One of favorite fantasy subgenres is “Sword and Planet” which blends elements of science fiction and fantasy together into tales of swashbuckling heroes fighting with swords and ray guns to save a scantly-clad (if no entirely nude) damsel on some distant planet. The best example, of course, are Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series, where the titular American Civil War veteran is magically transported to the dying red planet—which the natives call “Barsoom”-- where he battles strange beings and savage empires to win the hand of the “incomparable” Martian princess, Dejah Thoris. While there are a few fan created John Carter of Mars conversions for OD&D on the net, I was considering trying my own had at coming up with a generic sword and planet supplement for either Labyrinth Lord or Swords & Wizardry. I intended it to be set in the far, far, future in the Jovian system on the” terraformed the Galilean where a once ultra-high tech civilization has been thrown into barbarism complete with swords, psychic powers, and half-forgotten technology… oh, and nublie, skyclad Jovian women.
However, it seems I may have to put that idea on hold, because Al over at the Beyond the Black Gate blog may have down all my work for me. He has been working on his sword and planet old-school game, Warriors of the Red Planet. By the look of the spectacular artwork by one Thomas Denmark, Al seems to be heavily influenced by Burroughs’ work complete with aerial battleships and mutli-armed alien brutes. Besides the artwork, Al’s new blog for his upcoming game gives a sneak peak on how PCs will look in WotRP.
As of this time we have no release date just yet, but WotRP has moved up into the top five of my “IT MUST BE MINE” list of future gaming purchases.
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