Free Sword And Planet Download ~ Planet Of Peril By Otis Albert Kline For Your Old School Sword and Sorcery Campaign

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Here! 

I was going over my 1963 copy of Planet of Peril by Otis Adelbert Kline and doing a cross compare with Edgar Rice Burroughs Atmor(Venus) books. Mr. Kline was a rather interesting fellow and preceeded his famous friend to Venus a couple of years earlier. Kline while known as a literary agent of Robert Howard was in fact a pulp writer in his own right. 
 According to wiki: 

Otis Adelbert Kline (1891–1946) born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, was an adventure novelist and literary agent during the pulp era. Much of his work first appeared in the magazineWeird Tales. Kline was an amateur orientalist and a student of Arabic, like his friend and sometime collaborator, E. Hoffmann Price.

 

You can read more about him right over
HERE 
Kline wrote a number of Venus based novels that appeared as a seriel in Weird Tales. His venus was a rough and ready planet of sword and Lovecraftian weirdness. A place were his soul switching protagonists rubbed elbows with his Martain heroes as well. There were six tales of his that appeared in both Argosy and Weird tales. The Mars novels and Venus books respectively.
According to Wiki :

Kline's novels normally received serial publication in magazines before their release in book form. The Mars novels appeared in Argosy, and Port of Peril in Weird Tales (as Buccaneers of Venus).

Venus series[edit]

1. Planet of Peril (1929)
2. The Prince of Peril (1930)
3. The Port of Peril (1932)

Mars series[edit]

1. The Swordsman of Mars (1933)

The Outlaws of Mars (1933)

The thing about Kline's writing is that there is strange sort of sardonic quality to his fetid Venus. As if there's some hidden menace lurk over the hero's shoulder and that the planet is far older then the inhabitants guess. The other fact about Kline is that his characters are all a part of his greater shared universe. The first of his books Planet Of Peril is the one for download. All though his Venus shares many similarities with his friend Edgar Rice Burrough's Venus books and they could take place on the same planet there is a bit of a distinctive feel to Kline's books. They have a very  sword and sorcery vibe to them even though there aren't any sorcery in them at all. They have a lot going on in them with battles, kidnapping, lost races, encounters, weird creatures and more. 

 Using Kline's Venus As Fodder For Your Sword and Sorcery Campaign

Kline's Venus is the fetid hot house planet of the old pulps with a pirate twist and heavier then air ships moving through them. These are ancient declining cultures with the best of them far behind their societies. These are places of adventure, sword play, and occasionally weird technology in the offering.
 I've used Kline's Venus numerous times as a pocket universe planet where adventurers have had to go to retrieve ingredients for one spell or another. A place where ancient ruins rub shoulders with Deep One style fishmen of incredible violence and insane horror. Let's be honest here though the name Edgar Rice Burroughs carries far more fame with it then Kline's and I've combined their Venuses into one pulptastic hot house planet filled with Lovecraftian ruins, ancient treasures, and horrors beyond the pale of mankind just waiting to be sprung on players. Edgar Rice Burroughs Magazine even had a very well done article on Kline's Venus that addressed these concerns.
Right over
HERE

For many of the retroclone game systems out there Kline's Venus might be just the sort of place for an expedition and not an extended campaign. I have found that players enjoy Venus as a diversion rather then an extended world for a campaign. The exotic nature of the planet and its tribes makes it very different experience then say a Barsoomian Mars or a Lunar excursion.

Keep the relic technology from games like Carcosa, Astonishing Swordsmen of Hyperborea, and Arduin very, very rare. The atmosphere of Venus will play marry havoc with delicate instruments. For AS&SH bards are a nice way of getting from one world to another. They're reliability is questionable at best however. 

For a game like Stars Without Number this version of Venus might simply be yet another pocket universe pulp location. Given the nature of psychics in SWN this might be just the place for a quick mission or diversion. Psychics are going to be in for a bit of a shock when the nature of Venusian psychic powers reveal themselves. Many of the native population display some form of psychic power themselves.

 This planet could display some very valuable biological specimens as well for genetic engineering possibilities.

Buccaneers of Venus was serialized in Weird Tales with some really odd and striking covers.

 You can see more of Kline's books and cover art right over at the Edgar Rice Burroughs Magazine page HERE

 Burroughs and Kline 

 I remember first hearing the name Otis Adelbert Kline.back in the early 80's in a used book shop and the conversation with a friend about how he was a friend and rival of Edgar Rice Burroughs. It is true that they were friends but not rivals at all.

Once again according toWiki: 

Kline is best known for an apocryphal literary feud with fellow author Edgar Rice Burroughs, in which he supposedly raised the latter's ire by producing close imitations (Planet of Peril(1929) and two sequels) of Burroughs's Martian novels, though set on Venus; Burroughs, the story goes, then retaliated by writing his own Venus novels, whereupon Kline responded with an even more direct intrusion on Burroughs's territory by boldly setting two novels on Mars. Kline's jungle adventure stories, reminiscent of Burroughs's Tarzan tales, have also been cited as evidence of the conflict.[1] While the two authors did write the works in question, the theory that they did so in contention with each other is supported only circumstantially, by the resemblance and publication dates of the works themselves. The feud theory was originally set forth in a fan press article, "The Kline-Burroughs War," by Donald A. Wollheim (Science Fiction News, November, 1936), and afterward given wider circulation by Sam Moskowitz in his book Explorers of the Infinite. Richard A. Lupoff debunked the case in his book Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure. Among the evidence cited by Lupoff discounting the feud: (1) no comment from either writer acknowledging the feud is documented, and (2) family members of the two authors have no recollection of ever hearing them mention it. In response to Lupoff's investigations Moskowitz identified his original source as Wollheim's article, while Wollheim stated, when questioned on the source of his own information: "I made it up!"

Kline's Mars is only now being recognized for its classic nature as well. I'll cover this in another post at some point in the future. 

Back To Basics - Basic Dungeons & Dragons Can Do Science Fantasy Commentary

Time and again over the years of quietly going full steam into the OSR, I've seen original and Basic Dungeons & Dragons used over and over again for science fantasy role playing. From Carcosa to a ton of home made campaign settings a number of which are very well professionally done affairs. Dungeons and Dragons does it right again & again. Not to mention the original Empire of the Petal Throne rpg by TSR. Well, D&D does it really well and I've been quietly studying this over the last day or so. But I have a problem.

Hi my name is Eric and I'm a sword and planet slut. I admit my problem is that I love science fantasy worlds and settings. Personally I blame Edgar Rice Burroughs and my dad for this disease and its not getting better when I've got friends like Terje Nordin feeding free sword & planet settings like Xuhlan. This is sort of a Conan on Tatootine for OD&D,and all retroclone goodness you could want including a basic Psionic system built in. It it clocks out at forty two pages of old school awesomeness.
There are few reasons why to go down the Basic/Expert route, the game is concise, offers caps on levels, and is easily modular enough to offer some customization as the DM requires.
The setting is easy to fit into your own vision and it can be used as a jump off point or another planet setting for PC's to visit. Best of all its modular and can be used as a tool box to swap out or use what you want for your old school campaign.

According to the authors blog  - 

"Five or six years ago I played with an idea for a science fantasy sword and planet style campaign that I originally thought of as “Gamma Barsoom” or “Conan on Tatooine.” After having toyed around with the concept on and off for a couple of years it was put aside as I prioritized other stuff. I’ve been thinking about revamping it as a collection of random tables like all the cool kids are doing but since that's not likely to happen anytime soon I decided to just make it available here. At least it will feel like it got completed in some way and perhaps someone will find something of interest here."

In this pdf you will find:

* A campaign map with one interesting feature for each of the 99 hexes

* A description of the city of Yankara with important places, people, factions and rumours

* New monsters, including the Alien Gods

* House rules for psionic powers and combat

* Super-science artefact's, including the Witch Stones

   * Other bits and pieces for science fantasy campaigns

  It's basically got everything you need to go adventuring on a pretty solid little sword and planet setting in the old school tradition. And yes I enjoyed the hell out if it. Its got everything you need to get started with your players in an alternative sword and planet setting right now! There's even an appendix 'N' and its freaking free so grab it tonight and start in on it! 

   But what the hell are you going to do with it? Well this would make a great port over setting for a Warriors of The Red Planet party or put over your Swords and Wizardry PC's to liven things up with some alien horrors from the depths of Xuhlan's dungeons and ruins tables. With a bit of forethought Xuhlan's monsters, ruins, and some random tables could be used to pepper classic Isle of Dread with some science fantasy goodness to turn the pulpiness up to eleven and really bring home the idea of the 'lost world' elements & the non human races perhaps as aliens. The Isle of Dread could used  as dimensional gateway access point  to an alien planet setting. This  has use as a possible campaign touch stone.


 Really there's a ton of stuff that this setting can be used for. Its not a bad little setting to play with really.

GRAB IT RIGHT
HERE

Another Free OSR Monster - Collectanea Creaturae: Psyche Lasher From Ebon Gryphon Games For Your Old/New School Campaigns

Say you want a monster for a science fantasy alien invasion but a certain copy righted and iconic monster isn't available for you to use in your product or adventure? What's a guy to do especially if he's got fifteen minutes before his players and friends show up? Go into a full panic? Nawwww. Well Ebony Grphyon games comes to the save with a brand new monster, the psyche lasher. 

GRAB IT FOR FREE
HERE

According to the Drivethrurpg blurb: 

 For those of you who'd like to use a certain monster that flays minds in your d20 / OSR games or products, Ebon Gryphon Games presents the Psyche Lasher, an homage to that creature that isn't quite the same, but is close enough to make your players go "Oh, it's a mind flayer --" and then suddenly realize something's different here!

 Familiarity and a bit of a surprise: it's the best of both!

And best of all, our Psyche Lasher is free to use, under either the Open Gaming License, or Creative Commons-Attribution-Share Alike, so you can use the license you like!

Well we've got a really nasty piece of work right over here. The Psyche Lasher is a perfect little piece of monster that can easily be added in as part of a campaign of really any type but for me this is going in as part of a science fantasy campaign. This monster comes in multiple formats and has a wide variety of uses for me across the board. The fact that it kinda, sorta resembles a certain iconic monster from the world's most popular fantasy game is icing on the cake. I'm so glad to find this little beauty. The descriptions are for a number of editions and can easily be adapted into a multiplicity of campaigns. The monster gets a full fleshing out but its not done in an over blown style. This is simply meat and potatoes with everything from the basic ecology to methods with a helping of variations on the whole entry of the monster. 
So what you've essentially got here is a creature that is free to use, adapt, and warp into your campaigns for a wide variety of editions. What more could you ask from a free product. All in all not bad for a free download. I will be using this and enjoyed the hell out of it. My players are going to be psyche lasher bait however. Cheers and I look forward to more from Ebon Gryphon Games

Free OSR Sword & Planet Setting Xuhlan - From The Caverns Measureless To Man Blog For Your Old School Campaigns

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HERE

Hi my name is Eric and I'm a sword and planet slut. I admit my problem is that I love science fantasy worlds and settings. Personally I blame Edgar Rice Burroughs and my dad for this disease and its not getting better when I've got friends like Noah Stevens feeding free sword & planet settings like Xuhlan. This is sort of Conan on Tatootine for OD&D,and all retroclones. It it basically clocks out at forty two pages of old scholl awesomeness. 

According to the authors blog  - 

Five or six years ago I played with an idea for a science fantasy sword and planet style campaign that I originally thought of as “Gamma Barsoom” or “Conan on Tatooine.” After having toyed around with the concept on and off for a couple of years it was put aside as I prioritized other stuff. I’ve been thinking about revamping it as a collection of random tables like all the cool kids are doing but since that's not likely to happen anytime soon I decided to just make it available here. At least it will feel like it got completed in some way and perhaps someone will find something of interest here.

In this pdf you will find:

* A campaign map with one interesting feature for each of the 99 hexes

* A description of the city of Yankara with important places, people, factions and rumours

* New monsters, including the Alien Gods

* House rules for psionic powers and combat

* Super-science artefacts, including the Witch Stones

   * Other bits and pieces for science fantasy campaigns

  It's basically got everything you need to go adventuring on a pretty solid little sword and planet setting in the old school tradition. And yes I enjoyed the hell out if it. Its got everything you need to get started with your players in an alternative sword and planet setting right now! There's even an appendix 'N' and its freaking free so grab it tonight and start in on it! 

   But what the hell are you going to do with it? Well this would make a great port over setting for a Warriors of The Red Planet party or put over your Swords and Wizardry PC's to liven things up with some alien horrors from the depths of Xuhlan's dungeons and ruins tables.  Really there's a ton of stuff that this setting can be used for. Its not a bad little setting to play with. 

Lives Of Kos From Skirmisher For Your Old School Campaign

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HERE

This is a great resource for NPC's for an old school campaign with ancient Greek world flavor. This book is huge and its wall to wall NPC's of every description. These happen to be some of the flag ship characters that have appeared in their campaign setting Kos fiction, backgrounds, settings, adventures, etc. They're all here and more. Because of its system agnostic nature I've decided to do a review on the Swords blog.
There are over one hundred and fifteen personalities described in the pdf and they're various backgrounds dovetail into each other and the whole makes a very detailed net of campaign and adventure setting material.
It's really hard to put my finger on this product but its a great way to introduce the Swords of Kos setting to your campaign world and that's really what the aim of the product is. This book is a stepping stone into Skirmisher's home campaign and its a very well done product in that regard.
I love the mix of high fantasy and adventure background in this one. The NPC's are all folks that you might have passed in a market place and backdrop of Kos. There's lots happening and each character is given plenty of adventure hooks to reel PC's into the action of the product. I liked the story elements from Lives of Kos. There's another aspect to this product the use of the NPC as dungeon introduction. Scattered throughout the book are folks who can act as a spring board into several dungeons and ancient locations that can serve as fodder for your own old school adventures. This seems to be one of the fundaments that Skirmisher  Publishing likes to put into their products. This book and others are long range tool sets to get your own imaginations fired into creating your own adventures. There are plenty of companies creating adventures out there and NPC books but are they doing it to get you to play your games or simply creating material for you to buy? Here the answer is simply that this book is a well done and will serve to spark your imagination. Lives of Kos isn't a shelf book that is going to be another sit on the shelf or your hard drive this is a book that will get used if your interested in Skirmisher Publishing's take on ancient Kos.
To me this looks like a nice edition to the background of the world that they've established.

Using Lives of Kos For Your
Old School Campaign 

Lives of Kos could be used as introduction into the Kos campaign or as a spring board into an adventure location. Because the NPC's in this book dovetail so easily as a community of characters, the easiest way to introduce these NPC's is to have the PC's stumble into a series of events already happening. The PC's suddenly will become enmeshed into the background setting of Kos without realizing it.

One of the reasons that the Kos campaign setting works is that there are actual reasons for the dungeons, ruins,ancient places, etc. that litter the landscape and here the NPC's add to the 'voice' or chorus for that world bringing its flavor to life. There are several NPC traders and merchants that could easily be deposited on to the shores of your own games. With a bit of work they might easily show up in even in a Spell Jammer setting or some far, far, flung port of call. This begs the question of the use of Kos? Does it become your campaign or as merely a key commerical element of your own world? For myself its the former. The amount of customization with Lives allows a DM to weave the backgrounds and settings around an existing campaign easily. This is both a strength and weakness of Kos as a setting. The strength is how seamlessly the setting material melts into the background and using the NPC's this way brings Kos's flavor into your campaigns. The weakness comes from the fact that NPC backgrounds beg using Kos as an adventure location, this means using the world of Kos as a gate way campaign world which is how I plan to use this product. A way of conveying the flavor and elements of the Kos campaign setting through the use of the NPC's who will pop up from time to time in my campaigns as 'guest stars' and arranging several adventures around the personalities features in the Lives of Kos.

There are also a number of ways of using Lives of Kos as a jump off point into a 'science fantasy' campaign. The world of Kos might be a failed colony world whose slid back into the mire of a dark ages of Greek mythology. This option allows a DM to really get the maximum out of  Lives of Kos by conveying a mix of the mythological and science fictional elements. Here also is a prefect excuse to break out a Spell Jammer of other old school science fictional/fantasy retroclone. Because of the system neutrality this allows the DM to pick their favorite system to run this one.
Another option that I've toyed with is a post apocalyptic world something akin to Ralph Bakshi's Wizards where the myths of Greek mythology have returned. This migh also include the various old school fantasy races as well. Lives of Kos has me thinking about this idea once again. Several of the adventurer types in the book echo this idea. Once again visions of a Spell Jammer style campaign sprung to my mind.

I had a lot of fun reading through Lives Of  Kos. And I will soon be returning to the world of Kos.
There are too many good NPC's not to use this one and allow Lives to sit on my hard drive. Lives is on sale on both Drivethrurpg and Rpgnow with their sale in July. 

Review And Commentary On The Jester Dragon's Random Tavern Generator From Skirmisher Publishing For Your Old School Campaigns

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HERE

For Pay What You'd Like 

Taverns are the life blood of every single adventure in every edition in D&D! I have a love/hate relationship with taverns in OD&D style games. For me they've become the end point of an adventure and not the beginning unless they're actually the focal point of an adventure.
I've been in plenty of taverns in my time having a pint and no one really wants to be disturbed while trying to quietly concentrating on their drinking. This has in the past been grounds for murder. Look to the American Old West for plenty of examples.
 That being said because of the trope of every single adventure beginning in a tavern, a DM can use this to his advantage. This is where The Jester Dragon's Random Tavern Generator comes in very handy. With this 'little pay what you'd like' set of tables a DM can whip up with a few percentile dice 'the establishment' of their dreams.
The term tavern here can mean anything from modern bar to post apocalyptic still cell and distrillery. This set of tables can handle it all. With a toss of a few percentile dice the DM can easily add in a place where adventurers can spend their hard earned coin and get a room for the evening as well. Here's where you can add in a game of chance or two in some of the back rooms for added colour.
With a bit more imagination this product could generate an 'Old Earth' tavern aboard your favorite space station or FTL station and refueling point. A few more tosses and there might be a connection to the local space pirate guild. Because of the system neutral nature of the Jester Dragon product you can use or break the player expectations as you want or need to as a DM.
The system neutral nature of this generator makes this a great tool to play with. Regardless of edition or style of game , you'll have the drinking and social center you need, right when you need it.
For sword and planet games, taverns and bars are more then a passing fancy, water bars in desert planet games are one of the most over looked elements in game campaigns sporting a Frank Herbert Dune or Barsoomian aspect. These establishments offer the weary traveler food, water, drink, and more. A few tosses and you get some solidly otherworldly offerings that will actually fit the local back drop.
The whole eight page product is more of a tavern tool kit then simply a set of tables if you need or want another set of tables to play with. Personally a DM can't have too many monsters or old school tables. Grab this one, some dice, and a bit of paper for some notes and instantly you've got the making of someplace different for your old school games.
 All in all this was a great little  product to play with. 

Review And Commentary On The Jester Dragon's Random Brothel Generator From Skirmisher Publishing For Your Old School Campaigns

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HERE
For Pay What You'd Like

To be honest with you folks as a DM about 90% of my adventurers have ever met in a Tavern. They've mostly met in the common rooms of brothels. These establishments of ill repute are the life blood of every single old school adventure campaign I've run as a DM. The reasons are simple - every town in the Old West had one and their great sources of information. On my Post Apocalyptic Mars games, cat houses were in every single city state and these places were where the information/assassins/thieves guilds all had contacts and operated under the surface.
You'll also find cat houses operating in sci fi locations as well such as various space stations and the like where they provide medical services for wary spacers as well the usual paid favors.
In sword and sorcery games these places are not only the norm but expected places where adventurers men and women are separated from their loot. Many are underwritten by various cults and religious organizations having ties to thieves guilds and other less savory organizations.
 Even in the Mutant Epoch games these houses operate for mutant adventurers on the roads between towns providing various valuable services to their customers besides the usual bevy of sexual entertainment.
 Skirmisher Publishing has a wonderful little system agnostic random generators which can easily manufacture such places from the ground up in eleven pages. This makes coming up with everything needed for the brothel of your dreams a snap.
 According to the Drivethrurpgblurb:
From worlds of swords-and-sorcery to libertine space colonies, a lot can happen in a brothel. Intrigue, romance, murder, and all extremes of pleasure and disappointment wait behind the green door and under the red lanterns of seedy fleshpots and high-class seraglios. If you want to bring a little exoticism, eroticism, and bawdy fun into your campaign, you go straight to the brothel. But who has the time to invent an all-new house of ill repute every time the adventurers stagger into town, heavy with coin and flushed with blood? Lucky for you, the Jester Dragon has brothels on the brain. So get out your dice and let the sweaty hand of fate create the brothel for your campaign needs!

Using the The Jester Dragon's Random Brothel Generator
 From Skirmisher Publishing For Your Old School Campaigns

As I said above this is a great little generator that you never knew you needed. This one can provide you with everything you need for a wide variety of campaigns and allows you to keep the tavern as an unexpected adventure location as well as meeting place. Here's everything you need to generate any number of such establishments and go from there. With the name generators for pimps and madame there's endless possibilities here.
I've used madame as the heads of Thieves and assassin guilds numerous times and every single time the PC's never saw it coming. This list allows a greater sense of depth to be given to such NPC's which is one of the reasons that I love this product. Its the sense of depth that allows a DM to really create their own customization piece of sleazy low life goodness for their campaigns.
 Another thing that these houses allow one do is fill in bits and pieces of history, technology, etc. for their campaigns. Need to know what happened during the establishment of that space colony? Look to the red light district for multiple generations of adventurers and spacers who passed through the halls of this house or that place.
Where could that powerful artifact have gone in the sword and sorcery campaign? Has it simply vanished into wasteland surrounding the city state taken by a wizard? Nawww it was used as payment by the barbarian warrior to his favorite little strumpet and she in turn sold it to the pawn shop down the way or has it in a vault as part of her 'retirement' fund.
Brothels can provide endless adventure opportunities and this is a sold generator list that can be used to craft and create adventure opportunities on the fly with a flick of the dice or as part of a series of careful rolls that can craft the house of sin of your wicked imagination to twist PC's in knots. 

Slicing Deeper Into The Free OSR Source book Swords of Athanor As Fodder For The Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea Rpg

Savage Swords of Athanor is a science fantasy campaign setting and rules supplement for Swords and Wizardry. Athanor is a dying world with crumbling ruins, lost technology, dinosaurs, and ancient slumbering evil. Savage Swords of Athanor includes: new character class (the Rogue); modified spell lists and rules for magical mishaps; new races; a wilderness map, encounter charts, and key; and new monsters and items. This supplement includes material presented in the Savage Swords of Athanor blog, compiled, cleaned up and expanded as well as new material.
Grab Your Copy Right Over
HERE
Right under the archive material is the sourcebook for download.

I've been looking into running a possible sword and planet setting made for the sword and sorcery retroclone Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. There have been several times when I've used the game as a game engine to run several old school Mars campaign adventures. Today, I looked into the writings of Doug Easterly, namely his Savage Swords of Athanor setting. A classic old school sword and planet setting from back in 2009 and I was thinking how fantastic this free setting would work with Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea as an rpg engine. The setting is well done, concise, and easy to convert to your favorite retroclone!
 There is a ton of material that can easily be adapted to the AS&SH, this includes new races, spells, items, etc. all in the traditional sword and planet vein with a pulp spin. Given the setting's sword and planet spin the book is a bit humanoid heavy which makes it a perfect resource for AS&SH.


The fact that its available free is an added bonus and it was originally intended as an addition for Swords and Wizardry. The author does a nice job of setting out the material and keeping the source book moving. There's plenty of trouble for PC's to get into with this setting and a campaign might a short three or four session affair could last for years.
 The Swords of Athanor book  fits very well with the variety of  PC options for AS&SH and there are number of ways that this might be played. With a bit of work a teleport gate from Hyperborea might drop a party right into the middle of the setting. The AS&SH boxed game could be used to run the complete Swords setting easily. There could be a two way system of gates from Hyperborea to Athanor and perhaps beyond.
There are even counters for Anathor and a ton of maps for even more expanded play on the blog . And while the charm of Hyperborea is its setting. The expansion of even more OSR action is one of my favorite appeals for the game. Grab a copy, some friends, your AS&SH box set and let's make Athanor another option for your old school sword and sorcery games. One of my favorite parts? The inclusion of dinosaurs for that added bite for your games! 

Another Free Sword and Science Fantasy Fiction Download- The Yellow Men Of Mars By Edgar Rice Burroughs

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HERE
Tag line :
Blurb: "Never had John Carter faced more danger than in the polar hothouse city of the yellow men of Mars."

From the Science Fiction novella published August 1941 issue of Amazing Stories magazine. 

I've always loved this particular novella. There are a ton of ideas here to use for a sword and planet game set on Mars. Ancient and decadent cultures, Apts, weird technology,damsel's in distress.
Lots and lots of ideas for mega dungeons. You see this particular novella was part of a cycle that later became Llana of Gathol.
The plot according to wiki: 

The stories in this collection revolve around John Carter's granddaughter Llana of Gathol, who plays the "damsel in distress" role played by Dejah Thoris and Thuvia in earlier entries of the Barsoom series.Basically this is Mars 'the Grand Tour' with lots of action, exciting set pieces, and plot points of really interesting locals that seem to flash by in an instant during the book. There's lots of potential here for a DM. I've taken this particular book in measured doses to get into the background setting material. Even though there is ton of stuff written about this book it's sometimes best to read the material yourself to get the maximum benefit.


In the cycle of Barsoomian pulptastic terror we've got the following : 

• "The Ancient Dead", originally "The City of Mummies"
• "The Black Pirates of Barsoom", originally "Black Pirates of Barsoom"
• "Escape on Mars", originally "Yellow Men of Mars"
• "Invisible Men of Mars"
  There are a ton of old school conventions in this Barsoom novel. From dungeon crawling, to backroom Martian politics, to the monsters, etc. 
  The Plot : "John Carter is captured by the inhabitants of Horz, one of the supposedly "dead" cities of Mars. Together with Pan Dan Chee, his captor, who has also been sentenced to death for bringing Carter into Horz, he is sent down to the pits under the city. To the astonishment of the two men, they discover the remnants of a maritime race which had existed hundreds of thousands of years before men and women gorgeously apparelled, maintained in suspended animation, unaware that the five beautiful seas of Mars on which they used to sail are now dried up, that indeed, their whole way of life has long since disappeared from the face of the dying planet. It is many moons and many countries before Pan Dan Chee and Carter are able to bring Llana safely home to Gathol.
  
  You might want to read the following which has the collected stories in one place.  
  There's a text file of the entire book from Project Gutenberg Australia right over
   HERE
  
• The ERB magazine site has a fantastic pulp gallery of artwork from this cycle of Edgar Rice Burroughs writings right over  HERE
  Time and again like so many other DM's I've turned again and again to Edgar Rice Burroughs to fill in some of the gaps of my own post apocalpytic Mars campaign. This particular set of ERB's writing is one of my favorites even though purists have stated that the writer was parodying himself by the time of publication of this book. The book's influence is evident by the number of writers who have paid homage to the book over the years. 
  
  
  Check locally if ERB's classic is within the public domain in your country, region,etc. We take no responsibility for this matter. This post is for entertainment purposes only and is not an attempt to violate the trademark or copyright of the material. 

More Free Sword and Science Fantasy Fiction - Flight Into Fog April 1948 issue of Fantastic Adventures magazine & A Bit Of Post Apocalyptic Mars Actual Play

Tonight, I'm getting together to run my Post Apocalyptic Mars campaign. The PC's are making their way through the Martian underground at a very critical juncture of the underground sub car system that riddles Mars(Barsoom). This section runs right under the zombie/ghul infested former battle fields smack through the Dark Martian territory. This area is infested with undead, entropic contamination, and all kinds of Colonial human settlement ruins. The place is a technological loot zone but some of the underground sub car system tunnels run right under and have collapsed into the underground Martian hell. 

1d10 Martian Underground Encounters 

1. A group of Red Men ghuls on the hunt 1d8 monsters 
2. 2nd level red men child hunter cannibals looking for sacrificial victims for their twisted gods 
3. A single Dark Martian probe moving through the darkness for victims. 
4. A party of technological scavenger hunters out on a looting mission, three second level fighters armed with traditional Martian weapons 
5. A strange alien robotoid octopus moving through the darkness on some strange quest. Armed with energy weapons. 
6. A pack of 1d10 zombies sharing a hive mind mentality. All hungry and all very dangerous! Infected with ghul rot and 20% chance of something much worse. 
7. A single scouting party of Redmen and human survivors probing the darkness for lost technology. 
8. An alien bounty hunter moving across the landscape looking for an escaped convict. 20% chance that he's working for the Dark Martians and looking for an experimental victim. 
9. 1d10 mutant cadlot things modified by entropic mutation for the darkness and depths of the underground. Very hungry and with very nasty attitudes. 
10. A Dark Martian hunting party of 1d20 mini tripods picking their way among the ruins and darkness. They're looking for survivors to pick off and eat (ie drain of blood). 

Today, we bring you the tale of 'Flight Into Fog' a tale of the Martian Sat. Monoon! 


You can download it right over
HERE

Blurb: "Catastrophe came to the Martian satellite, Monoon, that fateful day, in the form of a dreaded fog -- and it was up to Bradd to save his people..."

This story goes over the interactions between another one of  the Martian races and Earth. The action is fast and in the best of the pulp tradition. Its been one of my sources for my games over the past couple of years and I thought I'd pass it on! 

Classic Free Sword and Science Fantasy Fiction Download - The 1917 Version Of Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess Of Mars

Get the original 1917 edition for down load right over
HERE

This is the 1917 version of  ERB's A Princess of Mars. I know what your thinking. "Hey I can download this version from anywhere on the internet."
This was an original 1917 version of a Princess Of Mars scanned by Google from Harvard.
Its sort of like looking at the original version of the book if you will. Comparable to viewing issue #1 of a classic comic book or another piece of literature. Here's what's going on with with this version of the 'A Princess of Mars'. 
 According to Wiki: 

By 1914, Burroughs had become very popular with the reading public, and A.C. McClurg & Company decided to print a number of his formerly serialized tales as novels. McClurg began with three Tarzan novels, and then published A Princess of Mars on October 10, 1917.^[13]Although Metcalf thought that the chapter "Sola Tells Me Her Story" slowed the story's pace, and thus omitted it from the magazine serialization, this chapter was restored for the novel version.^[10] The novel was illustrated by Frank E. Schoonover, who carefully read the descriptive passages on the costumes and weapons of Barsoom and developed an overall concept for the artwork, even ensuring that John's Carter's pistol and belt in his cover illustration reflected their origins in Green Martian craftsmanship

 You can find a ton more about the book over on wiki HERE

The original publication of "Under the Moons of Mars" in The All-Story, February 1912

Possible Inspirations for ERB's A Princess of Mars And Gaming on Barsoom

I've been reading  Richard A. Lupoff' ,book Master of Adventure: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, which I grabbed from the New Hartford public library. Its a good solid read and much of the following is in the book.
According to wiki: 

The first science fiction to be set on Mars may be Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record, by Percy Greg, published in 1880. Another Mars novel, dealing with benevolent Martians arriving on Earth, was published in 1897 by Kurd Lasswitz, Auf Zwei Planeten. Not translated until 1971, Burroughs likely did not know of it.^[32]

H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds (1898) was influenced, as was Burroughs' novel, by the ideas of Percival Lowell starting with publication of the book Mars (1895). It assumed Mars being an ancient world, nearing the end of its life, being the home of a superior civilization, capable of advanced feats of science and engineering.^[25][33] Burroughs, however, claimed never to have read any of H. G. Wells' books.^[34]

It is possible, as Richard A. Lupoff argues in the book Master of Adventure: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, that Burroughs took some inspiration from the 1905 novel Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, by Edwin Lester Arnold, which also featured an American military man transported to Mars. Lupoff also suggested John Carter has strong similarities to Phra, hero of Arnold's The Wonderful Adventures of Phra the Phoenician (1890), who is also a master swordsman who appears to be immortal.
Much of the material of both Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation and The Wonderful Adventures of Phra the Phoenician (1890) could be used to expand Barsoom easily. Generally I've got to say that both books are excellent in their own right for entertainment for the years that they were written. They do make for curious reading now though. To use them for gaming I'd suggest taking a look at the excellent articles of Den Valdron GULLIVER JONES ON BARSOOM? 

Available HERE APOCRYPHAL BARSOOMS I And II
Available HERE And HERE

 I might also recommend Dale R. Broadhurst John Carter Sword of Theosophy series Revisited as both counter point and rocket propelled gaming fuel. There is a ton of stuff there to use as the author puts the hammer down on some possible connections of Burrough's books.
Available right over HERE
For gaming on Barsoom, I can't recommend Jason Vey's Dungeon's And Dragon's Warriors of Mars book enough. Its pretty much got everything you need to download and go to Barsoom.
That's available right over HERE  
The book is right under the 

The Age of Conan and Warriors of Mars material, just so that there's no confusion. For my own Post Apocalyptic Mars setting I use a mix of PD 1950's sci fi movies, ERB, and a good dose of free PD pulp material which I set in the post Colonial Period. Since Warriors of Mars is oriented right towards OD&D its an easy snap into about 90% of the retroclones on the market. Especially Stars Without Number, the conversions are quick easy and I do them in my head.  Anyhow we've got more classic Sword and Science Fantasy action coming up. Happy gaming!