Doctor Who/Gallifrey information help!

[GodGoblin]

Hey guys and gals, The other day I was watching a re-run of Tennants last episode the End of Time and it got me thinking that a Doctor who based pen and paper would be pretty good fun.

Although rather than running around on Earth with the Doctor or as the Doctor I want to set it on Gallifrey during the Time war. So the players would most likley be Time Lords.

The purpose of this thread is to compile as much information on Gallifrey and Time Lords as possible. Also to give the players some variation do we know of any races that could have lived alongside the Time Lords?

I know there isnt much in the way of information about this on the show so speculation and opinion is welcome too

Edit- I should probably mention that I will run it as either New World of Darkness or possibly D20 Modern it if helps

Thanks in advance! :smallbiggrin:

[Jaros]

I know there's already a pen and paper Dr Who RPG, but I'm not sure if they've updated it since the relaunch, if you want to make your own specific to the Time War though you could just use it for reference.

There's a Doctor Who wiki (http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_Wiki) too, and they have a page on Gallifrey (http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Gallifrey), the only other race I can think of apart from androids would be the Sevateem (http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Sevateem), a wild tribe descended from a crashed survey team, one of the Fourth Doctor's companions was part of the tribe.

I haven't watched that much Classic Who in a while but it's probably worth going through some of the episodes that take place on Gallifrey.

Oh, and for a brilliant fanfiction interpretation of what the lead up to the Time War could have been, I can strongly recommend The Ten Doctorrs (http://comics.shipsinker.com/the-ten-doctors/)

[comicshorse]

In ' The Deadly Assassin' it's shown that there's a back-to-nature faction of Gallifreyeans who live outside the cities, existing on their skills and nature rather than technology.

[GodGoblin]

Thanks for the quick reply I will definatly look into them. But does anyone out there have any ideas on plot hooks or over arching campaign concepts? I was thinking of setting it during the time where Rassilon and Omega start the revoloution to take over from the female prophets rule. Any ideas on what level of technology they would have available, I think time travel was around because that was the start of the time lords.

Also any other suggestions about character personality or would all Gallifraens have a Doctor and Master level Intellect?

Ah Got ninja'd yeah the Outsiders I was reading about them earlier, I think I might include them as almost a race possibly? But I would like to set it more in the main civilisation

[The Big Dice]

There were a few races that had dealins with the Time Lords, though mostly in the ense that they got told to stop their time travel experiments, particularly the Third Zone governments mentioned in The Two Doctors. The Minyans (Underworld) and Dronids (Shada) had connections with the Time Lords, as did the Sisterhood of Karn (Brain of Morbius).

I'd seriously reccomend checking out the Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Spce RPG, though. It completely ignores the dubious canonicity of the books in favour of the new TV shows, but it is an excellent game in it's own right. The turn sequence of Talkers, Runners, Makers and finally Fighters is inspired.

The problem I see with the Time Lords of old is simply they are way, way too powerful. In GURPS terms, they're a mature TL 16 society. Poof, you're dead, poof you're healed, poof you're there is the normal way of doing things. Time looping planets, T-Mat guns that erase you from history and other utterly insane power level weapons are the least of it.

Also, in the early days they weren't really Time Lords. It was Omega's creation of a black hole and Rassilon's balancing the mass of that black hole gainst the mass of Gallifrey that gave him the power source he needed to take time travel technology from the Time Scoop to actual time capsules.

Edit: The Sevateem were nothing to do with Gallifrey. They were a human expedition that the Doctor thought he'd helped out. But had accidentally set them on course to become a eugenics experiment.

[GodGoblin]

Also, in the early days they weren't really Time Lords. It was Omega's creation of a black hole and Rassilon's balancing the mass of that black hole gainst the mass of Gallifrey that gave him the power source he needed to take time travel technology from the Time Scoop to actual time capsules.


This is the point I would like to set it and I was hoping at this point the tech was less poof dead and so on.

But I will definatly look into the RPG sounds great for ideas and I will will have a small wiki binge on those races once im home from work.

The main problem with this is the smatterings of info dont really paint a full picture of Gallafrian life to put the characters in, but hopefully the RPG should clear that up.

But keep these ideas and info coming its all great help :smallsmile:

[Mordaenor]

I like the idea of an RPG set in the Doctor Who mythos, but I agree I think you my run into problems if you have a party of Time Lords. One, they are RIDICULOUSLY advanced. Two, by all accounts, the Time Lords aren't really the adventuring type. The Doctor was the one exception, the Time Lords as a whole were content to hide away on Gallifrey and not get involved in the rest of the universe, with a few very notable exceptions, such as trying to prevent the creation of the Daleks. That said, if you want an adventure hook, consider this. The Doctor spent much of his life on the run from the Time Lords. An game based around a team trying to track down the Doctor might present something interesting. Just a thought.

[GodGoblin]

Thats a cool idea but I want to set it actually on Gallifrey and in the time when they were still Gallifriens but the Time Lords have just come about and the revoloution is setting in. So mabye the characters are loyal to prophets and oppose Rassilon and Omega?

Edit: And yeah weapon lethality is a problem but the regeneration cycle should hopefully help with that. Actually did they even regenerate before they became Time Lords? or was it a innate Gallifrey ability?

Oh and any ideas on the actual type of weapons they used?

[The Big Dice]

This is the point I would like to set it and I was hoping at this point the tech was less poof dead and so on.
The Game of Rassilon involved using the Time Scoop to snag people and creatures from all points of time and space, then dump them in the Death Zone where they could fight for the amusement of the Gallifreyans. Kind of gladiators from all over the history of the universe. Not exactly low tech. And not exactly the dusty scholars tha they were by the time the Doctor and the Mastrer graduated from the Academy.

That's on top of Rassilon being a temporal scientist and a social revolutionary.

And Omega was a stellar engineer. Literally, the guy built a device called the Hand of Omega which could customise stars. That's insane tech, especially as the Hand looked like a box about the size of a coffin.

In The End of Time, the Lord President mentions a billion years of Time Lord history being at stake. A single culture a billion years old is going to have frightening technology. And there's no real indications of how long they were around before the Gallifreyans became Time Lords, other than odd hints now and then about them being one of if not the oldest species in the universe.

Let me put it this way, to most races, the Doctor's TARDIS is a miracle of advanced technology, using engineering and motive principles that can barely, if at all, be understood. Let alone duplicated or reverse engineered.

But to the Time Lords, it was an obsolete piece of junk that the Doctor rescued from a scrap heap.

That's scary levels of development.

[GodGoblin]

Ouch that is pretty damn awesome tech, But think about our culture now we have the ability to clone and other crazy things but it doesnt impact on our society directly, Im starting to feel this isnt going to be possible the way I would like it.

Although a setting in the death zne could work. Oh and in the End of TIme wasnt the Lord president actually Rassilon?

[Eldan]

That was Rassilon in End of Time, yes.

Time Lord technology is absolutely scary. The TARDIS was on the scrap heap because even a new and fully functional one was just such an inefficient and clunky way to travel through time.

They did not just have a billion years of society, mind you. They had a billion years of society where everyone could time travel almost at will and was effectively immortal. That must get so messed up that River Song's diary is nothing against Time Lord history books.

[The Big Dice]

Although a setting in the death zne could work. Oh and in the End of TIme wasnt the Lord president actually Rassilon?
The Death Zone in the Five Doctors was a wasteland, surrounded by an impenetrable forcefield. It seemed to be divided up into different areas, though what that meant isn't really explained or explored.

In the middle of it is the Tomb of Rassilon, but I'd guess when the Death Zone was active, it would be some other Dark Tower type of destination that promises some kind of Big Prize.

It would definetly make for an interesting setting for a campaign.

And yes, the Doctor did name the Lord President as Rassilon. Which I could easily see being true. The Time Lords were terrified during the Last Great Time War. The ressurected the Master, I could easily see them dragging legendary figures out of their own history to aid in the war effort.

After all, all of Time and Space was the battleground, with Creation itself as the prize.

There's also very little information about what actully happened during the Last Great Time War, so that could make for a possible campaign.

[GodGoblin]

The tower itself could work well as a dungeon crawl style area, im guessing in the wastleand you would have almost no equipment? would be interesting having a techless party up against Rassilons own tomb traps ect. Thats a possibilty..

But the time war is where I would love to set it and the lack of info does give me room to manuever but I can only make up so much without just creating my own setting!

Ok so im thinking the Pcs are Gallifriens or allies who start off on the fromt line, but later on into the campaign get wrapped up in the time travelling war of killing the Daleks first. And through that they can end up in any random place or time, and after that some Time Lord double crossing action can put them into the dead zone to find a way out, amongst other people from history. (Haha I can just imagine them running around with Thomas Eddison and a couple of knights)

Ok so to do this I need some info on-
Other enemies the Time Lords had during the Time War,
How to run Daleks, Would one be a party encounter or are they pretty much on even ground?
Interesting places or people to take them to,
and some idea of Gallifrey military tech at that point and a possible rank structure.

With all that I think I could run a half deceant campaign. Thanks for all the help so far guys this will hopefully turn out pretty darn fun

[Eldan]

Throughout the series, we see Daleks of different tech levels presenting all kinds of different threat levels. In "Dalek", a single one gave the Doctor plenty to do, other times, he faces armies of them. It also depends what you equip the PCs with. High powered energy weapons are seen as able to blow them to bits, while normal bullets don't even touch them thanks to their shields.

[Mordaenor]

Techonologically, I think we can assume that Dalek's and Time-lords are on pretty much even footing. The Time Lords might ba a little more advanced, but not enough to make a difference, and Daleks have the advantage of being SINGLE-MINDEDLY focused on killing, which makes up for any lack of tech they might have.

EDIT: If you are thinking of taking the game into the Dead Zone, there's a particular quote from the Fifth Doctor that you may find useful. He said "We never let the Cybermen play the Game of Rassilon for the same reason as the Daleks. They play TOO WELL."

[Eldan]

The Daleks would also have the numerical advantage, I assume. There can't be that many Time Lords, if they all live in one city, even if they bring in themselves from the past and present. The Daleks, however? They clone themselves, and are only limited by how many resources they can get their hands on. Which, with time travel, can't be that difficult.

[GodGoblin]

Yeah I think throughout it I will make them have to find new weapons and that in itself can be a puzzle.

-You lost your one shot one kill anti darlek beam, you now have a human revolver. What do you do!?-

Do you think the Time Lords used energy rifle and pistols on the battlefield, or staff type weapons? or any other fun stuff you can come up with.

I like the idea of staff-guns (Star-Gate style) but you wouldnt have a whole army carrying them it would be a tad unneccisary, it could there version of an officers sword! But what would the troopers use? I think energy rifles are just a bit too generic

[Eldan]

I honestly doubt the Time Lords would have a conventional army at all... given that they have convenient and easy time travel and enormously futuristic technology, if we think about a classical battlefield with two armies opposing each other should rarely happen. The Daleks still have personal armour and weapons because they fight technologically inferior species, but the time lords? Why would they?
I think it's really called the Time War because it's fought throughout time: not a war won with weapons, primarily, but by precision time travelling. They tried to stop the creation of the Daleks, and failed, but they can still try to interfere with any number of points in Dalek history. And the Daleks could try, say, killing Omega or Rassilon before Time Lord society really took off. Or wiping out the primitive early Gallifreyans.

[GodGoblin]

Thats what I thought at first but The Doctor does mention on a good few occasions about being on the front lines during the fall of [generic Sci-fi place] So that to me sounds like they were having pitched battles and holding terrortories

[Mordaenor]

They tried to stop the creation of the Daleks, and failed

And by "failed" we mean the Doctor CHICKENED OUT!

[Eldan]

Thats what I thought at first but The Doctor does mention on a good few occasions about being on the front lines during the fall of [generic Sci-fi place] So that to me sounds like they were having pitched battles and holding terrortories

Well, that was how they described it. Doesn't mean you can't change it for your game if you like it better one way or the other :smalltongue:

Also all these [important sounding place]s can be at any point in time... I guess if enough Daleks travel back to kill Omega, and enough time lords follow them to stop it, it becomes a battle again.

[GodGoblin]

Good point, I think A mix of the both will work best in this case. Anyone with ideas of the tech yet? Im really coming up with nothing for that

[Mordaenor]

Thats what I thought at first but The Doctor does mention on a good few occasions about being on the front lines during the fall of [generic Sci-fi place] So that to me sounds like they were having pitched battles and holding terrortories

I actually think thereason we HAVEN'T seen an actual official account of Time War, is because by its very nature the logistics and tactics involved would get ridiculously confusing in a hurry. The Time Lords and Daleks may have the will and the technology, but the WRITERS, they're still limited by Human understanding. :smallsmile:

[Eldan]

Good point, I think A mix of the both will work best in this case. Anyone with ideas of the tech yet? Im really coming up with nothing for that

Go nuts. Take the craziest things you see on Who (or any other SciFi) and assume the Time Lords could have better if they wanted. Instant healing nanobots transforming people into super soldiers? Sure, if they want to build them. Blowing up stars? They have the plans somewhere in the attic. Creating matter out of thin air? Oh yeah, that's how they grow their food. Star Gates? Why not. Just assume that if they really try, the Time Lords can do just about anything.

[comicshorse]

Which surely gives a huge advantage to the attacker. A big messy battle is very likely to take out your target anyway or at least damage the defenders civilization badly anyway.
Hmmm, so therefore a war not only of attacking the enemy but also desperately going back to just after the enemies successful hits and desperately botching together a timeline that will still more-or-less get you to were you want

( "**** they got Rassilon. Okay grab his assisstant, we'll face-change him and dump the information he needs into his brain and then brainwash him into believing he's Rassilon "
" How did it work, okay we got time travel but early experiments killed hundreds, we've lost thousands of descendants. We'll have to live with it, there's a war on "))


Do you think the Time Lords used energy rifle and pistols on the battlefield, or staff type weapons? or any other fun stuff you can come up with.

Its mentioned in some of the books that the guard ( can't remember they're proper name) carry STASERS. These seem to do little damage to non-organic matter but pretty much kill anything organic

[Eldan]

You don't brainwash Rassilon's assistant. That's a back-up plan. You go back and kill the attacker, or the one who made that plan to kill Rassilon. Paradox be damned, they can fix that later.

"Why did they kill John?"
"Wasn't he planning to kill the Dalek that would kill Ralph so that Ralph couldn't make a plan to kill the Dalek that would try and kill James to prevent James from going back to 1259?"

[Mordaenor]

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey... stuff?

[The Big Dice]

Go nuts. Take the craziest things you see on Who (or any other SciFi) and assume the Time Lords could have better if they wanted. Instant healing nanobots transforming people into super soldiers? Sure, if they want to build them. Blowing up stars? They have the plans somewhere in the attic. Creating matter out of thin air? Oh yeah, that's how they grow their food. Star Gates? Why not. Just assume that if they really try, the Time Lords can do just about anything.
That's pretty much the way to go. Full on Time Lord tech should be even more magical than magic. There's a thing here (http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Last_Great_Time_War) that talks about the Last Great Time War, though some of the details seem a bit contradictory*

When you've got a fight between two civilisations capable of using Time itself as a weapon, things aren't just going to get complicated, they're going to get insane very quickly. Though it could be said that Genesis of the Daleks was the opening salvo of the war, and The Chase was the Dalek first response to Time Lord meddling. Once they'd cracked time travel, that is.

Which surely gives a huge advantage to the attacker. A big messy battle is very likely to take out your target anyway or at least damage the defenders civilization badly anyway.
Hmmm, so therefore a war not only of attacking the enemy but also desperately going back to just after the enemies successful hits and desperately botching together a timeline that will still more-or-less get you to were you want
The thing to bear in mind is, the Time Lords had virtually impregnable defenses. The various force fields and barriers protecting Galifrey rendered it almost impossible for lesser species to detect, let alone attack with any degree of success. And because of this, Time Lord weaponry really wasn't that developed. After all, they aren't an aggressive species and they have near perfecet defenses. Why bother researching and developing uber weapons?

The irony is, the Sontarans, the only species to successfully invade Gallifrey, didn't get to fight in the Last Great Time War.

Its mentioned in some of the books that the guard ( can't remember they're proper name) carry STASERS. These seem to do little damage to non-organic matter but pretty much kill anything organic
Stasers are used on the show. The Deadly Assassin, Invasion of Time, Arc of Infinity and The Five Doctors all show Chancellery Guards using them.

Apparently, they are designed in such a way that organic matter is destroyed.Regeneration is impossible and not long after, the body is burned beyond recognition.

*Some say you can't retcon a show that's basically about changing history every week...

[factotum]

Throughout the series, we see Daleks of different tech levels presenting all kinds of different threat levels. In "Dalek", a single one gave the Doctor plenty to do, other times, he faces armies of them. It also depends what you equip the PCs with. High powered energy weapons are seen as able to blow them to bits, while normal bullets don't even touch them thanks to their shields.

Problem is, there is one thing that we know is certainly true of the Daleks--they are incapable of defeating a single Time Lord who is using obsolete technology and has an aversion to killing that extends even as far as everyone's favourite pepperpots. Without the Doctor's interference I suspect the Time Lords would have steamrollered the Daleks and gone on to enact their plan to destroy the universe to make something better!

[Mordaenor]

Problem is, there is one thing that we know is certainly true of the Daleks--they are incapable of defeating a single Time Lord who is using obsolete technology and has an aversion to killing that extends even as far as everyone's favourite pepperpots.

Admittedly, if they didn't have that one fatal flaw, the show would have been over a long time ago. :smallbiggrin:

[GodGoblin]

This stuff is really great help, lets keep it coming! And the Daleks have the inability to stop The Doctor. Thats very different to stopping a Time Lord, the rest dont have nearly as much plot armour

[The Big Dice]

The Daleks can't shoot the Doctor because he talks so much. It's all explained in this (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14631.phtml) review of the RPG. But basically, if you're going to talk, you go first. Then people who are going to flee take their turn, followed by people who are going to use a skill to do something. Finally, anyone who wants to use a weapon or make any other kind of attack gets their go.

Daleks being so angry all the time, they almost always go last in combat.

[Mordaenor]

I think my favorite line that gives some indication of just how advanced the Time Lords are was "Gravity, Shmavity! My people practically INVENTED black holes... As a matter of they DID!"

[comicshorse]

In 'The Deadly Assassin' the Doctor is tortured by the Chancellery guard to try to make him confess. They use a hand-held device that produces a light of variable intensity that causes intense pain ( in the book its described as cutting into the mind).
The guard doing this is angrily told to stiop by a high ranking Time Lord so presumably this is not a common practice but only used in really severe cases

[Dr. Simon]

I think my favorite line that gives some indication of just how advanced the Time Lords are was "Gravity, Shmavity! My people practically INVENTED black holes... As a matter of they DID!"

I'm not fully au fait with every nuance of Who-Lore, but I've got a feeling that the Eye of Harmony, used as a power source that allows TARDISes to work, is a black hole harnassed by Time Lords Omega and Rassilon. Some of that could be wrong...

To the OP, given your chosen setting this probably won't be much use, but my ENWorld blog (http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/dr-simon/) is all about statting up Dr. Who creatures for d20 modern, but I've shied away from Time Lord stuff so far.

[The Big Dice]

I'm not fully au fait with every nuance of Who-Lore, but I've got a feeling that the Eye of Harmony, used as a power source that allows TARDISes to work, is a black hole harnassed by Time Lords Omega and Rassilon. Some of that could be wrong...
That's exactly what the Eye of Harmony was. Somehow, Rassilon figured out a way to put the mass of the planet and a stellar mass black hole into a state of equlibrium, so they would "neither wither nor flux nor change their state." And this was done so long ago by the Doctor's time that the Time Lords had all but forgotten it. And then put the black hole under the Panopticon, right in the heart of the Citadel of the Time Lords.

Which gives you an idea how old their culture was. An engineering and technological acheivement of that scale had been forgotten about and was a barely remembered myth.

[Hopeless]

And by "failed" we mean the Doctor CHICKENED OUT!

Actually he had legitimate reasons for that.

First off the mere existance of the Daleks brought many races together to form alliances that simply wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Then there's the fact that bomb was detonated and it only delayed their rise, ultimately it wasn't the Timelords the Daleks feared it was just one timelord specifically.

The Timelords lost purely not because of the Doctor but because by isolating themselves they lost the very things that made the Doctor so very important.

The Daleks were "the enemy" as far as Doctor Who is concerned and were treated as such throughout the series (although I hesitate regarding their early appearance in Doc 11's first season though!).

In case you haven't seen the latest season of this ala Doc 11
The doctor himself inspired many of his foes to ally together to act against him although I still think the Daleks set him up at the behest of whatever is "The Silence"...

[Eric Tolle]

And Omega was a stellar engineer. Literally, the guy built a device called the Hand of Omega which could customise stars. That's insane tech, especially as the Hand looked like a box about the size of a coffin.

Of course bear in mind that Timelord devices tend to be much larger on the inside than they are on the outside. Consider the size of a prison that held thousands of Daleks.

Now if you want to consider some of the wacky stuff they could get up to, consider this thing that was described in one of the novels. they need to power some super-weapon, so they take a star in an inhabited system, and cause it to go supernova. Then after they've powered the weapon, they travel back in time, and prevent the nova from happening. Paradox? You jest: these are Time Lords.

On the other hand, what would they be powering where a supernova is mundane enough to be a battery?

Now as to personal weapons, I think quite a few of them would be customized or idiosyncratic. Consider the Master's toy that killed someone by turning them into a doll. Similar weapons might turn the opponent into music, send them into a pocket dimension where they fight themselves, or summon Reapers out of time.

Basically, the Time Lords are the equivalent of 20th level Wizards. Have fun.


The Daleks would also have the numerical advantage, I assume. There can't be that many Time Lords, if they all live in one city, even if they bring in themselves from the past and present.

Well on the one hand, that city may very well be much larger than it appears on the outside. Relative dimensions in space and all that, and if you can travel like the Time Lords, why bother with more than one city? But on the other hand, the Time Lords, as opposed to Gallifreyans do appear to be a fairly limited, elite bunch.

The real question of course is do you want the Time Lords to be the threatening, powerful forces they appeared to be to the 2nd. Doctor? Or do you want them to be the buffoons from the 4th Doctor, walking around in a quarry wearing robes and dog cones?

[comicshorse]

[QUOTE=Eric Tolle;9451750

Now as to personal weapons, I think quite a few of them would be customized or idiosyncratic. Consider the Master's toy that killed someone by turning them into a doll./QUOTE]

The Tissue Compression Eliminator

[The Big Dice]

The real question of course is do you want the Time Lords to be the threatening, powerful forces they appeared to be to the 2nd. Doctor? Or do you want them to be the buffoons from the 4th Doctor, walking around in a quarry wearing robes and dog cones?
In many ways, the fact that the Time Lords are so insular, so self absorbed that they don't even bother with "lesser" races other than to deal with ones that becme a threat is more scary. Power corupts, and who has more power than th High Council of the Time Lords? Chancellor Goth, Councillor Hedin and Borusa himself all show the fact that even Time Lords can give in to the lure of that.

The Time Lords as seen in The War Games and The Thre Doctors are the Celestial Intervention Agency. They are the few who bother to get their heads out of internal politics and monitor the vortex for events worthy of Time Lord intervention. Also, there's Season 6b. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/season6b.shtml) Which does fit events as seen on screen and seems to be a CIA thing.

[BlueWizard]

I need to get caught up!:smallcool: