Carrionite
The Carrionites were a species of humanoids which used word-based science or "witchcraft" to reshape reality.
Biology
The true form of a Carrionite resembled a giant skeletal raven or crow. They were able to assume a more humanoid form but this used a lot of energy, and so they usually had wrinkled skin, large, clawed hands, and sharp canine teeth. The Carrionite Lilith could assume the form of a beautiful young woman, a trick she used to ensnare male victims. (TV: The Shakespeare Code)
Technology
Carrionite technology was described as witchcraft. It was actually a word-based science, as opposed to the mathematics of most species, and relied on the right words and the right places, such as the Carrionite's use of the Globe Theatre's structure. They also placed great importance on knowing the name of an individual to give them control.
With this linguistic technology for a basis, the Carrionites had a wide variety of abilities. They used both poppets and puppets as DNA replication modules to cause damage from afar or control a person's actions. This required a tissue sample, such as a hair, to work. They could also fly, dematerialise and rematerialise at will, communicate with other Carrionites from a distance and had the ability to discover a person's name and use it against them, even sensing if those they named were out of their time, like Martha Jones. The Doctor, however, was mostly immune to such, though Lilith could detect a name that strongly connected to him; Rose. (TV: The Shakespeare Code)
History
At "the dawn of the Universe", the Carrionites evolved in their 14-planet star system and developed their word-based science. (TV: The Shakespeare Code) Eventually, the Carrionites got into a war with the Hervoken. This war threatened the structure of the universe, so the Eternals stepped in and banished both races to the Deep Darkness. (PROSE: Forever Autumn)
Ancient Time Lords were aware of the Carrionites, and shunned them. In fact, Lady Scintilla was imprisoned in Shada for "conspiring with Carrionites". (PROSE: Shada)
Several million years later, in the late 16th century, a group of three Carrionites — Bloodtide, Doomfinger, and Lilith — escaped using words of power from the plays of William Shakespeare, partly the result of the writer's grief at the death of his son. They influenced the design of the 14-sided Globe Theatre, based on the planets of their star system, and, in 1599, planned to use his new play, Love's Labour's Won, to free the rest of their race from the Darkness and take over Earth, removing humanity from it as a pestilence, to establish the "Millennium of Blood".
The last few lines of the play were written by Shakespeare in a trance as a spell to open a portal from the Deep Darkness to this universe. The portal was opened when the play was performed, but the Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones and Shakespeare managed to close it using the power of words, and all who had come through were sent back into the Darkness. The three previously escaped Carrionites were trapped within a crystal ball, (TV: The Shakespeare Code) which the Doctor kept in his TARDIS. (TV: The Unicorn and the Wasp, PROSE: The Taking of Chelsea 426, AUDIO: The Carrionite Curse)
Henry Gordon Jago and George Litefoot encountered some Carrionites in 1899. George later wrote about this in his book, Reminiscences of the Peculiar.
The Sixth Doctor encountered a set of Carrionites in the 1980s. They inhabited some of the locals in Birmingham and used the temporal paradox of the fact that the Tenth Doctor defeated them in their past and the walls of the local council had been built from the remains of the Globe. Anachronisms gave them power, and the Sixth Doctor's carefully chosen words could weaken the Carrionites. (AUDIO: The Carrionite Curse)
Other references
When the Skith Leader scanned the Tenth Doctor's mind, a Carrionite was among the alien creatures shown to him. (COMIC: The First)
Behind the scenes
Mothers Doomfinger and Bloodtide make a cameo in the animated title sequence of the second series of Totally Doctor Who.
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