House Rules for Warriors of the Red Planet (part II)


I've gotten deeper into my House Rules for Warriors of the Red Planet, and regrettably my Gaming Primitive project is at a temporary standstill until this is done. But I've made many interesting changes to the House Rules since my last post. 

The setting will remain on the Martian moon Cluros (Deimos), and will be governed by the Edgar Rice Burroughs unique cosmic law known as the "compensatory habituation of masses." That is, objects approaching Cluros decrease to a proportional size, so that the small radius of Cluros will effectively become a large world ripe with opportunities for adventure.

Once on Cluros, adventurers will be stuck in something of a snow globe. Leaving the land and entering the Cosmos will allow a star sailing ship to exit the bottom of the map and reappear on the top. The Cosmos also is slowly devouring the land. The Cosmos is dangerous because sailors need to wear sealed air helmets. The only way to escape Cluros or to save Cluros from the Cosmos is to go on several quests to gather the pieces of an ancient artifact and activate it. 

Just to give an idea of the unique flavor of this world, the races will include fresh ones inspired by Warriors of the Red Planet and the Xuhlan supplement. The races will include Tellurians (Off-Worlders), Clurians (Nativish human population), Mantics (Post Humans), Automatons (Inhumans), Anurans (Toad men), Lacertilians (reptile people), Grotto Kin (humanish under dwellers who are very psychic - think Planet of the Apes!), and Great Brains (the egg-headed geniuses with heads larger than their bodies). The basic classes will be the same as the ones in the core rules. There will be no war amongst the races on Cluros, but there will be tension, and ultimately a dark sorcerer needs to be destroyed to to save Cluros.

A few new creatures and encounter tables will give Cluros a certain something that will make it feel unique. A few anomalies will shake things up in the Clurian adventures as well such as a chance that a new hex space will be consumed by the Cosmos each day on a roll of 12 on 2d6 and become - well - Cosmos. Some areas of the map of Cluros that I made include a dead forest that feeds off darkness, a spreading desert, and mysterious places such as the Compound of the Sleeping Metal Men. Stranger still are a couple of figures on the map which are the Never Sleeping Eye, and the Mycanoid Deity. These are awakened and angered nature spirits or gods that will fit into the story and challenges of the journey. When you check my unlabeled map, see if you can find any of these features!

The game will primarily be a hex crawl on a world map with quests and random encounters, and set up so that it can be played solo. Random events and encounters will be assigned to hex type, and locations on the map will be drawn together with a series of 6 quests.

The map itself is quite interesting because I literally traced a map of the moon Deimos, and the various craters and lines turned into lakes and rivers. Various patches turned into grasslands and mountains. Sections of the Deimos map that had significant shade from the sun were transformed into an area of space on the map, I call the Cosmos. The beginning result is the map below: 

Map of Cluros for Solo Campaign

I have also produced several close-up maps with areas labelled which will be included in my supplement for everyone to see later.

Once I finish this 'beast' of a project, I will finally put my full attention on my solo scenario for Gaming Primitive again. 

For now, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for the completion of my Cluros campaign!

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