Where & When
Before returning to Kembel for the conclusion of the story, the protagonists make short stops at various locations on 20th-century Earth before arriving on the planet Tigus. This is uninhabited, leaving the date both irrelevant and impossible to determine. The main setting of this half of the story, however, is Ancient Egypt. This section is set in the Giza pyramid complex at an unspecified date in the early 26th century BC.
Setting
It is, perhaps, surprising that Tigus has a name at all, rather than just a catalogue number. It is entirely uninhabited and, so far as we can tell, worthless, so that, given how common planets must be, there can be little point in giving it a name. Perhaps, then, it’s in the same system as some planet that is inhabited, or the name comes from its star, which could plausibly be named if it appears bright from a nearby inhabited world. Alternatively, since we are told the planet is “young”, the name may be one it gains millions of years in the future when it is far more habitable than it is in the story.
It is implied that life has yet to evolve on Tigus, which is still forming, and we certainly don’t see any sign of it. However, in reality, oxygen atmospheres are chemically unstable, and can only be sustained by life (or, conceivably, some kind of technological intervention that doesn’t apply here). Thus, the fact that the atmosphere is perfectly breathable implies that life should really exist. To get around this, we merely need to specify that the life in question is bacterial, likely restricted to oceans that we don’t see in the story.
This might mean that the oxygen levels are lower than those on Earth, which would not be an issue in settings where breathing equipment such as compressor masks are common, but it depends on how far the bacteria have evolved towards developing photosynthesis. On the other hand, it makes no difference to the story if we specify that the planet isn’t quite so young and has extensive life in the oceans, but nothing on land, where all the action takes place. On Earth, trilobites were common in the seas during the Cambrian period, when there was little, if any, visible life on land.
At any rate, there is little else to say about Tigus, which is merely a rocky wasteland with volcanoes in the distance. In a game, we could add more threats from active lava flows or the like, making it more like Mustafar from Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, but as seen in the TV series, it’s an empty stage on which the confrontation between the Doctor and the Monk can take place.
The exact dating of the Ancient Egyptian segment is debatable. It takes place at the pyramid complex in Giza during the final construction stages of one of the pyramids. The novelisation indicates that this is the Great Pyramid, which is almost certainly what the writers of the TV story also had in mind.
Unfortunately, this does not give us a precise date, due to both the uncertainty of how far along they are with the construction and some leeway in our knowledge of the exact dates BC when pharaohs lived and died. Following the usual scholarly consensus, however, we can get reasonably close; we are somewhere in the first half of the 26th century BC, perhaps most likely in the 2560s.
The Great Pyramid is the oldest of the three main pyramids at Giza, so at the time of its construction, the other two do not yet exist. The three smaller ‘queens pyramids’ next to the Great Pyramid have, however, already been built, and are, in fact, visible in the panoramic view of the site seen in the surviving episode. Like the Great Pyramid itself, they are either new or possibly still under construction at the time of the story, as is a fourth, even smaller pyramid that has now almost entirely vanished. The other famous structure at the site, the Sphinx, might date back this far, but is thought to more likely have been carved when the Pyramid of Khafre was built, at least fifty years after the story is set.
The three queen’s pyramids are each about 30 metres (100 feet) in height, with bases about 50 metres (165 feet) across. They are accompanied today by numerous smaller rectangular tombs holding other close relatives of the pharaohs, although at the time of the story, probably no more than four or five of these had yet been built. A second, larger but less grand, cemetery stands to the west, although this too would have been much smaller then than it is now.
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The treasure room in which the TARDIS is stored is likely inside this temple, rather than the main structure of the pyramid proper; the workers probably intend to move it elsewhere at a later stage of construction. In a game, however, it’s possible that the PCs might wish – or the plot might require them – to explore the actual interior. Other than getting past guards, this shouldn’t be too difficult, since the traps and deadfalls that will later block access aren’t in place yet.
The entrance stands some way up the side of the pyramid, 17 metres (56 feet) above ground level; the entrance currently used by tourists was made by tomb robbers at a later date. From here, a narrow tunnel slopes steeply (26°) downwards, with a second passage splitting off and heading upwards once the descending one reaches bedrock. The passages are roughly 1.2 x 1.0 metres (4’ x 3’3”) in height and width, which is not only narrower than the standard ‘dungeon corridor’ on D&D maps but also considerably lower, forcing anyone much taller than a halfling (or similarly sized alien race) into a crouch.
The descending passage terminates at a chamber 27 metres (89 feet) below ground level. So far as we can tell, this was never used for anything, with one theory being that the construction team changed their minds about the building plan after they had already carved it out. While the Daleks are unlikely to have any interest in it, in a game with a different plot, it might be used to conceal all sorts of alien artefacts or other items of interest that don’t belong with the tomb proper.
The ascending passage rises at a similar angle, before switching to horizontal where it meets the base of the ‘grand gallery’. The horizontal branch terminates at a tomb chamber measuring 5.2 x 5.8 metres (17 x 19 feet) in area in the centre of the pyramid. The grand gallery is a continuation of the ascending passage, rising at the same angle but 2.1 metres (7 feet) in width and 8.6 metres (28 feet) in height. This ends at the entrance to the main tomb, some distance above the lower one. There are also ventilation shafts and spaces between the supports that brace the chamber roofs, but none of these are readily accessible. How much of the relevant treasure has yet been placed inside the tombs is a matter for the GM, as is what it might consist of, since everything but one empty stone sarcophagus has long since been looted.
The popular image of the pyramid builders is that they used slaves, but this is probably not true. While slavery was common at the time, and would surely have been in evidence somewhere, the construction teams were likely salaried workers, living in the purpose-built town nearby. Estimates of the size of the work crew vary and may well have changed at different stages of the construction, but somewhere between about 30,000 and 50,000 men seems likely. At the time of the story, they are nearly finished, with those remaining perhaps working on interior decoration in the tombs or expanding some of the smaller structures around the pyramid. It has taken them at least 20 years to get this far.
At the time of the story, Khufu, the Pharaoh for whom the Great Pyramid was constructed, may have recently died, placing us in the reign of his son and successor, Djedefre. Khufu was the second Pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, putting us a remarkable distance back in time – one oft-quoted figure is that Cleopatra lived closer to our time than she did to Khufu’s. There is little else in the form of civilisation on Earth at the time, with most of Europe, for example, still being in the Stone Age, albeit a part of the Stone Age dominated by sophisticated Neolithic farming culture rather than ‘cave men’. Stonehenge, for example, is already an ancient site and currently in use; indeed, it came close to its modern form at about the same time as the Great Pyramid was built.
Elsewhere in the world, the Minoans are sailing and trading across the eastern Mediterranean, including with the Egyptians. Further east lie the decentralised city-states of Sumeria, with Ur as the most politically powerful. India is beginning to build its first Bronze Age cities, while China is still, like Europe, in the Neolithic, with metalworking a rarity.
Scenario
This half of The Daleks’ Master Plan begins with the protagonists fleeing through time, much as they did in The Chase, and flits between multiple different settings: contemporary Liverpool, 1930s Hollywood, the Oval Cricket Ground in the near future, and (very briefly) contemporary London. These are all comic light relief, the first two being introduced because the episode went out on Christmas Day, and the producers didn’t think that a dark story about murderous Daleks would be appropriate.
In a game that doesn’t rely on a similar concept to the show, there’s not really a way to do anything like this. However, in one where the PCs are travelling through time and are, if only temporarily, unable to steer their craft, they can provide comic interludes between the main scenario scenes. There’s no particular threat, but the PCs have to try and avoid too much attention… and, hey, they get to meet Bing Crosby.
It's after this that we reach Tigus. The point of this segment is the rematch with the Monk, rather than anything to do with the setting itself. In many SF games, for example, it would work just as well on an uninhabited vacuum planet, or any other location where the PCs and their antagonist are unlikely to be interrupted.
Once again, though, this requires some tweaks to fit into a setting that doesn’t rely on the same premise. In a typical time travel game, for instance, the PCs won’t be visiting alien planets. Here, our best bet is probably to pick either a very remote location (the middle of the Sahara, say) or a time millions of years in the past, before humans evolved. To get something close to the feel of the original, we’d also want there to be little, if any, animal life on land, and certainly nothing that could detract from the story with the Monk. The Devonian period, perhaps, since nobody’s going to get savaged by a trilobite – especially if they don’t go paddling.
In a space opera game, it’s the Monk himself who is the issue, since a time meddler is unlikely to fit. Fortunately, that’s not the role he plays here, where he’s simply trying to get revenge on the protagonists for his defeat in the previous season. He can, therefore, be replaced with any suitable recurring villain that wants to get his own back on the PCs. Ideally, he should be an irritation rather than a major threat, since the Daleks (or their stand-ins) take on that role. A freelance rogue only out for himself would obviously fit, especially if he’s slightly bumbling and the PCs have no reason to shoot him on sight.
The story then focuses on negotiation between the time travellers and the villains as the latter try to acquire the taranium. Here, it may be better if the villains have something the PCs need. In the story, that’s because some of them have been captured and need to be rescued, but in a game, they might have captured an NPC the party are familiar with instead. An alternative is for them to have acquired something dangerous from the Monk that the PCs need to keep out of their hands… but it’s going to have to be something they really care about if there’s going to be any tension as to whether they exchange it for the taranium.
A key element of this would also be pushing the PCs to side with the Monk/intergalactic rogue/rival time agent/Ferengi conman/etc. against the larger threat… or at least making it harder for them if they choose not to. Clearly, this should be something of a risk, justified only by the extreme circumstances, and a double-cross has to be at least a possibility once the main villains are out of the way.
It’s likely that this may go down quite differently from the story. The PCs probably aren’t going to hand over the taranium without some sort of trick up their sleeve, or they may find a way to destroy it or otherwise put it irrevocably beyond reach. We may, therefore, not end up back on Kembel, with the showdown instead taking place earlier, and without the time destructor being triggered.
A way around this is to have the PCs discover that the Daleks have a small amount of taranium already, or have an inferior substitute, which gives them a time destructor much less powerful than the one they wanted, but still dangerous. The PCs then have to head back to Kembel to destroy that, or alternatively, just to destroy the plans or working prototype of the destructor before they can acquire another batch of its power source. This gives some opportunity to have the final showdown back in the Dalek ‘city’ and, perhaps, have to face the device going off.
There are a great many opportunities for roleplaying in Ancient Egypt, especially if we are looking at a fantasy setting rather than a strictly historical one. An analogue to the setting is often found in fantasy RPG worlds, with Pathfinder’s Osirion being a notable example. As I write this, the dedicated Kingdom of Keshanar has recently completed a Kickstarter, and there are many others. In terms of actual history, it’s more common to find the Egypt of Cleopatra’s time as part of a Roman setting, and few choose to go back as far as the building of the pyramids, rather than exploring the ruins as part of a dungeon crawl or Cthulhu scenario. In the case of the Stargate setting, another world with pyramids on it is almost too obvious…
If we’re going to stick specifically to the 4th Dynasty building site, then the most obvious scenario is one involving something that’s going to be (or ought to be) sealed inside the pyramid. It isn’t just the apparently empty subterranean chamber that can be used here. In fact, we know that there is a void of some kind higher up inside the structure, completely sealed off and bricked up from the known passages. In reality, it’s probably just structural but, in a game, we have the opportunity to come up with any explanation as to why the builders might have wanted to seal something up so thoroughly that you can’t get in without teleporting, large scale destruction, or travelling back in time to before they’d finished.
Of course, even the grave goods that we know must have been there could be a target for the right sort of players. And, since they were all looted centuries ago, they could be almost anything we want without contradicting known history (if we even care about that). If the PCs aren’t grave robbers, then the TV story itself provides a hook once we cut out the Daleks; something that’s valuable has been taken from them and is going to be sealed inside the pyramid, leaving little time to get it out before the last tunnels are plugged up.
Rules
Tigus is barren and uninhabited, so there is little to say about it as a location, beyond any threats there may be from lava or the like. Travel to a world of this type isn’t likely to be banned in most settings, but there is no starport or other infrastructure. Taking the assumption above that it does have oceans but that we just don’t happen to see them, then its Traveller UWP will be something like X-866000-0. We also briefly see another world, on which the Monk is stranded after leaving Egypt, and which he describes as an “ice planet”. We know, from the visuals, that the planet has ice, snow, and at least one large body of water that icebergs can float on… but, for all we know, he’s on the coast of present-day Greenland, so we can’t say anything meaningful about what the rest of the planet is like.
4th Dynasty Egypt is, of course, in the Bronze Age, although it’s over a thousand years earlier even than the setting of The Myth Makers. The tech level is therefore 1 in systems such as GURPS and Traveller that start at 0, and 2 in systems such as Doctors & Daleks or Mindjammer that don’t. Bronze is expensive, so much of the technology of the day will actually involve more basic materials such as stone or wood… but, in many respects, it’s not that much different from the later Bronze Age.
We don’t have detailed evidence of what Egyptian warriors would have carried this early on, but from what we can tell, the way they are depicted in the TV serial is likely fairly accurate. They are not wearing armour, or much in the way of clothing at all beyond a kilt, although many would have shields consisting of tough leather stretched over a wooden frame. In the serial, they are armed with spears, which would indeed be common; they would normally be tipped with copper or flint at this early date. Cudgels and maces were also widely used, and there were some copper or bronze-bladed axes. Warriors probably had daggers as a backup weapon, although for common soldiers, these were likely stone, not expensive bronze.
The most common military weapon of the time, though, was probably the bow. In game terms, this is a standard shortbow (or equivalent) since we’re about a thousand years too early for the composite bow, should a game have specific rules for those. Again, while bronze arrowheads may have existed for the wealthy, for the vast majority of people, arrows either have flint tips or are simply a piece of solid reed with feathers at one end and a sharpened piece of wood at the other. In reality, this would be less effective at penetrating armour than medieval steel-tipped arrows, especially given the low strength of the bows, but this may not be significant enough to make a real difference in rules terms.
The one final thing we can look at is the Time Destructor. This is intended to increase the rate at which time passes in a localised area, allowing enemy equipment to rapidly rust and decay and any living beings to age to death in minutes. The latter is probably of more concern in game terms and, assuming the game system doesn’t already have specific rules for people ageing, is best reflected as something that drains physical attributes such as strength and constitution until they reach zero and the victim dies. Alternatively, in D20 systems, you could simply use the Fatigue rules, giving the victims CON rolls every few minutes to avoid taking a level of exhaustion (how many minutes varying depending on the needs of the plot…)
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