"What Else Would Make Gaming Pellucidar Interesting?" Topic

Confederates, Pirates, Kublai Khan's missing fleet, or something else?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellucidar
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If you need a refresher:

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For one thing, you need Frank Frazetta (a Wilkes Barre native) cover art.

Of course:
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If everything else fails, you can always use Nazis ;-)

Doug McClure.

Nazi Zombies. Every game is better with Nazi zombies.

Mole men and intelegent plants aka the old spiderman cartoons.

Half breed desendants of the Ninth Legion

I'd second intelligent plants! Someone needs to make INEXPENSIVE plastic "tyrffryds". (Well, that looks Welsh but hopefully people will get it.) Inexpensive, like green plastic army man cheap, not resin or metal. A zombie-style game with a table of tyrffryds and maybe some blinded could be real fun. Splicing them into games where other things are going on ( dinosaur hunts, jungle exploration, etc.) could be fun too.

Neandertals with guns. Only a few, but they would be awesome for cavemen getting hold of guns by accident. Poses should mostly be with them holding them askew if not dead wrong (At least one would have to have a rifle pointing the wrong way, aimed right at his eye!).

Also, maybe a pack of Askari/Sepoy Neandertals? They have been pressed into service of say evil Germans. Cap, loincloth, ammo belt across shoulder, and rifle.

Lastly, Texas oil militia. Robber baron funded group of petro-prospectors backed by soldeir of fortune-types. "Deep drilling" gets them there. Maybe the Oil baron could have a touch of megalomania and think of setting up a new Lone Star Republic down below.

Apes with guns or Prehistoric Lizardmen or some other parallel evolution

Lin Carter's Zanthodon books (Pellucidar homages) have the Barbary Pirates. (I am in the middle of second book so I am unsure who else managed to get there.) As his setting is underground but not Hollow Earth, it works. For Pellucidar however it seems to me that whoever is there, besides the native populations who IIRC trekked in ages ago, needs some type of iron mole technology to get them there. Thus I would say: pirates, no; Rebels looking for Neandertal slaves(ahem, Confederates fighting for decentralized government), yes; Texas robber baron-funded oil militia, yes; Nazis, of course; Soviets trying to bring class consciousness to Neadertals, why not.

A band of Skaven on a rampage, with a posse of Games Workshop IP lawyers in hot pursuit.

I think Martians make everything better! Well that and Russian soldiers!

The old Warlord comic from DC had rather a lot of ideas on the subject of Hollow Earth antics:

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Predators…and Tarzan…oh, that's been done….

Curses upon you CC! I have just ordered a couple of Pellicidar novels from Amazon I didn't need!

.. oh and Copplestone Eskimos!

Why not pirates? They found a crack in the earth while on a deserted island.

Or a new use for the Daughters of the Desert range from Brigade Games.

Pirates! Now you are talking.

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Personally in Pellucidar I'd rather have vikings than pirates. While talking about logic with this stuff is a bit silly, I could buy the "logic" of vikings trekking 500 miles through a crack in the earth (maybe Iceland, so you can make ties to Verne)and then building new longboats for raids. Pirates, due to their drinking swill and wench, wench, wench lifestyle, I just can not see making new ships after the trek. OTOH, pirates in Maple White Land or on Skull Island would work quite nicely. It is all relative however. If I had pirates already, I might feel differently.

Some type of nomadic terror could be fun. Huns? Mongols?

It wasn't "a crack in the earth" that got one into Pellucidar.

It was either drilling thru the Earth's crust (a 700 mile journey), or you could enter thru a polar opening at the North Pole (as other folks like the Kosairs (pirates), Jason Gridley, John Clayton (Tarzan), and others).

Maybe the Atlantians moved there after their island sank?

Pelluciar is "one" of my favorite fantasy/lost wold/pulp/adventure book series.

These depictions are so classic!

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Warrenss2: Yeah, that was my thinking when I posted and said no pirates but other things in Pellucidar. It takes a lot of doing to get there. As it has been a while, how did (if he did) ERB explain how the Corsairs got into Pellucidar?

Korsars:

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellucidar

I think the Korsars are first mentioned somewhere in "Tarzan at the Earth's Core":
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ERB FAQ:

"2]. Description
Pellucidar's surface is three-fourths land and with an inside diameter of 7000 miles, it's a very large world of 124,110,000 square miles. Its oceans have a combined area of 41,370,000 square miles. Thus, considering the land area only, we have the strange anomaly of a larger world within a smaller one. In the center of this world hangs Pellucidar's sun, continuously at zenith, giving an endless eternity of noon. The sun gives no method by which to measure time and Pellucidar's inhabitants have little concept of it. "The Dead World" is Pellucidar's moon which revolves about the Earth's axis coincidently with the Earth, always a mile above the same spot. Perpetually in darkness, this area is known as "The Land of Awful Shadow". Pellucidar has no horizon since her surface curves away upward in all directions from the observer, so that one's line of vision goes onward and upward until lost in the haze of the distance. A polar opening exists connecting the outer crust to Pellucidar, far north of Korsar. It is believed that the ancestors of the colorful pirates, the Korsars, came from the outer crust."
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Does anyone make a 28mm iron mole?

Scheltrum:

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VSF03 Subterranean Tunnelling Machine

Cool! Thanks very much!

Why should Pellucidar be limited to 'only' EARTH? Weren't there multiple inhabited levels/caverns in Luna/Moon…why not Venus, Mercury, Mars…Ceres…and so on? (aren't there enough 'larger moons' etc in the solar system???)…that could have 'inner suns'/civilizations on the inside???

Wasn't there an fairly recent 'Tarzan' series where he reached into 'liquid crystal' and opened gates to other worlds/dimensions???

There's been the 'debate' that Barsoom ISN'T OUR 'Mars' for sometime now…or 'Carson's Venus' being same world as ours, etc…(or Garobus/Jupiter)…etc…and that the Bermuda Triangle is just one of many 'gates' to alternate 'earths'/times? etc…

Heck, STARGATES were used to spread 'humans' from multiple times/ethnic/cultural groups 'across the galaxy'…supposedly for the Go'auld to 'harvest' from…(not counting the Atlantanians relocating to Pegasus Galaxy and back again…?)…

In "Number of the Beast"…RAH made it perfectly clear that all POSSIBLE 'universes' were merely a subset of any other 'universe'…that one person's 'fictional universe' was/is/will be another's 'reality' and we're only a 'novel/story' in THEIRS…(like earth without a 'J' in their alphabet???).

Why not Pirates, Nazis and Eskimos with cavemen from Barsoom inside a Savage Land INSIDE an 'earth-like world'…being chased by Romans and Texas oil-tycoons???

LXG meets Abbot and Costello, meets ELVIS and Chuck Norris while Jackie Chan gets eaten by Cthullu and the Nautilus and Nemo sail off into the sunset happily ever after???

Sorta like that 'Top Ten' limited series comic…with a police force from multiple dimensions/time-space coordinates???? Magic users, space cowboys, transformers and nuclear-armed southern 'cracker-types'…gay jet-jockies and sentient dogs that use cyberlimbs to date psychic streetwalkers???? Now toss in some penguins that do stand-up comedy and superheros with obsessive-compulsive handwashing rituals and mix throughly….

I want more TENTACLES….in my VSF…but skip the hentai/big eyes/small-mouth, Sailor Moon types….or the 'furries'…(anthromorphogic humanimals…unless of course they are 'damn dirty apes' handling lost astronauts of course…or from the Isle de la Moreau/Moriarty?)

Calling Sherlock Holmes…Watson and Inspector LaSalle are waiting on the ether-flyer HMS Thunderchild for a trip to Barsoom! John Carter needs your help…Dejah Thoris is 'missing again' and the Holy Therns are causing riots in the streets of Ophir again…(especially since La lost Tarzan to Jane…again…)

Carpe' Tentacles of Titan….(the Martian tentacles are only related on my second cousin's mother's side…)

Sgt DWW

LOL!!

I bet if the Barsoomian Thark Horde desended on David Innes' Pellucidarian Empire would add some spice into playing at the Earth's Core!

Didn't "The Moon Maid" & "The Moon Men" take place at the moon's Pellucidar-like core? If the Earth and the moon are hollow why not the other planets?

All this Pellucidar talk brings to mind something that crossed my mind a long time ago for mapping out that primative land.

Does anyone know of a program that can mirror (turn things left to right) a world map and then reverse the elvations of the land, mountains, seas, and underwater trenches?

I've always thought that would give a fairly accurate look of what Pellucidar "might" look like.

Plus… I've also toyed with the idea of scratch-building Abner Perry's Iron Mole vehicle. I wonder on how to EVEN get started on that project. BUT IT WOULD BE FUN!!!

Hey, Mysterioso!!!

Where did you get the Zanthodon books? I've been looking for them for quite a loong time.

I got all of the Callisto books (Lin Carter's Barsoom rip-off series) and have enjoyed them greatly.

Where?
WHERE?
WHERE?<?b>

You find all sorts, when you google "zanthodon" or "Lin Carter". Example of one site found:

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Or you can always look up the individual Lin Carter titles in fetchbook.info:

Zanthodon Novels
Journey to the Underground World (1979)
Zanthodon (1980)
Hurok of the Stone Age (1981)
Darya of the Bronze Age (1981)
Eric of Zanthodon (1982)

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Happy hunting!

CC

Journey to the Underground World (1979):
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Zanthodon (1980):
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Hurok of the Stone Age (1981):
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Darya of the Bronze Age (1981):
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Eric of Zanthodon (1982):
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Crom, Mitra, & Set, CC!!!!

I bow before your superior knowledge… I grovel… I am sooo not worthy.

(Very serious) Thanks! You and I are gonna have to get together and talk sometime. We have a lot of the same interests.

Anytime, my friend. I hope you find what you need.

CC

Now… If I could only find a copy of "The Red Axe of Pellucidar" my life would be complete.

>What Else Would Make Gaming Pellucidar Interesting<
A company that would produce all the above stuff.

Warrenss2:

Your life is now complete:

auction

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There might be more to live for:

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Warrenss2:

Was away on vacation, so sorry did not respond sooner. I got three of the books at a used bookstore and then picked up the ones I needed through Amazon's used books feature. If you did not get the Zanthodon books yet, I would really suggest using Amazon's used books feature. Problems are very rare with the sellers and if there are problems that you can not resolve, you have Amazon dealing with the sellers. IIRC there is also a publisher (Wildside Press?) that is reprinting Lin Carter's stuff. I do not know if they have gotten to Zanthodon yet.

I agree about Red Axe of Pellucidar. Sadly, I have not seen it listed on Amazon and I just don't go for the bidding and rebidding on E-Bay.

Mysterioso

I'm currently waiting for Red Axe of Pellucidar.

I pounced on that auction that CC gave me the link to… as soon as I saw it.

The Zanthodon books are going to have to wait because of job site down-sizing. That's really a drag.

Just off the top of my head.. it should be a small group
with advanced tech (then again, how much tech do cavemen have, anyway..?) The restrictions on them would be resupply
(so they don't run all over the campaign)

Didn't Robert Rogers get lost finding a Northwest passage..?
I'm sure *somebody* did..! So 1700-1800 types would fit.

There is also an entrance in Iceland and Italy.. in another book, but who's to say there ain't more..?

The crew of the Marie Celeste.. ever wondered what happened to them..?

And somehow I see some Heroscape figures fitting in here.. (well, okay.. maybe not the figures..
maybe just the ideas :-)

And finally.. (and not being completely facetious here)
Terrible Thunder Lizards. From Eek the Cat..?

Jim

Ummmm…..

Didn't Rome loose a legion at one time?

Maybe they found a way into Pellucidar and established their own empire when they couldn't find a way back.

Romans would make great bad guys and you can have your heroes battle it out in some gladitorial arena before leading a revolt in the city.

Sounds like the plot of "Tarzan and the Lost Empire":

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This Australian site has the entire book online:
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Warrenss2:

Did you ever get hold of Lin Carter's Zanthodon books? I am thinking of taking them to the used book store for credit there. If you're still interested in picking them up, drop me a line at mistermysterioso AT gmail DOT com.

Mysterioso

Mysterioso,

I've just emailed Warren to let him know. I hope the email address I have for him is still valid.

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