Appendix N Musings - Michael Moorcock's 'Kane of Old Mars', & an OSR Sword & Science Fantasy Campaign Set Up

 As was said last blog entry there's something very distinctive about Michael Moorcocks's Kane of Old Mars series. The Michael Moorcock, Kane of Old Mars (Warriors of Mars/Blades of Mars/Barbarians of Mars) (Lancer, 1965) books are a homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom books. But they have a very distinctive flavor because the war between Law & Chaos on Mars is far closer to the fight between Entropy & Order. Kane of Old Mars in my opinion is close to the tone to the Leigh Brackett's Mars tales. The rich tapestry of  ancient order of Mars  veruss the newer races of Earth's  tribalism & colonization within Bracett's tales contrasts against the battle of Law & Chaos. Moorcock's Mars is a rich painted landscape of ancient brooding Mars contasted against the soul of the eternal champanion warrior Kane. 

Both of these author's takes on Mars contrasts with the Martian tales of Clark Aston Smith. Smith's Mars is a brood pile of wastelands were human interlopers are out matched by ancient horrors. Which is the true Mars?! All of em folks. Because these ancient horrors lurk at the very edges of the rpg that draws distinctly from Clark Ashton Smith. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea definitely drinks deeply from the veins of Clark Aston Smith & Michael Moorcock. 

In terms of the OSR adventures that combined these alien elements  into a truly weird & alien mix. Lamentations of the Flame Princess Barbarians of Orange Boiling Seas does an excellent job of combining the effects of explorers & ancient Barsoomian like cultures clashing. Again it has that distinctive LoFP flavor but Barbarians will work with AS&SH as a further expansion module. 
Zzarchov Kowolski is up to his usual standards of adventure design. 

What does any of this have to do with the ideas of AS&SH's Hyperborea?! Quite a bit besides the ever present science fantasy artifacts another time. The clash of the Law of society & the Chaos of barbarianism. The same theme we see over & over again in Edgar Rice Burroughs writing even though its not smacking the reader in the face in the Barsoom books. Once again in Brackett's work we have an artifact sword that represents far more then it seems. In Bracket's Sword of Rhiannon we find an artifact that transports those that hold it back to the days of ancient Mars. A tribal Mars where the warfare is far more real & dangerous then even the reader knows. This is a Mars with ancient gods, powerful magicks, & battles as old as Lovecraftian time where humans  & Martians are the 'johnny come latelies'. 

Brackett, Moorcock, Clark Ashton Smith, & even Clark Ashton Smith's Mars contrast with one another but could be one in the same planet. And they are within this OSR science fantasy campaign we're cooking up. Its been a campaign described as Conan on Mars. And in some cases this is correct. But what makes it is the Law Vs Chaos aspect of Moorcock's Kane of Old Mars. The idea lurking just over the threshold of a very alien Mars with ancient gods lurking just on the fringes of the literature. 
These very elements are lurking within Beyond Belief Game's Jarkoon - Adventures on Planet X! which pick up on & dive deeper into the other planetary adventures ideals we talked about last blog entry. 

                                                                                       
We'll explore further how all of this fits together as one whole cohesive campaign setting coming up on the blog 

Astonishing Swordmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, Michael Moorcock's 'Kane of Old Mars', & an OSR Sword & Science Fantasy Campaign Set Up

 Alright several weeks ago before the current Sword & Sorcery run that we've been on at the table top level. Things got pretty interesting before DM Steve's schedule with work fractured our current campaign. So its been a bit of mad scramble to get back on track but last night a phone call proved quite good with him feed us some Sword & Planet notes.  His proposel was simple use Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg as the basis for an OSR  Sword & Science Fantasy campaign set up. The idea here is that millions of years in the future. This picks right up where yesterday's blog entry ended. Steve's idea here is that we draw some inspiration from Michael Moorcock's 'Kane of Old Mars' stories. The Kane series is a homage to Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom stories; "Michael Kane is the principal character, a Vietnam veteran that goes into physics and ends up on Mars during one of his experiments. He tells the author of the book his tales of adventure and the life he made on Mars. Typical of Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories, Moorcock's hero is a philosophical man who hates war (except Elric), but is good at it when he needs to be. Through Kane, Moorcock speaks of how fear affects us and causes us to do the wrong thing (kill, hate, etc.). Kane tries his best to remedy that with logic and compassion." All of the above comes from Michael H. Weekley Amazon review on Kane of Old Mars 

So using this as a campaign basis we need to expand the classes of AS&SH to really give the  an OSR  Sword & Science Fantasy campaign set up push. So using two other OSR rpg sources DM Steve feels confident that it can work. Source one is BX Mars which is beautifully done Michael Gibbons artwork, rpg design, etc. And really this is a whole cloth campaign unto itself. 

OSR source two is Warriors of the Red Planet rpg by Night Owl Workshop  this adds in a psionic system class to our game campaign set up. We could stop there but there's even more coming up. We need a basic adventure to kick off the Sword & Science Fantasy campaign. So what we're going for is full on 'Conan on Mars' feel here. Beyond Belief Games has Jarkoon - The Princess and the Green Men. This is a clocked in ten page, easy to run 1st level adventure, with the machinations of the Green Men all dialed in. For contrast Doc's Warriors of Mars from Jason Vey's Grey Elf site is a classic. 

So if you want to run your AS&SH party of adventurers within an old  solar system style adventure upon another planet with a Barsoomian flare without the copyright violation issues. This is one way. But if you want to expand this beyond into the intersellar bounds then Beyond Belief Games has you covered with Space Adventures X. 

From here if you want to dive back into a whole cloth urban adventure in the streets of Hypborea's capital City-State of Khromarium before heading into the wilds of space millions of years in the future. Lankhmar: City of Adventure for Second Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons works quite nicely as a Khromarium stand in. 

'Kane of Old Mars' is another of Moorcock's phisophical eternal champions & its interesting how he stands in stark contrast the violence of Bar erm Mars around him. Out of the eternal champions he's one of the most compassionate & yet complicated of the incarnations of the eternal champions. Could the PC's be used to tie up a ton of the loose ends of 'Kane of Old Mars'?! Its a strong possibility as a Mars campaign bridge gap. 
 As far as this being Mars for this run of AS&SH?! We think not. The popular consense is that this is another worldlet with this solar system. Tomorrow we dive into other applications of this campaign frame up. 

Classic Dungeons & Dragons Edition Sword & Planet - Post Apocalyptic Mars & Beyond Campaign Start

The classic TSR era has some incredible modules & its these modules adaptability that makes them such classics. If Tom Moldvay's 'B1 The Lost City' was set on Mars or another science fantasy  planetary campaign.   'B1 The Lost City' could used as the basis for an entire Sword & Planet  campaign beginning. The PC's awaken from a desert  caravan in the middle of an alien desert with no memory of how they got there. Adventure events heat up as B4 usual encounters kick in. This gives the PC's an experience path for levels one to three right outta of the gate. But this is only the beginning of a Sword & Planet OD&D or B/X path. 

You know there are times when I really should be checking out the Mutant Future Wiki & their entry on Warriors of the Red Planet rpg. Tonight I was listening to the Old Man Grognard podcast about the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg. 
Now back in the past I've written about using these two sources together in the past. This is kinda of a bit different. 

I'm really thinking of returning to a post apocalyptic Mars but one set within a vastly different universe. This is one of those periods where its the reading & research phase of a campaign setting. Now I've been talking about this Cha'alt/Carcosa hybrid campaign. But the PC's are going to need to cut their teeth someplace before I set them down within the back end of nowhere squared with the star spawn of  Cthulhu breathing down their necks. So why Warriors of the Red Planet? The Mutant Future wiki breakdown has the following; "The rules used an Night Owl Workshop products are similar to the popular Swords & Wizardly rule-set, in that it is based on a more streamlined version of the original 1974 Dungeons & Dragons rules, AKA "OD&D", with a number of modern improvements like listing Armor Class with both "assenting" and "Descending" scores and using a "BAB"-like To-Hit Bonus (THB) instead of large THAC0-based to-hit roll charts.

The game presents a new attribute called Social Standings, which represents reputation, social-status and cultural relevance. Unfortunately, there is a lack of information on how it effects game-play.

Saving throws are listed as: Explosions, Mentalism, Energy, Poison, Falls and General.

There are five Races:

• The Ancients represent the type of once dominant, but now near-extinct race found in many classic pulp sci-fi, like the Lotharians from Barsoom or the Martians from Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. They are represent as being mentally stronger, but physically weaker to most humans. In MF, they could be humans form before the great war or cataclysm.
• The Elevated represent "uplifted" animals and plants, or animal-/plant-like alien creatures with human or near-human intelligence. The Coeurl is a prime example of the latter. In MF, they are basically Mutant Animals and Plants.
• Exotics represent more unusual types of humanoid aliens, like the green-skin Thark and Warloon tribes on Barsoom. In MF, they are basically Mutant Humans.
• Humans represent common human and human-like people, even if they are not earth humans, like the red-skin people on Barsoom, who look human, but live a long lifespan and are oviparous (lays eggs). In MF, they are Pure Humans.
• Unliving represent people created through artificial means, like Frankenstein's creation and the Synthetic Men from Barsoom. They are noted for having a distorted would view that can make them troublesome or unhinged. In MF, they are Androids.

There are four Classes:

• The Fighting-man is your standard warrior type, found in nearly all fiction.
• The Scoundrel is your rogue, thief, swashbuckler and scruffy-looking nerf-hearder.
• The Mentalist possesses psychic abilities.
• The Scientist is your classic "Mad Scientist" type.

Scientists are able to "invent" gadgets, who's effects are similar to D&D spells, with daily limits based on having to keep them powered or maintained. Than is, an irradium torch works like a D&D light spell, but gives off a green hue and can maintain power for one hour per level of inventor. (Or for 10gp, you can buy an irradium lantern from the Basic Gear list that shines brighter and lasts longer.) Mental powers also work like D&D spells.

Mentalists, Scientists and Sorcerers are good if one wants to play Mutant Future with the Mutants & Mazes conversion rules.

The book contains a large list of monsters and people to fight, as well as a great ideas on campaign and adventure design." 

I'm thinking of reviving the Clark Ashton Smith Solar System campaign that my players were in about two years ago. At its heart there was a nasty Atomic War that the humans were responsible for! This world was a post Fifties or Sixties alternative Earth with advanced technologies that had bombed itself back to the Stone Age. 

This campaign was a sort of cross between 'Thundarr The Barbarian' & Hanna Barbera 'The Herculoids' meets the video game Fallout in a dark alley. Here's the Hanna Berbera 'Herculoids' free AD&D files. 

The real problem with this campaign is the fact that the players wanted to concentrate on Mars especially after downloading B/X Mars by Michael Gibbons. 

Add in Grey Elf (Jason Vey)'s reformat of Warriors of Mars - Barsoom by "Doc" along with Jason's Conan Original Dungeons & Dragons Conan supplements & you've got literal Conan on Mars; 

The Age of Conan, a "hack" for using OD&D in the Hyborian Age of Robert E. Howard. Note: Includes the entirety of Forbidden Lore, below. Age of Conan II: Secrets of Acheron, a sourcebook for sorcerers and sorcery in the Hyborian Age. Age of Conan III: Secrets of the Black Circle, a further sourcebook for Hyborian Age campaigns 4-panel DM Screen for the Age of Conan Not only does this whole cloth original Dungeons & Dragons or B/X Dungeons & Dragons material give the players a real & legit Mars campaign but the tool kit to bring everything into focus for may years to come with a solid Sword & Sorcery base.  Using the Grey Elf free resources the DM can literally take the 'wizards  of the black circle' from Warriors of the Red Planet & entirely flesh them out from the ground up! I can already here much gnashing & tearing of garments! Why haven't you mentioned the  Planet Algol blog?! Because I consider much of the Algol stuff advanced in concept. This is a set up from levels 1-3 & a campaign foundation.  Clyde Caldwell's 'Virgin Planet' hits this campaign's high notes. Used without permission. But its a great piece of Caldwell artwork.