Multiverse Madness

Barsoom

4 min read

Barsoom is a world in the Sol solar system characterised by its red colour, polar ice caps and warring tribes. Not to be confused with Mars of the modern day.

Once a wet world with continents and oceans, Barsoom’s seas gradually dried up, leaving it a dry planet of highlands interspersed with moss-covered dead sea bottoms. Abandoned cities line the former coasts. The last remnants of the former bodies of water are the Great Toonolian Marshes and the antarctic Lost Sea of Korus. Barsoomians distribute their scarce water supplies via a worldwide system of canals, controlled by quarreling city-states at the junctures thereof. The thinning Barsoomian atmosphere is artificially replenished by an “atmosphere plant” on whose function all life on the planet is dependent.

Flora and Fauna

  • Sith: A giant, venomous hornet-like insect endemic to the Kaolian Forest.
  • Darseen, a chameleon-like reptile.
  • Silian, an Antarctic sea-monster found in the Lost Sea of Korus.
  • Thoat: A Martian horse. It has four legs on each side of its body and a wide, flat tail, which is wider at the apex than at the base and which is extended while running. The Greater Thoat is used as a mount by the Green Martians and stands about 10 feet (3.0 m) high at the shoulder; the Lesser Thoat bred by the Red Martians is closer to Earth horses in size. The Thoat is described as a slate-colored animal, with a white underside and yellow lower legs and feet.
  • Zitidar: A draft animal, described as being similar to mastodons.
  • Calot: A large dog-like creature with a frog-like mouth (making them look like cynodonts), and three rows of teeth and ten short legs.
  • Sorak: A small six-legged creature, equivalent to a cat.
  • Apt: A large white-furred arctic creature with six limbs, four being legs, which give it rapid speed, and two being arms with hairless hands, with which it grasps prey. It has tusks growing from its lower jawbone, and large faceted, insect-like eyes.
  • Banth: A Barsoomian “lion”. It hunts the hills surrounding the dead seas of Barsoom. It has a long, sleek body, with ten legs, and large jaws equipped with several rows of sharp fangs in a mouth which extends back almost to its small ears. It is mostly hairless, except for a thick mane around the neck. It has large, protruding green eyes
  • Ulsio: A kind of Barsoomian “rat”, described as a dog-sized burrower.
  • White Ape: Huge and ferocious, semi-intelligent gorilla-like creatures with an extra set of arms

Inhabitants

Inhabited by Tharks, Therns and Red Martians.

  • The Tharks are tall (3-4 metre), green-skinned quasi-humanoids differing in having six limbs (two pairs of arms) and tusks growing from their mouths.
  • The Therns have human proportions, with pale white skin and are completely hairless.
  • The Red Martians are fully humanoid, though oviparous and highly civilised.

The temperatures on Barsoom mean that all humanoid species are forced to wrap up warm - daytime temperatures seldom exceed 0 degrees C while night temperatures routinely drop below -30 degrees C. While Barsoomians are much more tolerant of these temperatures compared to Earth humans, they always wrap up during the night.

Technology

Barsoom has some technology that Earth humans in the 21st Century would consider advanced.

Barsoom natives have been known to cross to Hyperborea.

It would be a mistake to think that Barsoom and Earth are on the same timescale. That translating to Barsoom is simply a translocation in space: it’s also a translocation in time. By the standards of 21st Century Earth, Barsoom has been dead for millennia. The fourth planet in our solar system is Mars, not Barsoom. Though they are the same planet, just separated by thousands of years

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