Warriors of Mars & D&D

 TSR briefly published the game Warriors of Mars before the all mighty Copyright Infringement Spell was cast. The game is mostly tactical in nature, however it mentions using D&D rules for heroic adventures but not really how to do this. Conversely D&D mentions populating desert areas with Martian Races and Martian Monsters specifically from Edgar Rice Burroughs books in one’s D&D setting, again no stats. I have played a few battles of Warriors of Mars using 1/72nd armies... we had a hoot of a time. Naturally as a person who loves RPGs, D&D, and Sci-Fi (I am especially fond of Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars stories) I have pondered how to proceed playing this sort of setting. Since playing Warriors of Mars, many supplements for a dying Mars have been put out by various game systems and authorized games for E.R.B. works have been produced. The Dark Sun setting for D&D strikes me as a Barsoom (Mars) type setting and could be reworked to more closely resemble Barsoom. I suggest you read E.R.B.’s books if you have not read them to get a good understanding of his Mars especially if you want to introduce ideas from his works in your setting. Other authors before and after him also sandbox wrote some great stuff for the dying world of Mars. In addition some of E.R.B.’s books set on Earth and on other planets are clearly part of a large interconnected setting, even if it is not obviously stated. Plus you will read some wonderful dungeon crawling in certain Bardoomian tales by E.R.B.. After reading E.R.B. myself I do believe his works influenced standard fantasy D&D in ways not obvious but none the less there. Naturally he is not the only author that inspired the game designers but one of many.

So how do we add Barsoomian inspired life to D&D or D&D to Warriors of Mars. Let’s start by looking at  the Levels in Warriors of Mars. There are a possible 13 fighter levels. The Earthling John Carter is listed as Level 13... is he really that awesome by Earth standards? The answer is no, only by Martian fighting standards is he a Level 13. Now this is where you need to pause and consider Barsoom aka Mars as conceived by scientists and early Sci Fi writers... Mars is possibly inhabited and has a lower gravity than good old Earth so John Carter is basically like the original Super Man was on Earth, able to jump normal buildings in a single bound, faster, and stronger. However on Earth John Carter seems pretty average, not the baddest warrior, just average but on Mars he is a super hero. John Carter when he narrates his adventures is a liar when he says he is danger, he is toying with his Martian opponents, wearing them out, making them think they have a chance, all the while telling the audience he is in danger when he rarely is, and right when the other fellow thinks he has a chance John kills him. The fact is John can kill even the big strong scary four armed tusked Green Men with a single punch, he is extremely strong. It was theorized at the time that such strength would be genetic, in other words all Earth humans no matter how long in a lower gravity would just be super strong forever. So now let’s consider your D&D setting. There are three possibilities for introducing Martian life of this sort to your setting, that is they are weaker, as strong, or stronger than the men of your setting... the consideration is also reversible if say you wanted PCs to visit Barsoom. 

In the one novel I read by an earlier author in which a Martian comes to Earth, the Martian is so weak on Earth it appears the gravity is lethal and he dies. Obviously if you make Martians that weak there will just be a bunch of dead mysterious Martian bodies in the deserts of D&D. I would probably reskin a preexisting race in D&D. You would choose a slightly weaker humanoid monsters if you wanted weaker Martians. Equally easy is to just treat them same as your regular humans just with unique cultures, strange technology and weird biology. You could also make them stronger as who is to say who’s planet has the higher gravity... you get to make these calls... in which case pick a slightly stronger humanoid race and reskin it to be Martians. If you create the imbalance of strength we see in the novels it just won’t present enough risk vs reward tension for RPG. Of course there are always work arounds... Martians could have artificial exoskeletons (battle armor) that allows them to function on your world with no handicap in the suits and thus they are only weak outside of their suits. Which ever choice you make you want to keep super humans or super Martians from running amok.

Next we should take a look at the Martians in general... Sci Fi authors loved a rainbow of skin colors for Martians. So let’s first look at that... black means ebony black, white means albino white, red, orange, blue, yellow and green martians including purple ones appear in books. Often there is one race comparable and compatible with humans and a giant truly not so human looking race, they might have four arms, tusks and so on. Sometimes the human like Martians have fur, or are bald, or other strange details. I have when combining works of different authors for the dying Mars type story ling used E.R.B.s visions of aliens as my guide and worked the other races in around his timelines, histories and creatures. Barsoom’s Martians that are “human” are generally pretty human looking and come in 4 main racial groups, white (who became bald, albino, cave dwellers), black, yellow, and red (youngest race a mix of the other 3). These human races should be imagined not in Earth skin tones but brighter, exotics ways when describing or painting them. Green Martians seem to be a completely different species with four arms, tusked, giants compared to everyone else but are they? All 5 races interestingly reproduce similarly... they are egg layers, eggs can be stored in cool places, the eggs grow larger and larger during incubation. When they hatch the children are born fairly well developed, able to walk very quickly after breaking out of their eggs. There is no annoying infants, diapers or crying, screaming infant communication on Barsoom. The White Apes of Barssom (4 armed white giant space apes) are said to be related to both Green Martians and the Human type Martians.

 All 5 races “speak” a common tongue because of a telepathic ability they all share. All 5 civilization groups are slavers, they keep slaves, take slaves and consider slavery normal. John Carter ever the hypocrite thinks Martian slavery is just peachy, unless he gets put in slave chains... then guess who is leading the slave revolt to end the injustice of this city state or that city state. This is one of the plot consistencies  in the Martian stories that seems to go over reader’s heads... yes, John Carter and his descendants have no problem with slavery and will even discuss it as a good thing... until they are being enslaved and oppressed... then suddenly everyone should be free, interestingly the non Earth once free now slave Martians very rarely question their new state until John or one of his kids is in the slave pits with them... I do believe E.R.B. was pointing out the hypocrisy of many people in real life society that defended slavery and oppressive cruel systems as civilized while promoting their freedoms and if those are threatened then they scream injustice, how people don’t get this consistent message in his stories baffles me. Anyway slavery is the norm. Everyone is a warrior! I mean everyone!  Martians no matter their social status or official job is also always a fighter... probably they should be treated like D&D elves as far as class is concerned as elves are the dual class race. Even the weakest female civilian can and will fight with skill... all adults who are not exclusively fighting men should be at least level 1 fighters by D&D standards. Barsoom is a violent and dangerous place, so to survive even the damsels in distress know how to fight and will. The general weapon of choice by most cultures on Barsoom is swords. Clerics will use swords, thieves, magic users everyone will use bladed weapons... that is Barsoom... sword and planet all the way! Thus all Martian NPCs should have bladed weapons. With the exception of the yellow race no one uses shields. The only race that seems to use archery is some isolated White race cities. Green Men use swords and lances. Clothing style is the same for Black, Green and Red Martians... leather fighting harness (armor) and otherwise pretty lacking... how nude is open to debate. White Martians prefer robes and dresses. Yellow Martians wear furs and clothing appropriate for cold climates. Now if you go farther a field in the big sandbox of dying Mars many other colored races will fall into one of these basic dress guidelines. 

Psionics is a thing on Barsoom so it is not unusual for life forms to posses it. Usually it is not all powerful but a niche ability unique to an individual or race. In the case of Earth Humans there abilities seem to be no one can read their thoughts easily and they seem to save better from mind control, so a sort of telepathic shield. This means Humans from Earth must learn the language of Barsoom slower. In addition the Earthlings seem to pop between worlds easier. In E.R.B.s works this is some strange astral travel thing that is never really explained well. However I noticed crystals are present often, planets closer or aligned a certain way and sometimes there is something wrong with the air the hero is breathing. A near death experience occurs in which thus ability is triggered and suddenly the Earthling is elsewhere in a very real physical form, yet the novels also imply they have a body back on Earth in some sort of suspended preserved form. It is clear that at least in one story John Carter has figured out a way to travel between worlds instead of it just being accidental. Often the traveler is naked when they manifest in the new world but not always. If you are allowing races to move back and forth it will have to be your call on how this works. Earth humans and Martian humans can breed despite the whole egg thing.

Just some thoughts on Martians in D&D.