The original game “Stormbringer” was released in 1981 (just before Call of Cthulhu), and was written mainly by Ken St Andre (of Tunnels and Trolls fame). Interestingly, Stormbringer was seen as the major release of the two at the time, but has since been eclipsed by the success of Call of Cthulhu. The setting was based on the original novel of the same name by Michael Moorecock, a celebrated fantasy writer, but encompassed all of his writings based upon the Elric character that had been written since the 60s. It also was part of an ‘Eternal Champion’ and ‘Multiverse’ mythos (both terms coined by Moorecock) and, as such, could have seen the line expand to other settings. This was only partially done, notably with a Hawkmoon spinoff game and intentions for others. Storm bringer was notable for having very dark, adult themes and a general tone of psychedelia, tragedy and fate. Characters could make pacts with demons for powers and become very powerful, at a price. It is a pretty good source for the origin of the Warlock class in D&D.
Storm bringer went through 4 editions, and altered the rules accordingly before a more wholesale revision came in 1993, when a new game was released under the title ‘Elric!’. The idea was to generally clean up the mechanics (which were very randomised and loose in parts) while also assuming that the title change would give greater recognition to fantasy fans. Later, a revised set of the same rules, but with a much improved layout, was released under the title ’Stormbinger 5th Edition’. This edition, in my view, is the best edition released for the game and the one I would always recommend to get above all others.
In the mid 2000s, Chaosium lost the rights to Stormbringer, mainly because of a falling out with Moorecock apparently, but the license was snatched up by Mongoose to coincide with their new version of RuneQuest. A new game - Elric of Melnibone - was released as a standalone game, but based on the Mongoose RuneQuest rules. It had some good qualities, being written by Lawrence Whittaker in the main (of RuneQuest 6 notoriety), but the layout was a bit murky and production standards a little variable. A second edition of this game was released in line with Mongoose’s RuneQuest II, but this one was not standalone and only ran for a short time before the RQII line as a whole was dropped. It could potentially have continued under the new ‘Legend’ moniker, but it appeared that profits were not good enough to continue. Whilst these editions had some problems, as mentioned, they did include some excellent writings.
As it stands there are no current editions of the game, although you can still get hold of them through Amazon. Nobody has indicated they want to make a new edition - although if your interested in the Moorecockian ‘multiverse’ aspect, The Design Mechanism are set to release a RuneQuest 6 setting book for Luther Arkwright, which carries a lot of similar themes. Likewise, if you are interested in the rules then they are all reproduced Chaosium’s ‘Magic World’ and ‘Advanced Sorcery’ books, just with the references to the literature edited out.
Thanks for the information, [MENTION=27252]TrippyHippy[/MENTION]!
