Where & When
The story is near-contemporary, although exactly how near is ambiguous; Travers implies that it’s the mid 1970s, while every other indication places it no more than a year into the future, in early 1969. It takes place in London, almost entirely within the tunnels and stations of the Underground train system.
Setting
With many stories set in the present day, it is possible to move them to any other country in the developed world with little adaptation. This keeps the contrast of the alien with the familiar, which is often a key theme of contemporary Doctor Who stories, if not necessarily an essential one. The Web of Fear, however, is unusual in that there are only a limited number of cities around the world in which it could work without drastic alterations.
The key requirement is that, not only should there be an underground rapid transit system, but that it should be extensive enough to give a sense of the Intelligence closing in, and plenty of options for routes that the PCs could take as they try to navigate it. This cuts out not only cities such as Chicago, where the urban transit system is elevated, but also the likes of Sydney, where the underground is basically just one line.
Having said which, while London has perhaps the most extensive such system in the world, there are plenty of others that are perfectly adequate for our purposes. Examples include Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, and New York, any of which might be more familiar to players from the appropriate countries. One man’s “yeti on the loo at Tooting Bec” may be another’s “sasquatch on the mezzanine at 34th Street”.
In addition to real-world cities, it should also be easy to adapt the story to most science fiction settings. The only real requirement is a planet with at least one city large enough to host an underground transit system, and the technology to do so. The London Underground was first built at the end of the 19th century, so even the latter is not much of an obstacle. So long as the tunnels are traversable on foot with the power off, it doesn’t matter if the trains/transit capsules/etc are powered by electricity, diesel, or gravitics. Indeed, given the robotic nature of the threat, even a steampunk setting would probably work.
In the case of fantasy, unless there is some technological wizardry going on (and sky-ships are a common trope, but magical underground trains perhaps less so), a direct comparison probably won’t work. But, since the story is about exploring a series of subterranean tunnels, large sewers under a city would not only work but are plentiful in such settings.
Regardless, we are likely to want to use a map of the relevant system as a game prop, since this would obviously be relevant and should be easy to acquire for the real-world versions. In the case of the London Underground map, there are a couple of points to be made that might not be instantly obvious.
Firstly, unlike the official map of the New York Subway, but like that of (say) the Paris Metro, the London Underground map is representational but not geographical. It shows the sequence that stops are in, and their approximate directions, but, in the interests of clarity, it does not give any indication of the real distances between stations, and lines are shown as if they are straight when they generally have at least some curves in them. So don’t take it too literally.
A second point is that, unsurprisingly, the layout of the Underground has changed since 1968. Most of the changes are in the outer sections, which aren’t relevant to the story, and none of them would affect the plot as written, but if we’re going to stick to the original, there are still some to bear in mind. For example, the section of the Victoria Line south of Warren Street hadn’t opened when the serial was made and isn’t shown on the army’s map board. (Although it had likely been dug, and so was presumably accessible to somebody walking about in the tunnels).
Several stations are mentioned in the story, and even more are named on the board. While PCs may well travel through some not shown in the serial, either transiting between others or because they have taken a different route, five are of particular significance.
The TARDIS arrives at Covent Garden tube station, which lies a short distance down a side road off the market of the same name. Which, for what it’s worth, is also the location of the Inferno Club in The War Machines. It is a regular stop on the Piccadilly Line, with two platforms, one for each direction, which are enclosed in separate tunnels, so that it isn’t possible to see one platform from the other.
Unusually, for reasons of space, Covent Garden was never fitted with escalators, with four lifts being used to access the platforms from the ground-level ticket hall. In the story, the power to the electric rail lines has been cut, and that to the lifts may have been as well. If so, the only way to go up or down is using a spiral staircase with 194 steps, which is hardly convenient; it’s intended more as an emergency exit than anything else, although it’s perfectly possible (if a little exhausting) to use it at other times.
Travelling down the tunnels, it would only be 260 metres (280 yards) southwest to Leicester Square, and this is the route that the characters take in the story, before turning south to Charing Cross. In the opposite direction, it’s about twice that distance to Holborn, an interchange between the Piccadilly and Central lines.
Holborn station does not feature directly in the story, but it is important to the plot more widely. (Those unfamiliar with London may wish to note that the ‘l’ is silent). It’s an interchange between the Piccadilly and Central Lines, with four platforms in use today, and two further platforms connecting to a dead-end branch to Aldwych that closed in 1994. In the story, it is the point that the army uses to deliver equipment and personnel to its underground headquarters, perhaps because it’s relatively easy to access from above ground. Without power, it’s likely also easier to carry materiel down the escalators at Holborn than it would be to deliver it directly to the station housing the headquarters. The army has laid a telephone line from it to Goodge Street, so there’s probably a manned station there to help receive the deliveries and new arrivals.
Early on in the story, the army plans to blow up the tunnel at Charing Cross station, but are thwarted by the yeti. If we want to keep this element in some form, it may be worth noting that the station in the story isn’t the one on the modern Tube map. This is because it was renamed ‘Embankment’ in 1974 and, crucially for the story, is on the District and Circle lines as well as on Bakerloo and Northern. As a major interchange, it has six platforms, and it is probably one of the ones carrying District and Circle trains that the army is trying to destroy. These are only a short way beneath ground level, with the other four platforms being at a deeper level.
The station referred to as ‘Charing Cross’ on the modern map was created by knocking through a pedestrian footpath between Trafalgar Square (on Bakerloo) and Strand (on Northern), merging them into a single station, which was then renamed. Prior to 1974, these were still two separate stations, and you would not have reached the interchange until what is now Embankment.
The army has set up its temporary headquarters at Goodge Street station. This is on the Northern line between Tottenham Court Road and Warren Street and, not being an interchange, has just two platforms. Like Covent Garden, it has no escalators, using lifts to access the platforms. It too has a steep spiral staircase for use as a backup, although, at 134 steps, it isn’t quite as long a climb.
Significantly, there is a set of subterranean rooms underneath the station proper. These were originally intended as an air raid shelter in WWII, and were subsequently adapted for use as a military command post and signals station. While they have remained unused since 1956, the rooms are still there today, and are the reason why Goodge Street is being used as the military headquarters in the story. The serial shows a briefing room with communications equipment, a ready room, a munitions store and the room taken over as a laboratory by Travers, but they are much more extensive than this, a maze of rooms clustering around two two-story cylindrical chambers. The base has its own ground-level entrance in addition to (at least in the serial) access to the station.
As for what’s happening above, we are told that central London has been evacuated. The first sign of trouble was a strange mist appearing in the Kensington area of west London, somewhere south of Hyde Park. The mist absorbs all radio waves (in the modern day, this would include cell phone signals) and people who enter it often disappear, presumably because they are attacked by yeti. The mist reaches the Underground at South Kensington tube station on the second day, and a day after that, thick mats of fungus start appearing in the tunnels. It’s another two days before anyone survives to report a yeti sighting, and we can assume that the evacuation order is given shortly thereafter.
It later becomes clear that the mist doesn’t cover central London itself, perhaps being restricted by the growth of the fungus. For the first three weeks, the fungus is restricted to the western half of the Circle Line, although a much wider area has been shut down for safety reasons. It starts growing again shortly after the TARDIS arrives, filling up the Circle Line before advancing inwards.
At one point, we are given an estimate of the speed of the growth; it takes 30 minutes to travel from Notting Hill Gate to Lancaster Gate, a distance of around 1.5 km (just under a mile). So that’s an average of approximately 3 km/h (1.8 mph). Which is easy enough to outrun, at least assuming the speed is constant and there aren’t sudden surges every now and then. The risk is more from it blocking off potential exit routes, given that even crawling through the web around it is a death sentence.
We can also briefly note the makeup of the army unit employed to deal with the reports of yeti. This is headed by a colonel, with a captain as second-in-command. In addition, there is a staff sergeant (the equivalent of a “sergeant 1st class” in the US Army), and at least two corporals and fourteen soldiers. The latter excludes anyone who might have died off-screen before we meet them, or who never reaches the site at all, as well as Evans, who isn’t part of the main team. These details may, of course, vary depending on the needs of a wider campaign, especially if we want to give more focus to the PCs.
The final showdown takes place at Piccadilly Circus. This is another 4-platform interchange, but the key feature is the circular ticket hall and concourse lying directly underneath the public space where several streets join up above. This, the Circus proper, is arguably the closest thing in London to Times Square in New York; its role as the “centre” of modern London is likely why it was chosen as the last holdout in the story.
We can also briefly mention the route used above ground in the ill-fated attempt to secure the TARDIS. The army squad leaves Goodge Street by one of the surface exits and then heads south along Tottenham Court Road, New Oxford Street, and Shaftesbury Avenue to reach Neil Street, where the battle takes place. Although it makes little practical difference in the absence of any traffic, it may still be worth noting that much of Neil Street is a narrow one-way lane, and cobbled rather than paved; the final section is fully pedestrianised.
A key feature of the plot is that the Intelligence is wrapping its influence around central London by taking over the Circle Line, which, as its name implies, forms a single loop around the heart of the city. There isn’t anything directly equivalent in most other underground transit systems, but it should be possible to come up with an equivalent route. In New York, for example, a similar route could enclose much of southern Manhattan, including both Times Square and City Hall. The area in London is similarly extensive, including the city’s main shopping districts and parks, government centres including Downing Street, much of the financial district, and tourist attractions such as Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace. Westminster Palace, whose clock tower is perhaps the most iconic location in London, is just outside the perimeter, but by such a short distance that it must surely be affected.
Scenario
As usual with base-under-siege stories, the simplest solution to running this as a one-off is to have the PCs be the staff at the base. In this case, however, it means they are also the team sent in to solve the crisis in the first place, something that will also fit many ongoing campaigns. True, in a modern or sci-fi setting, given the population that the city has to have in order for the scenario to work, it is unlikely that the authorities will hire a random group of passing traders to solve their problem for them; they will send in the army or its equivalent. But this needn’t necessarily be a problem.
Firstly, in some campaigns, the PCs will represent some kind of authority. A Space Patrol or Starfleet might reasonably be expected to step in and help when something out of the ordinary happens, especially if it involves technology not widely available on the planet in question. And, of course, if it is a fantasy game, then the problem disappears; hiring random passing adventurers to solve the menace rising from your underground catacombs is so in-genre that nobody would bat an eyelid. That’s how most fantasy cities deal with their problems.
But even this isn’t necessary here. A feature of the serial is the large number of ‘redshirts’ in it, so you may want to have expendable NPCs alongside the player characters. And that’s besides the mystery of which one of them might secretly be aiding the Intelligence by placing the figurines. In short, the PCs aren’t going to be alone, so they can easily be the outside operators called in for their expertise, assisting the army (or whoever). Here, they may well be taking the place of Travers and Anne, and have to negotiate dealing with the equivalents of Captain Wright and the Colonel as their nominal superiors.
This makes particular sense if this is being run as a sequel to a scenario based on The Abominable Snowmen. After all, in that case, it will be hard to argue that the PCs really aren’t the best experts on robot yeti available.
Once the PCs are on site, however, the story already suits a typical scenario format. The PCs have been hired to clear a problem out of the Underground/subway system and have to figure out how to do so while being menaced by robot yeti. As time passes, the fungus spreads, advancing around the Circle Line and, once it has met up at the far end (Monument station) and surrounded the PCs and their redshirt allies, it starts moving inwards on their base of operations and the most central parts of the network.
The PCs are up against a ticking countdown.
While this is going on, one of the NPC soldiers (or equivalent) is planting figurines to attract the yeti. At some point, we probably want an equivalent of the big action scene on Neil Street. In a game, there may be less reason for this, although individual combats within the tunnels are much easier to justify and may suffice. One way to force the characters to make a dash for it above ground is for them to come across some trapped civilians, and have to fight to get them to safety, perhaps before the circle of subterranean fungus closes up.
As with The Abominable Snowmen, the nature of the Great Intelligence is an important question. The options I cited there generally remain, including that it might be Yog-Sothoth. If we’re following on from that prior adventure, we’ll probably want less of a time gap than the 30 years in the TV serial, but the basic idea of somebody having recovered a control sphere – possibly from a yeti that got lost before the PCs originally turned up – should work well enough. As in the original, the scenes with Silverstein take place before the scenario proper begins, although they could be played out as a teaser scene with temporary expendable PCs, to explain how things got started.
However, this time around, the setting is more easily adapted to traditional space opera, in the mode of Traveller. Here, we replace the Intelligence with a rogue AI or have the fungus itself be an alien invader in the style of the protomolecule from The Expanse. We just need to either explain the killer robots or come up with a suitable replacement.
We probably want to have some equivalent of the scenes where Travers (and later Staff Arnold) acts as the mouthpiece of the Intelligence. It doesn’t have to be Travers’ direct stand-in, however, who may, in any event, be a PC; it can just be an NPC that the players have built a rapport with. Indeed, we may want to have a range of options on hand, especially if we want to include the scene where the yeti break into the base to capture him, since it’s always possible that the PCs might thwart that.
In the original story, the Intelligence’s objective is to drain the Doctor of his memories, as part of a longer-term plan to conquer/absorb/consume the Earth. In a game, that’s less likely to make sense, so we could just go with the conquest part, with the implication of the destruction of all humanoid life (and possibly just about everything else organic) rather than a more traditional takeover.
The key element here is the pyramid that the Intelligence is using as its anchor to our reality, even if it isn’t a memory-draining device. Destroy that, along with any remaining yeti, and the PCs have won. This should happen in a key central location. Times Square subway station is the obvious choice in New York, while Opéra might fit in Paris. The harder question to answer may be why this device isn’t somewhere safer, perhaps buried inside the fungus.
While it makes sense in the original mind-draining plot, if we’re not using that, we’ll have to come up with some other reason that the Intelligence wants to surround its most important asset with the fungus but not actually absorb it. It may send out a signal that the radio-absorbing fungus would block, for instance. Or the fungus emits something that has to be focused on a central point like the eye of a storm. In a science-fiction game set off Earth, there may be some pre-existing piece of technology at the location that it needs to subvert.
Using the setting of the London Underground for other stories is also something that could work well. Even if the rails aren’t deactivated, it’s at least possible to negotiate the warren of tunnels using maintenance access – although, admittedly, it would be rather dangerous. But whether they’ve been made safe or not, it’s easy to imagine some other monster being down there, preying on passengers or sneaking up above ground at night to prey on humans. (Indeed, one of the Torchwood audios uses this premise, with the weevils as the threat).
In a form of gaming originally based on adventurers heading into subterranean tunnels to fight monsters, the London Underground is a gift for adapting that premise to the present day, the 20th or late 19th centuries, or even the near future. Similar ideas could work in any science fiction setting, as well as being particularly effective in Call of Cthulhu or other horror gaming.
As for the idea of an army unit being sent to fight extraterrestrial threats to the Earth… well, we’ll be returning to that.
Rules
The yeti or their stand-ins will, of course, need stat blocks, but they’re basically just robots, so this should be easy enough to define. We can note that they are supposed to be improved from the version in The Abominable Snowmen, and, indeed, they will have to be if they are to cope with the full force of an army unit rather than a few passing mountaineers and some monks.
We don’t expect the PCs to be controlled by the Intelligence, and the ‘traitor’ has already been subverted when the story starts (or he couldn’t plant the figurines), so we don’t really need to define how that works in rules terms. The figurines themselves are just homing devices, and the fact that the mist blocks radio signals is just a statement, especially as it doesn’t seem to do anything else beyond obscuring vision.
The fungus is more of a menace. It’s large enough to smother anyone falling into it, and we will want to consider how that might work. The web that surrounds it can emit a sonic attack when damaged, and we’ll want to include damage resistances and/or huge amounts of hit points to explain why you can’t just blast it apart, and how it tamps down explosives. We also know that the web can be deadly if it envelops somebody. Judging by the injuries that Staff Arnold sustains while travelling through it, this may best be classified as an acid attack, or at least have similar effects.
While the fungus moves slowly enough to easily run away from, it can be more menacing if the PCs are fighting yeti in a partially enclosed area while it advances, limiting their ability to escape. For instance, in 5E, we could specify that it has a Speed of 1D3-1, wiping that many rows of squares off the combat map each turn until the encounter is over.
One thing we do need are stats for the web guns. While relatively short-range, they have a spray effect and so won’t require much aiming. While the web has other effects, such as stopping explosives, if we just look at the damage it inflicts, the weapons could be as follows:
5E
Damage Weight Properties
1d10 acid 5 lb. Range (10/30), capacity (10)
Savage Worlds
Range Damage AP RoF Shots Min ST Weight
5/10/20 1-3d6 - 1 10 d4 5
Star Wars (FF)
Skill Dam Crit Range Encum HP Special
Ranged (lt) 7 3 Medium 2 3 Vicious 1
GURPS
Damage Acc Range Weight RoF Shots ST Bulk Rcl
5d burn 3 5/20 5 1 10 9 -3 1
BRP
Base Dmg Attk Special Range Hnds HP S/D Mal Ammo Enc
25% 2D6 1 - 5 1 10 3/7 00 10 1.5
No comments:
Post a Comment