The Curse of Sutekh by Ian McDonald Daleks and Ice Warriors run amok in a warehouse. Outside, the world ended Millenia ago. And only our heroes can defeat Sutekh the destoyer one last time ... What has actually happened - A team of Ice Warrior archeologists managed, thousands of years ago, to get into the Martian pyramid constructed by the Osirians to keep Sutekh imprisoned in his Egyptian pyramid [Pyramids of Mars]. They mess around (sorry, investigate), and manage to activate a time tunnel which ends in the same time zone as the players, ending in one of the caskets that survived the fire in the old UNIT HQ. Unless the players stop them, they will further mess around and release Sutekh. In fact, from the players point of view, they already have ... The UNIT Warehouse - You could change this to almost any location you feel like. It happened to be particularly appropriate to our PCs. If you're running with the warehouse idea, it contains only a few people other than the PCs (allowing them to take charge quickly). Ours contained several alien artifacts, which the players used. There is a shell of several hundred metres around the warehouse (the shell is spherical and centred on the casket), within which the world has not ended. Outside it, there is nothing but ravaged plains. (You can justify it as an effect of the Osirian technology, or of the Blinovitch limitation effect, or both. In plot terms, it keeps the PCs from wandering away from the plot, and gives a sense of urgency when the sphere contracts). The Martian Pyramid - Now, of course, this turned up in an episode of Dr Who. But if you replicate it exactly, that would be both boring, to easy for the PCs, and it might make it harder to bring the story to a successful conclusion. The Walls are a dark red stone. The corridors are tall and wide, the blocks of stone half a metre high, painted and carved. [They have all sorts of interesting information, all in ancient Egyptian (predynastic) hierloglyphics. I know, bad history, worse science :)] Different freizes on the walls tell of the binding of Sutekh by many (700+) gods, or a picture of a bound Sutekh in a pyramid on Earth with server robots around him, and another pyramid on Mars (named) with rays going to/from it. You don't know what a server robot is? Perhaps you should watch Pyramids again. (The mummy robots). There is a room that contains an Osirian scanner of 3000 BCE Earth, just to make things really obvious if the PCs still haven't got it. There's also an entrance chamber, with a force-field still keeping the terrestial air in. There are also the rooms leading to the Eye of Horus (the controlling device for Sutekh's prison). Complete with riddles. I got my riddles from the alt.puzzles archive, until my players pointed out most of them didn't make sense. This one got past the test ... Asked by a VO or a server robot: A Pharoah tells his two sons to race their camels to Al-Khafirah to see who will inherit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower will win. The brothers, after wandering aimlessly for days, ask a wise man for advise. After hearing the advice they jump on the camels and race as fast as they can to the city. What does the wise man say? Solution : The wiseman tells them to switch camels. The Ice Warriors - One Ice Lord and a coterie of Ice Warriors. They probably attach religous significance to the Pyramid. They will be very surprised to find out which planet they are on, and probably haven't seen humans before. Play them any way you like. The Daleks - They notice a disturbance in the time stream, and a source of great power. They set off in a 'The Chase' style time machine to investigate. The Daleks are their usual personality-less selves. The reason you really need to include them is that if the time tunnel is somehow closed, the players have one last means to save the universe. Or if the players *really* muck up and you don't want to end the campaign, you have a Deus Ex Machina. If the PCs have a TARDIS, you can probably do away with the Daleks altogether. Sutekh - Have him turn up at the last moment and gloat from the other side of the sphere. But claim that the sphere also protects the characters, or they will become burnt toast *quickly*. The Solution - Convincing the Ice Warriors to leave well alone, or getting through to the Eye of Horus and warning one of the Server Robots. Your players can tell when they've won, because the world outside the warehouse returns to its usual verdant self.