Review & Commentary On 'The Stormbringer Companion' For The Stormbringer rpg by Sandy Petersen , Steve Perrin , & Ken St. Andre

 "Creatures, heroes (or antagonists), and exotic treasures for use by the Game Master in Stormbringer adventures. Plus six far-ranging adventures ready for immediate play"

The Stormbringer rpg Companion is one of the most loved of the 2nd edition box set supplement books, The Stormbringer rpg companion  basically is the spill over & adventure book that the game needed.Stormbringer Companion  for the Elric/Stormbringer RPG is a paperback  that was published on January 1, 1983 by Sandy Petersen (Author), Steve Perrin (Author), & Ken St. Andre (Author). Its loved because of the fact that it actually dove tails right into the world of 'The Young Kingdoms' so well. And the adventures actually fit the game very well. These adventures convey a feeling of Sword & Sorcery inherit in the design & writing at the time; "

"Stormbringer is a roleplaying game of action and adventure in the Young Kingdoms, the world created by noted author Michael Moorcock in his ELRIC novels. This is the first supplement produced specifically for Stormbringer.

Within this book you will find two main sections: Additions and Scenarios. The Additions section contains creatures, heroes (or antagonists), and exotic treasures for use by the Game Master in Stormbringer adventures.

The Scenarios section contains six far-ranging adventures ready for immediate play. The adventurers will travel the world over: starting from daunting Forest of Troos, through the Dragon Sea, into the Marshes of Mist, over the northern hills of Shazaar, and onto the Plane of Shadows. They must meet and master every foe imaginable, but the rewards are well-worthwhile for the few lucky survivors."

1983, 1985(?) ... 80 pages ... CHAO 2102 ... ISBN 0933635079" This write up is from Wayne's Books here. The first section contains a Young Kingdoms's bestiary. And these monsters & creatures would appear later in the fourth edition of the Stormbringer rpg. We dive into notable Young Kingdom NPC's & again these would appear later in the fourth edition rpg. The treasures section has many major & some minor magical artifacts once again these would appear within the fourth edition of the Stormbringer rpg. 

The adventures start with the solo 'Sea Battles At Melibone' By Ken St.Andre & you get to play Elric in a sea battle against his treasonous cousin. The adventure is designed to teach the tactics of the Stormbringer rpg. Its a good introduction to the game itself. The second adventure Karyzoon's Quest by John Scott Clegg takes the player on as a sorcerer of Pan Tang whose exhausted his supply of invulnerability potion & must brave the forrest of Troos. The adventure highlights the real alieness of the forrest & its inhabitants. It does solid job of introducing the forrest & weirdness to the player. I've used this adventure as a part of the mercenary work for my players back in the Nineties. Into The Marshes by Glenn Rahman has the player take on the role of Moonglum.This is a good solo adventure with some interesting twists & turns. 

Then we dive into 'The Hall of Risk' by John Boyle, this is a mother of an adventure & really goes a long way to really putting the 'Young Kingdoms''s flavor on a plate for the dungeon master. This is a high risk adventure & I've run it several times over the years. 
The Crystal of Daerdaerdath' by Mark L Gambler here the player's PC's become in the employ of a wealthy Pan Tangian merchant, a collector of magical artifacts & art. They have a rather unusual job but the adventure is not as straight forward as it sounds. And this is one of the best of the book in my humble opinion. 

'The Eye of the Theocrat' by Ed Gore is a nasty little run of an adventure & this one is a classic that I've run numerous times. Its nasty, dangerous, with its own twists or turns. 

The Stormbringer Companion is more then the sum of its parts & many of the adventures above would resurface within fourth edition Stormbringer as a part of the book's packaged adventures. The book is now notable for collectors of the Stormbringer rpg. And an old favorite of mine because it lays the Young Kingdom flavor, setting, & material at the feet of the dungeon master. 

Insights & Inspirations From Different Worlds issue #31 'The Bastions of Balo' by Ken St. Andre For The Stormbringer Rpg

 

 In Different Worlds issue #31 'The Bastions of Balo' by Ken St. Andre  things got very hairy & wooly for our group of cut throa umm adventurers. Different Worlds issue #31 'The Bastions of Balo' how shall we put this nicely?! A nasty little Stormbringer adventure wrapped in a velvet glove. This is another one of those let's strip the PC's down to the bare essentials & see if they can survive our little trap adventures. Its sort of a  mini AD&D first edition 'Sourage of the Slave Lords' adventure  where the players have to think their way out of the adventure. 
Brain power does not equal playability but fortunately we had solid players in my uncle Jack's game. Older players mixed in with our young hot headedness & tempered with a dollop of extra jadedness pulled us back from many a PC death. But we did die by the score in 'The Bastions of Balo'. 
Balo himself had laced this adventure as a mini world & it really fueled my hate for 'the Jester of the Chaos Gods'. This was the adventure that really brought home the fact that  Balo always looked like demented jester from Werner van den Valckert 'Fool With A Smaller Fool' art piece in my mind. My uncle used this piece of artwork whenever we interacted with Balo as an NPC. 

While 'The Bastions of Balo' by Ken St. Andre   was created as a trap for Elric our group stumbled into its machinations. This means that the adventure while it is a' locked closet adventure' there are some ways out. We were able to confront & confound the 'Jester of The Chaos Gods' by basically role playing outta of the situation similar to 'Next Generations' Star Trek crew's confrontations with 'Q'. After a multiplicity of dying & being resurrected Balo got a bit bored with us and decided to let us go. As simple as that or was it!?! No not at all & in fact it was 'The Bastions of Balo' by Ken St. Andre that lead directly into 'The Madcap Laughs' for us. 
As a 'locked dungeon' scenario   'The Bastions of Balo' by Ken St. Andre  has some merits. One its a perfect take away to run with the Stormbringer rpg  especially as a prelude or after the events of Michael Moorcock's Weird of the White Wolf. 

Even if 'The Bastions of Balo' was meant as a trap for Elric there were very few times that we even remotely crossed paths with the White Wolf as Stormbringer rpg players. Let me let you in on a little secret 90% of the time when we even romotely came close to the areas where NPC  Elric was we fled. Yup that's right! We as players had our PC's survive the destruction of the Young Kingdom. Why?! Because we were no place near the plane  at the time. Elric is/was a literal walking engine of murderous destruction & target for the cosmic forces. He's an NPC black hole swirling with a plane wrecking demon sword. Sure its cool to play Elric as an NPC but none of the players that I played with wanted to be near him. 

And so it is with 'Bastions of Balo' because as players we realized cosmic 'broom closet' trap adventures waited around the corner for Elric & ourselves if we followed in his wake as players. That didn't prevent the cosmic forces of Law & Chaos from playing merry havoc with our PC's! Far from it indeed. 'Bastions of Balo' does what it sets out to do. Play around with Stormbringer PC's but escaping its machinations are not easy but they can be rewarding. There are illegal scans of Different Worlds issue #31 floating around the internet so its not that hard to find if you look. Not in any I'm I encouraging such illegal behavior. 

 Five Things about 'The Bastions of Balo' 

1. Don't use 'Bastions of Balo' as an introduction adventure for the Stormbringer rpg. It almost put me right off the game because of the frustration level of death in it. 
2. Use it as mid tier or campaign side bridge of an adventure.
3. Have a backup way out of the Bastions of Balo for the PC's or it could end the campaign. 
4. PC resurrection, resurrection, resurrection, & make any replacement PC's a thorn in the side of Chaos or Law. The Jester of the Chaos Gods should be playing with the movers,shakers,& fools. 
5. As a DM pay close attention to map of 'Bastions of Balo'. The players often get confused with regards to the room vs monster encounters in my experience.