Stormbringer (role-playing game)
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| Stormbringer | |
| Designer | Ken St. Andre, Lynn Willis et al. |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Chaosium |
| Publication date | 1981 (1st edition) 1985 (2nd edition) 1987 (3rd edition) 1990 (4th edition) 1993 (Elric!) 2001(5th edition) |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy |
| System | Basic Role-Playing, d20 System |
The Stormbringer fantasy role-playing game published by Chaosium puts the players in the world of the Young Kingdoms, based on the Elric of Melniboné books by Michael Moorcock. The game takes its name from Elric’s sword, Stormbringer (though one edition was published as Elric!). The game system used is Basic Role-Playing[1], a percentile-dice-based system used in many role-playing games designed by Chaosium.
Contents |
[edit] History
The game has evolved through several editions over the years:
- 1st edition (1981) by Ken St. Andre; boxed set; cover art by Frank Brunner
- 2nd edition (1985) by Ken St. Andre; boxed set; cover art by Brunner
- 3rd edition (1987) by Ken St. Andre; book; published jointly with Games Workshop, cover art by Peter Jones (“PAJ”)
- 4th edition (1990) by Ken St. Andre, Steve Perrin, and John B. Monroe; book; cover art by Michael Whelan (from the 1977 DAW and 1986 Grafton editions of Michael Moorcock’s Stormbringer)
- Elric! (1993) by Lynn Willis, Richard Watts, Mark Morrison, Jimmie W. Pursell Jr., Sam Shirley, and Joshua Shaw; book; cover art by Brunner (same as 2nd edition). The purpose of the “!” was to distinguish the role-playing game from the Elric board game published by Avalon Hill, Chaosium, and Hobby Japan in 1981.
- 5th edition (2001) by Lynn Willis, book, cover art by John T. Snyder
In 2001, Chaosium also published a d20 System version of the game as Dragon Lords of Melniboné, with cover art by Brunner.
As of November 2007, “Chaosium no longer [p]roduces new books for the Stormbringer roleplaying game”, [2] but in August 2007, Mongoose Publishing published the Elric of Melniboné RPG[3] by Lawrence Whittaker, which is based on the RuneQuest rules system.
[edit] Translations
- 2nd edition:
- French edition (1987), boxed set, published by Oriflam
- Japanese edition (1988), boxed set, published by Hobby Japan, cover art by Yoshitaka Amano
- 3rd edition:
- 4th edition:
- French edition (1991), boxed set, published by Oriflam
- Finnish edition (1992), softcover, published by Finnish Gamehouse (ISBN 951 582 001 4)
- Italian edition (1993), softcover, published by Stratelibri
- Spanish edition (1995), hardcover, published by Joc Internacional, cover art by Michael Whelan
- Elric!
- Japanese edition (1993), soft-cover, published by Hobby Japan, cover art by Yasushi Nirasawa
- French edition (1994), hardback, published by Oriflam, cover by Herbert de Lartigue
- 5th edition:
- Spanish edition (2002), hardcover, published by La Factoria de Ideas, same cover art as the english version (ISBN 978 848 421 482 3)
- Japanese edition (2006), soft-cover, published by enterbrain, cover art by Yoshitaka Amano
[edit] System
Versions 1-3 are functionally similar, version 4 changed the magic system extensively, Elric! was a substantial reworking of the game, and version 5 is a new layout of the Elric! rules, with additional material from several older game supplements that are no longer in print. The spanish version also includes excerpts from the Dragon Lords of Melniboné book.
[edit] References
- ^ Writtle, Murray (February/March 1982). "Open Box: Stormbringer" (review). White Dwarf (Issue 29): 15. Games Workshop. ISSN 0265-8712.
- ^ Stormbringer - Chaosium Inc. (HTML). Chaosium. Retrieved on 2007-11-06.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-905850-13-6, see Elric of Melnibone RPG series
- Lynn Willis. Stormbringer 5th edition (Chaosium, 2001) ISBN 1-56882-152-2
- Charlie Krank, Lynn Willis, Richard Watts. Dragon Lords of Melniboné (Chaosium, 2001) ISBN 1-56882-150-6
[edit] External links
- Chaosium.com —
- ABCdaire des Jeux de Rôle Stormbringer (list of French editions and supplements)
- ストームブリンガー／エルリック！ ゲームコレクション (list of Japanese editions and supplements)
