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1981: #Stormbringer—A #retrospective review of the roleplaying game by Ken St. Andre and Steve Perrin based on the novels by Michael Moorcock and published by Chaosium, Inc. http://rlyehreviews.blogspot.com/2021/09/1981-stormbringer.html #reviewsfromrlyeh #rpgreview #rpgreviews #Elric #EternalChampion #BRP

Hi All, I've released a new scenario of Stormbringer 5th edition over on www.stormbringerrpg.com - The Brides of Pyaray. Chaos hides everywhere amidst the Young Kingdoms, fanned by the desires of mere mortals who lust for riches, power or eternity. In even the most law abiding of communities the worshippers of chaos can thrive, hidden in plain sight! In The Brides of Pyaray, the characters are lured into a mystery of their own making, where their desire to make good leads to an adventure offering dire consequences… does one dare ask; what indeed beckons the brides of the Tentacled Whisperer of Impossible Secrets? You can find it as a free pdf here - http://www.stormbringerrpg.com/?p=3695

After perusing the threads, other than the Big Two (Runequest and Call of Cthulhu) Stormbringer/Elric! seems to get the most love of all the BRP iterations, even forming the basis for other versions of the game. What makes Stormbringer special in a way that other out-of-print products, say Ringworld and Superworld, aren't? (I mean, with the latter two your character could one-punch that giant cave troll and sent it drifting off into space!)

What's peoples thoughts on the pros and cons of the different versions? I started running stormbringer again last summer after a break of 35 years For our group it felt a bit clunky so I moved to elric. Feels a bit smoother. To me anyway. Now I'm reading the elric of melnibone game which is basically elric with RQ2 rules. Seems, pretty decent. What do the rest of you think?

Hi, we've recently kicked off a weekly elric game on a Fri night. Euro time zone 2000 cet, 1900 gmt. Were using roll20 vtt and discord. We've a steady 4 players atm could always use 1 or 2 more. Rules system is elric although looking at adopting a new magic system. Language is English. Play style is relaxed and friendly. If interested pop on our discord and say hello https://discord.gg/xVZtne956B

Wayne’s books has updated an old post about this edition, nice pics and info https://waynesbooks.games/2016/02/07/stormbringer-1st-edition-box-sets/

Hi, I'm indepted to Questbird, who a while ago posted about combining Spell Law with BRP/Magic World. For example, in my version, spell users get a number of base lists (half INT) at INT% and can cast spells on their lists equal to lvl x 10%. So starting characters can cast lvl 1 spells. In my version, the spells are cast at a POW times 5 casting roll, but the lists are ticked for experience if the roll also goes under the lists %. That way individual lists increase but characters are not unnecessarily whiffy when it comes to using spells. Spells relating to damage, like a shock bolt (lvl 2), do damage based on the demon power list (so a d4 if lvl 2; but in my game I use POW and INT to derive a magic damage bonus, using the same table as STR and SIZ. That way a shock bolt can be fairly offensive). Magic point cost is the lvl of the spell. (Classic Fantasy's Spell Lore can be used to provide extra MPs while being used as an Arcane Knowledge/Lore.) I would suggest allowing characters to have up to half INT in base lists, but the remaining INT is for memorising other spells, with each lvl being a point of INT. This means that characters can also diversify a grimoire and can only hold in memory spells up to half INT in lvl. Thus, a character of INT 18 can only hold non-base spells up to lvl 9 in memory, but can cast base spells up to POW in lvl. (Related to this, I have been thinking of limiting skill levels to a corresponding statistic times ten. This would mean that skill % can max out while being tied to PC stats. It also means a demon with a high STR or DEX can also have a very high skill potential. But I digress.) The aim here (with memorising individual spells, combined with spell lists) is to allow for finding spells as being a motive, and to make sure magic users are not too rigid in relation to starting base lists. However, lists allow for different flavours of magical professions. Casting any spell uses POW times 5 as a casting roll, but for casting non-base spells the maximum lvl one can learn and cast is equal to the lowest base list skill the PC has divided by 10. Thus if out of all PC lists the lowest skill is 23%, the PC can only learn and hold in memory, and cast, a lvl 2 non-base spell. This controls power levels while tying power and diversity strongly to skill in all of one's lists. So lists in general, as a measure of magical skill generally, determine the lvl of non-base spell one can learn and cast. The above system is best if using Spell Law along with the Essence Companion, the Mentalism Companion and the Channeling Companion. The latter is especially great for god-specific clerics, and can model wfrp gods and other dieties. Spell Law on its own fails to do this. (Mentalism might work well as being reserved for elves, but I haven't decided yet.) However, different from the above solely in relation to magic, I would also suggest that Arms Law (or the simpler MERP or A MILLION WAYS TO DIE critical lists) can be used too. One doesn't need to use the attack tables, only the criticals. E.g., anytime a serious wound is done, it is now referred to the critical tables. This is a small change and requires little change to MW as per usual. It is true that such hits might now be fatal, but they also don't inherently lead to the PC passing out after a few rounds. Stunned means parry and dodge at half skill %; unable to parry is self-explanatory, but you can keep dodge at half; and bleeding and extra damage can be converted by the recommended (in an ICE supplement for converting to Runequest) 6 equals 1 (in BRP/MW), perhaps rounding up. Thus an extra 10 hits and bleeding 1 per round can be an extra 2 hits and 1 hit per round. The description also ties in nicely with some healing lists, as nerve damage or whatever may require such specific healing. The sole issue for the above critical lists is what severity column to use: from A to E. This can be answered by skill level. Thus, if the attacker has 40 or fewer percentiles, then use A. 60 or fewer is B; 80 or fewer is C. 100 or fewer is D; and over 100 is an E. This seems to model nicely how skill level makes serious wounds more lethal, and the descriptions model the deadliness of the attacker. This also means that spells can also use the Spell Law critical tables (let the list % determine any severity column), without recourse to the convoluted attack tables which required rolling high. In this system, only the critical tables are used instead of the previous serious wound table in MW. I feel it adds to the flavour of the setting. In a way, the core BRP/MW system simplifies Rolemaster while allowing for the RM spells and gorey detail. In fact, when one considers that RM OB ratings are convertible to MW skill levels, such as creature attack levels, according to RM conversion guidelines, the RM treasures material are also useable. A +20 sword can now be used. (Although you might feel that such a weapon should only increase damage rather than skill rating. But the latter is effectively how RM did it.) In any case, the above provides some suggestions for RM Spell Law and Arms Law to be used with MW. It also suggests how MW can essentially replace the core of RM while still using its other elements. Again, Channeling Companion provides for spell lists based on religious spheres, such as war or fire, or nature/druids, and is essential to give fantasy world clerics the required detail. Wizards, too, are rather elemental in RM, so one might want to allow wizards/mages to pick three elemental base lists (from mage lists) and the rest from closed lists. The GM can decide if closed lists are available for further spell memorisation or not, or if only open lists are. Likewise the place of Mentalism in your world may need consideration. Naturally, dwarves make good alchemists. You might give regular dwarves the Inorganic Skills list as a species trait, which would fit their great crafting abilities. Likewise, elves might get some lists as racial/species abilities. (I would personally use the RM and MERP guidelines that make Hobbits and Dwarves very resistant to magic. Hobbits get effectively +10 to POW and Dwarves +8 for resisting magic. This balances the lack of magic users among these peoples, with the exception of Dwarven alchemists. But that's just me; MERP was my first rpg, so it left a mark!) Any thoughts on the above, let me know. Again, my thanks to Questbird, who started my thinking on the above lines. :-)

Hi All I GM’d a version of The Fang and The Fountain from The Perils of The Young Kingdoms for the good folk of Red Moon Role Playing. Extra - Stormbringer Actual Play (with Red Moon Role-playing) It was an intense experience! Hope you enjoy it. Dirk

This is mostly just writing out my thoughts to see if they look sensible, but there is a genuine question at the end. In preparation for a Rogue Mistress playthrough, I am looking at the Stormbringer summoning mini-game 1st vs 4th editions (borrowing Background Events and Passions from MRQ II). Rogue Mistress was written for 4th edition as far as I can tell. For those who don't have the secret knowledge of the Eldest Edition, many players at that time had great fun using the Summoning mini-game to prepare for play. First you had your sorcerer. Generally the game premise was "Everyone is playing Melnibonean Warrior-Priest Sorcerers" cos that was fun and it saved having to roll 01 on the nationality table. Especially for Rogue Mistress this is sort of (but only sort of) the default game mode. Also my group house-ruled a minimum of 16 in each of INT and POW, to save time re-rolling characters who didn't make the minimum 32 INT+POW to be a sorcerer. Once you had your stats and skills you could start the mini-game, which has two stages. Firstly you summoned elementals until you got tired of rolling. The side-effect of this, entirely justified in the text, is that your POW increased with each (well, most) successful elemental binding. The text is clumsier than I remember it being, but it seems straightforward. As teenagers we didn't limit this and one guy stayed up all night rolling 10000 times to see how high he could get his POW. He fell asleep while we were playing the next day which was pretty hilarious. For the upcoming Rogue Mistress game I am thinking of limiting it to 100 rolls, or 90 days, or something similar. In the text there is no downside to binding a multitude of elementals so long as you only bind one at a time, and release the last one (e.g. by asking it to do 4 tasks in a day) before binding the next. So (a) you have to succeed in your Summoning roll and then (b) succeed in your binding roll at POW*3%. If you fail the binding roll your POW is temporarily reduced to 1, recovering 1 point per hour of rest. I don't think there is any penalty for failing the Summoning roll. 3rd (Games Workshop metal album cover) edition tried to slow the mini-game down by requiring a critical success before you could gain any POW. 4th edition kept the critical success requirement and added a stat loss penalty for failing the Summoning roll, and required 2 or more Summoning rolls for demons compared to elementals. This basically destroyed the mini-game, because it was no longer cost-effective to perform Summoning until your Summoning skill was in the high 90s. Stage 2 of the Eldest Edition Sorcery mini-game started once your had your POW at 30 or 40 or 3000 or whatever. This is when you summon demons (instead of elementals) and bind them into your weapons and armour and make magic items out of them. You can only bind a number of demons equal to half your CHA. In 1st edition there were 6 types of demons, and you varied their stats based on yours. High POW means your demons will have good stats, and hence your demon sword, demon armour, etc will be awesome. The limit on this is that each sorcerer only knows how to Summon 2 or 3 of the 6 different types. This created a neat opportunity for players to trade different demons amongst themselves. In 4th edition they swapped out the 6 different kinds for a 'pay for powers from this list of 30-40', so that looks better to me both in terms of matching Rogue Mistress and in terms of interesting bound demons. Also 4th edition has some bookkeeping impositions requiring you to buy expensive blank grimoires to write down all the different Summons you learn. Melniboneans are rich, so this doesn't affect the mini-game -- although it does give you bragging rights "My library has 100 grimoires" etc. Of course taking grimoires from your dead opponents (or trading them with your friends) now has an in-game effect, so that is cool too. Obviously, I'm thinking of using the 1st edition Summoning mini-game as prep for Rogue Mistress. Looking over Mongoose Runequest II and MRQII - Elric of Melnibone (MRQ II Elric is a supplement not a game on its own) there are some interesting things to add to chargen however. In MRQ II everyone rolls to build their family and then on the Background Events table, and then you invent 2-3 Passions for your character based on that. So I'm thinking of how to make all those elemental summoning rolls more interesting. In the text, for each additional elemental you bind at one time, there is a chance of drawing the attention of the lord of those elementals: either Straasha, Grome, Lassa, or Kakatal depending on type. There's a little bit of text describing each one, but not enough so that they have a personality. However, what if you had to roll on some sort of Elemental Event Table (by type) when binding an elemental, and I specify a few different ways of "drawing the attention of an Elemental Lord". I'm thinking of mostly nothing happens, but sometimes you have to agree to do something, or make a pact not to do something or whatever. So, my question is, what can you tell me (suggestions) about the Elemental Lords? What do they like, dislike, what are their motivations? If they are paying close attention to a Melnibonean sorcerer, what will they want to see happen? BTW, towards the end of Rogue Mistress there is a potential encounter with Straasha: a certain oceanic plane (M'oor Talen) is controlled by Pyraray the Lord of Chaos (potentially your Priest-Lord of Melnibone might worship Pyraray), and if you return it to Straasha, he(?) will fix your magic flying interplanar boat so you can leave. I love these little references in Rogue Mistress and I want to make more out of them. Thanks Lawrence Whitaker -- and others -- for writing this wonderful book.

Hi Everyone, I recenty bought an old copy of Stormbringer (4th edition I think!) along with some supplement books. These include Atlas of the Young Kingdoms vol 1, White Wolf, Stealer of Souls, Sorcerers of Pan Tang and Demon Magic. I've noticed a few others out there on Ebay (some for very high prices!). I'm intrigued by the Sea Kings, Rogue Mistress and a few others but a bit hesitant, as I'd like to hear from a few folks who have played them. Also, are there any essentials, stone cold classics etc out there that I'm overlooking? Thanks in advance

Due to reading, and fixing with my roleplaying collection.. And reading far to much on blogs and forums.. Has made me yearning for playing Strombringer and D&D esque games.. So during this vacations i sat down and played around with my old Spanish edition of Stormbringer.. and painting 10 deamonettes for use in Age of Sigmar/ 40 k. this made me want to stat up some demons so Here comes my first work in progress deamonettes for Stormbringer 4th.. If someone more versed in this rule set could point out errors i would be happy,, will probably do more demonic types soon.. Deamonette of Aanesh... STR 3d8 14 CON 3d8 14 SIZ 2D8 14 INT 3D8 14 POW 3D8 14 DEX 4D8 18 Cha 3D8 14 (63p characteristics) Abilities / Skills: Baffle attack 40p 3d6 pot up to 5m, shape change 40p, Garras 20p 3d10% 1d6 damage *2, Hands 30p, Eyes 10p (+1d10 search, detect), saber 20 (int*5 one topic)jump 10p (4 m high), legs 30p 60m/round 200p skills total 263p to invoke hmm, feels kind of weird.. will probably adjust size so it will be smaller, if i understood the Spanish text correctly it costs 3 point per d8 dice. I can not find any mention how to raise the combat skills of the demons... I suspect that there is inconsistencies compared with the English version.. input appreciated.

Hi everyone. I popped by this site to find a Stormbringer game I could join. It would have to be a play-by-post, because where I live there are no players even for D&D. There aren't any active games here, though, so I have to ask for leads - at least some popular resources I could browse. Which edition of Stormbringer - that probably doesn't matter much. I'm familiar with the 1st, but I could adopt to the others. Elric!, from people's comments, seems to be streamlined but rather dull - as any once-again revised rule set for the same setting would have to be. And it's the setting that I'm really interested in. Moorcock's books simply had genius in them, and their themes are productive for the imagination. I don't care much about rule systems, so long as they let me accomplish what I desire, and care about rules less and less with the years. The oldest systems, like the first incarnation of Basic Role-Playing or the original D&D, are strong in part because of their awkward features. One of these is having to stick with, in many cases, a seriously random character. Another is tremendous power, and the final say, given to the referee. Yet another is a relative dearth of special abilities, feats, perks etc. All of these traits of early games have been assiduously filed away at by their revised editions, in the name of variety, consistency, fairness, flexibility, psychodrama, power to the people and so on, especially with the advent of videogames and "personalization." And I understand those arguments, but I think they end up missing the point and blunting the edge. Mutual understanding between the referee and players can substitute for any amount of legalism. Likewise, an interesting adventure is something that should come out of actual inventive ideas, not ready abilities and their combinations. So I was pleasantly surprised with the BRP system - clear, flexible and to the point, though with room for a bit of simplification. The rule about special successes in particular had to be changed (what is 1/5 of skill 62, answer quickly). Demons acting as items don't need the majority of creature stats, which just clutter the page. And so on. But these are mostly small gripes, and perhaps they were addressed later on. In the case of BRP's treatment of magic for the Young Kingdoms, I was also greatly relieved to be relieved of powers. Cross my heart, I am sick of characters with powers, "special" powers in particular. Wizards shooting lightning bolts from their fingertips aren't a frequent sight in the better fantasy fiction, and that must be for a reason. Give me demons, elementals, sleight of hand, artifacts, sacrifices and actually having to do something instead of just being special. I also like it that in the Young Kingdoms there is no resurrection, no raising of the dead, which too often makes death a joke in D&D. The Tomb of Horrors is just random kill - it's not the same thing; but life must be actually dangerous to rejoice at victory and survival. I digressed a bit, but with this outline you can see better what I'm looking for. So, any tips on where to find it?

Hello! I have lost the adventure from white dwarf 97 And I wonder if someone have an pdf. Copy of it? Its the second part of the madcap series. Help, please

Meanwhile in Switzerland.... Smiorgan receives his copy of the gorgeous Mournblade kit d'initiation... This French rpg has already won me. I'm not going to stop with the starter set. There's a high risk I will buy all the beautiful books and boxes they have put out. If people care, I will post info on this game as I go on reading and hopefully playing it. Some basic info. It's not d100. And is not to be confused with the French edition of Mongoose Elric. They initially had some connection with Mongoose, but when the Mongoose license expired, they got a license directly from Moorcock. http://www.multiverse.org/fora/showthread.php?t=30016

Okay I have a dumb question. On page 42 of Advanced Sorcery (lower left), it says that a bound demon counts against the binding sorcerer's INT-limit of memory... Does anyone know how much it counts? I read the the entire The Summoners Art chapter but can't find the answer... Thanks!