Spies

Role: Infiltration Agents

Weapons: Concealed blades.

Outfit: Whichever disguise best suits the situation.

Skill level: Experts in infiltration and espionage.

Affiliation: Most regions of Arandolia has them.

Doctrine: None.

Strengths: They are sneaky, intelligent and charismatic, well able to blend in practically anywhere by pretending to be nobles, guards, servants or even beggars to pass by unnoticed.

Weaknesses: They know a great deal of valuable information, which can end up in the wrong hands if a spy is uncovered, caught and tortured.

Spying on other people's business is an age old craft. One that demands intelligence, patience, charisma and a great deal of perception. It is also a very dangerous trade that must be performed with cold blood and nerves of steel in order not to get too involved with the ones being spied on, as loyalty is they key of this shifty profession, and a turncoat spy will never be truly appreciated by the new master after switching sides.

On the other hand, there are also those spies who were never truly loyal to their apparent master at all. Some spies are so freaking good at their trade that they can even pretend to be spies for someone else, acting as double agents and thus getting access to high levels of secret information that would otherwise be utterly inaccessible.

That's why usually only really trustworthy women get to be hand-picked by the rulers of each Arandolian region to be spies. Women who were born within secret circles of spymasters and trained to spy on others from their very birth, often being treated as an invisible part of the ruling families themselves, which in many cases they actually are even blood related to their masters.

After a spy is assigned to a particular target who she must investigate, she moves to the region and blends into the commoners in order to learn the accents, customs and values of the locals, becoming practically one of them and acting as if she herself was born there. Once she is utterly indiscernible from the local population, she then finds her way to her target's inner circle, step by step. That's why a spy must be so intelligent and charismatic, because in order to be accepted into those circles, she must play the very dangerous game of standing out from the crowd so she can earn the priviledge of becoming part of the target's retinue, but doing so very carefully to avoid arousing any kind of suspition towards her true origins and allegiances.

A spy can attempt to stand out through in many ways, with the most common being either: as a really talented and honourable soldier so to become a bodyguard of her target; as a rather beautiful and lusty harlot so to become her target's concubine; as a very intelligent and wise advisor to become the target's councelor; or even as a really entertaining person so to become her target's drinking buddy. Those are the very best infiltration ways to get easy and ample access to the target's secrets, but it demands a good amount of trust before one can ever be permitted to stick around when the most private conversations are about to happen.

However, not always those are the best ways to achieve an objective. Sometimes those who are humblest are so outright ignored or underestimated by the high ranking nobles that a spy can get plenty of access to valuable information while hidding under the simple disguise of servants, waitresses and even beggars. In the end, what really matters is to gather the intel and relay it back home, so the means are not important as long as the results are reached safely, timely and efficiently.