Post by olegrand on Jan 23, 2021 13:51:52 GMT
For quite some time now, I've been wishing to do a "Land of Fiction" episode for our Lady Penelope's Odyssey campaign - but I could never quite find the right way to satisfyingly "re-invent" this most unusual place for the purposes of the game.
As you know, "The Mind Robber" leaves many questions unanswered or, to say the least, "mistily eluded" (who created the Land? for what real reasons? etc.) - the Second Doctor sourcebook from Cubicle 7 directly acknowledges this, suggesting some possible answers and (as quite a few other sources) even questioning the very "reality" of this story - after all, was it just some kind of dream?
Over the years, quite a few novels, audiobooks, comic book episodes and short stories have featured the Land of Fiction, each of them trying to develop its own "rationale" (to use the term loosely) for the existence of the Land (or for its continuance / resurgence after the departure of the Doctor, etc.
Here is the list, from the very useful TARDIS wiki:
tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Land_of_Fiction_-_list_of_appearances
Before embarking on my own musings on the subject, I've read the comic stories, listened to the audiobooks and got as much info as possible on the sources I couldn't have access to - notably through the aforementioned wiki.
After quite a few impasses and lengthy ruminations, I eventually came up with the following ideas (which I will use in my "Land of Fiction" scenario - I'll be running it this very evening!) and I thought they might be of interest to some of my fellow Doctor Who GMs.
A word of warning: the following vision of the Land of Fiction does NOT necessarily comply with all the aforementioned sources - a task which, incidentally, might be impossible - or if not, quite pointless; when existing material (from books etc.) did not suit my tastes, I simply discarded it!
So here it is.
- Nobody really created the Land of Fiction - or at least no individual. It is a dimension of the mind, connected to humanity's wider noosphere (or psychosphere). In short, it is the place where all fictional characters "live", thanks to the collective imagination of human beings.
- The Master Brain (and its associated White Robots) were in fact INVADERS from another dimension, who tried to CONTROL the Land for its own purposes - probably as an indirect (but potentially quite efficient) way to dominate humanity (i.e. invading their collective imagination before taking over the noosphere and, probably, reality itself). Why such a convoluted plan? Probably perhaps those invaders could not interact directly with our physical reality. They had to find a "backdoor" or "secret passage" of some kind - and the Land of Fiction provided them with this hidden point of entry!
- And that's why these unknown invaders needed an imaginative human being as "Master of the Land" - he was, in effect, the indispensable link between the Master Brain, the Land of Fiction and human collective imagination... a kind of psychic key or interface, if you will.
Thus, by freeing the Master of the Land and destroying the Master Brain, the Doctor actually managed to LIBERATE the Land of Fiction from its invaders, restoring it to its erstwhile existence.
Let's now take a look at what happened AFTERWARDS.
From the second half of the 20th century, the Land of Fiction became more and more crowded with more and more characters - more books were printed and the many heroes from TV shows began populating entire areas of the Land, causing more and more unrest and chaos. Now free from the tyrannical Master Brain, the Land faced the perils of its own existence and freedom. Issues such as the discrepancies between well-known literary characters and their TV counterparts created situations of crisis, affecting the Land itself and creating conflicting clans and factions among its imaginary population. The situation was such that the self-consistency of the Land itself was threatened with a form of complete collapse... Someone had to do something to prevent the apocalypse!
And someone did. Who? Well, Professor X of course - the Doctor's very fictional counterpart:
tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Professor_X
Using his extraordinary genius and para-dimensional techno-babble, he managed to gain access to the Meta, a power which allowed him to see beyond the Fourth Wall (which, of course, is the normally unpassable barrier between Reality and Fiction) and see the Big Picture. Soon, he created a secret organization called the Caretakers - beings from the Land of Fiction who, after being access to the Meta, helped him to restore order and self-consistency in the Land, tracking down glaring inconsistencies, pacifying conflicts between different versions of the same characters and preventing encroachments from one fictional universe on another... Among those Caretakers are characters like Mycroft Holmes (in charge of Victorian Crime fiction), Jeeves (1920s-1930s English literature), Bridget Jones (late 1990s / early 2000s chicklit), etc.
But because of the Professor's use of the Meta and his reliance on Fourth Wall science, people from the real world sometimes find themselves wandering in the Land of Fiction - especially writers struggling with the evolution of their own fictional characters or going through terrible dry spells / blank page crisis... and when this happens, the only people who'll be able to take them home are time-travelers equipped with a TARDIS (it can go ANYWHERE!).
The episode I'll run this evening will feature Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot and some of his far lesser known inspirations - three other French-speaking master detectives named Inspector Hanaud, Jules Poiret and (I kid you not) Hercule Popeau. And yes, these characters DID exist (well, fictionally, of course).
See you soon for the blurb!
As you know, "The Mind Robber" leaves many questions unanswered or, to say the least, "mistily eluded" (who created the Land? for what real reasons? etc.) - the Second Doctor sourcebook from Cubicle 7 directly acknowledges this, suggesting some possible answers and (as quite a few other sources) even questioning the very "reality" of this story - after all, was it just some kind of dream?
Over the years, quite a few novels, audiobooks, comic book episodes and short stories have featured the Land of Fiction, each of them trying to develop its own "rationale" (to use the term loosely) for the existence of the Land (or for its continuance / resurgence after the departure of the Doctor, etc.
Here is the list, from the very useful TARDIS wiki:
tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Land_of_Fiction_-_list_of_appearances
Before embarking on my own musings on the subject, I've read the comic stories, listened to the audiobooks and got as much info as possible on the sources I couldn't have access to - notably through the aforementioned wiki.
After quite a few impasses and lengthy ruminations, I eventually came up with the following ideas (which I will use in my "Land of Fiction" scenario - I'll be running it this very evening!) and I thought they might be of interest to some of my fellow Doctor Who GMs.
A word of warning: the following vision of the Land of Fiction does NOT necessarily comply with all the aforementioned sources - a task which, incidentally, might be impossible - or if not, quite pointless; when existing material (from books etc.) did not suit my tastes, I simply discarded it!
So here it is.
- Nobody really created the Land of Fiction - or at least no individual. It is a dimension of the mind, connected to humanity's wider noosphere (or psychosphere). In short, it is the place where all fictional characters "live", thanks to the collective imagination of human beings.
- The Master Brain (and its associated White Robots) were in fact INVADERS from another dimension, who tried to CONTROL the Land for its own purposes - probably as an indirect (but potentially quite efficient) way to dominate humanity (i.e. invading their collective imagination before taking over the noosphere and, probably, reality itself). Why such a convoluted plan? Probably perhaps those invaders could not interact directly with our physical reality. They had to find a "backdoor" or "secret passage" of some kind - and the Land of Fiction provided them with this hidden point of entry!
- And that's why these unknown invaders needed an imaginative human being as "Master of the Land" - he was, in effect, the indispensable link between the Master Brain, the Land of Fiction and human collective imagination... a kind of psychic key or interface, if you will.
Thus, by freeing the Master of the Land and destroying the Master Brain, the Doctor actually managed to LIBERATE the Land of Fiction from its invaders, restoring it to its erstwhile existence.
Let's now take a look at what happened AFTERWARDS.
From the second half of the 20th century, the Land of Fiction became more and more crowded with more and more characters - more books were printed and the many heroes from TV shows began populating entire areas of the Land, causing more and more unrest and chaos. Now free from the tyrannical Master Brain, the Land faced the perils of its own existence and freedom. Issues such as the discrepancies between well-known literary characters and their TV counterparts created situations of crisis, affecting the Land itself and creating conflicting clans and factions among its imaginary population. The situation was such that the self-consistency of the Land itself was threatened with a form of complete collapse... Someone had to do something to prevent the apocalypse!
And someone did. Who? Well, Professor X of course - the Doctor's very fictional counterpart:
tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Professor_X
Using his extraordinary genius and para-dimensional techno-babble, he managed to gain access to the Meta, a power which allowed him to see beyond the Fourth Wall (which, of course, is the normally unpassable barrier between Reality and Fiction) and see the Big Picture. Soon, he created a secret organization called the Caretakers - beings from the Land of Fiction who, after being access to the Meta, helped him to restore order and self-consistency in the Land, tracking down glaring inconsistencies, pacifying conflicts between different versions of the same characters and preventing encroachments from one fictional universe on another... Among those Caretakers are characters like Mycroft Holmes (in charge of Victorian Crime fiction), Jeeves (1920s-1930s English literature), Bridget Jones (late 1990s / early 2000s chicklit), etc.
But because of the Professor's use of the Meta and his reliance on Fourth Wall science, people from the real world sometimes find themselves wandering in the Land of Fiction - especially writers struggling with the evolution of their own fictional characters or going through terrible dry spells / blank page crisis... and when this happens, the only people who'll be able to take them home are time-travelers equipped with a TARDIS (it can go ANYWHERE!).
The episode I'll run this evening will feature Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot and some of his far lesser known inspirations - three other French-speaking master detectives named Inspector Hanaud, Jules Poiret and (I kid you not) Hercule Popeau. And yes, these characters DID exist (well, fictionally, of course).
See you soon for the blurb!
Excellent! I especially like your introduction of Professor X (and his arch-enemies the Ladeks?). 
