O is for... Orcini

Former member of the Order of Oberon, an organisation of assassins. Orcini had broken their rules and been excluded from the group, and was now acting freelance. An honourable man, he still adhered to the Order's ethos and only took on jobs where the victim was someone deserving of death, and money mattered little to him. He often gave his fees to charities.

His constant companion was his squire Bostock who was fiercely loyal to him and offered good advice. Bostock's personal hygiene left a lot to be desired.

During his career Orcini had suffered many injuries, the most severe of which was the loss of a leg. he wore a prosthetic limb which was in need of repair, but he preferred to leave it as it was as a reminder of his mortality.

Orcini was approached by a businesswoman named Kara with a job on the planet Necros. She was being forced to share the profits of her food production business with the owner of the nearby Tranquil Repose funerary complex. This was Davros, hiding in the catacombs of the complex and posing as "the Great Healer". He was building a new army of Daleks loyal to him, using the bodies of the dead and those in cryogenic suspension. The waste products were being turned into the foodstuff produced by Kara, and she was helping fund his experiments. She now wanted everything for herself, and Orcini was to assassinate Davros. He was handed a communications device to notify her once the deed was done, but it actually contained a powerful bomb as she did not want to pay him. Orcini took on the job principally because of the honour he would achieve in killing the creator of the Daleks, thinking it might even lead to him being readmitted to the Order. He might retire after this.

Never having trusted Kara, Orcini ended up walking into a trap. Bostock was killed and Orcini had his artificial leg shot off. Kara had been captured and brought to Tranquil Repose, and confessed that the communications device was a bomb. Daleks from Skaro captured Davros and Orcini sacrificed himself to detonate it in the hope that he might destroy the Dalek spaceship with Davros on board.

Unfortunately the ship escaped, but the blast put an end to Davros' new Dalek army.

Played by: William Gaunt. Appearances: Revelation of the Daleks (1985).

• Gaunt first came to prominence as one third of The Champions - the ITC series which ran for a single season between 1968-69. Terry Nation and Dennis Spooner contributed scripts.
• Other popular roles for Gaunt included the sitcoms No Place Like Home and Next of Kin. The former was Martin Clunes' first big TV role after his turn in Snakedance.
• Eric Saward took Orcini's name from the famous Roman dynasty the Orsini, one of whom was a Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes. The writer's holiday to the region inspired a number elements of Revelation.