Season 15: Episodes 14-15 (Season Finale!)

Episode 14: The Shadow of Death

Lady Penelope reluctantly travels to Gallifrey to bring the estranged Narvin home and discuss the War Lords situation with the Powers That Be… But what should have been a brief (if begrudging) diplomatic visit soon turns into something far more sinister. The shadow of death is hanging over the Time Lords… and the Rani seems to have taken complete control!

Episode 15: Memento Mori

The shadow of death hangs over Gallifrey… As the recently returned Narvin and the members of the Omega Lodge carry out a coup, Penelope uncovers the hidden power behind the Rani’s political intrigue and morphic manipulations – in the person of the (alternate) Master himself, who has once again managed to cheat death. Can the Time Lady beat him at his own game?

 

It was a great two-part finale, with quite a few moments of intense emotion…  Its theme obviously highlighted the season title (“Regenerations”), with a Master-controlled Rani having managed to rob the Time Lords’ remaining regenerations, suddenly putting them face to face with the spectre of their own mortality and bringing Gallifreyan society to a state of angst-fueled paralysis.

 

This season finale also allowed us to tie up several ongoing narrative threads regarding the relationships between the Time Lords of Gallifrey and the Time Lords of Avalon, including Lady Penelope’s outspoken hostility toward Gallifrey, Susan’s ambivalent loyalties and the Doctor’s own status as an eternal renegade…

 

It ended with a “liberated” Gallifrey, thanks to the efforts of Penelope (who will probably never come back to the place...), a nicely plotted coup by Narvin and the Doctor’s own scientific triumph – yes, he did manage to “reverse the polarity” on the Rani’s infernal device and restore the stolen lives of (most of) his former compatriots, before declining the Council’s offer of rulership and flying back to Avalon with Penelope.

THE END - for now!  See you in a few months for Season 16!

Season 15, Episode 13

Episode 13: A Murder in Fiction

Where could Lady Penelope meet Hercule Poirot – as well as three other, somewhat less famous French-speaking master sleuths Jules Poiret, Inspector Hanaud and Hercule Popeau?  Well, in the Land of Fiction of course!  A meta-whodunnit, also featuring Jeeves, Professor X, Socrates the Bulldog (don’t ask), the Butler (of course)… and Agatha Christie herself!

The Land of Fiction was another Second Doctor setting I've been wanting to explore for quite some time - and oddly enough, this episode came right after the one with the Warlords...

As usual, I used my own take on the setting - but this time reinventing it took me quite some time, which is why I didn't run a Land of Fiction-based episode before. I guess I was waiting for the right combination of plot, characters and background... and it just fell into place a few days ago!  

See HERE (on our beloved Doctor Who RPG forum) for a more detailed analysis of my alternate version of the Land of Fiction. 

Some after-play notes: we had a grand time!  During the first half or so of the scenario, Lady Penelope was (understandably) sure she was trapped into some kind of fiendish mind game created by the Marquis de Carabas (see a few episodes ago...), the Toymaker or some similar twisted "playful" entity... and her insistence on derailing the intended plot made the scenario even more comedic and wackier in actual play and also forced (or allowed ?) me to improvise a lot, using various twists of plot, ellipses and other narrative devices as active forces in the story itself, making the whole "Land of Fiction" theme even more relevant.

For example: the plot (as you might have guessed) revolved around the murder of Hercule Poirot, complete with the usual assortment of usual suspects, cryptic clues, hidden agendas, dissonant alibis and mutual accusations. Initially, Poirot was supposed to be found murdered in the library, where he had spent the best part of the night secretly looking for clues... but right from the start, Penelope stated: "A library?  Great!  Murders always take place in libraries!  I'll stay in the library and see what happens..."  So I had to hastily change the intended march of events so that Poirot's murder could take place outside of her sight and this was just one instance of our Time Lady's deliberate plot-jacking. 

Of course, making things happen-as-planned ANYWAY felt unashamedly forced - and would have been quite unsatisfactory in a standard scenario (I usually try to avoid railroading and give the player as much as influence as possible on the unfolding of the plot - something which is probably easier with a single player than with a group)... but since we WERE in the Land of Fiction, such shows of Arbitrary Narrative Force actually enhanced the whole feel of the story and really gave the feeling that Fiction and Reality definitely operated under different rules (no mean feat since any RPG adventure is actually a form of Fiction but I won't go all meta on you...). 

When the story entered its Resolution stage, Penelope had figured out that the true culprit was none other than Agatha Christie, who was fed up with her character (she actually loathed Poirot, whom she once described in an interview as "a little creep")... and the only thing she could do to resurrect Poirot (who had not yet lived some of his greatest adventures) was to persuade the author herself to do so. I had counted on Sylvie's usual flair for emotional dialogue and I can only say that she surpassed herself here. 

She delivered an amazing speech, which felt like a rehearsed and perfectly delivered scene from a play or movie. She spoke about the "Reichenbach precedent" and Conan Doyle's decision to resurrect Holmes, about Molière's "Don Juan", who surpassed all the previous incarnations of the character and proved that imitation could actually spawn literary chefs d'oeuvre (this was about the legitimacy of Poirot as an original character since, as you may know, he was obviously based on previously existing - and now quite forgotten - fictional detectives: Inspector Hanaud, Jules Poiret and the ludicrously-named Hercule Popeau), about Jorge Luis Borges and his labyrnthine libraries... and most of all, she spoke about Poirot as a character, a very moving defence of the Belgian master sleuth's idiosyncrasies, which hid a somewhat darker obsession for justice... 

Well, I was awed. 

See you next week!

 

Season 15, Episode 12

 Episode 12: The Forgotten Foe

Following the discovery of Narvin’s fob watch in the previous episode, Penelope and Gale (the neo-Time Lady formerly known as Ace) are sent on a very delicate mission (let’s call it diplomacy in enemy territory) to the forgotten, more or less time-locked home planet of the War Lords, more than 100 years have passed since the War Games… A tale of secrets and lies.

So I finally got to run a "return of the Warlords" story - I've been wanting to do this for years and it was (at last) the right time to do so. Sylvie and I had just re-watched "The War Games" so we were in the perfect mood for this one. So what happened to the Warlords during the last 100 years?

Well, cut from the rest of the universe by the Time Lords' barriers, they quickly turned their conquering tendencies against one and another and a global plantetwide civil war soon erupted, with weapons of mass destruction ravaging and poisoning most of the surface and the last, victorious faction living in a force-field-protected bastion. In addition to a semi-amnesiac Narvin (a deep infiltration mission gone wrong because of the distorsions created by the Time War), Penelope also discovered a fully grown,clone-daughter of the War Chief - an intriguing new character who will obviously have some significant impact on the season finale (three episodes left!) - wait and see.

 

The Temporal Toybox is Back... AGAIN!

 Hello everyone

Just a quick note to let you know that The Temporal Toybox, my collection of unofficial, optional and alternate rules for the Doctor Who RPG has just regenerated into its sixth edition!

You can access the new/updated/regenerated version from the link on the left of this page or directly from here:

http://storygame.free.fr/TOYBOX.pdf

See you soon for the blurbs of Lady Penelope's latest episodes!

Season 15, Episode 11

Episode 11: Reunion

Following her harrowing encounter with Amekh the Devourer, Penelope decides to take a short holiday with the two Anderson kids on the main island of Shetland, away from all the troubles of time, space and other dimensions. But the past is about to catch up with her, in the most unexpected manner. A tale of (not so) old memories and (not so) new discoveries…

This was a short episode, entirely based on emotion and interaction (as opposed to action, problem-solving and more adventure-oriented stuff) – the kind of scenario you can only play in one-on-one mode and which give the player a unique opportunity to explore the character’s feelings in play, turn some personal “pages”, etc. We really enjoyed this particular, off-beat episode, which followed a classic three acts sequence.

First act: Tourism.

Penelope and the kids simply enjoy the Shetland setting, hiking around, meeting some locals, etc.  

Second act: Unexpected emotional reunion.

Penelope is contacted by Torchwood Shetland (actually a single individual) because “someone wants to see her”. That someone turned out to be Judith, the little girl from Remembrance of the Daleks and from five episodes (and 55 years) ago – now a woman in her seventies. The reunion scene was very moving, highlighting the differences between time travelers and those who “take the Long Way”. The fact that the two Anderson kids were also “Dalek survivors” added a unique touch to the whole thing.

Third act: Setting things in motion for the next episode.

Contacted by her Torchwood Cardiff friends, Lady Penelope is given a very special artifact which was recently washed away from the dormant Rift – a Time Lord fob watch! Back on Avalon, she takes the ominous item to the Doctor, who confirms that it does indeed contain the memories and regeneration energy from a Time Lord and, thanks to his Matrix backup, later identifies this Time Lord as Narvin*, former right-hand man of President Romana and Celestial Intelligence Agency coordinator, declared “missing in action” during the great Time War. Thanks to his unique psychic abilities, Professor Chronotis managed to access the cache of the stored memories and found the when and where (but not the why) of their extraction – for some reason, Narvin last used his (?) Chameleon Arch some time during the Time War, after arriving on a forgotten, forsaken planet - the War Lords’ home world!  

* A character from the Big Finish Gallifrey audiobook series. 

To be continued…

 

Season 15, Episode 10

Episode 10: The Dark Pyramid

4124 AD. Professor Svenka Lewis has just made the greatest archaeological find of her life: an authentic Osirian pyramid, lost on a cold and lonely planetoid. Will her friend Lady Penelope and the Count of Saint-Germain arrive in time to prevent the reawakening of Amekh the Devourer, acolyte of Sutekh and Eater of Eternity?

 

This was the “Osirian tomb” scenario I’d been wanting to run for quite some time now – but I never seemed to find the right moment to weave it in the ongoing continuity of our series. Basically, it was a “mummy’s curse” story – with a terrifying, life-devouring Osirian as the Monster whose sleep should NOT have been disturbed… 

I was a bit uncertain about how it would actually unfold in actual play… Would the horror movie clichés work in play or would they just feel hollow?  Would I manage to maintain dramatic tension throughout the story, albeit its somewhat über-classic and predictable plotline?  I wanted it to be an ordeal for our heroine – as well as to give her the opportunity to show grace under pressure, save lives and use her own unique assets to defeat the dreadful entity (which she did – but more on this later). 

I had ensured that the emotional / personal side of things would be pretty strong right from the start by involving NPCs with whom Penelope had strong ties or, at least, history: as a connoisseur of all things mystical, the Count of Saint-Germain was the one who absolutely insisted that they explored the Osirian pyramid (a curiosity for which he paid a very heavy prize – see below). As for the archaeological team, it was entirely composed of familiar NPCs: professor Svenka Lewis (whom Penelope first met back in season 7…) and three members of the Anderson family (father, mother, daughter) whom Penelope herself had rescued and brought to New Byzantium in the previous season (see episodes 11-12). This lineup really made the stakes personal for Penelope – not just like rescuing some NPCs you meet for the first time and will never see again afterwards…

So how did it work in actual play?  Well, we had a blast. Right from the start, Penelope’s extreme reluctance to disturb anything Osirian created a very strong tension in the dialogue scenes with Saint-Germain and (once they had go to the accursed planetoid) with professor Lewis. Penelope warned them of the danger in very strong terms but she also understood the necessity to uncover a mystery which could well prove even more dangerous if left uninvestigated… And when all hell broke loose, thanks to her presence of mind, she managed to save all of them from the regenerated Amekh – even the poor Saint-Germain, whose life-energy got heavily drained in the process. The Count eventually regenerated (after only a couple of episodes in his first Time Lord incarnation!), having lost two of his future regenerations in the process. This traumatic experience made him far less adventurous – in fact, he has decided to stop travelling and spend his days in his beloved Braxiatel Collection - “travelling” through books and artefacts exclusively.

Thanks to her resourcefulness and a little help from her TARDIS’ resident ghost-in-the-machine, Penelope defeated the horror (using a cleverly inverted version of the Elixir of Life from the Karn Sisterhood) and trapped its disembodied Ka in her fob watch, before bringing it back to the Doctor, who stored it into yet-another-inescapable dimensional cube.

In the end, our Time Lady (who very wisely refrained from yelling “I told you so!” at the others, even though she had been Right All Along) decided to take the whole Anderson family to the safety of Avalon, where they will live with all the other (but mostly Victorian or Edwardian) temporal refugees. As for professor Svenka Lewis, she brought her back to her native 42^nd century, after some pretty harsh words (“I never want to see you again!”), followed by a less hostile farewell (“Who knows?  Perhaps our paths will cross again…”).

I was really happy at the way things turned out. We had a very dark, dramatic episode full of tension, tough choices and danger – but which also highlighted Penelope’s increasing wisdom (a noticeable trademark of her current regeneration…) and gave her the opportunity to make some unexpected, season-affecting decisions – bringing the Andersons to Avalon. Next episode: Lady Penelope takes the two Anderson kids to 21^st century Earth, to show them how life was on the old planet before mankind took to the stars…

Season 15, Episode 9 (Xmas Special)

Episode 9: A Star in the East

With the obliging (if slightly ironic) help of Lady Penelope, Saint-Germain has decided to solve one of the Great Mysteries in human history and visit the Bethlehem Nativity – he must have answers!  Here comes a truly biblical Christmas Special, featuring a meteorite, shepherds, a newborn baby in a manger, the wrong King Herod and far too many Wise Men!

So, as a departure from our previous Xmas Specials (usually involving snowy winters and, well, a suitably Christmassy atmosphere), and after years of play, I finally decided to tackle the Big Issue of the Christian Nativity – and the newly Time Lord-ified (ouch) Count of Saint-Germain was just the ideal character to suggest such an expedition (remember that the real-life Count spuriously claimed to have personally met Jesus Christ…).

Why the reference to the “wrong King Herod”?  Since Herod the Great (the one who supposedly ordered the Massacre of the Innocents) had actually died in 4 BC, I reasoned that, even with some uncertainty about the dates, this part should actually have been played by his son, the Tetrarch Herod Archealos (who, by the way, had a very short reign and a very interesting end – just check it out).

The aforementioned supernumerary Wise Men (six of them – yes, two sets of them!) were in fact (rival) time-travelling scholars from the 48^th century, whose intervention could have caused a historical disaster but who were eventually rescued from imprisonment (if not worse) and put to good use by Penelope and Saint-Germain’s cunning plan, eventually fulfilling their legendary part (well, at least some of them) in the story. In the end, Penelope and Saint-Germain did briefly met Joseph, Mary and their newborn child – but the mystery (if any) was not solved, leaving history, legend and belief run their courses…

This was a light-hearted episode, with a predominantly comedic atmosphere – but is also had some surprising moments of gravitas. We had a great, completely improvised scene where Penelope and Saint-Germain, two obviously foreign and decidedly mysterious wayfarers having appeared from nowhere, were mistaken for angels (a word which really means “messengers”) in disguise by the shepherds and some citizens of Bethlehem. Penelope also demonstrated great poise and confidence when she took the matters of the time-stranded, bickering Wise Men in her hands (“First, let me begin by telling you that you are all rubbish time-travellers…”) and there were great conversations with Saint-Germain about the responsibilities and risks of time-travelling.

 Next stop: New Byzantium in the 42^nd century – at last!