Zodanga

The capital city of this red Martian empire is located in Barsoom’s southwest hemisphere; however, at one time, its mines, canals, farmlands and territories stretched from pole to pole. The capital city’s gates had “no regular guard, but are covered by sentries, who patrol the avenue that encircles the city just within the walls as our metropolitan police patrol their beats. . . The walls of Zodanga are seventy-five feet in height and fifty feet thick. They are built of enormous blocks of carborundum, and the task of entering the city seemed, to my escort of green warriors, an impossibility.” (PM XIV)

At the height of its power, Zodanga could field an infantry of one million warriors and a navy of several thousand battleships.
"The bravery of the Zodangans was awe-inspiring." (PM XIV) The hereditary enemy of Helium, this red Martian empire also “had for years waged a ruthless campaign of extermination against the green men, directing special attention toward despoiling their incubators.” (PM XIV)

Zodanga has never fully recovered after its capitol was sacked by a mighty alliance of 150,000 Green Martian troopers lead by John Carter and Tars Tarkas of Thark.
“Behind us we left the stricken city in the fierce and brutal clutches of some forty thousand green warriors of the lesser hordes. They were looting, murdering, and fighting amongst themselves. In a hundred places they had applied the torch, and columns of dense smoke were rising above the city as though to blot out from the eye of heaven the horrid sights beneath." (PM XVI)

After Zodanga was conquered, Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium appointed Zat Arras as the new Jed of Zodanga. Zat Arras was a man of thin, cruel lips who turned out to be a disappointing successor of Than Kosis (the former Jeddak of Zodanga who was killed by John Carter). Zat Arras was an ambitious coward, who rather than face the Prince of Helium in combat upon the decks of a battleship, turned, ran and “sprung to the rail and hurled himself headforemost into the awful depths below.” (GM XIX)

APT

INTV….... +0
ATTK….. +5/ one bite OR +3/ two tucks
DMGE…….3d6 OR 2d6 each
AC…….…. 5 [15]
HD……… 8d8
Fort..…... +4
Will……. +3
Move…..…. 7”

“The apt was our most consistent and dangerous foe. It is a huge, white furred creature with six limbs, four of which, short and heavy, carry it swiftly over the snow and ice; while the other two, growing forward from the shoulders on either side of its long, powerful neck, terminate in white, hairless hands, with which it seizes and holds its prey. Its head and mouth are more similar in appearance to those of a hippopotamus than any other earthly animal, except that from the sides of the lower jawbone two mighty horns curve slightly downward toward the front. Its two huge eyes inspired my greatest curiosity.
“They extend into vast, oval patches from the center of the top of the cranium, down either side of the head to below the roots of their horns, so that these weapons really grow out from the lower part of the eyes, which are composed of several thousand ocelli each. . . each ocellus is furnished with its own lid, and the animal can at will open as many of the facets of its huge eyes as it chooses, because much of its life is spent in subterranean recesses.” (WM, VIII, p.79-80)


Without fear and unhindered by grievous injury, apts hunt alone or in pairs, they “rove the dismal north attacking every living thing that comes within the scope of their far-seeing eyes. Even when their bellies are full, and they can eat no more, they kill purely for the pleasure which they derive from taking life.” (WM, VIII, p.80)

B&Wimage is from Kris Todd
Color is Micheal Whelan's artwork
image FROM: http://www.erbzine.com/mag14/apt1h3.jpg