Lords of Chaos! Free League also producing a Stormbringer game?

Well this is a bit confusing. Just two days ago I mentioned that Goodman Games announced that they will be producing material based upon Michael Moorcock’s “Elric” novels for the Dungeon Crawl Classics and 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons role-playing games.

Now it looks like the Free League also will be getting in on the Eternal Champion multiverse action, with Legends of Stormbringer, based upon their Dragonbane system. (Hat tip to Todd S for alerting me to this in his comment on my previous post.)

“Today, we are thrilled to announce Legends of Stormbringer, a new officially licensed tabletop roleplaying game based on the iconic fantasy works of Michael Moorcock, planned for release in 2027.

Legends of Stormbringer will carry you into the Young Kingdoms – a world of dying empires, warring gods, and doomed heroes – and bring Moorcock’s richly imagined setting to the tabletop using rules mechanics based on our award-winning Dragonbane RPG. The game will feature the same accessible, dynamic, and deadly approach that has made Dragonbane one of our most celebrated titles.

Returning to the Young Kingdoms as setting writer is Richard Watts, whose work on previous Stormbringer RPGs helped define how generations of roleplayers have experienced Moorcock’s world.”

This announcement is a lot more interesting and appealing to me than the one from Goodman Games, given Watts’s involvement and the use of Dragonbane instead of DCC or 5e D&D. I have yet to actually play Dragonbane, but I own and have read it. My overall impression of the game is quite positive. Moreover, since Dragonbane is descended from the Basic Roleplaying System – just as were Chaosium’s various editions of Stormbringer – there is greater continuity here with previous Eternal Champion role-playing material than there is with Good Games’ projects. This continuity is reinforced with Watts’s involvement.  

But I have to confess that I’m a bit confused by these multiple announcements! Given the setting in question, though, I suppose that this kind of Chaos is appropriate. 

By Arioch!

Mournblade soon available in English

It’s been about a decade since the last official Elric-based roleplaying game went out of print in the English-speaking world: the excellent Elric of Melniboné (EoM) supplements written for Mongoose’s RuneQuest II (MRQII).

 

(More information about this line is available here. I had the good fortune to play in a MRQII EoM campaign with one of the line’s primary authors, Lawrence Whitaker; the first two-thirds of that campaign are described here. Since Mythras is a direct descendant of MRQII, it should be easy to use the EoM books with Mythras, should you be able to track them down. Tragically, the books are not available even in PDF anymore.)

 

In France, however, there is an Elric FRPG that has remained in print during this time: Mournblade from Le Département. (A brief overview is available here. Interestingly, Mournblade seems to draw quite a bit on Whitaker’s “flavour” work for EoM, that is, material on the history, cultures, etc., of the Young Kingdoms.)

 

I’ve long been intrigued by Mournblade and would’ve liked to read it. Alas, my Ontario high-school-mandated French proficiency has atrophied far too badly over the decades for such an endeavour to be viable.

 

Fortunately, an English version of the Mournblade “starter set” will soon be available in PDF as part of the Kickstarter campaign by Le Département for their boardgame Elric: Rise of the Young Kingdoms. You can “support” the KS for €10 and get the entire Mournblade set but nothing having to do with the boardgame. (This strikes me as quite odd, something I’ve never encountered before. But since I don’t want the boardgame—it looks beautiful, but I doubt I’d ever be able to play it—but I do want the FRPG starter set, I’m happy for this option.)

 

Here's what you get with the starter set (all digital):

 

• A 56-page rulebook containing core rules, a bit of sorcery, and equipment needed to fight in the Young Kingdoms.
• A 30-page quest book Dangerous Games. This quest is an introduction to the world of Mournbalde. While alternating between action and combat, players will be able to explore the fundamentals of the game.
• 6 pre-generated characters to choose from, including a sorcerer from Pan Tang, a brave Captain of the Purple Towns and a sellsword from Lormyr.
• An HD original map of the Young Kingdoms

 

Apparently the complete Mournblade line will be released in English eventually, so this is a relatively low-cost way to check out what the game is like.

 

Michael Moorcock’s “Eternal Champion” setting—especially the stories concerning Corum and Elric—remain one of my favourites, especially for role-playing campaigns. So I’ll be getting this Starter Set.

 

Blood and Souls for Arioch!

 

Elric coming to the small screen?

According to Deadline we might see an Elric TV series someday:

“New Republic Pictures’ Brian Oliver and producer Bradley J. Fischer acquired the exclusive rights to all works in Michael Moorcock’s seminal fantasy-horror series The Elric Saga. They are beginning to shop the property for series, with Glen Mazzara (The Walking Dead and The Shield) and Prison Break and Star Trek: Discovery‘s Vaun Wilmott attached to adapt the sci-fi fantasy tale.” 

“Fischer and New Republic see the Elric saga — which begins with the 1972 novel Elric of Melniboné, as having cross-platform franchise potential. They are first leaning into the TV series with Mazzara & Wilmott. The novels are sensual and atmospheric sword-and-sorcery tales that center on the title character, a brooding albino warrior who presides over an unruly, decadent island nation. The novels follow Elric on a series of adventures, in which he is betrayed by his cousin, sent into exile and attempts to come to terms with his own humanity. The series comprises 11 novels and a number of short stories and has been adapted into several comics and graphic novels.”

While this wheel looks to be turning, the TV series (if it materializes) will not be happening in the near future.

In contrast, BBC Studios’ adaptation of the Runestaff tetralogy appears to be further along...

(Hat tip to C. Robichaud for the Elric news.)

Hawkmoon is coming to the small screen

Well this interesting: BBC Studios is adapting Michael Moorcock’s Runestaff tetralogy into a television series.

Hawkmoon is not my favourite character amongst Moocock’s ‘Eternal Champions’—I find Corum, Elric, and von Bek to be more nuanced and engaging protagonists. But some of Hawkmoon’s companions, such as Huillam d'Averc and Oladahn, are quite colourful. And the main villains of the series—like the withered and ancient Emperor Huon, who dwells in a fluid-filled sphere in Londra, and the sybaritic and cunning Baron Meliadus, who is Hawkmoon’s chief antagonist throughout the series—are brilliant. The Granbretans in general should be interesting to watch, as they wear animal masks at all times in public (the subjects of the Emperor belong to various ‘orders’, each with their own totemic animal).

But the star of the series, if it’s done properly, may be the setting itself: the post-‘Tragic Millennium’ future earth, wherein the vile Empire of Granbretan threatens all of Europe and, indeed, the world. The series encompasses much of this world—from Syria and the Ukraine in the east, to North America in the west—so it has the potential to showcase some amazing scenery and sets. And then there are the battles: I look forward to scenes wherein the warriors of Count Brass’s Kamarg, mounted on giant flying flamingos, are met by the Granbretans’ baroque ornithopters and terrible ‘flame lances’. 

Hopefully BBC Studios will do justice to Moocock’s world and story. I’m cautiously enthusiastic…

Maps!

A noteworthy recent article from The Onion: “Grown Man Refers To Map At Beginning Of Novel To Find Out Where Ruined Castle Of Arnoth Is Located.” (Um… what’s so funny about that?)

On a more serious note, I very much doubt that I would have become as enthralled with fantasy fiction and role-playing games were it not for maps. I love them!

Professor Tolkien’s maps of Middle-earth inflamed my imagination as a young lad reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings almost as much as the stories themselves. When I listed my top five favourite fantasy artists of all time in this blog, number four was Pete Fenlon, simply because of his wonderful maps for ICE’s Middle-earth line during the 1980s. Here is one sample:

This map of the ‘Young Kingdoms’ made the world of Elric feel alive and exciting to me when I read Michael Moorcock’s novels as a teenager:

Here is the (somewhat superior) version of that map included in the Stormbringer RPG:

One of my favourite contemporary fantasy writers is Joe Abercrombie. His ‘First Law’ novels are superb. But something that vexed me greatly about the original trilogy was the lack of any maps. I vaguely recall that Abercrombie gave some half-baked rationalization for not including maps, but thankfully he subsequently has relented on this matter. The short story collection Sharp Ends provides readers—finally!—with an ‘official’ map of the ‘First Law’ world.

Maps: they exist for a reason people!

Some more Chaosium news

Following up on the big change over at Chaosium, Sandy Petersen chats at Yog-Sothoth.  Among other things, he speculates on the possibility of bringing Pendragon and Glorantha back to Chaosium in some way.  Of greatest interest to me, Petersen proposes that Chaosium will steer more carefully their BRP (Basic Role-Playing) line of products, including Magic World (the 'de-Moorcockized' version of Stormbringer 5th edition).

Also, Chaosium is having a big clearance sale!

Luther Arkwright and the Tyrant of New Toronto

The Design Mechanism has released a preview PDF for their forthcoming RuneQuest 6 book, Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels.  Check it out here (link opens the PDF directly).

This is the basic premise of the setting:

"The Characters are agents of the Valhalla Project, people aware of the existence of the multiverse and possessed of talents and qualities the Valhalla Project needs in its bid to safeguard and preserve the fundamental structure of the parallels. Other forces, principally those known as The Disruptors, seek to destabilise or control the multiverse for their own ends. The Valhalla Project’s agents oppose these plans and frequently work in the shadows, frequently alone, to target Disruptors and ensure that each parallel is free to develop without a malign, external influence."

I’ve only skimmed the preview PDF, but it exudes a strong Moorcock-ish and steampunk-ish vibe.  And the book looks to be loaded with game material that will be helpful for RQ games independent of the Arkwright setting.

But as someone who has spent much of his adult life in Toronto, and continues to do so, I could not help notice that the book’s main scenario is set in a place called “New Toronto.”  New Toronto apparently is located in a parallel universe enduring a horrific ice age following the misuse of terra-forming technology. 

Here is a snippet from page 135:

“Only a few hundred years since the last glaciation, society has already reached an early industrial age with ice-clippers carving paths across the ice from settlement to settlement.
The largest settlement, with over 10,000 people is New Toronto, built on the remains of the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto megaplex. The settlement’s leader is Mayor Frode, a massively corpulent man, assisted by a clockwork exoskeleton. More and more people flock to New Toronto when word spreads of the available work and relatively plentiful resources.”

Mayor Frode?  Sure, the new ice age is horrible and everything, but another Ford, er, Frode regime in Toronto is just too terrifying to contemplate – even in a fantasy role-playing game!

[Behold, the eyes of pure evil]

Michael Moorcock, the Anti-Tolkien

There is a nice piece in the current The New Yorker on Michael Moorcock entitled "The Anti-Tolkien."

While Moorcock's style of fantasy is radically different from Tolkien's in almost every respect, and Moorcock himself famously criticized Tolkien's work, I have been a great fan of both authors for at least three decades now.  Indeed, I can't imagine what contemporary fantasy literature (or role-playing games) would be like without both of them!

Anyhow, happy 75th, Mr. Moorcock.  And happy 2015 to all lovers of fantasy!

The Hawkmoon Tetralogy

Over the past few years I’ve reread (or, in some cases, read for the first time) some of Michael Moorcock’s classic fantasy series.  I started with the two Corum trilogies, which I remembered as my favourites from decades ago.  I then reread the Elric stories.  Some of these (namely, those published after the late 1980s) I read for the for first time.  I found the Elric tales to be wide ranging in terms of quality, but at their best, they are wonderful and evocative, definitely ‘must reads’ for any fan of fantasy literature.  I also read The War Hound and the World’s Pain, which I thought was excellent.  Unfortunately, the subsequent novel, The City in the Autumn Stars, was a tedious slog, though the third one, The Dragon in the Sword, was somewhat better.  (The Dragon in the Sword actually is written from the perspective of Erekosë, and thus is also a sequel to The Silver Warriors.)   

Last year I reread the original Hawkmoon tetralogy, The History of the Runestaff.  (I still have my paperbacks from the late 1980s, when I read them whilst vacationing at my parents’ cottage on Lake Huron.)

I quite enjoyed them, although not as much as either Moorcock’s Corum or Elric sagas.  The main reason is that I found the main character, Dorian Hawkmoon, to be somewhat insipid.  While quite interesting things happen to Hawkmoon, he himself is a rather flavourless, stereotypical ‘noble hero.’  Both Corum and Elric are far more interesting characters.  (And I found Hawkmoon’s love interest, Yisselda, the daughter of Count Brass, to be a bland, traditional ‘damsel-in-distress.’)  

Fortunately, some of Hawkmoon’s companions are interesting.  There is the world-weary Count Brass, a grizzled veteran of many wars, now Lord Guardian of the Kamarg.  Also of note is Oladhan, an honourable dwarf and skilled archer, the hirsute son of a human and mountain giant.  Finally, there is the Frenchman Huillam d'Averc, who first encounters Hawkmoon whilst serving as a mercenary in the army of evil Granbretan, but later allies himself with the Kamarg.  D’Averc is far more witty, clever, and all-around interesting than Hawkmoon (he sort plays the ‘Han Solo’ to Hawkmoon’s ‘Luke Skywalker’).  The story improves markedly whenever he is featured.

But the characters who truly shine in the tetralogy are the villains, especially the various leaders of the malevolent Empire of Granbretan.  There is the hideous immortal King-Emperor Huon, preserved for countless centuries in an orb of life-preserving fluid, whose withered body resembles a wrinkled fetus, and who speaks with vocal chords torn from a melodic youth.  There is Baron Meliadus , a charismatic psychopath, who lusts after Yisselda (for reasons I can’t fathom), and seeks to crush the Kamarg at any cost.  He’s the kind of villain that one loves to hate.   There is Taragorm of the Palace of Time, whose mask is a working clock...

Ah yes, the masks.  One thing that makes the Granbretans so interesting as a people is the fact that they are compelled to wear masks whenever out in public.  Indeed, their whole society manifests a kind of mental illness.  All Granbretans belong to different ‘orders,’ each of which has its own official mask (the leaders wear ones shaped from fine metals, with gems, etc.), most of which are modeled on animals (wolves, rats, mantises, and so forth), though there are some exceptions (such as Taragorm’s clock).  The society overall is rigidly ordered and hierarchical, with baroque architecture and items that are mixes of technology and magic.  And it is, well, evil: Granbretans see their destiny to be that of dominating the world, and perhaps the multiverse, under the despotic rule of the undying Huon.  I would be hard pressed to think of a more colourful and frankly ‘fun’ evil empire in fantasy literature.

So I recommend reading the Hawkmoon tetralogy, but for the secondary characters, villains, and the distinctive setting -- not the protagonist!