User:MrThermomanPreacher/Sandbox/The Master's fourteenth incarnation

The death of the Master's fourteenth incarnation was acknowledged by Missy, herself a product of the Master's eighteenth death, on her Spacebook profile. (PROSE: Girl Power!)

A Decaying Master

The decaying Master. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)

According to Missy and the Thirteenth Doctor, the Master ended up in his rotting, lich-like state when he attempted to regenerate "one time too many" past the twelve-regeneration limit. (PROSE: Meet Missy!, The Doctor vs the Master) Indeed, it was known that a Time Lord's final incarnation could still possess regenerative energy (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan) and could even initiate a thirteenth regeneration, thought it was understood that this would result in the death of the Time Lord in question. (TV: The Twin Dilemma)

Though the Fourth Doctor thwarted the Master's attempt to use the Eye of Harmony to completely regenerate himself, which would have destroyed Gallifrey, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) the Master was able to partially heal himself, (AUDIO: Trail of the White Worm) and eventually came to possess the body of the Trakenite Tremas. (TV: The Keeper of Traken)

Behind the scenes

Invalid sources

"A new body, at last." (TV: The Keeper of Traken)

The original second volume of The Doctor Who Programme Guide (1981) stated that the Decayed Master had used Tremas' body for his "thirteenth regeneration", implicitly designating the resulting "Tremas Master" as the Master's fourteenth incarnation. This would be contradicted in The Five Doctors, in which the Master admits to the Third Doctor that his new appearance is "not exactly" a regeneration.

The behind the scenes book A Celebration (1983) had a feature entitled The Two Regenerations of the Master, also referring to The Two Faces of the Master, namely the Delgado Master and the Ainley Master. From a production standpoint, Delgado was identified as the "first Master", whilst Ainley was designated as both the "second incarnation" and the "second regeneration" of the Master, though the feature does also acknowledge the interim "twelfth and final regeneration" portrayed by Peter Pratt and Geoffrey Beevers.

The Doctor Who Role Playing Game by FASA, which admits to taking liberties with the source material in its opening pages, gives a rundown of the Master's first thirteen incarnations in "The Master" supplement book, which was similar to (but not entirely consistent with) the in-universe biography given for the Master in FASA's own CIA File Extracts.

The Master assumed what was identified as his fourteenth incarnation when his decaying, thirteenth body possessed the body of Tremas. This new form was not unlike his earlier appearance but appeared younger with dark brown hair. An attractive man who appeared middle-aged when in reality he was over 900 years old, the Master had an average height and build and was distinguished by his satanic beard and grey eyes whilst wearing a black tunic and gloves. As this body was not Gallifreyan, the Master lacked the natural ability to regenerate, however, exposure to the Numismaton Gas of the planet Sarn gave the Master considerable powers which included the ability to re-trigger a life cycle of regenerations in his stolen body. Escaping his fiery death, the Master regenerated into a fifteenth incarnation with a form identical to that of his previous incarnation.

Other matters

In 2023, a fan-made infographic of the Master's incarnations which identified the Reborn Master as played by Alex Macqueen as the "Fourteenth Master", between the Decayed Master/the Tremas Master/the Bruce Master and the War Master, was retweeted by the official Big Finish Productions Twitter account, who compared the character profiles to "new Weetabix cards".