Ink, Mirror

Ultimate Equipment Guide II

Author Greg Lynch, J. C. Alvarez
Publisher Mongoose Publishing
Publish date 2005

Mirror ink is another one of the inventions of Navath Jeulle, the alchemist of Baron Gustave d’Flerge. So elegant in its simplicity, it served the baron’s spies and agents well for several years, until the secret to deciphering messages written in mirror ink at last got out. Once it was discovered that the secret was no longer secret, Navath was sent back to his workshop to create a new ink for the baron’s use.

Like all of Navath’s inks, mirror ink appears to be perfectly normal black ink. However, it has been alchemically altered to make any message written in it utterly unintelligible. Even as the writer’s pen traces the words (or whatever else is to be written), the letters shift and transform into gibberish. This effect is mildly disconcerting to the writer, who must succeed on an Intelligence ability check (DC 10) to write the message out as he intends it to read. There is no powder or alchemical substance that causes the words written in mirror ink to become legible. The only way to read what is written is to hold the message up to a mirror. The reflection of the message in the mirror is perfectly legible.

Tathiela stocks this ink primarily out of a sense of nostalgia, but lately has noticed an increase in her sales of the stuff. Her best guess is that, although mirror ink was once next to worthless when its secret became widely known, enough years have gone by that it is not nearly so well-known as it once was.

Ink, Mirror (1 oz. phial): 10 gp