The average sentient does not take readily to the lifestyle of a Spy. Continuous duplicity, even for a good cause, requires a preternatural attention to detail and an iron will to withstand scrutiny and maintain your cover. Being adept at telling a convincing lie is certainly a valuable skill, but the ability to live a lie, to be a lie, asks for more. Cyphers and Masks, the Spy sourcebook for Star Wars™: Age of Rebellion introduces the Sleeper Agent specialization to the Spy career, a talent tree for those characters who wish to truly discover the inner workings of the enemy.

On the Inside

While some Spies gather intelligence through swiftly executed covert missions, the Sleeper Agent plays the epitome of the long con. Crafting an entirely new identity for themselves—new name, history, profession, and more—requires a level of skill and discipline that would break most people. Their undercover operations could last weeks, months, or even years depending on their ability to get close to a source of data weighed against the vulnerability of their position. Every day spent in the rancor’s den in another day to become discovered, and the Empire is not known for their leniency for even the most mundane of infractions, let alone espionage.

The key to the Sleeper Agent specialization lies in the first tier of talents. From the start of their career, the Well Rounded talent provides the Sleeper Agent an essential component of their cover for very little investment. These two new career skills broaden the scope of the Sleeper Agent’s abilities which gives them a thoroughly convincing measure to artificially place themselves in proximity to their target.

Picking up the Mechanics skill could allow the Spy to get a job in an Imperial machine shop, performing routine maintenance on vehicles and heavy equipment while taking note of procedures and security at their facility. They could also mark what sorts of ordnance or tactics may be more effective for Rebel soldiers to employ against the Empire’s tools of war. The Astrogation skill could make the Sleeper Agent a candidate for a data center analyst where they could gather information on a number of Imperial Navy patrols and supply routes—information that would be highly valuable for Rebel command when deciding where and when to attack.

Not every assignment needs to revolve around infiltrating the Empire directly, though, as such activity often carries greater scrutiny and risk. Some postings could instead be infiltrating civilian life. A Sleeper Agent with some ranks in any of the Knowledge skills could find work in a university on Corellia where they may use the network of academia to foment skepticism and mistrust of the Empire’s activities. Medicine skills could be used to gain employment at a hospital on Coruscant to siphon off badly needed medical supplies to local Rebel cells or even to far away ground troops.

On the other end of the spectrum are a couple specialty talents at the end of the tree that reward the Sleeper Agent for having the level head needed to hide in plain sight. Inside Person requires no skill check, simply the expenditure of a Destiny Point, to narratively determine that the Sleeper Agent has spent time in a known base or large vehicle, thus granting free advantage to themselves and their group when making checks specifically concerning that vehicle or facility. Inside Knowledge functions in a similar way, except requiring a Skullduggery check. On success, the Sleeper Agent can simply “find” a personal scale object in a large vehicle or facility that can help them on their present mission. Instead of an item, the Spy can decide that they instead know a relevant piece of information such as the location of secret rooms or corridors, or secret bypass codes for the door lock panels, or even generalities about the routine patrols of the security staff.

A Blaster in the Dark

No tradecraft can be perfected without the proper tools. Sometimes that tool is a specialized datapad for slicing secure databanks. Sometimes it’s a sidearm the enemy never saw coming. Cyphers and Masks offers a selection of equipment perfectly suited to providing, maintaining, and protecting secrecy.

The CS14 “Ghost” Light Blaster Pistol is a compact blaster pistol, rivaling the classic holdout blaster in power but providing even greater concealment. Due to its component materials, a “Ghost” is incredibly hard to detect with computerized weapon scanners and even harder with a physical search. This allows to the owner an astounding amount of freedom in avoiding scrutiny and possible confiscation.

For less martial encounters, the Vid-Vox Scrambler is the perfect choice for preserving secrecy even while under surveillance. This small device produces an onerous jamming field that all but nullifies audio, video, and holographic surveillance in a small area. Observers must succeed on Daunting Computers and Perception checks to be able to discern anything at all more than garbled static.