#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Jago & Litefoot (and Jenny & Vastra)

Of all the secondary characters (not companions), one of the standout successes has been the ongoing adventures of Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot. Jago & Litfoot were first introduced to us in the wonderful Tom Baker-era story "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" in 1977.  The pair, a somewhat shady theatre manager and a semi-retired academic went on to solve mysterious crimes and mysteries in Victorian London courtesy of various audio dramas from Big Finish Audio.

They were popular in their time but grew increasingly popular with the airing of the Tom Baker Doctor on PBS.

The audio dramas have also been big hits for Big Finish, with 17 completed dramas. Each one features the original actors, Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter, resuming their roles. Some even feature other Doctor Who companions such as Leela (4th Doctor) and Strax (11th Doctor). They are even sometimes guests on their contemporaries' Madam Vastra & Jenny (11th Doctor) audio dramas.

 Of course, I love the Victorian-era. So I liked "Talons" from the word go. Yes, there is some unfortunate "Yellowface" going on in the episode, something the cast and production team (who are still alive) regret and have mentioned many times. But the story is good, and the characters from this tale are wonderful. 

If Jago and Litefoot have been given new life in these audio dramas, then their Victorian-era contemporaries Vastra & Jenny (and Strax) have been given continued life in the Cubicle 7 Doctor Who RPG.

In both mediums (audio and RPGs) there are some cross-overs. But for me I love the RPG structure the best for further adventures (though the audio dramas are very, very close!)

The best thing about Jago & Litefoot is the implication that once the Doctor enters someone's life, they are forever changed and want to do more to improve their world. This has been an explicit detail in the newer series. 

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 12

Going all the way back to Room 9 there were two tunnels, left and right.  Choosing the left tunnel (previously the right) takes the party on a twisty path that almost doubles back to a small cave.

This cave is swarming with 6 Rhagodessa. These giant spider-like monsters feed on the victims the trolls didn't finish off. Due to the influence of the chaos stone, these creatures are now Chaotic.  

They have collected treasure (U x6) in a small pile. 

Wasted Lands: Don't be the Hero, Be the God.

Busy time. I have not written anything in over two weeks, but I am hardly idle.  On my plate this week?  Playtesting the newest game from Elf Lair Games.

Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age

This is a new Swords and Sorcery RPG set in a savage lost epoch, millions of years ago. A time lost to current humanity.  Players will take on the roles of human (near human) characters struggling against the remains of the Old Ones, ancient gods and alien threats. 

These characters will fight, and struggle and eventually, they will become the Gods we know today. 

This game uses the same rule system as NIGHT SHIFT: Veteran of the Supernatural Wars.

Playtest is now underway.

I am hoping to use some of the material I have created for my own One Man's God posts in my Wasted Lands game.  In particular, I will use this to flesh out my Roman-Norse Pantheon, actually play out the legends that would later become these gods.  And of course, because I have a rep to maintain, expect to see some gods/goddesses of magic and witchcraft.

I am quite excited about this game and I hope to get you all excited about it as well. 

#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.