Mars: Campaign Concepts and Themes

Mars!

Not Mars as it is – airless, most likely lifeless, with only the faintest hints of what might have once been a damp, if not necessarily lush and living, world billions of years in the past. No, this is Mars as it should be and as it was once imagined to be – an ancient, dying, but not yet dead world, a world where a vast canal network reaches from pole to pole, bringing water and life to vast and fantastic cities. A Mars where albino apes run a vast empire in the last surviving jungle, a world where warrior tribes of Green Martians raid the outlying cities of the canal dwellers, a world where, in places dark and quiet and forgotten beneath the surface, ancient and terrible intellects plan dark and dire deeds.

It is a Mars of sky-corsairs, of duels with blade and blaster, of vile plots, fantastic inventions, daring rescues, arena battles, and spectacular stunts. It is a Mars where ancient cities can be discovered and their lost treasures plundered, a Mars where a trek across the dry sea bottoms can yield amazing discoveries, where terrible monsters roam the rocky wastes.

It is the Mars of pulp fiction and Saturday morning serials. [Mars, p. 7]

It is now ours!

Sword and Planet: The Planetary Romance Genre

Mars is a setting of planetary romance. This genre is also sometimes called ‘sword and planet’.

Heroes and Glory

Mars is a world filled with swashbuckling tales of adventure. Epic heroes stride boldly across all corners of the world, facing impossible odds and coming out on the winning side.

Villains and Vast Plots

Dastardly villains commit deeds most heinous. Madmen want to conquer all of Mars, or at least destroy an entire city. Heroes are inevitably drawn into these sinister machinations.

Ruins of a Glorious Past

Mars once held advanced civilizations that built flying ships, great canals that watered an entire world, and radium engines that powered entire cities. Much of that technology is now forgotten. Yet, despite the passage of time, remnants of the past are still accessible. Many stories revolve around trying to discover knowledge of the past. A ruined city might hold a library with clues to creating great inventions. A ruined fort might contain an ancient, but still functioning war machine.

 A Bleak Future

Mars is a dying world. The seas have dried up and deserts cover much of the surface of the planet. In many ways, it is a post-apocalyptic world, even though the apocalypse has been going on for millennia and is still going on. The end is still more millenia away, but nothing can be done to stop it.

Romance

In the classic, literary sense, a “romance” means a story about ideals and archetypes. In the modern sense, it means erotic love. The planetary romance genre combines these two ideas. A larger than life hero meets a larger than life heroine, sparks fly, and Mars will never be the same.

 Weird Science

The fundamental rule of the genre is that almost anything is possible, if a convincing bit of technobabble can be flung out. [Mars, p. 105]

Weird science and fantastic inventions help make an interesting story. Their overall impact is limited, however. Skyships exist, but most transportation is by land animal. Ray guns exist, but most fights are with a sword. A mad scientist can create a giant, rampaging robot, but he can’t mass produce it. Further, the answer to a giant rampaging robot is not to reconfigure the tachyon emitter; but instead to leap onto its back and drive your sword through its one weak spot.

 

Under the Moons of Mars

The campaign is about the epic adventures of our band of heroes. You will engage in aerial battles in sky ships with vicious pirates, fight with ferocious White Apes in the verdant jungles of the north pole, war with savage Green Martians in the dry sea bottoms, duel with scheming Red Martians in decadent cities on the edges of the great canals, and deal with the schemes of the alien Grey Martians in caverns below the surface of Mars.

The Day After Ragnarok: Campaign Concept and Themes

The Day After Ragnarok: The Good, the Bad, and the Serpent

 

Concept and Themes

Know, O Prince, that between the years when the Serpent fell and the oceans drank America and the gleaming cities, and the rise of the Sons of Space, there was an Age undreamed of, when nations guttered low and flared brilliant across the poisoned world like dying stars – California and Texas each claiming the flag of the West, France torn asunder and facing the desert, harsh Mexico, slumbering Brazil, Argentina where the seeds of Thule lay waiting, ancient lands of Persia and Arabia and Iraq between two empires, the coldly clutching Soviet Union whispering behind its Wall of Serpent, Japan whose warriors wore steel and silk and khaki. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Australia, the last green and pleasant land, ringed around by its dominions and bulwarked by the sea.

Welcome to the world at the end of the world. The skies are shrouded with burning, oily smoke, the Earth groans under a poisoned corpse, and the only way out may be deeper into the belly of the beast. It’s a world nearly killed by the death of wonder, although far from all the wonders are dead. Put the “grim” back in “grime” and see the world outside the smeared Perspex windscreen.

See it smolder. See it burn. See if you can save it.

The Day After Ragnarok, p. 1

 

The Elevator Pitch

Two-fisted heroes in a fantastical, post-apocalyptic world, circa 1948; or Conan with a girl in one arm and a submachine gun in the other, facing off against an insane Serpent worshipping sorcerer in a Tiger tank.

 

The Setting

In 1945, the Nazis summoned the Midgard Serpent, heralding the start of Ragnarok. The United States, however, killed the Serpent with an atomic bomb to its left eye. The Serpent's body fell over the earth, covering huge swaths of Africa and Europe, its head resting on what used to be Egypt. A huge tidal wave wiped out the east coast of North America, as the water crashed inland all the way to the Appalachians. Venom and radioactive fallout spread across the world. The Serpent's rotting corpse, 250 miles high, now taints the earth with its ichor.

The summoning of Jörmungandr awoke or created creatures from fairy tales and monsters from nightmares. Magic is real.

The campaign starts in Indianapolis, Indiana, on July 21, 1948: the three year anniversary of the Serpentfall. Most people hope to rebuild a devastated world. Others have a darker agenda. Your characters have a chance to make a difference.

 

Themes

The Good

As with most campaigns, the PCs are heroes. You don't have to be a goody two shoes, but you are most definitely not evil. You don't take advantage of the weak or hurt the innocent.

The Bad

Monsters are everywhere. Giants walk the earth, giant worms burrow below it, and dragons fly above it.
 

It's a post-apocalyptic world. It’s survival of the fittest. Life is nasty, brutish, and short.

Hundreds of millions of people have died in the last three years. Resources are scarce. Bullets and cigarettes are the monetary standards, not dollars.

The Serpent

The rotting, poisonous corpse of the Serpent dominates the world. Governments and soulless corporations use the body parts taken from the Serpent to create strange and wondrous devices that don’t follow the rules of normal science.

Serpent cults are everywhere. Some want to finish Ragnarok. Some use the power of the Serpent for evil and nihilism.

Legends of Steel: Shadows of Yar: the Tone of the Campaign

When I start a campaign, I always create a document for the players that gives them a basic introduction to the tone of the campaign and concepts that they should expect.

In 2011 and 2012, I ran a year long campaign based on the sword and sorcery world of Legends of Steel. We played a total of 23 sessions.

Here is a document that I created for my group at the very beginning of the campaign. It explained the tone of the campaign and what the PCs could expect.

Legends of Steel: Shadows of Yar

Tone
 

Swords and Sorcery

The PCs are all human. Most of your opponents will be other humans.

Treasure and equipment is easy come, easy go. You'll spend more money carousing and gambling than you will on mundane gear and supplies.

Clothing is optional. Loin cloths and chain mail bikinis (yeah, baby, yeah!) provide just as much protection as full plate.

Surrendering is ok. This goes against everything we believe in as gamers, but it works for this genre. Villains don’t kill heroes immediately. They take them back to their lair (which the heroes wanted to find anyway) for sacrifice or torture. This allows for a cinematic escape, complete with a rescue of the kidnapped princess. Oh, and you get to draw a Fate Chip for surrendering.

Elements of the Fantastic

Legends of Steel is a low magic world. Still, PCs can cast spells. Wizards can summon demons. Witches can brew potions in bubbling cauldrons. However, flashy spells that cause damage or powerful spells like those that can raise the dead are almost unknown. Spellcasting is slow and ritualistic.

Magic items are rare and always unique. Do not expect a village priest to have a potions of healing ready for you. Wizards do not have a scroll or wand for every occasion.

Legendary monsters will make an occasional appearance.

Heroes

In Legends of Steel, you should act heroically. You don't have to be “Good,” but you are most definitely not“Evil.” You don’t hurt the helpless or take advantage of the weak.

To quote the author of Legends of Steel, “The heroes of Sword & Sorcery tales were warriors and rogues, but not murderers and violators of the innocent. Such behavior should be for lesser men, and discouraged by the GM as it is eventually destructive to the spirit of the game.”

Game Mastery and Savage Worlds

This blog chronicles my epic forays into role-playing, game mastery, and Savage Worlds. I've been gaming for more than 30 years, most of them as a GM. I played 1st Ed. Dungeons & Dragons back in high school and continued to play D&D through all of the other editions. However, I burned out on 3rd Ed. and 4th Ed. broke my heart. I went in search of another gaming system for the first time ever and soon discovered Savage Worlds.

I quickly became a convert to Savage Worlds, a Savage as we like to call ourselves. I've run multiple campaigns over the last several years using the SW rules. There are still numerous genres for me to explore and many campaign worlds to play in.