Godlike: Female Talents of the OSS (Patreon)

“You have to think. If you look scared, you’re dead. So smile.” —Hèléne Deschampes, OSS code-name “Anick”

The Office of Strategic Services was an American wartime agency dedicated to espionage and sabotage in enemy-held areas. Its officers included both military personnel and civilians. In the default Godlike campaign, which hews close to history and focuses on a wartime American military that allows only men in combat, the OSS is a great option to bring women into play.

Even in the OSS, such restrictions can be found. The most prominent OSS branch, the guerrilla fighters of Special Operations, employ only men from the uniformed services. 

Where women have a chance to join the fight is the OSS’s Secret Intelligence branch (OSS/SI). Secret Intelligence operatives recruit, train, and lead networks of local agents to perform espionage and occasionally sabotage. They often pose as teachers or tutors to explain their bicycling across the countryside between villages.

Undercover OSS operatives face tremendous stresses, and the constant risk of catastrophe in Nazi-occupied territory. It is no surprise that some develop Talent powers in moments of crisis.

OSS/SI CHARACTER CREATION

An OSS/SI character gets the usual 20 dice in skills of the player’s choice, but receives OSS/SI skill training instead of TOG commando training.

Required Stats and Skills:

• At least 2d each in Brains, Command, and Cool
• At least 2d in at least one local language

Additional Stats and Skills:

• +1d Cool and Command, none higher than 4d
• +1d in each OSS/SI skill from training

OSS/SI Skills:

• Bluff
• Brawl
• Cryptography
• Endurance
• Explosives
• Grenade
• Knife-Fighting
• Lie
• Navigation (Land)
• Parachuting
• Pistol
• Radio Operation
• Rifle
• Stealth
• Submachine Gun

Talent Powers:

• 25 Will points for Talents

INTERACTION WITH TOG TEAMS

When Allied troops invade an area where the OSS has been conducting espionage and sabotage, OSS operatives on the ground usually coordinate their efforts with the invaders, offering tactical intelligence and assistance. Female OSS/SI Talent player characters might be instructed to attach to particular TOG teams, or vice versa, combining their firepower and her access to local information. As always, their ultimate aim is to find, identify, and neutralize enemy Talents.

CHARACTER BACKGROUND

The OSS has its roots in Ivy League society, and many female OSS operatives are East Coast socialites: confident, friendly, athletic, and fluent in foreign languages. Some come to the OSS as dilettantes. Others include journalists, teachers, and Foreign Service clerks. Other women come to the OSS as natives of occupied countries who joined the resistance, became agents helping American or British intelligence services, and then became operatives themselves. All OSS/SI women sent into the field have experience in the countries where they’ll work. They must know the culture in order to avoid attention.

Pre-OSS Background (roll 1d10 or choose):

(1–2) Ivy League socialite and dilettante
(3–4) Foreign Service clerk
(3–4) Journalist
(5–6) Teacher
(7–8) Nurse or ambulance driver
(9) Local resistance operative
(10) Local intelligence source

Recent OSS Experience (roll 1d10 or choose):

(1) Reported German minefields, artillery positions, or submarine activity
(2) Reported German Talent activity
(3) Reported German innovations in rocketry
(4) Helped a down pilot escape occupied territory
(5) Helped persecuted Jews escape occupied territory
(6) Helped an intelligence officer or local agent escape occupied territory
(7) Established safe houses for operatives and downed pilots
(8) Established drop zones for supplies for resistance teams
(9) Directed the sabotage of a bridge or supply train
(10) Directed the ambush of a truck convoy

OSS/SI TRAINING

Secret Intelligence operatives undergo four months of intensive training before being sent to the field. It is nowhere near enough, but it's all the OSS can offer.

Basic Secret Intelligence Training
Undercover techniques, intelligence collection and reporting, sabotage, small arms, demolitions, unarmed defense, and basic counterespionage and disinformation. Training culminates in an assignment to penetrate an industrial site in a major nearby city. Duration: Three weeks. Location: Until July 1944, intelligence training takes place at Training Area E, a set of country estates and a former private school in Towson, Maryland, north of Baltimore. After July 1944, a revised course is taught at Training Area RTU-11, nicknamed "The Farm" (Lothian Farm in Clinton, Maryland, just outside Washington); at Training Area F (the Congressional Country Club at Bethesda, Maryland); and at a West Coast training facility on Santa Catalina Island, near Los Angeles.

Basic Special Operations Training
Survival, physical conditioning, demolitions, close combat, and small arms. Duration: Three weeks. Location: Training Area B (Catoctin Mountain Park) in western Maryland.

Communications and Combat Training
Wireless radio operation, telephony, and cryptography, along with further training in small arms, demolitions, and survival techniques. Duration: Ten weeks. Location: Training Area C (Chopawamsic Recreational Demonstration Area, later Prince William Forest Park), at the U.S. Marine Corps base at Quantico, Virginia.

AREAS OF OPERATION

In the European Theater, OSS/SI is most active in North Africa, southern France, the Mediterranean, and the Balkans. It started with a handful of radio operators in Morocco and Tunisia in the run-up to Operation TORCH. After the Allied landings, the OSS establishes a base in Algiers to set up new information and resistance networks. It adds bases in Cairo and Corsica in 1943, and in Bucharest in 1944. OSS/SI trains Mediterranean agents in espionage, parachuting, and combat at the Club des Pins, west of Algiers.

Before mid-1944, OSS/SI rarely works in northern France, where the British SOE and Secret Intelligence Service in London have longstanding resistance networks. The British services insist on controlling Allied intelligence efforts that may affect their networks, and OSS chief William Donovan dislikes handing over control of his people. 

Only after the D-Day landings does the OSS begin sending teams to help the British services coordinate with resistance groups. In August 1944, the OSS establishes a base in liberated Paris to coordinate operations on the Western Front. OSS/X-2, its counterintelligence branch, hunts and turns spies left behind by the Germans and surveilled Communist resistance groups. OSS/R&A (research and analysis) examines German documents. The OSS sends detachments behind enemy lines to gather intelligence and recruit agents to help watch for German counterattacks. It also sends Target Forces or T-Forces to capture German documents, secret technology, and Talents.

In September 1944, OSS/SI begins infiltrating Germany out of bases at Harrington, England; Dijon, France; and Namur, Belgium.

TYPICAL EQUIPMENT

Clothing, toiletries, and luggage carefully selected and screened to remove all signs of foreign origin.

Letters and photos from invented loved ones.  

Threads of selected lengths to measure precise distances.

Counterfeit German-issued identification cards, passes, ration cards, and money.

An area map printed on a square of silk, which can be sewn into a coat lining for concealment.

Wireless radio in a carrying case.

A tiny camera that can be concealed in a matchbox.

A Smith & Wesson .32 revolver, easily concealed. (Damage: Width in killing and shock; capacity: 5; range: 10/30.)

K Pill (“knockout”): chloral hydrate, a white pill dissolved in water or alcohol to render a subject unconscious.

L Pill (“lethal”): a concentrated solution of potassium cyanide in a pea-size glass capsule, covered in brown rubber to prevent accidental breakage. Induces swift cardiac arrest, leading to brain-death within minutes. It is harmless if swallowed without breaking.

TD Pill (“truth drug”): tetrahydracannabinol (THC) acetate, a narcotic derived from Indian hemp, typically infused into cigarettes in doses of 0.02 or 0.04 grams. It induces a psychedelic or seemingly spiritual euphoria and chattiness about 30 minutes after ingesting, which is meant to reduce a subject’s resistance to interrogation. 

UNUSUAL WEAPONS

An OSS/SI operative might have one or two of these if the GM agrees.

Thumb Knife or Boottip Knife
Negligible damage in combat, but easily concealed and useful for cutting ropes. 

.22 HiStandard Automatic (With Silencer)
Silenced pistols are quite popular among OSS operatives. Generally too weak and inaccurate for combat, in trained hands one is perfect for stealthy, close-range kills. The silenced .22 HiStandard cannot be heard over the sound of a typewriter or loud speech more than a few yards away. 

• Damage: Width in shock + 1 killing
• Capacity: 7
• Range: 5/20

.22 Enpen
A .22 caliber firing tube disguised as a fountain pen. Another model can deliver a charge of tear gas instead of a bullet.

• Damage: Width in shock + 1 killing
• Capacity: 1
• Range: 2/5

“Beano” Grenade
A globe-shaped grenade that explodes on impact rather than on a fuse delay. It explodes on landing, so it cannot be kicked away or picked up like a normal grenade.

• Penetration: 2
• Area: 2
• Range: 15/30

Clam Mine
A miniature limpet mine, ideal for destroying small vehicles such as automobiles, light tanks, and boats.

• Penetration: 6
• Area: 1
• Weight: 2 lbs.