D&D General Source Material: "The Knight of the Swords" by Michael Moorcock

[Paul Farquhar]

Another character who looks remarkably similar to Elric is Raistlin Majere.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Some elves were. Corum was a good elf. Elric a bad one.

Sure, but we had a thread a few months back asking where the unpleasantly arrogant elves trope came from.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, but we had a thread a few months back asking where the unpleasantly arrogant elves trope came from.

It could just as easily been from the Hobbit or Silmarillion. Plenty of arrogant elves to go around.

 

[Lord Shark]

Yeah that is true and I think fans, very much including older fans, are a big part of the problem here but so is WotC. Fans often object to D&D doing anything "off-beat" (I'm sure I've been guilty of it even), or taking influence from sources which aren't TRADITION and a very sort of narrow range of high fantasy, and/or crudely attempting to incorporate other fantasy without making any actual accomodations for it. WotC themselves, I think partly because they didn't originate D&D, have a similarly conservative attitude, with a grand total of what, one whole actual new D&D setting over the last 22-odd years? The rest all being very safe cross-marketing (mostly from MtG) or updates of older settings. They've suggested two entirely new non-MtG settings are on the way, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Yeah. I see way too many D&D fans who apparently think the fantasy genre stopped in 1989.

As for Moorcock being lesser known today ... while I yield to no one in Moorcock fandom (I've been Lord Shark online for 36 years now, ever since reading "White Stars" in Legends from the End of Time), let's be honest. A lot of Moorcock's early work is uneven at best; some of the Eternal Champion novels were written in three days to make rent money, and oh boy does it show. I'm not surprised that they're not standing up to the test of time -- and that's not even considering stuff like the Cornelius books, which are fun but incredibly dated by now.

That aside, I think the first Corum trilogy is among the better Eternal Champion books; the second Corum trilogy has some interesting antagonists but it's pretty thin stuff otherwise, alas.

 

[Aldarc]

I wish Moorcock's stuff was more well known. By D&D fans, at the very least, considering how much of D&D was inspired by Moorcock (like the sword Blackrazor, or the Hexblade subclass, or the concepts of Law and Chaos, etc).

Or a Multiverse set-up that involves using and re-using a stock set of characters and planar powers.

 

[Mannahnin]

This is because OD&D originated in the essentially lawful culture of the American bible belt, where lawfulness and goodness are equated. As least some of those people read Moorcock without really understanding it's British cynicism.

Nah. It's because both Moorcock (as he specifically acknowledged) and Gary got Law vs. Chaos from Paul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, in which PA explicitly identifies Law with goodness and civilization, and Chaos primarily with forces inimical to those things.

Chapter 3:

Holger got the idea that a perpetual struggle went on between primeval forces of Law and Chaos. No, not forces exactly. Modes of existence? A terrestrial reflection of the spiritual conflict between heaven and hell? In any case, humans were the chief agents on earth of Law, though most of them were so only unconsciously and some, witches and warlocks and evildoers, had sold out to Chaos. A few nonhuman beings also stood for Law. Ranged against them was almost the whole Middle World, which seemed to include realms like Faerie, Trollheim, and the Giants -- an actual creation of Chaos. Wars among men, such as the long-drawn struggle between the Saracens and the Holy Empire, aided Chaos; under Law all men would live in peace and order and that liberty which only Law could give meaning. But this was so alien to the Middle Worlders that they were forever working to prevent it and to extend their own shadowy dominion.

Chapter 11:

This business of Chaos versus Law, for example, turned out to be more than religious dogma. It was a practical fact of existence, here. He was reminded of the second law of thermodynamics, the tendency of the physical universe toward disorder and level entropy. Perhaps here, that tendency found a more... animistic... expression. Or, wait a minute, didn't it in his own world too? What had he been fighting when he fought the Nazis but a resurgence of archaic horrors that civilized men had once believed were safely dead?

In this universe the wild folk of the Middle World might be trying to break down a corresponding painfully established order; to restore some primeval state where anything could happen. Decent humanity would, on the other hand, always want to strengthen and extend Law, safety, predictability. Therefore Christianity, Judaism, even Mohammedanism frowned on witchcraft, that was more allied to Chaos than to orderly physical nature. Though to be sure, science had its perversions, while magic had its laws. A definite ritual was needed in either case, whether you built an airplane or a flying carpet. Gerd had mentioned something about the impersonal character of the supernatural. Yes, that was why Roland had tried to break Durendal, in his last hour at Roncesvalles: so the miraculous sword would not fall into paynim hands...

Moorcock took the idea off on a bit of a tangent, and TBF AD&D incorporates more of Moorcock's take on it into the nine alignment system, which puts more weight on the idea of metaphysical Neutrality as an active element of Balance, with actual champions (like Gord becomes, in Gygax's series of novels).

 

[Garthanos]

So does Moorcock, total law is described exactly that way, with either an ice metaphor or literal ice in one of the books.

ultimate inertia aka entropy and the death of variation the most lawful universe is full of potassium

I would slightly disagree with Paul I'm that I'd say it's more Law = Totalitarianism (of which i fascism is a subset) and Chaos = Anarchism but that may be semantics. Either way balance is seen as the eventual way forward. Chaos tends to be the antagonist a bit more often I think in part because it's simply more fun as an antagonist, but Moorcock's books are riddled with huge evil highly organized empires which the protagonist must combat.

I don't know about chaos making the best villains the Nazis and ancient Assyrians both make great villains and arguably exploit the conformance to law. The Unicorn and benign rebels are classically considered an evocation of chaotic good where freedom and to an extent just the joy and excitement of not being easily predictable is itself a valued thing. (Note how taming the unicorn bringing it under the yoke brings about its destruction)

 

[Garthanos]

Or a Multiverse set-up that involves using and re-using a stock set of characters and planar powers.

See also echoed in the Wheel of Time (which finally has a series)

 

[Lyxen]

See also echoed in the Wheel of Time (which finally has a series)

I'm not sure what you say is echoed, but apparently, the series is really of low quality, and despite (or because) I'm a huge fan, I don't think I'll watch it. And this in addition to the fact that they apparently blatantly ignore the lore for absolutely stupid reasons.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

apparently, the series is really of low quality

It is not "of low quality".

But it is divisive. A lot of fans really love it, but there's also a faction who really don't. They're telling the story fairly quickly and making certain changes, though.