Martian Syphilis and Other Interstellar Diseases

Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, Martians AND Mutants !

I should be getting school work done right now. But in the true spirit of procrastination I felt I needed to blog first.

One of the class that I should be working on right now is Western Civilization. I love this class. From a purely learning experience it has been amazing. History is rife with stuff we can steal for gaming. In fact I would argue the best authors have long ago figured this out. I find myself constantly inspired as I sit in class or read the text book. For example this paragraph inspired me:

“This essay will demonstrate that the Spanish Conquista of America in the 1520s and 1530s was more than a brilliant military victory. Aside from the Spaniards' military superiority, what other causes contributed to the rapid conquest of America? The spread of Old World's diseases and the weaknesses of native empires helped the Spaniards colonize America.”

For some reason this made me think of War of the Worlds. Obviously the Martian invaders in the end were affected by the bacteria of Earth. But what if it had been the other way around? What if the immune systems or the technology of the Martians prevented them from getting sick and instead it was Earthlings that were compromised by alien bacteria? What if this alien bacteria didn’t just kill those it infected, but in some cases it caused horrible mutations. What if in a small percentage of the human population it caused psychic powers to develop?

Of course the second part involving the weakness of native empires is easily translated into the fractious nature of humanity and its nations states. Lets face it, humans are dicks. We will always be out own worst enemy.

Ok, so I gotta get some work done now. Back to the books.      

Mecha & Martians: A Stars Without Number Campaign

I thought it was probably a good time to take a break from my series of Ultimate Greyhawk posts and shake things up a bit today. Have no fear I will continue the series but it's always nice to have a palate cleanser in between dishes, er I mean posts.

A while back I wrote about how I had this campaign idea for a something I called Mecha & Martians. The idea still hasn't left me so I created a page to collect all the posts I will eventually write for it.

Mecha & Martians is an alternate history science fiction campaign based on the the idea that the events of H.G. Wells's novel War of the Worlds had actually occurred. In the aftermath of the Martian invasion life carries on and events lead into World War I.  

This isn't a steampunk world. Major scientific advances  have been made based on reverse engineering Martian technology and launching a new industrial revolution. One of the major sources of inspiration will obviously be H.G. Well's War of the Worlds novel and the War of the Worlds: Goliath anime. But other inspirations will be World War I era historical sources.

Campaign Background
When the Martians invaded Earth in 1885 we were victims of their advanced weapons and technology. At the end of the invasion we rebuilt using scientific breakthroughs made by salvaging the remains of left behind from the very same Martian technology that had once been used against us. Leaps and bounds are made in science and the people of Earth have greatly benefited from a new industrial revolution unlike anything our world has ever seen before.

Not willing to become victims a second time and in anticipation of the Martians inevitable return, military's around the world have built and developed new weapons and defences. Chief among these new weapons are walking tanks called Goliaths. These heavily armoured walkers are armed with radical new weapons to defend against the alien's tripod war machines.

It's now been 19 years since the Martian invasion. Political tensions on Earth are quickly heating up. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 plunges the world into the Great War. Just when everyone thought it couldn't get worse the Martians return…

Mecha & Martians

This post seems to be getting a lot of play according to my blogger stats. I found this second trailer on You Tube and I still believe that this would make for one kick ass RPG campaign. Mechs, steampunk, political drama and action all rolled up into one.

As I thought about what system I would use to run this, it occured to me that the mecha niche seems to be missing the plethora of OSR clones and rules add ons. Thinking on it I would probably use Stars Without Number, with a few modifications. I noticed the Core rules have stuff about mecha in them so that might be worth checking out. In fact I've been considering adding yet another blog project called Mecha & Martians. Seems like it would be a lot of fun.