Moorcock's Eternal Champion, Deities & Demigods, & Some Random Thoughts on The Cosmic Balance

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.”

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity



Scale ships in the second Ether 


Never let it be said that I waste influences in this case the wonderful Boris Vallejo's 'A Fire Upon the Deep' book cover artwork. Man, this artwork grabbed me back in '92 when I was working in a book shop part time. Like many people I two or three part time jobs to make ends me. But man that artwork stays with you. Personally think these ships would make excellent scale ships. Sorry folks but I'm back to a bit of Moorcock musing. I'm using the Moorcock mythologies for campaign ideas but not directly copying from them. 




I've been thinking about 'Spelljammer' specifically the artwork for the cover the 'Legend of the Spelljammer box set from '91. The Nineties sure seem like the decades for manta style sky ships but I've been thinking about now! The now of the campaign promise of Spelljammer. Love the idea of the Spelljammer but the execution left a lot to be desired for me as a dungeon master. 




Never let it be said that I'm ever a guy to leave any stone or campaign idea alone. Now I've been toying with 'Cha'alt' by Venger Satanis for some months now. Over the last couple of months I've toyed with played around, folded,spindled, & mutilated Cha'alt in no uncertain terms. Because of Cha'alt's Lovecraftian  status is it a place that counts as 'Chaotic evil' ?


But then I started going over my Michael Moorcock notes on the Von Bek family;"The von Beks, also known as the van Beeks, the Beks, the Beggs and the Becks, are an ancient, extended family who are important players of the Game of Time. The von Bek family, possibly due to their origin and fact that many members are Eternals, have spread through the Multiverse, and they exist in many realities." Are the Von Bek's, the Beggs, etc. Are the  Eternal's actually spreading the misery & chaos that they are fighting?! Or is it simply a case that the 'eternal champions are drawn to death,destruction, & chaos?! These things seems to follow them in in his or her wake. 



The  Eternals are inherit to the alignment system of Dungeons & Dragons  going all the way back to original Dungeons & Dragons with Law,Chaos, & Neutral.The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition Deities & Demigod brings home Elric's eternal champion alignment & its not pretty folks. This is not a nice NPC & could wreck a campaign quite easily but again this is the point. Elric is fated & doomed to his fate to end the world. 



Elric is known as:" Elric of Melniboné, also called The Albino Emperor, Elric Womanslayer, Elric Kinslayer, the Pale Prince of Ruins, The White Wolf, and many other names beside, is the four hundred and twenty-eighth (and final) emperor of Melniboné and an incarnation of the Eternal Champion." He's not to be taken lightly at all & I've seen dungeon masters use him as a NPC once or twice. The roles that Elric played was straight up vile villain in both of those campaigns. And I've got no argument about. 



Elric isn't a guy you bring home to mom unless mom is an empress you want dead & her soul sucked out by a chaos blade. That chaos is a lower world evil that can be trade under foot & its the sort of thing we see on Cha'alt as well. Cha'alt  isn't the kind of place that one goes lightly too. Its a fallen world not unlike McKinney's Carcosa where sanity & reason are by words for adventurers to tread underfoot. These campaign world settings  take the lives of PC's by the score. 

It is within these 'fallen worlds' that one finds the most daring fare, the greatest treasure, & the most sanity bending monsters. But its nothing without the two halves of the same coin Law & Chaos.. Or is it sanity & in sanity!? I'm just playing about a very long campaign chain here. But without the AD&D alignment system none of this makes any sense. I would say that there's a meeting point of the lower tier cosmic balance of Moorcock vs the almost Christian cosmology of C.S.Lewis's Space Trilogy with deep smatterings of Lovecraft thrown in. I'm not sure if this is the beginning of a campaign or random philosophical mental masturbation. Only time will tell.