DW Monsters: Drashigs

The next two stories, moving us from season 9 into season 10 are:

• The Time Monster – while the monster of the title is described as belonging to a race of beings (the Chronovores) we don’t see any others, so it’s hard to know what their generic abilities might be, and I will therefore leave them out. I will also leave the Minotaur until later.

• The Three Doctors – while there are antimatter blobs in this story, they’re more a peril than a ‘monster’, and the real foe is Omega, so this is another one I will skip.

Next up is Carnival of Monsters. Despite the title, most of the monsters are only seen briefly over the viewing screen. The only exceptions, and the only ones that are original to the story, are the drashigs. This is their only significant appearance on screen so far, but they have proved popular enough in the ‘deadly alien animals’ niche to appear in two of the spin-off novels and two of the audios – in each case, making one appearance inside a miniscope, and one out in the wild. 

The audio Planet of the Drashigs makes the most use of them, as a sort of Jurassic Park homage that introduces two new subtypes of the creatures. But I will stick with the version seen on screen.

Description and Biology

The drashigs are large creatures with snake-like bodies. Their bodies appear to be segmented, more like earthworms than snakes, although this may well be a muscular adaptation for a worm-like mode of movement rather than a reflection of genuine segmentation in their internal anatomy. The head is also not snake-like, having a shape similar to that of a dog and decidedly mammalian teeth (for good reason, considering how the prop was made for the series). 

From both this, and the description of their behaviour, we can infer a mode of attack quite different from that of either venomous or constrictor snakes. For instance, while they probably do eat smaller prey whole, they are unlikely to swallow larger prey in the way that snakes do; those teeth are clearly there for something.

The other distinctive feature, of course, is the presence of six eyestalks on the head. Although we’re told that they hunt by scent, the number of eyes, and the fact that they’re raised above the level of the head implies that vision is also important - and there are, of course, many real-world animals that use a combination of vision and scent to track prey. The eyestalks make perfect sense for a creature that can ambush prey by hiding beneath swamp water, although such an adaptation could be even more useful for a herbivore wanting to look out for predators around it, so perhaps drashigs evolved from something less dangerous.

That there are six eyes, rather than two, is unusual from a real-world perspective; while spiders, for example, do have multiple eyes, those that require good binocular vision for hunting (rather than allowing prey to fall into their webs) tend to have two that are much larger than the others, which they use for that purpose. This may imply an unusual brain structure.

While there is a published non-canonical source that states otherwise, drashigs are indicated to be alien in the canonical material. This means that we know little about their more detailed biology. For instance, just because they look reptilian, this is no guarantee that they lay eggs or that they’re cold-blooded.

Game Attributes

Clearly, our starting point for drashigs is not going to be the humanoid base levels that I have been using for most aliens. For a start, drashigs are much larger than humans. Exactly how much larger is difficult to gauge since there are no shots in the serial that give us a firm basis for comparison, but the creatures are undeniably substantial. This alone would give them significant resistance to damage, and they also seem to have a tough hide, making them difficult to injure. 

Their strength at least matches their size and may even be higher than we might typically expect. We’re told, for instance, that they can literally eat a spaceship, although this comes from a man who has good reason to exaggerate and who, even if he is being honest, might simply be repeating an urban legend. Either way, they have a powerful bite, although they don’t look to be agile enough to, say, swat somebody with their tails as a means of attack. Indeed, their overall agility is likely unimpressive, although probably not terrible.

Drashigs are regular, non-sentient, animals, and in some systems will therefore not receive any statistics related to intelligence. Where such figures are given, there’s no particular reason to limit such alien beings to the low ratings often given to crocodiles and the like, and their ability at tracking probably implies something closer to a cat or dog. Speaking of which, since they hunt at least partially by scent, we know that they have a particularly keen sense in that area.

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5E - Drashig

Huge animal, unaligned

Armour Class: 16 (natural)

Hit Points: 105 (10d12+40)

Speed: 30 ft.

STR 22 (+6)	DEX 10 (+0)	CON 18 (+4)
INT 3 (-4)	WIS 12 (+1)	CHA 12 (+1)

Skills: Perception +3, Survival +3

Senses: Passive Perception 13

Bite: Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (1d12+6) slashing damage

Challenge: 3 (700 XP)

BRP - Drashig

STR 4D6+30 (44)	CON 3D6+6 (16-17)	SIZ 4D6+24 (38)
DEX 3D6 (10-11)	POW 3D6 (10-11)
Hit Points: 28	Move: 10
Base SR: 3	Damage Bonus: +4D6

Armour: 10-point tough hide

Skills: Track 75%

Combat Skills: Brawl 60% (1D10+4D6 damage)

GURPS - Drashig

ST 25	DX 10	IQ 5	HT 16
Damage: 2d+2		Move: 5
DR: 10		Size: 6

Traits: 360° Vision, Discriminatory Smell, No Legs (slithers)

Savage Worlds - Drashig

Agility: d8	Smarts: d6 (A)	Spirit: d10
Strength: d12+6	Vigour: d12

Skills: Athletics d8, Fighting d12, Notice d8

Special Abilities: Bite (Str+d6)

Powers: Blast, Intangibility, Mind Link, Telekinesis

Pace: 6                  Parry: 8               Toughness: 8 (4)                   Size: 7 (large)

STA - Drashig

Control: 6	Fitness: 12	Presence: 10
Daring: 10	Insight: 5	Reason: 4
Command: 2	Security: 2	Science: 0
Conn: 0	Engineering: 0	Medicine: 0
Stress: 21	Resistance: 2

Traits: Due to its large size, the drashig has 50% more Stress than it would normally have.

Attack: Bite 5^ (Piercing-1, Vicious-1)

DW Monsters: Solonians

Following on from The Sea Devils, the next story we come to is The Mutants. The eponymous monsters here turn out not to be “mutants” at all but are instead a natural form of an alien race native to the planet Solos. While they have since received the odd passing reference here and there, they currently remain a one-off race, never appearing again in any of the novels, audios, or even (so far as I can tell) shorter works such as comics.

D&D Monsters: Oozes

We reach the final post in this series with the monsters that are, anatomically speaking, the simplest of them all. The idea of monstrous slime is essentially a modern one; some antecedents may exist here and there, but generally, we're thinking of the likes of the 1958 film The Blob or Clark Ashton Smith's formless spawn of Tsathoggua, which made their debut in 1931. 

The 1E Monster Manual includes a number of creatures that could loosely be described as oozes but only four of these have consistently appeared in the core rulebooks (excluding 4E, as I usually do, which retains just two of them in the MM1). Three of these are entirely amorphous, although the one that's perhaps the most notorious does at least have a shape.

DW Monsters: Sea Devils

Next up in season 9, we’re back to present-day Earth and The Sea Devils. The eponymous race are introduced as a variant form of the Silurians adapted to underwater life and, beyond the aquatic theme, provide a similar role in the TV show – although they do appear to be more inherently violent, presumably due to a warrior upbringing. They return much later in the classic run alongside the Silurians in Warriors of the Deep but were not seen again on screen until almost the end of the Thirteenth Doctor’s run. 

Outside of the TV series, they have proved less popular than their Silurian kin, appearing alongside the latter in the 1993 novel Blood Heat, but rarely featuring on their own outside of a few comics and short stories. They have appeared in just a couple of the audios, neither of which feature the Doctor and one of which is part of a larger Silurian plot arc. A mention in a novel that doesn’t feature them directly implies that they are the same as the Deep Ones created by H.P. Lovecraft - although beyond living underwater and being cold-blooded, there doesn’t seem to be much resemblance between the two.

D&D Monsters: Noncorporeal Undead

The concept of ghosts or other restless spirits is an ancient one, found, in some form or another in pretty much every human culture. The details vary considerably, and ghosts may not necessarily be malevolent, or even frightening but the basic idea is essentially universal. They're the sort of thing that just had to be included in D&D, albeit with the addition of generally making them more dangerous - and thus a meaningful threat - than they usually are in legend. There are several different types in the game, arguably a different sort of being from the corporeal undead, united by lacking a physical body and with various other means of inflicting harm. Four of these types are consistently present in the core rulebooks, although their details can vary significantly.

D&D Monsters: Succubi

The word "succubus" comes from Latin, referring to a type of demon that seduces men and slowly saps them of their vitality over a series of sexual encounters. This basic concept, however, long precedes even the Romans, with the general idea of  'evil demonic seductress' being fairly common across many cultures. It may, in part, be connected with the same sort of hypnogogic phenomenon that is responsible for the night hag myth - albeit interpreted in a more pleasurable manner. Indeed, succubi were not originally regarded as being attractive in their natural form - although, as with the D&D creature, they could shape-shift - the 'sexy' form only starting to become the standard in modern times.

DW Monsters: Peladon

The next story that we come to is The Curse of Peladon, which features no fewer than four different kinds of alien. Chief among them are the Ice Warriors, which I have already covered. Of the three new introductions, Arcturus’ abilities are more a product of the device he is using to move around, which must be customisable, so I’ll leave him out. That leaves Alpha Centauri and Aggedor.

Both reappear a couple of seasons later in The Monster of Peladon, and Alpha Centauri also has a cameo appearance (voiced by the same actress, no less) in the Twelfth Doctor story Empress of Mars. To date, Alpha Centauri has also appeared in five audios and one original novel, all set on Peladon, and the race has been referenced in a number of other novels. Aggedor is slightly less popular, appearing in two novels and one audio – although in their case, it’s different members of the same species rather than the same individual.