Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Chaosium Digest Volume 03 Number 03
Chaosium Digest Volume 3, Number 3
Date: Wednesday, July 28, 1993
Number: 1 of 1
Contents:
Review: Elric! (Adam Justin Thornton) ELRIC!
Foreigners in the Dreaming City (Richard Watts) ELRIC!
Stormbringer Reviews (Shannon Appel) ELRIC!
Editor's Note:
This digest forms a sort of introduction to Elric!, Chaosium's newest
game. It's full of reviews (of the new Elric! as well as the old
Stormbringer supplements), and also has an excerpt from Melnibone, the
upcoming supplement to Elric! I hope it will be useful to people.
Because this digest was really close to my upper Digest size, I had to
cut the article I was working on. It should be in this Sunday's
digest. If other people would like to write some articles providing
background, scenerios, etc for Elric!, drop me a line.
Shannon
--------------------
From: Adam Justin Thornton <adam@owlnet.rice.edu>
Subject: Review: Elric!
System: Elric!
I must admit that I come to this review a little handicapped, having
played neither Stormbringer nor Elric!, and having only glanced
through the Stormbringer rules. The background I bring to my review
of Elric is heavy on Call of Cthulhu and GURPS, but light on any sort
of Moorcockian roleplaying, save the statistics in first edition
Deities and Demigods. With that caveat out of the way, on to the
game:
Elric! appears to be aimed at beginning roleplayers and gamemasters:
there's a fairly extensive section on what roleplaying is, lots of
tips for Gamemasters new to the job, and a whole lot of warnings not
to let the players get away with too much. I guess the background of
the novels may tend to lead to rampant munchkinification, so this is
probably a good thing. Impending Ragnarok and soul-sucking Runeswords
probably tend to enourage powergaming.
This is not to say Elric! is in any way unsuitable for experienced
players. They and their GMs will just not need the frequent caveats
given. No big deal.
The mechanics are what one would expect from a Chaosium game: seven
stats (CON, STR, SIZ, INT, POW, DEX, APP), and then rolls such as Idea
and Luck calculated off of those. All statistics are 2D6+6, which
gives sadly flat statistic curves. It also means that all humans are
about equally hard to kill once you peel them out of their armor.
There's nothing wrong with this, but it does mean that superhuman
characteristics will probably come from skills rather than from
attributes. The only other Chaosium game I'm familiar with is Call Of
Cthulhu; Elric! looks very familiar. It's occupation-based, and I
think it was a good aesthetic decision to make the random occupation
chances NOT reflect the actual distribution of occupations in the
Young Kingdoms. Who wants to be a peasant?
The skills also work as they do in CoC; a base chance that you can
then put points into. One of the better reminders that this is Elric!
and not Generic Fantasy Hack'n'Slash is in the Art skill. The
specializations are "Conversation, Courtly Manners, Declaim Poetry,
Formal Dance, Song, Tell Story or Torture."
I'd personally prefer a more GURPS-like skill system: someone with a
high DEX _should_ be able to be a better swordsman quicker than a
klutz. But hey, it's Chaosium's game, and their choice.
However, there are some cool features of the skills that don't exist
in CoC; skill chances can be greater than 100%. Since criticals are
1/5 of base skill, this even makes sense. I think it should work
pretty well, though I haven't playtested the game yet. Skill
increases (a checked skill increases on 100-INT%, or INT%, whichever
is greater) are elegant and intuitive although I'd prefer a division
of mental and physical skills.
The combat system is straightforward: percentile dice against a skill,
and then damage. At 2 HP you pass out; at 0 HP, you die. This is
highly lethal, at least compared to most other games. This is
actually a Good Thing. People die all the time in Moorcock's Elric
stories, mostly gruesomely. Since everyone has about 13 HP, and a
broadsword slash will do 2-9 HP, plus damage bonus, in general, three
sword slashes should kill an unarmored character. I like it.
(Stormbringer, for the curious, when wielded by Elric, does 2D8 + 1D6
+ 17D10 + 1D6 damage. Plus sucking out 1D100 of POW. At an 880%
chance to hit.)
The Major Wounds table is really good too; however the system could
benefit from a hit location system. I'd really recommend glueing on
Pagan Publishing's _Killer Crosshairs_ if you want to target specific
body parts [perhaps someone would like to write a Elric! hit location
system for a future issue? -sda]. I particularly applaud the use of
DEX-ranks for combat initiative; the highest-DEX fighters go first,
but things like aiming subract from DEX-ranks. Thus, a DEX 18 archer
can either get off a quick shot or, say, aim for ten DEX-ranks and
improve his chance of hitting, but by so doing risk losing his shot to
a slower fighter who nails him in the meantime.
There's a lot of mechanical stuff specific to Elric!, too. The
alignments are great. Certain actions can give you points for Law,
Chaos and Balance; over the course of an adventuring lifetime, you'll
probably rack up scores in all three areas. The Alignment system is
well thought-out. If there _is_ a "good" side it's the Balance, but
even that isn't especially clear. Certainly Elric! doesn't fall into
the easy and predictable trap that Law=Good, Chaos=Evil that I
half-expected. Heroes can become Champions of one of the alignments,
conferring certain bonuses and incurring certain responsibilties, or
less extremely, take allegiances to the alignments. This seems fairly
true to the spirit of the books, and I think it would work well in a
larger-than-life sort of game (which Elric! encourages).
The magic system is supposed to be the major difference between Elric!
and Stormbringer; having never used Stormbringer I can't really
comment. I like it; POW determines the efficacy of your magic and INT
how many spells you can remember simultaneously. Magic is (almost
exclusively) inherently Chaotic and corrupting. The spells are neat.
They're colorful and mostly gruesome, and very much in the spirit of
the series. Demonic and Elemental magic seems to work well too; the
demons are among the most charming of the system's features. They are
insanely powerful and dangerous. The suggested "needs" are often
quite amusing, and there is a certain amount of dark sympathy for
them. It's too bad that summoning demons is likely to be quick and
unpleasant, because a great deal of thought has gone into their
creation, and there are some opportunities for really fun roleplaying
here.
The Elementals are a little less thoroughly fleshed out, and basically
less interesting. However, they're a resonable Balance alternative to
the Chaotic demons. Overall, the magic system looks quite good:
beginning characters are unlikely to be able to seriously unbalance
play with it, but it leaves more than enough room for insanely
powerful sorcerors (I can't wait for a Pan Tang supplement) [Sorcerers
of Pan Tang, a Stormbringer supplement for Pan Tang, should still be
in print. It will take some conversion, but I think you'll find its
really good -sda].
Enchanted items, and items that are bound demons or elementals, are
well and thoroughly handled, and range in power from the fairly
trivial to, well, Stormbringer. The "Rumors" section in particular
gives good adventure seeds and item suggestions.
Two adventures are included with Elric!; the first, "The Weight of
Doom", is extremely brief, will not be deadly, and probably serves as
a good introduction to bigger and better things, but is a good
reminder that Law can be even less nice than Chaos. The second, "The
Thought That Counts" is also intended for beginning adventurers, and
is a pretty fair version of the "Retrieve a Valuable Thing At Some
Personal Risk" plotline, with a nice twist and not one, but two,
horrifying and repulsive demons. It should provide a fun couple of
hours.
A few more notes before I rave about the background:
The Spot Rules for combat and demons are great. You won't need them
much, hence Spot Rules, but they cover a pretty wide variety of
situations.
I wish they had used a different font. The highlight/heading text is
that annoying Jurassic Park font and it's really getting to me. They
layout is otherwise splendid, though, and the art is extremely
well-done.
And Chaosium really should employ a good proofreader. There are lots
of silly and easily avoidable spelling errors, bits of poor syntax,
and the like. It's no worse than most first printings, but I
certainly hope the second run fixes these up.
On to the background of the Young Kingdoms:
It's amazing. It's fantastic. This is one of the neatest worlds to
roleplay in ever created, and Chaosium has done a bang-up job with it.
The creatures are well-presented and suitably deadly, the NPCs are a
good assortment of the major characters from the novel, and
well-translated into the Elric! mechanics. The geography is coherent,
well-described, and varied. The discussion of "Gods and Cults" seems
faithful to Moorcock, suitably creepy and pretty complete. The whole
is copiously annotated with notes from the novels, including _The
Fortress Of The Pearl_ and _The Revenge Of the Rose_.
Like CoC, the background is complete enough that you could probably
successfully run games under the system without ever reading the
source material. Also like CoC, you probably wouldn't want to; I
personally can't imagine somebody who would want to play or run an
Elric! game but _not_ read the novels. If you read the novels and
liked them, you'll love the background. If you haven't read them, and
are considering buying Elric!, you should read at least a couple
before you decide whether or not to. If you read them and didn't like
them, you probably have no interest in the game. The atmosphere of
Moorcock's books is preserved quite well. Expect characters to die
frequently and spectacularly. If you were looking for a lighthearted
change of pace from Call Of Cthulhu, this isn't it. Try Toon instead.
The background is the best reason to buy Elric!; the forthcoming
supplement of Melnibone ought to be excellent as well.
Overall, I liked Elric! very much. However, I'm not sure if it's
worth $19.95, especially if you play Stormbringer and are happy with
it. The mechanics rate about seven out of ten; the layout, art, and
overall appearance are also a seven, provisionally an eight once the
spelling and grammar is cleaned up. The writing is generally very
good, perhaps an eight or a nine, and the background material is
without parallel. It looks like gameplay should be fast and smooth
(most rolls resolve to a quick lookup on a matrix), and it's certainly
got the excitingly dark and menacing feel of Moorcock's world.
Adam Thornton
--------------------
From: Richard Watts
Subject: Foreigners in the Dreaming City
System: Elric!
This is an excerpt from Chaosium's upcoming Melnibone book. This
excerpt is copyright 1993 by Chaosium Inc.; all rights reserved.
FOREIGNERS IN THE DREAMING CITY
Only in the last 300 years have humans been allowed within Imrryr on
any basis other than slavery. The first free humans to visit the
Dreaming City were a delegation from the newly independent nation of
Lormyr, representing Queen Eloarde. They were permitted no further
than a small section of the harbor, and the Tower of Monshanjik.
These areas were considered soiled by the human's presence, and have
been abandoned by most Imrryrians ever since.
Today, with concessions gained by successive delegations of
ambassadors and merchants, humans may enter the harbor and trading
areas of Monshanjik Tower relatively freely. Access to any other area
of the city is strictly limited. Many Melniboneans find the presence
of civilized humans (as opposed to their slaves) quite intolerable,
while the best treatment humans can expect is patronizing amusement
from their impassive, alien hosts. When speaking to humans, most
Melniboneans speak slowly and use small words, as if talking to a
child. Melniboneans are always surprised if a human speaks
Melnibonean. Human who dare speak the High Tongue risk arrest for
sacrilege, and execution. Considerable rules restrict the actions of
any human in Imrryr. The five main laws are summarized in a document
known as the Visitor's Code, also referred to as the Harbor Edict,
first written about 25 years ago. All visitors to the Dreaming City
must memorize it, and unless they can show familiarity with it, are
generally forbidden to leave their ship. Such orders come not from
the Melniboneans, but from the Captain, who is usually loath to lose
any passengers or crew members to an infringement of the port rules...
As well as the five principal rules of the Harbor Edict, there are a
complex web of minor rules and regulations, to which new decrees are
added regularly. The most recent was the banning of any inhabitant of
the Isle of Purple Towns, or any person known to do business with
them. The Purple Towners are actively attempting to rival Imrryr as a
center of trade. This has not harmed Melnibone in any way, but the
humans should be punished for their hubris. Hence they are forbidden
from Melnibone and her wonders.
THE HARBOR EDICT
NOTICE WHEREBY HUMAN PETITIONERS MAY PRESENT THEMSELVES FOR
CONSIDERATION OF ADMITTANCE TO IMRRYR THE BEAUTIFUL, CITY OF DREAMS,
AUGUST CAPITAL OF THE BRIGHT EMPIRE AND BELOVED OF ARIOCH, LORD OF THE
SEVEN DARKS, DUKE OF CHAOS, KNIGHT OF THE SWORDS, AND MOST DREAD LORD
OF ENTROPY.
Compiled this day being the 9125th day of the rule of his Most
Beatific Imperial Majesty, King Sadric the Eighty-Sixth, Emperor by
Right of Birth, Inheritor of the Ruby Throne, Bearer of the Actorios,
Master of Melnibone, Exponent of Her Secret Arts, by the hand of
Vasarik Dvorn, unworthy scribe of her most blessed by the command of
the Emperor and fortunate Lady T'varla Ryun, Dragon Princess, Mistress
of the Dark Calling, Adept of the Order of the Whispering Phoenix, who
states that it is her unfortunate but devoted task to record for the
benefit of mere humans the instructions of the 427th Emperor of the
Ruby Throne, as concerning the entrance of such cattle into the bounds
of the Dreaming City.
RULE THE FIRST
No human may enter the gates of Imrryr with purpose of mind other than
trade with emissaries of the Ruby Throne, or humbly seeking knowledge
from her inhabitants, knowing full well that those of the Dragon Isle
are their superiors in all areas of wisdom and enlightenment.
Treacherous humans who by duplicity or with malice aforethought seek
admittance to Imrryr shall be taken forthwith to the Tower of
Monshanjik by Knights of the Order of the Eagle, there to be given
over to the pleasures of the Master Inquisitor, artist of pain.
RULE THE SECOND
It is forbidden for any save those of the blood of the Dragon Isle,
pure and unsullied with lesser ichor, to be conversant with the
mysteries of the labyrinth whereby the entrance ways of Imrryr are
guarded. All foreigners must, when entering the harbor of the
Dreaming City, be masked when in command of a ship, so that
Melnibone's pilots may guide them with skill and wisdom through the
pathways of the maze, while those of no rank such as and including
passengers and common sailors will take themselves below deck on pain
of blinding. Those that seek to learn and navigate the secret ways
through the revered sea-maze of Monshanjik shall have their eyes put
out.
RULE THE THIRD
Once admittance to the harbor is gained, no human shall speak to one
of Melnibonean blood unless spoken to, nor shall any human stand
higher than one of the Dragon Isle, abasing themselves forthwith and
prostrate upon the floor when a citizen of Imrryr passes by or enters
into the room. When so honored as to share the presence of Prince or
Princess of Dragons, who must not be sullied by human gaze, humans
will avert their eyes, never looking directly at one who shares the
blood of the Ruby Throne, else be executed, or enslaved, or given over
to the meritorious Master Inquisitor and his companion
vivisectartistes.
RULE THE FOURTH
That section of the harbor north of the Tower of Monshanjik up to the
base of the Great Wall shall be deemed the Foreign Quarter, and is
appointed to the use and practices of those aliens present in our
Dreaming City. This area alone may be inhabited by the transient
human visitors for a period not more than seven days and seven nights,
being a week in the common reckoning, unless in position of rare
privilege. Any human lingering in the harbor after the elapse of
their period of entry shall be expelled forthwith, or enslaved, or
given up to the tender ministrations of His Most Beatific Emperor's
beloved Master Inquisitor.
RULE THE FIFTH
Access to any other area of Imrryr other than that declared officially
Foreign is denied, forbidden, and foresworn by those of foreign blood,
unless in extraordinary circumstances which must include authorization
from the Ruby Throne, including guaranteed bonds of behavior and
obeyance to Melnibonean commands of authority from the human in
question, together with the recommendation and guarantee of at least
one noble from the Imperial Court who knows full well that the
breaking of any laws by the foreigner they sponsor shall result in
their own punishment and humiliation by Royal Edict and Decree.
--------------------
From: appel@erzo.berkeley.edu (Shannon Appel)
Subject: Stormbringer Reviews
System: Elric!
With the release of Elric!, some of you might be interested in knowing
what Young Kingdom supplements are already out there. There are
currently four items still in print (Rogue Mistress, Sorcerers of Pan
Tang, Perils of the Young Kingdoms and Sea Kings of the Purple Towns).
I'll leave it for others to comment on these. Here, I have put down
my thoughts on the many out of print Stormbringer supplements (as a
sort of companion to my 'Pendragon First Edition Reviews' in V2.6 of
the digest).
Stormbringer First Edition (2006-X)
Stormbringer Second Edition (2101-X)
Stormbringer Third Edition (2109-H)
The first three editions of Stormbringer were all essentially the
same. There were no major changes in the rules, although the
organization changed in each version. First edition was a deep box
with one square-bound book, while the second edition was a shallow box
containing three books. The third edition was a very nice looking
hard cover book produced by Games Workshop. Besides the rules, it
also contained the Stormbringer Companion (2102).
The original editions of Stormbringer aren't really worth getting,
except for historical curiosity. The rules in the fourth edition and
Elric! are much more mature. If you do want to pick up one, try and
find the GW hardcover. It's definitely the prettiest, worth the price
in that alone.
Stormbringer Companion (2102)
This was a fun companion, useful in its time. It has new creatures,
many of which are not in Elric!, notes on exotic treasures and several
adventures. The adventures were all short and easy to introduce into
a game; I found them useful last time I ran a Stormbringer game. The
Companion was entirely reprinted in the Third edition of Stormbringer
and mostly reprinted in the Fourth (minus two solos). If you just
have the Fourth edition, all of the good stuff is there.
Demon Magic (2103)
Demon Magic (The Second Stormbringer Companion) was one of the best
two supplements done for the original Stormbringer. A few of the
items are no longer relevent (such as the demon special abilities).
However, Demon Magic also contained notes on magic items and creatures
which are still quite useful and two adventures (one of which, The
Velvet Circle, I'd rate as superb).
Stealer of Souls (2104)
Black Sword (2105)
This was an adventure done in two parts that I never found too
appealing. It does an excellent job of fitting in with the timeline
of the Elric stories (in fact, Elric is one of the prime movers of the
tale). However, I found it too large and felt that the adventurers
were too overshadowed. The supplements do have a small amount of
useful information. Stealer of Souls gives some info on Bakshaan
while Black Sword provides some notes on Nasdokor and Org. The
adventure, however, forms the majority of the supplements.
Hawkmoon (2106-X)
Hawkmoon was really presented as a new game, not a supplement to
Stormbringer. It's an fair depiction of the Tragic Millenium Earth
that Michael Moorcock describes in his seven books about Hawkmoon.
When the Hawkmoon! supplement for Elric! is released, it will no doubt
be a really good game. For now though, this is the game to buy.
The Shattered Isle (2107)
The Shattered Isle has some interesting notes on the Hawkmoon world,
including some new rules, some new technology, and notes on the Orders
of Granbretan. The two adventures in TSI were fairly good. I
actually thought they were more true to the original Hawkmoon series
than the game itself. Probably worth picking up.
White Wolf (2108)
This supplement was the other Stormbringer book that I'd rate as one
of the best. It contains useful scenerios on three different temples
of the Young Kingdoms (temples to Mabelrode, Kakatal and Donblas), all
in a standard easy-to-reference format. There are also good ship
rules for the Eternal Champion games (with stats for lots of Young
Kingdom ships, including the Battle Barge) and a somewhat interesting
adventure. Like Demon Magic, you should get this book if you see it.
Stormbringer Fourth Edition (2110)
The Fourth Edition of Stormbringer, a square bound book, fixes many
problems of the original editions. Still, it's not as good of a game
as Elric! Grab it if you want the artwork or the adventures.
Otherwise, it's not terribly useful.
Although they are no longer being distributed, Sam says that Chaosium
still has a few copies of the following books available directly:
White Wolf, Shattered Isle, Stealer of Souls, Stormbringer Companion
If you liked Elric! and are interested in older stuff, you might want
to give them a call (or check out the four Stormbringer books that
are still in print).
Shannon
--------------------
The Chaosium Digest is a Discussion Forum for Chaosium Games which do
not have another specific area for discussion. To submit an article,
mail to: appel@erzo.berkeley.edu
