Settings: Mechanus (The Chase)

The Chase is structured in three two-episode segments. First, there is the section on Aridius, then a couple of largely comedic episodes based on the chase itself, and then a final show-down with the Daleks. Thus, while this post will largely focus on that finale, it will also cover the “spooky” comedy of episode four.

When I started this series, I stated that updates would be very irregular. It hasn’t turned out that way, but the time has now come when my schedule requires me to take a break and concluding with a serial that feels like a season finale (even if it isn’t one) is as good a place as any. I have every intention of returning in the new year and moving on to season three, but the dates are uncertain. 

Where & When

The closing segment of the story is set on the planet Mechanus, close to, or just beyond, the edge of human-inhabited space. There is no indication of the date in the story, and the tie-in media have come up with various interpretations ranging from the 22nd to the 36th century. The more popular assumption, however, seems to be that it’s in the mid-third millennium, somewhere between the settings of The Dalek Invasion of Earth and The Rescue. This is the sort of question that would have to be answered in a game (since we do interact with people from Earth) but here, I’ll just note that various options exist.

Settings: Aridius (The Chase)

Although, at six parts, The Chase is not exceptionally long for its era, it does visit more than the usual number of settings. The third of the Dalek stories, it’s generally not as well regarded as the other two, scoring middling to low with many older fans. But, as so often, there is disagreement here, with many finding it one of the more entertaining Hartnell stories, not least because of its scope – plus, it has to be said, a particularly good final sequence after the Dalek defeat. Either way, the fact that it visits two distinct alien worlds and multiple points in Earth’s history gives plenty to build on. 

As with An Unearthly Child, the differing settings means that my coverage of this story will be split into two posts. This one covers the first three episodes, focussing on the alien world where it all starts off.

Settings: The Space Museum on Xeros

With the next story, we are off to an alien planet again, albeit one inhabited by a race virtually indistinguishable from humans – if, indeed, they’re supposed to be distinct at all. The opening episode, which plays with the concept of time, is reasonably popular, but what follows drags the whole down for most fans. But, as usual, that isn’t a universal opinion. Unlike, say, The Sensorites, very few people seem to really like this, but a significant minority regard it as middling rather than weak. The problem, as so often in this era, is usually cited as being the slow pacing, with some claiming that Vicki only starts the revolution because she’s bored by the plot up to that point. The setting is also, perhaps, less memorable than the likes of Marinus or Vortis… but let’s see what we can do with it.

Where & When

The story is set on the planet Xeros, within the interstellar Morok Empire. No date is given for the story, but it clearly takes place later than The Dalek Invasion of Earth because of the design of the Dalek seen in the museum. Although it’s not obvious that the Moroks are also specifically aware of humans, we can at least say that the story is not set so far ahead that the exhibit has obviously degraded. This probably places it a few centuries into our future and, fitting with this, the tie-in media have tended to select dates towards the end of the third millennium. 

Settings: The Third Crusade

Next, we reach another pure historical episode, and it’s one in the style of the first-season historicals rather than the more light-hearted tone of The Romans. It’s the only story of its season not to wholly survive in its original form, with only the first and third episodes available. Nonetheless, and despite lacking science fiction elements, it’s comparatively well-known for a ‘missing’ story, probably because it’s quite early in the run and it’s at least possible to watch half of it. It’s generally regarded as unremarkable, neither particularly good nor particularly bad. To modern eyes, the use of brownface for most of the Middle Eastern characters is a drawback, but it’s not one that applies if we use it as a game setting.

Where & When

The story is set in 1191 in and around the port city of Jaffa. It is based, albeit loosely, around a real historical event that occurred in autumn of that year. Since the details are changed, and the timeline greatly compressed, it’s difficult to narrow down an exact date, but we’re likely in either October or November. Shorter than the previous historicals, the story takes place over the course of just two days.

Settings: Vortis, the Web Planet

The second-season serial The Web Planet is famous – or perhaps, infamous – for featuring no humanoid characters at all beyond the regular cast. The result, especially given the budget and the special effects technology of the day is, to put it mildly, really quite strange. An overly long, slow, plot doesn’t help matters and while some fans praise it for its sheer audacity, most are negative, and it’s not unusual to see it listed as the weakest of all the Hartnell stories. Yet it is at least memorable and, if we can fix the pacing, a low special effects budget isn’t a problem in a tabletop game.

Where & When

The story is set on the planet Vortis, which is specifically stated to be in a galaxy beyond our own. In the final episode, the Animus talks about humans as if it knows what they are, and where they come from, which implies a far future setting when humanity has at least reached beyond our own galaxy. However, there is no way to be more precise than this, and it’s also possible from the context that it has only recently gained this information from its prisoners (it’s trying to read their minds at the time) so we can’t even be confident of that much. Not that it’s likely to matter in most games.

Settings: First Century Rome

We are overdue for a historical by this point, so it’s no surprise that the fourth story of the second season fits that description. Unlike the previous historicals, however, this one is a comedy and fan reactions tend to depend on whether or not they find that it works as such. In game terms, however, there is enough present that it’s possible to play it mostly straight and try to let the humour follow naturally, rather than forcing it.

Where & When

As with The Reign of Terror, the story includes a real-world historical event, making it possible to date it precisely. The bulk of the story runs from 10th to the 18th July in the year AD 64, although the characters have been in Italy for “four or five weeks” when it starts, and there is a gap of a few days at the end before they leave. Most of the action takes place in Rome, although there are some scenes set in other nearby parts of Italy.

Settings: Dido (The Rescue)

The Rescue is a brief story that functions primarily as the introduction to a new companion and arguably doesn’t do much more when taken in isolation. As a result, it’s generally regarded as a middling episode, neither especially weak nor particularly praised, although some reviewers don’t appreciate the minimal nature of the plot – or, perhaps, the basic joke about classic Doctor Who aliens all looking like men in cheap rubber costumes. On the other hand, it was originally proposed as a story in its own right, and, even if it’s slight, it can still work as a scenario outside of the ‘introduction’ theme.

Where & When

The story is set in the year 2493… or at least, that’s when Vicki says she left Earth, and it’s hard to imagine that more than a few months have passed since. It takes place on the planet Dido, a world that is within the bounds of human space at the time, but that the authorities on Earth have never bothered to explore. 

Settings: Dalek Invasion of Earth

The Dalek Invasion of Earth has a significant place in the ongoing development of the series. It’s the first returning “monster”, the first companion departure, and the first story to feature more than a few moments of outdoor filming. The latter gives it a less claustrophobic feel than many prior serials and gives a potentially large canvas on which to draw for gaming, aided by the fact that it’s also the first story to be set on Earth in the future. It’s almost universally cited as one of the better stories of the Hartnell era, sometimes even the best overall. And, in this instance, the setting also happens to be one that lends itself well to gaming.

Where & When

The exact date is never given in the story, but we do see an old 2164 calendar, so it’s no earlier than that. While there is some wiggle room depending on exactly how old the calendar is, based on a line in a later story, fan consensus generally takes the year as being 2167. The story is initially set in London and later moves to Bedfordshire.

Settings: Planet of Giants

The second season kicks off with a story that takes a different turn than the usual for the show; a science-fiction concept to be sure, but not one that’s standard for Doctor Who. It’s not an especially well-regarded story, in large part due to the murder subplot, but it’s not hated either, tending to score middling or slightly below in most fans’ estimations. Still, it is an undeniably different setting and one that has worked in other shows or films, so the potential is there.

Where & When

The story takes place entirely inside one mid-sized house and its accompanying garden. It’s set in England during the 1960s, but it’s hard to be more precise about the location than that. The date is intended to be “contemporary” but that doesn’t necessarily mean 1964 and fans have suggested possibilities ranging from ’63 (the year for which the Doctor was aiming) to the “near future” of ’69. From our 21st-century perspective, it hardly matters.

Settings: The Reign of Terror

With the stories still alternating in theme, we turn to another pure historical for what became (but was not originally planned to be) the first season finale. While two of the original episodes no longer survive in their original form, animations have been made from the soundtracks and are now widely available, so it’s likely that these are the oldest “missing” episodes that have been widely viewed in some form. Fan opinion is largely consistent in rating the serial as middling to weak despite it being set in a dramatic and significant period in history so it’s worth seeing if other options present themselves.

Where & When

The story takes place in, and just outside, Paris during the eponymous Reign of Terror. For the first time in a historical story, we can place the date exactly because it includes a known event from real-world history. Specifically, it takes place over a six-day period concluding on 28th July 1794.

Settings: The Sense-Sphere

Continuing with the alternating themes of the first season, we are back to an alien planet with The Sensorites, in the first story to show some of Earth’s future. It is one of the less popular stories of the Hartnell era, with many fans feeling that it’s just too long at six episodes or taking issue with some of the themes of the titular aliens. Having said that, this is not a serial that nobody likes, with a significant minority enjoying the relatively subtle ‘60s sci-fi. In either event, these are not the sort of issues that would get in the way of a scenario based on the story.

Where & When

The story takes place on, and in orbit around, a planet somewhat strangely named the Sense-Sphere. This is at least in the same galaxy as Earth, but beyond the area of space governed/inhabited by humans at whatever the date may be. Maitland states that that is the 28th century but doesn’t give any more precise figure. If one has to pick a specific year, 2764, eight centuries after the broadcast date, is as good as any. Since it is the first story to be explicitly set in the future, rather than on an alien planet with no apparent connection to Earth, the date had, at the time, no larger context of future history to be placed in – it might as well be plucked from thin air.

Settings: The Aztecs

The first season of Doctor Who alternated between science fiction stories on alien worlds and ‘pure’ historicals in Earth’s past, with the exception of the one story written at the last minute to fill a gap. This may not have been wholly intentional, but it is the pattern we have and means that serial number six is once again historical. Moreover, it maintains the exotic feel of its predecessor, Marco Polo, by not being set in the European history that we in the West tend to study most in school. It’s a very popular story with old-time fans, often stated to be the best of all the Hartnell serials, but tends to score as only decent-to-middling with younger fans, perhaps because of the over-the-top nature of the villain and the use of white actors as non-white characters. Neither of which are a problem in a game based on the story.

Where & When

The story takes place in Mexico, during the time of the Aztec Empire. While the exact date is impossible to pin down the Empire only lasted a hundred years, which narrows down the possibilities. Since the tomb in the story is dated to the 1430s and its architect’s son is still alive, the mid-15th century seems the most likely timeframe.

Settings: Marinus

It’s not until the fifth serial of the original series that we have the second story to feature aliens other than the Doctor and Susan. It’s also, of course, our second alien planet, although the new series would take even longer to get around to that. The story The Keys of Marinus has a poor reputation among many older fans, scoring badly in rankings on review aggregator websites. Unusually, however, it seems to be almost universally popular among fans of the modern series who dip into the classic one for the first time, perhaps because of the story structure. Despite being first broadcast in 1964, this resembles a video game and, importantly for our purposes, involves visiting different and varied locations as the protagonists collect the items that they need in order to leave.

Where & When

The story is set on the planet Marinus, which has no known connection to Earth. The world is barely even mentioned again, and never in any context that allows us to date this story. The implication would be that it’s a long way from Earth, probably in a different galaxy, but even that is supposition. Different fan theories and a comic story come up with wildly different answers from the distant past to the distant future. Without any connection to Earth, it honestly doesn’t matter.

Settings: Cathay

The fourth serial is arguably the first of the Hartnell ‘pure historicals’; stories set in the then-past that contain no science fiction elements beyond the presence of the time travellers. This, of course, assumes that you don’t consider 100,000 BC separately from the first episode, although, if you want to be really nitpicky, “prehistory” also isn’t quite the same thing as “history”, either. At least as significantly, it’s the first “missing story”, with only the soundtrack surviving in its original form. Fortunately, that’s enough for us to be able to experience it in some limited way, and certainly sufficient for what I’m doing here. 

Where & When

The story is set in 1289, earlier than most modern series historical settings, although not remarkably so. It involves an epic journey, taking the protagonists from the Pamir Mountains, through the Gobi Desert, and across China to eventually reach Beijing. It refers to China by the name that Marco Polo used for it historically and that was standard in Europe at the time – Cathay.

Character Templates: Time Student

So we come to the final character template, the one that's essential in a game like this, even if only as an option. I have found that the character isn't as popular as one might expect, probably because players realise that the ability to control a time machine isn't terribly relevant in a one-off convention game that's likely to have only a single setting. Which is why, in fact, it isn't essential for anyone to pick this character, or even the time agent... the TARDIS is a means to get characters to the plot and they don't really need to be able to steer the thing. Or, at least, not in anything I've written so far, since possibilities clearly do exist for such a scenario.

DWAITAS has mechanisms built in to balance Time Lord characters against regular humans - essentially giving them high skills at the expense of limited plot points - but here I've made that more apparent by making this particular Gallifreyan a student who's basically on an unauthorised gap year. So, while she does have some clear advantages, she's not a fully qualified Time "Lord" yet (though she might claim otherwise, depending on how the player interprets her) and shouldn't overshadow the others, or take a clear leadership role.

Settings: Inside the Spaceship

Not all of the stories in the Doctor Who TV series will lend themselves to the sort of posts I’m doing in this series, and so it is with the third serial, The Edge of Destruction. A major reason for this is that I’m focussing primarily on the setting, and how it can be expanded upon or used elsewhere and this one… doesn’t have a setting. Or, rather, apart from the teaser for the next serial, the story is set entirely inside the TARDIS with no guest characters, monsters, or anything else external.

This is therefore going to be a much shorter post than usual.

A second reason is that the story, as written, is unlikely to work well as an RPG scenario. There are no NPCs or monsters and, in game terms, what’s basically happened is that the Doctor has fumbled a roll operating the TARDIS and it takes everyone the better part of an hour to figure that out. During which time, they act strangely for no particularly good reason; the story relies on them doing that and not finding the source of the problem early on. That could happen in a game, certainly, but you probably wouldn’t want to rely on it.

Character Templates: Alien Rogue

The penultimate character template in my set is another one that's usually very popular. There are, I suspect, at least a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, the concept of a 'rogue' is one that's common to a lot of RPGs - it's a standard character type that's as easy to understand as the combat jock and that has a clear role in any party. Secondly, there are many players who, when faced with a science fiction RPG, are keen to play the aliens; there's an appeal in being something out of the ordinary and a little bit special.

Doctor Who, however, presents a problem with alien PCs that most other science fiction shows do not. If the character is obviously alien, it's going to be difficult to justify them doing much in a historical or contemporary setting. And, in fact, even in mid to late 21st century settings. To get around this, when I have run non-convention games where the players design their own characters, I stipulate that all PCs must at least be able to pass for human on cursory examination, and I've used the same principle in these templates. An alien that simply looks human (such as Trion or a Drahvin) isn't terribly interesting unless, like Time Lords, there's something else inherently cool about them. Human-seeming androids might well work since they, too, will likely have unusual abilities. But your other options are some device that disguises the alien's appearance or... well, shapeshifting.

Settings: Skaro (The Daleks)

The second serial in the TV show’s history is, of course, the one that ensured its survival and first made it big. In many respects, the story has a different version of the titular aliens than appear in any other. I’ve covered Daleks in game terms previously, but here we’re concerned with the setting and story. Specifically, we’re interested in the version of the planet that we see in this particular serial, largely ignoring what will come later. 

Where & When

The story is set on the planet Skaro. The few stories that have attempted to give any hint as to where this might be in relation to Earth generally place it in a different galaxy but all we can say with certainty is that it’s a long way away.

Since the story, taken on its own terms, has no connection with Earth, the date is equally impossible to determine. As one might expect, multiple different theories have been advanced, some placing it very early in Dalek history, before they developed space flight, others in the far future, when a forgotten and degenerate group have been left behind on their home planet, cut off from their fellows. Most go for somewhere in between, often one or two centuries into our future, but it's probably more accurate to say that we just don’t know.

Character Templates: Adventurous Space Pilot

The other new character I've come up with to replace the unpopular nurse and barbarian is another futuristic one. While the TV show, at least in the modern era, has tended to focus on companions from the present day, there is an appeal in games to playing someone that at least has a science fiction theme. Yes, the detective and the soldier are two of the three most popular of the templates in my (admittedly somewhat limited) sample of convention games but at least some players would rather go for the exotic.

In this case, I've picked a space pilot, something that's a common enough idea in more typical SF games. On the other hand, Doctor Who has less need for a pilot than would something based on say, Firefly, so we need to have a bit more scope than that - something aided by the broad skills of DWAITAS. Rather than a hot shot Top Gun sort of pilot, I've gone for one that's more of a space trucker, making her physically tough and with the maintenance skills to not only fix a spacecraft, but most other things as well.

Settings: 100,000 BC

Although An Unearthly Child is marketed as a single story, and was produced and directed as such, it involves two quite different settings and there’s a notable change in tone between the first episode and the subsequent three. Those three episodes give us our first exotic setting to explore, even if it’s one that we wouldn’t normally associate with a science fiction show. For that reason, I’ll treat it separately from the first episode here, and I’ll likely do something similar for other stories that spend significant time in more than one setting, such as The Chase. 

Where & When

Based solely on internal evidence, there is no way to date the setting of the story much more precisely than ‘the Stone Age’. This is a vast stretch of time, perhaps 99% of the whole of human history, depending on your definition. However, we know that the writer envisaged the date as 100,000 BC and that that was even the title used in some early BBC publicity in the days before the serials had onscreen titles. The geographical location is even vaguer, and, again based solely on the story as televised, we can’t even be confident it’s on Earth, since the DW universe has many alien races physically indistinguishable from humans. However, it’s clear that that’s not the intent, so “somewhere on Earth, approximately, 100,000 BC” it is.

Character Templates: Post-Apocalyptic Survivor

This next character is another one that hasn't proven hugely popular. Unlike the two I ditched, however, it seems to me that this one still fills a useful niche so, at least for the time being, I'm keeping them in the selection. In fact, the character type is one that has a specific subclass suited for them in Doctors & Daleks, so I'm probably not alone in feeling that they're genre-appropriate. It may just be that the players who gravitate towards this sort of character find some of the other options even more attractive.

The character as I've created them for DWAITAS has good outdoor skills - less useful on a space station, perhaps, but handy enough in jungle or rocky wasteland planets, both of which crop up a lot in the show. More importantly, though, they have decent combat skills and ability at first aid. Compared with the UNIT soldier, they also have fewer technical skills, coming from a postapocalyptic world where those are of less immediate use, replacing them with intuition and athletic ability. A key point, however, is that the character has a background that directly fits into a particular element of the Whoniverse.

Settings: An Unearthly Child

I’m going to start a new series of posts here – and who knows whether it will prove any more popular than the previous ones. Not exactly a large audience here, although the D&D posts have done well enough, as did the “companions as PCs” posts back in the day. This is going to be similar to the other Doctor Who related things I’ve done looking at things from an RPG perspective, but with a focus on the episodes and, more specifically, on their settings. 

This has, of course, been done before. It’s pretty much the basis of the DWAITAS individual Doctor sourcebooks that I’ve reviewed elsewhere. But I don’t have a constraint on page count here, nor a publishing schedule to keep up with (these are likely to be very irregular) and, hopefully, I can come up with some different angles and try to avoid duplicating what they did too much.

Character Template: Amateur Sleuth

My original set of pre-gens for convention games included a couple of characters that did not prove popular. One was a nurse, intended to fill the "support" role that's exemplified by the Stalwart in Doctors & Daleks and that maps to characters on the show such as Rory or (to a lesser extent) Rose, Polly and so on. If I was running Doctors & Daleks rather than DWAITAS that would could well be more popular, but I'm not, and it isn't. The second was a barbarian warrior in the Leela mould, which I think proved unpopular because of the low tech, especially in a game that normally isn't heavy on combat. 

So I ditched both of those from the selection and added two new characters to replace them. I've no idea how popular they will prove, but the first of them fills the niche of the investigator now that I've made the private eye more physical since that was the way he usually got played. This time, we have an amateur sleuth, intentionally low on physicality but with observational and problem-solving skills that should (I hope) have an obvious function in any RPG scenario that isn't a straight dungeon crawl. Sarah Jane, as an investigative journalist, is perhaps the closest analogy from the show, at least conceptually (although it's arguable how often that comes into play) although the background details here are very different.

DW Monsters: Ogri

The next few stories, taking us through the remainder of season 15 and into season 16 are:

• Underworld – the enemy here is a unique one, a computer that has built its own robots.
• The Invasion of Time – other than the Sontarans, this features the Vardans, who have powers of telepathy and teleportation and can turn insubstantial but otherwise basically appear human.
• The Ribos Operation – The only ‘monster’ here is the Shrivenzale, a local predator. From what we can tell, there is little to suggest that its game statistics would be radically different from, say, a tiger.
• The Pirate Planet – This story does not feature a monster.

This brings us to The Stones of Blood. This features three different types of alien. Apart from their physical appearance, the only significant difference between Diplosians and humans is that the former are essentially immortal. The Megara are microcellular machines, more of a game effect than a ‘monster’ in the RPG sense. 

That leaves us with the titular monsters of the story, the Ogri. Although they have since been mentioned in passing, the Ogri are a one-off monster on the TV show. They have made brief appearances in the spin-off novels, although not so far in the audios… at least partly, one assumes, because they are silent. 

Character Template: Former Time Agent

Some of the characters I include as pre-gens for convention games are historical or contemporary, which makes it easy to envisage the sorts of roles they'd fall into from other genres, and fits with many of the companions in the TV series. But this is science fiction, and many players will be more keen on playing a character that fits in that mould. One of the pre-gens I have that fills that niche is a former Time Agent, something that also ties us into the modern show. Not, I have to say, that anyone has yet played him like Jack Harkness or Captain John... although that could be the limitations of one-off convention play.

The general theme of this character is to have a mix of action-oriented skills with advanced technical skills; not, perhaps, a real specialist in anything, but an all-round concept that would still work in many SF games. There's also the key advantage that the character has some familiarity with time travel. Their vortex manipulator is of limited use in the sort of stories I'm running as one-offs, but they act as a useful backup if there isn't a Time Lord in the group. And that happens more often than you might think...

DW Monsters: Usurians

The next story is The Sun Makers, where the primary villain belongs to an unusual alien race called the Usurians. Even compared with the Ood, which can at least go mad or be possessed by evil psychic entities, the Usurians are physically harmless and one could therefore argue that providing stats for them is not necessary, since they basically can’t fight back. But that makes for something different, and, in any event, it’s at least possible to match wits with one, or attack it psychically, so I’m going to do it anyway.

Other than their original appearance, the Usurians have only featured in one story, an audio where they are manipulating events from behind the scenes.

Character Templates: Torchwood Scientist

At conventions, I have so far found that players tend to go for the obvious adventurer archetypes when picking from the list of pre-gen PCs for my Doctor Who games. That makes sense given the one-off nature of the game session; it's easier to work what a character is supposed to be doing if they fall into an obvious niche. So, although I originally included a pre-gen that fell into the support role (a military nurse from the 1940s) that was never popular, and I no longer include it. But this is Doctor Who, so it would feel odd if all the character options were traditional fighter or rogue types; we also need characters with scientific or knowledge skills. It's not quite the "wizard" niche of fantasy games since you aren't getting to zap people with fireballs or transform into animals or whatever, but it does fit the genre. 

So I include a scientist, somebody with the technical skills to solve problems in a more in-genre way. To keep them grounded in our world, rather than alien, and to fit them in with the setting, they are specifically a Torchwood scientist, something that also allows them a little bit of the "magic" role through their familiarity with alien technology (they'd have "boffin" in the 1st edition of DWAITAS, but that doesn't apply in the 2nd).

Character Templates: Hardboiled Detective

When I have run Doctor Who games at conventions, the UNIT soldier seems the most popular of the default character types I offer as pre-gens, but the detective comes close. I initially envisaged this as a character focused on investigation, but I've observed that people are keener on the implications of a tough combative type with investigation and breaking-and-entering as a secondary set of skills, so I shifted the first version of the character in that direction, with the result that's shown below. While the UNIT soldier is implied to be British (although he doesn't really have to be) the illustration I used on the character sheet for this one implies an American... although it isn't specified, and not everyone has played it that way.

Background

You were working a missing persons case in your home city when you stumbled into a temporal rift and found yourself flung almost a hundred years into the future to a hotel in Kent. Discovering that the missing person had been similarly trapped but had subsequently been killed and taken over by the Gelth, you teamed up with other people who had travelled through the anomaly to close it and defeat the alien invasion plan. Unfortunately, that still left you trapped in the year 2022! Using a TARDIS drawn to the hotel, you and the others are now travelling through time and space (note: how effectively depends on whether one of the other players is playing a Time Lord…) either to get back home, or simply to explore.

DW Monsters: Fendahleen

The next story is The Invisible Enemy, where the “monster” is the Swarm, which, in game terms, is more of a disease than a creature. Even then, it's a unique entity and outside our scope here; individually infected people could be described in game terms, but they're basically just mind-controlled. The monster in Image of the Fendahl is slightly more ambiguous, in that it's presented as if it were a unique entity, but some of the dialogue suggests it is merely the last of its kind and, while the others may be trapped in a time loop, they could theoretically show up again. 

The Fendahl does not appear again in the TV series, but it has featured in a tie-in novel and both a Doctor Who and a Torchwood audio, which give some suggestions as to how it could return. 

Character Templates: UNIT soldier

Judging from the number of hits, my ongoing series discussing various Doctor Who monsters in RPG terms is not one of the most popular things I've done. Which is fair enough. The original plan was to do the Tennant era next (Weeping Angels and all), but I'll likely give it a rest once I reach the end of the Fourth Doctor's run. While I will be back in a couple of weeks with the next monster in that series, I have some other ideas for what I might do further ahead. In the meantime, there is also this.

When I run DWAITAS games at conventions, I present the players with a batch of ten possible pre-generated PCs. With typically five players per session, that should give everyone a reasonable chance to play something that they like, without locking anyone in to "the one nobody else wanted". Each is a fairly generic character type suitable for the genre, although some are more explicitly tied into the setting than others. These are, after all, convention games, not an ongoing campaign where such things as inter-game consistency, character growth, and continuing investment in "your character" are an issue.

DW Monsters: Rutans

While The Talons of Weng-Chiang does include a giant rat, that’s nothing terribly unusual in RPGs, and, in any event, it’s a one-off creation. The next story, however, is Horror of Fang Rock, which introduces us to the previously mentioned, but never-seen, arch-enemies of the Sontarans: the Rutans. While they have occasionally been mentioned since, including in the modern series, they have yet to make a repeat appearance. 

They have done better in the expanded universe, featuring in four audios, two of which of do not include the Doctor, two home videos (one of which was subsequently novelised) and four further novels. In these stories, they often appear alongside the Sontarans – although this has so far not happened on TV – and frequently as lone individuals cut from the rest of the Host. As usual, they have also appeared in comics and short stories, although far less frequently than the Sontarans have.