Mu's Bed

[Judd]

Black Rock - a black basalt monolith, hollowed out to accommodate a monstrous stadium for death games of all sorts.  Nimrote the Huntsman is in charge of Black Rock’s gladiatorial sport and arranges for slaves to be brought in.  Nimrote himself captures, tames and binds many of the beasts and demons who devour the slaves.

It is said that when the Star Gods return with a new shipment of Gray slaves, they will dock above Black Rock.

Chimerae, terrible creatures who can turn take any beast’s shape so long as they’ve tasted their blood, patrol the walls and fly along the perimeter on all manner of stolen wings.  Black Rock’s deadly menagerie allows the Chimerae to taste rare vintages and increase their vile repetoire.

Black Rock takes special pleasure in forcing the last of a dead race to fight and die on its cursed sands.  These genocide games are attended by many nobles from as far away as Atlantis.  Even Hy-Brasilian nobles, knowing their damsel messiah would flay their skin to the bone for stepping a willing foot in Black Rock, don grotesque carnival masques and make their way into the desert to attend the final struggle of a dying race.

The Damsel Messiah

When she was but a girl her mother lost track of her in the market.  She was found at a Sorcerer’s Coven, correcting a protective pentacle meant to protect the city from a powerful spirit to be summoned later that evening.

When she was no older than eleven an elder serpent took her to the top of the world, where the primordial gods were born and made their first dances.  She was shown all of the kingdoms of Marr’d and was offered the rulership of them all if only she would eat of their fruit and know their truth.

She turned the spirit down and bound him quickly.  He serves her still.

Her first decree as ruler of Hy-Brasil was crucifying the money-lenders who do their business in the many temples of Battlehymn and Yerru.  She breaks bread with whores and lepers and so she hears the news of her empire.  To those who live in Hy-Brasil, she is the way and the light in dark, pathless times.

Her apostles are the generals, diplomats and courtiers of her armies of warrior-priests.  Using the combined wisdom of these prophets and madmen she insinuates herself into many a tribe and nation’s messianic lore and brings more and more desperate Marr’dians to her fold every day.

[Judd]

Bought Princess of Mars, looks like alot of fun.

Especially after Jon Carter of Mars was so central to the first issue of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen's second series.

Anyway, hopefully, an inspiring read for an S&S game.

[Bailywolf]

I could have saved you the coin, check out this link:

http://www.literature.org/authors/burroughs-edgar-rice/

[Zak Arntson]

Just wanted to drop an encouraging remark. This setting is amazing. If I head into Sorcerer & Sword with my group, I may just steal this entire thread outright (and tell all my players to read it, too).

My favorite bits: Well, everything. But I especially liked the windy canyons where a body resurfaces after flying around for decades. And the gladiatorial pit where the last members of a dead race battle.

[Judd]

Thanks, Zak, I appreciate the kind words.

The writing of this setting has inspired me to begin to write an incredibly trashy fantasy short story set in Marr'd.  If it get's dinged from a bunch of magazines, I'll show it to y'all.

If you run your group in Marr'd, I am all the more flattered but please let me know how it goes.  I love to hear about how RPG ideas translate on other tables.

Thanks again

[Zak Arntson]

No worries, Paka. I make it a point to post every instance of roleplaying (plus any insight) to the Actual Play forum.

Also, have you looked at the Dark Sun setting? That's the most comparable existing setting I can think of. That and the wacked out art of Moebius, what with so much of his science fiction comics showing huge canyon-y wastelands.

[Judd]

I had the Dark Sun Boxed Set way back in the day...when they had boxed sets.

I remember the high school group reading it in awe that an RPG could have something important to say.  Its ecological metaphor was really amazing to us.

And killing things with your mind is just cool.

So yeah, I think Marr'd is influenced by Dark Sun but I wasn't thinking of it when I wrote it but it is back there in my mind.

Funny, because when I was a young DM and I really wanted to run a Dark Sun adventure but I couldn't think in its terms.  At that time I couldn't come up with a campaign or an adventure concept in a world that alien.

Haven't seen any of Moebius' desertscapes but will peek around and check them out.

[James V. West]

I just wanted to pipe in and say HELL YEAH. It's this kind of stuff that got me pumped up about fantasy in the first place.

[Judd]

Making my way through Princess of Mars.  If I sat down for a half hour and did nothing but read I'd be done by now but as it is I am crawling through it.

Here are a few quotes I liked:

"In one respect at least the Martians were a happy people; they have no lawyers."

"...theirs is a hard and pitiless struggle for existence on a dying planet, the natural resources of which have dwindled to a point where the support of each additional life means an added tax upon the community into which it is thrown."

Have begun reading another book, Mapping Mars by Oliver Morton that is absolutely fantastic.  It details not only exploration and mapping of modern Mars but the history of the way Mars has been portrayed in the imagination and in science.  Nice stuff.

[Judd]

Spent another night making up characters.

When we were done we were all pretty beat since we began really late but we still managed to role-play the Binding of their starting Demons which was a cool prelude and set up their characters really well.

I'll write more on all of this later, along with stats and descriptions of the Demons.