There are two exits in Room #25. One to the right as the party came in an one straight ahead. The exit straight ahead leads to Room #26.
Room #26 is a very rough-cut room. Little more than a cave that has been cleared out.
Inside this room are several (5) Ochre Jellies. But these are bright purple in color. There are others here that are smaller and do not attack.
These Purple Jellies are Ochre Jellies that have been subjected to necromantic magics. Thus they have a bonus +4 to all saves vs. any type of magic.
They have no treasure but if they can be collected in a glass vial they will fetch 50 gp per standard oil flask/holy water flask size to an alchemist or other arcane researcher.
You wake up unable to move. There’s a presence in the room. Then you see it. You’re terrifified beyond anything you’ve experienced before. The dark shape with glowing eyes approaches as you lay helpless. You try desperately to move, knowing that you must in order to stop this evil, malevolent thing from attacking. Still the entity nears. A scream forms but doesn’t come out.
The creature is pressing down upon you. Its eyes are all the more horrifying, and now you can make out a hag-like face. “She” has a menacing smile, and apparently is whispering something.
You feel that if you don’t move soon, you will die from sheer fright...
Known by many names across many cultures, the entity commonly referred to as the “old hag” has been a literal nightmare for humanity for centuries. Now it stalks the streets of Stockton, California, returning to locations still haunted by its presence decades before. Spectral forces have incaded the Central Valley. Eliminating them from the community is up to you.
The Nightmare is an exciting new adventure for the FRIGHT NIGHT CLASSICS roleplaying game module series. Inside you’ll find character cards, a sleep lab map, and a fun night of terrifying gaming.
I really had a lot of fun with this one.
When I was contacted by Richard Ravalli of Yeti Spaghetti and Friends to do a Fright Nights Classics adventure, I jumped on it.
The game is designed for games like Chill and Cryptworld, but you can use it with almost any modern horror game. Yes, even NIGHT SHIFT.
I have wanted to write a Chill adventure for years so I was very pleased to get to do this.
ALSO,
Fright Night Classics is currently in the middle of defending their trademark. So you can get the adventure AND help them out for the same price of the adventure alone. Just head on over to their GoFundMe page and donate $5 then tweet out your donation, tagging Fright Night Classics @chillcryptworld (tag me as well! @timsbrannan) and tell them you want a copy of "The Nightmare!"
Yeah, this won't help the standing on DriveThru, but the money goes to a good cause.
While not a companion in the strictest sense, a group of people have played a similar role for the Doctor, and that is the fine men and women of U.N.I.T.
U.N.I.T., originally the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, is a military organization controlled by the UN. We see U.N.I.T. officers in Britain, America, Germany, and China.
The task of U.N.I.T. is to protect the Earth from alien threats. Though the history of U.N.I.T. is murky (different on-screen explanations), one thing is for certain U.N.I.T. owes a lot to the Doctor.
We (and the Doctor) spend the most time with the U.N.I.T. HQ in England, first under the command of Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, played by the amazing Nicholas Courtney. The Brig was the perfect foil to the 3rd Doctor's shenanigans. But you knew there was always respect between the two, and even a fondness as seen in the actions of the 5th, 7th, 11th, and 12th Doctors. In fact every Doctor from the 2nd Doctor on (with the exceptions of the 6th Doctor and the 8th Doctor of course) has a U.N.I.T. story. Even the 1st Doctor, played by David Bradley in this one, has an encounter with Army officer "Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart" the Brigadier's Grandfather. Though agewise it is more likely it should have been his father.
The Brig and U.N.I.T. have been so important to the history of Doctor Who that in the modern era when have Kate Stewart, the Brig's daughter and current leader/scientific advisor to U.N.I.T. and played by Jemma Redgrave.
I talked about U.N.I.T. a bit when I talked about Quatermass. They share quite a number of similarities.
U.N.I.T. is also a great stand-in for the Doctor in various stories and Role-Playing Games.
We had a Torchwood spin-off, I always thought a U.N.I.T. spinoff would be fun. There are U.N.I.T. novels, audio dramas, and supplements for the major Doctor Who RPGs. So one can get involved in the Doctor's universe and never even see the Doctor. He becomes, as Maj. Blake says in The Christmas Invasion, "the stuff of legends."
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
This tunnel leads off of room #24. This room (Room #25) appears to be a natural cavern that had been carved to appear more finished.
If the characters have been to Room #23 then this room looks like it was being carved to look like that.
There are no creatures in this room, but there are still some cutting tools that would work as weapons. Two pick axes that do 1d6 hp damage per attack.
- Every companion when they first enter the TARDIS.
Nearly as ubiquitous as the Doctor themself and more so than say the Sonic Screwdriver is the Doctor's TARDIS.
The TARDIS, an acronym for Time And Relative Dimensions in Space, is the Doctor's time and space travel machine. It is powered by a captured black hole known as the Eye of Harmony. It can (or at least is supposed too) blend in with any environment, and most famously it is bigger on the inside than on the outside.
The Doctor's TARDIS (and it is never "Tardis" or "tardis") is presently stuck in the shape of a late 1950s early 60s style Police Public Call Box. The mechanism that allows it to blend in, the Chameleon Circuit, was broken, so when he landed in 1963 it was stuck in that form can could not change to anything else. The Doctor tried to fix it on a couple of occasions, but it seems now (at least implied by Donna in her DoctorDonna incarnation) he just doesn't want to fix it. The Sixth Doctor tried to fix it ("Attack of the Cybermen") but it still ends up not working right.
We learn from the 10th Doctor that a TARDIS was not really built but grown on Gallifrey. And there seems to be an organic structure to them as seen in "The Doctor's Wife" when his TARDIS' consciousness is given a voice.
The Doctor's TARDIS is old. Typically referred to as a "Type 40" or even a "Mark 1" this TARDIS has been called a "museum piece" by River Song on one occasion. When we encounter "The Fugitive Doctor" (Jo Martin) for the first time, her TARDIS looks almost brand new. Leading more credence to the idea that her Doctor was removed from the Doctor's memories a very long time ago.
The TARDIS has the ability to rearrange its own internal environment as seen in more than a few episodes. The ability to add or remove rooms as needed. And even change the configuration of the control room, or as the newer Doctors have put it, "changing the desktop." Something that usually prompts an older Doctor to comment, "Oh, you've redecorated. I don't like it." In fact, it has become something of a running gag in Doctor Who.
As much as "The Enterprise" is a character in Star Trek, the TARDIS is even more so. It has a mind and will of it's own. And as the TARDIS herself (in the form of the wonderful Suranne Jones) says:
The Doctor: You didn't always take me where I wanted to go.
Idris/The TARDIS: No, but I always took you where you needed to go.
Which is true.
To summarize the TARDIS in a single blog post is folly. Sixty years of television has made for a lot to say.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
Going all the way back to Room #17 the other exit on the far side of the cave. This winding tunnel opens up to a semi-finsihed cave system.
This cave is the home to a small family of Owl Bears. There is a male, his mate, their "chub" and an adolescent male.
If the party does not attack the owl bears they will also not attack in return. They are hungry, but wary of others. If the party tosses them some meat the owl bears will lead them to a small stash of treasure they have discovered (but have no use for) Treasure type C x5.
If the party attacks the oldest three will attack.
Note: It has become generally accepted that a baby Owl Bear is called a "Chub."
Another Sunday special today. In 2013 we were hit with a bunch of Doctor Who special event episodes to celebrate the upcoming 50th anniversary of the show. At this point, Doctor Who had never been more popular, and in addition to a series of stories leading up to the 50th, the Anniversary episode itself was going to be shown in select theatres.
It was all quite exciting.
The Anniversary episodes had always featured all the Doctors. But now we 50 years in. The first three Doctor Who actors had passed, Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor, was nearly 80 years old. Christopher Eccleston, the ninth Doctor, had already announced he was not coming back. Then we got hit with the big surprise!
The Name of the Doctor
This was the penultimate episode before the Anniversary. In this the Doctor is forced to go to his own grave in the future in the fields of Trenzalore. When a Time Lord dies the scars of all their travels in Time and Space are laid bare; there is no body. Here a former enemy (going back to the Second Doctor days) The Great Intelligence, has set a trap for the Doctor. The plan is to lure the Doctor into his own time stream and collapse it, removing the Doctor Who history.
The Doctor is, however saved by Clara, who jumps into his time stream, where she interacts with all his past lives. Sometimes he remembers her most times he doesn't but it explains why she has popped up in his life in different times and places. He is further saved by what can only be described as a "time ghost" of River Song.
In this episode we see all the Doctors (well as fleeting ghosts and flashbacks) but there is one here we do not recognize. Clara says she sees 11 faces, 11 Doctors, but not this one. The Doctor tells us that this ghost is him, but not "The Doctor!"
And then we had to wait six months!
Night of the Doctor
Our next adventure with the Doctor is almost as exciting. Ok, It actually., and you can watch the whole episode online.
"I'm the Doctor. But probably not the one you expected."
- The Eighth Doctor, Night of the Doctor
Paul McGann is back as the Eighth Doctor! And so are the Sisterhood of Karn and Clare Higgins (well-known to many Hellraiser fans). This also gives the Eighth Doctor his proper regeneration scene, and he regenerates into a young John Hurt who is called "The War Doctor" now.
The Day of the Doctor
This movie-sized event brings back the 11th Doctor and Clara, the 10th Doctor and we see what the deal is with the War Doctor. I will be going into much greater detail on him and the Time War on "W" day.
We also get "Rose Tyler" back, or more to the point, "The Bad Wolf." So even Billie Piper was on board. The War Doctor is about to use The Moment to destroy all of Gallifrey and the Daleks, but he is shown his personal future with the 10th and 11th Doctors. He is sent back to Time War to commit the act that "Silences the Universe" (and turns him into the dark legend that the People of the Gamma Forests know as "The Great Warrior" which in their language is "Doctor".)
This time (or originally as the case maybe) the 10th and 11th Doctors meet him there (something they are not supposed to be to do) and all three decide to do it together. Until 11 has an idea.
Using the stasis cubes used to create "Time Lord Art" (a moment in time frozen forever) they are going to freeze the whole planet and remove it from time and let the Daleks kill each other in the cross fire.
What happens is one of the best Anniversary moments ever.
I mean, wow! Not just all 12 Doctors, but even Nine (from a previous episode like the others) AND a sneak peek at the Twelfth Doctor played by Peter Capaldi who had only recently been announced.
We even get something special in the very end. The Doctors are all headed back to their own time streams while the Eleventh Doctor is still looking at the painting of "Gallifrey Falls" that gave him the idea when a familiar, very familiar, voice is heard. Tom Baker walks in as "The Curator" but leaves you doubt of Who he really is.
This sets things up rather nicely for the 60th Anniversary coming up. How?
Well here is the last episode we got. Jodie Whitaker's 13th Doctor regenerates into...well let's just say "an old favorite."
Now we have to wait six months. Again!
I am not sure how the 60th Anniversary will be able to top the 50th, but right now it is off to an interesting start.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
A secret door in room #22 leads to a hallway of cut stone and not a cave passage. It opens up to a perfectly square room. There are four statues in each corner of demonic women standing 7 ft tall. Each holds a sword. There is a fifth statue in the center of the room holding a staff.
The statues are really Caryatid Columns.
They will only attack people if they attempt to go throw the door straight ahead.
Whenever a character strikes a caryatid column with a weapon (magical or nonmagical), the weapon takes 3d6 points of damage. Apply the weapon’s hardness normally. Weapons that take any amount of damage in excess of their hardness gain the broken condition.
The caryatid columns do not have treasures, but their swords can be used. Each Caryatid Column has two masterwork swords they wield. These swords require an 18 strength to use but are treated as a +2 weapon that does 1d10 hp damage.
The Doctor: Oh, you're not, are you? Tell me you're not archaeologists. Professor River Song: Got a problem with archaeologists? The Doctor: I'm a time traveler. I point and laugh at archaeologists. Professor River Song: [offering handshake] Ah. Professor River Song, archaeologist.
The Doctor and River, Silence in the Library
There can be endless debates on who was the best companion. Rose vs. Clara, Sarah Jane vs. Leela, Mel vs. Ace. Just kidding, no one liked Mel (poor Bonnie Langford!). But there can be no doubt the companion who had the biggest impact on the Doctor and his stories was "the child of his best friends" and his wife, Professor River Song. Played by the AMAZING Alex Kingston.
We are introduced to River in the episodes she dies, Silence in the Library/Forrest of the Dead. She meets the 10th Doctor, and she seems to know him well, but they are also "squabbling like an old married couple." And then River does something. Something no other companion has ever done before or since.
She tells the Doctor his name. Not "The Doctor," his real name, the one he tells no one.
I mean, how is that for an entrance?
We do go on to see River more and more, but her history and the Doctor's ar all messed up. They keep meeting out of order. So they keep diaries to figure out where they both are at any given time.
River was the brainchild of writer, then showrunner (during the 11th and 12th Doctors) Steven Moffat. He based her somewhat on the book "The Time Traveler's Wife," which he would later adapt as a series on HBO.
THAT in an of itself would have made River very interesting. But it was her next big reveal that stunned everyone.
In the episode "A Good Man Goes to War," the Doctor and Rory assemble an army to take back Rory's wife, Amy, and their baby daughter, Melody. The Doctor calls in all his favors, and everyone shows up, except for River Song. When she finally does she tells the Doctor there was nothing she could do to stop it. Why?
She would have been erasing her own timestream is why. Because River Song is Melody Pond.
NO ONE saw that one coming.
The Doctor and River had all their adventures, just not always in the same order (we still don't know much about Jim the Fish) but one day was going to be the last day the Doctor saw River and he tried to avoid it as much as he could.
To quote River herself,
“When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it'll never end. But however hard you try you can't run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever for one moment, accepts it. Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day. Not today. Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all. Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days, when the wind stands fair, and the Doctor comes to call... everybody lives.”
I could spend the next few days talking about how awesome River Song is. While I do want her to come back I also accept that her story has been played out in full. We know she and the Doctor had a wonderful life and we all also knew there was no way the Doctor would have been able to stay with her forever. Their story is wonderful and sad in all the right places and that is good.
If anyone asks how do you kill off a beloved character and make it matter, I always point to River Song, the Doctor's Wife.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
This rough-cut hall straight on from rooms 18 and 20 leads to a room that is half natural cave and the rest is cut and shaped walls.
This room is full of crystal balls. They show scenes from different parts of the dungeon and different worlds, but it is difficult to tell what is what.
Many are broken and dark. All are too massive to carry and will not fit into a bag of holding. The crystal balls can be destroyed, but each one requires 340 hp of blunt damage. Every hit with a weapon has a 50% chance of that weapon being broken.
There are no creatures here, but many gems are embedded in the various stands for the crystal balls. Each (20) grants Treause Type L.
I have been rather fortunate. I have a great job. I have a wife who has a great job. We have a roof over our heads, we can put food on the table, and we are all healthy and happy. That has not always been the case. I can remember times where I didn't have money for food, or when I did it was lean times. I was a grad student in the 90s and went 3 months without a paycheck because the State of Illinois could not make their budget. I was out of a job in the early 2000s for the longest time. I grew up without much. So when people have it rough I can empathize.
Professional Game design is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Lots of game designers live paycheck to paycheck. So when an unexpected hardship hits, it is felt.
Here are a few game designers that could use some help and every little bit helps.
Owen's Medical Bills Bundles
Owen K.C. Stephens suffered a pulmonary embolism back in February. As you can imagine, the bills have been pretty bad. There are two bundles from publishers he has worked with in the past on DriveThruRPG that you can buy to support him. He gets some help and you get over 180 PDFs. Even if you just find one or two in here to use it is worth the price.
I mentioned this on before and it should be repeated. But a good friend and publisher Jonathan M. Thompson passed away a while back and left his family with some expenses. There is a DriveThruRPG bundle and a GoFundMe in place for him.
Another designer in need of a bit of help from a lawsuit is Cam Banks. No lawsuit is fun and no matter which side of it you are on it is a messy and expensive affair. He has a Givealittle campaign (the GoFundMe of NZ I think) set up to give him some help.
So instead of giving $8 a month to a narcissistic billionaire, why not spend it on someone that will actually benefit from it all AND you can help out their lives.
Note: I am not getting any "kickback" from any of these and there are NO affiliate links here. I am asking this because these folks all need our help. RPGs is based on communities and group work. We as a group can make things better for others. And we should.
You didn't think I would do this whole A to Z and not mention RPGs?
My exposure to Doctor Who was coterminous with my exposure to RPGs and Dungeons & Dragons in particular. When I would go to bookstores, my goal was always a new D&D book and a new Doctor Who novel. So when in the mid-80s I discovered that FASA (a company I knew of from their Star TrekRPG) had also done a Doctor Who RPG. Well, I had to get it.
Well. Actually, my brother got it first. But I spent a lot of time reading it.
FASA Doctor Who
I enjoyed the Star Trek RPG (and still do), and this one was a new experience for me. I had tried to play Traveller back then (I finally got around to it) and played Star Frontiers, but this was Doctor Who. It was an officially licensed game, and I loved it.
The FASA Doctor Who game took some liberties with the Doctor Who cannon. It had to. Even in the 1980s, Doctor Who was 20 years old and had stories all over the place. Some were contradictory to each other, and some others had taken place in "the future," which was now in the past. It was always entertaining to read about something that was supposedly going on then. Reading in 1985 about the Cyberman Invasion of 1986 in the past tense was fun.
Over the years I have collected the entire FASA Who series. It hasn't been cheap but it has been fun.
Given the closeness of the rules to their own Star Trek RPG I am still half-tempted (ok, more than half) to run a Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover. Tom Baker era Who with TOS era Trek.
Time Lord
Time Lord was another Doctor Who RPG. This one was written by Ian Marsh and Peter Darvill-Evans and published in 1991 by Virgin Publishing. I knew of it, but never played it. I also never owned a copy.
Much like the original release of the Indiana Jones RPG there were no character creation rules, just pre-gens of the Doctor and various companions.
The game was released in paperback book form. This was not a surprise since the publisher, Virgin, was a book publisher and not a game publisher. Virgin had made their mark in Doctor Who fandom with Target books novelizations of the classic Doctor Who episodes and the "New Adventures" product line of new stories featuring the Seventh Doctor at first and then moving into the Eighth and other Doctors.
In 1996 the entire game with some unpublished supplements was released online.
Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space
The latest version of the Doctor Who RPG comes to us from Cubicle 7. If you have been a long-time reader here you know my fondness and history with this game. It is now currently in its Second Edition.
It is a fantastic game and has provided me an endless amount of fun. There has been a printing featuring in turn the 10th, 11th, War, 12th and 13th Doctors. I don't have them all since they had minor changes between each one, though I did get them on PDF.
Additionally, I have all the guides for the various Doctors.
Honestly, I could spend forever talking about these games.
Since I typically dedicate May to Sci-Fi RPGs maybe I'll spend my May going through all of these.
All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.
