Doctor Who RPG: The Lost Children of Time

 A couple of weeks back, I took a bit of a break to talk about some SciFi ideas I had.  Well, it must have nestled into my brain and laid eggs that hatched because I now have a bunch more ideas. Or maybe because Doctor Who has been on my mind a lot lately since yesterday was the 60th Anniversary of the show and tomorrow is the premier of the 60th Anniversary special.  One of those ideas was something I was calling "The Lost Children of Time."  The idea was half-baked, at best, but that ended today.

Doctor Who RPG: The Lost Children of Time

Now to be fair this doesn't have to be used with the Doctor Who RPG. But I think the feel of the 2nd Edition game might fit this the best. Plus I think I would run this as a one-shot.  So who are the characters? The eponymous Lost Children of Time?  Well, they are the reason I put this together to start with so let us see who they are.

• Jonas Kahnwald (Dark) - Age 20, he ceases to exist when his world timeline is destroyed.
• Martha Nielsen (Dark) - Age 20, from a parallel world/timeline. Her timeline is also destroyed when Jonas' is to make room for a third (or original) timeline where they do not exist.
• Cal Stone (Manifest) - Age 22. The older version of the Cal Stone that was temporarily displaced on Flight 828. When the time was reset Cal was returned as age 11. This is 22-year-old Cal.
• DC Iris Maplewood (Bodies) - Age ??. From an alternate future (2053) where England is under near fascist rule. She is sent back in time to 1890, 1941, and 2023.  For reasons unknown, her 2023 counterpart survives the collapse of her timeline.

The characters all bring something to the table. Jonas is our everyday guy. Martha is already used to fighting and dealing with strange things. Cal has a sixth sense and visions (Callings), and Iris is a cop. All have time-travel experience. 

But who is it they are after? Well, that came to me today.

They are fighting a time and space displaced Jack the Ripper.

How is that possible? Easy. Let's take another time travel movie, Time After Time from 1979. It features Malcolm McDowell as H.G. Wells and David Warner as Jack the Ripper. Both who have solid sci-fi credits to their name including parts in various Star Trek movies and series.   In this movie H.G. Wells builds a working time machine, but it is stolen by his friend Stevenson, aka Jack the Ripper. He travels to 1979 where he picks up his killings anew. Wells follows him when his time machine returns.  While in 1979 Jack attempts to escape but Wells removes the "vaporizing equalizer" from the machine. This causes the time machine to remain, but send Jack to "oblivion" according to Wells. We assume he is dead.

But if he wasn't?

Que the Second Season Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold."  In this episode (note: it really doesn't hold up well despite being a good horror episode written by Robert Bloch) we meet Redjac, a non-corporeal entity that murders women to feed on their fear. Spock's reasoning aside I am going to go back on to my tried true explanation of psychic ability is a sex-linked trait on the X chromosome. People with XX chromosomes are more likely to have psychic abilities than people with XY. This is what Redjac feeds on. Everyone feels fear, but people with greater psychic potential are a better meal to it.

Redjac in the episode is believed to have been the cause of Jack the Ripper. But what if it was the other way around? What if H.G. Wells sending Stevenson/Jack to "oblivion" only freed it from its corporeal form and sent out into Time and Space to hunt anew?

I would need to figure out how this group comes together. How they find the clues and then how they solve the mystery of the Ripper-like murders of women in 2023.

Easiest of course would be to have Jonas and Martha in London where they get into Iris' cab/Uber. Cal is easy, he has a vision and goes there.  There is my plot twist too. Redjac normally only murders women because of their greater psychic potential, but Cal with his callings is a much tastier target. 

How do they defeat the Ripper/Redjac? 

No idea yet. But it will involve some time travel to be sure. 

The key here was David Warner. He was amazing as Stevenson/Jack the Ripper in "Time After Time." He has played no less than three separate characters in Star Trek and a character in Doctor Who. He was also in an Outer Limits episode about Jack the Ripper that uses a similar idea. 

Also is Redjac/Jack content to travel in time or does he have a greater purpose? 

It sounds like a lot of fun and I can't wait to try it out.