Children of the Daleks

by Andy Horton

I have the outline of an adventure which I wrote and ran for our 'Hero
System' Dr Who campaign.  This will probably offend the 'Dr Who' purists
out there, and it wouldn't work for every campaign, but I enjoyed running
it and my players told me they got a buzz out of playing it, so here are
the details:

     Called "Children of the Daleks", it's a crossover between 'dr Who' and
'Alien'.  

     Landing for some reason (probably a malfunction of some sort) on the
planet Ceres-18, a terra-formed agricultural research station, the Time
lord and companions find themselves in a valley containing extensive
farmland.  The only buildings are a cluster of houses, barns and labs some
way away.  They find nobody about on their way to the farm.  When they get
nearer, they see someone being chased by a Dalek, shouting "Do-Not-Move!
You-Will-Be-Exterminated!" etc.  A group of PCs should be able to overpower
one Dalek if they surprise it (that happens quite often in the series).
They learn that another Dalek is guarding all the other scientists and
their families.  After (hopefully) overcoming this one, they can be
informed of what has gone before.  Two days earlier, a small spaceship
crashlanded in the now-abandoned terraforming plant.  The colonists were
about to investigate when a Dalek ship landed.  This surprised the
colonists, as the Daleks have, at this point in their history, suffered
major defeats and are in retreat.  The Daleks captured the unarmed
colonists, imprisoning all but eight of them.  These were taken away on a
hoverplatform to the terraforming plant, as slave-workers.

     The Pcs should investigate the plant, and find one Dalek on guard.
After outwitting and/or destroying this, they can find the remains of
another one, which has self-destructed for some reason.  The small
spaceship (actually an escape pod) has crashed through the roof of the
plant, and is inside somewhere.

Any PCs investigating the plant, a dark maze of industrial gloom with
twisting tunnels and walkways, will be attacked by an Alien.  If they're
armed or expecting trouble, they should be Ok.  If not, the Alien might
capture one of them and coccoon them.  at this point, the players, if not
their characters, should recognise what the Alien is.  Soon, they find
survivors of the human party.  these could be coccooned victims, or someone
already impregnated with a chestburster.  The characters can learn that the
Daleks ordered them to retrieve egg-pods from the ship, so that they, the
Daleks, could gain the genetic material of the Aliens to strengthen their
own race.  At this point, the consequences of this hybridisation should
occur to the players.  The Daleks sent the eggs back to their ship, but
before they were all loaded, one of them hatched and attacked a Dalek.
This is the one which self-destructed.

     For the safety of the galaxy, the PCs should stop the Daleks and
aliens leaving the planet.  The Dalek ship, when they reach it, is not
defended.  Within the ship there are a Dalek, an empty Dalek shell from
which a Kaled-Alien has just hatched, a Dalek-shell with an Alien inside
it,and an alien which has hatched out from a Dalek and is mutating into a
Queen Alien.  The Kaled-Alien is like a giant starfish or octopus, with
teeth.  When i ran this part of the scenario, the players were quite
shocked when they defeated a suspiciously clumsy Dalek and were then
pounced on by the Alien which had been working its controls.  The Alien
Queen was growing out of the bottom half of a Dalek shell, and could
control the gun.  The players should be allowed to blow up the ship somehow
(re-wiring the engines, planting demolition charges or finding dalekanium
bombs to use perhaps).  This gives them the chance for some 'Genesis of the
Daleks' style moralizing about the sanctity of all life etc.  If need be,
have the Daleks (deliberately) or Aliens (accidentally) set off the
auto-destruct for the ship.

     Having escaped from the ship, the PCs can prepare to leave.
Unfortunately, one of the Alien egg-pods was crushed in the crash-landing
and assumed destroyed.  It was not, and it hatched a stray facehugger.  As
the PCs approach their TARDIS, it jumps out and attaches itself to one of
them.  Ideally, this should be the Time Lord, who will survive even if it
forces a regeneration.

     This adventure worked because it combined the threat of two powerful,
ruthless races which are both known for being frighteningly aggressive.
Whatever the outcome of the Daleks' attempt to control the Aliens, the
resultant creature would have been the stuff of nightmares.  As I said
earlier, it worked in our campaign, which is often quite dark in tone and
features a group of very capable PCs.  I have written it up here as an
oddity, an example of a far-from typical 'Dr Who' adventure.