DW Monsters: Primords

While the story Inferno is best remembered for the alternate-history sections, it does also include monsters. Never named on-screen, they are referred to as "Primords" in the credits and are bestial transformed humans, rather than aliens. Beyond their one appearance on TV, their only significant story to feature them is the Third Doctor audio play Primord which is a sort of sequel to Inferno and shows a few exceptional individuals in addition to the regular sort I will be concentrating on here.

Description and Biology

Primords are created when a human comes into skin contact with Stahlman’s Ooze, a viscous green fluid extracted from deep beneath the Earth. (Some of the tie-in novels have tried to explain how it got there, but it’s not relevant for our purposes and isn’t mentioned in either of the two main stories to actually feature the race). The transformation can take a few hours, during which time the victim develops green skin and eventually undergoes the more drastic physical changes to reach the final form.

A fully transformed Primord has green skin and long hair across much of the body and face, giving them a ‘werewolf’ look. Also like some interpretations of werewolves, their teeth become heavy and elongated and the nose bulbous. They develop a stooped posture giving them a shambling gait and, of course, there are significant mental changes as well, leaving them with no drives beyond creating more of their kind.

Presumably, in other respects, they are anatomically human. What effect Stahlman’s Ooze would have on other creatures is not explored in the TV story although there’s no obvious reason why it wouldn’t affect at least other warm-blooded animals, and this is actually mentioned in one of the novels. Cold-blooded creatures, and especially those with extra-terrestrial physiology, might be a different matter.

Game Attributes

Primords have remarkable physical strength and are sufficiently resilient to shrug off small arms fire. On the other hand, they do not seem especially agile and may even be clumsier than regular humans, as indicated by the stooped posture. All of this may be due to a denser body structure, which perhaps the human skeleton isn’t quite so good at supporting as it might be. While they are difficult to injure with most weapons, they don’t seem particularly hard to kill once you can find something that hurts them, with falls from a height being an obvious means of dispatching them used in the TV story.

It’s very notable that Primords lose essentially all of their human intelligence, although they may retain some animal cunning. They cannot speak and have only a limited grasp of tool use, being driven largely by instinct. Even so, they’re probably just above the level of the typical animal, and systems that normally don’t give intelligence stats to animals may still give very low ones to Primords. Other mental statistics, such as those related to perception, may be at more typical human levels, although their willpower seems relatively weak since they can easily be driven off by anything that might injure them.

Primords are inherently drawn to heat, which also accelerates their transformation, if it isn’t yet complete. As a result, they seem to tolerate intense heat that might injure other beings, although it’s unlikely that they’re entirely resistant to fire. On the other hand, they are very definitely vulnerable to cold so that, for example, a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher can seriously injure them.

Special Abilities

Because they are themselves suffused with Stahlman’s Ooze, Primords transform their victims into new Primords by touching them. How long a contact this has to be isn’t clear, although for game purposes, it’s probably best if there’s some duration involved, and a saving throw or equivalent to throw it off. Having said that, it still works even if the Primord is dead – although not through clothing or other material – and there’s no indication of a cure in the original TV story nor of any chance of recovery once the transformation has started. The audio story Primord does, however, see the Doctor devise a cure that transforms living Primords back into their original selves so such a thing should at least be possible.

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5E - Primord

Medium humanoid, chaotic neutral

Armour Class: 17 (natural)

Hit Points: 26 (4d8+8)

Speed: 30 ft.

STR 18 (+4)	DEX 8 (-1)	CON 15 (+2)
INT 5 (-3)	WIS 10 (+0)	CHA 10 (+0)

Combat Skills: Melee Attack +5

Damage Resistances: Fire, piercing

Damage Vulnerabilities: Cold

Senses: Passive Perception 10

Heat Sense: The Primord has advantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks to sense heat or cold.

Brawling: Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft. one creature. Hit: 5 bludgeoning damage. The Primord can either grapple or brawl in any given combat round, but not both.

Grappling:  Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: The creature is grappled. If it is grappled at both the beginning and end of a combat round, unless it is entirely enclosed in protective material, it may be affected by Stahlman’s Ooze (see below). The Primord can either grapple or brawl in any given combat round, but not both.

Stahlman’s Ooze: If a living creature is in skin contact with the Primord (living or dead) for a full round, it must make a DC12 constitution saving throw or be infected with Stahlman’s Ooze and transform into a new Primord over the next three hours. Creatures that are immune to Poison are unaffected.

Challenge: ½ (100 XP)

BRP - Primord

STR 3D6+6 (16-17)	CON 3D6 (10-11)	SIZ 2D6+6 (13)
INT 1D6+3 (6-7)	POW 2D6 (7)
DEX 3D6 (10-11)	CHA 2D6 (7)
Hit Points: 12	Move: 10
Base SR: 5	Damage Bonus: +1D4

Armour: 8-point resilient flesh

Combat Skills: Brawl 60%, Grapple 40%

Vulnerability to Cold: The Primord takes double damage from all cold-based attacks.

Stahlman’s Ooze: If a character or animal is in skin contact with a Primord, living or dead, for a full round or more, for example, as the result of a successful Grapple attack, they may be affected by Stahlman’s Ooze. The Ooze has a Potency of 12, resisted by the victim’s CON; if this roll fails, the victim transforms into a Primord over the following three hours.

GURPS - Primord

ST 18	DX 8	IQ 5	HT 12
Thrust: 1d+2		Swing: 3d
Speed: 5		Move: 5

Advantages: Damage Resistance-10 (limited to physical attacks), Dominance, Fit, Infravision, Temperature Tolerance-8 (60 to 156°)

Disadvantages: Bestial, Cannot Speak, Hunchback, Vulnerability to Cold

Skills: Brawling-14

Savage Worlds - Primord

Agility: d6	Smarts: d4	Spirit: d6
Strength: d12	Vigour: d10

Skills: Athletics d6, Fighting d6

Edges: Armour +2, Brute, Fearless, Resilient

Hindrances: Environmental Weakness (cold), Mute

Stahlman’s Ooze: If a living creature becomes Bound as the result of a Grappling attack from the Primord, they must make a Vigour roll. On a failure, they transform into a Primord over the following three hours.

Pace: 6                  Parry: 5                Toughness: 9 (2)                   Size: 0

STA - Primord

Control: 7	Fitness: 12	Presence: 8
Daring: 10	Insight: 6	Reason: 6
Command: 0	Security: 2	Science: 0
Conn: 0	Engineering: 0	Medicine: 0
Stress: 14	Resistance: 2

Vulnerable to Cold: Any attack against the Primord that involves freezing temperatures is treated as having one extra Challenge Die and ignores the Primord’s Resistance.

Stahlman’s Ooze: If the Primord inflicts a Grappled Complication against a character and the character does not break free on their next Turn, they must make a Fitness + Security roll against a Difficulty of 3 or transform into a Primord over the following three hours.

DW Monsters: The Ambassadors

Having completed the seven key humanoid aliens of the show (other than the Time Lords themselves), I’m now going to turn to aliens that appeared less frequently, as well as those that are less humanoid in form. One of the ground rules here is that I will still be looking at races, and not at beings that are said to be unique, or that are unusual or “high level” examples of their kind. I’ll also pass over races that aren’t, in terms of basic game statistics, especially notable, most often because they’re physically indistinguishable from humans.

I’m going to approach this by running through the eras of the various TV incarnations of the Doctor. The first batch consists of “monsters” and other aliens that appear during the Third Doctor’s era, of which there are quite a few.

•        Spearhead from Space is the Third Doctor’s debut story, and features the autons.
•         Doctor Who and the Silurians is the debut for the eponymous reptiles.

The Companions That Weren't: The '70s

Classic Doctor Who changed many times over the years of its run, but two particularly seismic shifts in its production stand out. The first, and most obvious to the casual viewer, was the move in 1970 from black-and-white to colour, which also involved many other major changes in the way the show was made. The second, which is perhaps easier to see with hindsight than it might have been at the time, was the arrival of John Nathan-Turner as producer (or, as we'd say now, "showrunner").

This involved a significant shift in the show's direction and style, with a lot of changes behind the scenes as well. For the purposes of this blog, though, what matters is that, coincidentally, it happened in 1980. And that means that there are three well-defined periods of the show's history, which just happen to line up with chronological decades. I previously looked at four characters from the '60s era of the show who never became companions in reality, but who perhaps could in our own RPG campaigns. Now it's time to do the same for the '70s.

We begin with Hal the Archer from the Pertwee story The Time Warrior. One reason he's a choice is that he came quite close to becoming a companion in real life. The producers dropped the idea before the role was even cast, so it never really got anywhere, but it's easy to see him in the same mould as Jamie, and he's certainly quite heroic in his one story.

DW Companions as PCs: Sarah Jane Smith

Jo Grant leaves the show at the end of the tenth season. (Actually, it's worth reflecting on that statement for a moment; not many genre shows even have a tenth season, and even fewer have so many of their most popular episodes still ahead of them at that point...) Her player has come to the end of what passed for a story arc, and comes up with an idea for a new character.

One of the other players had briefly considered the idea of acquiring an NPC Contact - a mysterious journalist named 'Smith' who would have inside info on weird goings on for the players to investigate. With the campaign definitively moving back to outer space adventure, the idea is shelved as not worth the experience points, but it's given Jo's former player an idea. And so she creates investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith.

In the real world, Sarah is consistently voted the most popular classic series companion. Likely for that very reason, she remains the only classic companion to appear in Nu Who so far, and also appeared in not one, but two, spin-off TV series... even if one of them deservedly sank without trace after the pilot episode. That aside, she clearly had a long and illustrious career, and often as the central character in her own right.

DW Companions as PCs: Jo Grant

Liz Shaw leaves the show after the end of the seventh season. In game terms, her player has realised that there isn't much point in playing a scientist character when the Doctor is already so much better at it. Looking around, and seeing two new military types joining the campaign, along with the Brigadier already there, she sees that there is an empty niche. A 'rogue' type character doesn't directly work in the setting, but the skills such characters normally possess are certainly still useful, and nobody else has focussed on them.

Fitting in with the campaign premise, the player decides to generate a spy as her character. But - and here's the twist - she's going to play a crap one.

The result is wannabe secret agent and full-time ditz Jo Grant.

Jo has, we're told, undergone a course in spycraft and all its attendant skills. She does not, on the other hand, actually appear to have passed it. A great example of her approach to sneaky rogue-type activities can be seen in her very first story, Terror of the Autons, not just in her failure to spy on the Master, but in how she reacts once she's discovered. On the whole, while she's clearly a very nice person, she really doesn't seem cut out for... well, anything much.

DW Companions as PCs: Sgt Benton and Mike Yates

Around the end of the seventh season and the beginning of the eighth, two new players join our imaginary group, bringing it to the largest it well ever be: five players plus the GM. They're only occasional players, absent for many of the adventures, which the GM begins filling in with off-world science fiction, rather than the military-guarding-the-world that formed the basis of this new campaign. Nonetheless, both decide to play characters that mesh perfectly with the campaign concept, by designing members of UNIT.

The first, like the Brigadier's player, picks up a former NPC already associated with the campaign. Sergeant Benton first appeared (as a corporal) in The Invasion, back in the sixth season, and now returns as a semi-regular PC. As a sergeant, rather than an officer, he has the perfect opportunity to play the tough guy role previously filled by the likes of Ben and Steven. He doesn't really do much with the character beyond this, but it's a solid base.

DW Companions as PCs: Liz Shaw

The third player in the new, quasi-military campaign is the only one to create an entirely new character. Instead of a soldier, she creates a scientist, Liz Shaw, leaving a bunch of NPCs to wreak action-filled havoc backing up the Brigadier. In some respects, the character is a more down-to-earth version of Zoe, and while lacking the same level of genius, she is, if anything, even more of a pure Science Geek.

In the real world, scientists are only highly knowledgeable about specific, narrow, fields - or at least they have been since about the early twentieth century. In the world of TV, however, being a scientist tends to mean you're skilled at pretty well anything science related, unless the show itself is focussed on some particular field. DWAITAS, and many other RPGs, tend to follow this approach, so we can say that, yes, Liz was very good at science, and leave it at that.

For some other systems, however, we might need to clarify just what she's good at. Even in DWAITAS, there's a valid question as to whether she has a speciality, and, if so, what it might be.

DW Companions as PCs: Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart

Some time after ending his time travel campaign with The War Games, the GM proposes a new one. This will be about a semi-secret military organisation dedicated to protecting the Earth from alien invasion and investigating the downright weird. He initially gets three players for this new campaign, and they set out about creating suitable characters.

One brings back the Doctor, from the previous campaign, but now suitably changed with the addition of some nifty combat skills and, of course, no time machine. (Maybe the last episode of The War Games is actually a flashback worked out to explain this, or maybe it was planned all along, when the GM got bored of running games about time travel and future worlds).

The second player also brings back a character from the previous campaign, but this time, it's a former NPC. This, of course, is the head of the British branch of UNIT, Brigadier Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart. (The middle name 'Gordon' isn't added until quite a bit later).

That the Brigadier was originally an NPC seems fairly evident. He first appears (as a colonel) in The Web of Fear, in which he is one of the main suspects in the whodunnit sub-plot. Crucially, he is treated as such by the regular characters pretty much all the way through, and they don't start to trust him until the true villain is unmasked, right at the end. Therefore, I would argue, the players are treating him as they would any NPC suspect. Yes, he's a red herring, but they don't know that, and they aren't treating him like a fellow PC.

DWAITAS: 3rd Doctor Sourcebook

With the third in the series of past Doctor sourcebooks, we reach an era that is, perhaps, one of the most distinctive, quite different in many ways from those that preceded and followed it. It's also, and for much the same reason, rather controversial. For many fans, especially those who were watching in the early '70s, the Third Doctor is their favourite, yet, for many others, the nature of the stories in this era is just too different to really enjoy in the same way as those that came later.

From the point of view of a sourcebook, this is actually something of an advantage. Because the era is unique, there's quite a lot to say about it. It may also help that much of what makes the Third Doctor's tenure different also makes it closer to traditional roleplaying games. It's perhaps easier, for instance, to see how Spearhead from Space could be made into a straightforward roleplaying adventure than more character-driven tales such as The Girl Who Waited.

The most obvious thing that stands out about the era is that over half of the stories are set primarily in the present day, perhaps with a brief excursion elsewhere for a couple of episodes. But there's more to it than that. The Doctor is, in most of these present day stories, backed up by UNIT, a military organisation, and - while he argues with them frequently - he is broadly content to work alongside them. It's hard to imagine the Doctor of Power of Three remaining on Earth for quite so long without going stir crazy.