Stormbringer to Elric of Melnibone Conversion

[Sadric 86th]

I've run Stormbringer on and off for years. My friends and I have been back at it for a while now. We use the current 5th edition rules but with the advent of Elric of Melnibone coming out, I'm thinking about converting over.

This thread may be a bit premature since we don't have the new publication available until July-August but its still worth pondering. I think, as far as conversions are concerned, it's likely the game will convert fairly easily. Even the old spells in the Bronze Grimiore, etc. would be easy to convert into sorcery spells or even "rune" spells.

The only real difficult conversion that become apparent is the conversion of demon items, especially weapons and items. Does a gamemaster simply rule these items are no longer in existence? It's likely that option would leave players dissatisfied and resistant. A better solution is to "reinterpret" demon items into the appropriate equivalents in the new system ( of course, we don't know what exist yet) or perhaps into unique enchanted items.

A third option and one that is not supported by the magic systems will find, is developing a "translation" of such objects and demon summonings into a system compatible with the new Runequest based rules. Without knowing precisely what we can expect, what do my fellow Stormbringer players intend to do?

 

[CthulhuFnord]

I've always enjoyed Demon items in Elric! myself, I do think it's used a bit much for NPCS in the Rpg.

 

[tarkhan bey]

I too am a long term player of Stormbringer/Elric in its various forms. I have to say that I would be very surprised if there were no new rules for the summoning and binding of entities. It seems to me to be such an intrinsic part of this particular game.
I would imagine that these new rules will use the points build system for these entities in a similar way to previous editions of the game.

 

[Mongoose Pete]

Whilst binding demons into items was part of previous versions of the game, such demon binding was not actually part of the saga. Only Stormbringer and Mournblade were demon bound items, and they had been fashioned by a race older, and stronger than the Melniboneans themselves.

There are however methods of binding a demon to your service, or locating one of the rare sorcerous items scattered throughout the multiverse. But as in the stories, this requires bargaining with the Lords of the Higher Planes...

The magic in Elric of Melnibone has been deliberately written to be faithful to the way Moorcock wrote it. Meaning it is considerably more powerful, and far more damning than earlier incarnations of the game.

 

[Loz]

I can only echo Pete's reply.

One of the problems with Stormbringer 5th edition sorcery was the immense amount of MPs needed to design demons. I never felt it reflected the saga, and neither did the spell list that was introduced as part of Elric!, and designed to mitigate against the changes made from 1st edition Stormbringer sorcery (which was extremely unbalanced but huge amounts of fun).

All I can really add is... you'll have to wait for the book to come out to see how sorcery is now being handled.

 

[Aramanthus]

Actually the demon items showed up in the overall series of novels. And some of Elric's foes had them fairly often. If a private Gm wants them out of his world, then that is his choice, but overall these items must remain part of the Overall Elric RPG. I have every edition of the RPG. So please stay true to the Saga! If it wanders away from the saga especially on this note, it will not be a true and good version of Elric!

 

[Loz]

Actually the demon items showed up in the overall series of novels. And some of Elric's foes had them fairly often.

Are you absolutely sure of this? Demons - summoned, tangible creatures - certaininly feature, but demon items? I think you'll find very few - if any - references to them. They're not a fairly often occurrence at all (with the obvious exeptions of Stormbringer and Mournblade). Enchanted items exist, but bound demons were introduced as part of 1st edition Stormbringer and they don't actually reflect the saga at all. Believe me, I scoured the novels before writing the latest version to satisfy myself on this count.

On one instance Jagreen Lern is described as follows, in the novel, Stormbringer:

'On its body scarlet armour glowed as if red-hot. On its left arm was a shield of the same stuff and in its hand a steel sword.'

Neither the armour nor shield is described as demonic or demon-bound. Enchanted - yes. But demonic? I'm unconvinced.

I have every edition of the RPG. So please stay true to the Saga! If it wanders away from the saga especially on this note, it will not be a true and good version of Elric!

So do I. I do agree that bound demons were great fun. But I don't agree that they were true to the saga. If I was striving for anything with this book, it was to be faithful - and that meant reviewing a lot of the things found in the previous versions of the game and deciding on their accuracy in terms of the stories.

 

[Quire]

Actually the demon items showed up in the overall series of novels. And some of Elric's foes had them fairly often.

Where? Examples?

- Q

 

[toothill man]

the demon protecting the begger kings hoard comes to mind as well as the anicent pacts between elementals and beast lords and thats from memory

 

[Loz]

the demon protecting the begger kings hoard comes to mind as well as the anicent pacts between elementals and beast lords and thats from memory

A demon, certainly, but not a demon item... :wink:

 

[Sadric 86th]

Loz is absolutely right.

So, what does one do with existing demon items?

 

[Rurik]

If you don't want to strip migrated characters of their demon items you could say that they are enchanted items gained through deals with past demons.

They would then be items gained through summoning demons, but not strictly bound demons. That is probably how I would handle it.

 

[weasel_fierce]

I think Stormbringer 5 is the best fantasy game ever written (more or less), but I knew they had overdone it, when they gave Moonglum demon weapons.

Im okay with them disappearing.
If you're converting characters, I'd just convert as well as possible for the purpose of those characters

 

[Wolverine]

'On its body scarlet armour glowed as if red-hot. On its left arm was a shield of the same stuff and in its hand a steel sword.'

Neither the armour nor shield is described as demonic or demon-bound. Enchanted - yes. But demonic? I'm unconvinced.

Loz is correct on this. There are no mentin of demon-bound items in the saga. There are hints of "enchanted" weaponry and armour, but the only reference is Stormbringer itself, and that is described more in the saga as a rune sword rather than demon-blade.

I think it was Chaosium's edition that first introduced the idea of demon and element bindings into items. Then it would be the creation of Ken St Andre rather than Moorcock himself.

 

[Da Boss]

Demon items were indeed very rare in the books - as were spells themselves - I have all the versions as well and presently running a campaign using elements of the rules from each of the editions:

Magic and combat like 1st/2nd edition, mostly ignoring the spells from later editions, using a version of the Chaos, Law and Balance points system of measuring present alligience. Demon weapons are rare but still as in the GW edition......stat generation and skills as GW edition but variant on their progression.

My party consists (presently) of a bored 16 year Melnibonean girl and her bodyguard, A ships captain (they hired), a Tarkeshian Merc and human adventurer - although the latter just got eaten by a Pan Tang tiger and then washed away in a hurricane.

no idea if any help - Almost certainly buy new edition and pick and choose bits I like. lookign forward to hawkmoon more actually as this will be ground less travelled..........

 

[Sadric 86th]

I've never been a big fan of "taking away" from players and I'd like let them keep their items even if it requires some ( or a lot) of reworking the items to fit the setting. I suppose my issues are:

1. Do I keep them as "bound demons" or turn them into something else entirely?

2. Power level. The damage bonus and armor protection bonus are a few d10s. I'm guessing that level of power is outside the scope of Runequest/Elric of Melnibone. I'm contemplating a every 10 magic points equals an extra point of damage, or for armor, protection- and like enchantments, only for one piece of armor, though the character could allot points to other armor pieces if the character has sufficient MP invested in the demon.

Does that sound like a fair/sensible conversion rate?

 

[Archer]

Sounds like the magic may be worth using from Elric of Melniboné. I never liked the idea that to make any object more "powerful" through magic, you had to use daemons. Looks like finally the magic will be more in line with what we see from the books. Which is probably the major point that will sell the game to me
Though I will probably use a mixture of SB5 and Elric of Melniboné rules, as I am not fond of the current damage system in RQ, and much prefer the Major/Minor wound system of SB5.

 

[Sadric 86th]

I came up with something that I think works, is fair to the players and brings the scale in line with Runequest (vs. Stormbringer 5th).

Conversion of Demon Weapons and Demon Shields

1. The STR+ SIZ of the weapon are compared on the damage modifier table. Results of a "negative die" are ignored. This means, Magic Points originally invested for damage should be reallocated to the strength characteristic to buy dice to generate a strength score.

2. The constitution of the demon adds to the hitpoints of the weapon. A demonbound weapon is unlikely to break as easily as an ordinary weapon.
3. AP can be increased at a rate of 5 MP for one AP.
4. DEX/ 5 to determine the skill bonus of the weapon or shield.

Converting Demon Armor

1. A demon bound to armor protects only one "piece" or component (i.e. "a helm" or "a chain shirt").
2. Every 5 MP expended on the demon increases the AP by one.
3. Every 10 MP expended decreases the ENC by one.
4. Every 2 MP decreases the skill penalty by one.

 

[Kagan Altar]

On one instance Jagreen Lern is described as follows, in the novel, Stormbringer:

'On its body scarlet armour glowed as if red-hot. On its left arm was a shield of the same stuff and in its hand a steel sword.'

Neither the armour nor shield is described as demonic or demon-bound. Enchanted - yes. But demonic? I'm unconvinced.

IIRC, Jagreen Lern's stats in the Stormbringer RPG included these items, and were given different variations with different editions of the game. In one version, Jagreen Lern's Shield and Armor were Salamander-bound (Fire elementals mainly adding INCREDIBLE damage to these items). In another edition these were Salamander-bound Demon items, i.e. incarnated demon items possessed by salamanders. In Fifth edition, these are just plain demons.

Point in case is, the interpretations can vary greatly. Which is fine.