Stormbringer
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Stormbringer is the name of the infamous black sword featured in a number of fantasy stories by the author Michael Moorcock. Created by the forces of chaos, it is described as a huge, black sword covered with strange runes carved deep into its blade. It is wielded by the doomed albino emperor Elric of Melniboné.
Chaosium’s role-playing game set in the world of Elric is also called Stormbringer. One edition was published as Elric!.
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[edit] Description
This powerful enchanted black blade is a member of a demon race that takes on the form of a sword, and as such is a force of chaos and evil. Stormbringer's edge is capable of cutting through virtually any material not protected by potent sorcery, and it can kill any unprotected human in one swing. Its most distinctive features are that it is sentient (if not sapient), with a mind and will of its own, and that it feeds upon the souls of those it kills. Elric loathes the sword but is almost helpless without the strength and vitality it confers him.
Stormbringer’s hunger for souls is such that it frequently betrays Elric by creating a bloodlust in Elric, turning in his hands and killing friends and lovers. The cursed nature of the sword adds to Elric’s guilt and self-loathing even as he feels pleasure when the stolen lifeforce enters his body.
Stormbringer has a ‘brother’ sword named Mournblade, which was at one time wielded by Elric’s cousin and enemy Yyrkoon. It is identical to Stormbringer in most regards. Later stories reveal that there are thousands of identical demons, all taking the form of swords.
In Elric of Melniboné, Elric and cousin Yyrkoon find the runeblades in a realm of Limbo and commence battle. Elric and Stormbringer disarm Yyrkoon, and Mournblade disappears. Yyrkoon is defeated, and Elric and his cousin return to Imrryr.
In The Weird of the White Wolf, Elric returns to Imrryr after a long journey and confronts Yyrkoon, who usurped the throne in his absence. Yyrkoon has regained Mournblade through unknown means and uses it to attack. Elric and Stormbringer kill Yyrkoon, and no further mention is made of Mournblade. All of Imrryr is destroyed by invading forces, so it seems that Mournblade shares the city's fate.
In Stormbringer, Elric learns that the representatives of Fate, which serve neither Chaos or Law, recovered Mournblade from the netherworld. They present it to Elric and explain that the runeblades were designed to be wielded by those with Melnibonéan royal blood as a check against the might of the Dead Gods of Chaos. Elric gives Mournblade to his kinsman, Dyvim Slorm, and the two men become embroiled in a confrontation between the gods. Elric summons others of Stormbringer’s demonic race (also in the form of swords) to fight against a number of Dukes of Hell, brought to the Young Kingdoms by Jagreen Lern, theocrat of Pan Tang.
Ultimately, Elric's reliance on Stormbringer proves his undoing: after the utter destruction of the Young Kingdoms in the battle of Law and Chaos, just as it seems that the cosmic Balance has been restored, Stormbringer kills Elric, transforms into a humanoid demon, and leaps laughing into the sky, to corrupt the newly-remade world once more.
[edit] Books by Moorcock about Stormbringer
- The Stealer of Souls (1963)
- The Singing Citadel (1970)
- Elric at the End of Time (1984)
- Elric of Melniboné (1972) [1]
- The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (1976)
- The Weird of the White Wolf (1977)
- The Vanishing Tower (1970) [2]
- The Bane of the Black Sword (1977)
- Stormbringer (1965)
- The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)
- The Revenge of the Rose (1991)
[edit] Game influences
- Stormbringer makes an unofficial appearance in the computer role-playing game NetHack, with many of the same attributes that it possesses in Moorcock's works such as a tendency to attack targets (including allies) by itself and sucking the force of the living beings that it hits.
- A number of Stormbringer-like vampiric swords appear in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, most notably in the adventure White Plume Mountain, whose cover art features a pale-skinned elf wielding a black blade called Blackrazor.
- The Soul Reaver from the Legacy of Kain series shares certain attributes (devouring souls) with Stormbringer.
- In the computer game Drakan: Order of the Flame there is a sword that the player can collect known as the Mournblade. In its sequel, Drakan: The Ancients' Gates, there is a similar weapon called the "Mournbringer."
- In the Warcraft mythos, Arthas (a prince who betrays his country and becomes undead, ending up looking rather like Elric) wields Frostmourne, a soul-stealing runeblade.
- In Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark, it is possible to find a black sapient sword in the midst of Undermountain, which contains the soul of a previous adventurer named Enserric; not only does it heal the player's character when it strikes enemies, but it is also capable of holding a conversation with the player or changing its shape.
- The King of Fighters series by SNK features a character named Heidern, who possesses a special move called the Storm Bringer, in which he uses his hand to drain the opponent's energy (life) through his/her chest. The energy taken instantly refills Heidern's own energy bar.
- There is a unique weapon in Guild Wars Nightfall named The Stormbringer, though the name may be coincidental as the weapon is a elementalist staff and not a sword.
- Mournblade (as Mourneblade) is featured in Konami's video game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and possesses the ability to heal the player character whenever he strikes something with it (much like how Mournblade and Stormbringer grant their wielder health and vitality when used to slay a foe, though the game weapon can grant health even when striking non-living objects, such as candles). Mourneblade is widely regarded as one of the best weapons in the game, and is considered a "rare" weapon.
- In Lineage 2 MMORPG, a Stormbringer is a C-grade sword.
- In the War of Genesis RPG series, the Stormbringer is wielded by Sharn Hoiste and Iron Mask, and is one of the legendary swords that exist in that world. True to its name, when attacking with it, it will randomly cast the spell "Lightning Storm."
[edit] Media influences
- Terry Pratchett's novel The Colour Of Magic features a sentient black sword named Kring. Its favorite pastime is to ramble on endlessly about the heroes who have owned it or the centuries it has spent at the bottom of a lake. As a weapon, its power is to produce flashy special effects in combat.
- In Sluggy Freelance, Torg possesses a sapient, talking black sword called "Chaz"; it gains magical power from the blood of the innocent.
- In Dave Sim’s graphic novel Cerebus, the Elric parody character Elrod of Melvinbone wields a sword called “Seersucker”, which leads Cerebus to remark to himself, “Tarim! Who would believe a sword could get rusty enough to turn black?”
- The bunny girl in Gainax's legendary Daicon IV short for the opening of the 22nd Annual Japan Science Fiction Convention in 1983 flies riding on top of Stormbringer.
- R. A. Salvatore's popular assassin and anti-hero Artemis Entreri carries his trademark "Jeweled Dagger" which has similar attributes to Stormbringer. The vampiric weapon could suck the life force of its victim and use it to heal the wielder.
[edit] Music influences
- Mournblade was a British NWOBHM band who made two albums in the 1980s: Time's Running Out and Live Fast Die Young. Several of their songs feature references to Michael Moorcock's work.
- The band Hawkwind, who have had a long association with Moorcock, released an entire album about the story of Elric and Stormbringer, The Chronicle of the Black Sword. They have also released both a single and double live album expanding upon this work, Live Chronicles. The double live album package includes an Elric short story. The album itself contains various narrations and poems read by Moorcock.
- The 1980 Blue Öyster Cult song Black Blade on the Cultosaurus Erectus album was created as a collaboration between Eric Bloom and Michael Moorcock.
- UK hard rock band Magnum has a song named Stormbringer, about Elric and his sword, on the reissue of their Kingdom of Madness album. It was one of the very first songs they recorded, and was not commercially available until this reissue.
- Seminal hard rock/metal act Deep Purple has a track entitled Stormbringer on their 1974 album of the same name.
- The German metal band Blind Guardian’s song Fast to Madness is based on Elric and references Stormbringer several times. It is found on their Follow the Blind album.
- The Italian metal band Domine has a number of songs based on the Elric saga and referencing Stormbringer and Mourneblade. Additionally, Elric and Stormbringer are featured on the cover art for all four albums. Michael Moorcock himself is specifically thanked and noted as an influence in the liner notes for each of their albums.
- The song Bane of the Black Sword by American metal band Apollo Ra on their Ra Pariah album deals with the adventures of Elric and Stormbringer.
- The American metal band Cirith Ungol’s song Nadsokor from their One Foot In Hell album references Elric, Stormbringer and the city of beggars found in the Elric saga. Michael Whelan’s paintings of Elric and Stormbringer are also featured on the cover art of all four Cirith Ungol albums.
- The song Mourning Sword by the Greek metal band Battleroar on their self-titled album deals with Stormbringer.
- The Spanish metal band Dark Moor features an Elric and Stormbringer related song titled The Fall of Melnibone as a bonus track on the Japanese edition of their album Hall of the Olden Dreams. The song was later made available to the American and European markets on the album Between Light and Darkness.
- The song "Borrowed Time" by the NWOBHM band Diamond Head on their Borrowed Time album deals with Elric and is told from his point of view. In this song, he refers to himself as “a slave to this black blade”. Elric and Stormbringer are also featured on the album’s cover artwork.
- The song Sword's Lament by American metal band Cauldron Born references both Stormbringer and Mournblade, along with a host of other fantasy swords.
- Finnish band Turmion Kätilöt released a song Stormbringer on their EP Niuva 20.
- Italian epic metal band Assedium has the Elric and Stormbringer based song "The Messenger of Chaos" on their debut album Rise of the Warlords.
- Hailing from tiny Whitley Bay in the Northeast of England, the Tygers of Pan Tang name originated from Michael Moorcock's novel Stormbringer.[7]
[edit] See also
- Anglachel/Gurthang, the black sword of Beleg and later Túrin Turambar; and its twin Anguirel, from The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.
[edit] External links
- Stormbringer.net — An overview of the Elric saga
