Suvarna Garge (Editor)

Stormbringer (role playing game)

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Publisher(s)
  
Chaosium

Genre(s)
  
Fantasy

Designer(s)
  
Ken St. Andre, Lynn Willis et al.

Publication date
  
1981 (1st edition) 1985 (2nd edition) 1987 (3rd edition) 1990 (4th edition) 1993 (Elric!) 2001(5th edition)

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 game system, a percentile-dice-based system used in many role-playing games designed by Chaosium.

Contents

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 St. Andre; boxed set; cover art by Brunner
  • 3rd edition (1987) by St. Andre; book; published jointly with Games Workshop, cover art by Peter Jones (“PAJ”)
  • 4th edition (1990) by 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.
  • 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”, but in August 2007, Mongoose Publishing published the Elric of Melniboné RPG 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:
  • German edition (1989), boxed set, published by Citadel as Sturmbringer
  • 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 9515820014)
  • Italian edition (1993), softcover, published by Stratelibri
  • 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)

    • 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.

    References

    Stormbringer (role-playing game) Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA