A Princess of Mars Adventure - Chapter 3 Advent on Mars

A Princess of Mars Adventure
Chapter 3 Advent on Mars

Ok, our characters have gotten to Mars. Somehow, someway. Whether they were Lawmen chasing an outlaw into a cave, or Apache warriors hiding out in the sacred mountains and being lured by strange lights. Or maybe you don't want to start with a western, perhaps this is an excursion to shake up your fantasy adventure. Your elf magic-user and human paladin stumbled onto a cave or found a strange artifact and ended up on Mars. Some fantasy in your sci-fi. A little like peanut butter in your chocolate. However you've gotten your players there what happens next?

The characters arrive butt-naked. This is an old trope. Anyone who has played [b]A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords[/b] knows what a great challenge it is to take away all of the character's goodies. Apparently this is something Gary Gygax liked doing to his players. At any rate the characters will be at a disadvantage. No gear, the light gravity will make them awkward, they don't understand the language, and they are right by an incubator that is hatching Thark eggs and a dozen green martian warriors mounted on thoats are approaching. They don't take to strangers kindly.

Here we meet Tars Tarkas. He is still very much a thark, just not quite as cold and heartless as the rest of his people. He is intrigued by the characters because they are not like anything he's encountered before. So instead of outright killing them, as the warriors who accompany him are wont to do, he decides to capture them.

The biggest danger will be turning this adventure into a railroad, but the characters end up prisoners of the Tharks and taken back to the ancient city ruins that they have turned into their home.

TARS TARKAS
Thark Fighting Man
Level 12
(HD 12; AC 6[13]; Atk radium pistol (1d6), 1 greatspear (1d10); Move 9; Save 11; CL/XP 12/800)
Str 17, Int 12, Wis 15, Dex 16, Con 15, Chr 16
Tars Tarkas wears the metal of a Thark chieftain. He is a well armed and charismatic leader.

(see Warriors of the Red Planet for green martian stats)

Talindor (Tarniss) Inked Drawing

At some point in the 90's I drew an inked version of Tarniss, the fantasy setting for the Dungeoneer card game, which was at the time being called Talindor. The map drawing has a heavily illustrated border with important characters and scenes from the world. It wasn't completed because I didn't like how the illos were dominating the map. Looking back at it now it isn't as terrible as I thought.

The illustrations are, clockwise from top left:
Princess Perilina: she was a princess with super-powers, inspired a bit by the nameless protagonist in Tanith Lee's novel The Birthgrave.
Draken Lairs: the Shadowhaven mountains are infested with Drakens, basically small dragons.
Fire Pits of Shadar: no specific memories of anything specific about this other than lava pools being a great adventure locale.
Temple of Cholizar: this eventually became the Realm of the Ice Witch expansion for Dungeoneer.
The Kargak: basically like the tarrasque from the first edition Monster Manual 2
Hope, Revelation, Despair: kind of like the Norns from Norse Mythology
Kez the Unwaking: a great hero in stasis who could be reawakened when his sword is put back together.
Dimension: the goddess of 3 dimensional space and time
Broken Sword of Kez: yeah, Kez's sword was broken in 3 parts.
Palanthion: the capital of Dolmaranthus.
Gwildor: a great paladin who battled the demons back to hell, he was obliterated when the gate to hell was sealed. His holy armor spread into the Sea of Souls. He is later named Gvandir in the lore.
Gates of Bandimar: a seal on a portal to hell that is manifested as a great thunder, lightning, and fire storm that whirls over the island of Bandimar.
Haunted Mistenwoods: this became The Haunted Woods of Malthorin expansion for Dungeoneer.
Lilus Arcana: a magic plant
Arcanuz the God-King: the big bad guy of the world. Part lich part insane eldritch lord. He was the servant of the 13 demon lords that once ruled ancient Talindor (Tarniss).

This map is a photo copy in my old high school D&D campaign binder, I don't know if the original drawing still exists or if it's stored in the garage somewhere.

5th Edition Character Sheet - Family Friendly Version

I've been playing the 5th edition with my kids and for the most part we're all enjoying it, but it really feels unnecessarily complicated in many ways. In particular character creation is excruciating. The idea is that most of the calculations and work is upfront so that during play things go much more smoothly.

We found the basic character sheet to be way too busy and hard to read. I made a version that removes much of the clutter and improves legibility. It doesn't have every single thing from 5th edition, but it does have everything you generally need while playing. Making this sheet a much more kid-friendly version. Here is a relatively high rez version you can download and print out for your own games:

Edit: yes, skills are missing. I'm an advocate for players solving problems through clever game play rather than relying on a die roll and a solution on their character sheet. There is room for indicating important skills in the abilities section. It says Ancestry instead of Race because we've been exploring genres other than fantasy. It says Life Saves rather than Death Saves because not only is it a more kid friendly term but it is more accurate as to what the game mechanic does; it saves your character's Life.

My High School D&D Campaign

Tarniss is the background world setting for the Dungeoneer card game. It appears in the flavor text, character names, and monster you encounter while playing. Tarniss was based on my middle school D&D campaign world that I developed all throughout high school, and into my early 20's as well. It went by many names, originally called Talindor. Fortunately I kept many of the notes, drawings, and maps in a binder. One of the few things I still have from back then.

This is the very earliest map drawing I have in my binder.

It has been a long time since I looked at this. It's surprising how many of the original names and much of the original contour survived through multiple revisions and development of the world. In the late 80's I got my first IBM computer, I don't know when I first drew a digital version of this map but I found this printout.

You can see it's called The Empire of the Domains. A title that represented this was just one of many domains in the solar system. It was a little influenced by Spelljammer there were multiple planets, or domains, you could visit. Some had pretty wild geography and the planets were crazy shapes that look a bit like polyhedral dice. Maybe I'll post some drawings of that when they get scanned in.

As a fantasy world made by a middle-schooler it doesn't exactly have an amazing high concept. Eldritch Lords long ago stole the secret of magic from the elves, turned against them, tore the world apart with their dark arts until they were overthrown by the free peoples. At one point a demon lord created a portal into Tarniss and spread a plague of demons who were beaten back through the portal which was sealed with an eternal lightning storm. It's essentially a gonzo medley of a fantasy world with everything thrown in. But we sure had a lot of fun exploring it.

TSR Comic Page Ads

Bill Willingham has become a legend in the comic book industry. Creator of the much lauded Fables series, he continues to work in comics mostly writing. He still draws, but more for private commissions than for published work. To D&D fans he was a notable artist on early D&D books including being the first to draw dark elves for the Drow series. Many remember his iconic frontispiece drawing for Red Box D&D of the adventurers fighting a red dragon.

On his YouTube channel Bill Willingham recently talked about his experiences as a young artist in the early days of TSR. He drew all but the first 2 D&D comic page ads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR09PH-jc40

I barely remember seeing these as a kid, and I didn't even realize they had a continuing story that left on a cliff hanger. This compelled me to look them up so I could read the story. Apparently it had developed a bit of a fan base who were disappointed the stories were never finished. But ending the ads was a marketing decision as they decided to spend their advertising budget elsewhere. Of particular fascination is the restrictions the Lady of Pain inflicted on the ads. They could show no violence and no greed. So no fighting or getting treasures, pretty much the heart of a D&D adventure!

The characters are:

Grimslade the magic-user
Indel the elf
Valerius fighter
Saren the cleric

Interestingly in an issue of Dungeon magazine the characters were given stats for 4th edition D&D. One of the harder editions to convert back into classic D&D, but it can be done with a little effort.

When I was poking around trying to get more information I found the Kuronons blog that has some additional interesting details.