Brainstorming ideas for document verification

[Flagg]

I'm thinking that there must be minor (or not so minor) Artifacts in existence to verify the authenticity of written documents, as proof against alteration or forgery.


However, I'm having trouble coming up with any clever ideas. Care to lend some of your own?


I do have an idea for something that works kind of like public key encryption: paired sets of quills and spectacles. The words written by the quill are completely illegible and nonsensical to anyone but the wearer of the spectacles. Correspondents would arrange in advance for each party to have both a quill, and set of specs that paired with the other, and thus could pass letters back and forth without fear of interception by enemy agents or nosy messengers.


This however, is a separate, though related, idea. It doesn't guarantee that the letter you're reading was penned by the person it claims to have been, just that they had the right writing instrument.


Thoughts?


-S

 

[Persell]

a magical sealing stamp?

 

[Flagg]

a magical sealing stamp?

Ok. How does it work?


-S

 

[Jakk Bey]

A stone that is keyed to a person, or perhaps even several important people, and when layed upon a document, will change color--each color corresponding to a person.  Red for the head of the House.  Blue for her husband.  Green for the major domo, ect.  Doesn't matter who used what, only that the person layed ink on a document.  Doesn't insure the veracity of their claims, only that they were the ones to put ink to paper.


Each House has their own, keyed to folks important to the House, and a few for other Houses to insure that they don't get forgeries of treaties or contracts.  Each stone is incised with the symbol for the House, and a date for their validity.  An old one could be used to verify an older document was indeed penned by the right person, but would be useless for the current set up.  Houses could have a whole cabinet full of the stones, used to verify old documents.

 

[Solfi]

This reminded me of this Artifact, but encrypted. Perhaps something in the same vein, but as Jakk says, keyed to a certain individual.


Ideally, the message would also look completely innocuous (ie, not look like code). Thus, something producing a letter that looked like perfectly harmless chit-chat to anyone but the intended reader.

 

[Samiel]

A stone that is keyed to a person, or perhaps even several important people, and when layed upon a document, will change color--each color corresponding to a person.  Red for the head of the House.  Blue for her husband.  Green for the major domo, ect.  Doesn't matter who used what, only that the person layed ink on a document.  Doesn't insure the veracity of their claims, only that they were the ones to put ink to paper.
Each House has their own, keyed to folks important to the House, and a few for other Houses to insure that they don't get forgeries of treaties or contracts.  Each stone is incised with the symbol for the House, and a date for their validity.  An old one could be used to verify an older document was indeed penned by the right person, but would be useless for the current set up.  Houses could have a whole cabinet full of the stones, used to verify old documents.

My take on this:


--------------


Artifact ** - Stones of Veracity


These Jade seals come in sets from the workshops of the Mountain Folk, each cut from the same piece of purest jade. The procedures employed by the Jadeborn ensure that these seals, each of most exquisite design, retain a sympathetic link to each other.


Used by the bureaucrats of the realm and rich threshold states to ensure the validity of government documents, these stones can be used to seal any normal document, when used with a specially prepared wax (Resources ** in cost, difficulty 4 to produce with alchemy), so that the seal glows when brought into contact with another stone from the set.


They are much prized by states along the inner sea as they do not require a user to be an essence user.


(Artifact ** buys a set of three, artifact *** buys a set of six)


--------------


The eclipse caste book also has a signet seal that enchants a document to be only readable by the intended recipent: It blanks the document if it is opened by anyone else.

 

[Hand of Destiny]

How about messages encrypted in images you could have magical paints that respond to a command word and revel the true hidden message from what otherwise looks like a nice painting.

 

[Flagg]

Samiel: The problem with those is that they're circumventable. Someone could easily steal one of those seals and use it. You can't know for sure that the letter was actually written by anyone in particular, just that they posessed the right seal.


I'm thinking of something that is a foolproof method of authenticating a document, which sould be entirely possible with magic... I'm just not feeling particularly clever right now


-S

 

[Hand of Destiny]

How about a prayer strip dedicated to the relevant desk jockey in the celestial bureaucracy that authenticates the message.  This could be a sidereal charm or terrestrial level sorcery.  Anyone could come up with a prayer strip but the essence provided by an exalt just makes sure that the desk jockey takes note.

 

[wordman]

It doesn't guarantee that the letter you're reading was penned by the person it claims to have been, just that they had the right writing instrument.

You could easily add the following caveats:

• The pen and the glasses must both be attuned at the same time.
  
• The pen can only be used by the person that attuned it.
  
• The glasses can only read the message if it was written by the pen attuned to the same person.
  
• Any attempt to reattune either the glasses or the pen breaks the connection between them, deattuning both of them.

 

[uteck]

How about messsage tubes that are attuned to a particular manse or set of heartstones?  You will need one of the heartstones, and be attuned to it, to activate the seal.  If the seal is broken or tampered with the contents are destroyed and the sender is made aware of the fact.  Only another heartstone from the same manse can open the message tube.

 

[Flagg]

Well, the pen-and-spectacles idea was an aside. Perhaps I should clarify a bit more:


The specific scenario I had in mind was for someone carrying a writ of some sort from a king or noble. They might have to show it to multiple people, and to people who can't be anticipated at the document's writing. I would think that an item that allows such a document to be instantly authenticated would be useful in such cases.


-S

 

[uteck]

Well, the pen-and-spectacles idea was an aside. Perhaps I should clarify a bit more:
The specific scenario I had in mind was for someone carrying a writ of some sort from a king or noble. They might have to show it to multiple people, and to people who can't be anticipated at the document's writing. I would think that an item that allows such a document to be instantly authenticated would be useful in such cases.


-S

Doing it that way, it would seem to be more of a Charm then anything else.  


The person 'seals' the document with the Charm and anyone who knows the Charm can verify other documents 'sealed' with it.  The Charm will display a small illusion of the person who cast the Charm with their full anima banner, and the sealing process imparts charatistics of their anima to the document.  


(You could require an occult aspect to the Charm were you need to know your 'true name' to seal docuemnts with the Charm.  So to forge someone's seal you need their true name.)


Or you could tie it to a family manse, so only thoughs attuned would cause that spacific seal to be used, but anyone can cast the Charm to verify the seal.  That way you have family crests that have meaning.


Or you have officals be granted tokens of office that allow them to seal and verify documents.  But that allows for them to be stolen, and we don't want that to happen now, do we?

 

[Jakk Bey]

How about a simple lens that shows the color of the aura of the person who wrote the document--a variation of the stone idea that I had?


Instead of stones being keyed, it's just the aura of the writer--and handy dandy charts are distributed to the functions and bureacrats around the Realm to compare and contrast.  Anyone can use them, and it doesn't need special ink or gee gaws.  Just put on the monocle, look at the document, put it up to the chart, verify who wrote it, and move them on.  Find a forgery, and shoot the criminal full of arrows while they anxiously await to see if they made it look right.


Because it doesn't matter what is said, only who laid ink on paper.


A caveat could also be a list of known criminals' auras as well--so they can catch known forgers.

 

[uteck]

Hopefully they don't distrubute forged or out of date charts.  :shock:


Opps, mixed up Bob and Steve's names on the aura charts.  No wonder all their messengers get killed.  

 

[Flagg]

What about something more simple, like a litmus test. Have a thing that you touch to the document. If it's legit, X happens. If it's a fake, Y happens.


Maybe for interesting visuals it could be somewhat organic -- like a branch from a special type of magical tree. If rubbed on a legitimate document, it sprouts a flower. If rubbed on a fake, it blackens and withers?


-S

 

[Jakk Bey]

You've got to give your thieves and ne'er-do-wells a chance at spreading mischief.


It would lend a great caper aspect to a session.  Get the chart, alter the chart or substitute your own, then get get past the checkpoint, while the original messenger gets detained, interrogated, while the PCs merrily go on their way.  


And at no time, does a sword leave a scabbard.  But then again, I'm a fan of games when there's no combat and everyone still manages to do a lot.

 

[Flagg]

Well, you could always switch the tree for a fake. That would be quite the caper


-S

 

[StarHawk]

I don't have my books with me but I know there's a solar linguistics charm that allows the reader to read the intent of the writer. And it states in the charm that one with the use of the charm can detect forgery.

 

[Jukashi]

You could get something like a DK reading crystal, but which only displays what it contains under the right conditions, such as when touched by a particular person, when a particular word is spoken, activated by a particular type of essence or, if we go for the tolkein option, under moonlight on one particular night of the year.


And once it's written on, it can't be erased and written on again. In fact, this seems the way the DKs probably did all their record-keeping.

 

[Solfi]

I don't have my books with me but I know there's a solar linguistics charm that allows the reader to read the intent of the writer. And it states in the charm that one with the use of the charm can detect forgery.

... I think that using that Charm for encrypted communication is not really in the spirit of said Charm. Unless I am thinking of another Charm, that Charm is used for verifying authenticity of texts. But...


[looks at topic header / looks at Stillborn's first post]


... what are we discussing now? Verification of texts (such as prose or knowledge-disseminating texts), or encryption of texts? I'm confused.

 

[Solfi]

... looked the Charm up. That's Sagacious Reading of Intent. It's a base Charms in the tree, so it's very easy to learn.


It's used to see the author's intent and biases with a specific text. Thus, if you are forging something, or creating misleading information, this Charm would show it. Very useful actually... A must-have Charm for anyone who needs to review a contract.


But, like I said, it wouldn't be useful for encrypted messages. Well, if the message was encrypted like I proposed above; with an innocuous text for uninitiated eyes, and the real text only for the recipient; I suppose the Charm would still reveal that the 'intent' was to hide a message. But it still wouldn't reveal the message.

 

[wordman]

How about an inkpad that you push your thumb into and then put a thumbprint on a message. If any reader touches their thumb to the print, they get a visual of you standing in front of them saying:


"Hello, I'm Bob the Destroyer, and I authorized this message". And they magically know the signature is yours.


This provides an authentic signature, but doesn't prove that the message is authentic (it could have been altered after being signed). So, maybe the ink has some way of voiding itself if the message is altered.


Hey, fuck it. It's magic.

 

[Solfi]

as I understood it, the authenticity of the signature left by the the Artifact I mentione earlier is assured...


... heh. Must have been tired when I rated that Artifact. It sure as hell shouldn't be level 5 with that effect. Still, the idea is what I liked.

 

[uteck]

I think the Empire would not want a good way of authenticating things to get out as that would add stability  to the Talons, which operate primarily by sabotaging each other.


If each department has secure communication then they can plot more easily. Such items might be listed as tools of the Anathema.