Is It Secret? Is It Safe?

Here's something from the scanning project that every good spy needs: a well-supplied safe house. I don't know when I drew this map, but judging from the style and the contents of the armory, I'd guess we're looking at something from around late 1984/early 1985. (I had a small knife collection back in the day and owned one of the black Tekna knives mentioned in the armory contents.)

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Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to My Underground Lair

Here's another Top Secret map from my scanning project, this one drawn some time in the mid- to late-80's. It's yet another villain's subterranean lair, this one located under a seemingly innocuous river-side warehouse:

Here's the surface/exterior map:

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I'm Hiding in Honduras - I'm a Desperate Man

While we're on the topic of espionage RPG's, here's something I've had laying around that's not from the scanning project and not for an edition of Top Secret: a character sheet for Palladium's Ninjas & Superspies game.

The Palladium house system may not be the smoothest rules set ever, and later additions may have taken the munckin-y aspects of the system to new heights (Rifts, I'm looking at you), but my friends and I had a blast with Beyond the Supernatural and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles back in the day. (And continue to do so, although much less often than we did back then.) We never played pure N&S more than a couple of times, but the martial arts rules were regularly incorporated into our other Palladium games. These three books are - aside from my Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic book - the most worn books in my collection, and for good reason.

So, in honor of some fun times, and keeping with the espionage theme (more or less) here's my N&S character sheet:

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You Gotta Give the Other Fella Hell

Here's a map from the scanning project that I originally made for use with Top Secret/S.I.. I think I drew this back in the mid-90's after watching True Lies for the umteenth time. It's a subterranean operations center for your PC's clandestine organization. Of course, this could also be an enemy operations center the PC's need to infiltrate. (Good luck with that.)

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I've Seen This Diamond Cut Through Harder Men

Here's another Top Secret memory courtesy of the scanning project: a villain's multi-level underground stronghold.

I distinctly recall drawing this up after a mid-80's viewing of Where Eagles Dare - those with a keen eye may even recognize a room or two on Level 5 inspired by those in Schloss Adler (and look for a nod to Remo Williams on Level 6). There aren't any sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads, but this should still be a fun romp for players who want to storm a bad guy's stronghold, a la Where Eagles Dare or Star Wars. Drop this location under the helipad on the Ville D'Arc island, and you've got one massive Big Bad's lair.

With its underground setting and multiple levels, this map really shows, IMHO, my dungeon crawling roots. I'll let you decide:

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How Was I to Know She Was with the Russians Too

Continuing my tribute to TSR's Top Secret, I thought I'd post something a little newer: a recent character sheet.

This one's not for original Top Secret, however; it's for that game's worthy descendant, Top Secret/S.I. Unlike most official character sheets for the games I play, I never felt the need to improve upon TSR's Top Secret agent dossier. It did what it needed to do, and did it well, IMHO. (I've got two sets of the original TSR dossiers, but if you're not so lucky, Mad Irishman has a faithful recreation available in PDF.)

Such was not the case with TSR's official Top Secret/S.I. sheet/folder. It was adequate, but it seemed to me that there was a lot of wasted space in the folder. So, here's a more compact character sheet for the game:

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Now on The Escapist: The Witch-Keep of Drakenmoor

Just a quick post to let everyone know that the latest installment of the "Dungeon World" setting, part of "The Days of High Adventure" column, is now live on The Escapist: "The Witch-Keep of Drakenmoor" is an 8-page location-based mini-adventure (in PDF). Enjoy!

Stay tuned to the Rust Monster, because next week I'll have a bunch more Top Secret goodies for you from my scanning project.

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