List of causes of regeneration

The causes of regeneration, especially amongst Time Lords, were many and varied.

They ran the gamut from simple desire to change to sentencing for convictions, to life-threatening maladies, to blunt-force trauma. While all of these might have been cause for alarm in humans, Time Lords sometimes expressed much less concern. As the Twelfth Doctor once told Clara: "Death is Time Lord for man-flu." (TV: Hell Bent)

The following are the known causes of regeneration of specific Time Lords.

The Timeless Child

 * First Timeless Child: Accidentally fell from a cliff while playing with another child. Later, Tecteun forced the child to endure at least five other regenerations while attempting to figure out how to regenerate herself. (TV: The Timeless Children)

Post-Timeless Child

 * First Doctor: Collapsed due to exhaustion from having his life force drained by Mondas. (TV: The Tenth Planet)
 * Second Doctor: Forced to change his appearance by Time Lord court order as punishment for stealing the TARDIS and breaking the non-interference law. (TV: The War Games) Execution eventually performed by animated scarecrows. (COMIC: The Night Walkers)
 * Third Doctor: Radiation poisoning upon prolonged exposure to the Great One's highly unstable web of Metebelis crystals. (TV: Planet of the Spiders) Drifted through time for ten years dying of the radiation poisoning before he returned to Earth (PROSE: Love and War) and had his regeneration triggered by K'anpo Rimpoche to compensate for the Doctor being unable to trigger it himself. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
 * During the War in Heaven, history was altered so that the Third Doctor's regeneration was instead caused by a fatal shot to the chest from Magdelana Bishop. The bullet entered his ribcage at an angle which didn't damage any major organs; he instead died of blood loss. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two)
 * Fourth Doctor: Fell to the ground from the telescope after battling at the Pharos Project; merged with the Watcher to trigger regeneration. (TV: Logopolis)
 * Fifth Doctor: Contracted spectrox toxaemia on Androzani Minor, triggering regeneration. (TV: The Caves of Androzani) Regeneration completed after resisting the Master's attempt to stop his regeneration using their shared mental link to Kamelion. (AUDIO: Winter)
 * Sixth Doctor: Either injured during an attack on the TARDIS by, (PROSE: Time and the Rani) blunt head trauma while suffering from chronon energy starvation after his confrontation with the Lamprey, (PROSE: Spiral Scratch) or intentional exposure to focused beams of a radiation lethal to Time Lords consequent to the Rani's attack on the TARDIS. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death)
 * Seventh Doctor: Following a non-fatal shooting, the Doctor was taken to a San Francisco hospital, where subsequent exploratory surgery with a camera accidentally clogged a vein; the anaesthetic he had been given delayed regeneration for several hours. (TV: Doctor Who)
 * In an alternate timeline in which the Nazis won World War II, the Seventh Doctor was gunned down by Nazi soldiers, and regenerated into an alternate eighth incarnation. (AUDIO: Klein's Story)
 * Eighth Doctor: Died after a ship he was in crash-landed on Karn but was resurrected for four minutes by the Sisterhood of Karn. (TV: The Night of the Doctor) Tricked by Ohila into thinking the lemonade and dry ice he was drinking was the Elixir of Life, the Doctor regenerated when his four minutes were up. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor)
 * In an account where he never regenerated on Karn, the Eighth Doctor instead regenerated from injuries he had sustained from activating the Moment, with assistance from the Restoration. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Time War)
 * War Doctor: Regenerative process triggered automatically due to old age. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
 * Ninth Doctor: Directly absorbed Time Vortex energy from the Bad Wolf to save the life of Rose Tyler, causing fatal cellular degeneration. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
 * Tenth Doctor: Grazed by the blast from a Dalek gun stick, causing a regeneration. However, the Doctor directed the regeneration energy to his severed hand, so aborted a full regeneration, healing the damage he had sustained without needing to actually change. (TV: The Stolen Earth, Journey's End)
 * Tenth Doctor: Radiation poisoning intentionally incurred in order to save the life of Wilfred Mott. (TV: The End of Time)
 * Eleventh Doctor: Neared death from old age after exhausting all of his regenerations. Granted a new regeneration cycle by the Time Lords. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
 * Twelfth Doctor: Electrocuted by a Mondasian Cyberman, but delayed the regenerative process. Later shot repeatedly by another Cyberman and caught in a massive explosion, triggering the regeneration further. The regeneration was purposely delayed because he desired to not change again, (TV: The Doctor Falls) only accepting the change after a meeting with the First Doctor. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)

Parallel universe Doctors

 * The "Listless Looking" Ninth Doctor: Hit by a Dalek gunstick blast intended for . (TV: The Curse of Fatal Death)
 * The "Quite Handsome" Tenth Doctor: Injured while attempting to fix the Zectronic Beam Controller. (TV: The Curse of Fatal Death)
 * The "Shy" Eleventh Doctor: Injured attempting to fix the Zectronic Beam Controller while hiding from Emma and the Master. (TV: The Curse of Fatal Death)
 * The "Handsome" Twelfth Doctor: Hit by a discharge of pure zectronic energy, which was believed to have destroyed his regenerative ability. However, the Doctor was nevertheless able to regenerate into his next incarnation. (TV: The Curse of Fatal Death)
 * The "DEEP" Doctor: Had his neck broken by General Flint. (AUDIO: Full Fathom Five)
 * The "DEEP" Doctor's next incarnation: Emerged from his regeneration only to be immediately shot dead by Ruth Mills. (AUDIO: Full Fathom Five)
 * "Inferno Earth" Second Doctor: Forced to change his appearance for the same reasons as his N-Space counterpart. Unlike his counterpart, however, he picked one of the faces the Time Lords offered him. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Revelation)
 * "Exiled" Second Doctor: Committed suicide by jumping off of a pylon to escape the Time Lords. His next incarnation was a woman. (AUDIO: Exile)

Romana

 * First to second incarnation: Unknown to the Doctor, Romana was harmed by the Key to Time. (PROSE: The Lying Old Witch in the Wardrobe)
 * Second to third incarnation: In one timeline, she regenerated in preparation for the War in Heaven, developing a body and attitude more suited for combat. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon) In another timeline, she regenerated to give a power boost to the Moros engine shields in order to stop a black hole being formed. This regeneration was prevented due to her third incarnation wanting to stop the Omega war. (AUDIO: Enemy Lines)
 * The second incarnation once started to regenerate due to contact with the decaying Eye of Harmony inside the Matrix. (AUDIO: Renaissance). This regeneration didn't take hold due to K9 Mark II removing her from the Matrix. (AUDIO: Ascension)
 * Third to fourth incarnation: After using a psychic attack on Ofrin, the elderly Romana III died of exposure to the elements on an unnamed planet near the heat death of the universe. (PROSE: Tomb of Valdemar)

The Master

 * : Hit by a blast of artron energy when his attempt to attack the Twelfth Doctor backfired (COMIC: Doorway to Hell) or shot with his own Tissue Compression Eliminator by Susan Campbell. (PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks)
 * : Shot by Ace after receiving a new set of regenerating nanites from the Tzun. (PROSE: First Frontier)
 * : Regenerated from his decaying body after being given a new regeneration cycle. (AUDIO: Day of the Master)
 * The "Child Master": Regenerated into an after being unable to survive the energies at the heart of a paradox. (COMIC: Fast Asleep)
 * : Fatally shot by Chantho, he regenerated inside the Doctor's TARDIS after locking him out. (TV: Utopia)
 * : Stabbed in the back with a small knife by his in such a precise way that he had time to reach his TARDIS before regenerating (TV: The Doctor Falls) or mortally wounded while fighting Rassilon. (PROSE: Pandoric's Box)
 * : Shot by the "Harold Saxon" Master, (TV: The Doctor Falls) but managed to regenerate into a new incarnation by creating an Elysian field to "kick start a new regeneration cycle". The process of cryogenetic extraction destroyed her body but retained a copy of her consciousness before regeneration. (AUDIO: The Lumiat)
 * The Lumiat: Shot by Missy after she "[grew] bored" of her, and was forced to regenerate. (AUDIO: The Lumiat)
 * Note: Occasions in which the Master has appropriated a new body, are not considered regenerations. (TV: The Keeper of Traken, Doctor Who; COMIC: The Glorious Dead; AUDIO: Mastermind, And You Will Obey Me)

Parallel universe Masters

 * The "Ke Le" Master: Regenerated after being wounded in a plane crash. (AUDIO: Sympathy for the Devil)

Rassilon

 * Rassilon regenerated for the first time from the temporal radiation of the Eye's elemental forces and the stress of the situation he was in. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey)
 * Rassilon was attacked by with powerful energy blasts as the Time Lords were sent back into the Time War by the Tenth Doctor, (TV: The End of Time) and "stuffed his face full of White-Point Stars," causing Rassilon to regenerate (PROSE: Lords and Masters) into a much older incarnation. (TV: Hell Bent)

K'anpo Rimpoche

 * K'anpo Rimpoche was attacked by the Eight Legs on Earth. He regenerated into the form of Cho Je, a projection of his own mind. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)

Borusa

 * After the Doctor re-entered his life, Borusa suddenly went through his regenerations rather quickly. One was caused by the stress of being the President. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey)
 * Another was caused by a falling stack of books.
 * Another by a missing decimal point.
 * Yet another by an infected toenail. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen)

Ailla

 * Ailla was accidentally shot by Koschei while he was fighting with Imperial forces in the Darkheart; although badly injured and apparently dead (based on examinations of her assuming that she was only human), she was able to survive in her damaged body until she returned to Koschei's TARDIS and regenerated in the Zero Room. (PROSE: The Dark Path)

Rallon

 * Rallon initiated all twelve of his regenerations at once to force the Celestial Toymaker out of his body; his previously-manifested Watcher subsequently merged with the Toymaker to keep him in check in the future, the Doctor noting that this would mean that the Toymaker himself had essentially regenerated as a person. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties)

Roche

 * Lord Roche was caught in a traffic accident while on Earth; he retained enough control over the process after it began to deliberately shape his new appearance so that he was the exact duplicate of the Third Doctor. (PROSE: The Suns of Caresh)

Tauras

 * Attempting to free Omega from his anti-matter universe, Tauras was shot by Narvin. (AUDIO: Intervention Earth)

Janartis

 * Janartis was attacked by pig-rats and K9's stun laser and forced to regenerate, but because he was infected by the Dogma Virus, he became a pawn for Free Time. (AUDIO: Panacea)

Azmael

 * In his thirteenth and final body, Azmael deliberately regenerated past his limit, killing him and Mestor, who had been attempting to possess Azmael's body after his own was destroyed. (TV: The Twin Dilemma)

The Collective

 * In his eighth incarnation, when he called himself the Eight, he was badly injured while helping the Eighth Doctor and River Song resist a telepathic attack from the Clocksmith. He went into the Doctor's TARDIS and regenerated. (AUDIO: The Doomsday Chronometer)
 * The Eleven was killed when he attempted to propose an alliance between himself and three incarnations of the Master after the failure of his prior alliance with the Ravenous; denouncing the Eleven as a twisted lunatic, the three Masters shot him and expelled him from their TARDIS with only a vortex manipulator. (AUDIO: Day of the Master)

Iris Wildthyme

 * Iris Wildthyme regenerated after a lengthy period of illness following the consumption of a live Kaled mutant. (PROSE: The Scarlet Empress)

The War Chief

 * The War Chief underwent a faulty regeneration after being shot by War Lords; lack of medical care and the scale of the damage sustained resulted in his new form appearing like two bodies fused together, the damage preventing him from ever regenerating again. (PROSE: Timewyrn: Exodus)

Ruath

 * Ruath drained every drop of her blood from her body to restore Vampire Lord Yarven. Yarven subsequently turned her new incarnation into a vampire. (PROSE: Goth Opera)

Ophiuchus

 * Dying from an unknown cause, Ophiuchus was saved by the Fifth Doctor who gave him a "little push" having been convinced by Nyssa and Tegan and regenerated. (COMIC: Ophiuchus)

Innocet

 * Innocet was killed by a Quences-possessed Badger to protect the Doctor. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)

Verne

 * After voting for the side opposing those who had sponsored his rise to power, Verne was caught up in a fight and was so badly injured that he was forced to regenerate into an incarnation that had a plain face and a laughably high voice.
 * Upset at this, he immediately forced himself to regenerate again, this time into a deformed old man.
 * A third regeneration resulted in an amorphous blob.
 * A fourth resulted in a monstrosity which was ordered to be destroyed by the Lord President. (PROSE: The Twin Dilemma)

Glospin

 * Glospin force-regenerated himself into the double of the First Doctor after acquiring a genetic sample to influence the appearance of his next incarnation. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
 * Having killed Quences while disguised as the Doctor, Glospin regenerated again to conceal his role in the murder. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)

I.M. Foreman

 * As a priest, I.M. Foreman had been given the gift of regenerations. This made twelve different individuals, who were created by his body absorbing the DNA around him; all regenerations were caused by the Third Doctor sending Foreman's first twelve bodies back to Gallifrey's past so that they fell from a great height, each regenerating into their next body, the trauma of the regeneration causing each incarnation to lose their memories. (PROSE: Interference - Book One, Interference - Book Two)

Cavisadoratrelundar

 * A Time Lord agent, Cavis nearly regenerated after she was decapitated by Queen Regent Mab, but Mab also stabbed her in both hearts to ensure that she remained dead. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)

Epsilon Delta

 * A run-in with some Sontarans triggered Epsilon Delta's first regeneration. (PROSE: The Dimension Riders)

Gandarotethetledrax

 * A Time Lord agent, Gandar was stabbed in the heart by Margwyn but regenerated as Margwyn missed his second heart. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)
 * Gandar regenerated again shortly after his previous regeneration when he received a fatal sword wound; his new incarnation resembled a hybrid of human and Silurian and was far more peaceful than his previous violent selves. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)

Louis

 * Louis's first regeneration was triggered by a staser-gun blast inflicted by Rigan. (AUDIO: Unregenerate!)

Elbon

 * Surgeon-Master Elbon was shot by a servitor that Irving Braxiatel placed in the TARDIS that Romana II used whilst trying to bring a pair of Pig-rats back to Gallifrey. His next incarnation was hijacked by the Dogma Virus. (AUDIO: Panacea)

River Song

 * As a little girl, Melody Pond, later known as River Song, regenerated on the streets of New York City in 1970 due to a terminal illness. She ended up as a toddler upon her regeneration. (TV: Day of the Moon, Let's Kill Hitler)
 * In her second incarnation, known to Amy Pond and Rory Williams as Mels, Melody regenerated in Hitler's private study in 1938 after the Führer accidentally shot her while aiming for the Teselecta. She later used up all of her remaining regenerations to heal the Eleventh Doctor from a poison with which she had infected him. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)

Karlax

 * Karlax was forced to regenerate having been exposed to the space vacuum after Dalek stealth ships destroyed his Battle TARDIS during the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: Engines of War)

Volstrom

 * In quick succession, Volstrom was forced to regenerate at least four times having been repeatedly shot by the Eleven using a staser modified to allow for regeneration as a means of torture, changing from male to female form then back to male then female again. (AUDIO: Songs of Love, The Side of the Angels)

Ollistra

 * When the Eleven came to New York to confront Ollistra and the Eighth Doctor, she was pushed from a building by him, which triggered a regeneration. (AUDIO: The Side of the Angels)

The General

 * After tricking the Time Lords into saving Clara Oswald with an extraction chamber, the Twelfth Doctor tried to flee with Clara and armed himself with the General's sidearm. As the gun had no stun setting, the Doctor confirmed that the General had not yet completed his regeneration cycle before shooting him. The shot resulted in the General's immediate regeneration. To the General's relief, the new incarnation was once more a woman. (TV: Hell Bent)

Thessalia

 * Chatelaine Thessalia forced herself to regenerate after the Imperator's trial by putting a gun in her mouth and committing suicide. (PROSE: The Book of the War, Newtons Sleep)
 * She regenerated again, growing younger and taller, sometime before recruiting Larissa to the Order of the Weal. Larissa speculated this occurred during the worldquake or the goblin infestation. (PROSE: Newtons Sleep)

Larissa

 * Larissa regenerated after being shot in the abdomen by Doctor Bendo. (PROSE: Newtons Sleep)

Pavo

 * Constable Pavo was shot by, who used a perception-altering ring to pose as Pavo while Pavo regenerated into a female incarnation with the aid of the Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon. (AUDIO: The Black Hole)

Trave

 * Trave was shot in the line of duty when posted to Outpost Delta. She regenerated into a male form. (AUDIO: Enemy Lines)

Kallix

 * Kallix regenerated after the Daleks attacked the Neverwhen. (AUDIO: The Neverwhen)

Albrecht

 * High Tutor Albrecht regenerated as a result of an experiment by Theta Sigma involving a perigosto stick and a temporal feedback loop. (PROSE: The Time Lord Letters)

Proto-Time Lords

 * Brooke regenerated for the first time after being shot by River Song. (AUDIO: My Dinner with Andrew)
 * Lake's first regeneration was induced after he was mortally wounded by an unstable fuel cell. Seeking to determine the number of times he could do so, he tested the ability of his fellow Proto-Time Lords by inflicting fatal injuries on them or convincing them to commit suicide. Ironically, Lake's last victim was his third and final incarnation, a girl who became known as Lily after losing her memory of her prior lives. Having witnessed Lake regenerate into Lily after mortally wounding him in anger for murdering her, River Song was forced to send Lily back in time so she would meet her fate. (AUDIO: The Lady in the Lake)
 * Wadi's regenerations were all expended through fatal injuries inflicted by Lake. (AUDIO: The Lady in the Lake)
 * As part of his religious cult, Lake convinced Stream, Beck and Creek, to die multiple times on Terminus Prime so he could covertly study regeneration and find out how long he was able to live. (AUDIO: The Lady in the Lake)
 * Rindle first regenerated after being mortally wounded by a wild beast. He regenerated again, this time into a female form, by Lake when he mistook him for an imposter. Catching up with her, Lake forced to regenerate again, now becoming an older man, before expending Rindle's remaining regenerations to power his ship. (AUDIO: The Lady in the Lake)
 * Deceived by Lake into believing that regeneration was a constant rebirth, Tarn went to Terminus Prime to commit suicide so he could continually be born again. By the time he met River, he had already died eight times. He was killed again by Kevin and then again by Dave, regenerating at least ten times. (AUDIO: The Lady in the Lake)

Causas de regeneraciones