David Smythe

Lieutenant David Smythe was a young member of "Nelson's navy" in the early 19th century. After being rescued from the Sontarans, he became a companion to the Time Lord Rollo.

Early life
David was born in 1782, and was raised in an aristocratic family.

On one of their shared adventures, Time Lords Rollo and Volusa intervened in a Sontaran incursion in the 1800s. Though the Sontarans had killed almost the entire crew of a Royal Navy sloop, there was one survivor, none other than David Smythe, whom they rescued; with his help, they were able to defeat the aliens. Smythe and Volusa developed a mutual infatuation, and Smythe stowed away on Rollo's TARDIS after the adventure was done, subsequently becoming a companion to Rollo in earnest and increasingly proving to be "the perfect match" for Volusa despite — or rather thanks to — both young men's abrasive personalities. (GAME: )

The Iytean investigation
On one occasion, Rollo and his companions were summoned to Gallifrey to be briefed by Lady Rowella about a new assignment. The discovery of an energy weapon on 1980s Earth as an heirloom from its human owner's Victorian ancestor Colonel Malcolm Fraser had the Invasion worried about alien, and potentially time-active, activity in 1885 London. (GAME: )

There, they discovered that Colonel Fraser had been buying a steady supply of alien artefacts from a pair of crooks called Jack Bannister and Bert Jenkins, who had secretly discovered a buried Iytean starship while trying to dig a tunnel into a bank two years prior. Unbeknownst to them, the ship had been a police vessel transporting an Iytean criminal. With the Iyteans being symbionts, the criminal had hitched a ride in Jenkins's body then transferred itself to Fraser's acquaintance Doctor Henry Jellicoe, causing him to periodically lose control of his body and adopt the malevolent persona of "Ned Hines". With the help of the Colonel's granddaughter Julia Fraser, and that of Thomas Carruthers, the son of his old friend Sir Reginald Carruthers (who had been murdered by Hines), the time-travellers were able to unravel the mystery and eventually neutralise the Iytean as well as ensure the starship would not be rediscovered and thereby derail Earth history any further. (GAME: )

Before leaving 1885, Rollo went on one last outing in the city, and had lunch with a writer called Robert Louis Stevenson, telling him about the adventure. It was only when he returned to the TARDIS and told Verika, another one of his companions, about the encounter that he learned he had just inspired Stevenson to write The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. (GAME: )

Psychological profile
Raised in an aristocratic family, David was often haughty and arrogant, and frequently took offence to "real or imagined slights" over which he tried to challenge people to duels. However, he was also "absolutely fearless" and possessed of a strong moral fibre and sense of duty. He also loved the thrill of adventure, gladly placing himself in danger when duty demanded it. (GAME: )

Physical appearance
Smythe was a "short, aristocratic young man", his long brown hair "caught in a queue". He had grey eyes and a pale compexion. Even after becoming a time-traveller, he continued dressing in his old uniform from his days as a Lieutenant in "Nelson's navy", which included "a blue jacket over white duck trousers, with a fancy presentation sword and an antique flintlock pistol at his belt". (GAME: )