Stormbringer (role-playing game)
 Stormbringer 4th edition box cover, 1990. Illustration by Michael Whelan, 1977. |
|
| Designer(s) | Ken St. Andre, Lynn Willis et al. |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Chaosium |
| Publication date | 1981 (1st edition) 1985 (2nd edition) 1987 (3rd edition) 1990 (4th edition) 1993 (Elric!) 2001(5th edition) |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy |
| System(s) | 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!) and uses the Basic Role-Playing[1]game system, a percentile-dice-based system used in many role-playing games designed by Chaosium.
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; boxed set; 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 Chaosium in 1978[2] and subsequently by Hobby Japan in 1981[citation needed] and Avalon Hill in 1984.[3]
- 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”, [4] but in August 2007, Mongoose Publishing published the Elric of Melniboné RPG[5] by Lawrence Whittaker, which is based on the RuneQuest rules system.
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:
- Spanish edition (1990), hardcover, published by Joc Internacional, same cover art as the American version: Michael Whelan (ISBN 84-7831-036-3)
- French edition (1991), boxed set, published by Oriflam, same cover art as the American version (Michael Whelan)
- Finnish edition (1992), softcover, published by Finnish Gamehouse (ISBN 951 582 001 4)
- Italian edition (1993), softcover, published by Stratelibri
- Elric!
- Japanese edition (1993), soft-cover, published by Hobby Japan, cover art by Yasushi Nirasawa
- French edition (1994), hardback, published by Oriflam, cover art by Hubert de Lartigue
- Spanish edition (October 1997), soft-cover, published by Joc Internacional as Elric, without any exclamation mark, cover art by Frank Brunner (ISBN 84-7831-154-8)[6]
- 5th edition:
- Japanese edition (2006), soft-cover, published by enterbrain, cover art by Yoshitaka Amano
- Spanish edition (Elric, 2002), hardcover, published by La Factoría de Ideas as Elric, without any exclamation mark, same cover art as the American version: John T. Snyder (ISBN 84-8421-482-6)[7]
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.
Bibliography
- 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
References
- ^ Writtle, Murray (February/March 1982). "Open Box: Stormbringer". White Dwarf (review) (Games Workshop) (29): 15. ISSN 0265-8712.
- ^ Elric boardgame as described in Boardgame geek.com, a board games specialized website
- ^ Elric boardgame as described in Boardgame geek.com, c. the image gallery
- ^ "Stormbringer - Chaosium Inc.". Chaosium. Retrieved 2007-11-06.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-905850-13-6, see Elric of Melnibone RPG series
- ^ http://www.psnrol.com/biblioteca/seccion.php?juego=51&pag=0
- ^ http://www.psnrol.com/biblioteca/seccion.php?juego=52&pag=0
External links
- Chaosium.com —
- Stormbringer! - a website supporting all editions of the Stormbringer RPG
- 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)
