated as having been arranged. The GM adjudicates
plausibility; the outcome cannot contradict established facts but may fill
gaps or establish prior actions not previously stated.
Limit: Once per Long Rest. Must have had prior-scene access to the target
environment. Cannot be declared retroactively in the middle of a scene.
Genre Note: The Prepared Ground represents the Architect's habit of
acting before the need is obvious. The preparation is not improvised
; it was done in advance because the Architect anticipates.
The Plan Resolves | Operational | Stage 3 | Primary Action | Scene-Wide | Full Rest
Mechanical effect: Once per Full Rest, the Architect reveals a layer of
their scheme that has been operating beneath the current scene. This
revelation must connect logically to prior events in the current session
or documented in prior sessions, the Architect cannot invent fully new
prior actions but may reveal implications, relationships, or preparations
that were plausibly in place and not previously stated. The revelation
changes the current scene's dynamics in the Architect's favor, in a way
negotiated between player and GM before it resolves. This is the moment
the room understands what they have been standing inside.
Limit: Once per Full Rest. Must have prior-session foundation.
Genre Note: The Architect's Stage 3 is the payoff of the entire game
the player has been playing. GMs should reward long-term setup
generously here; this moment is the profession's creative peak.
Mechanical Review Notes
Still Hand, Patient Conclusion (Stage 3): Resolved. Defense is treated as 1 (not bypassed entirely), which preserves the ability's intent within the existing Defense framework.
Reach Reader, Reader's Protocol (Stage 3): The three-roll interception mechanic is functional as written. Pending formalization as a Setting Perk or dedicated subsystem in AX.GAN.09.01 (Setting Perks) before final publication.