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

 Going back to Room #2, and taking the tunnel on the left (now on the character's right) takes them down another tunnel.

This tunnel is long and makes a lot of turns.  It opens into a very large cave. There is a glowing portal near the far wall near the ceiling.  Out of the portal a bunch of flying figures.

These are tiny Dragonettes (2+2 HD, attacks #3, (claw, claw, bite) 1d3+!/1d3+1/1d6+1 + Breath Weapon.  Their breath weapon is a puff of hot smoke that is mildly irritating causing 1d4 hp of damage or half on a save. 

They fly in and eat a pile of Rot Grubs feasting on the corpse of a goblin.

If the characters ignore the Dragonettes they will eat the grubs and fly off.  If the characters approach the grubs they will be attacked and there is a chance the rot grubs will also attack.

There is a small stream that runs through this cave. It comes from a waterfall and flows into a hole in the ground. The water is dark, cold and has a sulfury taste, but it is otherwise fine.  There are blind fish in the stream the characters can try to catch. If they are using spears to get fish then the fish have AC 4.

It will take the PCs a couple of hours to fully investigate this cave, party due to its size and complexity of the terrain.  They cant reach the portal, there are no rocks near enough and the stream is not deep enough.

Note: Tonight's visual was created using Stable Diffusion XL from NightCafe.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Bad Wolf

"No, no, in this form, I'm called...Bad Wolf. Are you afraid of the big bad wolf, Doctor?"

- The Moment in the form of Rose Tyler/Bad Wolf.

Bad Wolf was an "easter egg" / recurring theme/motif in the first season of the Doctor Who revival in 2005/2006.  The ninth Doctor (in his only season) and his companion, Rose Tyler, kept running into the words "Bad Wolf" wherever they went in Time and Space.

At first, it seemed it was all the places where the Doctor was going, but in the end, it was revealed to be Rose. During the final episode of the season, the Doctor has to face off alone against the enemy he thought he had destroyed, the Daleks. So to protect Rose, he sent her to the TARDIS and had it take her home to 2006. 

Rose, not wanting to leave the Doctor behind and not knowing how to operate the Doctor's TARDIS (his time machine, come back on T-day for that!) forces the console open and accidentally absorbs the heart of the TARDIS. Which is essentially, a contained black hole.  She takes the TARDIS back to the future where the Doctor is about to be killed by the Daleks (again, come back on D-day for those guys) and... well it is spoilery if you have not seen it, but it is a great scene.

What is significant here is Bad Wolf/Rose's line "the Time War ends."  When we next see the Bad Wolf in the 50th Anniversary episode it/she is the interface for a weapon known as The Moment. A weapon that the War Doctor (the one before the Ninth) was going to use to end the Time War.

Time travel, especially in Doctor Who, is never a straight line. It is, as the Tenth Doctor would say a "big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff."

What is great about Bad Wolf is how the Companions of Doctor Who would come to be viewed by the Doctor in this new refresh of the series. This would give us such companions as Martha (the girl who walked the Earth), Donna (the most important woman in the universe), Amy (the girl who waited) and Clara (the Impossible Girl). And, of course, River Song. But she gets her own day.  And in 2006 after dealing with the toxic way Whedon treated his characters and actors this was a breath of fresh air. EVERYONE thought Russel T. Davies was going to kill off Rose, but no. He did the opposite. 

The Bad Wolf would make other appearances, but never like that first season. Likely good too, the times she has shown up again have usually meant the end of the Universe. 

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 3

 Taking the center opening leads down a rough-hewn passage. There is a light ahead, but it is diffuse.

It looks like there is a room beyond, but this is an illusion. The Gelatinous Cube uses this illusion to trap victims. Even its simple brain has learned that it can trap the most food here.

There is only a 1 in 6 chance that anyone will notice the gelatinous cube here unless they are specifically searching for something strange or out of the ordinary. Beyond the cube is a collection of treasures from years of victims.

There is 1,000 gp, 1500 sp, 3000 cp, and about 50 gems worth 5,000 gp total.  There is a dagger +1 and a mace +1.  

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who The 3 Doctors

Sunday is not a normal posting day for the A to Z Challenge, but I always use Sundays as "Special Topics." This challenge will be no different.  Plus Sundays were the day Doctor Who was on for me in the 1980s, so it has always been "Doctor Who day" for me.

For my Sundays, I am going to talk about the various Multi-Doctor episodes, ones that have more than one Doctor in them. Since this is our first Sunday, I am going to start with the first multi-Doctor story, the 10th Anniversary "The Three Doctors."

The Three Doctors aired from December 1972 to January 1973 during the time of Jon Pertwee's run as the Third Doctor.

The story involves a lost member of the Time Lords, Omega, the engineer who figured out how to harness the power of a black hole to give the Time Lords enough power to be able to travel in time and space. Believed lost he existed in an "anti-matter" universe created by his own force of will. He began draining all the power from Gallifrey (the Doctor's home world) and leaving the Time Lords helpless. The only one not affected was The Doctor who was on Earth in exile.

The Time Lords realized that only the Doctor had a chance of stopping Omega, but not a great one, so they figured if one Doctor had a chance, then two Doctors had double the chance, even if it meant breaking the First Law of Time. Something even a renegade like the Doctor was unwilling to do himself.

The story was a great one to be honest and I recently had the chance to rewatch it.  William Hartnell even got to reprise his role of the First Doctor, despite being in very ill health. The rapport between Patrick Troughton (the Second Doctor) and Jon Pertwee (the Third Doctor) was just so much fun it made me wish we could have seen more of them together. 

It also set the stage for more multi-Doctor shows to occur for the anniversaries of the show, though not always.  

Complaining about the special effects from the time feels like a cheap shot, so I will not do it, instead, I want to focus on the story and the acting. Nicholas Courtney was at his very best as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. He played the role with such convincing annoyance at the Doctor (all of them) and confusion he stole every scene he was in. Katy Manning was wonderful as always as Jo, and John Levene gave us his typical strong turn as Sergeant Benton.  Though I understand Frazer Hines was due to return as the Second Doctor's companion Jaime and that would have been fun. Thankfully Frazer, and Jaime, get to come back later, and he has some lasting appeal even today.

This is also an interesting one for me. In the 1980s I read all the Doctor Who books I could get my hands on and this was one of the ones I read long before I ever saw it. My mental image of everything was different than what we got on screen, but I was not disappointed.

Sadly this was William Hartnell's last acting role and his health was so poor that his role here was only in cameos. He later died in 1975.

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 2

 This is a large cavern. The ceiling of the cave is 20' high (about the about they went down the stairs). There are three tunnels extending out from the far wall. One to the left, one to the center, and another to the left. 

In this cavern are 4 Carrion Crawlers (or Carcass Crawlers). 

They will attack as soon as the characters are nearby. They have a small treasure horde nearby.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Aliens

Starting the A to Z challenge off easy with one that always comes to mind when talking about Doctor Who; Aliens.

The Doctor (an alien from the Planet Gallifrey) has encountered numerous aliens in the 60 years since the show began. While the very first episode, "An Earthly Child" didn't encounter any aliens (they went back in time) the Doctor (in his first incarnation) and his granddaughter Susan were the aliens, though we did not know that yet at the time. We knew the Doctor and Susan were from the far future. 

Honestly, I could do an A to Z of just the aliens. Starting with Autons all the way to Zygons.

But instead, I want to talk about the aliens in a more general sense.

Steven Moffat (writer 2005 to 2008, executive producer 2009 to 2017) once commented that the Doctor does not have superpowers, he has two hearts. He does not have a gun, he has a screwdriver to fix things. So the notion that aliens are not always some galactic threat, like we see in the Christmas Invasion (2005), but are here to help. 

ADRIC: The Earth people use it to beam messages to the stars. The Doctor calls it reiterated invitation to alien intelligences in deep space.
NYSSA: And that's us.
ADRIC: So they'll be very pleased to see us.

- "Logopolis," Season 18, Serial 7, March 1981.

While I will call out some of the more prominent alien species through out this month I'll mention a couple here.

Autons. An alien species that can live in and bring to life plastic. They are connected via a linked consciousness, the Nestene. 

Cybermen. Actually a race of humans from a planet much like Earth. The humans there depleted all their natural resources and had to replace their bodies with cybernetics. One of the Doctor's oldest foes.

Daemons. Not demons, but they do look like them. A group of transdimensional scientists.

Draconians. If Doctor Who had a race closest to the Klingons of Star Trek, then it is these guys. They are a species of war-like reptile/humanoids who value honor above all else. They are a space faring species that often run into conflict with humans in the future. The masks and make-up used for them was a significant step up in terms of effects, allowing the actors a full range of facial features.

Judoon. These creatures look like bipedal rhinoceroses. They are not very bright but follow orders and are often used as police, peacekeepers, or mercenaries. Though they are smarter than the Ogrons below. 

Ogron. Largely space Orcs. These guys are mercenaries willing to work for whoever had the most coin or credits. They are brutal and not very bright. The make-up and masks come from the same time as the Draconians, so a large step up from previous creatures.

Ood. These guys look like monsters. Indeed they have more than just a passing similarity to the Mind Flayers of D&D; they are one of the most peaceful species in all of Doctor Who.  They are highly telepathic and empathic. Of course, humans use them as slave labor by lobotomizing them.  The message here is clear, in the future, humanity is still pretty much shit.

Silurian. Along with the Sea Devils. This is a race of reptile humanoids that evolved on Earth millions of years before humanity. When their scientists predicted the asteroid that would wipe out the dinosaurs they retreated far below the surface and went into suspended animation. Their computer would wake them when the Earth began to warm up enough for them.  Even in the 70s Doctor Who had a keen idea on what was going on.  There are three varieties. The Homo Reptilia which is split into two castes the warrior (female) and the scientists (male). There are the psychic Silurians (which I tend to think of as a third gender) and the Sea Devils a race of purely aquatic reptiles.

Slitheen. Pictured above. These aliens are bad. But they are also quite fun since the poke fun at the cheap rubbery suits that were a feature of Doctor Who aliens for years.  They look human until they unzip their human suits to reveal the alien inside. They come from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius, which is just fun to say.

There are so many more. I hope this little taste is enough to prepare us for the month ahead.

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 1

 Level Four seems to be mostly rough-cut stone as if the entrance from Level Three was cut out of an existing cavern system.

When the PCs get to bottom of the very long stairs they find another door. It is locked but can be picked at a -10% to an Open Lock roll.

The door is trapped on the level Four side. So one the character pass through the doors will close, trying to open them will release 1d4+1 poison darts. They "attack" as normal-level human causing 1d4 points of damage. They are coated with poison so a save vs poison is needed. The poison was stronger ages ago so in stead of death it causes violent sickness on a failed save. The character is useless for 1 hour. A cure wounds spell or potion of any sort will cure them.

Notes about level 4. 

These are natural caves that the necromancers and wizards cut into for their magical research. There are gems here as well as monsters. There is a magical glow about the place, but torches are still recommended.  

There are noises coming from everywhere. GMs should roll for random monsters using the tables for a Level 4 dungeon. 

There is a natural sink hole that leads to Level 5 later on in this level.