Impressions & Overview of Games Workshop's Stormbringer rpg

 The Stormbringer RPG is one of the most celebrated titles from the "Golden Age" of tabletop gaming. First released by Chaosium in 1981, it brought Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné stories to life using a streamlined version of the Basic Role-Playing (BRP) system—the same engine behind Call of Cthulhu. This blog entry picks right up from 

Cracking The Spine - Quick Impressions of Games Workshop's Stormbringer rpg & The OSR

It is famous for being "gloriously unfair," dark, and dripping with atmosphere. Here is a breakdown of what makes the classic game (specifically the 1st through 4th editions) unique.

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1. The Setting: The Young Kingdoms

The game is set in the Young Kingdoms, a world caught in a cosmic tug-of-war between Law (order, stagnation, and eventually sterility) and Chaos (change, entropy, and madness).

• The Melniboneans: You can play as the ancient, decadent, and cruel "Bright Empire" of Melniboné, though they are a fading race.

• No "Standard" Fantasy: There are no Hobbits or Dwarves here. The world is human-centric but filled with ancient ruins, bizarre cults, and alien entities.

2. The Mechanics: Gritty and Lethal

The system uses d100 (percentile) dice for almost everything. If your Broadsword skill is 65%, you need to roll a 65 or lower to hit.

• The Luck of the Roll: Character creation is notoriously random. One player might roll up a beggar from Nadsokor with no skills and a missing foot, while another rolls a Melnibonéan Noble with world-shattering stats and a demon-bound suit of armor.

• Combat: It is fast and deadly. Armor doesn't make you harder to hit; it reduces the damage you take. A single lucky strike can (and will) end a legendary hero.

3. Magic: Summoning, Not Spellcasting

In the classic editions, there are no "fireballs" or "magic missiles." Magic is about pacts and summoning.

• Demon Binding: Sorcerers summon demons and elementals, then bargain with or command them to inhabit items. A "magic sword" in Stormbringer is usually just a regular sword with a demon bound inside it to provide extra damage or accuracy.

• High Risk: Summoning is dangerous. If you fail your rolls, the demon might decide to eat you instead of following orders.

4. The Editions

Edition	Year	Key Note
1st - 3rd	1981–87	The "Classic" era. 3rd Edition (published with Games Workshop) is often considered the peak of the original ruleset.
4th	1990	Updated the magic system and consolidated the rules into a single book.
Elric! / 5th	1993+	A major mechanical overhaul. It became more balanced and added more traditional "spells," though some purists felt it lost the "chaotic" flavor of the originals.

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Why People Still Play It

• The "Anti-D&D": It rejects the idea of "zero to hero." You start as who you are, and you deal with the consequences of a world that is fundamentally doomed.

• The Aesthetic: The art (especially by Frank Brunner and Michael Whelan) and the nihilistic tone give it a "Heavy Metal" magazine vibe that few modern games replicate.

• The Narrative Stakes: You aren't just fighting for gold; you are navigating the end of the world.

Fun Fact: The game’s influence was massive; the creators of Warhammer Fantasy have openly stated that their "Chaos" system was heavily inspired by the mechanics and lore found in Stormbringer.

Buckle up, because character creation in classic Stormbringer is a wild ride where "balance" is a concept the dice gods find hilarious. In this system, your social standing and birthplace are often more important than your actual attributes.

Here is how you would roll up a character in the classic 1st–3rd editions:

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1. The Attributes (The Standard Six)

You roll 3d6 for your primary characteristics. There are no "point buys" here; you get what the universe gives you.

• STR (Strength)

• CON (Constitution)

• SIZ (Size)

• INT (Intelligence)

• POW (Power) — Crucial for sorcery/luck.

• DEX (Dexterity)

• CHA (Charisma)

2. National Origin (The "Great Filter")

This is where the game gets "gloriously unfair." You roll a d100 to determine where you were born. This table is weighted by the population of the Young Kingdoms, but the power discrepancy is massive.

• The "Lower" Tier (Common): You’ll likely roll a Puarite or a Vilmirian. You get basic skills and maybe a rusty spear.

• The "Middle" Tier: You might get Dharijor or Jharkor—sturdy warriors with decent starting gear.

• The "God" Tier (Rare): If you roll a 99 or 100, you are a Melnibonéan. You get massive bonuses to INT and POW, access to world-class sorcery, and probably start the game with a demon-bound item that could level a village.

3. Social Class

Once your nation is set, you roll for your profession. Again, this is a d100 roll.

• You might roll "Beggar" (Start with 1 copper piece and a bowl).

• You might roll "Noble" (Start with fine plate armor, a horse, and a small fortune).

• The Catch: Your profession determines your starting skills. A Hunter will be great with a bow, but a Priest might start with the ability to summon a minor Chaos god.

4. The "Sorcery" Check

Not everyone can use magic. In fact, unless you are from a specific high-magic culture (like Melniboné or Pan Tang), you usually need a POW of 16 or higher just to have a chance at being a sorcerer.

If you qualify, you don't just "know" spells—you know how to bargain with extra-planar entities.

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A Typical "Balanced" Starting Party

To give you an idea of the chaos, a starting party often looks like this:

Player	Origin	Class	Notable Stat/Gear
Player A	Melniboné	Sorcerer	POW 21; owns a ring containing a Fire Elemental.
Player B	Llowri	Peasant	STR 9; owns a very sturdy goat.
Player C	Tarkesh	Sailor	DEX 17; high skill in "Climb" and "Dagger."

5. Final Touches: Derived Stats

• Hit Points: Calculated by $(STR + SIZ) / 2$.

• Damage Bonus: Based on your STR and SIZ. If you're a big guy, you hit harder.

• Luck Points: Equal to your POW. These are your "don't die yet" points.

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The Philosophy of the Roll

The game explicitly tells the Game Master that if one player rolls a demigod and another rolls a pauper, they shouldn't try to fix it. The pauper's goal is to survive by their wits (and by hiding behind the Melnibonéan), while the Melnibonéan has to deal with the fact that everyone in the world hates and fears them.

Deep In The Bandit Army Camp - Warriors of the Red Planet/ Hyperborea rpg Session Report Eight

 This session picks right up from last week's & it picks right up with the party dealing with the underground air car. The party hasn't figured out how it operates and the underground aircar cruised to stop at a preprogrammed stop and the party found themselves hip deep in a fungal garden. No one got out and pressed the glowing button. 

The next stop found the party right in a old engineering parts area and lots of construction that appeared to be in ruins. The whole place was covered in strange fleshy veins and weird skin like flowers as metallic  wicked thorns glinted off the pipes, circuits, and other pipes. 
The glowing button and display beckoned and then the party was whooshed into the next tunnel. Then it was several game hours (few minutes) until the party was lifted into a side tunnel after almost crashing into another underground air car. And then they were lifted up into a weird tunnel and started racing to the surface! 
Here the party found it's aircar erupting onto the surface straight under a tent belonging to some 1st level Green warriors! There were about ten of them and the party found itself face to face in a strange sea bottom town! The Green men's tent was totally ruined! And they began attacking the party! The party also came face to face with the Green's mercenary red men Beserkers! So I took the AD&D Monster Manual Beserker entry and then adapted it for our game. 

Berserker by David Sutherland, from the AD&D Monster Manual, TSR, 1977 

I changed the weaponry to hand ax & Martian straight sword minus the armor. These Martian Beserkers are considered legendary and almost exclusively found in the Bandit Nations of  Mars. And I dropped enough hints for this game session and the player's PC's have found themselves 2,000 miles away from thier original destination. Did I happen to mention the fact that the air car slid back underground during the comotation! 
So they are effectively trapped behind enemy lines. And then escaped into the Martian night with a pack of Green Men Catlots on thier tails. 

OSR Commentary- '84 One Set To Rule Them All With Mentzer's Dungeons & Dragons Set 3: Companion Rules

 Let's pick it right back up from here on the blog. Nineteen Eighty four was a huge year when the Companion Dungeons & Dragons boxset hit the stands by Frank Mentzer. The Companion box set hit like a ton of bricks bringing the levels of the BECMI Dungeons & Dragons PC level climb past fifteenth level. And this was a big deal on multiple levels because it brought domain level play into Mentzer D&D. And this was a big deal for those of us who had switched up our D&D game campaigns. 

 What Mentzer Companion rules brought to the game were new monsters, higher levels, treasures, warfare rules, domain play rules, and more. Suddenly player's PC's could and were expected to rule a kingdom or vassseldom. The player's PC's had kingdoms, church dominations, and more to worry about. And this was hands on rulership for the adventurers. This wasn't a mollycuddle set of rules. Instead the players were expected to have thier hands get dirty leading hirelings and NPC retainers of thier armies from the frontlines. 

The Companion rules box set was completely different from say Moldvay or Cook in the fact that it spelled out levels 15-25 for PC's. And heavy was head that wore the crown. The Wilderness adventures that were featured in so many Expert adventures & dungeons were the realms that the PC's controlled. Strongholds, wizard towers, temples, etc. became the PC's stock and trade. 
And the Gods themselves couldn't help you if your old adventuring partner's decided to turn on you. Because party dynamics were very much in vogue in Mentzer's Companion rules. Because the Companion rules set was actually a real step into Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition if played right. 

Mentzer hit different because when going from Expert into Companion no longer was the X1 The Isle of Dread a place to be explored but a land to be conquerored! Companion had a whole cloth feel of something different because adventuring took on another aspect and marshalling your armies was part of the charm. 
Because D&D had gone so far mainstream it was a readily available rpg system. So  one could not only get it in '84 from hobby and toy stores. But it was becoming available through Sears & Wards toy catalog. 
Suddenly the possibilities opened up by the  Mentzer's Dungeons & Dragons Set 3: Companion Rules seemed within reach. Why have just a stronghold when you can have your PC's rule a kingdom! 

OSR Commentary- '83 'Into The Frying Pan' With Frank Mentzer's Expert Dungeons & Dragons set

 So let's pick it up from the other day's blog entry here. So the year is Eighty Three and the revamp of the Expert Dungeons & Dragons set hits the stands. And this was another rung on the ladder of Dungeons & Dragons. Not only do we have total reexamination of Dungeons & Dragons but the PC levels skyrocketed. And the Expert set increased the PC levels from four to fourteen! This was a big deal in '83. 

Mentzer Expert did a bunch of stuff all at once. One it expanded the monsters of Basic and built on those. Then we got new treasures, and magic plus an update with a Tim Truman cover of X1 Isle of Dread. And Expert also brought the Wilderness into a huge role in Mentzer Basic/Expert. This shift from simply dungeons into Wilderness adventures added a whole different dimension to the grand game. 

 And Mentzer further refined the B/X rules building on Moldvay/Cook while adding his own spin to the rules. Frank Mentzer brought a different feel to D&D. There was module and with the Dungeons & Dragons Basic set there was enough here to do a campaign that could last for years. 
And Mentzer Dungeons & Dragons had a different feel to it. There was lots of new blood in the hobby in '83. For us it meant that we could begin to carve out are own little niche of the Isle of Dread. As I said Mentzer Dungeons & Dragons was far more mainstream and no where was that more evident then in the Eighty Three Sears Christmas catalog where both Mentzer Expert & Basic were for sale. Soon we saw far more gamers enter the hobby. Expert had a alot going for it.

1. Expert was literally the next rung of the levels of Dungeons & Dragons adding levels four to fourteen. 
2. The Wilderness opened up to every group of players adding in a place where the monsters dwelled. 
3. Mentzer Expert D&D was easily understood by the average 12 to 50 year old. The rules were clear and concise. 
4. The stakes became higher in Expert with the introduction of X1 The Isle of Dread.
5. Mentze Expert  D&D  easy to design home brew adventures or use easily accesible modules for the game. This was because the PC's levels were on point with published modules. 

Mentzer Expert Dungeons & Dragons preparred players for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition. And this started a love affair with BECMI Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition. 

OSR Commentary - The Unholy Combination B/X & Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Together

 When it comes to B/X Dungeons & Dragons I'm often left thinking about B/X Dungeons & Dragons. And this blog entry picks right up from here on the blog.  And the legacy of Dungeons & Dragons. Expert D&D expanded the horizons for players by several orders of magnitude from Basic. 

The PC options increased, the stakes became higher, the adventure possibilities climbed, and yet there seemed to be more. That more was the expansion of the wilderness with Expert. And within the wilderness were some epic level monsters. Dragon Turtles, purple worms, elemental threats, all of thes hinted at the wider universe within B/X. 
We literally used a combination of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition and B/X without any thought back in the early Eighties that these were separate games. And we had a blast playing with all of the dungeons we plundered. 
There's something so satisfying about creating your own dungeon and letting your players plunder it. I've used both B/X dragons & the various Dragons from the Monster Manual as boss monsters for entire regions in various campaigns. Because the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual is one of the most recognizable monster books ever made. And still get's attention at the table top. 

B/X is excellent for a quick beer & pretezels sort of mini pickup game & yet mixed with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition both systems compliment each other very well. And there are several reasons for this: 

1. Both B/X & AD&D first edition are easily intgrated into each other. The systems because of thier very mathmatics and systems fold into one another. 
2. AD&D is easily adaptable for both the players and the DM and this falls right in line with the design ideals of B/X D&D.
3. B/X is designed for adventure & campaign play as easily as it gets. And this one of these strengths of B/X that compliments Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition. 
4. AD&D has a ton of resources such as the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide that has  connotations for B/X. 
5. The adventures & modules of AD&D can easily be ported over to B/X and vice versa. 

B/X Dungeons & Dragon and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition combined allow the DM to have a solid system to easily have the players transition and move as the campaign play allows. 

OSR Thoughts on Cities Without Number & Judge Guilds House on Hangman's Hill By Jon Mattson

 "Lincoln had run as fast as he could even with his cybernetically modified legs going full out. The thing whatever it was gaining on him as he rounded the ancient wall. He only thought about the dripping icor, the fangs, and those glowing all too human eyes!' 
And it was the last thing he ever thought about! The claws assaulted his flesh as a pair of scissors slices through fabric.His brain didn't immediately register the pain as his cyber claws exitted thier sheaths on biological instinct like a computer program misfiring. 
His last thought was about his team mates even as the blood ran down his arms and chest from his torn throat.

I've been thinking about classic Judges Guild modules lately & specifically Judges Guild's 'other haunted house module. House on Hangman's Hill was  published by Judges Guild in 1981 &  is a scenario for character levels 3-4. One of my fellow dungeon masters calls it Judge's Guild's other haunted house adventure withe classic Tegel Manor of course taking the lead.  But after a classic Hammer horror film marathon the wheels started churning in our heads. The adventure plot on House on Hangman's Hill from the Wiki entry is classic haunted house;"House on Hangman's Hill is a scenario for character levels 3-4 set in a haunted house of the classic type.^[1]

Near the village of Hedgehill there is a sprawling mansion, haunted by its unjustly-executed owner. The player characters enter by one of six doors and wander through 38 rooms of illusions, fun house effects, and encounters until they destroy the offending revenant or run away." 

Imagine if you will that group of lower tier characters specifically a group of lower tier Cyberpunk PC's from Cities Without Number stumbling into this 'haunted mansion'. Hear me out here, imagine if you will that this is a rival plane hopping haunted mansion. And over the decades of it's existence it has crossed many planes where it's undead & horrors feed on poor fools who stumbled into it's clutches!  JG's House on Hangman's Hill gets transformed into a sort of rogue free will adventure location roaming about the plains murdering victims within its halls. And trapping their souls within! And now it's the cyberpunk adventurers turn of Cities! 

And in point of fact because House on Hangman's Hill is only thirty two pages long & it's perfect to use as an introduction to the setting book of Wretched Darkness second edition. 

The house itself is a prime adventure for conversion over to Wretched Darkness second edition.  Even though 'House on Hangman's Hill' was  originally for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. 
The random events, the monsters, the whole cloth could easily be adapted into Wretched Darkness. Ian L. Straus reviewed the adventure in The Space Gamer No. 52 & his advice about 'House on Hangman's Hill is super critical; " "True to the horror-movie theme, some eerie events who no consequences are included just to make the players jump. There are also NPCs, rats, werewolves, and plenty of undead. Some of the worst fights can be avoided, so players who automatically charge will be punished. The room paragraphs are well-organized, and the map is amply detailed."^[2] He continued: "However, a haunted-house atmosphere may not suit all players. If you break the mood, the map becomes another generic dungeon with a few more exits. D&D players always partook more of horror movies than Conan, and the players may see no difference. The DM should add marginal reminders (to himself) to mention cobwebs and creaking doors. The floor plan is a 400' x 280' ranch house; it would match both the cover art and horror movies better if it had three stories. I suggest you rescale the map from 10' to 5' squares before you run it. I also suggest you encourage the party to walk around the outside. It is a house, not a burrow; give the players a grid sheet with door and outside walls marked."
Because of this JG's House on Hangman's Hill is primed to be used also with Wretched Epoque & Wretched Country both in thier second edition incarnations. 
And it can easily be slipped into the back bone of Wretched Vigilantes. 

House on Hangman's Hill shows up in your campaign, people go missing, the local undead population reaches & all time high, & murderous rival demonic & vampire slayers start killing everyone in sight. Suddenly there's a campaign!
Having run House on Hangman's Hill your probably talking about three or four months of a mini campaign at best & a two or three session one shot at worst. This is a deadly little thirty two page module. And I literally present this adventure as the rival to my planar traveling version of Tegel Manor.