The Silence are the enigmatic species introduced in ‘The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon’, making an immediate impression. They have since returned in ‘The Wedding of River Song’ and doubtlessly will be seen again.
They make good returning monsters for any Dr Who rpg due to the fact that not only are they present on Earth for a huge span of time they also appear to have access to time travel, making it likely that they will be encountered in other eras and even other planets.
There is still much we don’t know about them and we recently learnt in ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ that the name The Silence refers to a religious order rather than an individual species. None the less I think we’ve seen enough of them to be able to create a write up.
First let us look at their attributes. The recessed eyes of Silence indicate they might not have great vision, especially as there have been several scenes were characters have stalked amongst the Silence for several minutes before being noticed. For that I’ll give them an Awareness of 2.
The slow, dream-like motions make them creepy but don’t suggest that they are in any way co-ordinated. They might be good at shooting people with arcing bolts of lightening but I doubt they’d show themselves to be nimble. For that they get a Co-ordination of 2.
Now we come to their ingenuity. One of the big things we know about them is that they don’t tend to invent things, instead stealing from other races or pushing a cultures development to make the tools they require.
This doesn’t necessarily count against them, since Ingenuity represents how smart they are rather than their education. We have seen evidence that the Silence are capable of coming up with some pretty grand, far reaching plans. They can be tricked so they’re not super-geniuses but I think it is fair to give them a Ingenuity of 5.
Due to their nature the Silence don’t get the chance for a lot of social interaction. What we do see is that when they do make their presence known it has an impact. They leave Amy shaken and have been able to command humanity without them knowing. When a Silence speaks you listen so I award them a Presence of 4.
The sheer amount of effort they’ve put into their religious crusade against the Doctor makes it clear that the Silence are fanatics. It is unlikely that anything could dissuade them from their mission. For this they receive a Resolve of 6.
Finally we come to their Strength. We haven’t seen the Silence involved in much physical combat but we did see that they escaped from their cells in ‘The Wedding of River Song’ using their strength. A Strength of 7 should be sufficient for them to smash through reinforced glass and batter down doors.
We’ll look at the Silence skills next. Convince is an obvious choice, something for them to use instead of their powers. Being sentinels of History should give them the Knowledge skill on the subject, along with knowledge of various alien cultures.
While they might not be the most co-ordinated species around they seems to be able to hit most targets with their electrical discharge. A few levels in the Marksman skill should allow them to do this.
Having species forget they’ve seen you is useful but there must be situations in which the Silence would rather not be seen at all. It would also be frustrating for them if they kept getting locked in rooms when people forget they’re there. So ranks in Subterfuge would be useful.
Their need for others to invent things for them suggests that the race don’t have the Science skill and possibly not even the Technology skill. It is strongly suggested that they make use of time ship discovered in the tunnels beneath America so it stands to reason they can pilot vehicles, including time ships and so receive the Transport skill.
So far the Silence write-up looks like this:
ATTRIBUTES
Awareness: 2, Co-ordination: 2, Ingenuity: 5, Presence: 4, Resolve: 6, Strength: 7
SKILLS:
Convince: 4, Knowledge (History) 4, (Alien Culture appropriate to location) 2, Marksman: 3, Subterfuge: 3, Transport (time ship): 2
Next we’ll tackle the trickier task of using traits to model the unique talents of the Silence.
Bigger On The Inside 