Dragon Lords of Melnibone

[ColonelHardisson]

I just got mine yesterday, and have been voraciously devouring it since.
First off, there is a section that introduces the reader to the Elric saga, and provides a quick overview of the lands and people. These descriptions of the stories and setting are generally clear and concise, if by necessity a bit bland - limited space necessitates a lack of purple prose. A neat little treat is a pronunciation guide that shows me that I've pronounced Melnibone wrong for much of my lifetime. Ah well.

Next is the "Adventures" section which presents Myyrrhn and Melniboneans as PC races. Both are interesting, with the Melniboneans being the more interesting of the two, of course.
The Myyrrhn have a new Feat: Pounce & Strike.
An overview of Young Kingdoms adventurers comes next, detailing what skills, feats, religions, weapons, armors, and Allegiance (Law, Neutrality, Chaos) each favors. There is also a sidebar of PC classes available by region.
Sections deal with prices of common items, and with armor and weapons.
Two new "soldier" feats are sidebarred: Close-Order Fighting and Set Spear.
In addition, there is the Sailor class, which is really an Expert sub-class.
Finishing up the section are some sample beginning characters and a character sheet.
A good, useful section overall.

Next is the Game System section. Allegiance is detailed here, as well as Heroic Actions, new skills, a fumble chart, and a major wound (critical) effects chart.
Allegiance is, of course, the equivalent of alignment in Elric's world. Wanna become a god? Well, actually, more a Champion of one of the allegiances, really. That's what Apotheosis covers. Nifty.
New skills: Conceal Object, Fly, Perform (Oratory), Sailing, Scent/Taste, and Trap. Sailing really could've been more properly termed Profession (Sailing) or Knowledge (Sailing), but that's really more a minor quibble than anything. Another solid section of crunchy rules stuff.

Magic & Religion is next.
There are new spells, of course: Bounty of Straasha, Brazier of Power, Buzzard Eyes, Chain of Being, Chaos Warp, Cloak of Cran Liret, Curse of Chaos, Demon's Eye, Detect Balance, Detect Chaos, Detect Law, Dispel Balance, Disrupt Undead, Field of Law, Forbiddance, Four-In-One, Fury, Gift of Grome, Hell's Bulwark, Hell's Hammer, Hell's Razor, Hell's Sharp Flame, Hell's Talons, Magic Circle Against Balance, Make Fast, Make Whole, Membrane of Law, Pox, Protection From Balance, Rat Vision, Soul of Chardros, Invoke Beast Lord/Plant Lord, Summon Monster I-IX, Tread of Cran Liret, Visage of Arioch, and Wisdom of Slortar. All seem properly Moorcockian to me.
There is a nice overview of religion, gods, elementals, and lords, including how to invoke these beings.
Of course, the "star" of this section, if not the entire book, is the section on demons. What they can do, what you can do with them, and how to "make" a demon is the bulk of it, and seems rather thorough to me. If you have any interest in a different way to use magic, here you go.

Next is the Demons, Monsters, Folk, & Heroes section. I love this stuff: basically a mini-Monster Manual/Rogue's Gallery.
The monsters include just about everything that was in the Melnibonean Mythos section of the legendary old Deities and Demigods. All strange, all imaginative. Plus, a lot of critters I haven't seen before, including a small section of what I guess you could call "stock" demons.
The NPC section contains stats for stock characters like City Guards, Decadent Nobles, and Innkeepers. What I liked about these is the use of the DMG's NPC classes; you'll find a lot of Commoners, Warriors, Experts, and Aristocrats here.
Of course, major characters from the books appear as well: Elric chief among them, naturally, as well as Stormbringer. Man oh man is Stormbringer tough. Elric's Ring of Kings is also detailed, and is pretty potent in its own right, but not anywhere Stormbringer's league. It's also not much like its Deities and Demigods incarnation, and neither is Stormbringer, for that matter. Elric faintly echoes the stats in Deities and Demigods, though.
There are two things about this section that make me uncomfortable:
1. High, high level characters. Elric, for example, is a FTR8/WIZ20. There are other NPCs similarly high in level. I can see the logic, but since D&D doesn't accomodate anything above 20, yet, there are no other NPCs of such power with which to compare them.
2. Skills. As Dragoth pointed out, Chaosium's welcome (to me) habit of tossing in some off-the-wall skills (such as the City Guards' Ask Annoying Questions+4) in order to help provide a bit of color is present in its first d20 offering. Whereas Dragoth felt that Chaosium might have "cheated" some of these characters out of "real" skill points for these touches of color, my first look at them seems to indicate that, in general, these pseudo-skills did not take up any skill points. In fact, a number of the NPCs seem to have too many skills even if you don't count the pseudo-skills. I'm still looking at them, though.

There is a brief DM section, with some tips about DMing a Young Kingdoms campaign, the virtually nonexistent mass combat section, and a section of campaign hook rumors.

All in all, this is a great book. I'm a big Elric fan, and I was not at all disappointed. However, it may not be for everyone. There isn't enough background for non-Elric fans to really get a "feel" for the setting. For fans, however, this book is just the ticket. I'd keep a close eye on the skills of the NPCs, is such stuff bother you, and of course we haven't had a chance to really try out the spells, skills, feats, demons, etc. - but they all look solid enough to me.
The art is generally fantastic; all of it is black and white line art. As Chaosium notes on the publishing details page, much of the art came from out-of-print overseas editions of Elric. That gives the book a bit of extra "oomph" that other d20 publishers generally don't have the resources to provide.
The map provided isn't that great, but it'll do.

 

[Merlin]

I had been patiently waiting for DragonLords for about 6 weeks, only to find that my local hobby store had sold my copy with a self righteous smirk as if to say "What do you expect? It's very popular". A 70 mile dash to another city provided gratification, if not quite immediate.

ColonelH has provided a good overview of the sections, which cleverly captures true essence of chaos that drives the novels; i.e. the contents could have been structured better.

There is a lot of material in the book, but in general you better know the world in which the rules take place. This has always been an assumption by the developers of the game, when it was Stormbringer, but for this d20 printing it is even more needed than before. However, with Elric back in reprint (have the novels really ever been out of print) a lazy weekend can have you in the feel without too much effort.

Magic

The demon magic has always set Elric/Stormbringer apart from other game mechanics. Dragonlords has not failed to continue that heritage. The summoning of demons is a great mechanic for any D+D setting. No longer is a talking door a mere magic mouth. In addition, demon weapons and demon armor capture a true feel for weapons manufactured from captured spirits. Damage resistance armor may cause some concerns for DMs, but with a major wound resulting from any attack doing more damage than CON, limbs will be a flying.

The mechanics are well designed to fit into the 3e spell system, each demon permanently consuming a spell slot while it is bound, though I fear many players will baulk at the xp cost.

The "Demons, Monsters, folk and heroes" has many examples of characters, both generic and specific characters from the novels, but quote a often used - incorrectly - word, they are *uber*. The monsters and demons are outstanding, and "different" feel to many of the existing d20 monsters.

My favorite in the whole system is alignment - allegiance - simply because it is not static. All characters have a rating in each of Balance, Law, Chaos that changes on the characters actions: calling demons, slaying demons, rescuing a distressed lord or damsel, brings points that changes these scores. The players actions truly dictate the characters alignment.

Finally, there is actually an index, a rarity for non WotC d20 products.

Rating: I'd buy it

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Let's start by saying that I am a full-on fanboy of the Elric Saga, and I was about to start converting ideas for my own campaign when I found DLoM on the shelf at one of my local hobby stores and had to snatch it up instead of the Psionics Handbook. As the other reviewers have pointed out, the game designers have assumed that you are already familiar with the Elric Saga (at least the original six novels), and for good reason-going into any major detail of the novels would (at least) double the size of the book. This is one time when I have to disagree with what my old History Professor used to tell us:Assume the reader has no idea of what you are talking about. With that in mind, I'm going to jump into the sections of the book.

The overview: the Games designers did an impressive job compiling all of the information into the few pages they have in the book to explain the world of Elric. I'm of the opinion that even a Novice DM could utilize this info to run a passable DLoM campaign, and if they did their research (Elric of Melnibone' and Stormbringer), they could get a real feel for the world. I especially like the way they described the various lands of the Saga, and how the people of those lands tend to act and interact with one another. The preferred classes section on each land gives the reader an idea of the type of people they will encounter. The preferred weapons also help the DM with characterization.

Young Kingdoms adventurers: This section is extremely helpful for DM's and Players alike. In addition to the standard fare (classes, money, new skills), the section also describes Melnibone' and Myrrhn adventurers. Melnibone'ans are not your standard Elves and HalfElves of 3E. In fact, I think a DM could do a lot of damage to a party that assumed they were facing a typical Elf. A Melnibone'an can potentially start with a bound demon with the addtional racial skills they get, Melnibone'an Characters are hard to pass up. Myrrhn characters are just as interesting: Charaters with functional wings! Imagine a Rogue with Wings! The Major Complaints I have with the Adventurers section: The Character sheet-It has two blocks for Demons and nothing for Feats. Take that as you will. Also, there is no description of the classes and their respective skills in the book, so the Core Books for 3e are mandatory. That makes it hard to sell this as a standalone product

The game system: unfortunately, there is little truly useful information here, aside from the Allegiance rules. In fact, they do not detail any skills or feats here, except for new skills, so you would have to have the Player's Handbook to utilize the book to it's fullest capability.

Magic: this section really opens up the d20 system for new magic systems. In the saga, all magic (including items) requires the summoning of some other creature, be it Elemental, Daemon, or Beast. No flashy Fireballs here! The Game Designers worked out the system very well, utilizing the sacrifice of XP and in some cases, ability points, to summon and bind daemons.

Religion: this section covers the alleginace rules more closely, and details the various Gods and Godlike Beings in the Saga. It also details Champions for the Powers, and how characters can become Champions.

The bestiary: this is good if you just want some new monsters that your players haven't seen yet and don't really understand how to defeat them..

The NPC catalog: great for fleshing out any NPC's the players might encounter.

The Saga Personalities: Fun stuff here! all of the major characters from the saga (and several minor characters) are fully detailed here, including the dreaded swords Stormbringer and Mournblade. These two are interesting in that they are given a full write up as a character (Stormbringer and Mournblade have the same stats).

After this, the book is mostly dealing with a few magic items and rumors, in addition to advice on how to run a Young Kingdoms campaign

The biggest complaints I have are the Character Sheets (no feats), the lack of any class or skill descriptions, and the fact that you must have the Core books for 3e to play the game. But for the DM who wants a Young Kingdoms campaign, you can't go wrong with this book. The price is a good buy, as well. Comparable with the core books, and more useful information and ideas than the specialty books (Sword and Fist et al)

 

[trancejeremy]

This book basically has 2 ratings. One for those that aren't familiar with Chaosium's Elric! and Stormbringer RPGs, and those who are...If you're not aware of the Elric! RPG, or own the Elric! rulebook, Dragon Lords of Melnibone (DLOM) appears to be a very good book.

OTOH, if you're like me, and own the Elric! RPG rulebook, you'll see that Chaosium basically just did a quick cut and paste job on it, replacing BRP (Basic Roleplaying, or d100) stats with d20 stats. Oh, they did a little more than that, like including some NPCs from the Stormbringer Companion. But not much more.

This has resulted in a lot of problems and weirdness in DLOM. The most notable example is the entire Demon Summoning/Binding system.

In the Elric! game, there is a stat called Power or 'Pow' for short. It is sacrificed to bind a demon, and also determines how many 'magic points' a character has, which are temporarily spent to determine the summoned demons characteristics and abilities and such. Besides the fact that the magic points regenerate rapidly, the Pow stat can be increaed fairly easily. So it's not that big a deal to summon a demon.

But in DLOM, instead of magic points being spent temporarily to determine a summoned demon's stats and abilities, experience points are permanently spent. And isntead of sacrificing a point of Pow to bind a demon (which was easily replaced in Elric), any ability point is sacrificed in DLOM. While it's not as hard to increase ability scores in d20 as it was in other versions of D&D, it's not nearly as easy to do as it is to increase Pow is in Elric. So, demon summoning (and binding, especially binding) is much more costly for the summoner than it should be. Far more, in some cases (like the 'Passing Demon', which eats 1 point of the caster's ability scores per day)

The Demon section in DLOM also repeatedly calls for opposed "Will:Will" rolls, which is just a seach and replace of the "Powow" roll from the Elric! rulebook. A opposed "Will:Will" roll is not explained anywhere in DLOM, but is a common Elric! (or BRP) mechanic requiring use of a chart where you compare two character's stats and make a d100 roll., In d20 terms, just roll a d20 for each character, and add the characters Will Save - whoever gets the higher score, wins

Another example of this, is the City Guard's skill at asking Embarassing Questions mentioned in the other reviews. This was lifted directly from Elric! as well...

The fumble/major wounds tables were also similarly lifted straight from Elric!, as is the Allegiance system. Those work well enough with d20, but culd have been tailored better to it, rather than just lifted almost verbatim.

They also fail to adhere to d20 conventions in a couple of places. Most notably, some races get -1 and +1 to their ability scores. Sorcery and Sorcerer is often used not in it's d20 sense (that of a character will innate spell casting ability), which can be confusing. Rather than using the Profession (Sailor) skill already in the d20 rules, they create their skill for sailing ability - Sailing. Their included new class, that of 'Sailor', is also pretty much a joke - it's just the Expert class with 10 skills picked.

The end result isn't a very good book. Not bad, since the Elric! RPG rulebook was pretty good (although notably lacking in some areas, like planar travel, which Elric does quite often). But the whole thing is very disappointing, because Chaosium apparently sees DLOM or d20 not as a viable game system of it's own, but simply a way of selling it's upcoming Elric 2.0 (or Stormbringer 5th edition, as it was recently renamed). The head of Chaosium admits as much on their website. And Chaosium employees have publically said they hate the d20 system. Which is their right, but they shouldn't go around making d20 products, then, should they?

A book based around Elric really written for the d20 system could have been really great. But instead, Chaosium did something reprehensible...just a quick hack job to sell their other game line...

Still, even so, the price is pretty good. Even though the type is pretty large, it's a thick book. $23 for 204 pages isn't bad at all. A similar book from WOTC would probably cost almost double that (they price the non-core books really high). And the artwork isn't bad, but isn't great. It recycles a lot of art from the Elric! book, but not much from the gorgeous GW edition of the Stormbringer game (other than using an interior plate from that as the cover art)

 

[redbeard]

I was looking forward to this D20 product. I'm a big fan of the Elric series, but I'd never picked up the Elric or Stormbringer games. So it pains me a bit to pan this book.

And the worst of it is that it COULD have been so much better.

So let me say a few good things first. There is a lot of color and game information culled from the Elric books, and most of it is in good D20 format.
There is also some creativity in adding new Elric-Saga-specific magic rules - in the allegiance system (Law, Balance, Chaos) and in the summoning of Demons.

I think that the Allegiance system won't be usable by most DMs - it is very saga-specific. But this is a book about the Elric saga, so that isn't a complaint. I do have some quibbles as to the writer's interpretations of how various character actions influence their rating with the powers-that-be, but that's my own interpretation of Law/Balance/Chaos. The ability to use (and risk) your rating by calling upon the powers is very interesting and will make even power gamers roleplay. I like that a lot. One of the coolest aspects of the Elric saga was the relation of wizards to the beings that they summoned. Chaosium attempts to capture that with the allegiance system.
The demon summoning rules would be easier to fit into any campaign. They make magic a lot more colorful and fantastic. Nearly every magic item in the book is actually an embedded demon!

But here is where my complaints begin. I don't think that they even play tested these rules in D20. Maybe they work well in their adaptation in the Elric rules, but from my examination, there is no way a player would use these abilities. They simply aren't balanced. Giving up an ability point score (wisdom) in order to have a magical item? I think the 3E mechanic of spending exp is more suited to the system.
Beyond balance, there are rules and abilities that aren't explained. A will check is easy enough to figure out, but what is this Power stat that is mentioned?
Not only did they not seem to have play tested it, it doesn't seem to have been edited very well. This power statistic is one of many such errors and contradictions in the text, and it is one that sticks out.

I also think that the writers don't understand the D20 system very well - skills especially. This isn't a system where you easily add micro skills relevant only in certain situations. Characters have only so many skill points, and if you add more skills you limit the ones that they already have. Let me show by example: the rouge has so many skill points (a lot) and in 3e if a rouge wants to search, disarm and set traps, there are a few skill points that she can spend on the skills disable device and search. Now Chaosium says there is a separate skill for Trap, so a rouge would have to spend 3 skill points (ranks in disable device, search and trap) for the same set of abilities. Perform(Oratory), Conceal Object are also examples of this (and sailing was already in the players handbook). Could not scent/taste been done better by having bonuses to spot checks using scent/taste? There are already skills that address this. Other D20 products, not just WoTC, understand this. Relics and Rituals, for example, only introduced one skill. Introduce all the feats you want - these are additional powers and you don't limit anything by adding more. Other WoTC products introduce NEW WAYS to use old skills, thereby not ruining the skill point balance while still improving the depth of the game.

I haven't tested the fumbles and crit system in play yet. Given the errors in the rest of the book, I would test them before I would use them in my campaign.

For me the editing errors and D20 inconsistencies mar the usability of the product.

If you want to add Elric saga stuff to your D20 campaign, you can use this book. Be prepared to do your own work to make things fit. If you aren't doing a Young Kingdoms campaign, I think that there are other better D20 rules supplements.

 

[Psion]

This book is an attempt to bring the classic Sword & Sorcery setting of the Elric saga to the D20 System. Along with it comes an array of new material to accomoate this. In addition to the background material, there are new spells for the D20 system, new skills, and new system notes. The new system notes include demon summoning and an allegience system that measures ones alleigances with respect to the forces of law and chaos in the setting.

Alas, despite all of this, the book is a somewhat lackluster effort. Chaosium didn't really put their all into this product. And it shows.

First off, a great degree of the material is clipped straight from other Chaosium products. I have to admit there was a great wash of nostalgia as I read the demon system, as I had played Elric and Stormbringer in the past. But as I read more, the sinking realization set in that this was not a good thing. The adaptations were nowhere near as thorough as they needed to be.

For example, they do a good job of trying to outline what spells are appropriate for the setting, However they miss a more basic question of who is a sorcerer, who is a wizards, and who is a cleric. The Elric setting doesn't distinguish neatly between divine and arcane magic (and the book as much as states that certain arcane spells come straight from the lords of Chaos.) I was baffled to see at no place did they see fit to discuss how to treat this situation.

The demon rules are rather cool, but are extremely costly and risky for all but the hugest congregations. They could definitely use some more work, perhaps even borrowing material from Sword & Sorceries ritual rules (you can do that under the license, y'know).

As others have mentioned, the book engages is skill proliferation, a practice that is avoided by WotC and other vendors. Many of the skills could have been done with the existing craft, profession, and knowledge skills. As a matter of the fact, that's obviously what one Chaosium staffer was thinking, because they text includes a sailor specialization of the expert career. However, the sailor has profession (sailing) instead of Chaosium's home grown sailing skill.

In short, the books has some interesting crunchy bits, but that aren't well done and it probably won't be worth it if you are not going to use the setting. And if you are out to use the setting, you will find that the adaptations are probably aren't as good as Chaosium's own system are on this score.

This is not to say that I don't think that the D20 System couldn't do the Elric saga as good or better than the BRP system... it most definitely could have if some genuine effort was spent in the adaptation. But alas, this is not the case, and if you intend to do an Elric-saga type game, you may find it prudent to do some more of your own work on the system before you dive in.

The book has some good ideas and material, but given this, the implementation it is merely "alright." Further, I can think of a number of "average" products that I will get more use out of than this book.

If you want to play the Elric Saga and are willing to do a little work, this may be a worthwhile purchase for you. Lacking either of those criteria, perhaps your money is better spent elsewhere.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Eh...its not very d20ish, and its a bit pricy for my tastes. The art is good, but the content is dry in spots. It lacks some of the things I like to see in a source book. But , all in all, its a good book.

 

[Tuerny]

Originally reviewed by Jesse Dean of AtFantasy.com


Dragon Lords of Melnibone, written by Lynn Willis and Richard Watts, and edited by Charlies Krank, is a d20 System adaptation of the Melnibone setting described in Michael Moorcock's Elric stories. It is the third campaign setting produced for the d20 system, and is the first d20 product by Chaosium, Inc.

Presentation
Dragon Lords of Melnibone, a standard laminated, perfect bound booklet, is two hundred and eight pages long. The margins are one half an inch wide.

The cover illustration, by Frank Brunner, depicts a man sitting on a dragon before a fantastic city built above a network of caves. The interior artwork is composed of a range of different black and white drawings detailing either different scenes from the Elric Saga, or representations of items described in the text. Fifteen different artists contributed to the interior artwork, and it is generally good.

The only map included in the sourcebook is of the Young Kingdoms. Stylistically it is well done, but it does not convey distances in anything more than a general sense. Luckily a travel timetable is included, giving a good idea of the travel times between various settlements.

Overview and Analysis
The book is divided into seven sections: Introduction, The World of the Young Kingdoms, Adventurers, Game System, Magic & Religion, Demons, Monsters, Folk & Heroes, and The Dungeon Masters Companion.

The Introduction introduces the Young Kingdoms and the Elric Saga. The core tenants of the setting, including the eternal champion and the conflict between law and chaos, are introduced. The major rule alterations that are presented in the book are summarized. A list of the Elric stories to date, and their continents, are also summarized, giving a reader who is new to the Saga a good overview. This section provides a sufficient introduction to the setting, providing a firm basis for moving on to the book.

The World of the Young Kingdoms provides a history, map, and gazetteer of the Young Kingdoms. The history is brief, providing details of the rise and decay of the Melibonians and the emergence of the Young Kingdoms. A brief discussion on the Young Kingdom's magic, technology, economy, and language are also provided. The majority of this section is devoted to the gazetteer. Each nation has at least five paragraphs providing information about the rise of the nation, its topography, its current politics, and its religion. Near the end of the chapter a page discussing the coinage of the Young Kingdoms is present. The World of the Young Kingdoms section serves its purpose well, conveying enough tone, mood, and understanding of the setting to provide a firm basis for the political and social aspects of a campaign in the Young Kingdoms.

Adventurers contain information for creating adventurers in the Young Kingdoms. Characters classes, races, and national origin are also discussed. Several features of Young Kingdom characters are also introduced. In the Young Kingdoms, a character’s class is linked to his land of origin. He must pick a character class from among those listed for his homeland. The standard d20 character races are, for the most part, absent with the debauched, elf-like Melniboneans, the mixed blooded half-Melniboneans, and the avian Myyrrhn replacing them. Half-orcs are the sole exception to this, existing in the form of the degenerate humans of Org. Nationality is very important for Young Kingdom characters. Each nation is listed with a number of factors that influence the traits of an individual character. Included are its ruler, race, language(s), classes, available religions, favored weapons, armor, cultural skills, cultural feat, allegiance, and additional gear. Cultural skills are granted to natives of a nation as class skills. Allegiance determines how many points each character has dedicated to law, chaos, or balance. The other items are either self-explanatory or present mostly for flavor. In addition to these items, their are several new feats (Pounce & Strike, Close-Order Fighting, Set Spear), new rules for determining distinctive features, special gear, sample characters, and the front side of a character sheet.

For the most part the Adventurers section serves its overall purpose of providing the basis of altering characters to fit the Young Kingdoms. The new distinctive features table is a useful and interesting idea that can be easily transplanted to other settings. The section's main flaw lies in its defiance of well thought out d20 conventions for no apparent reason. Half-Melniboneans and myyrrhn both have +1 ability adjustments, aiding in the ease of minimizing and maximizing their ability scores, and the new weapon's damage ratings including pluses rather than a raw roll.

Game System, the fourth section of Dragon Lords of Melnibone, provides an overview of the new rules created for use with the Young Kingdoms setting. New systems for heroic actions, actions that a character may complete to avoid death after falling unconscious, allegiance to the forces of law, chaos and balance, fumbles, major wounds, and skills are provided. The most extensive portion of this section is on Allegiance, the Young Kingdoms replacement for alignment. The game rules give applications for allegiance, how to acquire allegiance points, and how to become the champion of a law, chaos, or balance. The fumble rules are basically the reverse of the critical hits, with a chance of gaining one whenever you roll a one. Major wounds are an expansion of the critical hit rules, causing substantial damage to someone who is hit by a critical hit or suffers more damage than their con score with a single strike. The new skills are Conceal Object, Fly, Perform (Oratory), Sailing, Scent/Taste, and Trap. Game System is a useful section, with plenty of material useable regardless of whether you are running a Young Kingdoms campaign or not. This use is expanded even further due to the entire chapter being open gaming content. The major flaw of this section is the lack of designators when describing the effects of fumbles and major wounds. Knowing whether a loss of ability score points is temporary or permanent is fairly important in determining what sort of spell is needed to correct the damage.

Magic & Religion, the largest section of the book, details the mystical side of the Young Kingdoms, including the nature of the universe, the gods of the Young Kingdoms, demons and their kind, elementals, spells, and religions. The Young Kingdoms are metaphysically dominated by the conflict between the Eight Lords of Chaos and the Nine Lords of Law, with the Beast-Lords, Plant-Lords, and the Elementals on the sidelines. Guidelines for invoking these entities are also presented. Demons are servants of chaos, extra-dimensional creatures that are summoned to the Young Kingdoms to serve as bound minions of sorcerers and wizards. They are summoned using a spell called Invoke and Compel, and can be compelled to perform a short-term task, become a long-term servant, or be permanently bound. Doing either of the latter requires experience point expenditure based on the powers and abilities of the demon. The rules for the creation of demons are largely balanced, with the experience point cost and the inherent chaos of individual demons making up for the gaining of a permanent, magical servant. Young Kingdom elementals parallel their standard counterparts save for their appearance and basic personality. Magic in the Young Kingdoms is considered to be basically, chaotic, as they are mutable and temporary. Even learning spells dedicated to law result in a gain in chaotic allegiance. Thirty-six new, largely balanced spells are presented. A brief overview of the churches of each of the deities, with information on the domains of each finishes off this section.

Demons, Monsters, Folk & Heroes details significant inhabitants of the Young Kingdoms. It covers demon breeds, a bestiary of monsters that are native to the Young Kingdoms, reconstructed generic non-player characters, and personalities from the Elric Saga. This chapter is in many ways the poorest of the book, with semi-frequent statistical omissions, the occasional inclusion of alignment, which, according to earlier sections, does not exist in the Young Kingdoms, and incorrect assignments of the number of skills and feats. The reconstructed generic NPCs are useful for on the spot statistics of NPCs that derivate from the class standards presented in the DMG, as are the stats and notes on the significant NPCs from the Saga for those who wish to have their group interact with them.

The Dungeons Masters Companion is the final section of Dragonlords of Melnibone, containing tips for bringing together and maintaining a campaign, the use of allegiances, new magical items, and a large list of rumors. The advice contained within this section is a solid addition to that found within the DMG. Unfortunately the magic items presented lack information for creation, or at least gold value, making them less useful than they could be

Conclusion
Dragon Lords of Melnibone stands well compared to the other worlds released for d20 and Dungeons and Dragons thus far. Despite a few rule problems, it is largely a complete setting, providing a firm basis to run a campaign in any part of the Young Kingdoms. Even if you are not interested in running such a campaign Dragon Lords of Melnibone is a worthwhile product. The majority of its rules information is easily useable in most campaigns with little change, and could help to provide a darker tone to a campaign.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

DRAGON LORDS OF MELNIBONE provides a heroic setting for your d20 System game in a complete and detailed roleplaying world developed by Chaosium Inc. and based upon the fabulous stories written by Michael Moorcock. The island of Melnibone and the world of the Young Kingdoms wage their eternal battle in a fully developed and extensive storyline. Ancient magic abounds. Sorcerous swords whisper of forgotten treasure. Spirits and demons plague the living. . . and a new albino emperor has taken the Ruby Throne, promising to restore the terrible heritage of Melnibone and bring the young upstarts to heel.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

I REALLY REALLY like this book.

Sure, it's a cut-and-paste job from the Elric! RPG with d20 rules cut in. But damn, the Elric! RPG is excellent, and this book shows that it is written for a game world that has been perfected over the past 20 years.

The illustrations are top-notch, the setting is rich and evocative.

The new alignment system (placing the obvious emphasis on Law vs Chaos, dropping good vs evil completely, and adding a sliding scale of Law vs Chaos) is a nice addition that can be converted for use with Good vs Evil as well.

The new spells are all good except for ONE that I found problems with (+4 enhancement to AC at level 1 for 1 hour / level as a level 1 spell is too much) but the remainder are VERY welcome additions to my game.

The new races are the only place where I find fault with the book, as they include +1/-1 modifiers. But the flavor is there, and you just have to drop the modifiers for a half-melnibonean to make them in line with the other races in the PHB.

The demon summoning system is interesting and offers a different way of maintaining game balance by having stat point costs to bind demons... sure you can have a bound demon, but it will cost you your Strength stat, mr wizard!

Several new feats were introduced here also that have become common to the d20 genre already, including close-order fighting which is seen in both Sovereign Stone and Librum Equitis volume 1.

Overall, if you are looking for another game world to go to than the classic D&D realms, I cannot recommend this book enough.

Perhaps for some old Elric! / Stormbringer gamers this book looks a bit thin (since most of the material is reprinted from those games), but it certainly made me happy to see it all converted to d20.