Grayvorn Grayvorn , also known as Reeve Maupassant and Vaughan Sutton , was a native of the planet Artaris and an immortal megalomaniac who sought complete control of his world . Biography . Warlord Grayvorn . In the early stages of his life , Grayvorn was a warlord in the city of Excelis on the distant plant of Artaris , either a human colony that had lost all knowledge of its origins and had to begin from scratch or an entirely new species that simply bore a physical resemblance to humans . As a child , he was lured away from his native village by a charismatic stranger who promised him adventure , then sold him into slavery . Grayvorn grew to see life as a great cycle of enslavement and retribution , but he sometime dreamed of more than that ; when first meeting them , he allowed the Fifth Doctor and Iris Wildthyme to live because he sensed that they would play important roles in the destiny of Artaris . Everything in Grayvorn ' s life changed when he took on a quest to find the Relic , a mysterious artefact that was said to be the key to bringing Artaris to a bright , prosperous future if one who was found it . Believing himself worthy , he set out on the quest , but found himself saddled with three curious companions : Sister Jolene of the convent of Excelis , Sister Iris Wildthyme , a renegade Time Lady with a drinking problem who had the map to the Relic , and the Fifth Doctor , who had stopped on Excelis to give his TARDIS a rest . ( TV : " Frontios " ) Having Iris along on the trip meant the quest would be undertaken in her TARDIS , a Type 39 that was smaller inside that outside , currently had a broken dematerialisation circuit and was stuck looking like the number 22 double - decker bus to Putney Common . During the quest , Jolene revealed to the Doctor that , although Grayvorn was the only person who could find the Relic , he mustn ' t be allowed to tap its powers for himself . The Doctor also learned from Iris that the Relic permitted the flesh - eating zombies that guarded it to live beyond death , but what none of them knew was that the mysterious Zombie King , who owned the Relic , knew that they were on their way and feared them taking the Relic . When they reached the edges of the Zombie King ' s home , Sister Jolene ran away from the others while the Doctor was occupied with repairing Iris ' dematerialisation circuit to try to gain the secrets of the Relic . To make things even more complicated , a mistake in the coordinates in Iris ' s TARDIS resulted in Grayvorn learning that , two thousand years in the future , Artaris would be a barren , radioactive wasteland — a future that Grayvorn vowed to prevent . Returning to the present , they were captured by the Zombie King ' s followers . Iris revealed that the Relic apparently controlled the gates to Heaven and Hell and looked like a gold lame handbag Iris had once owned . Grayvorn grabbed the Relic and fled with Iris and the Doctor , intending to use it to force them to operate their TARDISes on his behalf , but upon their return to the convent , Grayvorn and the Mother Superior fought over the Relic and fell off the convent bell tower to their apparent deaths . The Relic was lost again . The Doctor and Iris departed , unaware that Grayvorn had not died . The Relic merged Grayvorn and the Mother Superior ' s minds into one , making Grayvorn immortal at the cost of being unable to sleep , as the Mother Superior drove him on to shape Excelis ' destiny . ( AUDIO : " Excelis Dawns " ) Reeve Maupassant . Over the course of the next thousand years , Grayvorn rose to a position of power in Excelis , changing his name and identity to avoid suspicion , but forever tormented by his inability to sleep . The humanoid brain wasn ' t designed to function without dreams and Grayvorn " dreamed " while awake , experiencing waking hallucinations , intermittent periods of madness where he was delirious and referred to himself as " we " as the spirits of the Relic spoke to him . Despite this , Grayvorn was still determined to find the Relic , and , eventually , under the name of Reeve Maupassant , he tracked it to a museum in Excelis , arriving shortly after an attempted burglary on the Relic and meeting a man in a multi - coloured coat with curly blond hair and a blue box referred to as a TARDIS , who called himself the Doctor . Unable to reveal Maupassant ' s true identity without being exposed as a fraud himself , the Doctor played along with the investigation into the attempted theft . He answered Maupassant ' s questions about his change of appearance . However , since the Doctor believed that regeneration was too difficult a concept for Maupassant to understand , all that Maupassant discovered from questioning him was that the Doctor ' s body was different from their previous encounter but the mind was the same , which led him to an erroneous conclusion . Learning that the thief who ' d tried to steal the Relic had been hired by a third party , the Doctor realised that Maupassant was behind the raid , intending to trigger a failed theft of the Relic and then claim it for himself under the guise of " protecting evidence " . After a séance ( the spirits of the dead being able to communicate with the living on Artaris ) , the Doctor confirmed Maupassant ' s identity and realised what he was trying to do . Maupassant believed the Doctor had transferred his mind into another body , and now , to rid himself of the Mother Superior ' s mind , he was going to use the Relic to transfer the Mother Superior into another body . However , just as Maupassant tried to open the Relic to transfer the second soul into a new host , he was distracted by Danby , an inquisitor who had been helping the Doctor ' s enquiries , giving the Doctor the chance to open the Relic on Maupassant and apparently absorb both Maupassant and the Mother Superior into it . ( AUDIO : " Excelis Rising " ) Vaughan Sutton . This was not the end for Grayvorn . The museum was a very old building and Grayvorn had great strength of spirit . Even though he had been reduced to a shadow of himself , trapped in this ancient stone structure , the Mother Superior and the Doctor had shown him it was possible to transfer his mind into another body . Surviving as a psychic matrix embedded in the building , Grayvorn grew in strength until one day he had the power to possess an unfortunate visitor , reshape the body into his own image and grant it immortality — Grayvorn reborn . Using this new body , Grayvorn established himself as a totalitarian dictator of Excelis , taking the name of Lord Vaughan Sutton , and rewriting history to portray his past identities of Grayvorn and Maupassant as a great hero and the architect of reason respectively . Learning about genetics , Sutton created " Meat Puppets " animated by the souls and flesh of abducted citizens and ensured that Excelis would remain in a state of perpetual warfare so that he would remain in power . However , for his plans to work , he required a key factor for his success , and this factor eventually came when the Seventh Doctor returned to Excelis and was separated from the TARDIS during a riot . Sutton stole the TARDIS , knowing the Doctor would come looking for it . He waited in the Imperial Museum until the Doctor arrived . This confrontation revealed why the Doctor was constantly drawn back to Excelis ; on his first visit , he made contact with the still - intact Relic and his soul had become part of it ; a part of him always remained on Excelis . Sutton was determined to use the Doctor ' s knowledge to spread his evil among the galaxy , but the Doctor refused to help , instead finding and opening the Relic — which Sutton had been using to animate his golems — allowing the rest of his soul to join it . While linked with the Relic , the Doctor contacted the many spirits in the Relic — including Grayvorn ' s old foe , the Mother Superior , who revealed that the Doctor alone had the power to offer the souls in the Relic true peace . With the souls freed from the Relic , Sutton could no longer use it , but rather than accept defeat , he activated the orbital defences , vowing that if he couldn ' t have Excelis , nobody could . Forced to leave his allies behind , the Doctor retreated to the TARDIS , but , as soon as he ' d entered the ship , Sutton appeared outside , threatening to kill an innocent man if the Doctor didn ' t let him in . Knowing that Sutton ' s link to the Relic meant that he would be able to operate the TARDIS , the Doctor locked him out and waited out the nuclear holocaust Sutton triggered . The Relic might survive and some of the planet ' s population could wait out the devastation in the shelters , but Grayvorn was gone forever . Despite this , the Doctor departed Excelis hating himself for what he ' d been forced to do , ending that chapter of his life and leaving Excelis a barren , radioactive wasteland — the future that Grayvorn saw from Iris ' s bus so long ago . ( AUDIO : " Excelis Decays " )