Lovecraftian Ecology Of The Serpent Men of Old Mars

Deep in the jungles of Old Mars the cold & evil alien eyes of an old enemy of mankind stirs. Where strikes the serpent men few can say. But their plague of evil once again comes for they have become a plague upon Old Mars! For Serpent Men are awesome monsters of the Lovecraftian Mythos. 

 Going all of the way back to 2012 I did a piece on Serpent Men on this blog. Since that time I've used these protagonists a lot going through OSR campaigns, one off adventures, and more. Serpent Men are very easy to use and at their height in both Howard, Lovecraft, & Merritt's work they had a sorcerous & technological empire that rivaled many human civilizations of history. So it makes sense they they'd have reached the stars and beyond.

Simon Burchell (Own work)

Now dealing with some of the works of these old school enemies of man kind can be interesting to say the least. Years ago I placed several colonies of Serpent Men on Mars as the main protagonists of an adventure storyline. The reason is that deep in the Kaolian forest clustered around Tharsis are lots of hidden swamp lands. Here three pyramids of the serpent men could remain hidden for eons in the shadow of Therns. They take the occasional sacrifice to their dark gods & move on into the wastelands of Mars.


Reaper miniatures 06208: Nagendra Warriors by Jason Wiebe

And what pray tell would these serpent men be doing on Old Mars? Spreading their chaos & corruption across the face of the wasteland & selling their own brand of that old time religion among the Martians. They'd have been there for centuries operating as Vivimancers, shape shifting assassins, mercenaries, & infiltrating the Therns from within. These serpent men are Lovecraftian bad guys of the highest order, and to get a really good look at some of the interior workings of the their religion I turn to two OSR publications. Now the first is from Mr. Rafael Chandler Obscene Serpent Religion is an Adult title from Neoplastic Press ( a little while back their titles & lines were put on 'pay what you want') which was very generous of him. Now suddenly the dungeon master has the inner workings & mysteries of the serpent men's religion & heinous rites. Want to know what the party of adventurers finds in the ruin location that the serpents have been operating out of? Its all there in gory details, but be careful because this is an Adult title & I don't say that lightly consider yourselves warned.


The second OSR resource that I'd use is  Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos. Because of the social classes of Barsoom, & many of the old science fantasy novels such as Leigh Brackett & C.L. Moore. Cults of Chaos gives not only structure but adventure hooks to use at every level of the social strata making such a cult very dangerous & creditable. Here's a review to kinda drive home the point.

When it comes to using serpent men they make an unexpected twist to throw into an old school game & they might pop up anywhere. They were extremely dangerous & one of the powers behind quite a few power structures in Robert Howard's Kull saga. According to HP Lovecraft's Shadow Out of Time they were one of the minds that the Great Race of Yith used to grab quite regularly.
"There was a mind from the planet we know as Venus, which would live incalculable epochs to come, and one from an outer moon of Jupiter six million years in the past. Of earthly minds there were some from the winged, star-headed, half-vegetable race of palaeogean Antarctica; one from the reptile people of fabled Valusia; three from the furry pre-human Hyperborean worshippers of Tsathoggua; one from the wholly abominable Tcho-Tchos; two from the arachnid denizens of earth’s last age; five from the hardy coleopterous species immediately following mankind, to which the Great Race was some day to transfer its keenest minds en masse in the face of horrible peril; and several from different branches of humanity."
H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Out Of Time

The stats for serpent men are available for Astonishing Swordsmen Sorcerers of Hyperborea Referee's Manual or for other OSR games Realms of Crawling Chaos from Goblinoid Games


There are several references to serpent men or reptile men in the stories of  Leigh Brackett especially the Sea-Kings of Mars (more commonly known as The Sword of Rhiannon) &" Clark Aston Smith's  adapted the race for inclusion in the Cthulhu Mythos, inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's short story "The Nameless City", which refers to an Arabian city built by a pre-human reptilian race. Lovecraft's story "The Haunter of the Dark" explicitly mentions the "serpent men of Valusia" as being one-time possessors of the Shining Trapezohedron. " 

However they were already in the Cthulhu Mythos via Robert Howard's Work;"However, the Cthulhu Mythos was already connected to the works of Robert E. Howard (a contemporary and correspondent of H. P. Lovecraft as well as a direct contributor to the Mythos itself). In this case, the Serpent Men were created for the very first Kull story, the character of Kull later made an appearance in a Bran Mak Morn story, Kings of the Night, while in another such story, Worms of the Earth, Bran Mak Morn explicitly refers to Cthulhu and R'lyeh. Many Conan stories by Howard are also part of the Mythos." Now given this it only makes sense to have them appear on Old Mars & Old Venus because of their connections with the writings of the other Lovecraft Circle writers.

 

Are there other hidden enclaves of these ancient horrors waiting in the Martian underworld for some foolish adventurers to stumble upon their lairs and activate their sleep chambers? Could these ancient horrors carve out their own sections of the wastes of Old Mars? They will be in my campaigns.
Note that this is for personal use only and is not an attempt to violate the copyright or trademark of The Dark Albion Rpg, Realms of Crawling Chaos, The Warriors of the Red Planet rpg or The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg system. 
All material herein comes under the heading of fair use. This blog post is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

Ideas, items, names, adventure ideas, opinions to follow are the copyright & trademark of the author & Dark Corner Production

Throwing together OSR Valusia For An Upcoming OSR Adventure

I need a set of barbarian kingdoms for an upcoming game & was looking across some of the maps of  the Dragons foot site. One of these is a free map of Valusia & it sort of looks perfect for a country  of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Or it couple be used as a Sword & Sorcery kingdom possibly ala Robert E. Howard's Kull. How a version of King Kull's Valusia got to Hyperborea is up to the dungeon master but here's the low down from the Wiki entry;"The kingdom furthest to the west of the Thurian continent.^[1] This kingdom was created and initially ruled by the Serpent Men, until they were overthrown by their human slaves. They attempted to control the new human kingdom of Valusia from behind the scenes, using illusionary magic, when mankind's memories of their past encounters faded. However, the Serpent Men were again defeated in a secret war. Finally they created a religion, the Snake Cult, to do the same thing again and almost succeeded. Their power was, however, eventually destroyed by Kull, an Atlantean barbarian who had gained the crown of Valusia by force.^[3]

Kull notes, in The Shadow Kingdom, how the Valusia of his time is a fading and degenerate country, "living mostly in dreams of bygone glory, but still a mighty land and the greatest of the Seven Empires". The kingdom is already ancient by his standards: "The hills of Atlantis and Mu were isles of the sea when Valusia was young."

The other maps that caught my imagination is Jim Lassiter's Dragon Castle map - This is a sprawling eight levels edifice with  over 114 rooms/areas. Now I imagine that these castles were built by the serpent men & eventually abandoned on the Dragon Islands during the Thurian age. Dragon castle & Dracolidius Castle are both massive piles filled with the looted
treasures of a dozen lands.  The serpent men have  retreated over the centuries into the vast network of underground tunnels below Valusia. Humans have taken over the land now but are they really in control?! The idea is that Valusia is still the domain of the serpent men & they've never really left at all. This version of the country has been settled by various peoples including the usual assortment of Pict tribes. But this is a land solidly in control of its reptilian masters.


Reaper miniatures 06208: Nagendra Warriors by Jason Wiebe


These serpent men are Lovecraftian bad guys of the highest order, and to get a really good look at some of the interior workings of the their religion I turn to two OSR publications. Now the first is from Mr. Rafael Chandler Obscene Serpent Religion is an Adult title from Neoplastic Press ( a little while back their titles & lines were put on 'pay what you want') which was very generous of him. Now suddenly the dungeon master has the inner workings & mysteries of the serpent men's religion & heinous rites. Want to know what the party of adventurers finds in the ruin location that the serpents have been operating out of? Its all there in gory details, but be careful because this is an Adult title & I don't say that lightly consider yourselves warned.


"For as he watched, Tu’s face became strangely dim and unreal; the features mingled and merged in a seemingly impossible manner. Then, like a fading mask of fog, the face suddenly vanished and in its stead gaped and leered a monstrous serpent’s head! “Valka!” gasped Kull, sweat beading his forehead, and again; “Valka!”

Brule leaned forward, face immobile. Yet his glittering eyes mirrored something of Kull’s horror.

“Regain your sword, lord king,” said he. “There are yet deeds to be done.”

Hesitantly Kull set his hand to the hilt. His flesh crawled as he set his foot upon the terror which lay at their feet, and as some jerk of muscular reaction caused the frightful mouth to gape suddenly, he recoiled, weak with nausea. Then, wrathful at himself, he plucked forth his sword and gazed more closely at the nameless thing that had been known as Tu, chief councilor. Save for the reptilian head, the thing was the exact counterpart of a man.

“A man with the head of a snake!” Kull murmured. “This, then, is a priest of the serpent god?”

“Aye. Tu sleeps unknowing. These fiends can take any form they will. That is, they can, by a magic charm or the like, fling a web of sorcery about their faces, as an actor dons a mask, so that they resemble anyone they wish to.”"

Robert E. Howard The Shadow Kingdom

Lovecraftian Ecology Of The Serpent Men of Old Mars

Deep in the jungles of Old Mars the cold & evil alien eyes of an old enemy of mankind stirs. Where strikes the serpent men few can say. But their plague of evil once again comes for they have become a plague upon Old Mars! For Serpent Men are awesome monsters of the Lovecraftian Mythos. 

 Going all of the way back to 2012 I did a piece on Serpent Men on this blog. Since that time I've used these protagonists a lot going through OSR campaigns, one off adventures, and more. Serpent Men are very easy to use and at their height in both Howard, Lovecraft, & Merritt's work they had a sorcerous & technological empire that rivaled many human civilizations of history. So it makes sense they they'd have reached the stars and beyond.

Simon Burchell (Own work)

Now dealing with some of the works of these old school enemies of man kind can be interesting to say the least. Years ago I placed several colonies of Serpent Men on Mars as the main protagonists of an adventure storyline. The reason is that deep in the Kaolian forest clustered around Tharsis are lots of hidden swamp lands. Here three pyramids of the serpent men could remain hidden for eons in the shadow of Therns. They take the occasional sacrifice to their dark gods & move on into the wastelands of Mars.


Reaper miniatures 06208: Nagendra Warriors by Jason Wiebe

And what pray tell would these serpent men be doing on Old Mars? Spreading their chaos & corruption across the face of the wasteland & selling their own brand of that old time religion among the Martians. They'd have been there for centuries operating as Vivimancers, shape shifting assassins, mercenaries, & infiltrating the Therns from within. These serpent men are Lovecraftian bad guys of the highest order, and to get a really good look at some of the interior workings of the their religion I turn to two OSR publications. Now the first is from Mr. Rafael Chandler Obscene Serpent Religion is an Adult title from Neoplastic Press ( a little while back their titles & lines were put on 'pay what you want') which was very generous of him. Now suddenly the dungeon master has the inner workings & mysteries of the serpent men's religion & heinous rites. Want to know what the party of adventurers finds in the ruin location that the serpents have been operating out of? Its all there in gory details, but be careful because this is an Adult title & I don't say that lightly consider yourselves warned.


The second OSR resource that I'd use is  Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos. Because of the social classes of Barsoom, & many of the old science fantasy novels such as Leigh Brackett & C.L. Moore. Cults of Chaos gives not only structure but adventure hooks to use at every level of the social strata making such a cult very dangerous & creditable. Here's a review to kinda drive home the point.

When it comes to using serpent men they make an unexpected twist to throw into an old school game & they might pop up anywhere. They were extremely dangerous & one of the powers behind quite a few power structures in Robert Howard's Kull saga. According to HP Lovecraft's Shadow Out of Time they were one of the minds that the Great Race of Yith used to grab quite regularly.
"There was a mind from the planet we know as Venus, which would live incalculable epochs to come, and one from an outer moon of Jupiter six million years in the past. Of earthly minds there were some from the winged, star-headed, half-vegetable race of palaeogean Antarctica; one from the reptile people of fabled Valusia; three from the furry pre-human Hyperborean worshippers of Tsathoggua; one from the wholly abominable Tcho-Tchos; two from the arachnid denizens of earth’s last age; five from the hardy coleopterous species immediately following mankind, to which the Great Race was some day to transfer its keenest minds en masse in the face of horrible peril; and several from different branches of humanity."
H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Out Of Time

The stats for serpent men are available for Astonishing Swordsmen Sorcerers of Hyperborea Referee's Manual or for other OSR games Realms of Crawling Chaos from Goblinoid Games


There are several references to serpent men or reptile men in the stories of  Leigh Brackett especially the Sea-Kings of Mars (more commonly known as The Sword of Rhiannon) &" Clark Aston Smith's  adapted the race for inclusion in the Cthulhu Mythos, inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's short story "The Nameless City", which refers to an Arabian city built by a pre-human reptilian race. Lovecraft's story "The Haunter of the Dark" explicitly mentions the "serpent men of Valusia" as being one-time possessors of the Shining Trapezohedron. " 

However they were already in the Cthulhu Mythos via Robert Howard's Work;"However, the Cthulhu Mythos was already connected to the works of Robert E. Howard (a contemporary and correspondent of H. P. Lovecraft as well as a direct contributor to the Mythos itself). In this case, the Serpent Men were created for the very first Kull story, the character of Kull later made an appearance in a Bran Mak Morn story, Kings of the Night, while in another such story, Worms of the Earth, Bran Mak Morn explicitly refers to Cthulhu and R'lyeh. Many Conan stories by Howard are also part of the Mythos." Now given this it only makes sense to have them appear on Old Mars & Old Venus because of their connections with the writings of the other Lovecraft Circle writers.

 

Are there other hidden enclaves of these ancient horrors waiting in the Martian underworld for some foolish adventurers to stumble upon their lairs and activate their sleep chambers? Could these ancient horrors carve out their own sections of the wastes of Old Mars? They will be in my campaigns.

Note that this is for personal use only and is not an attempt to violate the copyright or trademark of The Dark Albion Rpg, Realms of Crawling Chaos, The Warriors of the Red Planet rpg or The Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg system. 
All material herein comes under the heading of fair use. This blog post is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

Ideas, items, names, adventure ideas, opinions to follow are the copyright & trademark of the author & Dark Corner Productions

Lulu OSR Mini Haul Update

So about a week or so Lulu had a massive sale on their titles with codes and all kinds of promotions, I took full advantage of this to order some titles that I had on my list of must get OSR material titles.
Petty Gods was at the top of the heap because I knew the quality of the title and damn its a nice book with lots and lots of OSR adventure potential. I have been seriously fawning  about the title's pdf for months. The Star Ship From Hell by Neoplastic Press, & Obscene Serpent Religion.
CC1 The Creature Compendium By Richard Leblanc Jr. was also on my list of must gets. Possibly one of the best monster books I've seen slanted to various editions of  the products of your imagination.  Every title I got from the sale that Lulu ran is going to give me a tremendous amount of gaming utility in the field and is going to get a ton of mileage at my table. The books are well laid out, the bindings tight, the material top drawer and I've got a ton of uses for these titles at my table. Dark Albion is going to have to wait as I've still got some other real life issues pressing in on me at the moment.