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| − | {{Cleanup|reason=Too long, split into smaller articles.|date=DATE}}
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| | + | '''''This is a disambiguation page:''' a list of articles associated with the same title. If an internal link referred you to this page, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.'' |
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| − | Martians Invaders, also called "Uliri" (their names for themselves), "Sarmaks" or "molluscs"/"leeches" (the native Barsoomian name for them), and Barsoomians (the nearly-human "native" Martian Dreamlanders who were the dominant race on Mars since the age of Atlantis, until the coming of the Uliri), and Aihais and Yorhis (the humanoid natives of Mars, perhaps the Daylands correspondents to Red and White Barsoomians)
| + | '''Martian''' may refer to any of a variety of different inhabitants of the planet [[Mars]] and its [[Barsoom|Dreamlands]], including: |
| | + | * [[Martian (Uliri)]] |
| | + | * [[Martian (Horned)]] |
| | + | * [[Martian Hobgoblin]] |
| | + | * [[Martian (Yorhi)]] and [[Martian (Aihai)]] |
| | + | * [[Martian (Thern)]] |
| | + | * [[Martian (Kaldanes and Rykors)]] |
| | + | * [[Martian (Barsoomian)]] |
| | + | ** [[Martian_(Barsoomian)#.22White.22_Barsoomian_Martians|"White" Martians]] |
| | + | ** [[Martian_(Barsoomian)#.22Yellow.22_Barsoomian_Martians|"Yellow" Martians]] |
| | + | ** [[Martian_(Barsoomian)#.22Red.22_Barsoomian_Martians|"Red" Martians]] |
| | + | ** [[Martian_(Barsoomian)#.22Black.22_Barsoomian_Martians|"Black" Martians]] |
| | + | * various forms of [[Martian Wildlife]] may be considered Martians |
| | + | * [[Leech of Yoh-Vombis]] would also be Martians |
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| − | Origin: (H.G. Wells, ''War of the Worlds'' and other stories including "The Crystal Egg"); (also, the unrelated Edgar Rice Burroughs series ''John Carter of Mars'' and its sequels, and ''[[Quatermass and the Pit (1967 film)]]'')
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| − | ==20th and 21st Century Mars==
| + | [[Category:Races]][[Category:Mars]] |
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| − | Once home to horned gods of terrifying intellect and power, waking Mars today is a dead world, consisting of vast stretches of dried seabeds, stagnant canals choked by masses of Red Creeper, crumbling Martian ruins dotting the bleak desert landscape and barely distinguishable from desolate, wind-blasted rocks, hills and mountains, and a few wretched survivors lurking in remote corners of the world where they subsist on water ice and a dwindling supply of food.
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| − | Mars today is a hopeless tomb-world, where deteriorating populations of more or less humanoid survivors hide far from the Sun in chilly, moldering underground vaults, slowly going mad and decaying in varying degrees into shocking savagery; the last remaining remnants of humanoid Martian civilization have abandoned this desert world and these degenerate survivors, fleeing into the Martian [[Dreamlands]], known as "Barsoom", from the coming of the alien Uliri invaders.
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| − | The Dreamland of Barsoom is the last bastion of life for this dying world, and the last refuge for Martian Dreamers to escape their planet's doom.
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| − | What little remained of life on the waking Martian surface was largely stripped away centuries ago by the tentacled Uliri, who have turned their eyes toward conquest of Earth, even as mankind on Earth have turned their eyes toward exploration of Mars....
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| − | ==Uliri Invaders==
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| − | [[File:War7 martianemerges henriquealvimcorrea.jpg|200px|thumb|right|A Martian Emerges, 1906 Illustration]]
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the lungs in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness of movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth--above all, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes--were at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There was something fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy deliberation of the tedious movements unspeakably nasty. Even at this first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread.
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| − | <br>— H.G. Wells, ''War of the Worlds''
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | PHILLIPS: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed... Wait a minute! Someone's crawling out of the hollow top. Someone or... something. I can see peering out of that black hole two luminous disks... are they eyes? It might be a face. It might be... Good heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now it's another one, and another. They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing's body. It's large, large as a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face, it... Ladies and gentlemen, it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate. The monster or whatever it is can hardly move. It seems weighed down by... possibly gravity or something. The thing's raising up. The crowd falls back now, they've seen plenty. This is the most extraordinary experience. I can't find words....
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| − | <br>— Orson Wells & Mercury Theater, ''War of the Worlds'' Radio Broadcast
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | In one respect we hewed right to the Wells original. That was in his conception of a Martian being. He dreamed up an octopuslike creature. We made ours a huge crablike being with one giant Cyclops eye with three separate lenses, a big head to hold its oversize brain, and long spindly tentacles with suckers on the end for arms. The Martian was the handiwork of our talented young unit art director Albert Nozaki who worked throughout with us from start to finish under Paramount supervising art director Hal Pereira. After Nozaki finished his design I called in a sculptor, make‑up man and artist named Charles Geniora.... I asked him to build the monster. He built it out of papier-mache and sheet rubber, created arms that actually pulsated‑through the use of rubber tubing in them‑and painted the whole thing lobster red. It was a startler all right, something right out of your worst nightmare....
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| − | <br>— [http://www.roger-russell.com/war/war.htm George Pal], on the 1953 film ''War of the Worlds''
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | The Martian Invaders call themselves "Uliri", though they are also known among the humanoid "Barsoomian" Martians as "Sarmaks" (or "molluscs"/"leeches").
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| − | The "Martians" known as the Uliri are described as octopus-like creatures: the "body" consisting of a disembodied head nearly four feet across, having two eyes; a v-shaped, beak-like mouth; and two branches each of eight 'almost whip-like' tentacles, grouped around the mouth, referred to as the 'hands'. They reproduce asexually, by "budding" off from a parent. Internally, the Martians consist of a brain, lungs, heart, and blood vessels; they have no organs for digestion, and therefore sustain themselves on Earth by mechanically transfusing blood via pipettes from other animals, notably humans. The ear, a single timpanic membrane located on the back of the head, is believed "useless" in Earth's denser atmosphere.
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| − | Based on their physical features, the Martians might be the descendants of a species similar to human beings, that evolution has reduced to only a large brain and head and two groupings of eight tentacles (hands). They are described as sluggish under terrestrial gravity, heavier than on Mars. It is reported that several Martians attempt to "stand" on their tentacles, implying that they are capable of locomotion in this manner while in Mars' lighter gravity, but not on Earth.
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| − | Communication between the Martian Uliri is never made evident, but the narrator, as he sees Martians working together without audible means, concludes that they use telepathy. He makes mention of a "queer hooting" sound, but attributes it to the exhalation of air prior to fatally transfusing blood from their human victims. Some evidence of audible communication is associated with the Martian Fighting-Machine, which are described emitting siren-like calls, and the repeated "Ulla, Ulla" distress calls that echo throughout the landscape when the Uliri suffer casualties.
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| − | The Martian Uliri were evidently evolved over a vast amount of time on a relatively sterile world with much gentler gravity, and rarefied atmosphere, similar to Mars. Given to intellectual pursuits while their home planet and Mars slowly desiccated and died, the Martian Uliri evolved vast brains in weak, fragile bodies barely supported on delicate tentacles, and came to Earth poorly-prepared for Earth's harsh gravity and climates, or for the swarming masses of putrefying bacteria that Earth's inhabitants had long ago evolved immunities to.
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| − | ===Uliri Technology===
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| − | Despite their advancement, the Martians' technology lacks the wheel, and it is implied they are ignorant of disease and decomposition. It is theorized that their advanced technology eliminated whatever indigenous diseases were present on Mars, and so they no longer remembered their effects. Ultimately, their lack of knowledge or preparation against any bacteria indigenous to Earth, causes their destruction here by what Wells described as “putrefactive bacteria,” which digests organic materials upon death (though the epilogue to Wells' ''War of the Worlds'' states the Uliri may have successfully invaded Venus).
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| − | The Martians' arrival on Earth is aboard large, cylindrical spacecraft launched from some kind of immense cannon on Mars, and their chief weapon of war is the invisible 'Heat-Ray' that produces a white flame that consumes any organism it touches. This is mounted on an articulated arm attached to the front of the tall tripod, called a 'fighting-machine' in Wells' novel, which travels across the landscape destroying humans and their habitat. A secondary weapon, the "Black Smoke," is a toxic gas released from canisters launched at a distance from Bazooka-like tubes, referred to in the novel as a "gun," which kills humans and animals alike; it is rendered harmless by Martian high-pressure steam jets and water. Mention is also made of a Martian aircraft, but it is hardly seen, except to possibly spread the deadly Black Smoke from above over a wider area.
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| − | ===Uliri Food===
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| − | Evidence of a second race of Martian appear in the dominant race's cylindrical transport vessels, presumably for use as their food supply while in transit; but they are all killed before the Martians reach Earth. These secondary Martians are bipedal, nearly six feet tall, and have "round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets"; however, their fragile physical structure, made up of weak skeletons and muscles, would have been broken by Earth's heavier gravitational pull. These creatures seem to be conquered natives of Mars (Barsoomians), which the Uliri "Martians" have been breeding as a food source. (fan interpretation from Edgard Rice Burroughs, ''John Carter of Mars'')
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| − | The Martians also brought with them, perhaps accidentally, several Martian plants, though the only one to survive and flourish on Earth is the "Red Weed" or "Red Creeper", a dense red vine that glows purple at night, tastes vaguely metallic, grows and reproduces explosively in water, and shares the Uliri vulnerability to Earth's bacteria. The Red Creeper similarly seems to have flourished on Mars, where it has flooded and choked the Martian canals, choking whole regions of that dying world off from a much-needed water supply; it's likely that the Red Weed, like the Uliri, are an invasive species alien even to Mars, with the Red Creeper either serving as food for the Uliri invaders, or trailing along with them as microscopic spoors and spreading unnoticed or poorly understood due to the Uliri's alien disregard for sanitation, disease, and decomposition.
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| − | ==The Horned Martians==
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| − | <!-- The "Horned Martians" from ''Quatermass and the Pit'' have been adapted to a hybrid Barsoom/Lovecraftian setting by Y.Whateley. This version of Mars assumes that the "Horned Gods of Mars" (the insect-things from ''Quatermass and the Pit'') have taken pre-human stock from Earth in ancient times, modified it for their own purposes to serve on Mars, and then further modified it to return to Earth, to serve as bodies for Martian intelligences to transfer their minds into to escape the dying Mars. This project may have succeeded, with modern Earthly humans evolving from bodies and brains adapted from natural proto-human stock by Martians, with the alien, insect minds of Martian Witches guiding us throughout human history. -->
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| − | [[File:Hornedmartian.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Horned Martian]]
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| − | The "Horned Gods" of Mars are an otherwise nameless, insect-like species (possibly related to the [[Mi-Go]]) which developed an extremely advanced science, biomechanical technology, and Mythos magic system in a very ancient epoch of Martian history. The Horned Gods in many ways resemble the Gargoyles known from ancient times to countless Earthly cultures: grotesque horned heads with huge insect eyes and gaping mouths filled with sharp chitinous teeth or fangs, mounted on winged locust-like bodies, perched on three spindly insect-like legs, and with three insect-like fingered arms.
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| − | The "Horned Gods" seem to have created Martian humanoids by genetically manipulating proto-human stock stolen from a primitive Earth, and then transplanted these modified humans back onto Earth to serve as bodies which the "Horned Gods" could transfer their minds into to escape their dying world.
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| − | It's unclear whether the Horned Martians ever succeeded in transferring their minds before their Martian humanoid creations rose up in rebellion, armed with their former masters' technology and magic, and somehow rendered the "Horned Gods" all but extinct. It is possible that they succeeded, and that modern humans are the result of the genetic tampering of ancient Martian insect witches, with the transferred minds of these horrors guiding human history and destiny through the ages.
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| − | Sources:
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| − | * See ''[[Quatermass and the Pit (1967 film)]]''
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| − | ===Horned Martian Technology===
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| − | By the time they had become extinct on Mars, the Horned Gods had become masters of biotechnology, growing great nests that towered in the bleak Martian sky, as well as living construction, transportation, and thinking machinery of various sorts, and even living spacecraft which they used to travel between primitive Earth and dying Mars in preparation for their bold plan to colonize Earth using the bodies and brains of genetically-modified proto-humans.
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| − | The Horned Martians were also highly developed telepaths and wizards, mastering mind transfer, telepathy, telekinesis, the opening of gates into other dimensions and worlds, and lots more. Vastly ancient Mythos Tomes filled with long-forgotten lore penned by Horned Martians are said to wait buried even today in shadowy vaults, crumbling desert ruins, icy polar tombs, and slumbering bio-machines covered in the muck of dried-up sea beds, waiting to be discovered by wizards courageous enough - or mad enough - to seek them out.
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| − | ===Martian Hobgoblins===
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| − | [[File:Martianhobgoblin.png|100px|thumb|right|Martian "Hobgoblin": a Hybrid Proto-Human]]
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| − | In the far-distant dawn of history, hairy, bipedal proto-human apes were taken from Earth by Horned Martians, dragged into strange chitinous nest-towers gently swaying in the thin air of icy Martian breezes, and then genetically, surgically, hypnotically, and magically altered by their Martian captors into biological vehicles suitable for accepting the transferred minds and personalities of the Horned Martian insect-demons.
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| − | Returned to Earth, the resulting "hobgoblins" or "hybrids" - brutish, dwarven, hairless, shambling things with unnaturally-enlarged brains, with a rough, instinctive talent for sorcery and technology and an aberrant psychology - would in time evolve out of their awkwardly-engineered forms into modern Earthly humans.
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| − | Others of their kind left on Mars would evolve in parallel, adapted for the dying Martian surface, similarly modified for use there as a labor force and biological "life boat" for use of the Horned Martians against the ravages of their dying world, where in time the pitiful savage slaves would successfully rose up and overthrow their Horned masters, to eventually evolve into the humanoid races of Mars.
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| − | Most of these Martian Hobgoblins have evolved from their original form long ago into modern Humans and Humanoid Martians or Barsoomians, but a few solitary populations may still exist in remote corners of Earth and Mars. For example, a hybrid race descended from a mix of Black Martians and a troglodytic, albino survival of primitive Hobgoblins are said to persist beneath the surface of the Earth today in the form of [[Dero]]s, while depictions of Martian Hobgoblins in many ways bear a suspicious resemblance to modern [[Tcho-Tcho]]s, perhaps mixed with unwilling traces of Yellow or White Martian stock; a colony of these creatures is said to lurk in the Himalayan mountains, where they are known as "Migos", and Barsoomian legends are full of stories about mischievous dwarves or goblins that lurk in caverns, vaults, and tombs beneath Martian ruins, and seep through the thin places into the Martian Dreamlands to torment the Barsoomian dream-folk and carry them back to their hellish faerie lands under the surface of Daylands Mars, never to be seen or heard from again....
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| − | Pockets of Hobgoblin colonists might also survive, sleeping and dreaming within the shells of the living spacecraft the Horned Martians used to transport the breed to elder Earth, ships which have crashed and lay buried in strange, haunted corners of the world. The ghosts or psychic traces of Martian Hobgoblins seem to haunt the wreckage of these ancient Martian ships, giving rise to modern legends of poltergeists, imps, dwarves, gnomes, familiars, tommyknockers, and other supernatural horrors.
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| − | Martian Hobgoblins may correspond with [[Mi-Go Hominids]].
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | It was of no use to demonstrate to such opponents that the Vermont myths differed but little in essence from those universal legends of natural personification which filled the ancient world with fauns and dryads and satyrs, suggested the kallikanzari of modern Greece, and gave to wild Wales and Ireland their dark hints of strange, small, and terrible hidden races of troglodytes and burrowers. No use, either, to point out the even more startlingly similar belief of the Nepalese hill tribes in the dreaded [[Mi-Go Hominids|Mi-Go]] or "Abominable Snow-Men" who lurk hideously amidst the ice and rock pinnacles of the Himalayan summits. When I brought up this evidence, my opponents turned it against me by claiming that it must imply some actual historicity for the ancient tales; that it must argue the real existence of some queer elder earth-race, driven to hiding after the advent and dominance of mankind, which might very conceivably have survived in reduced numbers to relatively recent times—or even to the present.
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| − | <br>— [[H.P. Lovecraft]], ''[[Whisperer in the Darkness (fiction)]]''
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | ==Aihais and Yorhis==
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| − | <!-- Aihais and Yorhis are creations of Clark Ashton Smith /-->
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| − | Aihais and Yorhis are creations of Clark Ashton Smith, appearing in the stories "[[The Vaults of the Yoh-Vombis (fiction)]]" and "[[Vulthoom (fiction)]]"; the Yorhis are the ancient ancestors of the more "modern" Aihais.
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| − | The Aihais are described as tall (six or more feet in height) and angular, with bellows-like, spongy chests, tough leathery skin, wide and flaring ears and three-lobed nostrils, double-rows of sharp teeth, four-jointed fingers, and sometimes signs of a vestigial third arm in their chests.
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| − | The more ancient Yorhis were similar, with more functional third arms, more delicate features, and even greater height (seven ore more feet in height).
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| − | These beings might be thought of as loose equivalents of [[Martian#.22Red.22_Barsoomian_Martians_-_an_Uliri_Foodsource|Red Barsoomian Martians]] and [[Martian#.22White.22_Barsoomian_Martians_-_Refugees_from_a_Dead_World|White Barsoomian Martians]], respectively, and perhaps are the natural Daylands remnants of these races: those who have not yet fled into the Dreamlands and have not been shaped by human Dreamers.
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| − | Yorhis architecture seems to favor large, triangular, terraced, buttressed buildings of cyclopean architecture, as evidenced by the city of Yoh-Vombis; Aihais cities are apparently more modest in scope, size, and architecture, perhaps representing a fall from their ancestors' great heights. Yorhis tended to go unclothed, Aihais wear minimal clothing in the form of scarves or shrouds that they wrap about themselves to protect themselves from the bitter cold of modern Mars. The Yorhis seem to have been master stone masons and metallurgists, producing artifacts such as urns and braziers and censors in a dark, greenish material resembling some sort of alloy of metals and ceramics - the alchemy required to produce these artifacts seems to have been an art lost with the extinction of the Yorhis.
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| − | The hideously ancient city of Yoh-Vombis is perhaps one of the last known ruins of Yorhis civilization. The Aihais city of Ignarh, straddling the Yahan Canal and spanned by a great bridge, is known to its inhabitants as Ignar-Vath on the east bank, and the more modern Ignar-Luth on the west bank, where it is populated by human visitors to Mars.
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | The [Aihais] were friendly enough in their taciturn way: they had tolerated the intrusion of terrestrials, had permitted commerce between the worlds. Their languages had been mastered, their history studied, by terrene savants. But it seemed that there could be no real interchange of ideas. Their civilization had grown old in diverse complexity before the foundering of Lemuria; its sciences, arts, religions, were hoary with inconceivable age; and even the simplest customs were the fruit of alien forces and conditions.
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| − | The figure, nearly ten foot in height, was taller by a full yard than the average Aihai, but presented the familiar conformation of massively bulging chest and bony, many-angled limbs. The head was featured with high-flaring ears and pit-like nostrils that narrowed and expanded visibly in the twilight. The eyes were sunken in profound orbits, and were wholly invisible, save for tiny reddish sparks that appeared to burn suspended in the sockets of a skull. According to native customs, this bizarre personage was altogether nude; but a kind of circlet around the neck—a flat wire of curiously beaten silver—indicated that he was the servant of some noble lord.
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| − | <br>— [[Clark Ashton Smith]], "[[Vulthoom (fiction)]]"
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | ==The Humanoid Races of Barsoom==
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| − | [[File:Barsoom.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Denizens of Barsoom]]
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| − | <!-- Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoomians have been adapted to a Lovecraftian setting by Y.Whateley. This version of Barsoom assumes that humanoid Martians have evolved independently from human stock stolen from Earth and modified to live on Mars by the "Horned Gods of Mars", where they rebelled against their masters and flourished on Mars until the coming of H.G. Wells' Martians, the "Uliri", as conquerors alien to Mars; the Uliri have stripped the last remnants of Mars bare of life, and have begun turning their eye to Earth. The last surviving Barsoomians have escaped Waking Mars into the Martian Dreamlands of Barsoom, where they might still be encountered by Earthly dreamers. -->
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| − | "Barsoomians" are nearly-extinct native inhabitants of Mars (which they once called "Barsoom" until they abandoned the waking world; the name today is used mainly to describe the Martian Dreamland). Most of these native Martians closely resemble Earthly humans (and indeed were either modified and brought to prehistoric Earth by Horned Martians to populate that young world with vessels for the Horned Martians to possess, or modified primitive humans were brought to a dying Mars by Horned Martians to serve as slaves), but Barsoomian Martians come in several varieties:
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| − | ==="White" Barsoomian Martians - Refugees from a Dead World===
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| − | "White" Martians were the most ancient and civilized (perhaps "overcivilized", evil and decadent) humanoid race of Mars, having regularly traded with humans and other Earthly races until the twilight of White Martian civilization in the age when the last of the Martian seas dried up during the rise of Atlantean civilization on Earth.
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| − | White Martians are genetically compatible with [[Deep One]]s and are nearly indistinguishable from Earthly humans, with most White Martians having a wide range of skin, eye, and hair colours comparable to those of Earthly human races. White Martians are similar enough to Earthly humans that one could easily pass for the other with minimal disguising.
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| − | Today, White martians in the Daylands are all but completely extinct, with their time on Mars at an end and most of their last survivors having fled into the Martian Dreamland of Barsoom as the Martian Seas dried up and the Uliri invaded the dying Mars to consume what little life remained.
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| − | ====Therns====
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| − | Having risen the highest in civilization among the humanoid races of Mars, the "White" Martians fell the furthest as their world died around them, with the frail, anemic, albino offshoot of White Martians known as the Therns being among the worst examples. The Therns gleefully descended into cannibalism, and maintain a position on Barsoom roughly equivalent to [[Tcho-Tcho]]s on Earth. The manipulative Therns propagate a false Barsoomian religion among other residents of the Dreamland of Barsoom which encourages exhausted Barsoomians upon reaching the age of one thousand years to undertake a pilgrimage down the River Iss to "Paradise" into the Valley Dor, where the hapless pilgrims find instead a crater valley full of carnivorous "plant men", controlled by the Therns, who capture the pilgrims, tear them to shreds, and drink their blood, leaving the meat for Therns to consume. The Therns have also mastered a strange technology based upon a mysterious "ninth ray" that powers teleportation machines, weather control, weapons, telepathy and mind-control rays, and other devices.
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| − | ====Kaldanes and Rykors - Self-Made Monsters====
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| − | Kaldanes are an advanced Martian race, descended from White Martians, whose modern form has evolved into one consisting almost entirely of only a large, nightmarishly misshapen head, with six small spider-like legs and a tiny pair of spider-like forearms, whose racial goal is to evolve even further towards pure intellect and away from bodily existence, aided greatly by the Kaldane's extensive genetic tampering with their own DNA and the DNA of other Martians. The bodiless Kaldanes typically live an indolent and sedentary life in elaborate burrow cities: dreaming, thinking, and philosophizing while being served by slaves.
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| − | Kaldanes, never a very large or successful population on Mars, have maintained a foothold on that dying world by forming unsteady pacts with the invading Uliri; it is the Kaldanes who helped to breed their fellow Martians into a suitable food source for the Uliri, having had long experience at breeding other sentient humanoid Martian races for their own food.
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| − | Kaldanes have also bred "Rykors" from White and other humanoid Martian stock. A form of mounts for Kaldanes, the nearly headless Rykors resemble nearly perfect, beautiful human bodies with rudimentary necks and partial heads containing just enough of a brain to serve as a control system and just enough skull for Kaldane riders to settle onto in place of a head, and steer these nearly-perfect bodies as if they were their own. Kaldanes can exchange Rykors almost as easily as an Earthly human might exchange horses.
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| − | The Kaldanes appear as over-sized blue-grey heads, with six spider-like legs that they walk with when not using a Rykor, as well as two symmetrical chelea (rudimentary mandibles or claws) that they use to eat. Their large bulging eyes are lidless, their noses nothing more than narrow slits, and their mouths round tooth-filled holes described as being sphincter-like. Lacking lungs, they do not have to breathe. Because of the development into their current bodiless form, Kaldanes are reliant on Rykors for most manual labor, and to control the Rykor they use small tentacles that descend from their underside.
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| − | Today, colonies of all but completely decadent and helpless Kaldanes have physically withdrawn forever from the surface of Mars, surrendering their physical forms to an almost permanent sleep sealed deep withinin their burrows, and Dreaming themselves into free, strong, and beautiful Astral bodies in the [[Dreamlands]].
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| − | ==="Yellow" Barsoomian Martians, Native Dreamlanders===
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| − | Yellow Martians are almost completely extinct on Daylands Mars, still existing in small numbers in secret domed cities at the north pole of Mars. Yellow Martians look very much like yellow-skinned, bearded humans, and claim a kinship to the [[Men of Leng]], with an origin myth that describes their exodus from Earth's [[Dreamlands]] into those of Mars, from which they dreamed their way onto Mars itself. Yellow Martians are generally genetically compatible with humans, [[Deep One]]s, [[Ghoul]]s, and other Earthly races, as well as the Barsoomian Martians, suggesting a common ancestry. The Yellow Martians have probably always been more populous in the Martian Dreamland of Barsoom than they ever were on Dayland Mars, and after the death of Mars, this is likely to be especially true.
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| − | ==="Red" Barsoomian Martians - an Uliri Foodsource===
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| − | Red Martians - once a dominant culture on Mars; these lawful and civilized peoples resemble crimson red-skinned humans, but hatch from eggs. The hardy and adaptable Red Martians are said to have been bred by a coalition of forward-looking "White" and "Yellow" Martians to inherit Mars in their place in preparation for the days when the Martian Seas finally dry up. Red Martians, or their specially-bred descendants, now serve as a food source for the invading Uliri.
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| − | ==="Black" Barsoomian Martians - Dwellers in the Vaults===
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| − | Black Martians are a technologically advanced race that resemble Earthly humans with jet-black skin and eyes. Black Martians are generally genetically compatible with Earthly humans, and the subterranean [[Dero]]s may have been the result of interbreeding between Black Martians and Earthly proto-humans in some ancient epoch of Earthly history.
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| − | This nearly extinct race has retreated into subterranean tunnels and caverns deep below the surface of Mars, from which they wage a nightmarish guerilla war against the Uliri invaders. Many Black Martians have abandoned the dying planet, fleeing into the Martian Dreamland of Barsoom, or hiding in secret enclaves underground on Earth, in cooperation with other secretive, subterranean, alien beings such as [[Ghoul]]s, [[Dero]]s, [[Grey Alien]]s, or [[Serpent Man|Serpent People]].
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| − | ===Other Creatures of Barsoom===
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| − | ===="Green" Barsoomian Martians - Savage Nomads====
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| − | Green Martians are 12-15 feet (3.7 to 4.6m) tall, are a nomadic, savage, warlike people with little concept of friendship or love, and a general tendency to delight in torture and conquest. They have green skin, independently-moving eyes mounted on the sides of their heads, two arms and two legs, as well as two intermediary limbs that they can use as either arms or legs at will. They wander between the ruins of dead Martian civilizations where they set up temporary dwellings, manufacture their own edged weapons, and raid other Martian civilizations for more advanced technology. They are said to have been the result of an ancient biological experiment which went awry, meant to produce a breed of intelligent Martians who could survive on the cold, desiccated, post-apocalyptic Mars.
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| − | ====Hormads - Synthetic Protoplasmic Men====
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| − | Hormads are are synthetic men created by Martian scientists to serve as slaves, workers, warriors, etc. Hormads are grown in giant vats from protoplasmic masses (see [[Shoggoth]]s) and hypnotized into generally humanoid forms, though the process is far from perfect, often generating in monstrosities that diverge in shockingly vast degree from an ideal human form.
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| − | ===="White Apes"====
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| − | [[File:Gug.png|200px|thumb|right|Gug as "White Ape"]]
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| − | Savage giants with four arms found in the Dreamland of Barsoom. These beasts might be described as resembling a "large white gorilla with extra arms", but may in fact actually be [[Gug]]s.
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| − | ====Martian Animals: Thoats, Calots, Soraks, Zitidars====
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| − | Zitidars, a large six-legged draft animal similar to a mastodon, are still bred on Mars by the Uliri and their Red Martian slaves as a food source for the Uliri invaders, fattened on the Red Creepers and stagnant water of Martian canals.
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| − | A few feral Thoats, six-legged native Martian riding animals, can still be found in the wild places of Mars, but most domesticated examples seen today can be found only in the Martian Dreamland of Barsoom.
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| − | Similarly, Calots (intelligent - and perhaps sentient - ten-legged dog-like creatures with wide frog-like mouths, which once served as the Martian equivalent of dogs) are almost never seen outside of the Martian Dreamland of Barsoom today, though a few examples may still live wild in dark corners of Mars working together in feral packs.
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| − | Soraks, strange, six-legged [[Cat#Cats_from_Mars|Martian Cats]] are believed to be sentient, and have long flourished in the [[Dreamlands]], and are encountered frequently on Mars even today. For more details, see the entry in Cats for "[[Cat#Cats_from_Mars|Cats From Mars]]".
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| − | ====Plant Men====
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| − | [[File:Plantmonster.png|200px|thumb|right|Plant Man]]
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| − | Plant Men from the polar crater valley Dor are strange creatures between 10 and 12 feet in height, similar in form to humans, with a head and face that are featureless except for a single white eye and a "nose like an open wound", tantacled arms that end in sucking mouths full of grasping talons and needle-sharp teeth used to feed on tender vegetation or blood sucked from living animal and humanoid victims, a body covered in shaggy black tendrils or "hair" resembling earth-worms, and a tail that tapers from a round profile to a flat blade shape at the tip. These strange creatures are herded and controlled by cannibal Therns as a trap for those unfortunate travelers the Therns trick into journeying into the valley Dor: after the Plant Men have drained victims of their blood, slaves gather the corpses and butcher them as meat for the tables of Therns.
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| − | ====Leech of Yoh-Vombis====
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| − | <!-- Leeches of Yoh-Vombis are the creation of Clark Ashton Smith from his story "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis" /-->
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| − | A strange, nocturnal or subterranean, slug-like parasitic creature which clings turban-like to the top of a humanoid victim's head, dissolves the flesh, skull, and parts of the brain for food, and then controls its host, driving the remnants of its victim down into the darkness of hidden vaults beneath the ruins of Martian cities, to a near-immortal fate worse than death. See [[Leech of Yoh-Vombis]] for more details.
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| − | * Sources: Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom" series, including ''John Carter of Mars'' and its sequels, and Clark Ashton Smith, in stories such as "[[The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis]]".
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| − | ==Barsoom: The Martian Dreamlands==
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| − | <!-- This version of the Martian Dreamlands invented by Y.Whateley -->
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| − | Earthly dreamers may find their way from time to time into the Martian Dreamland through some elaborate route via Earth's [[Dreamlands]], and in near-future game settings Dreamers living as Martian explorers and colonists will often find their way directly into Mars' Dreamland.
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| − | Mars' Dreamland is a terribly ancient and alien place, technologically slightly more advanced than Earth's equivalent. Earthly Dreamers might generally interpret the technological level of this Dreamland as being roughly equivalent to Earth's Victorian Era, in the American "Wild West", with a vaguely exotic desert setting. Crude repeating handguns and rifles based on Barsoomian technology are available, but swords, clubs, and such have become far more common and traditional weapons among Martian Dreamers over the last few centuries of Mars' decline, and are far more common and stable in Dream. Thoats, six-legged Martian creatures that serve as the equivalent of horses, are common.
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| − | To enter the Martian Dreamland, Dreamers must find their way through the cavernous Black Vaults of Martian Dream, and then ascend Seven Hundred Steps of Slumber to an Onyx Temple for meditation and preparation of the Red Martian silent monks of the Temple; a yawning gate on the other end of the temple leads up the Seventy steps of Deeper Slumber to a passage leading out of the Ziggurat of Dream into the Martian Dreamland.
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| − | The red and grey deserts of Martian Dream are dotted with great dunes of shifting sand concealing or revealing cyclopean ruins, vast pyramids, alien sphinxes, graceful stone canals full of cool and clear fresh water, cities carved into mountainsides, and pleasant oases decorated with shrines to long-forgotten Martian gods, while the deserts are crossed by Thoat caravans of Martians in search of their fortunes. Occasionally found among the canals and oases are signs of the influence of Earthly dreamers: ranches, wooden ghost towns, deserted grand hotels, weather-beaten churches and temples to Earth's mild gods, petrified forests of the skeletons of Earthly trees, bizarre towering cacti, the wreckage of stage coaches and wagons and ruined river boats, and the rusting rails of abandoned attempts to build railroads across the searing deserts of Barsoom.
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| − | Barsoom is a natural stopping point for journeys further out into the Solar System's Dreamlands, and the Canals of Mars eventually link to those of Venus and Yuggoth, as well as several moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus, and travelers and merchants from Earth's [[Dreamlands]] as well as many alien worlds within the Solar System and from beyond find their way here; alien sailing ships from other Dreamlands often make their way up and down the canals of Barsoom, and strange caravans and sand-ships make their ways across the deserts of Barsoom, moving to and from many strange and alien destinations.
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| − | Most of the population of Barsoom today are "Native" Barsoomians: the humanoid White and Yellow Martians, though Barsoom is being settled and colonized more and more frequently by Dreamers from Earth, whose truce with the Native Barsoomians is tenuous, at best. Tribes of savage, nomadic Green Martians may also be found roaming the deserts, fighting eternal wars for glory among each other. [[Cat]]s are also as common in the Dreamlands of Mars as they are of Earth, Saturn, and elsewhere, with the enigmatic six-legged Martian Sorak cats being only slightly more common than Earthly cats, with whom they hold and respect a solemn treaty not to interfere in each other's business, and to join in mutual defense against raids from the [[Cats from Saturn]]. A few pockets or individual Dreamers of other races can also be found on Barsoom, including Red and Black Martians, Horned Martians, Uliri, Kaldanes, [[Zoog]]s, [[Ghoul]]s, [[Man of Leng|Men of Leng]], [[Moon Beast]]s, and other, more mysterious and exotic alien beings.
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| − | Additionally, occasional Dreamers from among Mars' other inhabitants, the Uliri and the Horned Martians, though usually barred from Barsoom by ancient spells and wards and by the force of Barsoomian heroes, have nevertheless left a few marks of their own in Dream across the landscape of Barsoom, in the form of rusting hulks of strange steam-driven machinery, or long-abandoned organic, bio-mechanical buildings and machines which have been left to their own devices for aeons - intelligent, but slowly going mad from strange aeons of neglect and isolation.
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| − | ==Heresies and Controversies==
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| − | <!-- Optional. This is a good place to include non-canon and controversial aspects of the creature's mythos. Suggested Alternative Theories include: Derleth's elemental scheme; pseudo-science interpretation; "fanon" interpretations; unofficial humorous or eccentric versions; identification with "Real Life" mythological, religious, folklore, natural, and historical phenomena; rumor and speculation contribute some flexibility and ambiguity to the mythos. -->
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| − | * Martians have been to Earth before, and built the Pyramids and other ancient monuments, before retreating back to Mars due from Earthly plagues, taking with them human slaves which were eventually oppressed, altered, and/or wiped out due to Martian fears of their subjects, and are at war with the giant inhabitants of the dwarf planet Ceres. (''Edison's Conquest of Mars'', an unauthorized 1898 sequel)
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| − | * The native population of Barsoom (Mars) refers to the invading "Martians" depicted in ''War of the Worlds'' as "molluscs", "mollusc invaders", or "leeches" (''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen''), or "Sarmaks" (George Alec Effinger, "Mars: The Home Front"), or "Uliri" (Ian McDonald, "The Queen of Night's Aria")
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| − | * An alternative explanation for the humanoid food source of the Martians depicted in the ''War of the Worlds'' novel: it is possible that these creatures are not native Martians, but perhaps a conquered alien race similar to the Selenites described in Wells's other interplanetary work, ''The First Men in the Moon''. (fan interpretation)
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| − | * The insect-like Horned Martians nearly destroyed Mars when through the use of their "black magic"; they accidentally opened a portal into "Hell" (actually a bizarre alternate dimension); they were barely able to repel the invading forces of Hell using an artifact they called a "Soul Cube"; in the ensuing chaos, they fled their dying world, and according to some theories mind-transferred to Earth into specially engineered proto-human bodies, in which the transferred minds of the Horned Martians would then "evolve" into modern, Earthly humans. (fan interpretation, based on the backstory of [[DOOM]]3)
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| − | * A few bio-mechanical spacecraft and other machines, abandoned by the Horned Martians on Mars, in the Martian Dreamland of Barsoom, and on Earth and elsewhere over the ages, have gone mad in their neglect and isolation, and have evolved into active Dreamers, intelligent and skilled with psychic and magical powers of their own; their travels and presence are responsible for many mysterious accounts of UFO sightings on Earth and in many other worlds. (fan interpretation)
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| − | * An expedition of subterranean "Black" Martians to Earth has burrowed its "flying saucer" under the ground in the rural farmlands outside a small town, and have been luring humans close enough to their ship that they can drag their victims under ground, and perform strange experiments and surgeries upon them for mind control and other, more sinister purposes. (''[[Invaders from Mars (1953 film)]]'')
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| − | ==Keeper Notes==
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| − | <!-- Optional. Suggestions for using these creatures in the CoC RPG, and in fan-fiction. -->
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| − | There is, of course, no direct relationship between the versions of Mars presented by H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs, other than the assumption of an ancient, dying Mars populated by diverse aliens (or, at least in Wells' case, the invading Martians, and the humanoid things they brought with them as food). Similarly, there is no direct link between these writers, and Lovecraft's fiction (aside from the dubious qualification of tentacles on Wells' Martians, and the tenuous similarities between Burroughs' John Carter stories and Lovecraft's ''[[Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath]]'', or any of the above with ''[[Quatermass and the Pit (1967 film)]]''.
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| − | Rather, these elements were put together with a greater or lesser degree of awkwardness in filling in gaps between each other; feel free to adjust these elements in any way that seems appropriate to you. Some options here might include focusing only on Wells' Martian Invasion aspect, or on a ''Pulp Cthulhu'' adventure in Burroughs' Barsoom (which seems, for all intents and purposes, to be a kind of Dreamland), or use bits of the Quatermass-inspired human creation story to construct the contents of the fevered rantings of mad cultists in their blasphemous tomes.
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| − | There are, of course, a tremendous number of varieties of Martians in Burroughs' fiction alone; most keepers might find it best to only use two or three different varieties of Martians in any given campaign.
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| − | A traditional E.R. Burroughs-style Barsoomian planetery romance campaign might best be suited to a "pulp" Cthulhu treatment, while a slower-paced archaeological exploration of the secrets hidden in abandoned Martian ruins or a Martian invasion story might work perfectly as a more "vanilla" ''Call of Cthulhu'' scenario.
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| − | ==Associated Mythos Elements==
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| − | * Barsoomians (Red, Yellow, White, Black, Green, and other Martians)
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| − | * Red Weed
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| − | * Mythos cults that might be found on Mars and/or in Barsoom might include:
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| − | ** [[Cthulhu]]
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| − | ** [[Hastur]]
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| − | ** [[Tsathoggua]]
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| − | ** [[Yog-Sothoth]]
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| − | ** [[Azathoth]]
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| − | ** [[Nyarlathotep]]
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| − | * [[Mi-Go]] bear some striking resemblances to the "Horned Martians"
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| − | ==References==
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| − | * Fiction: H.G. Wells' novel ''War of the Worlds'' and its radio, film, and TV adaptations
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| − | * Edgar Rice Burroughs' pulp novel ''John Carter of Mars'' and its sequels
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| − | * Slideshow: "[http://flavorwire.com/516131/terrifying-1906-illustrations-of-h-g-wells-the-war-of-the-worlds Terrifying 1906 Illustrations of H.G. Wells' ''War of the Worlds'']"
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| − | * ''[[Quatermass and the Pit (1967 film)]]''
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| − | * Video: "[https://youtu.be/mQ-T5VEueW0 Disney's Tomorrowland: Life on Mars]"
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| − | [[Category:Races]]
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