And so, he created Elric: the doomed, feeble, albino sorcerer-king kept alive by, first, mysterious narcotics and later by the evil energy of his cursed sword, Stormbringer.
When I last reread the first of the Elric books - Elric of Melnibone - it took just about two days, I still couldn't put it down.
A combination of my insomnia and the power of the writing saw me reading at all hours of the day and night.
Moorcock proves you don't need a ponderous, phonebook-sized tome to tell a thrilling, memorable fantasy tale.
In a 'mere' 190-pages Elric goes from languishing on his Ruby Throne to dealing with elemental creatures, fighting off an invasion, crossing the Young Kingdoms to find his kidnapped sweetheart and finally journeying to another plane of existence to retrieve Stormbringer at the behest of the Chaos demon-god Aroich.
Outside of Tolkien's main Lord of The Rings' characters and Conan himself, Elric and his legendary sword must be two of the best known names in fantasy literature... their dreamy, nightmarish adventures seeping into all manner of related media (e.g. heavy influences on early roleplaying games from Dungeons & Dragons and Arduin to Chaosium's own Stormbringer game; to the prominent technomage in Babylon 5 universe called... Elric).
And next year, we're getting three different new Elric roleplaying games: one for Dragonbane, one for Dungeon Crawl Classics, and one for 5e!
Reading Elric of Melnibone again stirred in me nostalgic memories for the other books of my youth - Fritz Leiber's Nehwon tales with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or Harry Turtledove's stories of Gerin The Fox - and the old school fantasy roleplaying games of my teen years.
It filled me with a hankering for that '80s Dungeons & Dragons-style vibe, that feeling of wonder and "not knowing what's around the next corner".
To quote Wikipedia:
The pods I listened to eschewed the attitude of some of the more snobby or 'elitist' podcasts back then which looked down their virtual noses at "game stories" or the "tell me about your character" attitude.
Personally I believe that's a central element of roleplaying games - you are generating collective stories, so why not share them? Isn't this just another form of creating fantasy literature?
As long as the stories are interesting, they are as valid as any other anecdote you may care to tell.
When I last reread the first of the Elric books - Elric of Melnibone - it took just about two days, I still couldn't put it down.
A combination of my insomnia and the power of the writing saw me reading at all hours of the day and night.
Moorcock proves you don't need a ponderous, phonebook-sized tome to tell a thrilling, memorable fantasy tale.
In a 'mere' 190-pages Elric goes from languishing on his Ruby Throne to dealing with elemental creatures, fighting off an invasion, crossing the Young Kingdoms to find his kidnapped sweetheart and finally journeying to another plane of existence to retrieve Stormbringer at the behest of the Chaos demon-god Aroich.
Outside of Tolkien's main Lord of The Rings' characters and Conan himself, Elric and his legendary sword must be two of the best known names in fantasy literature... their dreamy, nightmarish adventures seeping into all manner of related media (e.g. heavy influences on early roleplaying games from Dungeons & Dragons and Arduin to Chaosium's own Stormbringer game; to the prominent technomage in Babylon 5 universe called... Elric).
And next year, we're getting three different new Elric roleplaying games: one for Dragonbane, one for Dungeon Crawl Classics, and one for 5e!
Reading Elric of Melnibone again stirred in me nostalgic memories for the other books of my youth - Fritz Leiber's Nehwon tales with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or Harry Turtledove's stories of Gerin The Fox - and the old school fantasy roleplaying games of my teen years.
It filled me with a hankering for that '80s Dungeons & Dragons-style vibe, that feeling of wonder and "not knowing what's around the next corner".
To quote Wikipedia:
"Some fans of pencil and paper role playing games use [old school] to describe RPGs characterized by simple game mechanics and flexible rules. The character generation system in such RPGs tend to lack extensive lists of skills and abilities. Basic Dungeons & Dragons and the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons are often considered 'old school' role playing games."All this hankering for past gaming glories was also been stoked back in the 2000's by several great rules-lite, war story-heavy fantasy gaming podcasts I listened to at the time. Sadly, these are now gone - swept aside by the tidal wave of "actual play" podcasts.
The pods I listened to eschewed the attitude of some of the more snobby or 'elitist' podcasts back then which looked down their virtual noses at "game stories" or the "tell me about your character" attitude.
Personally I believe that's a central element of roleplaying games - you are generating collective stories, so why not share them? Isn't this just another form of creating fantasy literature?
As long as the stories are interesting, they are as valid as any other anecdote you may care to tell.
