Victorious Rpg & Wretched Epoque rpg campaign Session Report One - Franco Prussian War Legacy

 "Gaslight street lamps pour fitful illumination through the fog-shrouded streets of Victorian cities. Menacing figures lurk in darkened alleyways. Desperate men with nothing to lose and the determination to take what they can from others plot." 

This blog post picks up right here on the blog.  We got together last night & I brought the player's PC's into the first appearance of Superhumankind during The Franco Prussian War . This war was also the first appearance of mecha & personal armor on the part of the German forces . Superhumankind within our campaign was one of the deciding factors on the end of the Franco Prussian War. Because I was dusting off Michael Stewart's Victorious rpg 

The German forces brought the mecha and personal armors after several superhumankind were triggered on the battle front. Did the Germans have advanced knowledge of these reveals? The Prussian and German victories were a providing the blue print for the foreshadowing World War I; "A series of hard-fought Prussian and German victories in eastern France, culminating in the Siege of Metz and the Battle of Sedan, resulted in the capture of the French Emperor Napoleon III and the decisive defeat of the army of the Second Empire; a Government of National Defense was formed in Paris on 4 September and continued the war for another five months. German forces fought and defeated new French armies in northern France, then besieged Paris for over four months before it fell on 28 January 1871, effectively ending the war." 

The PC's are on the side of the French working as mercenaries using their abilities & powers  against the Germans. The PC's ended up back in Paris after the war ends & this Paris is the campaign world of Wretched Eqoque 2nd edition. I know that the Red Room is redoing Wretched Eqoque under their Red System rpg system. My players wanted to get back into our campaign ASAP. Now the adventurers are up too their necks in French and Prussian secret agents & operative waiting for next brush fire point coming up. The occult world is on fire with the forces of the Franco Prussian War echoing World War I coming up. 

 The PC's settled into their new Paris digs and came straight into conflict with a  anarchist villain party that descended upon city proper from a strange flying machine. The "Brotherhood of Freedom" is  a revolutionary organization of anarchists, nihilists, and socialists bent on ending the society of oppression and misery. 
And they came face to face with the Albino menace Prince Robor Zon Bek wielder of the trifecta Black Pistol, tender of the Ariochan Order, rake among the Anarchist Party, assassin of the "Brotherhood of Freedom"  & bane of the members Lawful Order of Justice and Temperance. Robor stitched up one of our heroes with a dart pistol shot and made his escape. We got our hero Marchwind to a doctor only to discover that the dart hadn't penetrated his armor. 

Stormbringer rpg Session Report One - Through The Flesh Gate Of The Young Kingdom

 "Well. I can tell you now that Stormbringer's 'real' being is related to other supernatural forces on another plane. I know how to summon them, but these relations are also creatures of Chaos and therefore, as far as you're concerned, somewhat hard to control. They could well get out of hand in some way” perhaps even turn against you. Stormbringer, as you have discovered in the past, is bound to you by ties even stronger than those which bind it to its brothers, but its brothers outnumber it and Stormbringer might not be able to protect you against them."

-Sepiriz, Stormbringer p. 87-88

This session report picks right up from here on the blog. There is an unspoken rule within the Stormbringer rpg & that's never mess with the soul stealing sword! Let alone mess with other incarnations of Stormbringer. And tonight our crew of marauders went to work for a wizard who stumbled upon a strange time doorway in the center of the Young Kingdom. Dar'varn was a strange Melniboné wizard who hired us to investigate the gateway. 

The gateway was made out of a strange flesh like material & crossing over the threshold of the gate found ourselves within a strange realm surrounded by millions of Black Swords hanging in space. According to the Moorcock's  Multiverse wiki entry on the Black Sword entry; "The Black Sword has been called by many names in its different manifestations across the Multiverse, including Stormbringer, Mournblade/Ravenbrand, Kanajana, the Cold Sword, the Dragon Sword, and Murakamo-No-Tsurugi (Japanese for Sword of the Gathering Clouds). The blade may not always manifest in the color black either, such as Corum Jhaelen Irsei's moon colored sword Traitor."

"Though the Black Sword is a being of Chaos, it seems to be an instrument of the Balance, akin to the  Runestaff  and the Horn of Fate. This is likely because in some cryptic way, the Black Sword and the Eternal Champion are one."

Tur The Terrible is a mercenary from Pan Tang who decided to claim one of the blades as his own. Big mistake! Several of the blades closed in on Tur and impaled him and sucked his soul into several different blades! 
While this was happening our party backed up and back out through the gateway! We made it only to find ourselves in another universe surrounded by the giant runes of the Black Swords. Everything was surrounded by these giant eldritch charged glyphs! Our party backed up and exited once again through the gate only to find ourselves in a strange huge battlefield surrounded by millions of bodies that were once people. These corpses kept changing and mutating with flesh coloured slop & gore that came towards our party. 

The party backed towards the gate as fast as we could and went through only to find ourselves in a strange countryside! We heard hoof beats approaching and we hid behind a wood pile and the ruins of a cottage. We saw the animal masked knights of

 the Dark Empire of Granbretan. We need to find out what era of this world we find ourselves in!  And that's when we heard someone cough from behind our party! 

OSR Commentary Thirteen Parsecs: Beyond the Solar Frontier Rpg By Jason Vey & The Arduin Grimoire rpg - Lost Dungeons & Ruins

  This blog entry picks right up from April 19th's entry here. A combined Thirteen Parsecs: Beyond the Solar Frontier Rpg By Jason Vey & The Arduin Grimoire rpg campaign picks up with the Arduin elements taking center stage. The Nexus Gates of Arduin are rife with the rarer races and monsters of Arduin. Why?! 

 Because the Nexus gates of Arduin still connect to the corrupted worlds of the King In Yellow. These places are mockeries of what they once were. Temples, underground works, and more connect too Arduin but the trip is only one way. You can enter from Arduin but not go back. A preventative measure of the Ancients of Arduin. As we said last blog entry;"Ages ago Arduin's ancient races saw the spread of the madness of the King In Yellow and the plague of the Yellow Sign. They isolated as many of the Nexus gates locations as they could."

 The  cult of 'The King In Yellow' on Arduin and it's reach past the Nexus Gates is a subtle one. This is because the cult of the 'King in Yellow' on Arduin isn't found in isolated locations. Instead it's spread among corrupted performers, actors, bards, and minstrels who keep the play and it's eldritch horror alive in the popculture of Arduin. This in turn continuously fuels the dungeons and locations of madness of the King on Arduin itself. 

Why is this important?! Because it has to do with the subtly powerful bleed through of the King in Yellow's power through realities and dimensions. According to the King in Yellow Mythos wiki entry; "The King seems, however, to be present in the 'reality' inhabited by the protagonists of Chambers' tales as well as within the fictional (to them) universe of the play's setting; part of the horror  in the stories is the way the King's malice bleeds through from one layer to another. For those characters, to allow their minds to become open to the forbidden play and its world is to allow his grasp to stretch into theirs. The King's ability to possess the bodies (not necessarily still living) of those who have fallen under his thrall is evidenced by the fate of narrator Mr. Scott  in The Yellow Sign:

"The gate below opened and shut, and I crept shaking to my door and bolted it, but I knew no bolts, no locks, could keep that creature out who was coming for the Yellow Sign. And now I heard him moving very softly along the hall. Now he was at the door, and the bolts rotted at his touch. Now he had entered. With eyes starting from my head I peered into the darkness, but when he came into the room I did not see him. It was only when I felt him envelope me in his cold soft grasp that I cried out and struggled with deadly fury, but my hands were useless ... I knew that the King in Yellow had opened his tattered mantle and there was only God to cry to now."

  The dungeons and ruins of the Arduin Nexus gates locations are fueled by malice and power of the King as a self sustaining circuit of chaos & unreality. The dungeon themselves are part of the King in Yellow's power & serve as indirect alters to his power. The dungeon delvers who die with these dungeon's halls are sacrifices. Arduin's Ancients who were corrupted by the King are mere mockeries of themselves. Things have gotten very dangerous again and add to this fact that knowledge of the forbidden  Nexus gates locations are part of adventurer's agendas 

 

Betweeen Kane & The Granbretan Empire - The Stormbringer rpg, Karl Edward Wagner's Kane & Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon

  "The Eternal Champion is a mystical hero who lives upon all planes of existence, in all ages and times. Whenever the greatest need arises, the Eternal Champion awakens to ensure mankind's survival. His names are many: Elric, Corum, Erekose, Urlik, Hawkmoon, and a multitude of others. Into the thick of the fray he strides, heroic companions at his side."

This is going to pick right up from yesterday's blog here. Today is one of those days that I seriously need to recharge the batteries. For the moment I've handed off both my Castles & Crusade campaign & my Wretchedverse campaign. Russ Nicholson's passing has effected me more then I thought. However I wanted to take a few moments to discuss the Hawkmoon box set by Chaosium. This is especially true after reading through Wayne's Books article on the Hawkmoon box set available here.

One element of Hawkmoon's era that stood out to us as players were the Mantis scientist/priest/ magus who were Emperor Huron's personal bodyguards. These guys were whom we were captured by and tortured. It took a renegade Mantis priest to get us out of the dungeon and onto  ship. Then we had a cabal of six Mantis on our party's asses.
And let me tell you these guys were a pain in the ass. The Mantis priests are highly formidable, highly motivated, and filled with forbidden occult knowledge. We managed to make it out of Londra and out into the Atlantic. This was after getting acid filled globes hurdled at our PCs, dodging Wolf patrols, killing a bunch of animal masked assassins, and then digging out the surgical tracker/controller implants that had been implanted by the Mantis.

Did I mention that we did recover the 'Super Science' artifact?! And this is what kicked off this manhunt in the first place. And one of our number killed one of the Mantis priests to get it. And this indebted the Mantis priest/scientist absolutely wanted revenge against our party with the orders of Emperor's Houn. Even through 5 editions the Mantis continued hunting our party! This has been a major plot point to our games. Families have been generationally targeted by the Mantis through the super science of the burgeoning Tragic Millennium time travel projects. We did get paid for our efforts and almost double crossed by Kane. We got tired of the double crosses and what not so we simply told him that we wanted get paid. This earned a bit of respect from Kane.

Kane's got a great video overview right here.

Here's the thing our party of scoundrels and rogues were not good guys. We were really in a mercenary  band mold. We did five jobs in the world of Hawkmoon and eventually had several mutants among our ranks. Curiously we haven't heard from the Mantis in a very long time. This doesn't mean that there not out there. Note that this is a repeated blog entry because we're starting up a new round of our Stormbringer campaign soon.

Descent into the Chaos Temple Ruins - Baptism of Fire Rpg Session Report One

 Tonight I was a part of my friend Paul's Baptism of Fire Rpg game campaign one shot adventure. We were playing knights tonight tracking down a chaos cult of 'Mercury' & came face to face with a huge vault of Chaos slime. In the back woods of Poland the cult had taken over an underground temple set of ruins left by Elves of another age. 

We ran into undead and the lethality of the Baptism of Fire game came to the fore as we lost 2 PC's to a horde of zombies. The underground air was oppressive & dangerous with some pockets of poison gas.  We had to hurry through because the torches kept going out when we encountered a pond of highly dangerous Chaos slime! 

The cult of Mercury itself was fully lifted from Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos. This is when we encountered several Chaos mutant fighter guards 2nd level. There was some hard going as we were restricted to a bottle neck. 

 When we cleared out the horrors and came into the Roman style temple were artifacts and statues of weird silver surrounding an Elven Lich. One of our hirelings went down under a hail of weird energies from the lich! We moved forward and pressed on! Two more mutants fell under our swords as we burnt up the scrolls of the lich. And then the lich retreated cursing two other of our knights! We burnt everything in the temple, recovered several spell books, and mapped out the temple location so far. 
We think that DM Paul is going to connect this adventure with The Pundit Files II The Dead City. By A. Changing the adventure's location and linking up with the tunnel that the cultists and Elves were using. 

Commentary On Free The Giants Stair Adventure For The Corum Rpg By Darsyde Productions

 " Rising from the sea to a height of nearly one hundred feet, the Giant's Stairs lie several hundred yards out from the harbor. The massive collection of basalt pillars does indeed resemble a huge staircase when silhouetted against the eastern sky. At most times it is nothing more than a rocky island, but once every seven years on the seventh night of the seventh month two of the fifteen planes intersect here and at gate is opened that allows passage into another plane where dwells a hiddeous giant. If any have ventured through this gate, none have returned to tell of it..."

Over the last couple couple of days I've been doing a lot of  research on the Corum rpg and this included visiting the Darcsyde Productions website. And suprise to surprise the site still has the 'Giants Stair' adventure.

And it's s very interesting little basic adventure for the Corum rpg involving the PC's into the fate of a child deep within the former regions of the five planes. The PC's have to mount a mission to save a child after a dream or nightmare alerts them to the fate of a child.

The child is tied into the island that is shaped like stairs & it's giant inhabitant. There's an adventure hook that ties deeply into the Corum mythology and one of the favored champions of Chaos.
I really don't want to spoilt the back story of 'The Giant's Stairs' but there's enough here where the DM could with a bit of work actually use this adventure with the Stormbringer rpg with little issue. And in point of fact this is how I would use 'Giant's Stairs'.  The PC's are a part of a Corum, Young Kingdom, or Hawkmoon or mixed party of adventurers who experience the dream or nightmare about the child and are transported to the worlds of the five planes. And they have to save the child and during the course of events of' 'The Giant's Stairs' the party finds itself emeshed in the world of Corum.

At only thirteen pages 'The Giant's Stairs' doesn't over stay it's welcome.

The Giant's Stair presents a woven Celtic mythology into the world of Corum. And the PC's are going to have the chance to play the heroes. And also gain the possible aire of the gods of Chaos. And during the events get themselves deeply into the events surrounding the Five Planes. 'The Giant's Stairs' is going to be very alien to the Stormbringer or Dungeons & Dragons players. Seriously Corum's world is vastly alien and weird in all of the right ways. Grab a copy and down load it  for your Stormbringer or even your Runequest third edition group of players. We used 'The Giants Stairs' to get the players into the world of Corum and the five planes. The player's PC's ended up playing through most of '02 through the world of the Five planes. 

Star Without Number Revised Campaign - Mixing Trey Causey's Strange Stars & Terra Arisen rpg -Terrans & Reticulans -

So I've been thinking of the 'problems' of adapting the Terra Arisen campaign setting into Trey Causey's Strange Stars material. Which  consists of  Trey Causey's 'Strange Stars' campaign  setting & 'The Strange Stars OSR rule book'.  So let's make that distinct right off according to the author 'You need the setting book to maximally utilize the OSR rulebook.'

 

Strange Stars is like a smoke ring from the 70's or 80's from the fevered mind of its author, and its a graphic as well as artistic slight of hand trick of a laser sword of retro science fantasy gaming goodness. Terra Arisen is written from the perspective of a galactic sector that has recently thrown off the yoke of oppression from the Reticulan empire. Seems like these two would be incompatible right?! Wrong, the Zhuzzh are the insect alien race  who can mend these two campaign settings together. 

The Zhuzzh are a precursor interstellar race that has only recently on a galactic scale gained sentience as we humans know it. They are interstellar scavengers and collectors of technology which they trade among the other races. They move among the stars like interstellar tidal dwellers going where and when the hyper spacial trade winds take them.  And this might also include those cybernetically, & psionically modified humans who now count as technology to certain  Zhuzzh factions. Especially those factions who use the hyperspacial gateways of the Strange Stars setting. 

Away from the prying eyes of the Terran Federation  and the Reticulan clans the Zhuzzh are free to trade, buy, and modify these specimen humans to their hearts content.  Remember the Reticulans have been completely taken aback by the violence that humanity as a whole visited upon them. We talked about this last time on the blog here.  To the alien races of Strange Stars the Zhuzzh are simply another alien race of traders with some local sector issues. Their more then happy to buy cybernetically modified super soldiers & refitted humans who can fight their wars, explore, mine, and more. The events of the Scream and other intergalactic events of Stars Without Number are ancient history to the races of Strange Stars. The universe moved on and the aliens got on with life throughout the galaxy. 
The Zhuzzh traders move through the hyperspace gates trading, collecting, and even bringing alien passengers such as those from The Alliance: into Terran space. Ibglibdishpan find work in both the Reticulan and Terran Federation. 
The Terrans may be in for far more then they bargain for because of the influx of alien technologies, slaves, and more from the Strang Stars. We'll get into this next time. 

OSR Commentary Thirteen Parsecs: Beyond the Solar Frontier Rpg By Jason Vey & The Arduin Grimoire rpg - Ruins & Weirdness

 This blog entry picks right up from where we left off here on the blog a couple of days ago. We've been talking about the PC's exploring Nexus Gates on 'lost planets'. Why?! 

 The ruins and dungeons of those who fell under the influence of the King In Yellow  are numerous especially those that have been dropped from the interstellar scene. These are still available from the Arduin rpg Nexus gates. Why explore such cursed and damned places?! One word, greed! Seriously this is all of the motivator that the players need. With lost knowledge, technologies, artifacts, trade routes, treasures and more it's only a matter of time as the Yellow sign spreads it's insanity. 

 Ages ago Arduin's ancient races saw the spread of the madness of the King In Yellow and the plague of the Yellow Sign. They isolated as many of the Nexus gates locations as they could. But the King In Yellow is not so easily defeated. With the opening of the interstellar lanes again in Thirteen Parsecs: Beyond the Solar Frontier. Things have gotten very dangerous again and add to this fact that knowledge of the Nexus gates have gotten into the general population. 

The influence of the King In Yellow has been both active and passive with it's power. According to the King In Yellow wiki entry; "There are few direct references to the King in Yellow in the book that bears his name by  Robert W. Chambers. There are implications that he (or it) is some kind of terrible, perhaps almighty being, of vast and insidiously penetrative reach, although it is unmentioned of just what substance or origin nor the true form it takes. Its machinations, though, appear born of a limitless desire for domination. As noted by Mr. Wilde in The Repairer of Reputations:

"The ambition of Caesar and of Napoleon pales before that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even their unborn thoughts ... He is a king whom emperors have served.""

 This means that the King's power is partially sustaining the ruins, treasures, and dungeons. These interstellar locations  are almost parodies of what they used to be. And still their legends continue to lure adventurers, treasure hunters, raiders, and other fools.  This also includes Arduin itself where the King's followers continue to subtly feed the flames of the cult.  Next time we dive into the cult of 'The King In Yellow' on Arduin and it's reach past the Nexus Gates. 
 

Assignments Within The Interzone of New Flesh Rpg - Session Report One

" Enter the dystopian world of New Flesh, a future-noir roleplaying game where cyberpunk meets biological horror in the neon-drenched streets of Interzone. Set in then near future, when corporate power runs unchecked, this game draws inspiration from the works of William S. Burroughs, David Cronenberg, and other masters of transgressive fiction."

"New Flesh embraces the surreal and visceral, biotechnology reigns supreme over chrome and steel, transforming human bodies into corporate commodities. Underground labs conduct forbidden experiments, pleasure dens offer metamorphic experiences, and reality itself distorts in the wake of chimeric entities. In this haunting setting, player characters inhabit a world where flesh warps at corporate whim, consciousness fragments across biological interfaces, and survival demands moral compromise."

The Red Edition of New Flesh rpg has been on my mind for a couple of days after Legion of Myth covered the second edition of Wretched New Flesh by the Red Room. The Legion of Myth guys even dived into the magick and technology of Aviliadad. We've played the Red Edition of New Flesh extensively over the last couple of months. And it's all about how far the PC's are willing to compromise their morals, their existence and their very souls especially where the Interzone is concerned. Interzone is this region within Aviladad where the alien and the reality of the world break down. The aliens from outside our reality have begun to move in & their technologies have begun to move in. And this is where our Zonetec agents who are a part of the party steer them into doing work for them. 

The party got deeply involved in the moving of black technologies cargo for Takeda Technologies which turned out to be assassin bots. These bots are deeply on the biotechnological side & completely alien. To stop these things from murdering the leaders of the Mutant Underground sparking off a riot. This means that the PC's had to take on dangerous implants and weird psionic powers. This leads into the Nakatomi Genetics Inc building incident. 

 This led to the PC's now on the track of Scarrli cultists who are a part of a an integrated Advilidad. Who are now diving down into the underground where the PC's must deal with the fall out. 

OSR Commentary - Perils of the Young Kingdoms By Fred Behrendt, Geoff Gillan, Nick Hagger, Mark Morrison, Mike Syzmanski & Richard Watts For the Stormbringer Rpg

 "A thousand years ago a great war between the Dharzi and Melnibonean eliminated the ancient race of sorcerers from the Young Kingdoms, and established the Dragon Lords as masters of the world. Far to the north of Melniboneân the family of a lesser lord took the caverns of a tall, black island as their home, transforming the former laboratory of a Dharzi sorcerer into a magnificent abode." 

"Then, the Bright Empire began its inexorable decline, and the caverns were abandoned. Four hundred and fifty years have past, and something dark and vile now inhabits this isle, warping the natural order of living things and twisting their very beings into hideous monsters."

"Lord Straasha summons the adventurers to the coast of Tarkesh, bordering the frigid Pale Sea and the unholy domain of forbidden Pan Tang. Visions of bloody waves ceaselessly haunt their dreams, presaging a doom to come should the heroes fail to heed Straasha’s urgent call."

 Perils of the Young Kingdoms By Fred Behrendt, Geoff Gillan, Nick Hagger, Mark Morrison, Mike Syzmanski & Richard Watts For the Stormbringer Rpg has five scenarios that challenge and are set in unusual locations throughout the Young Kingdoms. 
 Back in '91 we slowly ran through these adventures with 6 PC deaths and one TPK directly lost in the Million Spheres. Alright, we slowly had a build up of slogging through the Young Kingdoms after having dealt with the Hawkmoon campaign setting. Perils of the Young Kingdom was a campaign adventure supplement that my uncle used to hype up the fact that the events of Elric's Young Kingdom were accelerating. 
Sorcerers & wizards from Pan Tang were playing with forces that were best left alone especially those ancient secrets of the Dharzi sorcerer's civilization & ruin. Perils ties into the fact that the old orders & powers of the Young Kingdom are declining. The back of the book describes this: "PERILS OF THE YOUNG KINGDOMS provides five independent adventures for the STORMBRlNGER roleplaying game. Each of these adventures explores places scattered across the world of the Young Kingdoms, revealing marvelous, mysterious, and treachous locales such as the Floating Realm, a Sargasso sea of ruined ships; the Link Machine, an engine of law which slowly mutates the winged Myrrhyn race; and a Chaos Storm, carrying the chaos pack of Queen Xiombarg, which hastens the appearice of the Infinite Cathedral of Gormweller the Cod Seller."

These adventures are location based enabling the DM to customize them as they want to their own Stormbringer rpg campaign and they are as follows:

• The Floating Realm by Michael Syzmanski
• The Myrrhn Link  by Fred Behrendt
• The Fang and the Fountain  by Richard Watts
• Stolen Moments  by Nick Hagger and
• The Man Who Sold Gods by Geoff Gillan.

 So in my mind Perils of the Young Kingdom is a mid tier Stormbringer campaign set of adventures for an ongoing campaign. This means that a DM doesn't have to suppress their Young Kingdom campaign setting. 'The Man Who Sold Gods' was an adventure that we used to lead deeply into a Corum rpg mini campaign. 

Review & Commentary On 'White Wolf: Temples, Demons, & Ships of War' By Stewart Wieck, Kevin Freeman, & Sandy Petersen ... For The Stombringer Rpg 2nd Edition Box Set

 "Explore Three Deadly Temples! Enter the Accursed Realm of Zhortra, Lord of Chaos.

White Wolf, a supplement for the Eternal Champion series of roleplaying games, presents many items of interest to gamemasters, particularly those wishing to run high-level campaigns. The book contains: Complete information, stats, and maps for three powerful temples of the Young Kingdoms. DARKSPIRE: Temple of Chaos is a mysterious and sinister place, with many dooms for the unwary adventurer. From this dark abode the twisted worshippers of Mebelrode, the Faceless God, bring fear to all who fail to bow down to the power of Chaos! The Temple of the Eternal Flame lurks in the fiery heart of an ancient volcano. This remarkable temple is dedicated to the worship of Kakatal, Lord of Fire Elementals. The mighty fortress of HAVEN: Temple of Law stands defiant against the minions of Chaos, and offers refuge to all who flee their wrath. Its courageous guardians worship four great Lawful deities: Donblas, Goldar, Arkyn, and Callandus. They stand ready to battle Chaos whenever called upon by the faithful.

Escape from Yellow Hell, a high-level, ultra-magical scenario the will challenge even the most powerful adventurers. The adventurers must rescue a priest trapped on the Yellow Hell, a x5 Chaotic plane of the damned ruled by Zhortra, Lord of Chaos.

White Wolf also contains naval rules for the Eternal Champion series, suitable for any campaign, and new data on Elric of Melnibone (the "White Wolf").

Any adventure created for an Eternal Champion game will function without flaw in any scenario in the series. The strength of Law or Chaos on a plane may affect a character's magical ability."

Coming out of the ether in '87 is one of the more unusual early books for the Stormbringer rpg 'White Wolf ' from the pens of Stewart Wieck, Kevin Freeman, & Sandy Petersen. The page count seems unimpressive at fifty six pages but these early books are unusual in that they set the Sword & Sorcery tone for later editions , push forward the Stormbringer rpg universe, & bring to the table experimental early Chaosium rpg  ideas.

You can think of 'White Wolf: Temples, Demons, & Ships of War' as a supplement that occurs later in the career of both Elric & the PC's. There are rules straight out of the gate here for dimensional travel, war, and more. You can think of this book taking place right around the time of the 'Weird of the White Wolf era or much earlier;""We must be bound to one another then. Bound by hell-forged chains and fate-haunted circumstance. Well, then  let it be thus so ” and men will have cause to tremble and flee when they hear the names of Elric of Melnibone and Stormbringer, his sword. We are two of a kind produced by an age which has deserted us. Let us give this age cause to hate us"

Imrryr, the dreaming city; Yyrkoon, the hated usurper; Cymoril, the beloved... all had fallen to the fury and unearthly power of the albino prince and his terrible sword. And Elric faced at last the fate that was to be his in this haunted era ” that he must go forth, sword and man as one, and havoc and horror would be forever at his forefront until he found the Purpose that was yet obscured to him.
THE WEIRD OF THE WHITE WOLF is the authorized, revised and finally complete novel of the third book of Elric."
'White Wolf: Temples, Demons, & Ships of War' brings the fire of high end & PC level Stormbringer rpg action to the table top level. You can compare the feel of this Stormbringer book to T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil by Gary Gygax &  Frank  Mentzer. How so!? This is the high end promised middle to upper teir adventure promised in the Stormbringer rpg line. You've got three different temples of Law & Chaos in 'White Wolf'. According to the  Elric/Stormbringer rpg entry in Wayne's Books;" DARKSPIRE: Temple of Chaos is a mysterious and sinister place, with many dooms for the unwary adventurer. From this dark abode the twisted worshippers of Mabelrode, the Faceless God, bring fear to all who fail to bow down to the power of Chaos! " What this actually is the first of three temples of Law & Chaos, its a deadly affair. I can honestly say that this temple has made me hate & loath  Mabelrode, the Faceless God because I lost three PC's to this place.

Thrown into the deep end this is a temple that belongs in both Stormbringer & the Dungeon Crawl Classics rpg. Yes its that deadly!
"The Temple of the Eternal Flame lurks in the fiery heart of an ancient volcano. This remarkable temple is dedicated to the worship of Kakatal, Lord of Fire Elementals." This is one of those elemental rulers temples that I've used numerous times as a dungeon master with players. Since Elric called on various animal rulers from half worlds to the various elemental rulers. This temple has appeared in Runequest, as a Call of Cthlhu Dreamlands adventure location, and even as a D&D elemental temple its that well thought out & serves its purpose well! Next! There didn't used to be a lot of detail on the temples of Law in Stormbringer until 'White Wolf: Temples, Demons, & Ships of War' detailed out this location

"The mighty fortress of HAVEN: Temple of Law stands defiant against the minions of Chaos, and offers refuge to all who flee their wrath. Its courageous guardians worship four great Lawful deities: Donblas, Goldar, Arkyn, and Callandus. They stand ready to battle Chaos whenever called upon by the faithful." My god has this adventure location gotten a work out. This was the adventure headquarters for the Knights of Donblas & the bastion of Law for Stormbringer. Towards the end of the campaign this adventure location was the perfect location to have the PC's make a stand against the wave of undead & Chaos at the end of the world. But the icing within the White Wolf supplement has to be the adventure 'Escape From Yellow Hell; "Escape from Yellow Hell, a high-level, ultra-magical scenario the will challenge even the most powerful adventurers. The adventurers must rescue a priest trapped on the Yellow Hell, a x5 Chaotic plane of the damned ruled by Zhortra, Lord of Chaos."

'Escape From The Yellow Hell' is a mini campaign within its own right, its brutal, nasty, & an excercise in high end thinking & actual slogging through the adventure location & plane. Its well done but its really dark & nasty Hell. My players hated me for using this adventure.

'White Wolf: Temples, Demons, & Ships of War' is a naval warfare supplement as well that has a nice set of Young Kingdom ships, naval combat rules, and even other planar travel rules. It presents itself as a universal supplement for the Stormbringer rpg but its really high end set of options for the 2nd edition Stormbringer box set.

And in point of fact I've used these rules sets & tool box found within this book to run a complete 'A Sailor on the Seas of Fate' campaign upon which the player's PC's signed up for. Yes its a solid supplement & one of the best in my opinion that was published.