The Cornelius Massacre - The Stormbringer Rpg Memories

 So let's go back in time to early Nineteen Ninety, at a tag sale I ran across a copy of 'The Cornelius Chronicles' and gave it too my uncle our Stormbringer rpg DM at the time. And thought nothing of it, oh boy was that a mistake. Alright let me go back in time, wayback about 1986 Citadel did the Eternal Champion box set and we knew that my uncle had those miniatures. Didn't think anything of it really at the time but man we were in deep trouble. Jerry Cornelius is a prick aspect of the first order of the 'Eternal Champion'. You can find details on the whole set right over here. I would later on use these figures loose to build my GW Pan Tangian army. 

My uncle was getting sicker at the time and so hitting the bottle a bit harder because of cancer. So at the time we were trying to recover an artifact of Law from a lost temple. We had very little in the way of power because of the damping effects of Law on Demon weapons. And we got into the temple, dodged the traps, the demons,etc. 

And then we we were exiting the temple we heard a rumble and then a explosion followed by an avalachance. Those of us who made our rolls were then subject to several soldiers in weird uniforms and a' too cool for school' prick in flared orange pants. The prick was carrying an air compressed dart gun which never existed and proceeded to stitch up every survivor to recover that artifact. The prick in question was another avitar of Jerry Cornelius. Specifically this miniature was on the table top at the time and I remember it well. The one below as was painted by Andrew Tailor but it's the exact same one. 

We would later on awaken back in the Young Kingdoms as if it was all a dream. The player's PC's would later on run across a very different style of Jerry looking like b/w composite image in Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. And that was where we made the mistake of engaging the prick Jerry Cornelius. He basically insulted, laughed at us, etc. We trapped the prick in a tomb and walked away. 
We didn't have a high nor vaulted opinion about Jerry at all. And we ran into the prick once again at the end of time. 
And this time we were ready for the bastard. We murdered the bastard before he had a chance to catch a beat on us with that dart gun of his and sent his arse back to the 'Swinging Sixties'. 

Review & Commentary On 'The Octagon of Chaos' by Tony Fiorito From Theatre of the Mind Enterpr For The Second Edition Stormbringer rpg box sets

 

"In the time of Sadric the LXXXVI, the Bright Expire was experiencing a time of peace belying the decadence and retrogression that has gripped the empire. Imperial garrisons in the far-flung Southern Kingdoms are brought home to Imrryr, the dreaming city, their need apparently past. Upon this vacuum the greedy theocrat of Pan Tang cast a crafty eye. He was not known to waste his time on trifles. In another place, a faceless Duke of Chaos contemplated the coming slaughter." 


In the middle of  Game News (Issue 11 - Jan 1986) was an advertiment for a new adventure for the Stormbringer rpg. 'The Octogon of Chaos' by Tony Fiorito hit the stands in '86 & was real change from the Stormbringer adventures that preceeded it. And that difference straight up is that the  'The Octogon of Chaos' is a human centric adventure. There are no Melibonians allowed! 

Now we own a few Theatre of the Mind Enterprises, Inc adventures but this one is more then a bit different. This adventure focus of 'The Octagon of Chaos' is within the Young Kingdoms itself but as a fodder for the adventure & its place as a legacy of the Meliboneans.  'The Octagon of Chaos' takes place twenty years before the events of Michael Moorcock's "Elric of Elniboné'' & so this module could be used as a prequel to that book's events within the campaign;""For ten thousand years Melnibone ruled the world.

Elric, the 428th Emperor, seemed destined to see that era come to an end. An albino, sustained by rare drugs, it fell to him to confront the rise of the Young Kingdoms, of the monsters and sorceries which were threatening to overwhelm him and his ancient crown.
The Elric novels have already become classics of heroic fantasy and future projection. DAW is proud to present them to an eager public in new editions, corrected and revised by Michael Moorcock. ELRIC OF MELNIBONE is the first."" 

 'The Octagon of Chaos' by Tony Fiorito isn't a light weight adventure & requires six players dealing with four to six players running eight to twelve PC's. Of those half of those should be warriors easily. Hell, I would add in here that the players may sprinkle in another one or two just to deal with some of the encounters of  'The Octagon of Chaos'. This is a solid & dangerous module for the Stormbringer rpg. And it deals with two things that the players will not expect  a faceless Duke of Chaos & the greedy theocrat of Pan Tang. And a dungeon master running  'The Octogon of Chaos' is going to need to take full advantage of White Wolf: Temples, Demons, & Ships of War. Both for some of its military rules & the ship rules. I certainly did to deal with some of the nastiness that the PC's encounter. We get a very detailed description of Bakshaan & its environs. 

 'The Octagon of Chaos' takes full advantage of the rpg resources of the Stormbringer 2nd edition box set dealing with the material in spades. This is both a module & a potential resource that the DM should take full advantage of. We get a full cast of NPC's, factions they belong to, full background, & full on adventure time line. Personally if as a DM I  was going to run 'The Octagon of Chaos' with fourth edition Stormbringer, I'd grab my copy of 'Sea Kings of the Purple Towns'. 
The reasoning is simple, there's fully fleshed out addional  rules & guidelines for sea travel. 

There's murder, intrigue, and plenty of chances for double & even triple crosses within 'The Octagon of Chaos'. The material within this adventure reminds the players that their PC's are on the 'date card' for a chaos lord. For an Eighty Six adventure There's murder, intrigue, and plenty of chances for double & even triple crosses. 'The Octagon of Chaos' is a very progressive adventure for Stormbringer in the fact that it teases, uses, & exploits the PC's. 
Even the encounters can be scaled as needed. 'The Octagon of Chaos' presents a few opportunities to really go to town with this concept. The DM is going to have his hands full but this doesn't mean that 'The Octagon of Chaos' is a bad adventure far from it. But it does take advantage of both the players & its target audience. 'The Octagon of Chaos' isn't simply any old module this is a mini campaign unto itself.

Silence of Chaos & Anarchy - The Stormbringer Rpg Memories

 Last night I was checking out Ebay and looking in on one of my all time favorite Rpg's and that's Stormbringer. Holy crow the cost of the Chaosium Stormbringer has become like gold on Ebay. And it's been a very long time since I wrote anything on the Chaosiums's Stormbringer rpg. Why now? We used to have our Stormbringer rpg sessions in the Summer. So the hot weather always reminds me of chucking dice and demons. 

Over on Rpggeek there was a comment by Barhara Kipling that put the first edition Stormbringer rpg box set into context for the table top;"Great game in its day, though admittedly it makes demons much more important than they ever were in the Elric stories (Note: 5th edition removed this heavy reliance on demons to better reflect the stories). However, we still used the rules for demons, and Stormbringer's early editions gave us many years of enjoyable campaigning. We still play occasionally when we want a break from the RPG du jour." "As a side note, we used these early editions of Stormbringer for adventures in Fred Saberhagen's "Empire of the East" setting before it got its own dedicated rulebook. Lots of fun there!"

So what is it about Stormbringer that seems to draw in so many of us back to her?! The fact is that Stormbringer isn't Dungeons & Dragons is precisely why so many D&D players back in the day seemed to get really into Stormbringer. Thomas Denmark hits it on the head on his RpgGeek Stormbringer comments;"Well written. One of the best fantasy roleplaying games ever designed, and a near perfect translation of the novels to a game. All my nostalgia is with 1st edition, but I have to admit 4th is probably the best as it fixes a few issues like balance and magic" 

We got deeply involved in White Dwarf's The Mad Cap Laughs and after the mini campaign was over we had to move on deeper into the Young Kingdoms. How deep we weren't prepared for. We were moved back in time to play in the fields of the Young Kingdom much earlier in time. 

Review & Commentary On 'The Octagon of Chaos' by Tony Fiorito From Theatre of the Mind Enterpr For The Second Edition Stormbringer rpg box set

 

"In the time of Sadric the LXXXVI, the Bright Expire was experiencing a time of peace belying the decadence and retrogression that has gripped the empire. Imperial garrisons in the far-flung Southern Kingdoms are brought home to Imrryr, the dreaming city, their need apparently past. Upon this vacuum the greedy theocrat of Pan Tang cast a crafty eye. He was not known to waste his time on trifles. In another place, a faceless Duke of Chaos contemplated the coming slaughter." 


In the middle of  Game News (Issue 11 - Jan 1986) was an advertiment for a new adventure for the Stormbringer rpg. 'The Octogon of Chaos' by Tony Fiorito hit the stands in '86 & was real change from the Stormbringer adventures that preceeded it. And that difference straight up is that this is a human centric adventure. There are no Melibonians allowed! 

Now we own a few Theatre of the Mind Enterprises, Inc adventures but this one is more then a bit different. This adventure focus of 'The Octagon of Chaos' is within the Young Kingdoms itself but as a fodder for the adventure & its place as a legacy of the Meliboneans.  'The Octagon of Chaos' takes place twenty years before the events of Michael Moorcock's "Elric of Elniboné'' & so this module could be used as a prequel to that book's events within the campaign;""For ten thousand years Melnibone ruled the world.

Elric, the 428th Emperor, seemed destined to see that era come to an end. An albino, sustained by rare drugs, it fell to him to confront the rise of the Young Kingdoms, of the monsters and sorceries which were threatening to overwhelm him and his ancient crown.
The Elric novels have already become classics of heroic fantasy and future projection. DAW is proud to present them to an eager public in new editions, corrected and revised by Michael Moorcock. ELRIC OF MELNIBONE is the first."" 

 'The Octagon of Chaos' by Tony Fiorito isn't a light weight adventure & requires six players dealing with four to six players running eight to twelve PC's. Of those half of those should be warriors easily. Hell, I would add in here that the players may sprinkle in another one or two just to deal with some of the encounters of  'The Octagon of Chaos'. This is a solid & dangerous module for the Stormbringer rpg. And it deals with two things that the players will not expect  a faceless Duke of Chaos & the greedy theocrat of Pan Tang. And a dungeon master running  'The Octogon of Chaos' is going to need to take full advantage of White Wolf: Temples, Demons, & Ships of War. Both for some of its military rules & the ship rules. I certainly did to deal with some of the nastiness that the PC's encounter. We get a very detailed description of Bakshaan & its environs. 

 'The Octagon of Chaos' takes full advantage of the rpg resources of the Stormbringer 2nd edition box set dealing with the material in spades. This is both a module & a potential resource that the DM should take full advantage of. We get a full cast of NPC's, factions they belong to, full background, & full on adventure time line. Personally if as a DM I  was going to run 'The Octagon of Chaos' with fourth edition Stormbringer, I'd grab my copy of 'Sea Kings of the Purple Towns'. 
The reasoning is simple, there's fully fleshed out addional  rules & guidelines for sea travel. 

There's murder, intrigue, and plenty of chances for double & even triple crosses within 'The Octagon of Chaos'. The material within this adventure reminds the players that their PC's are on the 'date card' for a chaos lord. For an Eighty Six adventure There's murder, intrigue, and plenty of chances for double & even triple crosses. 'The Octagon of Chaos' is a very progressive adventure for Stormbringer in the fact that it teases, uses, & exploits the PC's. 
Even the encounters can be scaled as needed. 'The Octagon of Chaos' presents a few opportunities to really go to town with this concept. The DM is going to have his hands full but this doesn't mean that 'The Octagon of Chaos' is a bad adventure far from it. But it does take advantage of both the players & its target audience. 'The Octagon of Chaos' isn't simply any old module this is a mini campaign unto itself.