Source Material: “The Warlord of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Serialized adventure in a fantastic world!
For an analysis of Book 2 of the Barsoom series, see Source Material: The Gods of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
SPOILER ALERT: This article contains significant details about The Warlords of Mars and The Gods of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and TSR adventure B4: The Lost City, by Tom Moldvay. Those who have not read the books or read/played the adventure may want to stop reading now.
Synopsis
In The Gods of Mars, John Carter destroys Issus, false goddess of the First Born (and all Barsoom)—but in the process loses his wife, the Heliumatic princess, Dejah Thoris.
At the opening of The Warlord of Mars, the princess is confined for a full Martian year in the slowly rotating prison found in the Temple of the Sun. For over 600 Earth days, the only known entrance to her cell will creep past a forbidding stone wall, until finally it comes around to where it stood the day she was locked away.
Unsurprisingly (for the Barsoom books), Carter soon learns of a secret entrance to the cell. He’s too late, however, to save the love of his life. She is kidnapped from prison by Thurid, dator of the First Born, a minor antagonist in the previous book, now allied with Matai Shang, Father of Therns.
This leads Carter on a chase across the face of Barsoom, from the Valley Dor at the south pole, to the Kaolian jungle at the equator, to the hidden kingdom of Okar, beyond the ice barrier in the far north.
Before he can reunite his family, Carter must face the legendary yellow men of Mars, and overcome a terrible weapon that destroys any Barsoomian warship crossing the ice barrier.
Influence on B/X
Serialized adventures
The Warlord of Mars begins soon after the The Gods of Mars, with the cliffhanger ending yet to be resolved. In the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rulebook, editor Tom Moldvay seems to envision long-running campaign play, in the style of book or movie serials: “Several related adventures (one adventure leading to another, often with the same player characters) is called a campaign” (p. B3).
Books like The Warlord of Mars may have served as a model for this type of play. Absent the cliffhanger, The Gods of Mars is a complete story, with a satisfying ending. No clues within the book hint at yet another lost race, this one abiding at the north pole of Barsoom. Burroughs seems to have invented the yellow men to justify the next chapter in his serial, much as a DM may invent new antagonists to replace opponents the player characters have faced in their previous adventures.
Rescuing Prisoners
As with The Gods of Mars, this book is built around a couple of the archetypal adventure scenarios Moldvay lists in the “Dungeon Master Information” section of the Basic rules (p. B51). The first is “Rescuing Prisoners”—John Carter begins the story seeking to liberate Dejah Thoris, his wife, and Thuvia, one of his companions from the previous book. Before the adventure is over, however, he will discover Dejah Thoris’ father and grandfather are themselves prisoners of the yellow men. Freeing his family and friend drives the action from start to finish.
Finding a Lost Race
Burroughs combines prisoner rescue with a second scenario, also found on Moldvay’s list—”Finding a Lost Race.” He recycles this plot idea from The Gods of Mars, where Carter discovers first the therns, then the First Born—both legendary peoples who have been living secretly at the south pole.
Barsoom has a lot of lost races. As mentioned above, in The Warlord of Mars, Carter encounters the yellow men. The Holy Therns know about the yellow-men’s hidden society, which still worships the therns as gods. Carter eventually learns Thurid and Matai Shang have taken sanctuary with the yellow men, behind the formidable ice barrier. Once again, he faces the need to overthrow a hostile civilization to save himself and his friends from slavery, or worse.
Inspiration for your games
As an example of both serialized storytelling and a solid adventure tale, The Warlord of Mars offers a number of elements that can assist with developing an ongoing D&D game:
Extending your campaign
As I’ve discussed previously, a DM can use ideas found in The Gods of Mars to develop more fully the mini-campaign found in Moldvay’s B4: The Lost City (TLC). Once the player characters have exhausted the adventures to be found in the pyramid, in the city, and below the city, the DM can use seeds from The Warlord of Mars to extend the action to the outside world. This falls under the eighth item “Leaving the Desert” on the list of “Further Adventures” Moldvay includes in the The Lost City (TLC, p.25).
Perhaps, like the yellow men of Mars, the secret rulers of Cynidicea (whomever the DM decides to make them) are aware of a “lost colony” of their people hidden somewhere in the campaign world. As the player characters gain ascendency in the city, and begin to pacify it, the displaced rulers might flee across the desert, maybe to find their lost brethren, conquer them, and return in force. The party is faced with a dilemma—pursue the former rulers, and deal with their threat immediately, or stay to stabilize the city, and perhaps face the potential consequences later.
Level up your player characters’ enemies!
Sometimes, a character with a small role in a story, such as Thurid in The Gods of Mars, becomes much more important later, as when Thurid becomes the main antagonist in The Warlord of Mars.
In a similar fashion, a D&D campaign can be more interesting if some villains survive some adventures. Just as the characters’ abilities improve over time, so should those of their recurring opponents. The party’s rivals should be credible opponents—at least matches for the player characters, if not overwhelming threats—whenever they meet them. Each time the PCs face such enemies and fail to vanquish them, those enemies grow in importance to the campaign.
The player characters discover a hidden kingdom
Secret realms, like the Valley Dor in The Gods of Mars, or the land of Okar in The Warlord of Mars, are common in fantasy stories and legends. Other examples include Shangrila, Gondolin, and Brigadoon.
This idea might work well as part of a misdirection tactic, where the DM wants to present an adventure as one scenario when it’s really another. The party could set off on a quest, seek to escape enemies who have held them captive, or begin investigating some ruins, but partway through the adventure, they discover a hidden valley, a subterranean kingdom, or a concealed mountain fastness, in which an entire society has been living, unknown to the surrounding lands, for hundreds or thousands of years. The players must now choose how to respond to this sudden change in their characters’ situation—can they make friends with the people of this newly discovered land, or does it pose a threat, which only they are in a position to face?
World-building through campaign play
Perhaps the most important lesson The Warlord of Mars has to teach DMs is how to go about building the campaign world through campaign play. This seems to be how Burroughs built the world of Barsoom. As far as I know, he didn’t take the time to create an Atlas of Mars, or the Encyclopedia Barsoomia before he wrote his stories. Rather, he seems to have invented regions, races, creatures, and events as he needed them, to keep the story moving. A good DM can do the same with an on-going campaign, never letting themselves be overwhelmed by unnecessary preparation, but always staying one step ahead of the party, so the players never see the “blank space” the DM hasn’t filled-in yet. That’s the formula for endless adventure!
Coming Soon
Bulfinch’s Mythology, by Thomas Bulfinch