[sound of howling wind]

[zooming across a landscape of red sand]

In a land beyond the desert

[shifting, zooming along a canal]

In a city without compassion

[the ziggurat looms in the distance, the sprawl of the city rushes by below us as we zoom in on its top]

[we settle and circle on a priest atop the ziggurat. his clothes are yellow silk, but he’s showing plenty of muscled, shining skin. his head is unnaturally oval. he’s covered in tattoos and ritual paint designs, and stands with a wicked knife over a silent-screaming sacrificial victim]

[closeup on the victim’s face]

[shots of the shouting crowd, eager for blood]

[close on the knife, then on the roaring priest as he stabs it downwards]

[lock on the knife as it stabs downward — and is blocked by a rapier shining in the martian noon — sparks flying from the impact]

[close on the face of a man with a beard and an extravagant hat. he’s holding the rapier]

[music with a pumping drumbeat kicks in]

[another scene of the swordsman in the hat, this time walking through a crowd of ragged but stylish people that parts like the red sea. he’s got a babe in one arm and a flintlock laser pistol in the other]

[cut to a hover chariot racing through the desert. a woman on a mechanical horse pulls even with it. she aims and fires a flintlaser. the chariot spins, flips over, cut to the woman’s horse rearing over the driver]

Die for honor

[the bearded swordsman plummeting from a great height]

[a gorilla artillery man firing a howitzer at figures mounted on flying beasts]

[the bearded man pulling a dancing girl to him by the waist]

Live for everything

[silhouetted figures duelling with swords on a telegraph wire above the city]

[the gunslinger girl crushing a guy’s mouth to hers]

Cavaliers of Mars is a setting and game that I’m making for my own group, as well as for future publication. The “trailer” above was an early piece of writing I did to capture the tone of the setting: planetary romance, swashbuckling in the vein of both Flashman and Captain Alatriste, and the haunted mysteries of a dying world. I’ll be posting content from Cavaliers here as the project takes shape.

I hope you’ll join me in exploring this lost, red world.