DW Monsters: Silurians

Following on from the Sontarans, I’m going to look at six other humanoid races that have made regular or semi-regular appearances on the show. I’ll start with the Silurians.

Appearances

The Silurians make their debut in the somewhat oddly titled Third Doctor story Doctor Who and the Silurians. This establishes many of the basics of the race, including the ambiguity about whether they count as ‘evil monsters’ or not. In the later Third Doctor story The Sea Devils, it becomes clear that there are multiple forms of their race, although the Sea Devils themselves are sufficiently different from the baseline Silurians that I’m going to leave them for a later post. The Silurians make a final classic series appearance during the Fifth Doctor’s run in Warriors of the Deep, teaming up with the Sea Devils. In the modern show, they’ve only really appeared as villains once, in the Eleventh Doctor story The Hungry Earth, which partly mirrors the plot of their original story. They have also been mentioned and made brief appearances in other stories, even if we ignore Madame Vastra.

D&D Monsters: Nagas

Nagas originate in Hindu mythology, in which they are magical beings that can take on various snake-like forms. Some appear as literal snakes and, indeed, the scientific name of the main cobra genus is Naja, based on the Sanskrit word for 'cobra'. Similarly, it's no coincidence that the feminine form of this word is "nagini" - although the exact English spelling can vary.

Often capable of shape-shifting, mythic nagas can take on fully human or partially humanoid form, with the latter more usually resembling the yuan-ti and mariliths of D&D than the shape seen in the game (although this is not unknown). Nagas are generally said to be righteous, if not exactly benevolent, and are often set to guard the treasures of the gods, hence at least the 'guardian nagas' of D&D.