Desdichado
Hero
When I got home today, my 5 month pregnant wife was being pestered a bit too much by my almost two year old son (the older two were playing Frogger, and can generally be left at it, unless they start fighting) so I took him downstairs and popped on Attack of the Clones for him, skipping around (yea, DVDs!) for stuff I thought he'd find interesting (turns out he loves Yoda and big silver spaceships.)
Anyway, I was struck in a way that I haven't really been so far by the resemblance of Geonosis to Mars. During the entire clone/battle droid action set piece near the end, you can even notice the rusty orange sky (it looks like mid to late afternoon, so it's not sunset sky as I first assumed.)
Oddly enough, I've been going on a bit of a "Mars thing" lately. Not long ago I rented Red Planet and watched it for the first time (despite it's major floppage at the box office, I thought the movie was really cool in an old fashioned hard SF kinda way.) I've got Red Mars from Books on Tape in my car right now. I've read two non-fiction book on Mars in the last month or two, and pored over the Mars section of The NASA Atlas of the Solar System.
Because I've also been on a bit of a steampunk binge lately in terms of what I want to game with, and because the Geonosis scenes in the robot factory put me in mind of steampunk, I've got this notion rattling around in my head to convert my steampunkish setting that I've been developing (currently set on a kind of fantasy Lake Bonneville, so it's got tons of red rocks too!
) into a Mars-like world. Of course, it wouldn't be too much like the real Mars -- I prefer normal gravity and air pressure, for instance, although I have thought of using real maps of Mars as a starting point (setting the game near the western end of Valles Marinaris also makes it close to the Tharsis region and Olympus Mons, for instance) and maybe borrowing some vague references from Edgar Rice Burrough's own Barsoom as well.
Now, I know we've got our own barsoomcore that has done something somewhat similar to this as well, but I'm (honestly!) not looking to just rip off his setting -- but the imagery of Mars is just too cool -- I've been a fan since I was a kid.
Any ideas on how to pull this off? Here's some other stuff I want to incorporate into the mix:
Most of the water on the planet comes from huge underground aquifers. That way, civilized locations get plenty of water, but travellers really have to suck it up. Really deep surface features on the real Mars (most of the planitia, for example) could be coopted into shallow seas or salty marshes. There's little to no wood, as vegetation would mostly be brownish moss and scrub-like plants (sorta ala ERB's Barsoom.) Wood's role in construction and the like could be taken by laquered and layered leather (not unlike what the Tsurani used in the Riftwar books, I suppose.) For fuel for fires, I'll also make what vegetation there is easily susceptible to conversion to coal under pressure and time, and make what is (for all intents and purposes) an endless supply of solid fossil fuel.
Wildlife would be fairly unique -- I'll have to comb through monster books for unusual animals and beasts that have a fairly foreign feel to them, and coopt regular animals and beasts and vermin with unusual descriptions for flavor alone.
I'm also interested in creating a variety of human "races" -- and give them rules not unlike how Oriental Adventures or The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game does it without necessarily giving different races all kinds of stat modifications. However, I want these different races to be the result of "breeding" by some other (now gone) higher race that bred humans the way we've bred dogs or cats or horses into specific breeds over the course of centuries or even millenia. I'm not really sure exactly what types of breeds I can come up with here -- I've got in mind a reddish skinned race that is bred to be a hunting race, for instance, and a few less well formulated ideas (could use suggestions here too!) and of course a mass pool of Unbred -- humans that are much as the original stock (maybe brought from Earth millenia ago?) with a vaguely European physical description, as well as "mutts" or mestizos of all kinds. Whatever the various breeds are, I'd like to have them have some kind of actual original purpose, just as we have working dogs, sheep dogs, toy dogs, watch dogs, etc.
The setting will be low magic -- I'll likely scrap D&D's spell system entirely, and replace it with what the one from d20 Call of Cthulhu. I will either use alternate non-magic classes, or even a more d20 Modern bunch of classes. And, of course, as befitting a steampunk setting, technology will not be entirely medieval, although I still plan on using swords, armor and such as fairly common (also use Freeport firearms rules, although make them martial instead of exotic weapons) with all kinds of clockwork and/or steam-powered mechanological devices all around.
Anyway, that's the idea rattlin' around in my skull. Any comments or suggestions?
Anyway, I was struck in a way that I haven't really been so far by the resemblance of Geonosis to Mars. During the entire clone/battle droid action set piece near the end, you can even notice the rusty orange sky (it looks like mid to late afternoon, so it's not sunset sky as I first assumed.)
Oddly enough, I've been going on a bit of a "Mars thing" lately. Not long ago I rented Red Planet and watched it for the first time (despite it's major floppage at the box office, I thought the movie was really cool in an old fashioned hard SF kinda way.) I've got Red Mars from Books on Tape in my car right now. I've read two non-fiction book on Mars in the last month or two, and pored over the Mars section of The NASA Atlas of the Solar System.
Because I've also been on a bit of a steampunk binge lately in terms of what I want to game with, and because the Geonosis scenes in the robot factory put me in mind of steampunk, I've got this notion rattling around in my head to convert my steampunkish setting that I've been developing (currently set on a kind of fantasy Lake Bonneville, so it's got tons of red rocks too!
) into a Mars-like world. Of course, it wouldn't be too much like the real Mars -- I prefer normal gravity and air pressure, for instance, although I have thought of using real maps of Mars as a starting point (setting the game near the western end of Valles Marinaris also makes it close to the Tharsis region and Olympus Mons, for instance) and maybe borrowing some vague references from Edgar Rice Burrough's own Barsoom as well.Now, I know we've got our own barsoomcore that has done something somewhat similar to this as well, but I'm (honestly!) not looking to just rip off his setting -- but the imagery of Mars is just too cool -- I've been a fan since I was a kid.
Any ideas on how to pull this off? Here's some other stuff I want to incorporate into the mix:
Most of the water on the planet comes from huge underground aquifers. That way, civilized locations get plenty of water, but travellers really have to suck it up. Really deep surface features on the real Mars (most of the planitia, for example) could be coopted into shallow seas or salty marshes. There's little to no wood, as vegetation would mostly be brownish moss and scrub-like plants (sorta ala ERB's Barsoom.) Wood's role in construction and the like could be taken by laquered and layered leather (not unlike what the Tsurani used in the Riftwar books, I suppose.) For fuel for fires, I'll also make what vegetation there is easily susceptible to conversion to coal under pressure and time, and make what is (for all intents and purposes) an endless supply of solid fossil fuel.
Wildlife would be fairly unique -- I'll have to comb through monster books for unusual animals and beasts that have a fairly foreign feel to them, and coopt regular animals and beasts and vermin with unusual descriptions for flavor alone.
I'm also interested in creating a variety of human "races" -- and give them rules not unlike how Oriental Adventures or The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game does it without necessarily giving different races all kinds of stat modifications. However, I want these different races to be the result of "breeding" by some other (now gone) higher race that bred humans the way we've bred dogs or cats or horses into specific breeds over the course of centuries or even millenia. I'm not really sure exactly what types of breeds I can come up with here -- I've got in mind a reddish skinned race that is bred to be a hunting race, for instance, and a few less well formulated ideas (could use suggestions here too!) and of course a mass pool of Unbred -- humans that are much as the original stock (maybe brought from Earth millenia ago?) with a vaguely European physical description, as well as "mutts" or mestizos of all kinds. Whatever the various breeds are, I'd like to have them have some kind of actual original purpose, just as we have working dogs, sheep dogs, toy dogs, watch dogs, etc.
The setting will be low magic -- I'll likely scrap D&D's spell system entirely, and replace it with what the one from d20 Call of Cthulhu. I will either use alternate non-magic classes, or even a more d20 Modern bunch of classes. And, of course, as befitting a steampunk setting, technology will not be entirely medieval, although I still plan on using swords, armor and such as fairly common (also use Freeport firearms rules, although make them martial instead of exotic weapons) with all kinds of clockwork and/or steam-powered mechanological devices all around.
Anyway, that's the idea rattlin' around in my skull. Any comments or suggestions?
