Re: Doctor Who Campaign: The Stardust Memory Chronicles *Actual Play*
Here's a document I gave to my players I finally found...
None of its "accurate" necessarily but it works for my game.
Gallifreyan Year
0- (roughly 400,000,000 years ago) The Revolt against Pythia: Gallifrey is a thrall race in the service of the All-Female Sisterhood Priests of the Eternal Aeons. The Cult of the Three Goddesses is the most widely venerated group of worshippers. Time, Life, and Death are these goddesses. The Ancient Gallifreyans were dominated through the use of Magic and the physical superiority of the females.
The Sisterhood gradually grew corrupted through the infiltration of worship of the Great Old Ones though through the priestesses. Fenric (Hastur), The Lady of Worms (Shub-Niggaurath), and The Great Intelligence (Yog-Sothoth) are the most famous of them.
Rassilon, the Other, and Omega lead a revolt of males that assault and kill the High Priestess Pythia plus most of the other magicians. The Temples of the Old Ones are destroyed and many of the Temples of Gallifrey's Ancient Gods though a few remain.
Pythia proceeds to curse the planet's fertility with a massive wave of psychic power from her own casting herself into the link between herself and her masters. This is not immediately devastating as Gallifreyans already live roughly a thousand years.
14- The Outlawing of Magic: The Ruling Triad finishes their survey of books of science and other knowledge collected from other races as they assemble it into a massive datastore they use to start caring for the needs of the populous. Fearing the return of Pythian Power, they banish the remaining magicians to a nearby planet as they use the massive collection of knowledge in their possession to begin inventions to make Gallifrey into a great power.
75- The Looms: Rassilon's invention to solve Gallifreyan infertility saves the race from extinction.
101- The Experiment of Omega: Omega's infamous experiment is conducted to provide temporal power for all Time Lords with the aid of Rassilon. Rassilon realizes that Omega will not support him in his rulership gambit and takes the time to lock his transport from being able to escape the black hole's mass.
105- The death of the Other: The Other commits suicide by tossing himself in the Looms and the Matrix that he had invented records his consciousness as the first Gallifreyan to be made 'immortal.' Rassilon becomes dictator of all of Gallifrey.
532- The Vampire Wars Begin: Rassilon finishes his purge of the magical creatures on Gallifrey as he dissects them to begin work on giving his people immortality. Having built up Gallifrey's technology enough to use time travel to loot other race's of their technology, he discovers that Vampires and other magical creatures are a threat to the emergent power.
1613- The Vampire Wars End: A 1000 years of conflict occurs with the Gallifreyans and Vampires with their thrall races. Rassilon's use of the Looms to create legions of cannon fodder eventually triumphs over the hated masses even as they destroyed them in countless periods of time.
The beginning of Rassilon being viewed as a hated dictator begins here.
Rassilon restores much of the lost faith in him by using the DNA of vampires to give each Gallifreyan twelve regenerations and drastically lengthen their lifespans (starting with his own many years further).
5001- The Laws of Time are laid out: The damage the Gallifreyans inflict on time and space is tremendous as it backfires badly upon them and the expanionistic, warlike, and dangerous Gallifreyans are nearly destroyed by paradoxes and the resultant effects of it.
50,327- The Height of the Gallifreyan Empire: Rassilon's insanity has grown even greater at this point as he spreads Gallifrey's reign over millions of worlds. Rassilon becomes intensely racist as he works to annihilate non-humanoid races and seed the universe with proto-Gallifreyans.
It's now that other temporal powers actively work against Rassilon and his people.
80,321- The First Great Time War draws to a close: The Gallifreyan Empire is reduced back to a single star system after the Jaggaroth, Osirians, and other ancient races plus many from the future combine their strength to destroy Gallifrey's threat in the past. This leads to the extinction of the Jaggaroth and the Osirians weakened to the point that Sutekh destroys them.
Rassilon reluctantly concedes defeat after most of Gallifrey is devastated into the Death Zone as he privately desires to continue his evil reign once more.
102,001- The Death of Rassilon: Rassilon continues his experiments into immortality as the Gallifreyans degenerate into decadence and insanity. Evil deeds aplenty are conducted on the planet. As Rassilon attempts to manipulate his power to become a force of nature itself, his servants utterly and completely rebel as they assassinate him then entomb his undead corpse in his Tomb.
The survivors then vow to eliminate all mention of Rassilon's evil from records as they privately vow to rebuild Gallifrey's reputation as a power of good.
130,211- The Laws of Non-Interference are laid down: Several disastrous attempts to benefit the timestream result in Gallifrey deciding to devote themselves almost solely towards knowledge rather than actively impacting the time stream.
180,211- The last of the Rassilon aged Time lords die and the new inheritors begin structuring Gallifrey's history to being more based around the conception of observation.
1,231,018- The War on Magic begins: Time Lords under the aegis of the Great Supreme Chancellor Magus make an effort to begin annihilating magic (psychic manipulation of quantum particles) across the universe rather than simply on Gallifrey. Surprisingly, most time capable races agree to this action and aid in the action.
The War becomes something of a policing action after the few magic capable empires in the universe are eliminated.
3,121,211- The War on Magic ends: The High Council ceases to bother with anything resembling magical policing after declaring that it could no longer ever pose a threat to the universe.
5,171,282- Gallifrey finishes charting the "proper" course of history as the Academies are formalized with all effort from the beginning of the universe to its end meant to be 'maintained' by the Gallifreyan people and other time sensetive races.
Gallifrey effectively ceases to have any progress from this point.
To avoid influencing the universe further, the Gallifreyans draw their planet entirely from space-time itself.
10,000,332- The Doctor is Born along with the Master.
10,000,541- The Doctor and the Master escape Gallifrey.
10,000,742- Romana is born.
10,000,800- President Morbius is exiled from Gallifrey for his psychotic and evil deeds. Morbius attempting to ressurect Rassilon's Empire and commit genocide on countless species.
10,001,000- Romana is elected President of Gallifrey. Weeks after, the Time War against the Daleks begins.
10,002,021- Romana returns from being kidnapped by the Daleks.
10,002,125- The Destruction of the Daleks and the Time Lords.
Re: Doctor Who Campaign: The Stardust Memory Chronicles *Actual Play*
The Time War part 1
I started the game with an amusing introduction where the Osirian Horus's memory DNA was being consulted on a funeral world. Baron Chaos and Doctor Aeon were both coming to visit his funeral world and the two of them were going to do battle to the death with the implications being that both of them would kill each other.
The players are the last Time Lords in the universe and their race has been destroyed in a massive calamity that slaughtered all of their race with only they and the Doctor surviving it. All other Temporal Powers in the universe were furthermore eradicated and only a fraction of the universe's populations were left alive after one thousand years of time travelling warfare.
The players then had a most unusual contact then from a pair of figures I never expected to use in the White Guardian AND the Black Guardian. The two appeared in the forms of Twisp and Catsby (though I didn't name them that) from Penny Arcade as part of the absurdity of the appearence's moment to add solmenity. I also created the Gray Guardian between them whom appeared as a talking rat. The two figures basically informed the players that they were to be part of a cosmic duel between the three.
The players being a servant of light, neutrality, and darkness respectively are given the opportunity of playing against one another in the Time War. The Guardians alone are beings in the universe who can actually result in a large scale change of reality (especially on Gallifrey outside of time). The stakes for the players get to be named.
Chronos wants Gallifrey restored so he can have Romana back (even though its indicated at this point that there actually hasn't been a Romance that has taken place---his fanatical devotion is amusing)
Horus whom we retroactively confirmed is the future travelling version of the one whom would eventually imprison his brother in Pyramid of Mars as a much more powerful and ancient Osirian...wants to prevent his race from being destroyed (and Sutekh is involved in this adventure)
Baron Chaos wants Gallifrey decimated because (at this point) the older Baron Chaos is quite insane but wants to take over its remnants and turn it into a time travelling Empire that he himself will head.
The Guardians promise that whomever wins will get his fondest wish restored to him. It was a conceit born from Dalek having just aired and the players intending to 'save' the planet retroactively. I personally thought it was an interesting conceit for them since they decidedly enjoyed it. It would prove to be the hardest adventre of them ever and the climax of the campaign.
Re: Doctor Who Campaign: The Stardust Memory Chronicles *Actual Play*
The Time War part 2
Now that "Dalek" has aired, I can actually post this part of the story
The players arrive towards the end of the Timeline of Gallifrey as they find themselves once more amongst them. The implications of the adventure were one of the most fun parts of the story as the players were supposedly 1000 years older than they were.
They were part of a terrible and nightmarish war that had left them jaded, angry, cruel, bitter, and even a little bit evil. All of them were supposedly willing to do whatever they think is necessary to win the war. Horus was furthermore ressurected for this storyline.
THEN I switched to the players as they were "present day", considerably more noble and honorable individuals with a lot less ruthless behavior. Furthermore, they were still friends rather than deadly enemies.
The game was going to be about the two seperate continium version of the players that would become extremely important during the game. It was a fun exercise in the game because it got into the time paradoxes that are endemic in Doctor Who.
Background of the Time War
The background of the Time War is that Valeyard (Grandfather Paradox) has assembled an alliance of armies underneath his reign to assault Gallifrey so that he can you know...do the universe domination thing. That is essentially the metaplot of the storyline with all of the players previous adventures being essentially leadups to Grandfather Paradox attacking it.
I incorporated a great deal from the various books of Doctor Who, the new series, and also some of my own preferences for the story. The main enemy for the game is of course, the Daleks whom have been lured by the Valeyard to the planet as the vanguard. They certainly don't intend to involve themselves with a Time Lord honestly but Valeyard (erroneously probably) thinks he can control them.
I decided for this story as the end of our campaign I'd furthermore do a Five Doctors and also have pretty much EVERY OTHER iconic villain of Doctor Who show up for the storyline for the players to work against or occasionally work with (because the future incarnations are utterly ruthless bastards as I've perhaps mentioned).
Thus the Master, Cybermen, Davros, the Supreme Dalek, and even an evil version of Gallifrey from the future. Honestly, the adventure got horribly crowded but I wanted it to be the best finish for the story.
The situation on Gallifrey I described to the players was essentially that the Dalek fleet was already outside the Transduction barriers but it wasn't just an ordinary Dalek fleet (as formidable as that was) but seemingly a fleet composed of every single Dalek throughout history in a massively paradoxial armada that was utterly invincible. However, the Time Lords despite being in a state of panic still had a few tricks up their sleeves and had the fleet slowed down by an infinite progression loop that unfortunately Valeyards and his men onboard would eventually figure out how to pass through.
The original idea I had about how the Time War progressed was in the original timeline that the Daleks destroyed Gallifrey but the survivors evacuated to various points in history and continued the war against the Daleks and their allies until all of them were dead but the Doctor who arranged a final destructive wave that wiped out his fellow survivors and the Dalek's last fleet. The White, Gray, and Black Guardians believe that this point in history is the focal point of the war and if its changed then all of it will change.
Re: Doctor Who Campaign: The Stardust Memory Chronicles *Actual Play*
OOC: Sorry for the delay guys.
[b]The Time War Part 3
The Time War is a work that I'm quite pleased with because of the emotions involved in the storyline. Particularly what I'm pleased with was the implications of the dark futures that laid awaiting the characters and their reactions to the possibilities of them.
To summarize the events would take numerous pages but basically boiled down to three seperate conversations between the various players with each trying to persuade the other to work to stop the Time War. The encounters varied with Doctor Chronos attempting to get his younger self to murder Baron Chaos before being shot by his younger self and ironically a duplicate scene (except the Baron eliminated his older self completely) while Horus simply had a long talk with his younger self.
It's during this scene I had the players talk about their character's motivations and what drove them. In Baron Chaos' case, it was to make Gallifrey 'great' again, Doctor Chronos the player surprised me by saying his chief motivation was his loyalty to Madame President (Romana), and Horus was loyal merely to seeing the evil of the Daleks stopped.
The game centered then about everyone saying goodbyes to their friends and families on Gallifrey as they prepared then to make a direct assault on the Armada's launchworld and flagship. It was some exceptionally fine roleplaying as they ultimately made their preparations for the suicide assault.
Upon arrival, the players were of course captured by Valeyards whom mocks them a great deal before transmatting them into the armada flagship (Based on Star Wars' Executor) while pretty much monologuing the whole way. The players had a few amusing scenes where they mock their plans as completely screwed up before they figured out a wonderful escape plan....
Actually, it wasn't terribly wonderful as they mostly managed to break out but the intention was quite well done. They also made it a point to free all the prisoners as a distraction. I had this backfire as one of the prisoners was a Cyber-man with "instant conversion" as technique and basically soon the players had tens of thousands of cybermen coming after this.
After an extensive shootout (with this bit of dialogue gem...
The players proceeded then to have a Star Wars moment where they sabotaged the reactor before escaping and blowing the heart of the ship before fleeing to their TARDIS. Amusingly, I stuck Valeyards in their TARDIS with a host of Dalek guards. It proved to be a bit of an amusing anti-climax where the players remembered the TARDIS can materialize around people and presumably materialize without them along with the fact weapons can't be fired in the TARDIS (despite this happening on numerous occasions). Thus, Valeyards met his final end gloating when the TARDIS dematerialized without him.
That didn't take care of the Dalek threat though. There was still the massive force looming over Gallifrey and bombing the trandusction barriers slowly to oblivion.
They then made their last minute plan to convert the Dalek Emperor where they determined that the only reason the various (by determined, I mean I flat out told them) incarnations of the Daleks could work together was the made up mythical psychic powers of the Dalek Emperor.
They were also informed Gallifrey had a "Dead Man's switch" that if the Daleks annihilated most of the Time Lords and were through then the Doctor would burn the planet (the players worst fear). The lines of the Dalek Emperor included a lot stolen from The Parting of the Ways plus some genuine menace when the barriers actually went down after the players failed to get past the Dalek Emperor's shields.
The ending went well with psychic combat as the players were sure they were dying sacrificing themselves as they wore down the Emperor enough that the Daleks turned on one another...only to have a Blue Police Box rescue them. They got the barriers up and Gallifrey was saved.
History was changed and the campaign ended.
;-)
Thank you all and I welcome thoughts on its totality plus any suggestions for the next campaign I'm doing.
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