October 3rd 1889, Blackfriars.
Tonight has been slow. Apart from cuffing the ear of some pickpockets, Blackfriars has never been so quiet. It's like the night is expecting something to happen. You roust a prostitute and her John out of an alleyway and then you notice...a silver door.

It's roughly hewn and seems unreal, superimposed on the dank reality of Victorian London. As you draw near you can tell it's cold, colder than the air on this smoggy London night, colder than the chill from the Thames.

You reach out, conscious of the chill emanating from the plain silver metal and the door opens, sliding almost imperceptibly into the brickwork. Darkness beckons beyond and one step later, you're inside.

There's a low hum emanating from the very walls of the room itself.

Control Room Hum (MP3)

The door opposite you flashes and standing suddenly is a lithe figure in a form fitting uniform - it looks like a young woman with some sort of dark paint over her naked body! Scandalous! The figure is wearing some sort of ball on her head and wheels on her feet. Her hands seem to be replaced with spiky, nasty weapons. Your right hand drops to your nightstick and your left grasps your whistle.

You take a step back and blow on the whistle but your back hits the door, which had silently closed behind you.

Our second character is Zanna Hughes, a late 21st Century Murderball player:

It's the top of the innings and Caligary, top player in the Eastern League is bearing down on a lone player, unsupported by her team but holding the ball, a silvery and slipper globe with a suspension field. He readies his chainsword and primes his illegal taser upgrade. A flick of his wrist and the taser fires at the fleeing figure. Missed! He's got fourteen seconds before she's even in the score zone and they're about to enter the Maze. All sorts of bad things can happen in the Maze.

The walls of the Maze close in - a chicane-like tunnel with holes and loops from which an opponent can leap. Zanna ducks and weaves from tunnel to tunnel trying to stay ahead - one false move and she could wipe out on the slippery surface or receive a horrible injury from a chainsword slash. The ball feels light in her hand so she grips it tighter. A dark tunnel ahead and she speeds towards it and through... into a strange bronze control room...and it takes a real effort to not crash into the console in the middle. Coming out of the door opposite is a stocky man in a black coat - he reaches for a hefty stick and blows a whistle...

Meanwhile, a dimension away Caligary slams into a silver door which materialised in a tunnel. He dislocates his shoulder, cracks four ribs and loses the match.

and finally, our Time Lord, The Lords Marshal.

Awake. A comforting low hum (with an equally comforting clank) emanates from the floor of the room. Your cheek is wet, your tongue confirms it is the coppery tang of blood. Pain. A throbbing pain in your right temple is likely the source of the blood.

You're in a room walled by roundels, everything is a bronze colour. The room you're in is empty other than you and a doorway.

You hear a high pitched whistle from the doorway. You instinctively reach for the book. The book.

This will be followed by "Episode 1: The Thief of Never"

by Rhonda McAvoy of The Boston Globe
March 18th, 2002

The Prudential Center was subject to a brutal attack this morning at around 8am. Three robotic figures burst out of one of the iconic "Duck Tour" tour buses to go on a deadly rampage through downtown commuters. The three were finally put down by new WatchTower recruits, most notably the terrifying destructive powers of Sapphire and Trace.

17 Bostonians were killed during the attack, and over 80 were injured before WatchTower's new "B" team arrived on the scene. While it's unclear what roles the team members play, the two women on the team both used their disintegration powers to great effect, taking care of all three robots in under a minute, and saving us from further death and destruction.

The origin of the robots is still unknown, although an anonymous source at the WatchTower lays the blame at the feet of the Downward Spiral group, known to have been terrorizing important religious sites on the east coast. While many a shopper may worship the almighty dollar at the Pru, it seems unlikely that an anti-Christian group would attack there.

Doctor Who, like Star Trek, has it's own sort of technobabble.

From the Whoniverse

The bulk of a TARDIS is made up of Block-Transfer Mathematics. This form of Distributed Cluster Algebra was first developed by the people of the planet Logopolis. It is based on the idea that the essence of matter is structure and the essence of structure is mathematics. Using the hexadecimal notations of Block-Transfer it is possible to create Space-Time Events through pure calculation. An event or object can be described by thinking the correct Block-Transfer equations and it will instantly become reality.
...
These calculations are powered by raw Artron Energy. Block-Transfer Mathematics can only be computed with an organic brain because the mathematics alter the nature of reality. This would cause a traditional computer to malfunction. The original equations can however be recorded in traditional non-organic storage media such as bubble memory

When I was reading a lot about Doctor Who (around the time of the FASA RPG) it was made plain to me that the inside of a TARDIS is a completely different dimension to the outside of a TARDIS and that indeed, the outside of a TARDIS was nothing but a doorway to the TARDIS. Which is why it can materialise and dematerialise - it's just a mathematical construct. This also explains why a TARDIS is functionally indestructible and it's doors impenetrable.

So, the question remains, how far can you push a TARDIS?

How big can the inside be?

How many doors to the outside can there be?

This is all leading up to a game I'm prepping for Graham, Jim and Rory. They'll encounter a TARDIS which is planetary in size, with a million doors.

Dr Who Remix

I finished Tom Baker's "Robot" and "The Ark in Space" as well as the entire first series of the Doctor Who reboot (The Eccleston series). And I've been spending an indecent amount of time on the DWAITAS forums.

In the first episode of the Torchwood TV series, it's stated that Torchwood Four went missing some time ago. (It's a sly reference to Babylon 4, from the Babylon 5 TV series as it also 'disappeared'). My plan is to use the missing Torchwood Four team as the start of the adventure. Sure - they went missing - but it's where they went that is interesting.

Kage Baker writes about The Company. A future organisation that recruits people in the past and gets them to steal and hide items of famous antiquity which are then sold. This has similarities to the Warheads who move between dimensions and time periods stealing technology and valuables for their employer, Mys-Tech. Another inspiration is Gatecrasher and the Technet who ventured to 14th Century Peru to steal a unique mathematical model of the universe carved from rock crystal which was fated to be destroyed in an earthquake.

Clause 374 of the Shadow Proclamation stated that "theft of an artefact of great cultural value legitimises the use of lethal force to ensure the artefact’s recovery".

So - where does Torchood Four fit in? The Torchwood team, obviously removed from Earth somehow, find themselves without resources, without money, without ammunition, on an alien world. They do what they can but in order to find their way back to Earth and also in order to survive, they have to resort to selling their services; services which include a pretty good knowledge of history and mythology.

So, the team, rag-tag, beaten but not down, missing a few but gaining a few, battles on to get passage back to Earth.

OK, this means the GM has to apply some hefty Deus Ex Machina to keep them from hijacking the first time-machine they come across and travelling back to 2 minutes after they left. This could be handled easily by having their time-transporters be similar to prisoner monitoring bracelets. They might be indestructable, they might be keyed together, they might be able to channel 'motivation' from their unseen masters. Hopefully, though, the players won't decide to just return home - they'll embrace the freedom and get to play through the concept of the galactic government of the Shadow Proclamation - if there's government, then there's trade. And some of these places might be good to start.

The new Dr Who RPG from Cubicle 7

It arrived. And I've been preparing.

I'ved watched five episodes of Torchwood (the Children of Earth miniseries) as well as four episodes of Tom Baker's Doctor (Robot) and a few episodes of Tennant's Doctor (Silence in the Library, Stolen Earth). I've got plans to watch all of Eccleston's Doctor over the weekend. I'd avoided most of the Doctor Who new stuff - having been soured of the Doctor by successively Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann and to be honest I'd never really warmed to David Tennant's portrayal - it just seemed a little madcap, a little too camp.

So, it's looking like Delta Green may be on hold for a while due to the holidays and some folks personal situations so I'm kinda keen to see what the fuss is all about.

I may have also ordered a copy of the Dr Who Technical Manual from Noble Knight Games. I already own a copy somewhere in the depths of my parents house - which, interestingly enough, I won when I was a kid from a competition which ran in the Daily Mail. It's the sort of fanboi hardback that every kid in the world should have. It even included things I'd never heard of - Movellans, CyberMats and other things from earlier in the many series that make up the canon. With over seven hundred episodes out there - it's a lot for anyone to take in and I'd previously only really watched part of Tom Baker, most of Peter Davidson and part of Colin Baker's runs on the role. But you can also view the contents of it right here:

The Doctor Who Technical Manual

Places to go for extra fun?

How about the Official Cubicle 7 Dr Who: Adventures in Time and Space online forum? There's already heaps of adventure seeds, character and kit writeups and discussions of campaigns that could be run.

Or maybe the Vortex Oracle for quick generation of Dr Who adventure seeds?

From the log of Karl Maclean, WTNE Controller

8am: New recruits have lasted 24 hours without injury or fatality. Void seems to have settled into a leadership role, and may make a decent long-term recruit should we choose to extend their contract. Seven seems somewhat unreliable and bears closer scrutiny - he's already made it into the media and seems to bask in attention. Kimono is more reliable but suffers from severe cultural disadvantages here in the US: this is somewhat counterbalanced by his immense powers. Trace is, as expected, insufferably young.

10am: Fifth recruit arrived today from Texas. While he looks good enough to eat, he's sadly lacking between the ears.

4pm: New team reports a lead on the whereabouts of the old team, due to a tip-off from The Chancer. A previously unknown exotic with dimensional powers trapped and abandoned them in another dimension, with seemingly no way of recovering. Kimono negotiated some kind of agreement with the guy, but it sounds like he was conned. I don't think Mr Canning will be happy, but then again, I doubt he'd be happy even if they brought back the old team safe and sound. I've e-mailed him.

7pm: Got word that we have a sixth exotic joining us tomorrow. No idea who she is or what her abilities are. Christ, it's like superhero kindergarten.

3am: Yes, Canning is not happy. Big fucking surprise. I'm drawing up permanent contracts just in case.

by Rhonda McAvoy of The Boston Globe
March 17th, 2002

Unknown WatchTower Operative floats over Old Ship Church

Three new WatchTower operatives were spotted yesterday in and around the greater metro area. While no information has been forthcoming from the New England franchise, the identity of one of the new recruits has been confirmed as Vanja Mestrovic, also known as Void. Void's intimidating black and featureless body was seen in Stoughton yesterday morning and in Hingham yesterday afternoon. He was accompanied by two old men of Asian decent, and all were wearing WatchTower clothing.

"Void's a good guy," says Jimmy Cortez, who worked with him at Devon Energy, an oil company. "It takes a while to get used to him having eight eyes, but he's got a heart of gold." Whether that's true remains to be seen. Katherine Simmons, manager at Ikea in Stoughton, told us that he was very intimidating. "He walked in here, butt naked, with his two crazy friends and I gotta tell ya, I was scared." Simmons wasn't able to tell us anything about why the trio visited her store, as the investigation is still ongoing.

The sightings in Hingham were centered around the Old Ship Church. One of Void's companions, who identified himself to local tourists as "Seven" levitated up over the church to survey the roof. The third man, wearing a thick Japanese kimono bearing the WatchTower logo, is still to be identified. The minister of the church, Rev. Kenneth H. Read-Brown stated that the WatchTower was there as a precautionary measure, given the recent spate of anti-church exotic crime on the East Coast being perpetrated by the so-called Downward Spiral group.

Does this mean that WTNE has decided to hire more operatives? While it has long been the opinion of this reporter that six is too few, why choose now to recruit? And why the secrecy? As of yet, no-one at WatchTower New England or HQ in San Francisco has been willing to comment on this development.

The north-east used to be covered by the WatchTower New York, but a series of blunders a few years ago by the operatives at the time created a split. New England and DC created their own franchises and New York's influence was reduced considerably and awarded to a different vendor (Jack White). New England's franchise is owned by a consortium led by commercial real estate magnate, Chris Pfeiffer.

The current New England team (codenames and powers):

• Claymore - Can detonate objects remotely
• Silverhawk - Silver-armored fast flier
• Firewall - Fire generator and manipulator
• Nimbus - Weather controller
• Gemini - Creates replicas of herself

The two men on the team (Claymore and Firewall) are both capable of vast amounts of destruction. As a result, they have both loyal followers and loud detractors. To date, they have both sufficiently avoided any collateral damage that would result in the kind of bad publicity which shut down the New York franchise. Some say it's only a matter of time ...

Each franchise has its own charter of specific responsibilities (primarily geographical) but in times of crisis, operatives from other franchises will help out. As can be seen on the map, many areas are without direct coverage. Exotic crime tends to be less common in these areas, and support for local law enforcement comes from both Fortress and on an ad-hoc basis from WatchTower (usually with a very hefty hourly fee).