Amazing Adventures Rpg & Edgar Rice Burroughs's Pellucidar as An OSR Campaign Setting

 Edgar Rice Burrough's At The Earth's Core is one of my favorite books because of the setting of the fictional "hollow earth" land of Pellucidar. The prehistoric lost world of Pellucidar is perfectly suited to use with Troll Lord's Amazing Adventures rpg is a great campaign setting. 

"At the Earth's Core is a 1914 fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first in his series about the fictional "hollow earth" land of Pellucidar." from the wiki entry on the ERB book At The Earth's  Core. 
The Pellucidar setting has a huge number of prehistoric tribal nations from cavemen to fully Neanderthal tribal peoples. There's no real day or night in the world of Pellucidar except from a sort of star that hangs in the sky and has an erratic orbit. .
The biggest problem is the inclusion of magic and it's attendants into an ERB inspired world. Although this did not stop DC Comics back in the Seventies with Mike Grell's Warlord which drew quite a bit of inspiration from the worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Pellucidar also may have baked in psionics. While a controversal in the world's most popular fantasy role playing game's circles. Psionic powers  look to be essential in  Pellucidar especially in ERBzine's article  Telepathy in Pellucidar. But how does a DM incorporate the fantasy element of Castles & Crusades into such a prehistoric setting??! Use another dimension (yes this is one option) but another is too simply make another continent within Pellucidar.

If Seventeenth century pirates can exist along side of prehistoric dinosaurs. Then it's an easy link to add magic and C&C style fantasy into a Lost World campaign. 
Page Eighty seven of Amazing Adventures Players Handbook goes into using C&C character classes in Amazing Adventures campaigns. 
So it's really easy to get into using your own version of Pellucidar.This is exactly what I'm going to be doing. 
Going forward my player's have been on my back to get back into a prehistoric version of an Amazing Adventures campaign. Over the years I've used Lovecraftian rpg elements into ERB style campaign worlds. 

Holy Martian Terror, Warriors of the Red Planet & The Gods of Mars By Edgar Rice Burroughs

 It's been a New York minute since I've written anything about Mars and the last time was back on March 29th. Our Warriors of the Red Planet rpg/Hyperborea rpg campaign has been on hiatus because of two of our player's personal business.  This hasn't kept me away from the Mars Appendix N material in this case the second book of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom books 'The Gods of Mars'. 

Everything Barsoomian that you loved from 'A Princess of Mars' is now turned up to eleven. We've got details on the shame behind the Martian religion is and how the worshipers become plantman food. Let's take a look at 'The Gods of Mars' plot summery from the Wiki entry; "As usual for him, Burroughs begins with a frame story that explains how he (Burroughs) came into possession of the text. At the end of the first book, A Princess of Mars, John Carter was unwillingly transported back to Earth. The story proper begins with his arrival back on Barsoom (Mars) after a ten-year separation with Dejah Thoris, their unborn child, and the Red Martian people of the nation of Helium, whom he has adopted as his own. Unfortunately, Carter materializes in the one place on Barsoom from which nobody is allowed to depart: the Valley Dor, which is the Barsoomian afterlife." 
'It's actually the second part of the plot summation that contains an interesting tid bit;"After John Carter's arrival, a boat of Green Martians on the River Iss are ambushed by the previously unknown Plant Men. The lone survivor is his friend Tars Tarkas, the Jeddak of Thark, who has taken the pilgrimage to the Valley Dor to find Carter. Having saved their own lives, Carter and Tars Tarkas discover that the Therns, a white-skinned race of self-proclaimed gods, have for eons deceived the Barsoomians elsewhere with the lie that the pilgrimage to the Valley Dor is a journey to paradise. Most arrivals are killed by the beasts who dwell here, and the survivors enslaved or eaten by Therns." 
The Holy Therns are not simply shame priests but a cult of holy cannibals who feed on spectrum of Barsoomian tribesmen and life. Let me put this into perspective for you as a player playing in a post Gods of Mars & Warlord of Mars  Barsoom.  The Holy Therns are on the run and very desparate! Who are they?! According to the Encyclopedia Barsoomia entry on the Cult of the  Holy Therns;"  The Holy Therns were a vicious Martian cult populated by the therns. Inhabitants of the Valley Dor, they worshipped the "living goddess" Issus (who is actually merely an ancient Black Martian woman), and sought to keep her happy with human sacrifices. For centuries, they enthusiastically promoted the idea that the Valley Dor is the gateway to Martian Heaven and decreed that any Martian who had reached 1,000 years of age or merely tired of living should travel to the valley to either spend the rest of eternity in paradise or be reborn. When the unsuspecting pilgrims reached the valley, they found a beautiful land where fruit and water were plentiful... which also happened to be heavily inhabited by white apes and plant men. Those who survived those creatures ended up enslaved by the Holy Therns, who would work them to death before feeding them to Issus or the Tenth Cycle. The Holy Therns' downfall came in 1886, when John Carter suddenly returned to Mars." 
The Therns are part of the social logical technological   pyramid of power on Barsoom with the Black Pirates, the Therns, and then The Red Men behind the movements of Barsoomian society. The Holy Thern cult is able to manipulate many of the Royal houses on Barsoom subtly. This is evident in the Dynamite series 'A Warlord of Mars'. The Therns agenda is one of survival, domination, rulership, and total power.  Then finally consumption through cannibalism. 

What does this mean for adventurers on Mars or Barsoom?! The fact is that the player's PC's could stumble upon Holy Thern operations & then be branded as outlaws in all Barsoomian society. At the center of this is the 'goddess' Issus  the Goddess of Life Eternal, Daughter of the Lesser Moon, Mother of the Nearer Moon, and the Goddess of Death. She is 'incharge' of the Holy Therns & the First Born. The Therns manipulate both her & all of Barsoom. Adventuring on a Pre John Carter Mars could be a death sentence for the adventurers. Or the means of living the outlaw life on a Mars  without the yoke of the First Born and the Therns.. 

There is literally no citystate on Mars that the influence of the Holy Therns can't reach which means that an outlaw PC campaign would have the player's PC's surviving in the city ruins along the dried up seas. There is literally no where the PC's can escape the Holy Therns in a pre John Carter campaign. The power of the Therns is legendary among Martians and thier evil agenda is one of power and domination throughout Barsoom. 

The Inhumanly Alien Side of Mars - Clark Ashton Smith, Warriors of the Red Planet, Hyperborea and The OSR Martian Campaign

 Ages ago I had a Warriors of the Red Planet/Hyperborea rpg campaign that took place after the apparent destruction of Old Earth. The Green Martians & the colored races of Mars with the Aihai being part of the ruling cycle of royals on Mars. Unlike their ancestors, the Yorhi, the Aihai are not proficient in the use of advanced machinery, although occasionally one can be found operating ancient technology beyond the capabilities of human science, such as disintegrator rays.


 Eons ago the whole of Mars erupted in a civil war with the coming of the Great Old One  Vulthoom and his followers. The  ruling Aihais who eradicated most of the cult. Vulthoom was defeated and it and its followers fled underground, where they slumbered in suspended animation for centuries. Another radical cult of Aihai worships the Dweller in the Gulf. 

Richard Coban artwork from the Vaults of Yoh Yombis by Clark Ashton Smith. 

  These races exist along side the Red & Green Martians having retreated after the marauding of the Green Martian tribes started thousands of years ago along the dead sea bottoms. The Aihai have little to do with the warlike imposters who came from beyond the stars. Human colonists came and established themselves on Mars but things have been quite dangerous as Old Earth has been destroyed. Here's where we mix in Warriors of the Red Planet. 

There is rocket service and trade between the eight planets colonies but it's a very delicate balance in terms of resources and the human states of Mars. Into this mix comes the low lander races of Red men tribes of Leigh Brackett. And then you've got the far higher caste of Red men from Edgar Rice Burroughs royals who never mix. Well this isn't true because of certain norms and byways that gets  used quite often in the ERB stories. Now add to this mix the fact that the Green Death has wiped out centuries ago the alien Hyperboreans. Mars and Hyperborea align when the Boreas forces allow which is less frequently then one might imagine. So while a party might crossover onto Mars on the starwinds. They may find themselves stranded on Mars. 
Humanity cleaves to a few minor citystates where there are pro human and Martian factions abound. There are however a few minor 'Thieves cities' where humans, aliens, and others mix. 

Edgar Rice Burroughs 'The Master Mind of Mars', Original Dungeons & Dragons, and Our Warriors of the Red Planet/Hyperborea rpg

 Last night we stepped back from gaming because of conflicts with work schedules and whatnot. So instead we DM's got together for a beer. We got a chance to take a breather & discuss Edgar Rice Burroughs, Barsoom, and one of my favorite of the ERB's Mars books The Mastermind of Mars. And my all time favorite is the 1927 publication in Amazing Stories Annual of 'The Mastermind of Mars'. 

The Mastermind of  Mars concerns  Ulysses Paxton, & elderly mad scientist Ras Thavas, the "Master Mind" of the title, as Paxton comes into the household of the mad scienctist. Ras trains Paxton in a few levels of the mad science of Mars. 
And these operations were ground breaking for the 1920's as organ transplants and mind transplants were the stuff of Science Fiction. And this plays the central theme of the novels plot as the mad scientist transplants the brain of an evil queen into the body of a Martian princess. He does this for a fantastic fee of course.. 
There are more then a few things that are interesting about Mastermind of Mars. One is how Ulysses Paxton assembles his team of Martian adventurers. 
Ras Thavas has a wide selection of Martians on the slabs of his science center 'mostly dead' whom Paxton then selects to be his crew. And we get a really interesting White Ape who has the partial brain of a Red Martian. And we also get a swordsmen plus one of the first depictions of a Martian assassin. 

The second half of the book is the really interesting part because of the fact that we get a real deep dive into a Martian city. And  Ulysses Paxton as well as his crew go into the Martian city of an enemy city state. And we see full on the Martian life of the Red Martians from the bottom up so to speak. 

Yes lots of adventure & excitement including a look at the bogus religion of the Martians of  the city-state of Phundahl. One of the neglected areas that almost everyone seems to forget is the wilderness of  the city-state of Toonol. The swamps surrounding  the city-state of Toonol, are completely infested with every horror known to Martian including the four armed White Apes. And this goes straight back into the ideas for monster placement within original Dungeons & Dragons The Underworld & Dungeon Adventures book. 

Everyone seems to forget the scope of ERB's Mars and just how big of a planet that Mars is. Within our Hyperborea/ Warriors of the Red Planet rpg. This is something that we as both DM's and players have come across time and again. 

Not only is there more then enough room for all of the various classes of Hyperborea. There's plenty of room in society that many of the classes of characters that we find within Leigh Brackett's Mars could easily fit into one of Mars citystates without issue. 
What really plays the part here has been Night Owl Workshop's OSR Social Systems. These have allowed our heroes to go about thier business on Mars quite nicely. 

I believe that Paxton & crew are a part of an untouchable caste on Mars. This allows many of the Martians to go about thier business quite nicely. And it fits the strata of the huge number of examples of adventurers going about thier business in ERB. Why?! Because the Green, the barbarians, and other hordes are a part of the uncivilized caste on the sands of Mars. I'm not saying that you can go through the social strata of Mars far from it. There is however an ancient reminder that every Martian has in society of thier place think of fuedal Japan and the samurai as a possible example. 

Martians racially remember the fall of the society of the Ancients & they instinctively have the social strata system in place. This allows assassins & swordsmen to move freely and along with adventurers are looked at with quiet distain by polite society.. Even while the citystates go to war there is still quite a bit of day to day society going on. And within the shadows of society the adventurers skulk and change the course of destiny of a civilization. 

OSR Commentary On The Free OSR Supplement - OD&D's Doc's Adventures On Mars

 So running a Mars campaign hasn't been challenging as one might think as a DM. Looking through the original Dungeons & Dragons forums. A friend came across an excellent supplement in the form of  OD&D's Doc's Adventures On Mars in this thread here. 

OD&D's Doc's Adventures On Mars clocks in at eighty four pages & has all of the essentials for a Lovecraftian  Martian campaign. This includes super science, new character classes, and lots of Lovecraftian gods & monsters. OD&D's Doc's Adventures On Mars could also easily work with Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Warriors of the Red Planet & it's family of games, and other OSR games. This includes Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea & other lower level player character  games. This also means that OD&D's Doc's Adventures On Mars could potentially work with White Star Galaxy edition with some adjustment on the DM's part. 
  And did we happen to mention that  OD&D's Doc's Adventures On Mars is free. 

The Free OSR Supplement - OD&D's Doc's Adventures On Mars Is Available Here. 

Past Incarnations, Free Classic Adventure Fiction Downloads, Domain Management, & Old School Campaigns

 I was speaking with an old friend of mine last night about Appendix N from the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide. What came up in conversation was the fact that there have always been connections within shared universes & heroes of fiction's incarnations. The first name that popped up was Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champions books. But the challenge was in using some less traditional sources for campaign building.

But actually the idea goes back much further and crosses into the Lost Worlds genre in several places. One of my favorites is the  prehistoric adventures of James Allison's pre-incarnations in the Aesir stories of Robert E.Howard. Here the protagonist James Allison is a crippled shell of a man dying in the heat of the Texas day who can remember all of his past incarnations including Niord who leads his stout warriors across the face of the world until they come upon a nation of Picts and then things get really bloody. Swords swing bodies fly and then reason takes over one of the Pictish tribesmen is spared & our hero's tribe settles into a former valley of the Cataclysm. The two tribes intermarry things settle down, time moves on, and eventually a splinter group goes out into the world to settle into another ruined jungle valley. This is the set up for the rest of the story as Niord goes out and faces not one monster but in fact four the last one being the Lovecraftian horror of the Worm. This thing is something out of a Lovecraftian nightmare, another of Howard's Mythos hold overs hiding out in a hidden valley. The worm leaves quite the impression though as a thing born from the imagination of Howard via his own take on his mythos.
"... a night-born demoniac intelligence such as men in dreams vaguely sense throbbing titanically in the black gulfs outside our material universe."


Down Load The James Allison Collection
By Robert E. Howard HERE
There are a lot of things to mine from the story. The second James Allison story in the public domain is Garden of Fear, it touches on many of the same themes as Valley of the Worm. But many Howard fans don't consider it in the league of Valley but it touches on another incarnation of James Allison & has a few trappings that can be mined for old school gaming. According to Wiki;The Garden of Fear and Other Stories is an anthology of fantasy and science fiction stories anonymously edited by William L. Crawford. It was published as A Crawford Publication in 1949 in an edition of 48,000 copies. The H. P. Lovecraft story first appeared in the magazine The Rainbow. The other stories originally appeared in the magazine Marvel Tales."
Howard has many of his central concepts on show in these stories such as the migrations of his Hyborian tribes and races, hidden gems of lost world valleys filled with steaming jungles & mysterious god like survivors of his Cataclysm. Many of these tales of Howard have entire eons, city states, heroes, and eons separated by cycles of death and rebirth with only ancestral blood ties binding our heroes together. Or so it would seem but in Kings of the Night by Robert Howard we have Bran Mak Morn conjuring up the spirit of King Kull to do battle with the Romans! Some of the  themes of racial superiority don't go over well today, they can be taken in stride as part of that era's outlook. They are are relics of their time and deserve to be left there but that doesn't take away from the fact that these stories kick ass and are still a fun read even today.
The second offering today is "The Eternal Lover" (The Eternal Lover Part 1) All-Story Weekly, March 7, 1914 which is an Edgar Rice Burroughs novella that appeared in All- Story Weekly and could be considered one of Burroughs shared universe Lost World/ Custer novels. The Custer novels are interesting because events of the Mad King happen between the events of 'The Eternal Lovers" or that is to say;"While the four Custer sibling novellas were first published in an alternating fashion; chronologically-speaking, the events of the two halves of The Eternal Lover/Savage occur between the two halves of The Mad King" Barney Custer is cast into the role of the king of Lutha set against the backdrop of WWI and the Eternal Lover comes right into the middle of the events of the novel.


You Can Download The Mad King HERE
The Eternal Savage concerns,"Barney's sister Victoria Custer. These stories take place between Barney's two Luthan adventures, when he and his sister are the guests of Tarzan on the latter's African estate. When cave man Nu is released from suspended animation, Virginia discovers that she is the reincarnation of his great love Nat-ul. The story covers her adventures with Nu."

You Can Down load The Eternal Savage From Gutenberg Australia as All four novellas—as they were serialized in All-Story Weekly—are in the public domain in the United States but check your home country for details before downloading.

Nu is no one to screw with as a cliff dweller from 100,000 years ago whose kept up his hunt with Oo a sabertooth tiger of deadly aspect. There's all sorts of other worldly weirdness about the Eternal Savage but the bottom line here is that time as it stands in the ERB universe is flexible and the action in the Eternal Savage is fast paced with lots of prehistoric hi jinks to keep the reader interested. There's also a ton of ideas here to mine the least of which being to take PC's out of their context and place them as their needed in an adventure.


So what does this have to do with OSR gaming? Quite a bit actually, one of the topics that came up in conversation were the links between sword & sorcery & Ruritanian romance. The
Ruritanian romance is defined as follows;"
Ruritanian romance is a genre of literature, film and theatre comprising novels, stories, plays and films set in a fictional country, usually in Central or Eastern Europe, such as the "Ruritania" that gave the genre its name.^[1] Such stories are typically swashbuckling adventure novels, tales of high romance and intrigue, centered on the ruling classes, almost always aristocracy and royalty,^[1] although (for instance) Winston Churchill's novel Savrola, in every other way a typical example of the genre, concerns a revolution to restore rightful parliamentary government in the republican country of Laurania. The themes of honor, loyalty and love predominate, and the works frequently feature the restoration of legitimate government after a period of usurpation or dictatorship." 
One thing that I've noticed with Ruritanian romance sword & sorcery cross over games is that domain management is key for the end campaign game. This means that DM's have to be ready for domain mangement when one of their PC's seats their behinds on the throne.

For domain management in such Ruritanian romance sword & sorcery cross over games I'd use either Dark Albion The Rose War or Adventurer, Conqueror, King, or both since these systems actually play very well together.
I was recently involved in an OSR game with my buddy Steve where we were all playing AS&SH Hyperborean castaways facing down the terrors of Basic Fantasy's Monkey Island while the real villains of the lost world adventure were actually Dark Albion royals hell bent on claiming the island for their king. We were helping the liege of the island to be restored to her rightful throne. The Dark Albion royals had guns and there were other time lost castaways on the island who were incarnations or parodies of famous sword & sorcery figures. While it was a fun game there were implications that the royalty of the island was not what she appeared to be.  There was also an indication that we the party might actually be incarnations of WWI soldiers ourselves lost to time and space.

There were subtle & evil magicks involved as our party came across several items that the players recognized as WWI era items scattered about in the queen's chambers but it was a book of real world black magick that sealed the deal for the players. The game however has yet to be resolved but what it showed me was that potential for mixing and matching classic old school fiction and OSR material.  All of this ties in with my Atlantandria Port City of Accursed Atlantis as the PC's have unfinished business with some wily Dark Albion merchants there.

Swords & Stitchery Exclusive - The Appendix N & Pulpy Artwork of Jim McGurk

So after a hard night of talking with friends & having a Summertime beer last night something came up in my internet feeds. The incredible artwork  work of  Jim McGurk. Jim has put together several faux covers that really hit my Pulp sweet spot. 

Jim's work really strikes all of the right cords & balances with me for rpg campaign writing inspiration. 

I've put together a bunch of "Faux Pulp Covers"...pulp magazine issues that never were. Here's a fake cover I've done for Amazing Stories using a past artpiece..."story" by ERB.

His artwork hits all of my 'Jesus I really wish that was real' book buying buttons. But someplace there's an alternative universe where his cover work is gracing the 'Amazing Stories' & 'Weird Tales'. But the back lots of 'Innsmouth' are ripe with some of his creations. 

These art pieces like so many others serve as great fodder for a classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons for a Lovecraftian twist  on 'U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh'  by Dave J. Browne with Don Turnbull. Works very nicely. The horrors beneath 'Innsmouth' just waiting to be unleashed on the unsuspecting world & especially Saltmarsh! 

 
Jim's work hits the balance between old school Pulp inspiration & the savagery we find in the early part of  Dungeons & Dragons inspiration for me in Appendix N. I thought I'd share with you Jim's work today. 

Jason Gridley with twin 45s! One of my favorite ERB characters ever & this really captures that classic Edgar Rice Burroughs moment with gusto! Can't wait to see what Jim McGurk comes up with next! Thanks to the artist for allowing me to feature some of his artwork on this blog to share with you! 

Blood Soaked Fields - Fighters, Wizards, & The Path of Tears In Old School Campaigns

Fighters are not simply meat & violence shields in dungeons. I can't stress this enough. Fighters given the whole range of  original Dungeons & Dragons options have a wide variety of roles within the grand game. When Greyhawk was published for original Dungeons & Dragons it changed well everything!



Doing a bit of research last night on the Rpgeek site last night I came across this entry which really crystalized the importance of Greyhawk for me; "In 1974, Dungeons & Dragons (oD&D) was first printed. It came with three booklets: "Men & Magic", "Monsters & Treasure" and "The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures". The combat rules were based on the miniatures game Chainmail (which you needed to play), but an optional set of combat rules were given which more people ended up playing. Alignment was Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic. There were three classes "Fighting Man", "Cleric" and "Magic-User", and four races: "Human", "Dwarf", "Elf" and "Halfling". The rules for elves - who could be both Fighters and Magic-Users - were terribly unclear.

For 1975-8, five supplements were released for oD&D. The most important of those, Supplement I: Greyhawk, changed the game around a lot. Ability Scores became a lot more important, damage and hit dice became diverse, and it added a lot of other material (like the Thief character class)."

This changed everything at the table top level for original Dungeons & Dragons especially fighters who were supposed to portray the grand heroes of myth, legend, & literature.



Flash forward to the publication of The Dragon magazine issue #2 ; ARTICLES: Monkish Combat in the Arena of Promotion (D&D); Gnome Cache, ch. 2 (fiction); Gen Con IX Update; Hints for D&D Judges - Part 3: The Dungeons; Shadow of a Demon (Niall fiction) by Gardner F. Fox; Feathered Serpent (Quetzalcoatl); Creature Features - The Remorhaz; D&D Character Class - The Alchemist; D&D Option - Weapon Damage; more.

August 1976 ... 31 pages
Notice the article D&D option - Weapon Damage, this article brings the fighter into the world of heroes. By heroes I mean those broke & down out individuals who could become heroes if they were given the opportunity. After a while on the path of the stoic warrior they become something much more.



Information & article break down from 'The Dragon magazine from Wayne's Books. 

These aren't simply your run of the mill adventurers these are men & women whose minds & bodies have been forged in the fires of war of the most unusual & dangerous types. This thread on Rpg net bares this out with all of the options being used for the fighter PC class ;
"Fighters were always immune to Fear, etc. starting at 4th level, we always used multi-attack options and/or granted scaling damage, always granted morale bonuses to associated men-at-arms, etc. A high level fighter would always generate morale checks for a bunch of lower level monsters/NPCs, though I tended to grant it more organically than just starting it at 8th level.

The only one I don't recall was explicitly granting the detection of invisibility at higher level. OTOH, we always accepted that a fighter at that level has superhuman sense in general."


Excellent uses of these abilities can be found in a myriad of sources but an excellent example of exactly the sort of abilities possessed by the fighter can be found in The Master Mind of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs


Free download of 

Amazing Stories Annual v01n01 (1927) available here 

Once Ulysses Paxton is on Barsoom then the mad scientist wizard uses him as a body guard, assistant, & full on confident in all of his super science endeavours. In fact whist all of his is going on Paxton is assembling his own party from the stores of bodies within the  elderly mad scientist Ras Thavas's ranks. Everything about how the fighter goes about is calculated & his expertly handled. In fact this is where Paxton begins to split his class with levels in the mad scientist/ wizard class; 

'Days ran into weeks, weeks into months, as day by day I labored at the side of Ras Thavas, and more and more the old surgeon took me into his confidence, more and more he imparted to me the secrets of his skill and his profession.

Gradually he permitted me to perform more and more important functions in the actual practice of his vast laboratory. I started transferring limbs from one subject to another, then internal organs of the digestive tract. Then he entrusted to me a complete operation upon a paying client I removed the kidneys from a rich old man, replacing them with healthy ones from a young subject The following day I gave a stunted child new thyroid glands. A week later I transferred two hearts and then, at last, came the great day for me--unassisted, with Ras Thavas standing silently beside me, I took the brain of an old man and transplanted it within the cranium of a youth.'
Paxton has many of the finer qualities of the fighter. He knows how to plan, use the resources at his disposal, can carry out a complex plan, & still fight his way out of a situation. Fighters are both the knives & shields of adventuring parties capable of setting up a defense in a dungeon or hunting down in the depths of the lowest ruins. Indeed the treasures & relics of a dungeon seem to call to fighters & yet seek to destroy them. The treasure of the dragon in Beowulf a solid example of this. 

Fighters are literally able to make or break a party of adventurers. When coupled with other party members if the player's party balance is correct then we a very successful campaign. A great example of an Original Dungeons & Dragons fighter who has made it to epic levels from mythology is Beowulf. All of the instincts & abilities are there in the character. 

"Now he belched forth flaming fire."

An illustration of Beowulf fighting the dragon that appears at the end of the epic poem.

• Marshall, Henrietta Elizabeth (1908)
  
  Time & again I've seen fighters recruit groups of adventurers themselves to go with  them into a dungeon
  or lair of evil. The dungeon itself almost seems to attract & house the very evil of the land.
   The almost supernatural senses of the fighter are tuned in &
  turned on by the forces that inhabit these places. But fighters are only yet another piece of
  the adventuring puzzle. The fact that their martial prowess on & off the battle field
  is only part of the cycle of violence of old school gaming. There are others, one of which
  isn't used in how you might think he or she is. 

Barsoomian Evaporated Ocean Nightmares With Thuvia, Maid of Mars By Edgar Rice Burroughs For Your Old School Campaigns

"A forbidden love, a base betrayal,  a tale of political intrigue, &  blood thirsty combat all set against the tides of Barsoomian warfare amid the dead sea bottoms and ruined city of Mars. "


An email request for more campaign information from dungeon master Chris, so once again I dug through my notes to talk about the fourth of the Barsoom novel series  Thuvia, Maid of Mars & how it relates to the Warriors of the Red Planet rpg. Thuvia Maid of Mars features the son of  John Carter, Warlord of Mars, and Dejah Thoris of Helium as the principal protagonist of the novel.

Art by James Allen St. John
from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, McClurg, 1920.

This is a  'Carthoris' novel focusing on his romance with Thuvia, princess of Ptarth who is promised to Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol. The real backdrop here is the diplomatic tension between Helium and Ptarth which are both prominent Barsoomian city state/empires because of Thuvia's engagement to Kulan Tith which only death can break but this death can't be caused by a new suitor. This situation goes out the window when Thuvia, princess of Ptarth is kidnapped! Here's where things get interesting as we get lots of details about the Barsoomian fliers when an auto pilot device and navigation system gets tampered with &  Carthoris finds himself in the unexplored & undiscovered south of Barsoom in the ruins of ancient city state of  Aanthor.
Here we are given our first taste of the Green hordes of Torquas whom are among the most dangerous of Green Martian war clans. Of course  Thuvia, princess of Ptarth & Carthoris of Heluim are reunited but can they stop all out war between two of the most powerful city states on Barsoom? Well you'll just have to go read it for yourself.


Art for Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, McClurg, 1920.


For a Warrior of the Red Planet dungeon master this one of the most essential books in the ERB canon. Why?! Because its one of the Barsoomian novels that contains many of the details on Barsoomian psychic abilities! These abilities transcend life & death itself in the form of the psychic abilities of the inhabitants of the lost city state of Lothar. "Lother is home of an ancient fair-skinned human race gifted with the ability to create lifelike phantasms from pure thought. They habitually use large numbers of phantom bowmen paired with real and phantom banths (Barsoomian lions) to defend themselves from the hordes of Torquas."

Mind bullets artwork from the Warriors of the Red Planet rpg & used without permission.

So these are high level Mentalists with the ability to telepathically & psychically  project their own reality of Barsoom's past onto the present. The people of Lothar are the  text book PC class mentalists bar none! The illusionary bowmen come to life and defend their ruined city. So is there enough room to squeeze into the events of Thuvia, Maid of Mars  a party of adventurers?!

Hell yes there is! A Barsoomian princess of the realm is missing! Thuvia, princess of Ptarth has been kidnapped and every royal & bottom feeder tribe of adventurers is going to be looking for her!  There are lots of opportunities to screw over parties of adventurers who get themselves lost on Barsoom!

There are several things about  Thuvia, Maid of Mars   to remember :

1.  We get lots of details about the background of Barsoom including city ruins, dungeons, and other underworld details that are glanced over in the novel. 
2. The wickedness of  Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol is only touched on & there's plenty of other secrets that this Jeddak could have hidden in the underworld. 
3. Treasures, artifacts, etc. from the city state of
   Lothar are just waiting to be plucked out by worth adventurers. 
4. We have lots of opportunities for mercenary adventurers to take full advantage of the racial division of Barsoom and make a killing because there is a vast Barsoomian underworld  just waiting to be exploited, the dwindling resources are just waiting to be fleshed out;
   "A million years before the narrative commences, Mars was a lush world with oceans. As the oceans receded, and the atmosphere grew thin, the planet has devolved into a landscape of partial barbarism;^[13] living on an aging planet, with dwindling resources, the inhabitants of Barsoom have become hardened and warlike, fighting one another to survive.^[14] Barsoomians distribute scarce water supplies via a worldwide system of canals, controlled by quarreling city-states. The thinning Martian atmosphere is artificially replenished from an "atmosphere plant." "
   Many of the elements here hint at deeper dungeons below the novel's surface.
5. The Lotharians are another faction that exploits the mental powers of the Barsoomian psychic powers. Another faction that takes this to extreme is the Kaldanes who appear in the Chessmen of Mars. I don't think that these two Barsoomian psychic geo political entities get along since they both represent opposite ends of the spectrum. This is something that adventurers can exploit. 
6. The women in ERB' s tales are power players. They've got more on their minds then mere biological imperatives and it doesn't involve our heroes. This is no more evident then with Thuvia whose more then capable of picking up a dagger or sword to murder anyone who gets in her way. Remember this book was written in 1916! 
7. The Green hordes of Torquas are every bit as dangerous and fully horrid as any you'd find on Barsoom. These bastards give orcs a run for their money as one of my all time favorite bastard raider races! They also make excellent antagonists to throw at PC's. 
8. A who lot of little details can be picked out of this novel to start as campaign jump point! 
9.  There are other city states around Lothar that are perfect canvas for DM's wanting to create their own Barsoomian adventure locations! They are glanced over and that' it in the novel. 
10. Thuvia, Maid of Mars ' has the potential to create a whole cloth adventure campaign based around the Martian city states preparing for all out war.  

Personally I would grab a copy of Dark Albion to help flesh out some of the comings and goings of the royals within the court of Thuvia, Maid of Mars '. This is a personal opinion based around having to quickly and painlessly flesh out some of the NPC's in the past that quickly die and are bumped off yet there own importance to the adventure's events remains!

You can down load Thuvia, Maid of Mars from here!

Thuvia, Maid of Mars   is still owned by the ERB estate with the  trade mark & copy right. This blog post is not an attempt to violate that trade mark or copy right.This  download  is for educational and entertainment purposes. The makers of Warriors of the Red Planet are not anyway responsible for the content of this blog. All commentary here is copyrighted & trademarked to Dark Corner productions @2018.