Space Vampires of Mars

I've been reading a lot of Vampirella comics lately. The thought struck me: if Dynamite can have Vampirella team-up with Dejah Thoris, why not make a Space Vampire class for Aos's B/X Mars setting? The following class is presented with Aos's seal of approval; it just might appear in a supplement currently in the works. 

Also, did you know that Drivethru is discontinuing the format that the B/X Mars book is printed in? If you want a copy, do it before the end of the month!

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SPACE VAMPIRE

A traveler from the Vampire Planet in a far-away solar system who has crash landed on Mars.

AC starts a 5 and goes down by one on odd levels.

Prime Attribute: Charisma. A Space Vampire with a 13+ in Charisma receives a +10% bonus to all experience awards

Hit Dice: D8

Starting hit points = Charisma

At first level:

Beguile: A Space Vampire can exert powers of animal magnetism over living creatures who are sentient and understand language. The target of a Space Vampire’s beguilement must make a Saving Throw vs. Warp. On a failed save, the target will try to reasonably accommodate the Space Vampire’s requests, but will not put tempt death on their behalf. This effect lasts for an hour. Creatures with more Hit Dice than the Space Vampire are immune to this ability. A Space Vampire can Beguile a number of times per day equal to 1 + their Charisma modifier.

Vampiric Immortality: Once they reach adulthood, Space Vampires cease aging and can live indefinitely. Space Vampires take damage when deprived of food and water, but they cannot die from deprivation; at worst, they are reduced to a single hit point. Most eventually succumb to either ennui or violence. Additionally, a Space Vampire’s fangs can be used to deal 1d6 points of damage to any creature that has blood, is biological, and is living.

Note: Like Terrans, Space Vampires do not gain access to the normal skills Martians possess (see page 9) until they reach 3rd level.

Beginning at level 2 and every other level thereafter, the Space Vampire may select one Mastery. The Space Vampire fights as fighter.

Space Vampires use the Princess’s Saving Throw table. (They'll have their own bespoke Saving Throw table in the final version.)

MASTERY

The following Mastery options are available to Space Vampire characters:

ALIEN HUNGER (Space Vampire) Any blood a Space Vampire consumes counts toward their daily water requirements. Additionally, when a Space Vampire drinks a living creature’s blood, they regain 2 hit points.

BATWINGS (Space Vampire) The Space Vampire can cause bat-like wings to sprout from their back at will. These wings give the Space Vampire a flying speed of 30’.

NOCTURNAL SUPREMACY (Space Vampire) When the sun sets, a Space Vampire’s  Strength becomes 19.

SHROUD OF MALKUTH (Space Vampire) This ability allows the Space Vampire to become invisible for ten minutes. Success against unwitting targets is automatic. Active searchers must make a successful Saving Throw vs Warp to locate the Space Vampire. This Mastery can only be used once per day.

Paean to the Red Planet

It began with a maelstrom. It ended on a savage red planet, its sun gone sullen and weird, its wind hot and devouring.

A world not so much dying as it was already dead. It just refuses to acknowledge the cruel fact of its demise.

Away from our world's gravity we grew stronger here. Like Icarus, we could leap for the sun. And fail. Perhaps we too grew sullen and weird.

The things we met there were alien and beautiful. The Red Martian warriors, their voluptuous princesses, and their devious menton mind-wizards. The brutal, multi-limbed Thark!!!, whose tribes evidence the nobility of a warrior caste doomed by its own traditions.

Fast friends, some, and implacable foes otherwise.

Beyond those things we might call people we found only monstrosity. 

Death made flesh, death awoken from its long desert sleep, death so cunning that its weirding ways are scarcely comprehensible to our racing Terran minds.

Thirsty death, hungry death, death that comes on night-black wings.

And yet, despite its strangeness, this is a world that could be mapped, traced, and understood. The world of Mars wages its own peculiar war, but it is a war we can win. What else is there? Spilling one's blood on the burning sands, like so many others have done since time immemorial.

The sullen sun, gone weird in its death throes, looks on and laughs.

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What I am saying is that you should seriously consider buying Michael Gibbon's recently released B/X Mars. You may need to log into your account and allow DriveThru to take you to the unheralded garden of NSFW Martian delights, but the naughty thrill you feel by doing so will soon be eclipsed by the greater pleasure of beholding Mars for yourself. 

Immolating Your Friends and Foes on the Red Planet

High jinks continue on the Red Planet. Our picklehaube-wearing German was abducted by an airborne monster. Unfortunately, the Dancing Swordsman's attempts to shoot the beast down resulted in cooking our Terran compatriot. 

One cannot mourn for long on Mars. It is a waste of precious water. We decided to head toward a guarded tower we had seen nearby.

Of course, we were ambushed on the way by a party of Red Martians and White Apes and stripped of our weapons. We resisted our captors' attempt to lock us away in a prisoner's cell. My character, Cymzo Drox, Menton of Mars, threw a "stingstick" at the group's leader, then drained the lifeforce from our captors to power his mental warp abilities. We freed a Thark! who quickly joined the fray on our side. We then made a mad rush for the tower to escape further pursuit.


The "tower" turned out to be a rocket ship currently operated by our nemesis, Mr. Whip. Although Mr. Whip had been an object of abject terror for us in the past, we quickly liquefied him. He will moonwalk no more. 

Cymzo then realized that the rocket could be weaponized against the Red Martians and White Apes banging on the door outside. He initiated launch, immolating our foes, and enabling the rocket to fly on its pre-programmed course to the moon.

And then we blacked out.

The Horrors and Delights of B/X Mars

All art in this post by Michael Gibbons

Confession: I've read Edgar Rice Burroughs's A Princess of Mars and I thought it was pretty bad. The plot feels like an overheated and breathless litany of "And then this happens, and then this happens!," the main character seems like the epitome of naked (heh) wish-fulfillment, and the ending was a textbook example of an author simply running out of steam. I've never bothered to venture past the first book in the series; I doubt I'll ever be tempted to return to it.

And yet, when Michael Gibbons put out the call for players in his B/X Mars game, I volunteered with alacrity.

I have not regretted this decision.

B/X Mars is not Burroughs's Mars. There are obvious similarities, of course. B/X Mars draws a lot of inspiration from the planetary romance and larger science fantasy genres; Gib's Mars is a land of ancient technologies and lost civilizations fallen into ruin. The planet's deserts are hot and unrelenting, the people strange and savage, and barely clad warriors armed with swords face off against each other amid the red sands. 

The Mars flavor is in there, there's no denying it, but I want to focus on three things that have made this particular game more than an exercise in pastiche: the structure, the mystery, and the emergent themes.

The Structure
When we started playing this campaign, we were told that our party was wandering the desert, searching for civilization. We had a rough map and free rein to go wherever we wanted. So, a basic sandbox, right? 

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of hexcrawl-style sandbox campaigns; I've played in enough of them that felt like railroads constrained by the "paths" you were highly encouraged to follow. 
This B/X Mars game short-circuits the potential for boredom by offering up other ways to travel around the wastes besides hoofing it--we've uncovered trains, lifts, and transmat devices. Half the time we have no idea where we are and it's glorious.

The Mystery
A good portion of the fun in this campaign has been the thrill of discovery. We are not just figuring out the rules (hacked substantially from B/X D&D), we're also figuring out the world as we play. For example, early on we found a mysterious metal triangle. Then we found more of these triangular devices. Then we found depressions in other objects in which the triangles would fit. To say we wasted a tremendous amount of time messing about with the triangles would be an understatement. The game isn't just a sandbox, it's a toy box and we have a lot of stuff to play with. Can't wait to find out what I can do with the stingstick I got in the last adventure!

Emergent Themes
It turns out that the planetary romance elements in B/X Mars are only part of the story. As we've been playing we've come to the collective realization that B/X Mars is also a horror game. We've already had one total party kill--only to be resurrected by the Martian version of Victor Frankenstein so he could experiment upon us. Don't worry, we eventually took him out in a Tarantino-meets-Saw ploy where we garroted him while stabbing him into corpsedom. 

We never feel like invincible John Carters or Deja Thorises. Our Martian princess plummeted to her death after a marsquake knocked her from a rope bridge into a deadly ravine. Our Thark! was destroyed by a flame-headed mummy.

And that's just the half of it. We've been assaulted by, and run from, a deathsquad of shambling reanimates. We fought off armies of warlike antmen. We encountered a horrible freak who had the mewling faces of infants sewn to his body.

And don't even get me started on Mr. Whip, the NPC I hate and fear above all others.

So, here's the thing, Michael is currently working his B/X Mars material into a lavishly illustrated product that you can buy and use for your own games. Choose wisely and keep an eye here for more news.