Where & When
Although no specific date is given in the story, it’s stated to be set approximately five hundred years after the events of The Moonbase. Depending on whether Parry is rounding up or down, and how far we want to adjust for the known dates of future Cyberman stories, this places the story somewhere between the late 25th and mid-26th centuries, with most fan theories leaning towards the later date. This is probably shortly before the founding of the original Earth Empire.
It takes place on the planet Telos, a few weeks' travel from Earth. Given the date, this most likely places it in our own galaxy (although one of the audios will later contradict this), but in the relatively unexplored fringes beyond the edge of human colonisation, perhaps even on the opposite side of the galactic nucleus from Earth.
Setting
There is relatively little we can say about Telos as a planet. It has an Earthlike gravity and an atmosphere which is breathable, but thinner than that of our own planet. This probably equates to what we would experience on a high mountain on Earth, but not one so high that we need breathing apparatus. Indeed, there isn’t any direct evidence of the thin atmosphere beyond us being told about it, and nobody suffers from altitude sickness despite a fair amount of physical exertion. But then, the time travellers are all physically fit, and the expedition members would already have had time to acclimatise.
That the atmosphere is otherwise Earthlike implies that the planet has photosynthetic life, but none is in evidence at the landing site. This is the first of many “quarry worlds” in Doctor Who, with a landscape suspiciously reminiscent of a gravel pit in Buckinghamshire. It resembles a rocky desert except that there are shallow pools of water on the ground, implying a reasonable degree of rainfall. Absent actual quarrying, we would expect at least some vegetation to have taken hold, especially given that it has been five hundred years since anyone visited.
The most scientifically plausible explanation for this is that photosynthetic life does exist on Telos but has not yet evolved to survive on dry land, or perhaps has reached the shore but not penetrated far inland. Whether this would be accompanied by a rich Cambrian-style aquatic fauna or be purely microscopic is a matter of taste since, of course, we never see the world’s seas.
A significant point is that Parry claims Telos is the original home of the Cybermen, despite this clearly being Mondas in The Tenth Planet. As you might imagine, there have been several fan theories to explain this discrepancy, and they fall into three broad categories. Perhaps the least popular these days is the idea that Parry is correct, and Mondas is a later colony, a position that arguably undercuts some of the message of The Tenth Planet, and is also difficult to fit with the Sixth Doctor story Attack of the Cybermen.
A second theory holds that the opposite is true, with Telos being a colony of Mondas established either before or after the destruction of that world. Parry, it is assumed, is either wrong or is referring to the origin point of Cyber attacks around the time of The Moonbase (which has Cybermen that look Telosian) rather than their original homeworld. The modern series, however, has the Doctor explicitly espouse the third theory, that Cybermen evolved independently on both worlds, with the Telosians being aware of Mondas but not directly connected with it.
For our purposes, this has some bearing on the habitability of Telos. If it’s a colony world of Mondas, then there is no reason to suppose that it has native advanced life, supporting the bleak view of it that we see. But if the Telosians are the natives of the world, then there must be some land-based animals and plants and, for that matter, extensive ruins of the former civilisation somewhere.
We could handwave that away, perhaps suggesting that the Cybermen destroyed all other life, including the plants. Otherwise, we can either ignore the pools of water and say that this is, indeed, a desert, or ignore the desolation and say that, yes, in five centuries, some wilderness has grown back around the tomb – although perhaps only scrubby chaparral rather than a dense forest.
The daytime temperature is sufficient for the expedition members to be walking about in light clothing without any particular protection, but it gets cold enough at night that they are reluctant to stay outdoors. This suggests icy conditions, especially since they have brought cold-weather clothing with them despite not knowing they would need it in the Tomb. The thin atmosphere, unable to trap as much heat as our own, is likely a factor here. Although we don’t see much evidence of them, it is also possible that there are high winds at times, increasing the chill.
This brings us to the Tomb itself. The entrance is concealed beneath a rockfall and consists of heavy double doors charged with a deadly jolt of electricity. Inside is an entrance chamber that, aside from some tables, contains little except the levers that open the doors leading further inside. These can be operated by following a logical sequence that we are assured is difficult to work out, although presumably trial-and-error would get one there eventually, since there do not seem to be any consequences for making mistakes.
It is lit by what is described as an “alpha meson phosphor”, which we’re told involves a layer of barium being bombarded by cosmic rays. In reality, this seems unlikely to create enough steady illumination to be of much use, but the basic idea is that the ceiling itself emits a steady light without the need for external power. There may be various ways to create a similar effect in specific sci-fi universes, or we can replace it with something more mundane, as it makes little practical difference.
The Tomb consists of two levels. The upper level contains the entrance chamber and at least two other rooms, a weapons testing range and a ‘revitalisation chamber’ that seems to be analogous to a medical centre. It’s hard to imagine that there are not other rooms as well, and we would almost certainly want to add some – complete with more logic puzzles and potential traps – to really get the ‘tomb raider’ feel. Plausible examples include workshops, communications and sensor suites, computer banks, storerooms of various kinds, and perhaps even a small vehicle bay. The Cybermen want to expand and conquer, and they aren’t going to get a good start with just the little we see.
The lower level is accessed through a hatch opened by a more complicated logic puzzle than the regular doors. This contains the “Tomb” proper – in reality, a cryogenic vault for suspended animation. There are clearly corridors between it and the ladder down from the hatch, however, which suggests other rooms down here as well, or there would be little point in having them. These other rooms might include the Tomb’s power supply and automated equipment to maintain the vaults. This may also be where the cybermats are made (and see this post for some speculation as to what a cybermat might actually be).
As shown, the Tomb contains just twelve regular Cybermen plus their controller. We may wish to change this depending on the needs of a particular game; if not, it seems likely that there must be other tombs elsewhere on the planet waiting for a signal to be awakened.
Scenario
This is an easy scenario to have PCs become involved in, since the basis is an expedition to a mysterious and potentially hostile planet. In a one-off scenario, the PCs are the expedition members, taking the place of Parry and at least part of his team. In an ongoing campaign, if they have a spaceship, they take the place of Hopper, getting the expedition to Telos and probably also providing security backup.
In the serial, the expedition has ten members, although a licensed audio adventure that expands the story adds an engineer who stays on the ship, and so doesn’t meet the time travellers. We probably won’t need that many NPCs in a game, since the PCs will be taking on some of the roles, and, if an established PC party is providing the ship, that may enforce a limit anyway.
What that limit is depends on the setting, and what other things the PC party tends to get up to. In Traveller, for instance, a Far Trader has ten passenger cabins, so it’s easily large enough. There’s also a case to be made that, especially in a one-off campaign, a Type-L laboratory ship is the most plausible design for this kind of expedition… in this case, at least some crew would have to stay on board anyway, so that only a limited complement would go down to the surface in the pinnace.
At the other extreme, something like the Millennium Falcon would be more of a problem without modification – as a cargo ship, it’s great for carrying a single party of PCs, but not so much a large number of passengers.
Having said which, there are only two members of the expedition that we need to keep as NPCs. Others may be useful as redshirts, or to fill a skill gap, but without Klieg and Kaftan, we don’t have much of a plot. In a typical setup, Kaftan is, of course, the party’s patron, which may require some hard decisions if they only get paid if she survives.
The basic idea of ‘exploring an ancient underground ruin’ is almost as common in space opera as it is in fantasy. Many science fiction RPG settings include a predecessor race that left behind ruins and ancient artefacts for doughty adventurers to explore. Most can’t directly fill the role of the Cybermen, especially since they are supposed to come alive again, but one could imagine some other aliens having taken over one of their bases.
In Traveller, for example, the expedition could be looking to explore a previously unknown Ancient ruin hinted at in some old records that have only recently come to light. Unbeknownst to them, a different, and more hostile, alien race got there long ago, and used the TL16+ improved cryosleep chambers to hide before springing out on an unsuspecting universe centuries later. Since the Ancient ruin was previously unknown, it could be on almost any low-population or barren planet, and our only requirement is to figure out who the Cybermen stand-ins are.
Star Trek is also replete with ancient races, and archaeological expeditions have occasionally turned up in the various television series, so the concept works well there, too. Here, the race is likely already known, if presumed extinct and largely mysterious. While the preserved warriors could be from that race, to hew closer to the original, they may have been replaced by the Borg, using regeneration alcoves instead of cryosleep chambers. In this case, perhaps the lost civilisation lacked the resources to develop interstellar travel, forcing the Borg into hibernation while they await somebody with a ship that they can take over – much the same as the Cybermen’s plan in the original, albeit with a different starting point.
Either way, we merely need Starfleet to be ferrying some unscrupulous explorer to the newly discovered site, and we’re there, with the ship’s own science officers leading the away team that will open the Tomb. In this instance, the replacements for Kaftan and Klieg are probably from outside the organisation, although this might be harder to justify in, say, Stargate SG-1 (which fits well in other respects), especially if it’s unusual for NPCs to accompany the party.
One could also imagine a post-apocalyptic planet-hopping campaign, where the ‘ancients’ are, in fact, a fallen human civilisation. The PCs find a facility with apparent survivors in cryogenic suspension, only to discover that this particular lost colony had cyber-converted to remain alive…
Knowing little else about Telos beyond its absence of current inhabitants, other stories set on the world would inevitably tie in to the themes of this one. It seems unlikely that the entire Cyber civilisation on the planet was reduced to just thirteen people before it entered the Tombs, which suggests that there are more elsewhere, providing a backup in case this one fails. True, there can’t be a huge number, or there would have been no need to retreat until the outside galaxy had (hopefully) forgotten about them, but it makes sense for there to be at least some.
If Telos is the original home of the Cybermen, then there must also be other, older, ruins built by their organic predecessors. An expedition might wish to explore these, perhaps to gain knowledge about the race after it has already resurfaced elsewhere. Since the Telosians would have to have evolved from something, this version of the world would be, at least in some places, less barren, with the possibility of dangerous wild animals roaming long-abandoned city streets in addition to whatever technological dangers were left behind.
All of this ignores the Cryons, another Telosian race introduced much later in the show’s run. They will add a significant new perspective on the world, but, for the moment, I am just looking at what is portrayed here and can be inferred from it. A couple of the licensed audios have also followed up on Tomb of the Cybermen, dealing with aspects of its remnant technology, including one that directly follows on from the story with a cybermat sneaking onto Hopper’s vessel and creating a scenario not unlike that of Alien.
Rules
It is difficult to precisely define the tech level of the human society in this story beyond the fact that they have efficient interstellar travel. This is either TL 9 or 10 in GURPS, 6 or 7 in Doctors and Daleks and anything from 11 to 13 in Traveller. Assuming that it is listed as uninhabited, the UWP for Telos would be something like E-857000-0.
The purpose of the logic puzzles granting access to the interior of the Tomb and, to a lesser extent, the electrification of the entrance, is to ensure that whoever wakes the Cybermen is sufficiently advanced for them to make use of. In this light, we could replace them with something that requires equipment of a specific tech level to open, such as being based on an exotic form of energy or needing a computer of a given complexity.
On the other hand, in many styles of play, we might want to give the players an actual puzzle to solve, although possibly one with consequences for failure, unless it would take an unfeasibly long time to beat by simple trial and error. If we do want to abstract the original, however, it’s just a difficult Intelligence roll, or Mathematics skill, if such a thing exists in the game system.
Two other features are of note. First, there is the hypnotic pattern on the wall of the weapons testing room. Supposedly, this is just a target that, whether by accident or design, happens to confuse regular humanoid beings. This is easy enough to simulate, and the difficulty of the roll to resist it does not seem especially hard, at least if it doesn’t take you by surprise. Robots would presumably be immune, as would any race that doesn’t rely on regular vision (a rarity in most SF RPGs) or that has a particularly alien brain architecture, such as Hivers. Although it isn’t actually a psionic effect, being resistant to such things would probably also help, which would be good news, for example, for Jedi.
The second feature is the cyber-conversion. The Tomb includes the facilities for this process, apparently somewhere that we don’t see on the lower level, but, at least in the TV serial, the Cybermen don’t have the time to complete the process. They do, however, use it to covertly take over Toberman and control him at a distance, perhaps through an implanted radio chip.
This might be reversible given advanced medical technology, and it’s clearly imperfect, as Toberman successfully resists it after a traumatic emotional blow. In addition to the mind control, it also seems to boost the Strength of the subject, perhaps by granting them “hysterical strength” rather than by directly enhancing the muscles. In 5E, for instance, this could be equivalent to a Barbarian’s Rage.
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