One recurring problem that the Hesberian Republic faces in administering its eastern lands is that enemies of the Republic are able to use magic for gathering intelligence. At first, when the Republic discovered that magic was used to eavesdrop on a persons’ thoughts, local administrators began sending important messages in Ikan, or using the ancient Hesberian Script, or using another language. The military has a shorthand language used historically to enable all the conquered peoples serving in the infantry to quickly understand orders thought there were as many as 20 languages spoken. However, the problem with using a different language was that the receiver of the message usually needed a translator. The translator was vulnerable to magic eavesdropping, even if the recipient of the message was not. Using the miliatary shorthand language limited what could be said and was not uncommon enough for any real secrecy. The critical weakness, though, was that wizards were usually the ones that knew dead or unused languages better than anyone else. They could use non-magical means and simply intercept the message and read it for themselves.
Ciphers had been in use by the ancient Kings. Most of them were simple subtitutions. The most famous cipher shifted each letter up three positions. The use of ciphers did not seem to help very much. It thwarted to mind-reading magics, but an intercepted message could usually be decoded fairly quickly. One foolish general believed that forcing message to be written in six letter blocks and encoded with the ancient ciphers made his messages invulnerable to magic.
EXWWKD WZDVQR WVXFKD JRRGLG HDDIWH UDOOAA
BUTTHA TWASNO TSUCHA GOODID EAAFTE RALLXX
What evolved was a series of ciphers called the Tigirian Code. A good cipher needed to be simple, but not so simple that it could be easily deciphered by the enemies of the Republic. The first Tigirian Code simply added a letter at the beginning indicating the shift required. If the first letter was F, then all subsequent letters needed to be shifted ‘down’ six letters to decode.
KESTDHZCVPOQZCLHSTWP
KTHISWORKEDFORAWHILE
The Republic began requiring everything to be enciphered using the Tigirian Code. The person that received the message was vulnerable only after decoding. Securing a person, however, was considered to be much easier than securing a message.
More complex variations of the Tigirian Code have been developed. The second code was like the first except that letters were encoded forward ranging from one letter to the number of letters indicated by the code letter. For example, if the first letter was I, the pattern of incrementing letters would be 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 repeating.
IUJLWBUYSNEHRVFCOQUFVRS
ITHISWORKEDFORAWHILETOO
The final version included a random series of letters at the beginning to indicate how to increment letters. This code was ultimately harder to decipher magically and by philosophers that favored mathematics. However, it was also usually deciphered incorrectly and required quite some time to decode. It worked like this:
If the first part of the message was encoded with a key marked by the first repeated letter. The repeated letter shows the length of the key, the proceeding characters determined the sequence used for encoding. For example, EACDBE, shows that the increment order is five positions long, and would progress as +5 (E),+1 (A),+3(C),+4(D),+2(B). Another example would be a message that begins BDEFJAGICHJ. The key is ten positions long (repeated J) and the sequence would be 2,4,5,6,10,1,7,9,3,8.
There are some administrators, though, do not rely on Hesberian ciphers to send critical messages. They use the Mavinian Traders or the Ganarii to cipher and send messages. One important weakness of any of the Hesberian ciphers is that if a message is sent by magical means, it becomes much easier to break the code. The Ganarii in magical lands use magic, so they understand this principle better than anyone. The Mavinian Traders simply use a cipher that is difficult to break, and so are secure more by accident rather than understanding how to foil magical decoding attempts. (It is true that there are a few traders that use magic, but their understanding of magic is not as structured and mathematical as the Ganarii.)
Awrelius is credited with asking a Ganarii to devise a way to send secret messages resistant to magic. It is unlikely that Awrelius actually commisioned such a thing as magic was still novel and used primarily for warfare during his reign. It is likely, however, than another consul or senator commissioned a code. In fact, it is quite likely that different senators or consuls have independently commisioned such a code – only the Ganarii know of the existence of multiple coding schemes.
It is not known how the Ganarii cipher and decipher secret messages. Some believe that they have a machine that does this, especially as the Ganarii helps construct the Great Mill and other machines. Others believe they use some kind of magical cipher in combination with their complex language. Still others believe that they do not cipher the message at all, but simply transmit the message somehow and the written code is just random numbers.
IKTZXTIVMFQP
GANARIICODES
The Mavinian Traders, of course, use their trademark deck of cards to send secret messages. Watching a trader decode a message looks like he or she is playing solitare. No one has quite figured out how they do it. The one disadvantage of using the Mavinian method is that decoding can take some time. The other disadvantage, as compared to the Ganarii, is that not all traders can be trusted. Then again, they have to know something in order to use a deck of 60 cards with three suits to send messages. They claim that they use a cipher, but since each card has a meaning in their own trading language, no one but the Mavinians themselves know for certain.
Of course, the wizards of the magical lands use diverse means to protect their messages from other wizards. No one, even a wizard, knows if their secrets are safe from other wizards.