The Legions of Death (game): Difference between revisions

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=== The Sybil's Prophecy ===
=== The Sybil's Prophecy ===
Back onboard [[the Colonel's TARDIS|the TARDIS]], [[the Colonel]] takes off, only for [[Leora]] to point out that [[Marcus Cornelius Falco|Falco]] has stowed onboard. Falco begs not to be taken home, explaining that when he was a boy, the [[Sybil (The Legions of Death)|Sybil]] of [[Cumae]] predicted that he would one day "see wondrous places and things, things no Emperor would ever see", and he now sees becoming a time-traveller with them as the fulfillment of that destiny. The Colonel is initially tempted to wipe his memory, but Leora talks him out of it, and he reluctantly agrees.  
Back onboard [[the Colonel's TARDIS|the TARDIS]], [[the Colonel]] takes off, only for [[Leora]] to point out that [[Marcus Cornelius Falco|Falco]] has stowed onboard. Falco begs not to be taken home, explaining that when he was a boy, the [[Sybil (The Legions of Death)|Sybil]] of [[Cumae]] predicted that he would one day "see wondrous places and things, things no Emperor would ever see", and he now sees becoming a time-traveller with them as the fulfillment of that destiny. The Colonel is initially tempted to wipe his memory, but Leora talks him out of it, and he reluctantly agrees.  
{{quote|Well, Marcus Cornelius,” Leora said, "now you'll get to see the Sibyl's prophecy fulfilled. You've already seen the grouchiest being inthe known universe, so it's al downhill from here. Welcome aboard!|[[Leora]]}}
{{quote|Well, Marcus Cornelius,” Leora said, "now you'll get to see the Sibyl's prophecy fulfilled. You've already seen the grouchiest being inthe known universe, so it's all downhill from here. Welcome aboard!|[[Leora]]}}


== Characters ==
== Characters ==

Revision as of 14:36, 1 December 2023

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The Legions of Death was the fifth of the seven standalone fiction modules released as books by FASA as tie-ins to The Doctor Who Role Playing Game. The book included a basic Plot Synopsis, as well as more detailed breakdowns of various stages of the adventure (including a prologue and epilogue written in full narrative prose, and scene breakdowns in "The Adventure" and "Gamemaster's Notes"), and background on the various characters and other worldbuilding elements.

As per standard for these stories, the plot was presented as able to support multiple combinations of player characters, including the Third Doctor as well as two other Time Lords: the Colonel and Leora, and their respective companions. These protagonists were pitted against a new regeneration of the War Chief, who was, in this account, depicted as a distinct renegade Time Lord from the Master.

Publisher's summary

The legions were on the march…

…but Rome had never faced an enemy like this one. An evil renegade Time Lord has allied himself with British tribesmen to lure a Roman army — and a Roman Emperor — into a deviously plotted trap. History will be changed and an army of fantaic conquerors loosed upon the Galaxy if a Time Lord and his Companions cannot stop the renegade's sinister plan.

As time runs out, the adventurers race to their final confrontation with The Legions of Death.

Plot

Introductory Story

Romans and Britons.

It's 43 AD, and one of Emperor Claudius's Roman legions,, led by Legate Vespasian, and also including young but valiant Tribune Marcus Cornelius Falco, is debating whether to enter the wooded area known as the Sacred Wood to the local Britons, fearing an ambush. Falco's scouting has instead reported that the Britons are fearful of these Woods, who they believe to be inhabited by a dark god. Vespasian chooses to press on with a small cohort of twenty-five men, but after penetrating deeper into the woods they find themselves paralysed by a hypnotic thrumming sound while, beyond reach, they hear the rest of Falco's forces be with the Britons. Vespasian's agnosticism is further shaken when a tree up ahead splits open to reveal a "sunlit courtyard" within, from which steps out the supposed god of these woods, a malignant man wearing a silvery suit and a golden helmet. Recognising him as Vespasian, the villain mockingly informs him that he is destined to become Emperor someday before making him fall unconscious by changing the frequency of the hypnotic tone.

Temporal Anomaly

The Third Doctor steps out of the TARDIS.

While in flight through the Time Vortex, a TARDIS — either the Third Doctor's ship or the Colonel's own — detects a mysterious temporal anomaly coming from Earth, 43 AD, a pulse-wave which evidences the unauthorised, static presence of an Eye of Harmony-powered TARDIS in this era. Checking the TARDIS's computer files, the time-travellers confirm that there are no High Council- or Celestial Intervention Agency-mandated missions in this era. Either at his own initiative or because they reported the anomaly to a CIA Coordinator, the Time Lord in command of the ship decides to investigate. Unable to pinpoint the exact location of the rogue TARDIS, they can only land within a few miles of the pulse-wave's source, in what turns out to be southwestern Roman Britain, somewhere between Londinium and Camulodunum.

Field of Battle

The TARDIS lands on a battlefield, strewn with the bodies and other debris of the fierce clash between the Fifth Cohort of the Second Legion, where the Romans were eventually overwhelmed by the more numerous Britons. However, they are cornered by a group of fifteen Roman survivors, led by Falco. Though able to persuade them that they pose no threat, the time-travellers cannot prove themselves to be anything more than strange, barbarian travellers, as they find that their TARDIS key no longer works due to the pulse-wave's interference. Thus, they are forced to journey with the Romans until they can put an end to whatever is going on.

Falco's Story

Romans and Britons clash, as summarised by Marcus Cornelius Falco.

As they walk, Falco explains the situation to the travellers. Following the defeat of Cattigern and Caractacus, the Roman army (led by Emperor Claudius and his army commander Aulus Plautius) had been on good course to take Camulodunum when, two days prior, a mysterious new barbarian army began gather ahead of the Roman line of march. Falco and Vespasian's Fifth Cohort was sent ahead as a scouting party, only to be jumped by the Britons; now they are cut off from the main body of the Claudian army, unable to warn them of the danger of what they've discovered: a well-organised force, seemingly greater than Caractacus's army was. When he mentions that "legate Titus Flavius" has already been lost, the time-travellers, who consulted historical reference material onboard the TARDIS before they landed, recognise him as the future Emperor, and realise that a serious divergence from established history is underway.

Player Options

Companions Sandra and Rod are attacked on the way to the Roman camp.

The adventurers must decide what to do: there are two equally-major historical divergences to prevent, namely the Roman army being attacked by the new army, and the abduction of Vespasian in the woods. The "optimum flow" of the adventure is for the adventurers to agree to try and go back to the Roman camp alongside Falco to warn them of the threat, putting off Vespasian's rescue, but other possibilities exist, such as the party getting split up as some attempt to escape. The journey, if they choose to undertake it, can either be done through the forest, or through the marshes, with the former involving more encounters with Briton warriors, and the latter more natural hazards.

Under Compulsion

Rod is subjected to the War Chief's hypnotic process.

If some of the adventurers are captured by Britons on the way to the Roman camp, they are taken directly to the Sacred Wood and into the doorway in the sacred oak tree in its centre. In the depths of what turns out to be the War Chief's TARDIS, they are outfitted by the War Chief with a hypnotic helmet. When they wake up, they find themselves in a completely different adventure, convinced that what happened up to this point was the illusion and they have now pierced through into the "real" plot. The War Chief appears to them as the Third Doctor (whether or not the Doctor had been involved in the adventure up to this point), who explains that they are on the Sontaran-occupied planet of Zintorra, where the Brigadier (or some other trusted companion of the Doctor's if the Brigadier is among the companions who have been captured, naturally) is being held prisoner in the Sontaran camp. In actuality, the War Chief is priming the captives to infiltrate the Roman camp and abduct Emperor Claudius under the guise of "rescueing" the Brig.

In the Roman camp

Eventually, the time-travellers, or whatever fraction of them made it through the arduous journey without death, capture, or otherwise being separated from the group, make it to Emperor Claudius's camp. If they arrive on their own and try to explain the situation directly, they will be captured as spies and questioned by "a specialist in physical persuasion" before the Emperor about the fate of Vespasian's scouting cohort; if they present themselves as barbarian defectors, they are more likely to be listened to calmly, though not necessarily believed. Their chances are best if Marcus Cornelius Falco made it through the journey as well, and is there to vouch for them. Regardless, they are eventually able to get through to the Emepror, but even after hearing the news of Vespasian's capture and the new army,, Claudius, a weak-willed man, is hesitant about what to do.

The adventurers are forced to involve themselves in the politics of the camp; Aulus Plautius, the commander of Claudius's army, is willing to hold off the march, both because he doesn't want to march against a potentially greater foe without forewarning, and because he still hopes Claudius will get bored, return to Rome, and leave him to finish the conquest alone, increasing his personal glory in the event of victory, whereas Claudius will get the praise if he's still present when the conquest of Britain is decided. Claudius's freedman eunuch advisor Posides, on the other hand, is eager for Claudius to press on, and believes the adventurers' warnings to be lies planted by Plautius. Lucius Geta, head of Claudius's personal guard the Praetorians, sides with Posides due to his genera paranoia regarding plots against the Emperor. Nevertheless, Claudius ultimately agrees to delay any military action by at least a few days. However, the adventurers are, either way, confined to the Roman camp until further notice.

Shadows in the Night

Once their parlays with the Emperor are over, the adventurers are given sleeping quarters in the Praetorian Guard's zone of the camp so that Lucius Geta can keep an eye on them. They are awoken in the night by a mechanical-sounding humming sound, which turns out to be produced by a salvaged Sontaran recon drone. Equipped with advanced sensors and powerful weaponry, it mows through a few Praetorian Guardsmen, but, either through working it out from observation, or drawing on prior experience facing the Sontarans, the time-travellers figure out that having to deal with two simultaneous threats from opposite directions short-circuits recon drones, and are able to put it out of commission. Analysing the drone, they find that it has been tampered with from the base Sontaran design, adding holographic technology and a hypnotic rho wave relayer.

This disturbance soon gives way to another as other Praetorian Guards sound the alarm. Three men were caught trying to get into Claudius's tent, and are attempting to escape. The time-travellers are instrumental in their capture, earning them some trust from Claudius. The three turn out to be under hypnotic control, and were trying to abduct Claudius rather than assassinate him; among them may be Britons, captured Romans from Vespasian's cohort, and-or any members of the adventuring party (including time-travellers and Falco) who might have been captured on the way over and then hypnotised as per Under Compulsion. After being brought out of hypnotism, the victims relay hazy recollections of going into the Sacred Wood and losing control of themselves before being taken through a hollow tree into an underground "maze of tunnels" where they met the mysterious "god", a man in dark clothing. The Third Doctor or Colonel believes the Master is involved, and the adventurers become determined to go investigate the Sacred Wood themselves — either persuading Claudius to let them go for that purpose, or needing to escape, possibly with Falco's help.

Barbarian Ambush

Free of the Roman camp, the adventurers seek to make their way back to the field holding the TARDIS and from there to the Sacred Wood. They do so either through the woods or through the marsh, depending on what route they took previously. Though better forewarned to the dangers of either terrain than during their first go-around, they are eventually ambushed by a party of over fifty Britons. Either the whole party or some of its members are captured and taken to the Briton camp.

In the Briton camp

Cunovellasus interrogates Mikhyl Nevenskoi.

The adventurers who have been taken prisoner by the Britons are taken to their camp, which is less advanced, but homelier and humane, than the "ant-like" discipline of the Romans. There, they are taken before a council of the leaders of this alliance of tribes, including Calagundus, Cunovellasus and the young, female, but politically powerful Branimandua, from the Scottish lowlands. All of them are leaders of distant tribes from the North and West, who were not historically meant to involve themselves in the present war. After a fairly perfunctory interrogation, Calagundus orders them to be taken to the Sacred Wood and delivered to the alliance's "chieftain". Branimandua, however, does not trust this "war chief" who claims to be a "god of war" but did not warn the alliance about the dire straits in which Caractacus had fallen until it was too late to intervene. Furthermore, she speaks of what she glimpsed from the edge of the Sacred Wood, including that the god-chieftain keeps Roman captives as bodyguards. Those of the tribe-leaders who have been officially allowed into the Sacred Wood as part of initiation into "the Inner Mysteries" are outraged at her eavesdropping, and deny what she describes, claiming that from what they have seen, the god is attended only by Druids and Briton warriors. Even though some were willing to hear her out at first, her apparent blasphemy causes the argument to turn against Branimandua, and the final decision is indeed to take the prisoners to the Sacred Wood.

The Sacred Wood

The Sacred Wood.

However they came to it, the various time-travellers finally enter the Sacred Wood, without guard even if they were brought there by their Briton captors — who daren't enter themselves out of religious awe. Indeed, all humans who enter the Wood get a sense of some kind of aura of power within it, though the Time Lords cannot sense it. As they make their way in, they periodically hear the same humming sound the recon drone made. Eventually, they are confronted by hypnotised Roman soldiers armed with laser pistols, a scene covertly observed from the bushes by Princess Branimandua, once again spying on the Sacred Wood. After taking them prisoners, the hypnotised soldiers take them to a dark clearing with a guarded oak tree in the centre of it. A door opens in the middle of this tree, revealing it to be a TARDIS, and the prisoners are led into it.

The War Chief

The War Chief.

Now dressed in black (with red and silver trim and a silver-grey helmet), a gloating War Chief, revealing himself as a Time Lord but not the Master, greets the prisoners. Being in "an expansive mood, inclined to boast", especially to fellow Time Lords, he expounds upon his background, summarising how he tried to help a race called the War Lords to take over the universe using time travel technology. The plan was uncovered and foiled by the Second Doctor, but, having escaping both the War Lords and the Time Lords' justice, he has been in hiding, rebuilding his strength. Having been particularly impressed with the discipline of the Roman soldiers who participated in the earlier "War Games" plot, he now plans to take control of the Roman Empire itself and, outfitting it with advanced technology, to use it as a starting point for planetary, and eventually galactic, domination. To do this, he intends to capture and hypnotise Emperor Claudius. If he fails now, however, he will simply fall back on hypnotising the already-captured Vespasian and bide his time a little longer until it is time for Vespasian to take the throne.

When asked by the adventurers why he is telling them all this, the War Chief cryptically gloats that the humans will soon willingly help him, while, with their own life or lives and those of the humans in his power, the remaining Time Lord(s) will be forced to cooperate or die. He soon reveals what he means: he possesses hypnotic equipment which traps its victims in an illusory world, such that the Roman soldiers interpret him as a general and the TARDIS as a Roman camp, while the Briton leaders see all his Roman minions as druids and barbarian warriors. He intends to make the human companions suffer the same treatment and use them as "willing" pawns within his plan. However, he cannot attend to their processing just yet, and has them thrown in a cell while he wanders off.

Escape

Imprisoned in a large room of the War Chief's TARDIS, the time-travellers find none other than Vespasian, who has shaken off the War Chief's hypnotism twice over, leading the villainous Time Lord to confine him here instead until further notice. Every few hours, hypnotised soldiers arrive to collect one of the time-travellers from the cell and subject them to the hypnotic equipment, putting them to work building laser weapons in another room, putting a time-limit on how long the adventurers have to formulate an escape plan. They might manage to do so and overpower the guards bringing them food every few hours. Alternatively, they may be rescued by Princess Branimuanda, who turns out to have slipped into the Sacred Wood after the adventurers. She is reunited with them some other way over the course of the escape if the adventurers take the initiative before she finds her way to the cell.

Ending the Adventure

The War Chief escapes at the last minute despite Roderick and Mikhyl's best efforts.

After escaping the cell, the adventurers make their priorities the safe return of Vespasian to the Roman camp in order to safeguard the future on the one hand, and, on the other, the destruction of the War Chief's hypnotic equipment, which, once it is achieved, leads directly to the undoing of all hypnotees' brainwashing. The War Chief himself, however, is likely to escape capture, either by managing to take off, or possibly by using a SIDRAT he had stored somewhere within the TARDIS if the protagonists cut off his escape route back to the TARDIS control room. One possibility, for example, sees a gunshot from Roderick Mitchell narrowly missing the War Chief as he escapes back into his tree-TARDIS after the battle had moved to the Sacred Wood itself.

After the battle is over, Branimuanda invites the time-travellers back to the Briton camp as friends, and they manage to persuade the alliance to disband and return to their own areas of the land, so that they will no longer pose an obstacle to the Roman conquest of Camulodunum. With everything resolved, the TARDIS-block is also lifted, and the time-travellers are able to leave — possibly joined by Branimuanda, Marcus Cornelius Falco, or both.

The Sybil's Prophecy

Back onboard the TARDIS, the Colonel takes off, only for Leora to point out that Falco has stowed onboard. Falco begs not to be taken home, explaining that when he was a boy, the Sybil of Cumae predicted that he would one day "see wondrous places and things, things no Emperor would ever see", and he now sees becoming a time-traveller with them as the fulfillment of that destiny. The Colonel is initially tempted to wipe his memory, but Leora talks him out of it, and he reluctantly agrees.

Well, Marcus Cornelius,” Leora said, "now you'll get to see the Sibyl's prophecy fulfilled. You've already seen the grouchiest being inthe known universe, so it's all downhill from here. Welcome aboard!Leora

Characters

Mentioned only

Worldbuilding

Notes

  • Although eight possible player characters, it is specified that players are not required to account for all of them in a given playthrough, with a TARDIS crew of five or six being considered more advisable. To leave possibilities as open as possible, most of the text of "the Adventure" and the Plot Synopsis refers only to the "characters" or "adventurers" without specifying even which Time Lord, or Time Lords, are being featured. The cover and introductory illustration feature the Third Doctor, the illustration for In the Roman Camp features David Worth and Sandra Cathcart, the illustrations for In the Briton Camp and Escape feature companion Mikhyl Nevenskoi, and the illustration for Ending the Adventure features David and Mikhyl. Liz Shaw is featured in an illustration alongside the Doctor and the Brigadier, despite not getting a character listing. Roderick Mitchell is illustrated, undergoing the events of Under Compulsion, in an illustration included in the background section on the War Chief's technology; he, the Colonel, Leora and Lisa Drake are also featured in the fully-written-out epilogue titled The Sibyl's Prophecy. This leaves Sven Langbard, Jo Grant and Sarah Jane Smith as the only possible player characters whose presence in the plot is not actively depicted. While instructions are given regarding how the Doctor and Colonel feel about one another, the plot does not explicitly account for the possibility of the Doctor's TARDIS and the Colonel's TARDIS both going through the adventure together, as it only ever mentions one "TARDIS" landing in the battlefield, though it is conceivable in terms of game mechanics that two different TARDISes might detect the same anomaly, land in the battlefield together, and thereafter act as a single multi-Time Lord adventuring party once both TARDISes become inaccessible.
  • For the sake of the entertainment value of preserving the twist of the War Chief's involvement and plans during a gamemaster's first readthrough, the optional Under Compulsion section is placed between The War Chief and Escape, even though in plot terms, should it happen at all, it slots in-between Player Options and In the Roman camp/Shadows in the Night.

Continuity

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