skulduggery vs deception

skulduggery and deception both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
skulduggery	Yes	No	No	No
deception	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, deception is a hypernym of skulduggery; that is, deception is a word with a broader meaning than skulduggery:

skulduggery: verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of you in some way
deception: a misleading falsehood

Other hypernyms of skulduggery include deceit, misrepresentation.

skulduggery (noun)	deception (noun)
verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of you in some way	the act of deceiving
	an illusory feat; considered magical by naive observers
	a misleading falsehood