Warriors of The Red Planet & Clark Aston Smith's The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis (1931) - For An Old Mars Campaign

'There were eight of us, professional archaeologists with more or less terrene and interplanetary experience, who set forth with native guides from Ignarh, the commercial metropolis of Mars, to inspect that ancient, aeon-deserted city. Allan Octave, our official leader, held his primacy by virtue of knowing more about Martian archaeology than any other Terrestrial on the planet; and others of the party, such as William Harper and Jonas Halgren, had been associated with him in many of his previous researches. I, Rodney Severn, was more of a newcomer, having spent but a few months on Mars; and the greater part of my own ultra-terrene delvings had been confined to Venus.'

'I had often heard of Yoh-Vombis, in a vague and legendary sort of manner, and never at first hand. Even the ubiquitous Octave had never seen it. Builded by an extinct people whose history has been lost in the latter, decadent eras of the planet, it remains a dim and fascinating riddle whose solution has never been approached . . . and which, I trust, may endure forevermore unsolved by man. Certainly I hope that no one will ever follow in our steps . . . .'

• Clark Aston Smith's Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, The (1931)

 There's something right outta of the gate of the Clark Aston Smith's Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, The (1931)that reeks of the alieness of Mars. A certain morbidness  air that hangs right in the opening paragraphs. These are a crew of adventurers under the guise of archaeologists who are plumbing the depths of a Mars that humanity barely understands.  This is an old and very dangerous world hoary with age, horror, and alien Lovecraftian gods dwelling in its underworld.

This Mars belongs to the first cycle of the planet when it was dominated by plant based life, gods, and even horrors. This is related in the 1933 story by Clark Aston Smith in which  these stories are set on the same Mars - that of the Aihais and their predecessors the Yorhis. These two peoples belong to the next cycle when Mars crests into the Barsoomian cycle. This makes it easy to move this campaign into a Warriors of the Red Planet rpg campaign. 

But the alien plant cycle won't be denied because the Aihais and their predecessors the Yorhis are hoarders of ancient forbidden secrets sequestered away in lost valleys of a grim and highly dangerous Mars. For Warriors of the Red Planet campaign 'This is a world where mankind has made his mark & then stumbled into the fires of his own nuclear fall from grace. There are space ports here and there, a few human city states but the Martian races have re emerged on Mars from hidden valleys & scattered colonies across the face of Mars. There are ancient Lovecraftian horrors & gods that rule as they have for billions of years scattered in certain countries across the face of this world. This is world where the sword is king & you need to keep your radium side arm handy. Mutants, ancient evils, and worse await you in the red night.' The Blackgate blog covers this with The Fantasy Cycles of Clark Aston Smith Part IV with the following; "  The current inhabitants of Smith's Mars call themselves Aihais and have barrel chests, multi-articulated arms, high flaring ears, and pit-like nostrils. The best remembered of the dead civilizations, the Yorhi, have physical similarities to the Aihai but left behind sinister ruins and legends of their passing." 

Humans are only now starting to unearth and explore these forbidden ruins. And for the sake of the human race we'd better hope they don't uncover the wrong dungeon. 

Clark Aston Smith's Mars in his Martian cycle is a dark and forbidding place where the human race is trespassing on a world that humanity barely understands at all. Could Barsoom fit into this?! Why not we've got planet men who are highly dangerous and one of the last things that some poor 2000 year old Red Martian is likely too see.