OSR Commentary On Stormbringer's Rpg Chaos Lord - Arioch Blood and Souls For The Lord of the Seven Darks

 "Arioch is one of the most powerful of the Dukes of Hell. He has many titles and nicknames including Knight of the Swords, Lord of the Higher Hell, and  Lord of the Seven Darks."

We deal with Arioch several times and none of them for good during our Stormbringer rpg campaign. The first time was when we recovered a magic sword from a Melnibonean tomb & the Chaos god appeared to chastise  our party. According to the wiki entry on the Biblical name of Arioch;"Arioch was a name for a fictional demon, and also appears as the name of a demon in many grimoires. Arioch is also named in John Milton's Paradise Lost (vi. 371.) as one of the fallen angels under Satan's command." We were able to get away from the Chaos lord by paying tribute to him with the sacrifice of one of the tomb's guards. The second time we paid the price when we were dealing with a sorcerer from Pan Tangian in charge of a group of pirates. This time Arioch took one of our party as a compensation. 

 Arioch has many aspects that made us suspect that he might actually be Beelzebub Lord of the Flies, according to the Beelzebub wiki entry; "Beelzebub is commonly described as placed high in Hell's hierarchy. According to the stories of the 16th-century occultist Johann Weyer, Beelzebub led a successful revolt against the Devil,^[26]  is the chief lieutenant of  Lucifer, the Emperor of Hell, and presides over the Order of the Fly." 

The third encounter with Arioch was in a point of Limbo when we crossed over into the 14th century in a quest to find an artifact of Law. We crossed into Limbo to get to the temple of the Fallen. There we came into conflict with Count Jagged of Caledonia. According to the Michael Moorcock multiverse wiki; "Lord Jagged of Canaria is a Denizen of the End of Time. He is a friend to Jherek Carnelian and engineered Jherek's falling in love with Mrs. Amelia Underwood. Jagged is described as being almost white in his paleness, with near colourless eyes and hair and extravagent costumes usually featuring a high, padded collar. He once took the form of Arioch, and it has been hinted that they are one and the same." They were one and the same when Jagged turned into Arioch and our party almost died. 
The thing that saved our bacon was the fact that a Saint of Law came into conflict with Arioch. We fled in the meantime. And crossed into Limbo once again to get back to the Young Kingdoms. 

We were able to get the artifact to our patron who then gave us a singularity engine to get our planar ship back into the Million Spheres. 
Our own issue with the Young Kingdom was the growing influence of Chaos and the Pan Tangians. We found that Arioch was able to manifest without being called in the Young Kingdoms! We fled after leaving him to a temple of Law's refugees.  The Million Spheres awaited us and we left the Young Kingdoms behind. Just as the Young Kingdoms submitted to Chaos itself. 

Review & Commentary On The Stormbringer Rpg's Guide to Old Hrolmar by Richard Watts

 This rich city was a great meeting place for all the imaginative people of the Young Kingdoms. To it came explorers, adventurers, mercenaries, craftsmen, merchants, painters and poets for, under the rule of the famous Duke Avan Astran, this Vilmirian city state was undergoing a transformation in its character. THE VANISHING TOWER, II, II Michael Moorcock 

OLD HROLMAR IS A BASTION of culture within grim Vilmir, and stands as one of the greatest cities the Young Kingdoms will ever see. Yet it is a city under siege. While the machinations of Law and Chaos threaten its stability from within, far greater dangers are massed outside its walls. Neither King Naclon of Vilmir, nor the powerful Cardinal Garrick of the Church of Law, look favourably upon Old Hrolmar, and its bravely independent ruler, Duke Avan Astran. 

Stormbringer! Guide To Old Hrolmar Bastion of Change in the Young Kingdoms is an updated monograph that covers the fifth  edition of The  Stormbringer rpg!. 

OLD HROLMAR clocks in at a solid one hundred and ten pages of monograph. We get a bit of everything here from Richard Watts in OLD HROLMAR from region  history, setting material, a boat load of NPC's, organizations, guild material, adventure hooks and more. 

OLD HROLMAR is an  urban cityscape for the Stormbringer rpg. And this urban cityscape is a perfect land of adventure for Stormbringer PC's. It presents a bastion of civilization amid the world of theYoung Kingdoms. And it's been updated with brand new maps and cover. And the OLD HROLMAR supplement has everything a crew of Strombringer rpg PC's are going to need to dive headlong into the city at the height of it's power and wealth. 

The Sword & Sorcery horrors of Law & Chaos are at the center of the city of OLD HROLMAR. And as a campaign of adventure for Stormbringer we have a bastion of civilization and culture. 
OLD HROLMAR is miles away from the usual rabble & rile of the Young Kingdoms. As a point of adventure and civilization this kingdom is invaluable. Did I mention that OLD HROLMAR is rotten to it's core?! There's in roads that the beggar's guild has made and the Order of the Pale Orchid Chaos cult that has exploded into influence. And a host of smugglers and cult throat NPC's!? 

Also the church of Law is on the wane as well. So things in OLD HROLMAR are not as they seem on the surface but they seldom are! 

OLD HROLMAR is a very detailed monograph and supplement with everything a Strombringer! Rpg fourth edition DM needs to bring this Young Kingdom cityscape to life in spades. We get a very and highly detailed gazeteer of the city and it's districts, neighborhoods, personalities, etc. And there's a boat load of information that covers everything that one needs to drop your PC's into the mix of OLD HROLMAR. 

OLD HROLMAR is oriented towards working with Stormbringer fifth edition and that's fine. Since Stormbringer fifth edition is almost but not quite the  Ruinquest rpg OLD HROLMAR should also work well as a resource for that BRP game as well. 

OLD HROLMAR works on several levels as a campaign setting. One as a 'safe' harbor within the Young Kingdoms for adventurers until events of the Stormbringer mythos bring that to an end. And OLD HROLMAR also acts an adventure point as well when the corruptions of Law & Chaos come to call in the old city. And the other point is Duke Avan himself as patron for a group of adventurers until his death. 
"FOR A BRIEF SPAN of years Old Hrolmar is one of the greatest cities in the Young Kingdoms, and a beacon of tolerance and creativity in grim Vilmir.", this statement isn't a lie the city was for a brief golden age a beacon of hope and home in the Young Kingdoms.
Is  OLD HROLMAR worth the download?! In a word, oh yes! For a number of reasons. 
OLD HROLMAR could in point of fact be used with a couple of BRP products as a campaign base. One would be the Avalon Hill Runequest gaming system. OLD HROLMAR fits right into the background of it's Historical Europe rpg model. There will have to be adjustments & handwaving on the DM's part. The second is possibly the Call of Cthulhu rpg where the Young Kingdoms become a part of the Dreamlands and the cycle of birth and death of Young Kingdoms happens. And the third option is Stormbringer itself as the system. 
The fourth option is going to make the purists cringe and that's to bring OLD HROLMAR over to an OSR game. And this could be done with Castles & Crusades where the NPC's are easily going to be within 3rd to 6th level and beyond easily for that system. 

OLD HROLMAR makes an excellent adventuring base and solid campaign setting. The fact that the old city can be turned in on itself and then used as a terrific adventure plot point is something that few folks even know about. 
This city has everything that a campaign needs to start or end in one location. The fact that it works on so many levels is enough to speak volumes about Richard Watts and co. writing and design. 

Stormbringer rpg Fifth Edition, CAS's Zothique, and Chaos - - Further Mediations on The Stormbringer rpg & OSR Campaign Memories

 The year was 2001 & things were very chaotic for our Rpg group. Folks were getting married, moving away, marriages were breaking apart, and more. A new fifth edition of Stormbringer was hitting the shelves. And it was a switch up for our group, we had aquired  a scaling ship & a playing piece in the grand game of time. Where we had grabbed one completely outside of the Moorcockian mythos within the wastelands of Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. 

This came down after we transferred off several other ships after the events of the Rogue Mistress campaign. And then served aboard a crews aboard a couple of  scaling ships. We lost a ton of players to the D20 explosion of 3.5 D&D but there were just as many folks completely disenchanted with the system. And this led to the second book that brought at few folks to the table the Corum rpg supplement. Corum was completely different then other rpg supplements on the market during this time. The maps were incredible, the mythology true to the source material, and the supplement worked very well for Stormbringer fifth edition. 

While Moorcock hasn't exactly been full of praise when it came to Clark Ashton Smith. This didn't matter to our group as our co DM figured that Zothique was a far future Earth where the powers of Chaos has almost full sway. 

/Deep in the wastes of Zothique we found a plain filled with the wreckage of scaling ships. Zothique was also one of the worlds where you as a magus didn't want to summon demons. Several would answer the call of the mage and then it was a battle to control the horror. 
There was also the fact that any demon weapons were far easier to forge and bind. The works of Law however after several months would begin to gain corrosion and simply evoporate back into the ether. 
There was also the fact that entering Zothique from the 'Million Spheres' was easy. Leaving the world was another matter entirely unless one had a scaling ship. 
Zothique was also the site for numerous species of demons and other creatures of Chaos. Little did we realize that we were on the edge of the latest villain  about to rear his head. So did a couple of things to make Stormbringer fifth edition go quicker. And the first thing we did was to bring the combat system from the Elric rpg into our campaign. The next thing was to make magick easier to learn in Zothique & make the demons even more deadly.. 

Retro Review & Commentary On The Free Campaign Setting For Fifth Edition Stormbringer rpg - Old Hrolmar By Richard Watts

" OLD HROLMAR IS a bastion of culture within grim Vilmir, and stands as one of the greatest cities the Young Kingdoms will ever see. Yet it is a city under siege. While the machinations of Law and Chaos threaten its stability from within, far greater dangers are massed outside its walls. Neither King Naclon of Vilmir, nor the powerful Cardinal Garrick of the Church of Law, look favourably upon Old Hrolmar, and its bravely independent ruler, Duke Avan Astran. Sadly the duke is fated to be slain by Elric of Melniboné within a few short years, after which the city’s glory will quickly fade as the inexorable weight of Vilmirian tradition is brought to bear upon its citizens. This book however, is set before those unhappy days, during the city’s brief renaissance, when the duke and his ideals reign and all is good within Old Hrolmar. "

Its been ages since the spine of the free fifth edition Stormbringer  rpg -  Old Hrolmar monograph was cracked. What is this free supplement?! Well in the words of the Stormbringer.com site;"Near the end of the Chaosium’s Stormbringer and Elric! production run they produced a number of ‘cheap and cheerful’ monographs set in the Young Kingdoms. " 

Note that Old Hrolmar  is a human centric campaign setting & it brings this setting into a viable & actually usable supplement. Old Hrolmar  is a good supplement & even as a monograph deserves to be used in a Stormbringer rpg campaign. 

This is basically a fully fleshed out Young Kingdom campaign city right from the ground up; "Old Hrolmar explores the Vilmarian city of the same name, and details how the home of Duke Avan Astran represents a bastion of change throughout of the Young Kingdoms. This monograph includes information on the city, its inhabitants and its future in a world doomed for destruction." 

 Recently having reread Michael Moorcock's Sailor on the Seas of Fate, exactly the part that this kingdom plays. And the huge history that Old Hrolmar has in the 'Young Kingdoms';It should be noted that the vision of Old Hrolmar as described in this book differs in one important respect from the chronology laid out by Michael Moorcock in the early volumes of his passionate, furiously-written and sometimes contradictory Elric Saga. The adventurerexplorer Duke Avan Astran is introduced to readers in the second book of the saga, The Sailor On The Seas Of Fate, before being swiftly killed off in the same volume. " 

Old Hrolmar  clocks in at one hundred & ten pages & it does so with the idea that this is a campaign monograph to be used at the table top level. The city & its environs cry out to be used & used well during play. The historical details & writing are crisp & the balance of material in the supplement is well done. 

We've said it before & so it going to be stated again, Elric is not a hero at all. He's a chaotic force of nature destroying everything around him. And Old Hrolmar has centuries before he has to appear on the world stage of the 'Young Kingdoms'. This happens to make the Old Hrolmar campagin setting not only viable but very accessible. A perfect addition to Old Hrolmar campagin setting; 

"Visitor’s Guide to Old Hrolmar, a Primer for Stormbringer 5th edition Players " 

This a perfect hand out for players who want to have a viable & stable kingdom to base themselves in. That's not to say that there isn't 'adventure a plenty to be had'. Old Hrolmar  has some solid NPC's, well thought out backgrounds, and intriguing hooks to get the players deeply involved. The writing is good and there are two well done maps an annotated map of the City of Old Hrolmar, Bastion of Change – March 2019 (JPG, 1 A3 page, 835Kb) perfect for the players & for the DM Old Hrolmar (as original drawn by Carl Pates). 
The Old Hrolmar campagin setting feels like an adventurers city, a place to hang your hats & shealth your sword. But its also a place to get the players into the action of expediations to unknown lands, & places of intrigue. There are details here on some of the cults of both Law & Chaos, the politics of the palace, and back alley deals waiting to happen. 

To us at least Old Hrolmar is a real place in a Stormbringer campaign & a place that can be dropped into a Stormbringer fifth edition campaign with little issue. Since this is a monograph part of me as a Stormbringer fan wants to see more. That's why this is a four outta of five for me.  

Note that this isn't the first time we've  reviewed this monograph but because of my recent rereading of the Stormbringer rpg  we thought that it would be a good time to reexamine Old Hrolmar.