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Titles of Blood

A classic series title generator

By Zoltán Déry

Titles of Blood originally appeared in TSV 73 in May 2006. Zoltán's classic series title generator is an unusual but fun piece, and it was Jamas Enright in the following issue nearly a year later who put it to practical use with his Drabble Who Challenge.

Jamas' Drabble Who Challenge also forms part of the TSV online sampler 1 and as the best Drabbles will be published in future issues of TSV, we present Titles of Blood online a little earlier than normal.

The online generator works the same was as the original, with "dice" rolls selecting tables and words to construct your title. As you work down the page, tables that cease to be relevant to your title construction grey out with each dice roll, until you can assemble the completed title down the bottom.

I look forward to seeing some of your Drabbles!

Adam

This article was originally written before the return of Doctor Who to our screens, as an aid to hard-pressed writers of spin-offs, whether in the form of novels, comic strips, Big Finish audios, or other spin-offs such as the BBV productions. However, it has since become even more useful, as it examines the title conventions of the "classic" series (dread phrase). I feel that the writers of the new series have fallen down badly in the area of titles. The title should sing of adventure, of intrigue, persuading the casual viewer to invest their time in the programme, or, in the case of the spin-offs, invest their hard earned cash. As much as I enjoyed Father's Day and Dalek, the titles really did not do justice to what followed.

Thus I have set about the frankly bizarre task of constructing the "Déry Mark I Random Title Generator". This alarming construct will enable hard-pressed writers to create new titles with a few rolls of a standard six-sided die. (Giving us, for instance, Horror of the Reapers or The Nightmare of Time for Father's Day.)

In researching this article (and yes, I really did research this gibberish), I have discovered that there are seven different types of Doctor Who title:

  1. The X of the Y. e.g. The Power of the Daleks
  2. X of the Y. e.g. Invasion of the Dinosaurs
  3. The X of W. e.g. The Keys of Marinus
  4. X of W. e.g. Planet of Giants
  5. The A B. e.g. The Web Planet
  6. The Z. e.g. The Mutants
  7. One word title. (C D). e.g. Underworld

Historically there seem to be distinct phases for titles. Oddly enough, the first of what I think of as the typical sort of Doctor Who titles, (Type 1. The X of the Y) is The Power of the Daleks. (Although if you want to get technical, The Roof of the World, the first episode of Marco Polo is constructed this way.) The last of this sort of title is The Mark of the Rani. There are, in fact, only five titles with this construction, four of them in two seasons of the Troughton era. Actually the most typically Doctor Who titles are: Type 2. X of the Y, used from Day of the Daleks to Remembrance of the Daleks, and Type 3. The X of W, used from The Keys of Marinus to The Curse of Fenric.

Note that these tables do not allow titles in the style of Spearhead from Space or The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, as titles of this sort are generally an exception. In the above list, X is usually a noun. Y is usually the name of a species, sometimes the name of a location. W is usually a specific location, sometimes a noun. A is usually a noun or an adjective, sometimes a location or a species. B is usually a noun. Z is usually the name of the main species. The one word titles are usually two words joined together (C and D). The following tables use these rules, with entries taken from the series where possible, but with a few additions where required. Different entries can easily be substituted where necessary. So, if your monsters are called the Bloboids, use this instead of any name from the table. (It would be strange to call something Terror of the Daleks if no Daleks appear). To use the title generator, roll a die, consult table One, and then roll on the appropriate tables, cross-referencing rolls where appropriate. Note that there is no Table Z. Just use the name of the main society, monsters, event or location. This will give you a title like The Aztecs, The Ice Warriors, Inferno or Logopolis.

Tables and Auto-generator

TABLE 1. TITLE TYPE
DICE ROLLTITLE TYPE
1The X of the Y
2X of the Y
3The X of W
4X of W
5The A B
6CD

TABLE 2. X GENERATOR
X123456
1123456
2234567
3345678
4456781
5567812
6678123


X =
TABLE 3. A/B GENERATOR
A/B1,2,34,5,6
1,2,312
4,5,634


A =


B =
TABLE 4. W GENERATOR
W 
1,2W1
3,4W2
5,6W3

W =
TABLE 5. Y GENERATOR
Y 
1,2,3Y1
4,5,6Y2

Y =
TABLE X1.
DICE ROLLX SELECTION
1Keys
2Reign
3Planet
4Massacre
5Power
6Evil
TABLE X2.
DICE ROLLX SELECTION
1Tomb
2Enemy
3Web
4Fury
5Seeds
6Robots
TABLE X3.
DICE ROLLX SELECTION
1Terror
2Mind
3Claws
4Colony
5Day
6Curse
TABLE X4.
DICE ROLLX SELECTION
1Carnival
2Invasion
3Genesis
4Revenge
5Horror
6Image
TABLE X5.
DICE ROLLX SELECTION
1Stones
2Destiny
3City
4Nightmare
5Horns
6Ambassadors
TABLE X6.
DICE ROLLX SELECTION
1Keeper
2Arc
3Warriors
4Resurrection
5Caves
6Mark
TABLE X7.
DICE ROLLX SELECTION
1Revelation
2Trial
3Remembrance
4Pyramids
5Brain
6Masque
TABLE X8.
DICE ROLLX SELECTION
1Hand
2Face
3State
4Galaxy
5Androids
6Talons

TABLE Y1.
DICE ROLLY SELECTION
1Daleks
2Cybermen
3World
4Autons
5Dinosaurs
6Spiders
TABLE Y2.
DICE ROLLY SELECTION
1Zygons
2Fendahl
3Deep
4Rani
5Sontarans
6Ice Warriors

Assemble your title
TABLE C.
DICE ROLLC SELECTION
1Under
2Earth
3Time
4Snake
5Dragon
6Battle
TABLE D.
DICE ROLLD SELECTION
1World
2Shock
3Flight
4Dance
5Fire
6Field

Assemble your title
TABLE W1.
DICE ROLLW SELECTION
1Marinus
2Terror
3Giants
4Death
5Evil
6Peladon
TABLE W2.
DICE ROLLW SELECTION
1Fire
2Mars
3Morbius
4Doom
5Mandragora
6Fear
TABLE W3.
DICE ROLLW SELECTION
1Weng-Chiang
2Fang Rock
3Time
4Blood
5Decay
6Traken

Assemble your title
TABLE A1.
DICE ROLLA SELECTION
1Web
2Space
3Time
4War
5Tenth
6Macra
TABLE A2.
DICE ROLLA SELECTION
1Ice
2Mind
3Sea
4Pirate
5Green
6Sontaran
TABLE A3.
DICE ROLLA SELECTION
1Android
2Deadly
3Invisible
4Sun
5Ribos
6Armageddon
TABLE A4.
DICE ROLLA SELECTION
1Leisure
2Twin
3Paradise
4Happiness
5Silver
6Ghost
TABLE B1.
DICE ROLLB SELECTION
1Planet
2Museum
3Meddler
4Machines
5Terror
6Warriors
TABLE B2.
DICE ROLLB SELECTION
1Robber
2Pirates
3Games
4Devils
5Monster
6Death
TABLE B3.
DICE ROLLB SELECTION
1Experiment
2Invasion
3Assassin
4Enemy
5Makers
6Operation
TABLE B4.
DICE ROLLB SELECTION
1Factor
2Hive
3Dilemma
4Towers
5Patrol
6Nemesis

Back to table 1

Here are some sample results from the "Déry Mark I Random Title Generator" (rolled as I sit typing this, and I promise not to cheat to make them better):

Roll: 3. "X of W"; Roll 2 and 4: X5 - Roll 1: STONES. Roll 2 on table W. Roll 4 on W1: DEATH. Which makes Stones of Death. Now that is what I call a Doctor Who title, if I say so myself.

Roll 1: "The X of the Y"; Roll 2, 3. Roll on table X4: 6 - IMAGE. Roll on table Y: 3. Roll on table Y1: 6 - SPIDERS. The Image of the Spiders? Nicely melodramatic, but not brilliant.

Roll 2: "X of the Y"; Roll 3,5. Roll on X7: 2 - TRIAL. Roll on table Y: 5. Roll on table Y2: 1 - ZYGONS. Trial of the Zygons. Again, not bad, and at least I haven't got any of those The Evil of Evil possibilities.

For the last two I shall pick which style of title I want: a one word (C D) and a The A B type.

Roll on C: 2 - EARTH. Roll on D: 4 - DANCE. Earthdance. Utter nonsense, but no worse than Earthshock or most of the titles from that particular era.

Roll on table A/B: 1,6. Roll on table A3: 3 - INVISIBLE. Roll on table A/B: 1,5. Roll on table B3: 3 - ASSASSIN. The Invisible Assassin. I'd want to know more about that story!

This system could also be used to roll up the title first, as I did with the title of this article. And other words could be added or substituted for those in the tables. Have fun!

This item appeared in TSV 73 (May 2006).