DW Monsters: Krynoids

After The Brain of Morbius, which features a unique monster, we come to The Seeds of Doom (not to be confused with the Second Doctor story The Seeds of Death) and the Krynoids. There are only two in the story, but they’re a species of alien that could plausibly be found on many other planets, so they’re within my remit for these posts. The Krynoids are a one-off monster within the series, and have been little used elsewhere. Other than a few short stories, they have featured in only one licensed audio, Hothouse, which acts as a sequel to the TV serial without really expanding the description of the species.

Description and Biology

Krynoids are plants that begin their life cycle as seed pods flying through space. Once they land on a suitable planetary surface they germinate, infecting the nearest large animal by injecting them with bacteria-like cells. The original plant then dies, but the infective cells take over and restructure the host's body using it as the foundation to grow the second, reproductive, phase of the Krynoid. Essentially, then, we have two forms: the plant inside the seed pod, which produces the infective spores, and the much larger form that the spores grow into and that eventually produce new seed pods.

DW Monsters: Androids

Following Terror of the Zygons, the next two stories are:

• Planet of Evil – the anti-matter monster here is an apparently unique entity and, in any case, is more a sort of mobile hazard than something with creature statistics
• Pyramids of Mars – although we only encounter one Osiran, they are a race… however, they’re sufficiently powerful that they are more effectively described as one-off NPCs. I’m also going to pass on their servitor robots for the time being as there isn’t much to say about them other than them being large, strong, robots.

This brings us to The Android Invasion. The alien race here are the Kraals, which have leathery skin, sculpted skulls, and a small nose-horn. Other than their physical appearance, however, there seems little to set them apart from humans, and in game terms they (as with races such as the Draconians) probably don’t need any particular rules. Their titular android creations, however, are a different matter.