After running a campaign on Barsoom for some time, I got to thinking about why I enjoyed Barsoom as a kid. First, and most obviously, it was the physicality of it, the amazing abilities of John Carter. Like many of his contemporaries (Carter first appeared in 1912), Carter was a hero of white supremacy and that seemed quite natural when I was a kid. As a white kid, it seemed pretty cool. Looking back, Carter was the white man among the Other. I didn’t question it at the time. The Red Martians (which I call the Ulaan in my game) were based on a romantic view of native Americans. They were brave and more technologically advanced than Terrans, but somehow Carter came out on top. The Ulaan lived a long time, but somehow Carter’s sword work was superior to their own, a real impossibility but of course what was expected in a hero.
Carter was Lawrence of Arabia before Lawrence. Orientalism (https://www.amazon.com/Orientalism-Concepts-Edward-W-Said/dp/0140238670/) had been popular since at least the 1830s, and the sands of Mars were very much like the sands of Arabia, or of the American Southwest. The radium pistols of Barsoom were first based on the Western six gun, but by 1920, radium rifles were drawn as Jezail (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezail), the rifle of the Pashtun.
The Jezail was part of pulp fiction already — it was the weapon that left a bullet in Doctor Watson. I considered Radium guns too fanciful, so I disguised them by writing them backwards as Muidar Guns, aka. Murder Guns. But you can find them in Fallout games.
Carter was also Superman before there was a Superman. Born on a planet with greater gravity than Barsoom (Mars), he was stronger than the Ulan, a match even for the Green Martians (which I call the Nogoon). Like the Superman of a generation later, he could not fly, but he could leap enormous distances. Superman took it further by being invulnerable as well, except against Kryptonite (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptonite), which appeared later in 1943.
Barsoomian technology was perhaps the stories’ least believable aspect. Radium guns had fantastic ranges that changed from story to story. Airships were essentially balloons, with buoyancy tanks filled with the 8th ray. New technologies were frequently invented to fill plot holes or drive the story forward. I much preferred the liftwood of Frank Chadwick’s cloudships, so I went with that as well. Sky Galleons of Mars and Cloudships and Gunboats (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/59094/Space-1889–Sky-Galleons-of-Mars-Cloudships-and-Gunboats) have a very functional system for this form of air combat, so I use that in toto in my games.
Chadwick’s Space: 1889 has Mars colonized by the British and other European powers, but I was more interested in the Martians themselves, so the Ulaan restricted the British to four bases: Syrtis Major, Meridian, Argyre, and Insidis.
Burroughs had multiple races on Barsoom: Reds, Whites, Yellows, Blacks, and Greens. The Green Martians were the most barbaric — enormous four-armed warriors with great cruelty. My version is much like Burroughs, although the great Kreed, the Gucci assassin of Nexus fame is always in the back of my mind.
lostdelights 