Rope Cipher

“It.. is a piece of rope?” Gemma narrowed her eyes, peering at the coil of knotted rope in her palm. She had opened the scuffed and singed manila envelope. “What in all the hells am I going to get from a piece of rope?” She cast her dark gaze down to the broken corpse at her feet. For a fleeting moment she regretted her decision to kill the woman, but only for a breath of one. The hunter had deserved everything that had come upon her as far as the child of Aries was concerned.

The Daughters of Men must move among the people and the demigods without notice if they wish to complete their mission. A dropped missive or an intercepted letter could cause them a great deal of trouble. It is due to this fact that they created a cipher with a simple to learn method involving easy to find or make materials. Rope making is something that the Daughters of Men teach from a young age. A good rope can be used for a copious number of purposes and can be crafted from something as common as grass. They took this understanding and this craft and developed a cipher utilizing the simple, common survival knowledge already taught in large among them.

Writing System


0	1	2	3	9

While most ropes are simple in nature, sometimes it is required to add more details. For that, the Daughters of Men have assigned number values to alphabet letters. This allows their cipher to translate to any language that is capable of being written with an alphabet system. The daughter uses the numbers and transposes them into a numeric knot system that involves multiple loops to better signify the number in question. When numbers reach two digits, they are combined side by side as an indication that the knots belong together. With the spacing between each letter being enough rope to lap the object intended for the cipher. For example: Tara wishes to send a message that includes her name. If she wished to spell her name in knots she would start by breaking her name down into the numbers associated with it. T is letter number 20, so Tara would use a 2 knot and a 0 knot for the first letter. Then she would wrap the rope around her stick to give the spacing for the next letter. A is letter one. She would tie the single 1 knot and wrap again; repeating the process for R, number 18, and again for another A. After the word, she would wrap twice around her stick to allow for proper spacing, and continue with the rest of her message.

Geographical Distribution

Widely within the Benot ha-Adam communities

Vocabulary

The Daughters of Men have a number of words that are assigned to basic knots. These knots allow for quick messages when the more time consuming cipher isn't possible. They add to them as they see fit. Below are some examples of knots frequently used for quick messages.