New Campign World Idea

[Demiurge]

When my group starts C&C I'm going to make it a really new experience and change our default campaign word of Forgotten Realms for something different. Unfortunately, none of the published settings feel just right so I decided to homebrew it. I've not been very good with homebrew in the past so I thought I'd try and find some sort of map to base it on... and boy did I: Modified Mars!

This thing is freakin' cool. The map shows a vision of a terraformed Mars with oceans, topographical features, and even some political boundaries based on 23rd century Earth, but I can work with that. The guy that designed it even has the various regions color-coded by type (desert, forest, tundra, etc.). You can even download it for use with Google earth which allows you to view different layers of detail.

Wikipedia has a ton of info on Mars, including a couple of proposed calendars. Now if I need detail in minutia I can use that as a basis rather than making it up out of whole cloth.

The current names for a lot of the features have a Greek/Roman feel, so bang!, I drop in the Greek gods as the main pantheon.

The only major thing I'm debating is whether or not this is actually the "real" or alternate Mars. If I go with real I can make it a pre-historic version of Mars or perhaps a post-terraformed Mars with some traces of ancient technology to be found. If I go alternate, than I can just treat it like any other fantasy world.

This is going to R-O-C-K!

[serleran]

I would read up on Barsoom.

[Omote]

I'd like to adventure in the mega, MEGA dungeon under Olympus Mons!

~O

[DougP]

I would read up on Barsoom.

Yes indeed. In fact that's a good recommendation for just about everyone on this board. Good stuff.

[Demiurge]

I would read up on Barsoom.

I've always meant to read those and now I will for sure. Illium and Olympos by Dan Simmons look like they might prove useful as well.

[western watcher]

You might want to read some "John Carter of Mars". By Edgar Rice Burroughs for some ideas.

[Relaxo]

that does sound cool, Demiurge.

Isn't John Carter* the main character in the Barsoom stories?

*Trivia Fun: Michael Crichton, creator of TV's ER, named Noah Wiley's John Carter after John Carter of Mars because he was a huge Barsoom fan as a kid.

[Peter]

Sounds interesting. I'd go for real Mars, before it was barren.

In my old AD&D 2e campaign, I had a player who became the god of Mars. I had Mars populated with dinosaurs. I never put any more detail into it tho.

[clavis123]

As an incorrigible mixer of fantasy and sci-fi, I think you've got a great idea.

One idea I explored in a 3E Campaign (set on Atlantis before it sank for good) was that humans actually were native to Mars, but that Martian civilization was the victim of an interstellar war with the chromatic dragons of Venus, resulting in the destruction of all life on both planets. Since the Campaign was set on Earth, however, the Mars story was imply background, and the PCs never actually saw the red planet.