Mars: One Million A.D.

[Reynard]

Just a random idea.

A cool fantasy world (which I would probably run with Mutant Crawl Classics or possibly Numenera) would be Mars one million years from now, after it had been fully terraformed and colonized by humanity -- including spinning up the molten core. In the eons since Earth-humans died? lost contact? moved on? that terraforming is starting to break down and has gone wild. Civilizations have risen and fallen, leaving behind incomprehensible technology, strange super-science and something that feels very much like magic. Mutants and weirder now populate the world. I might even not allow pure strain humans at all until some event happens -- a sleeper ship returns to Mars from a faraway human colony light years away?

Anyway, just musing on ways to build a different post-post apocalyptic setting without relying on ruins of the Eiffel tower or whatever.

 

[John Dallman]

. . . terraforming is starting to break down and has gone wild.

Mars with a decent magnetic field can hold onto a breathable atmosphere for quite a while, but it will slowly escape. If you need a background slow-motion crisis, the need to obtain more water and nitrogen to maintain the atmosphere is a good candidate.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've often thought about pulling out the canal-era "real" maps of Mars and using those as a basis for a fantasy world, but a post-apocalyptic terraformed Mars is pretty great as well.

Don't invite Kim Stanley Robinson to play it, though, unless you are OK with a lot of "um, actually."

 

[Reynard]

I like the idea of trying to subtly invoke the lesser gravity of Mars. The PCs all evolved to live on Mars so "strength" is normal. But big flying creatures like dragons make more sense. And those humans awakened from hypersleep? Super strength.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

1M AD?

That’s a LOT of time for civilizations to rise, fall, rise, etc. and leave behind Clarkian “magi”-tech. Some of the preceding generations may have even anticipated the eventualities of your campaign setting, and devised contingency plans to remedy or minimize them. But somehow, something went wrong.

(Think of the Stargate: Atlantis storyline with the “whales”, or ST: TOS with amnesiac Kirk having to reactivate a planet’s impact defense system.)

I think Numenara would be a good fit for this kind of campaign.

 

[Reynard]

1M AD?

That’s a LOT of time for civilizations to rise, fall, rise, etc. and leave behind Clarkian “magi”-tech. Some of the preceding generations may have even anticipated the eventualities of your campaign setting, and devised contingency plans to remedy or minimize them. But somehow, something went wrong.

(Think of the Stargate: Atlantis storyline with the “whales”, or ST: TOS with amnesiac Kirk having to reactivate a planet’s impact defense system.)

I think Numenara would be a good fit for this kind of campaign.

Yeah. The problem is I don't like the Cypher system. 1E anyway. Maybe 2E is better?

But I also recently bought Mutant Crawl Classics and am eager to try it out.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And those humans awakened from hypersleep?

Ditto (possibly) the occasional space traveler from other worlds touched by human exploration.

Because of time dilation, high-velocity scouts returning to our solar system after a million of OUR years would hardly have aged.

Of course, they may have also been passed in transit if humanity (or its successors) discovered some form of FTL, but that’s a completely different story.

 

[Reynard]

The other nice thing about Mars would be things like impossibly tall trees or towers.

 

[bedir than]

In many ways this is the origin story for the world of Synnibar, except that they hollowed out Mars too.

 

[aramis erak]

I've often thought about pulling out the canal-era "real" maps of Mars and using those as a basis for a fantasy world, but a post-apocalyptic terraformed Mars is pretty great as well.

Don't invite Kim Stanley Robinson to play it, though, unless you are OK with a lot of "um, actually."

Space 1889 uses those maps...