TimeLords Second Edition (1983)

From the back of the book:

"TimeLords. Where you can design and play the most challenging character of them all...yourself. The system lets you use your present stats, or any alternate persona you can think of, the character you are, or the one you would like to be. Thrust through unknown time, space and probability, to go home you must learn to control the awesome forces at your disposal.

Incredibly detailed, incredibly accurate, the universal TimeLords system works in any place, time or genre, with full rules on all forms of combat, sections of time and dimension travel, and the ability to adapt to any type of playing or GM'ing style.

Players also have the opportunity to join the Time Patrol, creating characters from the ground up, from any period or background, to act as agents of this elite force. In the patrol, you can help preserve the present by foiling plots in the past. Or, just use the TimeLords system as a base for your fantasy, science-fiction or post-holocaust campaigns. The possibilities are endless.

There is no place you cannot go. Adventure into forever. Be a TimeLord."

Timelords begins at the End of Time. A doomed race, known as "The Designers", gifted in both psionics and sciences set about escaping their fate as the inevitable end of the universe encroached. Eventually, they discover time travel, and use this knowledge to move their entire solar system backwards in time to when the universe is about 15 billion years old. The actual Designers have never been seen by humans. After attempting to create powerful new life forms, they created "Lucifer", a sentient being that led the destruction of the Designer race and caused the dispersion of Designer technology across the universe.

The pinnacle of their achievements was the "Matrix", a small time-travel device, the size and shape of a 20-sided die, weighing about 3 pounds. The Matrix could be used for personal time travel, as an energy source, and other things only hinted at by the rule books. It is one of these Matrix devices that the players of the game find to begin their adventure.