36 Episodes based on David Bowie Songs

[Kammerice]

For those of you that read my Ronnie James Dio thread, you'll be familiar with what I'm up to.

For those of you that aren't as clued in, the basic premise of what I'm doing here is making an entire campaign based on the song titles of one particular artist (in this case David Bowie).

As before, I'm assuming that these episodes will involve the Eleventh Doctor, but they should be easily adaptable should you wish to change incarnation or even make a completely new Time Lord.

I've arranged them into three 12 episode series, with an extra episode at the end of each series for a Christmas special. The order of episodes I've listed here may not be final. Enjoy...

Season One
Strangers When We Meet
Fantastic Voyage
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Saviour Machine
Bring Me the Disco King
Future Legend
The Man Who Sold the World
Maid of Bond Street
Glass Spider
Breaking Glass
Sons of the Silent Age
Don’t Look Down

Special
Beauty and the Beast


Season Two
Across the Universe
Ziggy Stardust
The Prettiest Star
Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
Always Crashing in the Same Car
Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud
Loving the Alien
Ian Fish, UK Heir
We Are the Dead
Weeping Wall
1984
Lady Stardust

Special
Heroes


Season Three
Life on Mars?
Time Will Crawl
Hang On to Yourself
I Keep Forgettin’
Never Get Old
All the Madmen
Look Back in Anger
Day-In-Day-Out
Starman
New Killer Star
Ashes to Ashes
Changes

Special
Speed of Life

[Kammerice]

Season One
Strangers When We Meet
Hook: People are going missing, only to be found days later with complete amnesia.
Problem: A juvenile creature has been stealing the memories to enable it to fashion a perfect human world.
Complications: The more memories the creature steals, the closer it gets to completing its simulation: it has already put people inside this perfect world.
Subplots: One of the companions is one of the people trapped inside the simulation.
Resolution: Those inside the simulation are freed and the Doctor gains some new companions.
Fun Stuff: “The Matrix is everywhere, Doctor. It is all around us…”

Fantastic Voyage
Hook: The TARDIS has landed on a vast steam ship in the mid-Atlantic.
Problem: The ship happens to be the R.M.S Titanic…
Complications: On board there are several other time travellers, all trying to either save or sink the great vessel.
Subplots: One of the time travellers recognises one of the companions…
Resolution: Events transpire as they should.
Fun Stuff: The whole adventure is a time-bomb that can’t be defused.

Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Hook: Something has been awakened by the creation of the London Underground.
Problem: Whatever woke up, woke up angry. And hungry.
Complications: As the creature gains in strength, it is able to bend certain, weak-minded individuals to its side.
Subplots: It hides deep in natural tunnels beneath the underground system – claustrophobia and a strong fear of the dark may affect those hunting the creature.
Resolution: The creature’s lair is discovered and destroyed.
Fun Stuff: Paranoia in the darkness.

Saviour Machine
Hook: After saving a crashing spaceship with the TARDIS, the Doctor and his friends jump into the future to make sure everything turned out alright for the crew and passengers.
Problem: A cult has built up around the strange “Blue God”…the TARDIS has worshippers.
Complications: The cult steals the TARDIS from where it lands and place it in a temple. The Doctor and his companions are viewed as heretics.
Subplots: Rival cults, who view the TARDIS as a powerful weapon, are gathering to destroy the temple.
Resolution: Get the TARDIS and get out.
Fun Stuff: Should be interesting to see how different races view the TARDIS.

[Kammerice]

Bring Me the Disco King
Hook: People have been dropping dead through exhaustion and heavy alcohol and narcotics abuse.
Problem: Ordinarily, this wouldn’t attract the attention of a Time Lord…but the substances the party-goers are using are definitely extra-terrestrial in origin.
Complications: An alien has become infatuated with human culture, drawing a certain type of person to it. Unfortunately, the party-goers do not share the alien’s physiological make-up: they cannot continually party the way their new king does…
Subplots: One of the companions is drawn to the alien and the party-scene. Obviously.
Resolution: All parties must come to an end.
Fun Stuff: Disco time, baby!

Future Legend
Hook: After wandering around a museum in the far future, the Doctor and his companions find items indicating that one of the companions (the one indicated by the time travellers in Fantastic Voyage) became one of the most feared people in all of space and time.
Problem: Well, clearly, the companion isn’t one of the most feared people in all of space and time. So, how did he/she become this person? Did he/she really do all those things?
Complications: The TARDIS is of no help: it returns information enough on the companion to last more lifetimes than even a Time Lord has.
Subplots: Several interested parties, including governments, have taken note of the companion’s arrival.
Resolution: The Doctor and his companions rush off to find out what the museum artefacts mean.
Fun Stuff: It’s good to know you leave a legacy, isn’t it?

The Man Who Sold the World
Hook: Following on from Future Legend, the Doctor and his companions find themselves aboard a space station. They are greeted by a future version of the Future Legend.
Problem: The Future Legend orders the Doctor and his companions arrested before the “Buyers” arrive. From overheard conversations, it becomes apparent that the Future Legend has offered to sell Earth to an alien race.
Complications: The Future Legend differs slightly from the companion, almost like a reflection seen through a warped mirror.
Subplots: There are people within the space station that do not want to see the Earth sold.
Resolution: Hopefully, the Doctor and his companions can escape and prevent the sale to whomever the mysterious “Buyers” are.
Fun Stuff: Arguing with yourself can be fun.

Maid of Bond Street
Hook: A ghost plagues a shopping centre in modern day London.
Problem: The ghost is not actually a ghost. A young woman from the mid-Eighteenth century has become trapped in a time bubble. She is unable to escape from it, and must watch the years roll past but unable to touch anything.
Complications: The time bubble has been shrinking for some time. If it gets too small for the young woman, she will be crushed.
Subplots: A television crew are onsite to film a “World’s Most Haunted…” show.
Resolution: The young woman is rescued and, if the Doctor is feeling terribly generous, returned to her own time.
Fun Stuff: It’s a ghost story…at least to begin with.

[zebaroth]

look forward to the rest

[Kammerice]

Glass Spider
Hook: On a distant planet, there is an entire civilisation made from living crystal.
Problem: A rare disease is rife amongst the crystalline population; everything they touch begins to crystallise.
Complications: The planet isn’t just a rock where the crystalline people live – it too is a crystal creature. It has a defence mechanism; spiders of varying sizes sweep across the landscape, devouring the infected.
Subplots: The disease has not only infected the crystal aliens – anything that is vaguely reflective is susceptible.
Resolution: The spiders are stopped from destroying the cure to the disease.
Fun Stuff: Being chased by giant crystal spiders across a crystal land…

Breaking Glass
Hook: Following on from Breaking Glass, the spiders have been defeated, but the disease is still present on the world.
Problem: One of the companions, the one that will become the Future Legend, has noted his/her reflection in infected mirrors behaving rather oddly.
Complications: The reflections are alive, and searching for a way out of their world and into this one.
Subplots: The spiders may have been stopped, but what about their reflections?
Resolution: One or more of the companion’s reflections escape and begin the events that will lead them to become the legend of the future.
Fun Stuff: The whole episode could be very “Through the Looking Glass”.

Sons of the Silent Age
Hook: The TARDIS lands on a planet where sound does not travel.
Problem: The Silent Monks who live on the planet are being stalked by something beyond their monastery walls.
Complications: Aside from being unable to talk, the Doctor and his friends discover that the creature feeds on the Monks’ faith.
Subplots: The creature eats the Monks as they lose faith in the wilderness beyond the monastery.
Resolution: The creature only requires the psychic energies of the Monks’ prayers.
Fun Stuff: Communicating without sound.

Don’t Look Down
Hook: In the far future, a scientific research station is positioned across the event horizon of a black hole.
Problem: Unlike a normal black hole, something is emerging from this one.
Complications: Whatever is emerging from the black hole will smash through the research station on the way out.
Subplots: Could be one of the reflections from Breaking Glass is aboard the station.
Resolution: The scientists are rescued.
Fun Stuff: What is coming out of the black hole?

Special
Beauty and the Beast
Hook: The TARDIS lands in a huge, deserted mansion.
Problem: The only inhabitants the Doctor and his companions encounter are the ghost-like image of a young woman, and a large demonic-like creature.
Complications: The rooms of the mansion don’t seem to make sense. The swimming pool is located inside the library…
Subplots: The TARDIS has landed inside another TARDIS. The ghost-image is in fact a hologram of the Time Lady that once owned the mansion-TARDIS. The Beast is something that was once locked in the brig…
Resolution: The Beast is stopped from rampaging.
Fun Stuff: Aside from being in a fairy tale, being trapped inside someone else’s TARDIS. What random things did they install?

[Kammerice]

Season Two
Across the Universe
Hook: At the same time, separated by nearly the entire span of the known universe, two children are born.
Problem: To put it another way…the same child is born twice.
Complications: The children grow up, completely aware of the other’s existence. One of these children should not exist and the whole situation is driving them both mad.
Subplots: The TARDIS is terrified of the paradox, the way a horse is scared of fire.
Resolution: Hopefully nobody is killed, but there is a paradox that needs solving.
Fun Stuff: There’s a paradox that needs solving…cue numerous elaborate PC plans.

Ziggy Stardust
Hook: Stars from all around a galaxy are having material siphoned from them.
Problem: The loss of mass is causing many of the stars to become unstable, threatening to explode.
Complications: Whatever is stealing the star matter clearly has a purpose…
Subplots: None of the matter that is being stolen is “normal”; lots of different types of radiation and rare types of particles.
Resolution: Stop the stars from going nova.
Fun Stuff: How do you convince a star not to explode?

The Prettiest Star
Hook: The Doctor receives a cryptic message on his psychic paper, asking him to be in a particular star system at a particular time.
Problem: The star system is completely uninhabited. In fact, the only thing of note at all is the wonderfully coloured star at the heart of the system. The messages become more frantic as the TARDIS floats around the system. It becomes apparent that the messages are coming from the star itself.
Complications: The star is a repository of lost souls, many of whom know the Doctor. They all wish to share their memories and their thoughts with the Time Lord.
Subplots: The star is nearing the end of its long life.
Resolution: The star explodes, and many lives that the Doctor has touched are gone forever.
Fun Stuff: Emotional memories might make for some good role-playing opportunities.

Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
Hook: As the doors of the TARDIS open, each passenger sees a different time and place.
Problem: Clearly something has gone incredibly wrong with the TARDIS’ space-time manipulation.
Complications: Even stepping back inside the TARDIS reveals different points in its past.
Subplots: There is something stuck in the Heart of the TARDIS, driving it mad.
Resolution: Get rid of whatever is mucking up space-time.
Fun Stuff: Being alone inside an familiar/unfamiliar TARDIS…

[Kammerice]

Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud
Hook: The Doctor and his friends are caught up in a floating city under siege.
Problem: A native, a known trouble-maker, has sold his world out to some more technologically-advanced race.
Complications: The technologically-advanced race has spied the Doctor’s TARDIS and figure that it’s part of the bargain.
Subplots: Of course the floating city has something wrong with its engines…
Resolution: The aggressors are defeated.
Fun Stuff: Running on walkways with no guard rails over an endless fall is so genre-savvy it hurts…

Loving the Alien
Hook: 1947, Roswell, New Mexico. The TARDIS lands heavily enough to attract members of the public.
Problem: The American Government want whatever alien comes out of the strange blue UFO…
Complications: Which happens to be one of the companions. Who then gets whisked off to some top secret research facility to be dissected.
Subplots: The army and science divisions running the operation can’t agree on anything.
Resolution: Everyone escapes and becomes part of the alien visitor mythos.
Fun Stuff: Play it like a proper 1950s B-Movie!

Ian Fish, UK Heir
Hook: The United Kingdom’s last space monarch, King Peter Hawtery is dying. His only surviving relative is a small, unassuming man named Ian Fish.
Problem: Unfortunately, Ian Fish is also the galaxy’s most dangerous telepathic criminal.
Complications: He knows about his uncle’s condition and has demanded that he be granted his rightful inheritance or he will unleash a telepathic storm on the country.
Subplots: Using his abilities, Fish can bend the wills of others, amassing an army to help him.
Resolution: Well…Fish probably shouldn’t be put in charge of the nation for a start…
Fun Stuff: Aside from there being “Space Monarchs”, there is also the whole “battle of will” aspect of dealing with telepaths.

Cat People
Hook: A small colony of Catkind are stuck on a forest planet.
Problem: A being made entirely of fire is making its way steadily towards the colony to feed on the power reactor at the centre.
Complications: The fire alien is setting fire to the surrounding jungle as it journeys through.
Subplots: The Catkind are a divided people – some wish to welcome their new overlord and some wish to run away. Others want nothing more than to turn it aside.
Resolution: Hopefully nobody gets toasted…
Fun Stuff: Cats and fire…what could go wrong?

[zebaroth]

i like them going to do any from labyrinth

[Kammerice]

Weeping Wall
Hook: A great glacier begins to thaw.
Problem: Trapped inside has been a single parasitic life form.
Complications: The alien has escaped into the world, jumping from host to host, looking for a way off world.
Subplots: The remote location of the glacier makes it difficult to get any contact with the alien’s people.
Resolution: The creature gets home, with minimal loss of life.
Fun Stuff: Stuck out in a remote location, where anyone could be an alien menace? What could go wrong?

1984
Hook: Immediately after stepping out of the TARDIS, the Doctor and his friends are arrested for not being “compliant”.
Problem: The Doctor doesn’t register as human, and therefore can’t be “compliant”. The companions, assuming they’re human, will be tagged and tracked throughout their stay.
Complications: The companions are constantly monitored for security. Everyone is constantly monitored for security. The Time Lord is scheduled for “citizenship training”.
Subplots: A small number of “dissidents” run around, generally being pests.
Resolution: Do what the Doctor and his companions always do – upset the status quo and shake things up.
Fun Stuff: Bland, security-conscious semi-inmates could be fun to play as NPCs. And rather intimidating.

Always Crashing in the Same Car
Hook: A small village experiences a lovely day. With a gala and everything.
Problem: Some of the villagers are scared looking. Some are bored; others look very tired. Everyone seems to have a strong sense of déjà vu.
Complications: It’s not déjà vu – the one day just keeps happening.
Subplots: Someone, somewhere doesn’t want this day to end. And is willing to kill to keep it from ending.
Resolution: The time loop is broken.
Fun Stuff: Creepy village gala run by creepy villagers.

Lady Stardust
Hook: Several more stars collapse from loss of material as before in Ziggy Stardust.
Problem: Chasing the latest escaping material, the TARDIS discovers the star matter pouring through a spaceship floating directly over a black hole.
Complications: The woman captaining the ship is using the star matter to give the black hole mass. From there, she wants to use the black hole to travel through time.
Subplots: The woman is from Freecloud – she wants to go back in time to stop the siege from ever happening.
Resolution: Clearly she’s mad. And also destroying a lot of star systems. That should be stopped…
Fun Stuff: Mad people are great fun. Especially when they have insane plans.

Special
Heroes
Hook: The TARDIS has been left behind for a few days; a cruise around a nearby star to gaze in wonder at the solar flares.
Problem: As the cruise ships approaches the star, a pirate vessel appears and opens fire.
Complications: The cruise ship’s engines are knocked out. The pirates board in order to rob the passengers before the ship falls into the star.
Subplots: The Doctor and his companions are travelling in different compartments. It’s time to let them shine.
Resolution: The pirates are repelled and the cruise ship avoids a fiery pit-stop.
Fun Stuff: Pirates. In space! Plus, a lot of character moments for the companions.

[Kammerice]

Aug 22, 2012 20:06:37 GMT zebaroth said:

i like them going to do any from labyrinth

Glad to hear you're enjoying them. I hadn't intended on doing any of the ones from Labyrinth, but I might turn my hand to it once I'm done with these.

[Kammerice]

Season Three
Life on Mars?
Hook: One of the companions is sent back through time by a Weeping Angel.
Problem: The Doctor and remaining companion watch as the present day rearranges itself into some type of war zone. Clearly something has gone drastically wrong in the past.
Complications: The TARDIS has a lock on the missing companion; he/she appears to have gained unwanted attention from a human Time Agent, intent on “cleaning up” the past.
Subplots: The Time Agent is rather reckless when it comes to using his/her advanced technology; he/she drops a gun or other bit of future-tech, leading to an escalated arms race.
Resolution: The Time Agent and companion are both rescued and time restored.
Fun Stuff: This could either be played very dark, or very slap-stick. Either way, it would be fun.

Time Will Crawl
Hook: The TARDIS lands on a planet where nobody moves.
Problem: Time has stalled for this region of space.
Complications: The Doctor and his friends discover this occurred after some new scientific experiment was switched on.
Subplots: The longer the experiment is left running, the slower the natives will get, until they eventually stop altogether.
Resolution: Time gets restarts.
Fun Stuff: Perhaps one or two “special” cases are immune to the time freeze…

Hang On to Yourself
Hook: One an asteroid base, a small colony of humans and aliens have designed the ultimate way to share their experiences – a neural web.
Problem: Once inside the web, the individual is lost and does not know which body to return to.
Complications: Some malignant software hunts the consciousness of the those jacked in.
Subplots: One of the people inside the web was the one that unleashed the software beast.
Resolution: Get everyone out of the web and shut it down.
Fun Stuff: Lots of running up and down virtual corridors.

I Keep Forgettin’
Hook: Following on from Hang On to Yourself, it becomes apparent that there are great amounts of memories missing from the Doctor and his companions.
Problem: The neural web has been shut down, with no activity left inside.
Complications: This means that someone, somewhere has the memories of a Time Lord…
Subplots: The TARDIS detects attempts to break into the Time Vortex, possibly indicating someone using the Doctor’s memories to build a time machine. Or something worse.
Resolution: Get everyone back together, and use some variety of jiggery-pokery to sort the memory issues out.
Fun Stuff: Having a conversation with yourself in a different body.

[Kammerice]

Never Get Old
Hook: The TARDIS lands in the middle of a pitched battle.
Problem: Both sides of the battle demand assistance from the Doctor.
Complications: Both sides of the battle are Daleks.
Subplots: Both sides of this war believe themselves to be “true” Daleks, and want to use the Doctor as a weapon against the other, “false” Daleks.
Resolution: The Daleks, on both sides, are defeated.
Fun Stuff: EXTERMINATE!

All the Madmen
Hook: In an old mental institute, the patients are having group hallucinations of long dead soldiers.
Problem: The staff of the hospital have been experimenting with and on the patients; they’re methods have weakened space and time, resulting in shadowy, ghost-like figures being seen by the patients.
Complications: The staff cannot see the ghosts, and therefore believe them to be fictional. They will continue with their experiments, but the more they do, the weaker the barriers between times becomes.
Subplots: Some of the soldiers from the past have noticed the hospital, and are terrified they are going mad themselves.
Resolution: The experiments stop, and space-time is allowed to regain its integrity.
Fun Stuff: Spooky goings-on in an asylum.

Look Back in Anger
Hook: One of the Doctor’s former companions contacts the Doctor.
Problem: Having spent so long in the Time Vortex, the companion has ceased to age.
Complications: People are beginning to ask questions. The kind of people that don’t ask nicely…
Subplots: The current companions notice several things that just seem odd about this former traveller…
Resolution: The companion may or may not be used as bait for the shadow government types to capture the Doctor. Either way, the former companion’s aging process is kick-started again.
Fun Stuff: The current companions having to come to terms with the fact that they are not permanent fixtures of the Doctor’s life.

Day-In-Day-Out
Hook: The workers in a small shop notice things are going missing, including other staff.
Problem: A new member of staff is a shape-shifting alien that requires massive amounts of energy to survive.
Complications: The alien is losing control over its urges, killing people in the street. The police are involved.
Subplots: The alien has noticed that the Doctor gives off a lot of energy…
Resolution: The alien is transported from the shop and taken home. Or at least elsewhere.
Fun Stuff: “Hello, Officer. I’m the Doctor…”

[Kammerice]

Starman
Hook: The TARDIS lands in the court of a King named Sirius.
Problem: The kingdom is at war with a rival monarch, also named Sirius.
Complications: As the war escalates, it becomes clear that the first king is losing ground to the second; the more ground that is lost, the less stable the reality appears to be.
Subplots: The Doctor and his companions suffer brief flashes of being inside the TARDIS, trying desperately to resolve…something.
Resolution: The reality of the two kings is a simulation, dreamt up by an advanced race. The kings represent the binary star system of Sirius; the war in the simulation is an attempt to understand the tug-of-war the two stars play in the system.
Fun Stuff: Yet more questioning realities…

New Killer Star
Hook: Inside the heart of a gas giant, a dense object suddenly appears. The planet ignites, becoming a shining new star.
Problem: The beings living inside the gas giant cry out to be saved.
Complications: This gas giant is not the only one to suffer this fate.
Subplots: The survivors believe the ignition of the planet was an attack by an ancient race, determined to wipe them out.
Resolution: The gaseous aliens find a new home.
Fun Stuff: The very depths of a gas giant aren’t something you see everyday.

Ashes to Ashes
Hook: Following on from New Killer Star, the TARDIS tracks down the source of the attack.
Problem: A renegade military group of humans, led by Major Thomas Pierrot, under the guidance of a dangerous, Time Lord-esque race, has declared war on the gas giant dwelling aliens.
Complications: The Major and his men are stationed aboard a floating platform in a gas giant. An emissary of the advanced alien race is with them, and with the appearance of the TARDIS, contacts he own race, ordering them to destroy the planet.
Subplots: The Major and his men reveal they have been in servitude to the aliens in return for the aliens not attacking any gas giants with human colonies.
Resolution: The Major and his men are stopped.
Fun Stuff: “My mother said to get things done, you’d better not mess with Major Tom”…military hardasses acting tough.

Changes
Hook: Immediately following on from Ashes to Ashes, the Doctor has found the home planet of the Major’s masters.
Problem: They have a choice; stop their war with the universe or be destroyed.
Complications: The aliens do not take kindly to threats, especially not from men claiming to be a mythical Time Lord.
Subplots: The aliens believe themselves to be oppressed by the gas giant aliens.
Resolution: The cessation of a millennia-long war will not come easily; such galactic changes may require the life of a Time Lord…
Fun Stuff: Big, epic conclusions with speeches and lots of running.

Special
Speed of Life
Hook: The Doctor must adjust to being a new man.
Problem: Life, it seems, is not ready for him to settle down just yet – the Earth is under threat from a Cyberman attack.
Complications: The Cybermen have already colonised the moon, destroying Earth’s first colony entirely.
Subplots: One of the astronauts in the colony was a distant relation to at least one of the Doctor’s companions.
Resolution: The Cybermen are defeated.
Fun Stuff: Getting used to a new Doctor against an old enemy.