#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Inferno

Something a little different again since I will talk about a single serial of Doctor Who. This time it is 1970's "Inferno."  It is the second serial (from the seventh season) to feature Jon Pertwee as the Doctor in exile on Earth.  The Time Lords have crippled his TARDIS and removed all knowledge of how to Time Travel from his mind. He is stuck on Earth and not taking it well, so he tinkers with the TARDIS all the time with mostly disastrous results. 

In Inferno he manages to slip into a parallel universe with a Fascist Britain. In both universes there is an experiment to drill through the Earth's crust, but at the point they are doing will cause catastrophic problems. The fascist universe is slight ahead in time as the "prime" universe so the Doctor knows what needs to be done.

I liked this episode for a lot of reasons. First it played into my growing interest in the idea of the Multi-verse, something that I began to explore in the comic "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and later in books like "Job: A Comedy of Justice" and "The Coming of the Quantum Cats."  It was something that at the time I was really ready to enjoy.  

Secondly, and this is the big one, it was the Doctor Who episode that introduced me to other Doctors. 

Growing up I watched Doctor Who on my local (St. Louis) PBS station KETC.  Now KETC has a huge market, and they played the Tom Baker era almost exclusively. But they were not the only local PBS station. Just to the north of me was WILL out of Urbana IL and it was connected with the University of Illinois at Urbana.  While I did not get that station on our cable package there were some in town that had access to it. Also there was a steady stream of VHS tapes coming down from Urbana to my hometown from people going to school there. Inferno was one such tape.

I remember watching it in, of all places, my High School's library. One of my friends had it and was watching in the "media room" which was supposed to be off limits to general students unless you worked there. I didn't. But I was fascinated by this episode and mostly by this "new to me" Doctor. I knew Pertwee came before Baker and that his Doctor was a different sort, but this episode was an eye-opener for me.

Recently, I had the chance to rewatch in prep for today's post. It is slower than I remember, but just as good.  Though I do find it very odd that I am right now older than Pertwee was in this episode (he was 51).

I have made a habit since first watching this one to check out all the Pertwee/3rd Doctor episodes I can. I know there are a few I have never seen. I have not sought them out because I do enjoy the joy of stumbling upon them just like I did with Inferno.

Since moving to the Chicago area I have had the chance to talk to others who watched Doctor Who from the same time period and how their PBS stations differed from my local St. Louis one. It has been very interesting and I'll talk more about it on "P" day.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 11

A small passageway in the back of Room #10 leads down to a rough-cut cave.  

A small glowing stone is stuck into a small pedestal in the middle of the cave.  There is plenty of track around the stone, wearing out the stone ground. The area 5' radius around the stone is untouched. 

The stone is a Chaos Stone, one of the artifacts of the mages.  It is made of pure chaos and its effects are random.

Any character touching the stone rolls a 2d6 and consults the table below.

• 2: The character is transported to a random location within 100 feet of the stone.
• 3-4: The character is granted a temporary penalty to one of their ability scores by -1.
• 5-6: The character is cursed with a minor ailment, such as -3 on attack rolls or saving throws. 
• 7: The stone has no effect.
• 8-9: The character is blessed with a minor boon, such as +3 on all attack rolls or saving throws.
• 10-11: The character gains a powerful boon, such as a +2 bonus to one of their ability scores.
• 12: The character gains a permanent +1 to one ability score determined at random.

A character can only touch the stone once for effect.  Unless noted, the effects last 1d6+6 turns.

The stone is fixed to the pedestal. Any attempts to remove it will cause it to shatter. If the shards are collected they could be sold to a high level magic-user or alchemist for 20-50 gp (1d4+1 x10).

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Highlanders & Outlanders

Back in 1966/67 a Doctor Who serial aired called "The Highlanders" and it featured the Second Doctor and introduced us to the soon-to-be companion Jamie McCrimmon, played by Frazer Hines during the Battle of Culloden.

Jaime quickly became a favorite among the fans. In the late sixties, he was often voted the #1 fan favorite, and this also included "the best legs on TV."

One of those fans was author Diana Gabaldon. Who took her love of this episode and crafted her own tale about the Scottish Highlands, the Battle of Culloden, and Time Travel. One of the stars of these novels (and later) series was a Highlander named Jamie Fraser. 

Of course I am talking about the wildly successful "Outlander" novels and TV series.

I have never read the novels, but I have seen the series. It is quite fun really. The time-travel elements are only a plot device, as opposed to something central as in Doctor Who.  Frazer Hines even made a guest appearance. 

Outlander is not the only property inspired by Doctor Who, either directly or indirectly.

"DC's Legends of Tomorrow" (2016-2022) was part of the "Arrowverse" subset of DC Comics TV shows. It dealt with a group of misfit heroes, led by Rip Hunter, played by Arthur "Rory" Darvill (fresh off of Doctor Who). Now DC has always had time travel and Rip is an established character, but the Doctor Who elements here are turned way up.

Douglas Adams who was a script editor and writer for Doctor Who in the Tom Baker years gave us "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."  Not only was the book inspired by Adams, but Adams was also good friends with Lala "Romana II" Ward, and the Tenth Doctor even name-drops Adam's famous protagonist, Arthur Dent in "The Christmas Invasion."

One could argue that the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation are more or less Cybermen.  Comics publisher IDW makes this even clearer with their Doctor Who / Star Trek Crossovers.  It doesn't end there. For years fans speculated that Guinan, Whoopi Goldberg's character, was something akin to a Time Lord.  Same with the Travellers, which now include Wesley Crusher, and the "Supervisors" Tallinn (Star Trek Picard), and Gary Seven (Star Trek The Original Series).  Gary even has a sonic screwdriver-like device. So many in fact that this topic really deserves a post on it's own. Maybe I'll touch more on that later on.  IDW Comics also featured an "Assignment: Earth" comic and the original episode, "Assignment: Earth" which introduces Gary Seven, began with the Enterprise slingshotting to Earth in the 1960.

Bill & Ted, in their movies travels in time and space use a phone booth. You could argue that Rufus, played by George Carlin, was pretty close to a Time Lord.

The shadow of the Doctor is long. Both in their universe and ours.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 10

Behind the secret door (in reality a "Troll Hole") is Room 10.

Inside are a group of other (4) Trolls.   

This cave and Room 9 are actually just one cave. The trolls that live here have built a partition to hide room 10.

Inside this cave is all the Troll's treasure (D x4) is here.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who The Five Doctors

Last week I did a Sunday special on the 10th Anniversary show "The Three Doctors." This week I am covering the 20th Anniversary special, "The Five Doctors."

The Five Doctors got it's Global premier on November 23, 1983, exactly 20 years after the first episode appeared.

Like the previous anniversary special this one involved the Doctor getting caught up in the machinations of an evil and powerful Time Lord. This time though, the Doctor was pulled in, and in doing so he felt pieces of himself "breaking away like an iceberg."

Of course, there was a problem. Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor and still the actor with the longest tenure as the Doctor, did not want to return so soon after leaving the role. A choice he much later came to meet with some regret. So his incarnation was stuck in a "time eddy" which honestly worked out ok. They had some footage they had from a canceled show (Shada) and used that to fill in the blanks.

Sadly William Hartnell the original First Doctor had died in 1975 so Richard Hurndall was brought in to play the character. He sadly would die the year after this. I am not sure of the details, but I am wondering if the First Doctor would have been stuck. But the script, as these thing do, went through a lot of rewrites so who knows what could have been.  Tom Baker did get a chance to come back later. William Hartnell is at least featured in a clip before the show begins.  There is a nice story about how Bill Hartnell's wife Heather was invited to the set and she told the then current Doctor, Peter Davidson, how much he reminded her of Bill and how he would have loved to have seen him in this role. 

So we get a lot of favorite companions back, a lot of favorite enemies, and more workings into the happenings on Gallifrey.

A couple of standouts. Susan, the Doctor's Grandaughter is back and she recognizes right away they are on Gallifrey. So meaning she is also a Time Lord and allows her early character to retroactively say the planet's name first.   Fan favorite Sarah Jane is back, including her K-9 from "K-9 and Co." She interacts with the Third Doctor again.  She tries to explain to him that she saw him regenerate into the Fourth Doctor and says "you became..." but he interrupts with "all teeth and curls?" Meaning Tom Baker.  The lines were supposed to be Elizabeth Sladden's (Sarah Jane) but Jon Pertwee thought it was funnier coming from him. It was. 

There are a lot of DVD versions of this out. I have the Special Edition which swaps out some of the 1983 special effects for "updated" ones that are nearly universally hated. I have not seen the 25th anniversary version (the 45th for Doctor Who) but I wonder if they are restored?  I watched it recently on PlutoTV and it was the original 1983 broadcast version, so that was nice.

The story is a bit contrived, but no more so than any other Doctor Who story and it was a lot of fun really.  Still one of my favorites.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 9

Returning to Room 7 and taking the passage ahead takes the characters to another cave. 

Inside the cave is a large Troll. 

The troll is near the far side of the cave. He attacks as soon as the characters enter.

The troll has no visible treasure, it is all behind the secret door in the wall opposite of the tunnel the characters came in from.  

Additionally there are passages to the left and to the right.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Gallifrey

"Ah, you should have seen it, that old planet. The second sun would rise in the south, the mountains would shine. The leaves on the trees were silver. When they caught the light every morning, they lit the forest on fire." 

- The Tenth Doctor, Gridlock

Next to the Earth, the planet that gets the most mention in Doctor Who lore, is his home world of Gallifrey.

It has been called many things during the run of Doctor Who, most just "The Home World" in the earliest episodes. Among other names, it is known as "Jewel" and "the Shining World of the Seven Systems." It wasn't even named Gallifrey until the time of the Third Doctor in the episode "The Time Warrior" (December 1973) so a full decade went by before we ever learned its proper name.

What do we know about the Doctor's home planet? Well, it s mostly orange in color. Has two suns. It is much larger than the Earth, but humans seem to be fine on it. Likely this is due to Time Lord science. We learn it is in the constellation of Kasterborous at galactic coordinates 10-0-11-0-0/0-2 from Galactic Zero Centre.  It also seems to be part of our galaxy as opposed to a "galaxy far, far away."

Gallifreyians look human, and not all of them are Time Lords. The Time Lords appear to be an elite ruling class and the rest are just regular folk. I am fairly sure though all of them have the same two hearts and ability to regenerate. 

Gallifrey is also special because it is the home of the Untempered Schism, a rip in the fabric of Time and Space that all Time Students of the Academy are taken too. Some Time Lords are driven mad by it, like the Doctor's arch rival The Master. Others, like the Doctor, see it and want to run.  

In addition to this (and likely related to it in some way) is the Eye of Harmony, a stable black hole that is near Gallifrey and in the heart of every TARDIS. This is what gives the Time Lords mastery over time and space. 

We see very little of Gallifrey in the series, even after 60 years. There is the Citadel, the primary city of the Time Lords, and Arcadia, Gallifrey's "Second City."  So like a Time Lord Chicago, I am thinking.

And we know that in the Time War The Doctor (thought) he had burned all of Gallifrey to stop the war. Turns out he (and all his other selves) figured out how to tuck it away in a pocket Universe. Though the Master may have destroyed yet again. Hard to say about an ancient planet where the rules of time and space no longer apply.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 8

 Taking the left tunnel, the air is cooler and more damp. Entering the cave the characters will see the same stream from Room 4 emptying into this room.  It forms a large dark pool which then continues on to drain at the far wall.

Inside the pool is a Giant Octopus. It pulls it's massive bulk out of the pool to attack the characters.  Due to the size of the room it can only bring out six of it's eight tentacles to attack.

It seems likely that this octopus swam into here ages ago and has grown too large, or too complacent, to swim back out.

While the Octopus has no treasure it keeps there are the remains of several past victims at the bottom of it's 20's deep pool. There are 1d6+3 former adventures at the bottom of this pool. They had Treasure Types of U and V each.

This room is a dead end.

Kickstart Your Weekend: The Celts

This is very much a Peanut Butter and Chocolate moment for me.  I have always been a fan of Brian Young's work on the Castles & Crusades Codex series and in particular his Codex Celtarum. I have also been really enjoying my re-introduction to Chivalry & Sorcery.  So when I see there is a C&S book about Celts, written by Brian Young?  Yeah, I have to have that!

The Celts

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cns5/the-celts?ref=theotherside

I have been dying to do more with this RPG, and this might just be the perfect book for me. I really can't think of single reason why I would not want to back this. One fo my favorite topics, by an author who is an academic and RPG expert on this this topic, for a game system I really want to learn.

Win. Win. Win.

While the faux leatherette looks really nice, I also like the one pictured above since it will go with all my other books.

So yes. Let's get this thing funded!

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Fendahl

Today's is a bit different. I am going to talk about a single serial, the four-part "Image of the Fendahl."  This one struck a chord with me for a lot of reasons.

The story deals with the discovery of a human skull dated 12 million years old. Modern humans did not appear on the scene until about 300,000 years ago. So this has the various scientists in a stir.  At the same time the Fourth Doctor and his companions Leela and K-9 (both get their own days!) discover a "hole in time" and follow it to it's source which is of course on Earth.

 The skull has some odd psychic powers and it attracts the attention of one of scientists, Thea Ransome, and begins to take her over.

I won't go into the details of everything here. There are plenty of places to read about that. I do want to talk about what this one means to me.

So as I will mention on P day, in the 1980s, Doctor Who was shown on my local (St. Louis) PBS station. It was also on late on Sunday night, so to watch it I had to sneak it. So I never saw the Image of Fendahl in order. I would catch it here and there, and I of course people at school would talk about it. So the story of the episode was in my mind very different than what was on the screen.  I have also talked about how I would spend my paper route money on D&D books and Doctor Who books. So when I could I bought the Terrance Dicks novelization long before I ever saw it. But by then the ideas I had of it became deeply routed.

Also, this episode played into my keen interest into astronomy with the destruction (by the Time Lords no less) of a 5th planet between Mars and Jupiter, where the asteroid belt is now.

Occult Overtones

In the episode, there are various occult overtones. It was made in the later half of the 1970s so this is no surprise really.  The Fendahl skull had a pentagram in it. There was a pentagram involved in the ritual to recreate the gestalt creature.  Also there were in my young mind overtones of Jungian psychology here. Now I was already reading all this sort of stuff in the 80s so it blended in a heady brew of half-remembered, half-concocted ideas.  

Personally, I would not be surprised if there are ideas I generated then due to this that appear in my various witch books today.  Not a lot I am sure, but if I chased the right thread I bet it would lead me here. 

I have really been meaning to re-watch this one for some time. I know have seen it in the last 10 years or so. I recall watching it one winter while taking down our Geek-themed Christmas tree. But I really need to see it again.

That Wholock Crossover

Spend any time at all in Doctor Who fandom and you will run into people that want a Sherlock/Doctor Who crossover. Makes sense, both shows have similar sensibilities, a super-smart main character, and their companion, and both shows were (at the time) headed by Steven Moffat.  I even got on board with it after my own fashion. 

The Image of Fendahl has the best link to a Wholock crossover (besides the multiple appearances of Mark Gatiss).  Wanda Ventham who plays Thea Ransome is none other than Benedict "Sherlock" Cumberbatch's mother. He was just about 1 year old when this was filmed.

I'll need to see if I can find this anywhere to re-watch, I just checked my DVD collection and oddly enough I don't have it. 

ETA: Ok, I just grabbed on DVD (not BluRay) to go with my others here.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 7

The passageway beyond the cave leads to another cave. There is more diffused light here and more of the strange plants.  But that is not all.

Inside this cave are three (3) Carcass Crawlers. They are currently scuttling around and will attack when the party enters.

They have stashed here and there standard treasure type B and an additional 2d6 rubies of 1d6x10 gp value each.

There are two exits on the far side of the cave, one to the right and one to the left.

--

Note about the plants.  These plants were made by the necromancers to feed on the magical energies of these caves and to provide oxygen and food to the various creature here they needed for experiments. Casting a "sunlight" spell or other bright light (Continual Light, but not Light) will cause them to wither and die.

New Playtest...What is Elf Lair Games Doing?

 No game this weekend. Which is fine, but I have new play-test material to read up on.  So what is new from Elf-Lair Games?

This is going to be a blast.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Earth

When you go back to the stars and tell others of this planet—when you tell them of its riches, its people, its potential— when you talk of the Earth. Then make sure that you tell them this: “It. Is. Defended.” 

- The Tenth Doctor, The Christmas Invasion

More than any other planet in all of time and space it is the Earth that is the Doctor's favorite. It was where The First Doctor and his granddaughter hid when they left Gallifrey. It was The Third Doctor's home in exile during the 1970s when he worked for U.N.I.T. It was the Earth he returned to time and time again.

The Ninth Doctor took Rose to the end of the Earth to watch the sun consume it. The Tenth Doctor took Donna to see the Earth form from rocks in space. The Eleventh Doctor then took Clara to see the Earth from formation to its end to get a picture of a slow-moving time traveler. 

Of course, there are a lot of practical reasons for this. The writers are most familiar with the Earth over all the other planets.  All the filming of Doctor Who is done on Earth, so the sets are already here. 

In-universe there are a lot of reasons are given. I have seen that Gallifrey has the same length of day and year as the Earth. And, of course, the people of the Earth look like Time Lords. A fact the Time Lords always found curious. That was never mentioned on the show, but in a few of the books and audio dramas do.

"You think it'll last forever, the people and cars and concrete. But it won't. One day it's all gone, even the sky."

- The Ninth Doctor, The End of the World

The Doctor mentioned time and time again how much he loves the Earth and humans. Even going as far as the Tenth Doctor falling in love with a human and the Eleventh Doctor marrying the (mostly) human daughter of Rory and Amy. 

Atraxi: You are not of this world.
The Doctor: No, but I’ve put a lot of work into it.

- The Eleventh Doctor, The Eleventh Hour

Good thing for us that he does!

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 6

 Following the light, it enters another cave system. This one is a smaller cave with an exit to the right.

Entering the cave the smell is horrible.

Inside are 4 Troglodytes. 

They are gathered around an old corpse of one of their own sitting in a throne like seat. They appear to worship it. When the party enters they will scream in rage and attack.

The troglodytes all have their standard treasure here, at the foot of the corpse. Additionally, there is an extra 1,000 gp here in assorted gems and jewels. 

The dead troglodyte is exactly just that. 

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Daleks

"Do you know what they call me in the ancient legends of the Dalek homeworld? 'The Oncoming Storm'. You may have removed all your emotions, but I bet that deep down in your DNA there's one spark left, and that's fear. Doesn't it just burn when you face me?"

- The Ninth Doctor

More than any other creature the Doctor has faced, none have struck fear into the characters and the audiences quite like that of the Daleks.

The appeared in the very second Doctor Who story "The Daleks" a group of war mongering aliens on the planet Skaro. When the Doctor first encountered them they were still wagging a battle with their ancient enemies the Thals; two species that shared the same planet. We later learn in "Genesis of the Daleks" that the Thals and Kaleds had been fighting for a 1,000 years using every weapon they could from knives to atomic weapons. Here we see their creation as the Kaled leading scientist Davros, himself a victim of a nuclear blast, takes the Kaleds to their ultimate form, something they were already mutating into, and builds a shell for them to survive.  This shell is armed with sensors and advanced weapons, all to kill more Thals. 

From here the genetically and cyber-enhanced Kaleds, now known as Daleks, spread out to the cosmos to destroy all life that is not Dalek. 

While the Daleks of the old series never looked frightening, they were portrayed as such. So much so "that hiding behind the sofa when the Daleks came on" entered into the English cultural consciousness. And they have been voted the greatest monster of all time. This is even considering that the earliest Daleks rolled everywhere. There is a long-running joke that goes like "Daleks don't need to use stairs. They just level the building."

The revised new series brought back the Daleks and added the new concept of the Time War. This was a war the Daleks were in against the Time Lords. Over the course of the years we learned more and more. Like how the Time Lords and the Daleks wiped each other out. The Doctor played a major role in this War and finally how it was the Doctor that used the last weapon (The Moment) to end the war for good destroying both sides. The Time War became a focus of the new series and really made the Daleks feel more menacing. 

The old series used to equate the Daleks and the Cybermen. Both evil races, both cybernetically enhanced humanoids. But it was the new series that finally brought them together and erased all notions they were on equal footing.

The Daleks are so popular they have also been the subject of two non-canon Doctor Who films (called Dr. Who here): Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD. These starred Peter Cushing as "Dr. Who" and were based on the television serials The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth, respectively.

I would argue that is was the Daleks that made Doctor Who so popular. The first story, An Unearthly Child, was good, but it wasn't great. The next story, The Daleks, while quaint by our standards today, was a real attention-getter. I will also claim that the serials The Dalek Invasion of Earth and The Chase from the First Doctor helped cement them as worthy adversaries of the Doctor. And the 4th Doctor series, Genesis of the Daleks, the one that introduces Davros, is one of the best Doctor Who stories ever.

All incarnations of the Doctor have had to battle the Daleks. Well. We never see the 8th Doctor do it, he likely did, but he also tried to stay out of the Time War. His successor, The War Doctor, battled them extensively.

If your enemy has to rise to the level of the hero then it is no surprise then that the Daleks are as powerful, and as popular as the Doctor themself.

ETA: Elena Square Eyes is also doing Doctor Who for her A to Z, but she is focusing on the new series. Today she did the Christopher Eccleston episode "Dalek."  Pop over there and see what she has to say!

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 5

Once again, returning to Room #2 and taking the tunnel that was on the right.  

This opens into a large cave system similar to what was seen in Room #5. There is a diffuse glow ahead. 

This cave is inhabited by a group of 10 Cave Locusts. They are bit tougher than the typical ones encountered because they have been eating the strange plants in this room. They all have maximum hp. 

There is one larger than normal Cave Locusts as well that is their leader. This monster has 4 HD and AC 2 [17]. Saves are the same, and its bite does 1d4 and its jump does 1d6.

There is no treasure here. The cave exit is towards the glow.