Loathsome Beasts by Night Owl Workshop and Serpent Men on Mars

 This post is going to pick right up from here on the blog with old foes stirring as ancient lands rise from the depths of legend on Mars! 

I've been re reading the Leigh Brackett Mars stories again and going through Night Owl Workshop's Beasties: Loathsome Horrors. And Thomas Denmark also included four NPC's and two of these guys are humanoid serpent priests. Now in the past I've used Serpent Men on Mars as being one of the forbidden races that exist near the poles. Thier pyramids and zigguarats dotted the landscape around their minor empires and kingdom's holdings.

As the serpent men declined the Red Martian priests took over. Thier culture being a mix of Babylonian and Aztec like mixed deeply with the Conan like serpent men motif. Night Owl Workshop's Beasties: Loathsome Horrors has these two priests who are mutating into serpent like servants of thier gods. So the jungles and fens around this part of Mars are teeming with the serpent men's snake god cults. 

Wtih the emergence of Hyperborea on the horizon near Saturn the ancient gateways have opened between worlds again. 

And the jungles around the poles of Mars teem with serpent like warriors that hunt anyone in thier terrority for sacrifice to ancient serpent gods! And these ancient gateways lead deep into the ancient cities of the gods in the Grand Canyon. And there have been reports of these ancient kingdoms stirring & slithering. 

King of Rats Serpentman on Deviant art.. Used without permission. 

Tegel Manor - Worlds Without Number & Cities Without Number Rpg - Green Horde Attack! Session Two Report

 I haven't had time to blink wrong over the last couple of days let alone do a session update. But let's get deep  into it. This blog entry picks up from here. 
The player's PC's got into a fire fight with some Green Martian hordes at the outter edges of the Tegel Manor valley. And one of the PC's got a taste for exactly what the radium rifle ammo can do. Now there are two different Worlds Without Number & Cities Without Number groups of players exploring the manor. And no I'm not explaining why there are two different versions of the manor at this time. 

The players made it too the dead sea bottom & managed to snag some weapons, ammo, and more from the dead Green Martians. They didn't have long as the Green martians about five of them had formed a 'blood squad'. And then closed in for the kill. They picked off two our operators quickly. They weren't dead but in rough shape. 
And then the Greens broke off! The group limped back to the manor house and ran straight into a party of Martian low landers who were preparing to trade with one of the villagers. 

There was a very heated series of rolls for languages and then telepathy. The player's PC's were able to get to a local Martian scientist  who worked under  Ras Thavas. 
There was discussion about the bad reputation of the Tegel Valley and how the locals think it's haunted. Anything coming out of the valley is attacked by the Green Martians. 

Ninety Nine percent of all of our Mars info is coming straight outta of  Warriors of The Red Planet. 
Thrivu Burr the low lander Martian village the PC's met up with a pair of  displaced Martian nobles.   Hemaza Dee our princess turned thief & Nazaa the space noble who is masquerading as a warrior. These two will be taking the place of our two operators who are on the mend for about 4 months. 

These two come straight out of last May's Warriors of the Red Planet rpg mini campaign. Two of our players don't want to be out of the action so they pulled out two older characters. 
These two older characters have cybernetics and not Martian parts so they are pariah among Martian society. 

The party of operators is considered  a party of panthans. A panthan is a Martian soldier of fortune. The low lander villages consider them as a vital resource but among places like Helium and other royal cities there could be trouble. The party exchanged thier Green weaponry for low lander weapons. 
What the players don't know is that  Hemaza Dee our princess turned thief & Nazaa the space noble both have a 'blood debt' on thier heads from a clan of Deodanths. 

Free Old School Pulp Download 'The Martian Circe' By Ramon F Jones From the Summer 1947 issue of Planet Stories magazine For Your Old School Martian Campaign

 

You can download the novella here. 

Mars has been my imagination's home since I was a kid & many a night was spent working my way through piles of my uncle's ancient Pulp magazine collection. And that brings up 'The Martian Circe' By Ramon F Jones  From the Summer 1947 issue of Planet Stories magazine. 'The Martian Circe' echoes through with the Pulpy voice of Ramon F. Jones & his Mars is an almost settled colonial world on the edge of the solar system; 

 'Who was this sweet-voiced singer weaving a spell of dreams and drugs that drove men mad and threatened to smash the System? SBI Captain Roal Hartford dared the death of the Thousand Minds to learn her dreadful secret!' 

So we've entered the world of Captain Roal Hartford agent of  the Solar Bureau of Investigation. And his is the world of the Martian underworld & therefore the  perfect foil for adventurers & scoundrals. But who was Ramon F. Jones?! According to his wiki entry; "Raymond Fisher Jones (November 15, 1915, Salt Lake City, Utah - January 24, 1994, Sandy, Salt Lake County, Utah) was an American science fiction author. He is best known for his 1952 novel, This Island Earth, which was adapted into the 1955 film This Island Earth and for the short story "The Children's Room", which was adapted for television as Episode Two of the ABC network show Tales of Tomorrow, first aired on February 29, 1952.'

'Jones' career was at its peak during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. His stories were published mainly in magazines such as Thrilling Wonder Stories, Astounding Stories, and Galaxy. His short story Noise Level is known as one of his best works. His short story "The Alien Machine", first published in the June, 1949 Thrilling Wonder Stories, was later expanded into the novel This Island Earth, along with two other short stories, "The Shroud of Secrecy", and "The Greater Conflict", known as The Peace Engineers Trilogy, featuring the character Cal Meacham. Jones also wrote the story upon which the episode "The Children's Room" was based for the television program Tales of Tomorrow in 1952. " 

'The Martian Circe' concerns a phantom tavern 'the Starhouse' the venue for The Queen of the Silver Stars'  that has been drifting around the Martian cityscapes & taking out the souls & sanity of solar system miners. Harmeena is a gas like agent of the Martian Harm plant that causes those who inhail its gases to save vs poison or suffer horrifying visions as per a Fear spell.  And 'Starhouse' operates out of one of the Martian Capital cities  Heliopolis. Heliopolis is the center of the wizened and withered Martians of Mr. R Jones tale. The Jones Martians as I've taken to calling them are +3 to their Constitution, +1 on Intelligence, -2 on Charisma, & +1 on Wisdom as they are an ancient race of Mars. And they barely tolerate humanity on their end of Mars. And the Jones Martians  lead deeply into the mystery of the phantom singer Alayna The Queen of the Silver Stars. 
And this makes it perfect as a folio for an Infinite Mars campaign which is a combination of Stars Without Number and Worlds Without Number combined with Warriors of the Red Planet. 

Humanity produces a subtle radiation that is harmful to the Jones Martians & the Martians are planning on using Harmeena as one of the weapons of conquest. Any human who has exposure to the drug for more then two months becomes open to Martian telepathic mind control. And this is the secret of Starhouse, the tavern is an illusion that can be projected onto any human mind anywhere on Mars. And this is all due to the Thousand Minds. The Thousand Minds is the secret & highly advanced psionic ruling  body on Mars of the Jones Martians. The Thousand Minds can see through & control every Jones Martian on Mars. The Thousand Minds are the real masters of the Jones Martians & for the moment only use the 'Starhouse' to distribute Harmeena among every facet of human society including rich humans & gamblers who are looking for the seedier side of Mars. 
The situation in Heliopolis & the other Jones Martian human cities is a ticking time bomb and only he destruction of the Thousand Minds will save humanity. They are located in a series of Jones Martian  burrows outside of Heliopolis bout five miles or so from the city. 
The Martian capital cities  of  Heliopolis is actually an old Welysan city state that was taken over by the Jones Martians. The Jones Martians themselves are products left behind by the Welysan super science prototypes  in the wake of the failed Earth invasion of the early 19th century. Jones Martians gain +1 on Intelligence & can automatically transition into the psychic discplines of Stars Without Number. They gain -2 on all physical attributes. Jones Martians are a subrace of the Martian humanoid races artificially created more then 10,000 years ago by the Welysans as a genetic test bed for the impending Earth invasion. The genetic cloning templates were abandoned and left in the ruins of the city states various underground labs.
Humanity resurrected these genetic clones and has used them as workers, scientists, etc. Now Mars itself is on the verge of rebellion and this gives opportunities for adventure. 

Royals, Hordes, and The Alien Nature of Mars - The Hyperborea rpg & Warriors of the Red Planet Hybrid Campaign Commentary

Tonight as we prepare for yet another round of snowstorms, I got together with my players via a Zoom call. And we discussed the upcoming Warriors of the Red Planet/Hyperborea rpg campaign leg. During tonight's call we spoke at length about the various aspects of the fact that that the ancient White Martians had a war with the serpent men of our campaign's Mars. And this made me dig out Night Owl Workshop's  Space Noble PC class. 

Why?! Because this class highlights something that we find in the writings of both Edgar Rice Burroughs & Leigh Brackett. The fact that social class plays such a tight role in the separation of the Martian races hierchary that is implied within the writings of both authors. 

And this has been a key playing point within our campaigns. There are two of our player's PC's who are of noble blood. Ironically Hemaza Dee our princess turned thief & Nazaa the space noble who is masquerading as a warrior. 
These two know & hate the ancient White nobles whose behind the resurrection of the serpentmen. The White Martians & thier counterparts among the Reds have woven immortality within thier unlives after death to continue the racial feuds millions of years later. 
And this is something we see within the writings of Leigh Brackett time and again. 

White Box: Unearthed Trove By Jonathan Rowe was also discussed but I'm unsure about allowing too many resources at the table top at this time. There are already enough classes with the Hyperborea rpg that allow many of the tandum PC classes to be done within our campaign. 

The Pyromancer,cryomancer, druid, and shaman PC classes  may in point of fact be perfect for the revivalization efforts of Mars as a dying world. And may be behind the atmosphere processing plans of the planet created by the ancient Martians. The ancient Martians also had thier own monsters to contend with in the form of the Green Martians. According to the Encyclopedia Barsoomia Wiki Green Martian entry;"The complete origin of the Green Martians is mostly unknown. They first rose to prominence in the waning days of Barsoom, when the oceans began to recede, and began raiding the cities of the various races (such as the Orovar), driving these once-great civilizations into increasingly remote regions. When the peoples abandoned the cities, the Green hordes took over. Though they appear to have lacked the intelligence to make use of most of the ancient technology left behind, their size, brute strength, and abundance of limbs for many years prevented them from being driven out."

And the next part of the entry is telling; "As time grew on, the Green hordes ran out of enemies and began to fight among themselves. They began to split into different hordes based on the kingdoms they occupied - the horde that occupied the ancient city of Thark began to call themselves Tharks, the horde that controlled Warhoon began to call themselves Warhoon, etc. The bitter rivalry between the the hordes ensured that there would never be any alliance between them, while they fought among themselves and didn't advance, the Red peoples thrived."

There are many Green hordes scattered across Mars and thousands of minor hordes as well. Here are some of the most common & infamous hordes that appear in the ERB books: 

• Thark
• Thurd
• Torquas
• Warhoon

The Green hordes had to have supported by hordes of Red Martian barbarian tribes as well. These are the tribes we see within Leigh Brackett's stories. Not beneath the notice of John Carter but relatively unknown possibly in his part of the world. The fact that's been forgotten by many DM's and players is the size of Mars. 

Geen Martians play a huge part in many of the various campaigns of Warriors of the Red Planet that we've played over the years. The fact is that Mars is a very alien planet. And post Colonial Mars is a rather unsavory and dangerous place. And it's this nature of unrest that within our games has allowed the Sorcerers of the Black Gate & the serpent men to take hold of certain underworld & criminal aspects of the planet. 
The royals & tribal rulers of Mars are the go betweens when it comes to the Earthmen vs the barbarian hordes. These hordes are mobile moving across the face of Mars exploiting what & if they can find resources across the face of the red planet. And here's where the PC's come in. These caravans are more then simply traveling hordes. The Green & Red Martian caravans are a fact of life supplying goods, information, and more across the face of the planet. The dead cities are the way points & stations on Mars. And these are also where and when the player's PC's may be from! 

Tribal Matters, Ancient Rivalries, and PC classes - The Hyperborea rpg & Warriors of the Red Planet Hybrid Campaign Commentary

 Freak snow storm last night cancelled last night's games & that's fine. But it also meant that we could take a break and start planning out the next leg of the Hyperborea/ Warriors of The Red Planet  campaign. And I'd love to take a bit of a break so to breath a bit of life into our dead sea bottem Red Martian tribes. And here's where Hyperborea & Leigh Brackett's “The Treasure of Ptakuth” • (1940) comes in really handy. “The Treasure of Ptakuth” by Leigh Brackett is available from Astounding v25n02 (1940 04) here.

Brackett doesn't fill in details in her stories but implies them long hand. We've got an Indiana Jones/Rene Belloq dynamic, between the protagonist & the Venusian nemisis of the story. We almost see a 'Raiders of the Lost Artifacts' Rpg  vibe going on here. Let's take the long view here through the lens of the Hyperborea rpg. We've got our main protagonist 'hero' because Leigh Brackett characters all have thier all too human fumbles & sins about them. And the White Martians within this story. The Martian goddess is very much drawn in the vein of Clark Aston Smith's scientists & sorcerers. A pragmatic character willing to achieve immortality regardless of the consquences. And dare I say more then a little desparate. 

The fact is we also get a bit of an insight into the Red Martian tribes of Mars through this story indirectly. The Red Martians are both barbarians & savages in Leigh Brackett's stories. Forget John Carter here. Brackett's Martians are rough & ready barbarians who have thousands & thousands of years backing them up. And this means that the average Red Martian barbarian is going to be a sophiscated & dangerous customer. Barbarian & fighting man is going to be a very common occupation set among the bottom seas of Mars. 

So this where the Hyperborea rpg enters the picture. The White Martians are very akin to the Atlanteans of Hyperborea. Within the Hyperborea rpg almost 90 % of the occult technological items were made by the people of Atlantis. And my logic follows that this might be for the higher level technological items on our Mars. 

And another observation about the Hyperborea rpg & Warriors of the Red Planet is how specialized classes could become for both PC's & NPC's given the age of Mars. 
One of the themes that runs through Leigh Brackett's solar systems stories is ​“you might manage to become immortal, but if you do you will regret it,”.Again this is something that we also see in the works of Clark Aston Smith. And it also help to explain the pragmatic view point of the Red Martians.  

The idea running through the early Pulp writers seems to be that death has it's place within the human and non human scheme of things. Magick is incredibly rare among the solar system because of the alien science of psionics & psychics. Almost every races & creature on Mars is psionic. 

So magick still exists is incredibly rare leading into all kinds of avenues of throw backs & wizards as atavisitic throwbacks. And this also sets up wizards & clerics being the heads of cults quite nicely. 
And what about Hyperborea's rune graver class?! Hell yes it could easily be found among some of the more isolated & rarely seen Martian tribes. And this also goes for other Hyperborea rpg classes. The fact that so many of the Martian tribes are isolated makes them have access to other forbidden & not well known rites and rituals. 

And what would keep these tribes isolated?! Two things the hordes of Green Martians & mankind. Leigh Brackett's stories are super critical of the Colonial Martian state or humanity's colonial leanings. However not even death can stop the wars between the ancient Martian states. No other place is this illustrated more then in the The Sorcerer of Rhiannon • (1942)  novelette. 
Time & again we see these forces of culture vs the person caught within the greater solar system affairs of the Ancients. And its up to the protagonist to think thier way out. 

Free Old School Pulp Download 'Under the Sand-Seas' January 1941 issue of Super Science Stories For Your Old School Post Apocalpytic Solar System Campaign

"Six hundred miles of devouring red desert lay between them and the nearest city -- and the bust of a long-dead Martian smiled with the knowledge that could get them there!"

It's been a long while since we've looked at 'Under The Sand Seas' by  Oliver E.Saari from the January 1941 issue of Super Science Stories magazine before. But this time we're going to dive in deeper into the nineteen page novellette. 

"Under The Sand Seas' follows the crew of an air plane on a Sciencitific expediation deep into the 'Sand Seas' when their plane crashes into an enourmous magnetic anomly. The plane doesn't survive and begins to take on sand. All around the crew there are tumble weed like Martians. And the magnetic anomaly is in  point of fact actually an ancient Martian crypt opened by telepathy. 
The Sand Sea is incredibly dangerous capable of swallowing a man whole easily without a trace. The weeds are a race of semi intelligent wind evolved beings who are blown about by the fierce winds of the Sand Sea. The only hope is the battery powered five or six man sled the party has w
The Sand Sea itself is the blasted remains of the Ancient Ones one of the first races of Mars ruled by Tarum of the last of the Scientist Kings. Tanrum the Last perfected infinite atomic energy using the element of gold as it's atomic fuel. And that infinite energy was used a Super Science weapon and the result was the Sea of Sand! The weapon caused the  complete destruction of the Ancient Ones civilization. 
And the expediation worries that it might cause destructive issues upon the Earth. 
What are the OSR game applications of Under The Sand Seas' by  Oliver E.Saari? Quite a few actually. The infinite atomic energy weapon systems are very dangerous. And that brings up the defense capabilities of the systems themselves. The fact is that these weapons systems must have been designed to kill some very dangerous monsters or an evil race. And this is where the Hyperborea rpg comes into play. Not only does the Sea of Sand have other artifacts within it but the sea itself must have areas of extreme radiation due to atomic weapons being tested or deployed. Now it be that these infinite atomic energy systems were created by the Ancients to combat the Hyperboreans?! It's possible given the time frame and the fact that the Professor discovered the atomic generation's secrets within Tanrum the Last's crypt. The fact that those secrets were spelled out on the writings on the walls of the crypt. 

You can download 'Under the Sand-Seas' January 1941 issue of Super Science Stories here 

Free Old School Pulp Download 'The Martian Circe' By Ramon F Jones From the Summer 1947 issue of Planet Stories magazine For Your Old School Martian Campaign

You can download the novella here. 

Mars has been my imagination's home since I was a kid & many a night was spent working my way through piles of my uncle's ancient Pulp magazine collection. And that brings up 'The Martian Circe' By Ramon F Jones  From the Summer 1947 issue of Planet Stories magazine. 'The Martian Circe' echoes through with the Pulpy voice of Ramon F. Jones & his Mars is an almost settled colonial world on the edge of the solar system; 

 'Who was this sweet-voiced singer weaving a spell of dreams and drugs that drove men mad and threatened to smash the System? SBI Captain Roal Hartford dared the death of the Thousand Minds to learn her dreadful secret!' 

So we've entered the world of Captain Roal Hartford agent of  the Solar Bureau of Investigation. And his is the world of the Martian underworld & therefore the  perfect foil for adventurers & scoundrals. But who was Ramon F. Jones?! According to his wiki entry; "Raymond Fisher Jones (November 15, 1915, Salt Lake City, Utah - January 24, 1994, Sandy, Salt Lake County, Utah) was an American science fiction author. He is best known for his 1952 novel, This Island Earth, which was adapted into the 1955 film This Island Earth and for the short story "The Children's Room", which was adapted for television as Episode Two of the ABC network show Tales of Tomorrow, first aired on February 29, 1952.'

'Jones' career was at its peak during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. His stories were published mainly in magazines such as Thrilling Wonder Stories, Astounding Stories, and Galaxy. His short story Noise Level is known as one of his best works. His short story "The Alien Machine", first published in the June, 1949 Thrilling Wonder Stories, was later expanded into the novel This Island Earth, along with two other short stories, "The Shroud of Secrecy", and "The Greater Conflict", known as The Peace Engineers Trilogy, featuring the character Cal Meacham. Jones also wrote the story upon which the episode "The Children's Room" was based for the television program Tales of Tomorrow in 1952. " 

'The Martian Circe' concerns a phantom tavern 'the Starhouse' the venue for The Queen of the Silver Stars'  that has been drifting around the Martian cityscapes & taking out the souls & sanity of solar system miners. Harmeena is a gas like agent of the Martian Harm plant that causes those who inhail its gases to save vs poison or suffer horrifying visions as per a Fear spell.  And 'Starhouse' operates out of one of the Martian Capital cities  Heliopolis. Heliopolis is the center of the wizened and withered Martians of Mr. R Jones tale. The Jones Martians as I've taken to calling them are +3 to their Constitution, +1 on Intelligence, -2 on Charisma, & +1 on Wisdom as they are an ancient race of Mars. And they barely tolerate humanity on their end of Mars. And the Jones Martians  lead deeply into the mystery of the phantom singer Alayna The Queen of the Silver Stars. 

Humanity produces a subtle radiation that is harmful to the Jones Martians & the Martians are planning on using Harmeena as one of the weapons of conquest. Any human who has exposure to the drug for more then two months becomes open to Martian telepathic mind control. And this is the secret of Starhouse, the tavern is an illusion that can be projected onto any human mind anywhere on Mars. And this is all due to the Thousand Minds. The Thousand Minds is the secret & highly advanced psionic ruling  body on Mars of the Jones Martians. The Thousand Minds can see through & control every Jones Martian on Mars. The Thousand Minds are the real masters of the Jones Martians & for the moment only use the 'Starhouse' to distribute Harmeena among every facet of human society including rich humans & gamblers who are looking for the seedier side of Mars. 
The situation in Heliopolis & the other Jones Martian human cities is a ticking time bomb and only he destruction of the Thousand Minds will save humanity. They are located in a series of Jones Martian  burrows outside of Heliopolis bout five miles or so from the city. 

Tele Force Weapons For Your Old School Science Fantasy Campaigns

 
Dusting off the Land Iron Clads by HG Wells for this up coming game. 

So we're dusting this blog entry off on Teleforce weapons for an upcoming Victorious rpg alternative history  campaign session. These weapons can be very dangerous to both the enemy & those wielding them. Gadgeteers making these weapons or doing research should consult the table below. 

The Future today! These amazing weapons are helping our boys in the trenches against the Hun. Recovered from the bloodiest battles against the Martian Overlords in 1898  have become a staple on the battle fields of Europe. 

 The genius Nikola Tesla  recently reverse engineered these magnificent weapons for our boys to use across Europe. In his own words "Its a macroscopic charged particle beam projector. The device was based upon a large Van de Graaff generator of unique design and a special type of open-ended vacuum tube. It comprised a system for the acceleration of minutetungsten or mercury particles to a velocity of about 48 times the speed of sound. The projectiles were propelled out of the tube by electrostatic repulsion."

 There are still some bugs to be worked out of the system but there getting used in many theaters across Europe! Now
This technology comes from a Near Earth Alternative where the Martian Invasion happened. These weapons are capable of  producing very great electrical force in the range of 60,000,000 volts to propel the particles to their objective. 

The kink in the weapon is the generator that it must be attached to & the tremendous output of energy needed. 

The man portable Teleforce weapon uses a a gas powered generator, back pack energy projector, & the hand focusing rod.


Teleforce weapon  Range 300' Damage 2d6+1 Weight 60 lbs.  Cost 4,000 dollars 1910 monies when first developing, cost lowered 200 dollars per unit in full production 


1d10 Random Teleforce Mishap Table 

1. The user is electrocuted for 1d3 points of damage & the generator is not working 
2. The user is randomly stunned for 1d3 rounds 
3. Mutation Exposure! Roll on appropriate matrix 
4. The local space time is ripped open & 1d4 planar demons enter! 
5. The spirits of the dead begin to haunt the user for 1d4 hours 
6. The user hits everyone with rand of the weapon with 1d4 points of damage! 
7. The weapon blows up & sends the user to another plane of existence 
8. The user lucks out & the weapon functions normally except for some smoke & flame 
9. The weapon does triple damage to the target but burns out! 
10. The weapon acts as a beacon to things beyond which arrive in 1d3 round to claim the user's soul! 

Teleforce weapons of this type may be built from space craft in 1d4 hours if the ship can be cannibalized. They may also be built from spare parts or built in 1d6 hours if parts are purchased on the open interstellar market. The cost is 50 credits per unit.  Engineer class characters or scientists will receive+1 to build these weapons but understand the weird science involved!

1d20 Green Martian Ruins & Encounter Table For Your Old School Campaigns

 "On such a little thing my life hung that I often marvel that I escaped so easily. Had not the rifle of the leader of the party swung from its fastenings beside his saddle in such a way as to strike against the butt of his great metal shod spear I should have snuffed out without ever knowing that death was near me. But the little sound caused me to turn, and there upon me, not ten feet from my breast, was the point of that huge spear, a spear forty feet long, tipped with gleaming metal, and held low at the side of a mounted replica of the little devils I had been watching.

But how puny and harmless they now looked beside this huge and terrific incarnation of hate of vengeance and of death. The man himself, for such I may call him, was fully fifteen feet in height and, on earth, would have weighed some four-hundred pounds. He sat his mount as we sit a horse, grasping the animal's barrel with his lower limbs, while the hands of his two right arms held his immense spear low at the side of his mount; his two left arms were outstretched laterally to help preserve his balance, the thing he rode having neither bridle or reins of any description for guidance.

And his mount! How can earthly words describe it! It towered ten feet at the shoulder; had four legs on either side; a broad flat tail, larger at the tip than at the root, and which it held straight out behind while running; a gaping mouth which split its head from its snout to its long, massive neck."

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The green martian race represents some of the most dangerous alien foes that adventurers can run into on the surface of Mars. These strange beings have their routes & ancient byways across the surface of the red planet. There are other monsters who follow in their wake & even pray on these fierce alien warriors. These creatures are often the forgotten & seldom talked about real danger of the green martian race. 

1d20 Green Martian Ruins & Encounter Table

1. The remains of a green martian nest box now inhabited by the larva flying tape worm variant of one of the mutant insect races. These things are feeding on the remains of the egg shells & some of the parasitically  infected  young green martian young. There will be 1d20 of these nameless horrors.They will attack anything even approaching the nest box AC 8, hit points 5, Damage 1d6 special flying & infection unless a save vs poison is made. 
2. A former city ruin of the ancient ocean going martian race that has been taken over by Green Martian warriors & their tribes. There are 1d100 of these fierce alien warriors & they will kidnap any PC's for selling into slavery & ransom. 
3. 1d10 Ulsio feeding on the still living green warrior who has been strapped down by parties unknown. He's missing one limb but will finish off any of the alien rats & is actually a member of the Thark tribe. Thankful to the PC's he will sign on to the party as a hireling. He knows of treasure vaults nearby. 
4. Two different tribal caravans of 1d100 green men are at war with one another & they are so intensely fighting.  They will surround the party as another d100 of the fierce warriors level 2 fighters on the other side of the party's location. Both sides will suddenly stop & turn on the party for interfering with them. There is an ancient Martian cache of treasure that they are fighting over. This is a point of honor for the tribes! 
5. An honorable tribe of green martians is on caravan &  looking for guards to help them. They can pay 1d20 gold coins each. They don't know that they have been targeted by a group of black martian air pirates who have 1d20 ships in the area. The black martians are using an ancient canal city as their base. This city sits right on top of one of the ancient entrances to the Martian underworld. There is an ancient horror that wants to finish off the green tribe & is telepathically controlling the pirates. 
6. A green martian princess has been taken over by an alien parasite that is controlling her. She's mentally dominating her entire tribe & making them raid anyone coming into their territory. She's working for the Martian ring of darkness black wizard faction. There are 1d30 warriors in her tribe. They have advanced weapons including flyer technologies! Below their location is a dangerous dungeon of horror! 
7. A dungeon belonging to the green martians has exploded with alien martian brain parasites. They are taking over anyone they can but there is lots of treasure & super science artifacts to be had. 
8. 1d20 Green Martian warriors 3rd level are on a blood hunt for a nasty red murderous assassin. They will make warrior on anyone they come across & are armed with short sword, long sword, daggers, radium pistols & rifles. They are very dangerous & laugh like lunatics. 
9. A green martian sorcerer named Naga San is on the hunt for sacrifices to his dark gods. He has two telepathically controlled hunting cadlots on his side hunting in the nearby hills. Naga san is a 5th level wizard and shunned by all his kind! He loathes red men & anyone who does not worship the dark gods! 
   
10. A green martian prince is on the hunt for his kidnapped Jeddak & his warriors have been killed by the kidnappers. He has no coin but will appeal to the party's honor for help. The air pirates have 5000 gold coin bounty on his father. 
11. 3 green female warriors on the trail of an escaped juvenile who has injured itself with a slight head wound. The little alien is disoriented & the youngingly hunters are on trail. There is a banth prowling nearby guarding the remains of a green black wizard's resting place. Will you help?
12. An outcast green warrior is hunting for the tomb of his ancestor in order regain the family long sword to perhaps win his honor back. He needs your help to locate this alien dungeon. 
13. There are 1d10 fierce banth green banth hunters on the trail of a murderous rogue pair they are trying to track down a rogue pair that's murdered several of their people & a farmstead of red tribal farmers. This is a point of honor to them & they need your help. The banths are under the evil influence of an artifact which is a part of the one level ruin that they have made their den in. 
14. Two red warriors 2nd level fighters are fleeing in a single flyer going on full throttle. They are fleeing three green flyers in hot pursuit. Suddenly one of the shots from the greens knocks them from the sky! They fall & will beg anyone to take a map,an strange artifact & the letter that they give. These murderous red warriors have killed a green princess & stolen a tribal artifact from this green warrior tribe! The air pirate chief has been plotting this for years & longs for the tribe's dungeon treasure! The party now has an honor debt because of possession of the artifact/idol! They must clear their own names! 
15. Gamerous Thul A green martian psychic wanders across the desert in rags wounded! He needs your help! He rants about a lost floating city in the hills & the green air pirates! There is a map in his possession & as a 3rd level psychic he's a valuable NPC. The air pirates are under a green martian black wizard who hates the Thul tribe with a passion & wants anyone helping them exterminated! 
16. The tribe of the purple spiral has a caravan going from one lost city to another. Their psychics contact your party telepathically and offer guard duty in exchange for gold. They also have a strange spiral dungeon of the ancient that they want cleaned out if your brave & have honor enough. 
17. Thursday Wells the Green Martian warrior & general whose an ally of the humans wants recruits to help him clean out a dungeon of the ancients under a nearby colony. There is an ancient evil that slumbers there. But there is also treasure to be had in the form of 1d10 super science artifacts 
18. A run away Green martian princess whose only 100 years old has decided to 'see the world' and is looking for hirelings. Unknown to her is the fact that 1d4 rogue green warriors 2nd level are out to track & kill her. They have already her 'telepathic trace' and are after her. She is actually the key to a series of green martian monoliths that hold the tribal treasure for her people of the dead sea bottoms. 
19. 1d20 green warriors are on the hunt for a certain fossil on the dead sea bottoms that's sacred to their tribe. Unknown to them is the fact that a green martian wizard is also after the same fossil! This 5th level wizard will stop at nothing & has hired a group of martian air pirates to kill them. The party has the opportunity to help them before their attacked! 
20. 1d10 green martian warriors are escorting the tribal treasure to a new lost city location & they are looking for hirelings. You might sign on but there's a green warrior 1st level spy among them whose working for a cabal of martian air pirates who will close in for a raid! 

Leigh Brackett's Black Amazon of Mars & Castles & Crusades The Castle Keeper's Guide Commentary

When it comes to Mars I turn to Leigh Brackett with a side of Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is going to be a Mars a more then slightly twisted Mars. Mars comes across as sort of Western planetary frontier to be tamed. The inner worlds are the 'new frontier' while the outer worlds out from the meteor belt are older, decadent, & very alien.
If we start using the Castle & Crusades  Castle Keeper's Guide to begin to flesh out the Martian landscape via Brackett & Burroughs something very interesting comes up. Humans are at a distinct disadvantage. 

Everyone talks about 'orcs' being one of the most dangerous races in D&D & its various incarnations. Green Martians make orcs look like Mary Poppins. Both Burroughs & Brackett's Mars is an ecological nightmare. There is never going to be any peace on the planet. Green Martians are highly adaptable, intelligent, & take to technology easily. They are also egg layers & vicious bastards with a code of honor similar to the Samurai of ancient Japan. That's where the similarities end. These are completely alien creatures to humanity.


 Green martian on his thoat.
Extract from an art by James Allen St. John
 from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, McClurg, 1920.

Mars is a world  encourages such grand scale genocide for the sake of species survival & prosperity on the surface of the planet. We see this in Brackett's 'Black Amazon' of Mars has two such species in utter elemental contrast to one another. If we go with the fact that Burroughs yellow Martians exist along side of the 'Shining Ones'. Then perhaps this is a situation similar to what we find in Martin's Game of Thrones. Ancient alien kings of the world of Mars held at bay for the survival of the humanoids but still given reverence out of fear & for their wisdom.


Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars describes hordes & tribes  of Green Martians pillaging their way across the surface of the planet. Could the Yellow Martian peoples have been paying homage to the 'Shining Ones' all this time for keeping these invading hordes at bay.
While Brackett doesn't give any origin for the 'Shining Ones' I would venture to guess that their alien origin is tied with the 'outer worlds' of the solar system. The 'Shining Ones' seem like their straight outta Clark Ashton Smith's Mars as well. These aliens feel like they'd fit right into the ancient war between  The Aihai & the Yombis. These are invasive species of the Mythos whom mars tests with its genocidal ecology. We see this time & again in the world of plants & given particulars of  Vulthoom the plantlike 'Old One' of Mars this is no surprise. 

• Dweller in the Gulf, The (1933)
• Mnemoka (1955) Fragment
• Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, The (1931)
• Vulthoom (1935)
• Seedling of Mars or The Planet Entity
• Mars is a place of   decadence & utter ecological warfare. The fact is that I think that the human colonists of Mars would have completely & utterly under estimated the Green Martians. The Wiki entry for A Princess of Mars describes them; "The Green Martians are 15 feet tall, Burroughs wrote, adding from John Carter's observation of newly hatched children,

  “

  They seemed mostly head, with little scrawny bodies, long necks and six legs, or, as I afterward learned, two legs and two arms, with an intermediary pair of limbs which could be used at will either as arms or legs. Their eyes were set at the extreme sides of their heads a trifle above the center and protruded in such a manner that they could be directed either forward or back and also independently of each other, thus permitting this queer animal to look in any direction, or in two directions at once, without the necessity of turning the head. The ears, which were slightly above the eyes and closer together, were small, cup-shaped antennae, protruding not more than an inch on these young specimens. Their noses were but longitudinal slits in the center of their faces, midway between their mouths and ears. There was no hair on their bodies, which were of a very light yellowish-green color....[49]

  ”

  They are nomadic, warlike, and barbaric; do not form families; have discarded concepts of friendship and affection (presumably in the name of survival); and enjoy torture. Their social structure is communal and rigidly hierarchical, with various levels of chiefs. The highest rank is the all-powerful Jeddak, who reaches this position through combat. They are tribal, and war among one another.^[2][44] They are primitive, intellectually backwards, and have no art or written language. Any advanced technology they possess is stolen from the Red Martians. They inhabit the ancient ruined cities of Barsoom."
  So what if the Green Martians exterminated the ancient Martians because the cycle of Vulthoom the plantlike 'Old One' of Mars  got into a complete ecological disaster instead of its usual cycle of death & rebirth? 
  What might happen if there was an event that utterly caused them to go on a planetary wide campaign of destruction? A new invasive species called to Mars perhaps by the Great Old One?
  
  
  
  
  Brackett's 'Black Amazon' of Mars
   Available Right Here 

Castles & Crusades, Old School Mars, & Appendix N Authors

 "Gaunt giant and passionate beauty, they dragged their thirst-crazed way across the endless crimson sands in a terrible test of endurance. For one of them knew where cool life-giving water lapped old stones smooth -- a place of secret horror that it was death to reveal!"

Queen of the Martian Catacombs by Leigh Brackett 

Part of the reason that the war between the forces of light & darkness is heating up is because mankind is stirring up the hidden places at the edge of the maps of the universe.
So once again I've been thinking about Mars, I had my Victorious Rpg /Amazing Adventures! Rpg campaign last night. But that's going to be another blog entry I've been thinking about Mars again when I got home. I began thumbing through my player's hand book, thinking about Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, & Clark Ashton Smith. 


I want to make this Mars a bit different from the run of the mill Mars game campaigns that steal heavily from the John Carter of Mars books. So I began to think more in terms of Leigh Brackett's Mars & Sword & Sorcery. Skirmisher Publishing's Shadows of A Dying World has all of the Barsoomian creatures & horrors all under one D20  roof. But I really want to break away from the traditional & so I dug out my copy of Ancient Kingdoms Mesopotamia (SWORD & SORCERY) D20 book instead. This book draws specifically from the mood & themes of some of the great pulp writers, specifically Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft.

Next I dug out my Castles & Crusades  Codex Classicum which has a number of classes that will port over to Mars with out a problem. The fact is that gladiator class has some bones on it for use as a part of a Mars gladiatorial style adventure element & feature that I'm thinking of using.  Maybe using some of the Greco Roman gods as 'lost' Martian clerical options.

I know that Queen of the Martian Catacombs by Leigh Brackett is definitely going to be a major inspiration for this upcoming campaign. 


I've been quietly looking at how Brackett's humanoid Martian tribesmen are put together into their low lander dead sea tribes. These are a very barbarian race that seems to draw from the American plains Indians & Celts as much as ERB's red men races. Brackett manages her usual trick of flowing prose filled with beautiful women, blood feuds,weird science, daring do, & some excellent scenery perfect for old school adventure settings. The Eric John Stark stories as well as a bunch of Brackett's other early stuff, seems to fit into the notion that Mars is a both a very old world & a world of many forbidden little areas of insanity just waiting to not only engulf Mars but the whole of the solar system. This same notion we'd see from Lovecraft & Clark Ashton Smith in "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis". 

Even Edgar Rice Burroughs inferred that there were locations of grave peril upon the back waters of Mars. We'll get into those later on.