solas
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 97
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Post by solas on Apr 16, 2010 15:18:55 GMT
Hello all. This question is directly related to what I think is a fairly ambitious campaign idea that I have for my second 'season' of stories. The first 'season' stories have been plotted around the concept of making a family out of the characters and their (hopefully) mutual desires to find out more about the Time Lords and Gallefray and The Doctor. Now, this last part is interesting, because I have a very young Time Lord character who fled the Time War and is really traumatised by the whole notion of the Doctor. He's like the byword for armageddon in his mind. It got me to thinking about what I would do story-wise. And I had the idea that the Time Lords would be ultimately quite sadistic in trying to punish the Doctor for the events in End of Time, and would use his regenerations as a new doorway to get them back into the present. Specifically speaking, using the regeneration energy itself to power a device they've already set up to be present (using a perception filter) to kill him and open a rift. Hence the title question. I don't want to intrude on those moments where the Doctor does and has regenerated (I just think messing with those at all is foolish, and kills the drama of them), but I'm wondering at what points close to those regenerations are the Doctor's lives in real jeapordy and the outcome could go either way? I think it's an immensely fun way to drop into nearly every regeneration (I can see the Eighth Doctor's being incredibly problematic) and at the same time have the characters (who all have no prior knowledge of all these regenerations) get to know this man. I'd greatly appreciate any and all help on this, along with comments, criticisms, or just telling me I'm barking mad for trying. S.
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Post by Craig Oxbrow on Apr 16, 2010 17:04:17 GMT
It's certainly a workable idea. Unmade thirtieth-anniversary special The Dark Dimension spun off the idea of changing the Doctor's fate as the Fourth Doctor regenerates. Eleven: Nothing yet, give it a few weeks... Ten regenerating-but-not in The Stolen Earth is the most obvious example for any Doctor I can think of, where the process actually starts. Also ageing centuries in Last of The Time Lords but that's probably risky due to the Master being there too and the Paradox Machine running. Or getting ambushed by Weeping Angels. Or thrown out of time and space by the Trickster... Nine never really got hurt on-screen until he regenerated, except maybe the false cliffhanger of World War Three. But if he's running around blowing things up before he meets Rose, it's entirely possible they could meet him before his first appearance as he nearly gets himself killed. Eight - as noted, not much on TV, and chances are he was at most risk of regenerating in the battles of the Time War, which don't help. Maybe the Big Finish audio seasons will have some possibilities. Seven nearly dies fighting the Master in Survival and confronting the Gods of Ragnarok in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. Earlier Doctors were more often in physical danger, it seems. Six nearly got killed on a weekly basis. Five likewise - struck by the Mara in Kinda, nearly immolated in the Great Fire of London in The Visitation, used as a dimensional portal or something in Arc of Infinity... This is as far back as I remember from original showings, but having seen a few earlier adventures Two, Three and Four follow that pattern as well. (One tended to let young Earthlings do the fighting.) Two was nearly beheaded by Macra and throttled by Cybermen. Three was clawed by Axons and strangled by giant squid and nearly stabbed by evil Morris Dancers in The Daemons. Four was drained of life by Sutekh in Pyramids Of Mars, mentally and physically attacked by The Brain of Morbius, zapped in The Masque of Mandragora...
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Post by allivingstone on Apr 16, 2010 18:38:47 GMT
Anything that really annoyed Mary Whitehouse would probably qualify. The drowning incident took place within the virtual reality of the Matrix on Gallifrey, which may be of relevance to the plot in the OP.
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misterharry
Dominus Tempus
Dalek Caan's Lovechild
Posts: 3,236
Favourite Doctors: Second, Third, Fourth, Eleventh, Thirteenth
Traits: Empathic, Face in the Crowd, Insatiable Curiosity, Stubborn, Phobia (Heights), Unadventurous
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Post by misterharry on Apr 16, 2010 19:40:08 GMT
My own suggestions for an incident for when each Doctor came close to death:
1st Doctor: The Savages - when the Elders drained him of his life-force.
2nd Doctor: The Faceless Ones - frozen by freezing gas in a trap set by the Chameleons.
3rd: The Daemons - frozen (again) by the opening of the barrow at the end of episode one (Jo actually thought he was dead).
4th: The Deadly Assassin - as noted above, being drowned by Goth in the Matrix.
5th Doctor: Warriors of the Deep - drowning (again) in the heavy-water tank in the Seabase.
6th Doctor: Vengeance on Varos - apparently dying of thirst in an hallucinatory sequence in the kill zone.
7th Doctor: this is the one I find the most difficult - he seemed to be threatened a lot more than injured - possibly Remembrance of the Daleks, trapped in the cellar with the Dalek coming up the stairs.
8th Doctor: TV Movie - the Master begins to absorb the Doctor's 5 remaining regenerations.
9th Doctor: Father's Day - being actually killed by the Reapers!
10th Doctor: Evolution of the Daleks - struck by lightning at the top of the Empire State Building.
Only a couple of these are actually anywhere close to the regeneration though - The Savages and Father's Day. The latter appeals to me, as the Doctor really does die in that story.
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Post by Craig Oxbrow on Apr 17, 2010 0:43:01 GMT
Alternatively, there are always non-TV adventures, so you can fit the PCs into stories the players won't have seen. For example, the Fourth Doctor was in just as much danger in his Doctor Who Weekly comics as he was on screen, and since John Wagner, Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons were responsible for the first run there's some great stuff in there. Going from Ten canonically nearly regenerating to Four under fire from The Iron Legion would catch all but the Whovian-est of players off-guard. And you could always make things up, but that might be a bit too distant from the idea.
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Post by lunahq7 on Jun 15, 2010 2:57:05 GMT
^.^ I was thinking about this as I am about to begin a campaign. You seem to write off the 8th Doctor, but since he was only in the one movie, and he survived, you could always have him die toward the end of the events of the Time War, and he regenerates into Christopher Eccleston's Doctor. I'm busy working on how the Doctor establishes the time lock on Gallifrey ... I am visualizing the TARDIS hanging over the planet, channeling a big stream of energy at the planet. The energy encases first the Citadel, then the entire planet. John B.
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Post by Curufea on Jun 15, 2010 4:03:50 GMT
I'd always thought it was a re-jigging of the normal time defense around Gallifrey that stops invasion.
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Post by lunahq7 on Jun 15, 2010 5:50:12 GMT
^.^ There are defenses that supposedly keep hostiles away, but that didn't stop the Sontarans, for example. Plus, the defenses don't stop the Timelords from leaving. PLUS it STILL is not infallable, as Daleks have escaped, and Timelords have escaped, and so on... They just never have described exactly how the time lock was put in place, so really until they do, it's left up to fan speculation. John B.
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Post by Curufea on Jun 16, 2010 1:43:02 GMT
Pretty much, yep.
Although so far it's taken some kind of traitor on the inside to let people invade Gallifrey (for the Sontarans, they had the Doctor let them in).
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