Designing Martian Adventures In The Warriors of the Red Planet Rpg - Edgar Rice Burroughs The Mastermind of Mars

 So I've been reviewing my notes on Edgar Rice Burrough's The Mastermind of Mars & you can read about my experiences using this ERB classic with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons resources on the blog here. 

The Mastermind of Mars does several interesting things one of which is describing in some detail the country of Thool & deep details on the city-state of Phundahl. Which is interesting because we almost but not quite get a deeper look into some of the underside of this city state. While there isn't anything unseemly about it the citystate is a bit sleazy. Which makes a perfect location for adventurers on Barsoom or Mars. Ras Thavas is an incredible resource or super science for a party of adventurers. 
 Martian royalty are dynastic jerks because of the very system that Barsoom employs. Because of royal commitments, treaties, and dwidling resources warfare and cloak and dagger operations are only a prelude to war. And as we've seen with a Mastermind of Mars assassins are the norm not the exception to the rule of removing royal or mundane problems. The Warriors of the Red Planet Rpg also plugs into this sanctioned assassination and duelist culture that infects Mars. Behind the scenes murders,poisoning, etc have to be rampant throughout Mars. And this probably leads to social instability. Could some of the abandoned cities on Mars actually be a result of cultural madness as citystate resources and issues dry up?! This is something we've seen throughout the series and there are illusions to it throughout the Barsoom books.  
Could there be a more desparate and edgy reason for the dungeon crawling on Barsoom to stop the decline of the planet?! And is the decline artificial in nature. Hear me out here. Are the Therns  responsible for the planetary decline?! If they can keep the races of Mars dependent upon them then their continued control is assured. Or is it? Adventurers are definitely a destabilizing element in the plans of the Therns or at least they are within our games.