Need help coming up with ideas for pure historicals.

[SoulDragon298]

So I'm planning out a campaign for a group playing the game for the first time, and since my potential players may include people who aren't familiar with Doctor Who, I've decided to do a full reboot campaign, where the PCs are essentially replacing the Doctor and companions and only a few bits of the background of the DW universe are the same (Time Lords, Skaro exists, etc.). I thought it would be fun therefore to emulate the early years of the show while also doing arcs like the modern series, so I decided to go with sci-fi stories alternating with pure historicals. However, despite being a fan of history, I'm having real trouble coming up with time periods or events that would make for good adventures. I was wondering if anyone could help me come up with some time periods that would make for fun and interesting, preferably ones that wouldn't require too much research and prep, both to reduce the amount of prep work I'll have to do and so that I don't overwhelm my players. Below, I've included my current campaign outline for the first "season" in case that may help.

 1: The Silurians

Settings: Wherever the PCs are from, Montana 65 million years ago

Enemy: Security Advisor Harok, Silurian soldiers, Dakotaraptors, T-Rex


The TARDIS crew are brought together and take their first trip in the TARDIS, arriving in Late Cretaceous Montana on Asteroid Day. After evading a stampede of Edmontosaurs and a hungry T-Rex chasing the herd, they are rescued by Silurians and brought to their city, welcomed warmly by the city elder and viewed suspiciously by Harok, the chief of security. He believes them to be experiments sent by one of the other Silurian cities to spy on them. The PCs must escape Harok, his troops, and their dinosaurs and return to the TARDIS before the asteroid collides with the Earth.

2: Historical (TBD)



3: The Crawling Planet

Setting: Vortis

Enemy: Latrodectans, The Animus


The TARDIS crew arrive on the planet Vortis and find it covered in large webs and at war. They soon meet the Menoptera and witness an attack by the Latrodectan, a species of spider people. After escaping the attack, the Menoptera explain to the PCs that long ago, the two species lived harmoniously together, the Meoptera worshipping the Gods of Light and the Lactrodectan worshipping the Gods of Darkness (not evil, just representative of the benefits that the dark brings). But the arrival of an evil being known as the Animus changed that. The Animus seeped its way into the minds of the Lactrodectan, tricking them into believing that it was their gods made manifest and setting them against the Menoptera. The Menoptera fought a bloody war, only ending when they managed to create a chemical compound that severely injured the Animus and then imprisoned it. The Latrodectan were banished, but now have returned, the influence of the Animus still over them. They intend to free their god from the prison the Menoptera keep it in and restore their god to proper health, taking Vortis in its dark name. The Menoptera beg for the PCs to help them in fending off the attackers and putting an end to the Animus's madness.

4: Historical (TBD)



5: The Survivors

Setting: Mondas

Enemy: Cybermen creator, Cybermen

The TARDIS crew arrive on the icy world of Mondas, where they meet a group of human colonists who are running low on supplies due to faulty communication equipment. The equipment has been deliberately damaged by a obsessed scientist wanting to test his new project that he believes will revolutionize space colonization and human survival, allowing humanity to live anywhere. All it costs are your organs and your soul...


6: Historical (TBD)



7: Age of Reptiles

Setting: Silurian occupied Earth, modern day or whenever one or more of the PCs are from
Enemy: Silurians, Harok, Sea Devils, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine reptiles
The TARDIS crew manage to return home, only to find it way different than they remember. Several island nations have flooded, the Silurians seem to run the world with their Sea Devil cousins, and Security Advisor Harok has declared himself Earth Emperor, having forced all the dormant Silurian nations under his banner and taking over from the humans. The PCs must take down Harok's regime and restore the Earth, all while dodging Harok's forces and their prehistoric pets.

[grinch]

I think a historical adventure revolving around the buildup to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln or Kennedy would make for an interesting scenario.

Also thought Smenkhkare as a figure would be an interesting one to encounter. We know very little about him or the exact details regarding his rule considering successive Pharaohs endeavoured to erase all evidence of his reign from records.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smenkhkare

[Catsmate]

Are you interested in 'pure' historicals, i.e. without any general sci-fi elements other than the time travellers, or 'pseudo' that might include aliens et cetera, within a historical Earth setting. Say The Romans or Black Orchid versus The Visitation or The Talons of Weng-Chiang.

[SoulDragon298]

Pure historicals, just the travellers and whoever they run across, no aliens.

[Catsmate]

Apr 5, 2022 0:37:13 GMT SoulDragon298 said:

Pure historicals, just the travellers and whoever they run across, no aliens.

Ah right.

For starters here are a few ideas I Prepared Earlier.

1. The Laconia Incident. A good moral dilemma for all. The sinking of the USS Indianapolis is a somewhat similar incident. Or maybe they arrive a week or two earlier while the cruiser is en-route to Tinian.

2. The sinking of the British cruiser HMS Hampshire on 05JUN1916, with the loss of 723 lives, including the UK Secretary of War, Lord Kitchener. Now the loss of the Hampshire was (and is) controversial; officially she struck a mine but there is an alternate idea that she was torpedoed by a German sub. Fritz Joubert Duquesne, a fascinating character whom I wrote of here, claimed to have been on-board (disguised as the Russian Duke Boris Zakrevsky) and that he signaled the submarine that torpedoed the cruiser. Duquesne supposedly escaped using a life raft and was rescued by the submarine, which would explain why it surfaced in such foul weather.
This is a fascinating story but unproven, as is the claim that Duquesne was awarded the Iron Cross or reached the rank of Colonel.
To maximise the fun, maybe Sidney Reilly is on-board too?

3. The Zebrina Mystery, the Mary Celeste like disappearance of the crew of a small collier during the Great War. Similarly there's the mystery associated with the Carroll A. Deering, a commercial schooner discovered run aground on the Diamond Shoals, off Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, on 31 January 1921. None of the twelve crew were on board and no trace of them has been found.

4. The Dyatlov Pass Incident which I covered in detail here.
On the 27th of January 1959 a group of ten young Russians, experienced skiers and hikers mostly in their twenties and members of the sports club at the Ural Polytechnical Institute, set out from the small settlement of Vizhai towards Otorten led by Igor Dyatlov. The next day one of the group was forced by illness to drop out; of the seven men and two women remaining, none would be seen alive again.
Probably fairly mundane but leavened by weirdness, Soviet secrecy and strange things in the sky so there is plenty of room for aliens, Mad Science, time travellers, Things Man Was Not Meant To Know and similar.

5. The Lost Dutchman Mine (wiki). An enduring mystery that started in 1871 in a tavern (naturally). Two Americans (Jacob Waltz and Jacob Weiser) rescued a man (Don Miguel Peralta) from a brawl in Sonora, Mexico. Don Miguel invited the men to his home and there he proposed a strange business venture; he told them that for generations his family’s fortune had come from a secret gold mine in Arizona. Periodically the Peraltas would lead a party of workers to the mine and dig out a vast quantity of rich ore. However in 1864 the party led by Don Miguel's grandfather, Enrico, was killed in an attack by Apaches. After this the family lacked the resources to mount another such expedition against the hostile Indians.
How much of the stories are actually true is impossible to tell, but it makes an interesting premise for an adventure.

6. The Other World's Fair. I wrote a piece (here) about the possibilities of the 1851 London exhibition but there's also the US equivalent: not The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876 but the World's Columbian Exposition held in 1893 in Chicago. Interesting architecture, many exhibitions, an army of workmen constantly replacing light bulbs, an assassinated mayor and a serial killer stalking the city (the latter had a Murder Castle, ideal for unwary time travellers).

7. The Disappearance of Colonel Fawcett is a lengthy piece I wrote regarding the eponymous explorer, his odd life and his even odder disappearance into the Brazilian jungle in 1925, with two companions, in search of the Lost City of Z. The story has everything a good Weird History story needs: mysterious artefacts, double-dealing politicians, hostile wildlife, airships, poison darts, Winston Churchill, Nazis, alleged psychic powers and more.
Since his disappearance over a hundred people have died looking for Fawcett, on more than a dozen expeditions.

8. The Strange Events of 1783 is another of my old pieces (has it really been six years?) covering various off events of that year: earthquakes, meteors, the formal end of the American Revolution, the first human experiments with flight, volcanos killing much of the population of Iceland, Benjamin Franklin, the Newburgh Conspiracy and the fascinating cosmological ideas of a country vicar.
Just the period to strand a group of time travellers.

9. Perhaps you party lands in the Cursed Village of Trasmoz?

10. Might they attempt to investigate The Year of No Sunshine and solve the mystery of 535CE? The Time Tunnel episode set on Krakatoa comes to mind....

11. The small, rugged, Welsh island of Bardsley has a collection of odd history: link to druidism, an alleged burial site for King Arthur, Vikings, a busy monastery (complete with an orchard having it's own unique variety of apple) that was a major centre of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, a protected wildlife sanctuary, numerous connections to poets, musicians and artists, a curious square based lighthouse, declaring neutrality during World War One. Oh and twenty thousand graves.
It also lacks electricity, telephones, mains water or sewage or television. And the weather tends to strand visitors.

12. The Empty Quarter, the vast desert wasteland in southern Saudi Arabia, is one of the most desolate places on Earth. Which hasn't stopped people like Harry St. John "Jack" Philby (father of Kim) exploring the area in search of the remains of the legendary city of Ubar (described in the Qur'an as being destroyed by God for defying the Prophet Hud). This inspired old Howard Phillips to create Iram of the Pillars. Drop the PCs there in 1932 and see how they cope. Perhaps a Death in Mesopotamia style murder mystery?

13. The Bethnal Green tube station disaster is one of the forgotten (or covered up) disasters of the Second World War, one that most people are unaware of.

14. While Arctic exploration has had it's share of tragedies, disasters and weirdness (such as the lost Frankilin Expedition and the crash of the airship Italia) the saga of Crocker Land blends fraud, murder and arctic exploration.

15. The strange tale of the Russian freighter Ivan Vassili is a really weird one, assuming it actually happened and hasn't been layered to exaggerations.

16. Keeping to the nautical theme there is the loss of much of the US whaling fleet in the ice off the coast of Alaska in 1871

17. The Day It Rained Gold is one of my first scenario ideas, covering the destruction of S.S. Fort Stikine (and much of Bombay harbour) 32 years after the loss of the Titanic. She carried "just about everything that will either burn or blow up", plus a shipment of gold ingots.

18. While most people are at least vaguely familiar with the death of Archduke, and Crown Prince, Franz Ferdinand, especially given the recent centenary of World War 1, twenty five years earlier another Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince died suddenly, violently ad mysteriously. Might your players become involved in the Mayerling Affair?

19. On the second of August 1100 William II, aka William Rufus or William the Red, third son of William the Conqueror died while hunting somewhere in the New Forest from an arrow fired into his lung. Thus the second Norman king of England died under curious circumstances.

20. Another (almost) royal death. On the 18th of February 1853 an attempt was made by a Hungarian nationalist, and apprentice tailor, János Libényi, to kill emperor Franz-Joef of Austria-Hungary. then only 22. The emperor was walking on a city bastion accompanied by one of his officers, Maximilian Karl Lamoral O'Donnell, who prevented the assassination.

21. At 5:29AM on the 16th of July 1945 the Nuclear Age began with a bang, an eighteen kilotonne one. The 'Gadget', the first atomic bomb was detonated at a site in the Jornada del Muerto desert in New Mexico, about 55km from the town of Socorro.
The Trinity test was the culmination of the Manhattan Project, one of the greatest scientific and technical efforts in human history, the development of controlled nuclear fission. While Trinity Fails covers attempts to change the course of history, it's an interesting location for time travellers to arrive.

22. One called  called Gloucester Isle (after the Duke), Oak Island is a small, privately owned, island of about 57 hectares in Mahone Bay, in Nova Scotia, one of nearly 400 such small island in the bay. Superficially there's nothing special about the island but since about 1795 hundreds of speculators, treasure hunters, archaeologists, and explorers have been digging up the island in search of an alleged treasure. This has inspired hundreds of publications, more than thirty books and numerous television documentaries (many of extremely dubious accuracy).

23. Sometimes academic rivalry gets a little out of hand, might your PCs get mixed up in the Bone Wars?

24. Ten thousand years ago two groups of nomadic Homo sapiens engaged in the first known act of warfare, The Battle of Lake Turkana. Around thirty of our ancestors were killed by wooden clubs, stone tipped spears, stone headed axes and obsidian tipped arrows.
The area of Nataruk is considered one of the possible cradles of human development, given the abundance of fossil traces of hominids and hominins reaching back four million years, including the first known tools.


Have you any particular ideas in mind? Period, setting, theme et cetera?

[thewarchief]

You might want to use the Tunguska Event of June 30th 1908 when there was a 12 megaton explosion over a part of Russia. While there are several theories as to the cause (meteor air burst, antimatter) the reality isn't known, making it ideal for you to mess with. A quick search on google will explain what is known and give you some details. The PCs could either be involved in the advent somehow, investigate the event after the fact, or both.


Volcano Day: Although Pompeii and it's destruction are well know to most people, with the event being used in at least two Doctor Who stories, most people are not all that aware of nearby resort town of Herculaneum. You could run an adventure with the PCs in th town who need to escape before Vesuvius erupts and/or involved in the town's "chance" rediscovery in 1709. Who know what could be buried in the ruins?

The Iee Warriors: The concept behind this classic Doctor Who story is that Ice Warriors came to Earth and their ship got frozen in a glacier with the Ice Warriors going into some sort of suspected animation. The idea of some Ice Warriors frozen somewhere waiting to be thawed out could be used for several adventures. You could start with one, maybe found with a mammoth, and later have a whole ship.

Osirian Tech: If the Osirians trapped Sutek on Mars and influenced the ancient Egyptians, who know what advanced tech or beings they might have left, which could be in an old tomb somewhere. You could use the Roman conquest of Egypt (with Caesar and Cleopatra) and/or Octavian's battle with Mark Antony as a backdrop for this. What if Caesar and Antony were in Egypt hunting down advanced alien tech in order to control Rome (and thus the world)? The PCs have to keep the advanced tech from falling into their hands which could change history.

Another idea you might try is to run a historical adventure where the players do change history but when they get back to the present they discover that the end result matched up with real world accounts. AN example of this from the series is when the Daleks appear upon the Marie Celeste and the frightened crew abandoned the ship, leading to the f amour mystery. This sort of story could be interesting in making the players worry about changing history only to later discover that they hadn't. I once ran an adventure with the above Tunguska Event in just such a manner.

If you want a quick want to get a start for a historical adventure just use dice to randomly generate a year and then look that year up online on a site like Wikipedia. Chance are there are some interesting events occurring for any given year which could give you an idea for an adventure. I randomly rolled 1284, noticed that the city of Hamburg was destroy by fire in that year, and that could be the springboard for an adventure as to why.

Oh, naturally, any Earth -based story from the series could be adapted for your group, the UNIT era stuff in particular. Most of the First and Second Doctor historical adventures could be adapted easily too.


BTW, just a suggestion but rather than do a full reboot, maybe you'd be better off with a campaign in the normal DW universe but that the PCs aren't aware of the Doctor or his adventures. That way you have the freedom to bring over anything from the standard universe whenever you wish, and ignore it when you don't. That way you'd have the option of making it a full Doctor Who campaing later on as your players learn more about the setting and get up to speed with things.