The Tarids are race of humanoids who live on Thuria (Phobos), the nearer moon of Mars, who were introduced in The Swords Of Mars.
Description[]
Tarids look, for the most part, like the Red Martians, except that their skin is white and their hair and eyebrows are blue. They also seem to lack the vitality of the Martian races. When John Carter encountered them, he was struck by the fact that many of them showed signs of age, which is not commonly seen among Martians. They worship the Sun, which they call the Fire God.
History[]
In the distant past, the Tarids were a powerful and ruled a vast empire stretching across the face of Thuria, which they call Ladan. They were nearly wiped out in a war with another nation, and the survivors of the once-great empire are now all holed up in a large castle, only about a thousand remain. Believing that all of the other races seek to destroy them, they have developed the ability to hypnotize others so that they appear invisible.
Apocrypha[]
| WARNING! | [[File:John Carter: Warlord of Mars|100px|right]] |
| The information in this article comes from John Carter: Warlord of Mars and is not written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. |
The Tarids appear in a special, 40-page issue of the comic series John Carter: Warlord of Mars, which serves as a pastiche ending to the unfinished final Barsoom novel Skeleton Men of Jupiter. Their appearance in the comic however differs from the description in Swords of Mars. Here, they lack the blue hair, are clearly in their prime rater than aging, and their looks are evidently modeled after Roman soldiers.
In the story, the Morgors invade Barsoom and quickly capture Helium. John Carter and Dejah Thoris are also captured, but freed by Vorion. At John Carter’s suggestion, he and Vorion travel to Thuria, to the city of Ombra, to form an alliance with Ul Vas and the Tarids. Ul Vas agrees, and pretends to have captured Vorion, John Carter, and the Morgor Rebels, and delivers them to Bandolian on his ship as a peace offer. In reality however, this is a trick to smuggle a large group of Tarid soldiers, under the guise of their invisibility, onto the Imperial ship and capture all the Morgors there. After John Carter defeates and kills Bandolian in a duel, Vorion becomes the new leader of the Morgors and ends the invasion of Barsoom, promising never to return.
Trivia[]
- The term Tarid does not actually seem to refer to the race as a whole, but rather a specific group. There are members of the same race on other parts of the moon equally capable of learning to use the hypnotic abilities that render the race invisible.
Gallery[]
