Recurring Nemesis

[Deleted]

Of course everyone knows the Doctor has made plenty of enemies throughout his never ending journey through time and space. But here's the question, in your campaign what monsters/villains did your PCs regularly encounter, which were the most memorable to merit another adventure? Which ones could your characters consider their arch nemesis?

For instance, in my campaign featuring Mortimus The Meddling Monk. I ran them through an adaptation of the classic TV comic strip 'The Klepton Parasites' as one of their first adventures. They proved such a memorable and entertaining opponent that they appeared quite a few times in our characters journey from being held prisoner in a vast alien prison ship controlled by a deranged AI to having a female Klepton waitress be a helpful NPC ally to the group. Thinking of running them throughout Supremacy of the Cybermen but instead reimagine it as Supremacy of the Kleptons.

[Hedgewick]

Great thread. It's wonderful that you pulled the Kleptons from a classic comic strip and that they live on in your campaign.

The central villains of the Dark Dimension campaign are THE DIVINITY, created specifically for our adventures. An ancient race of powerful and dangerous alien telepaths, the Divinity possess the unique ability to corrupt societies on a planetary scale using religion as a weapon. When they descend upon a populace, they are recognized according to individual faith and religious belief. When someone looks upon a member of the Divinity, they see an embodiment of their most deeply held beliefs, a representation of whatever it is that defines their sense of faith. To most, the Divinity are taken as angels or sacred heralds. To those who have managed to peer beyond this veil of deceit, they are among the most dangerous creatures in the universe. Temples and cathedrals have been built in their name, and their will has reshaped the histories of countless worlds. The Doctor, of course, recognizes them for the monsters they are. He attempted to erase their sinister influence from history, but his efforts ended in failure. Now, the Divinity and the Doctor are each dedicated to the other's destruction.

The Divinity have recurred throughout our campaign, making their first full appearance in "Divine Retribution" and appearing most recently in "The Atlantean." The story arc driving our current season is focused on the Doctor's efforts to confront his arch foes, and it has been building to an epic climax.

NPC stats and info for the Divinity are available on our blog.

I'm looking forward to seeing what others will post here!

[Deleted]

Ah, who could forget the mysterious yet extremely dangerous Divinity? Yes, the Kleptons area lot of fun and have become very much our ' comedy villains' of our campaign. After many failed invasion attempts, they long to be taken seriously as a species with the likes of Mortimus or UNIT barely raising an eyebrow to their so called 'schemes.' Encounters with them usually begin with a sigh of resignation than cries of fear.

Although, give them something such as time travel or even the Key to Time and perhaps people won't be so quick to laugh at them...

[thereviewer]

Jan 20, 2018 23:56:50 GMT @toymaker66 said:

Of course everyone knows the Doctor has made plenty of enemies throughout his never ending journey through time and space. But here's the question, in your campaign what monsters/villains did your PCs regularly encounter, which were the most memorable to merit another adventure? Which ones could your characters consider their arch nemesis?

For instance, in my campaign featuring Mortimus The Meddling Monk. I ran them through an adaptation of the classic TV comic strip 'The Klepton Parasites' as one of their first adventures. They proved such a memorable and entertaining opponent that they appeared quite a few times in our characters journey from being held prisoner in a vast alien prison ship controlled by a deranged AI to having a female Klepton waitress be a helpful NPC ally to the group. Thinking of running them throughout Supremacy of the Cybermen but instead reimagine it as Supremacy of the Kleptons.

One of the things I enjoy about New Who and Big Finish's DW Range with regards to elements from the modern era is how they take old characters and throw in elements from the modern era to create more excitement. And yes, @toymaker66 , The Kleptons doing their own take on Supremacy of the Cybermen sounds like a great idea. I've previously mentioned that I intend to run a game with my player in our Adventures of Kanya campaign as my own alternative take on Supremacy of the Cybermen, but in this case it will be my player's previous incarnations actually meeting and teaming up to stop Morbius from dominating the Cybermen and Time Lords as opposed to the actual miniseries where only The Twelfth Doctor faced Rassilon again while the 9th-11th Doctors fought and lost to the Cybermen without interacting with each other.

In terms of recurring big bads, we really haven't had many. The closest was The Daleks & Davros and even then, they only appeared twice (technically three, but that was during an illusion). However, the second encounter gave us something truly worthy of bringing them back. Zombie Daleks. By the way, if you think the Dalek's way of killing Singh is the way they "consume flesh," it's a lot more disturbing and probably enough to make Stephen Moffat regret not making an episode like that before he left as Showrunner. Sorry, Stevie.

Yet in the last session we played, I re-introduced a minor villain from my Kanya campaign to serve as my player's own personal master; Billixus. Essentially, Billixus started out as a snooty Time Lord and senior agent at the Celestial Intervention Agency. Someone who was spoon-fed and given everything he needed to get to this job without ever having to work for it. When my player's character, Kanya, encountered him; he made a jab at how as an archeologist, she'd eventually run out of things to discover on Gallifrey, but she bested him verbally with some excellent repartee. When Kanya met and freed her soon-to-be companion Murphy and attempted to escape, Billixus attempted to stop them from taking a TARDIS by summoning a lumbering creature from the Death Zone which Kanya fooled into thinking she rescued due to the creature's susceptibility. Once Kanya and Murphy discovered Davros' plans to create a new Dalek race and called for reinforcements, the Renegade Daleks (from Revelation of the Daleks) appeared to take Davros into custody to stand trial for his crimes against the Renegade Daleks. However, after Davros was carted out, Billixus appeared having been revealed to be working with the Renegade Daleks to use the planet Davros had been operating on for the Renegade Dalek's own scheme. Basically, they were trying to do the same plan the Imperial Daleks attempted with The Dalek Invasion of Earth except Billixus was helping them experiment with time so they could copy two of an object (in this case, another planet), and use that to turn into their siege machine. Having heard all she needed, Kanya sprayed Billixus in the face with some spare chemicals she swiped from Davros' lab. This triggered Billixus' regeneration into a very portly woman, whom the Renegade Daleks didn't recognize and subsequently had him exterminated until he was nothing more than ashes.

Of course, as I mentioned this wasn't the end as Billixus returned in our last session as the first antagonist for Kanya's Third Regeneration. There's a bit of backstory, but the basic gist is that during the campaign at the end of Kanya's first regeneration, The Master had gained omnipotent power and could easily warp reality to his whim. Unbeknownst to Kanya, before The Master died, he'd resurrected Billixus albeit in a decaying form. Don't think The Decaying Master which first appeared in The Deadly Assassin. Think Freddy Kruger from Wes Craven's New Nightmare with actual muscles and veins exposed along with thick gashes along his body. The Master had promised Billixus more regenerations for beginning to subjugate other worlds, but upon landing on a planet to subjugate, Kanya defeated the Master back on Gallifrey. However, Billixus remained and was overwhelmed. He eventually escaped (realizing he could not be killed by any means, not even able to regenerate despite the damage), and made it to his TARDIS. Unfortunately, much like the Simm Master did in The Doctor Falls, Billixus pushed his TARDIS too hard, accidently breaking the ship in the process after jumping through various points in history. He accidently brought a swarm of Vashta Narada onto his TARDIS by materializing around them (not a good thing considering his desktop setting was the wooden themed one,) and then crashed into the interior of a fleeing Racnoss ship containing a renegade Princess who did not wish to be amongst those killed in their war against the Time Lords (even wanting to repopulate and lead a more peaceful species.) The result crashed the ship on a planet where it was buried underground. Eventually, Kanya arrived having just regenerated into her third incarnation. Together with Time-Traveling Gentleman Adventurer (and student of Professor River Song), Eddie Gregory, her then-companion Sevateem warrior Lee, and her new companion whom she'd accidently brought onboard when she accidently landed here following her regeneration; middle-school student and pop-culture geek Camille 'Cam' Mokal, with a handful of archeologists, Kanya unearthed the entrance to the ship and quickly met the Racnoss Princess, agreeing to help her out after learning about the Vashta Nerada being here. Unfortunately, Billixus finally revealed himself and was more than a little unhappy when he discovered Kanya was alive. He became determined to make her feel the pain he went through and approached using a device to turn off the lights and lure the Vashta Nerada towards them. Kanya came up with a plan to push Billixus into his TARDIS, send the Vashta Nerada in, close the doors to his TARDIS, and remotely send it away. After downloading the activation to do so, Kanya and Eddie tried to get Billixus in, but he overpowered them and began to remotely summon the Vashta Nerada. However, in a moment of pure awesomeness, Cam arrived picking up Murphy's Gadget; a Sonic/Laser Umbrella (basically a Sonic/Laser Gadget Hybrid in the form of an umbrella with functions similar to the gadget umbrella used in the Kingsman series). Cam switched to blast burst mode, aimed it at Billixus and told him "Phone home, *****." With that, she sent Billixus flying into his own TARDIS. Kanya manipulated the lights with her own sub-sonic socket wrench gadget to lure the Vashta Nerada back into Billixus TARDIS before shutting the doors and remotely sending them away.

I plan to have him return a couple of times before I get into the next arc for Kanya; The Time War. I have a plan to do a side-story with Billixus where rogue Time Lord agents ask him to assist in getting to Rassilon (as Billixus did have high CIA Credentials back before his temporary death,) and then to have him disappear like the Master did so when we start doing 'Post Time War' stories, I can bring him back with a shock. Don't worry, though. There's a whole arc of the 'Decaying Billixus' stories I have planned. And you might see a familiar face or two from the modern era show up.

[Deleted]

Jan 23, 2018 4:17:14 GMT thereviewer said:

Jan 20, 2018 23:56:50 GMT @toymaker66 said:

Of course everyone knows the Doctor has made plenty of enemies throughout his never ending journey through time and space. But here's the question, in your campaign what monsters/villains did your PCs regularly encounter, which were the most memorable to merit another adventure? Which ones could your characters consider their arch nemesis?

For instance, in my campaign featuring Mortimus The Meddling Monk. I ran them through an adaptation of the classic TV comic strip 'The Klepton Parasites' as one of their first adventures. They proved such a memorable and entertaining opponent that they appeared quite a few times in our characters journey from being held prisoner in a vast alien prison ship controlled by a deranged AI to having a female Klepton waitress be a helpful NPC ally to the group. Thinking of running them throughout Supremacy of the Cybermen but instead reimagine it as Supremacy of the Kleptons.

One of the things I enjoy about New Who and Big Finish's DW Range with regards to elements from the modern era is how they take old characters and throw in elements from the modern era to create more excitement. And yes, @toymaker66 , The Kleptons doing their own take on Supremacy of the Cybermen sounds like a great idea. I've previously mentioned that I intend to run a game with my player in our Adventures of Kanya campaign as my own alternative take on Supremacy of the Cybermen, but in this case it will be my player's previous incarnations actually meeting and teaming up to stop Morbius from dominating the Cybermen and Time Lords as opposed to the actual miniseries where only The Twelfth Doctor faced Rassilon again while the 9th-11th Doctors fought and lost to the Cybermen without interacting with each other.

In terms of recurring big bads, we really haven't had many. The closest was The Daleks & Davros and even then, they only appeared twice (technically three, but that was during an illusion). However, the second encounter gave us something truly worthy of bringing them back. Zombie Daleks. By the way, if you think the Dalek's way of killing Singh is the way they "consume flesh," it's a lot more disturbing and probably enough to make Stephen Moffat regret not making an episode like that before he left as Showrunner. Sorry, Stevie.

Yet in the last session we played, I re-introduced a minor villain from my Kanya campaign to serve as my player's own personal master; Billixus. Essentially, Billixus started out as a snooty Time Lord and senior agent at the Celestial Intervention Agency. Someone who was spoon-fed and given everything he needed to get to this job without ever having to work for it. When my player's character, Kanya, encountered him; he made a jab at how as an archeologist, she'd eventually run out of things to discover on Gallifrey, but she bested him verbally with some excellent repartee. When Kanya met and freed her soon-to-be companion Murphy and attempted to escape, Billixus attempted to stop them from taking a TARDIS by summoning a lumbering creature from the Death Zone which Kanya fooled into thinking she rescued due to the creature's susceptibility. Once Kanya and Murphy discovered Davros' plans to create a new Dalek race and called for reinforcements, the Renegade Daleks (from Revelation of the Daleks) appeared to take Davros into custody to stand trial for his crimes against the Renegade Daleks. However, after Davros was carted out, Billixus appeared having been revealed to be working with the Renegade Daleks to use the planet Davros had been operating on for the Renegade Dalek's own scheme. Basically, they were trying to do the same plan the Imperial Daleks attempted with The Dalek Invasion of Earth except Billixus was helping them experiment with time so they could copy two of an object (in this case, another planet), and use that to turn into their siege machine. Having heard all she needed, Kanya sprayed Billixus in the face with some spare chemicals she swiped from Davros' lab. This triggered Billixus' regeneration into a very portly woman, whom the Renegade Daleks didn't recognize and subsequently had him exterminated until he was nothing more than ashes.

Of course, as I mentioned this wasn't the end as Billixus returned in our last session as the first antagonist for Kanya's Third Regeneration. There's a bit of backstory, but the basic gist is that during the campaign at the end of Kanya's first regeneration, The Master had gained omnipotent power and could easily warp reality to his whim. Unbeknownst to Kanya, before The Master died, he'd resurrected Billixus albeit in a decaying form. Don't think The Decaying Master which first appeared in The Deadly Assassin. Think Freddy Kruger from Wes Craven's New Nightmare with actual muscles and veins exposed along with thick gashes along his body. The Master had promised Billixus more regenerations for beginning to subjugate other worlds, but upon landing on a planet to subjugate, Kanya defeated the Master back on Gallifrey. However, Billixus remained and was overwhelmed. He eventually escaped (realizing he could not be killed by any means, not even able to regenerate despite the damage), and made it to his TARDIS. Unfortunately, much like the Simm Master did in The Doctor Falls, Billixus pushed his TARDIS too hard, accidently breaking the ship in the process after jumping through various points in history. He accidently brought a swarm of Vashta Narada onto his TARDIS by materializing around them (not a good thing considering his desktop setting was the wooden themed one,) and then crashed into the interior of a fleeing Racnoss ship containing a renegade Princess who did not wish to be amongst those killed in their war against the Time Lords (even wanting to repopulate and lead a more peaceful species.) The result crashed the ship on a planet where it was buried underground. Eventually, Kanya arrived having just regenerated into her third incarnation. Together with Time-Traveling Gentleman Adventurer (and student of Professor River Song), Eddie Gregory, her then-companion Sevateem warrior Lee, and her new companion whom she'd accidently brought onboard when she accidently landed here following her regeneration; middle-school student and pop-culture geek Camille 'Cam' Mokal, with a handful of archeologists, Kanya unearthed the entrance to the ship and quickly met the Racnoss Princess, agreeing to help her out after learning about the Vashta Nerada being here. Unfortunately, Billixus finally revealed himself and was more than a little unhappy when he discovered Kanya was alive. He became determined to make her feel the pain he went through and approached using a device to turn off the lights and lure the Vashta Nerada towards them. Kanya came up with a plan to push Billixus into his TARDIS, send the Vashta Nerada in, close the doors to his TARDIS, and remotely send it away. After downloading the activation to do so, Kanya and Eddie tried to get Billixus in, but he overpowered them and began to remotely summon the Vashta Nerada. However, in a moment of pure awesomeness, Cam arrived picking up Murphy's Gadget; a Sonic/Laser Umbrella (basically a Sonic/Laser Gadget Hybrid in the form of an umbrella with functions similar to the gadget umbrella used in the Kingsman series). Cam switched to blast burst mode, aimed it at Billixus and told him "Phone home, *****." With that, she sent Billixus flying into his own TARDIS. Kanya manipulated the lights with her own sub-sonic socket wrench gadget to lure the Vashta Nerada back into Billixus TARDIS before shutting the doors and remotely sending them away.

I plan to have him return a couple of times before I get into the next arc for Kanya; The Time War. I have a plan to do a side-story with Billixus where rogue Time Lord agents ask him to assist in getting to Rassilon (as Billixus did have high CIA Credentials back before his temporary death,) and then to have him disappear like the Master did so when we start doing 'Post Time War' stories, I can bring him back with a shock. Don't worry, though. There's a whole arc of the 'Decaying Billixus' stories I have planned. And you might see a familiar face or two from the modern era show up.

Marvellous! I do like the sound of Billixus as a character, a most intriguing take on the concept of a Time Lord villain. 

[thereviewer]

Jan 23, 2018 19:24:43 GMT @toymaker66 said:

Jan 23, 2018 4:17:14 GMT thereviewer said:

One of the things I enjoy about New Who and Big Finish's DW Range with regards to elements from the modern era is how they take old characters and throw in elements from the modern era to create more excitement. And yes, @toymaker66 , The Kleptons doing their own take on Supremacy of the Cybermen sounds like a great idea. I've previously mentioned that I intend to run a game with my player in our Adventures of Kanya campaign as my own alternative take on Supremacy of the Cybermen, but in this case it will be my player's previous incarnations actually meeting and teaming up to stop Morbius from dominating the Cybermen and Time Lords as opposed to the actual miniseries where only The Twelfth Doctor faced Rassilon again while the 9th-11th Doctors fought and lost to the Cybermen without interacting with each other.

In terms of recurring big bads, we really haven't had many. The closest was The Daleks & Davros and even then, they only appeared twice (technically three, but that was during an illusion). However, the second encounter gave us something truly worthy of bringing them back. Zombie Daleks. By the way, if you think the Dalek's way of killing Singh is the way they "consume flesh," it's a lot more disturbing and probably enough to make Stephen Moffat regret not making an episode like that before he left as Showrunner. Sorry, Stevie.

Yet in the last session we played, I re-introduced a minor villain from my Kanya campaign to serve as my player's own personal master; Billixus. Essentially, Billixus started out as a snooty Time Lord and senior agent at the Celestial Intervention Agency. Someone who was spoon-fed and given everything he needed to get to this job without ever having to work for it. When my player's character, Kanya, encountered him; he made a jab at how as an archeologist, she'd eventually run out of things to discover on Gallifrey, but she bested him verbally with some excellent repartee. When Kanya met and freed her soon-to-be companion Murphy and attempted to escape, Billixus attempted to stop them from taking a TARDIS by summoning a lumbering creature from the Death Zone which Kanya fooled into thinking she rescued due to the creature's susceptibility. Once Kanya and Murphy discovered Davros' plans to create a new Dalek race and called for reinforcements, the Renegade Daleks (from Revelation of the Daleks) appeared to take Davros into custody to stand trial for his crimes against the Renegade Daleks. However, after Davros was carted out, Billixus appeared having been revealed to be working with the Renegade Daleks to use the planet Davros had been operating on for the Renegade Dalek's own scheme. Basically, they were trying to do the same plan the Imperial Daleks attempted with The Dalek Invasion of Earth except Billixus was helping them experiment with time so they could copy two of an object (in this case, another planet), and use that to turn into their siege machine. Having heard all she needed, Kanya sprayed Billixus in the face with some spare chemicals she swiped from Davros' lab. This triggered Billixus' regeneration into a very portly woman, whom the Renegade Daleks didn't recognize and subsequently had him exterminated until he was nothing more than ashes.

Of course, as I mentioned this wasn't the end as Billixus returned in our last session as the first antagonist for Kanya's Third Regeneration. There's a bit of backstory, but the basic gist is that during the campaign at the end of Kanya's first regeneration, The Master had gained omnipotent power and could easily warp reality to his whim. Unbeknownst to Kanya, before The Master died, he'd resurrected Billixus albeit in a decaying form. Don't think The Decaying Master which first appeared in The Deadly Assassin. Think Freddy Kruger from Wes Craven's New Nightmare with actual muscles and veins exposed along with thick gashes along his body. The Master had promised Billixus more regenerations for beginning to subjugate other worlds, but upon landing on a planet to subjugate, Kanya defeated the Master back on Gallifrey. However, Billixus remained and was overwhelmed. He eventually escaped (realizing he could not be killed by any means, not even able to regenerate despite the damage), and made it to his TARDIS. Unfortunately, much like the Simm Master did in The Doctor Falls, Billixus pushed his TARDIS too hard, accidently breaking the ship in the process after jumping through various points in history. He accidently brought a swarm of Vashta Narada onto his TARDIS by materializing around them (not a good thing considering his desktop setting was the wooden themed one,) and then crashed into the interior of a fleeing Racnoss ship containing a renegade Princess who did not wish to be amongst those killed in their war against the Time Lords (even wanting to repopulate and lead a more peaceful species.) The result crashed the ship on a planet where it was buried underground. Eventually, Kanya arrived having just regenerated into her third incarnation. Together with Time-Traveling Gentleman Adventurer (and student of Professor River Song), Eddie Gregory, her then-companion Sevateem warrior Lee, and her new companion whom she'd accidently brought onboard when she accidently landed here following her regeneration; middle-school student and pop-culture geek Camille 'Cam' Mokal, with a handful of archeologists, Kanya unearthed the entrance to the ship and quickly met the Racnoss Princess, agreeing to help her out after learning about the Vashta Nerada being here. Unfortunately, Billixus finally revealed himself and was more than a little unhappy when he discovered Kanya was alive. He became determined to make her feel the pain he went through and approached using a device to turn off the lights and lure the Vashta Nerada towards them. Kanya came up with a plan to push Billixus into his TARDIS, send the Vashta Nerada in, close the doors to his TARDIS, and remotely send it away. After downloading the activation to do so, Kanya and Eddie tried to get Billixus in, but he overpowered them and began to remotely summon the Vashta Nerada. However, in a moment of pure awesomeness, Cam arrived picking up Murphy's Gadget; a Sonic/Laser Umbrella (basically a Sonic/Laser Gadget Hybrid in the form of an umbrella with functions similar to the gadget umbrella used in the Kingsman series). Cam switched to blast burst mode, aimed it at Billixus and told him "Phone home, *****." With that, she sent Billixus flying into his own TARDIS. Kanya manipulated the lights with her own sub-sonic socket wrench gadget to lure the Vashta Nerada back into Billixus TARDIS before shutting the doors and remotely sending them away.

I plan to have him return a couple of times before I get into the next arc for Kanya; The Time War. I have a plan to do a side-story with Billixus where rogue Time Lord agents ask him to assist in getting to Rassilon (as Billixus did have high CIA Credentials back before his temporary death,) and then to have him disappear like the Master did so when we start doing 'Post Time War' stories, I can bring him back with a shock. Don't worry, though. There's a whole arc of the 'Decaying Billixus' stories I have planned. And you might see a familiar face or two from the modern era show up.

Marvellous! I do like the sound of Billixus as a character, a most intriguing take on the concept of a Time Lord villain. 

@toymaker66 , thanks, man! Yeah, I wanted to try and make my villain different from any previous Time Lord antagonist while keeping a Master-like threat level about him. Honestly, I originally intended for Billixus to be a one-off villain who was actually going to be killed in Kanya's first adventure and never let him be spoken of again. But when I started playing him during the actual adventure, I realized that he carried a different kind of flair than what most Time Lord villains have. As such, I came up with the idea to resurrect him for Kanya's first adventure in her third incarnation. It's really fun also to play someone who's not playing this as a game like how The Third Doctor and the Delgado Master would, but rather because Billixus has his head shoved so far up his ***, that he honestly believes that he's the better of the two despite Kanya constantly thwarting him over and over. The threat, of course, is that unlike The Monk (and the Master has been guilty of not doing this a couple of times himself,) Billixus is going to LEARN from his experiences. He's going to become a legitimate threat and not someone who does the same plots over and over.