Review of Satanic Mars

With today's post I start a small series in which I will talk about Satanic Mars, the trash metal role-playing game written and illustrated by Álvaro López (Instagram) and published by Sociedad del Dado Cornudo.

The game is available in digital format at DriveThruRPG in Spanish and English as “pay what you want” (PWYW) with a suggested price of $2.37.

It happens that I had the chance of purchasing the game in physical format in 2017 and now being more widely available it's the right time to review it.

But before starting I will allow the author to present himself:

Welcome girls and boys to this review of Satanic Mars that I appreciate so much.

This little game wasn't born as such, at the beginning it was part of my contribution as illustrator to Altar Mutante, the comics fanzine of which I'm responsible with the ineffable Luis Sendón. In that first stage I drew 7 chapters with scripts by Roberto Diez, another indispensable of the role-playing scene, who has been commanding his blog Frankenrol from earlier times.

The case is that my illustrator and GM sides are continually feeding back one to another. When I plan a comic it always go in parallel with the gaming sessions with which I make my gaming table comrades suffer. And with Satanic Mars I knew from the beginning I had found a setting that, if not entirely original, had infinite possibilities and above all an unmistakable aftertaste. Mixing all I like from other gaming universes (Warhammer 40k), comics (any from 2000 AD or Kirby) and of course cinema (Evil Dead, Galaxy of Terror and varied cheesy B movies) this crazy Mars, bloody and dystopical, was born. Anyway there's a thing I like to make clear, for me this game isn't a joke like other very celebrated titles like Fanhunter or the classical Paranoia. When I referee Satanic Mars I do, or at least I try to, with the same nerve and bad temper as when I do Cyber or Greyhawk or whatever. In my Satanic Mars gaming sessions there's tragedy, death, terror and humour, but as black as Lucifer's very asshole.

If anyone is interested in my comics these appear at the said Altar Mutante (Tumblr | Facebook | Twitter | Tebeosfera) or published by Demo Editorial. Besides this I played the drums as a baboon in many hardcore punk bands like Codia, Chico Perro or Ronha and now I roar in Destrucción Mutua Asegurada, all can be freely listened at Bandcamp. At Instagram you can catch me at @eisentharg469.

Nothing more, thanks for your attention and hail Satán!!

Background and universe

Álvaro has taken as a basis the SRD of the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons (Spanish at Nosolorol | English at Wizards of the Coast) and has taken all the topics populating the underground fanzines, adult fantasy and science fiction comics magazines and heavy metal and punk music to mix them with various elements inspired by games, films and television series which have been with us for years, achieving a game where B and Z movies topics abound, with unrestrained action and the willingness to offer a crazy and carefree game experience with which to have a good time.

Satanic Mars takes us to a science fiction future in which Lucifer, Prince of Darkness (yes, just as you are reading it), is liberated by his acolytes of his confinement in Mars depths and confronts Humanity in a war encompassing all the solar system. After a century of conflict and the defeat of the fallen angel during the Luciferian Wars Earth and a great number of colonies have become radioactive deserts roaming with warlords, tribes of nomad scavengers and refugees and survivors of the once powerful human empire.

Mars has become the center of the solar system, in its terraformed surface dwell the great luciferian feudal houses (Ortik, McCracken, Barreiro and Von Paulus), whose leaders consider themselves to be legitimate descendants of Satan (it seems that the devil did not know how to stay still). With them also exist a crowd of minor clans and all face each other to own the wealth offered by the red planet, turned into a place of pilgrimage, source of seemingly inexhaustible resources and a great archaeological site waiting to be excavated to discover its secrets, but all those daring to go into the domains of the fanatical followers of Lucifer (like the playing characters) will have to be specially skilled if they want to survive (have I already told you that it seems that Luciferians are cannibals...?).

In the orbit of Mars also exist some tens of artificial habitats harboring all people (from theoretically civilized citizens to rabble of all kinds) willing to be free from the unhealthy influence of the luciferian hordes inhabiting the surface. The most important habitat is in the remains of the head of the Titan, an extradimensional being who managed to defeat and expel Lucifer (and it seems to me that it could be a relative of Galactus, right?), inside are the harbour facilities of The Forge (directed by the dwarfs grouped in the S.K.U.A.T. cooperative), the Citadel (refuge of rich tycoons) and the Dirt Maze (which has expanded uncontrollably and where the rest of the inhabitants of the Titan live crowded).

Martian races

Players wishing to create characters in this game have the following races available:

• Humans: adaptable beings who can include all the range of possibilities offered by the setting (followers of the Demon or the Light, technicians, unscrupulous brigands, etc.).
• Orks: the ill-fated attempt of the Martian geneticists to obtain supersoldiers which ended creating a race of extremely chaotical and dangerous green beings.
• Humandroids: sentient machines of varied forms owing their intelligence to the Titan influence (they could perfectly be Maria of Metropolis or C3PO and R2D2, our favorite couple of robots).
• Skard: space ratmen, with guns.
• Dwarfs: great builders and engineers, characterized by being robust and short due to a mutation inherited by living in low atmospheric presure habitats.

As yo may see here there's a great influence of the gaming universes of Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,0000.

Character classes

The type of characters which may be created are the following:

	Carrionhunter Born in the sub-levels of the Titan's head or in the streets of any martian seedy settlement. Is the born survivor which can adapt to any situation.
	Mercenary He may have been part of the marine detachments of Colonial Forces, a soldier of fortune or a hired thug. They are the right ones to get rid of any opposition with their fists, shooting or whatever it takes.
	Pilgrim From missioners and ascetics to religious leaders, warrior monks or shaman and druids, always battling against Lucifer followers (so they are equivalent to the Jedi Knights of the setting).
	Thaumaturge Sorcerers and space magicians whose powers have been awakened by the influence of the Titan or have devoted to study the (bad) luciferian arts.
	Techno adept Specialized in mantaining and repairing all kind of machinery with botched jobs, improvisations and good luck (until it runs out).
Ilustrations by Álvaro López

Technology, gear and weapons

The technological development of the universe of Satanic Mars is, in a manner of speaking, motley, so the referee has all the freedom to make all kinds of mixes, like these examples that I have thought:

• Medieval societies with access to projectile firearms or even energy weapons (how they do the maintenance, where they get the ammunition?).
• Spaceships capable of travel at over the light speeds but with a non-existent or defective internal communications system, so it's necessary to deploy messengers on foot to transmit orders to the crew.
• Cars and other vehicles built from pieces and spare parts of very diverse origins (as in Mad Max) which seem incredible to work.

As for the gear that can be used by characters there is a minimal but sufficient description in which weapons, a lot of weapons, stand out along protective armor.

Sample Scenario: Tarsis

The manual includes a scenario situated in the Martian region of Tarsis, with enough background data (character, places and object descriptions) for the referee to create an adventure to involve player characters and even start a campaign of adventures according to their actions.

Bestiary and ideas for adventures

Finally Satanic Mars offers a set of non-playing characters (bandits and Lucifer followers), supernatural beings (demons and ghosts) and monsters that can be used by the referee to populate his scripts and some adventure seeds he may develop or take as inspiration to create his own.

Conclusions

Satanic Mars is a game that, despite its small size, manages to infect you with the desire to play it and even more so if you detect the references that are hidden in the text of the basic manual (something I will talk about in the next post), it's also compatible with any gaming material based in the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons and similar games, as I will explain in the last post of this series.

Having seen all this, I can only grant Satanic Mars and its author my seal of distinction.

This entry it's also available in the following languages:
Castellano Català