Literature: The Elric Saga aka: Elric Of Melnibone
Arioch! Arioch! Blood and Souls for my Lord Arioch!
"It is the colour of a bleached skull, his flesh; and the long hair which flows below his shoulders is milk-white. From the tapering, beautiful head stare two slanting eyes, crimson and moody, and from the loose sleeves of his yellow gown emerge two slender hands, also the colour of bone, resting on each arm of a seat which has been carved from a single, massive ruby."
"I have this feeling that my luck is none too good This sword here at my side don't act the way it should Keeps calling me its master, but I feel like its slave Hauling me faster and faster to an early, early grave And it howls! It howls like hell! I'm told it's my duty to fight against the Law That wizardry's my trade, and I was born to wade through gore I just wanna be a lover, not a red-eyed, screaming ghoul I wish it picked another to be its killing tool"
Originally a six book series by Michael Moorcock, the story follows its title character, Elric of Melnibone, in his journey from a sickly king to a top class warrior and sorcerer involved with the affairs of the gods. His weapon is Stormbringer, one of two evil demonic runeblades that feast upon the souls of those their wielders slay with them, have wills of their own, and tend to take over their wielders on occasion.The Tabletop Role Playing GameStormbringer is based on these books.Elric was parodied in the infamous comic book, Cerebus via the character, Elrod of Melvinbone; Elrod looked like Elric (and at least claimed to have a similar back-story), but had the personality and mannerisms of The Foghorn Leghorn.Note that it has nothing to do withthe saga of the Elric Brothers.
Installments:
The series contains many books and stories, not written in the same order as the internal chronology. Additionally, several of the Elric novels are fix-ups of short stories published years or decades earlier.Original series
Elric of Melniboné (novel, 1972)
The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (collection, 1976)
Sailing to the Future
Sailing to the Present
Sailing to the Past
The Weird of the White Wolf (collection, 1977)
The Dream of Earl Aubec (aka Master of Chaos)
The Dreaming City
While the Gods Laugh
The Singing Citadel
The Sleeping Sorceress (novel, 1971, also released as The Vanishing Tower)
The Bane of the Black Sword (collection, 1977)
The Stealer of Souls
Kings in Darkness
The Flamebringers (aka The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams)
To Rescue Tanelorn
Stormbringer (novel, 1965)
Later novels
Fortress of the Pearl (novel, 1989)
Revenge of the Rose (novel, 1991)
Later trilogy
The Dreamthief's Daughter (2001)
The Skrayling Tree (2003)
The White Wolf's Son (2005)
Collections
Elric at the End of Time (1984)
Michael Moorcock's Elric: Tales of the White Wolf (1994)
Pawns of Chaos: Tales of the Eternal Champion (1996)
Graphic Novels
Michael Moorcock's Multiverse (with Walt Simonson and John Ridgway) (1999)
Elric: Making of a Sorcerer (with Walt Simonson) (2007)
Badass Bookworm: Elric has read every book in his library, which in turn taught him the ways of the sorcerer.
Balance Between Good and Evil: Elric's eventual destiny, as the last king of a chaotic race, is to use the weapons of Chaos in order to fight the forces of Chaos, to as to restore Balance to the Earth and allow the powers of Law a chance to create something safer for the younger races.
Bittersweet Ending: Elric apparently fulfills his destiny at the end of Stormbringer but he dies in the process... after which Stormbringer assumes its true form as the force of chaos in the new world order.
Character Alignment: Invoked; the original alignment system of the very first edition of Dungeons & Dragons was based on The Elric Mythos' concepts of Law vs. Chaos and Good Vs. Evil, with the original D&D alignments being Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic, with Lawful being roughly equated with Good, and Chaotic with Evil. The addition of the second Alignment Axis of Good/Neutral/Evil, which allowed for such concepts as characters being both Chaotic AND Good (such as rebel freedom fighters) or Lawful AND Evil (such as Nazis) wasn't added until later, with the release of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (First Edition.)
Chick Magnet: Elric has had quite a few women after him, and he is canonically very good in bed.
Defector from Decadence: Elric, who has to fight his cousin for his throne, as he was seen as being weak and unworthy of his title since he was less willing than his countrymen to indulge in pointless cruelty.
The key word here being pointless. Elric could be a Total Bastard given proper motivation.
Disproportionate Retribution: Elric also uses this from time to time. Evil cousin take your throne, and, more importantly, your girl? Burn the entire nation to the ground, abandoning your race and countrymen to the men of the Young Kingdoms.
Dungeons & Dragons: The original edition of Deities & Demigods had a chapter devoted to the Elric Mythos (and another chapter devoted to the Cthulhu Mythos), but copyright disputes prevented these chapters from appearing in later editions of the book (the Fafhrd And The Gray Mouser chapter got to stay, though).
One of the Sailor On The Seas Of Fate stories also includes two creatures even more alien, from outside of the multiverse entirely. The heroes mistake them for buildings and wander through a Womb Level before they figure it out.
Evil Sorcerer: Theleb K'aarna, Yyrkoon and Jagreen Lern.
The Fair Folk: Melniboneans are beautiful, elfin amoral hedonists that traffic with the Lords of Chaos and are universally feared by ordinary humans. Always Chaotic Evil is almost putting it mildly. Sadism is in their blood to the point that they make music in which each note is a scream from a tortured (human) slave, whose vocal cords have been mutilated such that they can produce only that particular note.
Fog of Doom: Yyrkoon invokes it to escape Melniboné after his first defeat.
Franchise Zombie: The saga originally consisted of five short stories and the four novellas that became Stormbringer. These nine stories, together, tell a more or less complete story. Then Moorcock decided to write the novel Elric of Melniboné as a prequel. Then he wrote some new short stories. Then he arranged all the short stories into fix-up novels. Then he wrote five more novels attempting to fill in the "gaps" in the original saga. Then the 12-issue maxiseries for DC Comics and the prequel graphic novel Elric: Making of a Sorcerer. And, of course, there's been talk of a Film of the Book dating back to the '70s.
Happy Ending / Earn Your Happy Ending : In Michael Moorcock's Multiverse Elric and Moonglum are resurrected along with most of the other incarnations of the Eternal Champion (with no explanation given), and after fulfilling a quest Elric is finally given the opportunity to take control of his own destiny.
Heavy Mithril: Moorcock wrote the above-quoted Black Blade for Blue Öyster Cult, and additionally saw his saga reworked by Hawkwind into the album The Chronicle of the Black Sword.
Deep Purple was aware of the Elric books when they wrote "Stormbringer" and chose the name for the song because of this, but the song itself isn't about the eponymous sword (they figured that Moorcock got the name from mythology, but he actually made it up himself).
The Power Metal band Domine has a large number of Moorcock related songs. Elric himself even being on multiple album covers.
Blind Guardian also have a couple of songs based on the series.
Here There Were Dragons: Most of Melnibone's dragons have died off, and the few remaining are weak to the point that they must sleep for centuries between flights.
For a Melnibonéan he's positively humanitarian. That's not saying much, of course, but his cousins hated him and plotted against him for being too philosophical and soft-hearted and insufficiently sadistic and maniacal to be worthy of the throne.
King Of The Homeless: There's the Beggar King of Nadsokor. A whole city where everyone has the kind of defects that characterize the worst of the lumpenproletariat beggars, and the story is about their king stealing Elric's imperial jewels.
Kissing Cousins / Incest Is Relative: Elric's betrothed, Cymoril, is actually his cousin. Apparently this isn't unusual for Melnibonean royalty — Yyrkoon, Elric's rival and Cymoril's brother, also lusts after her (to spite Elric more than anything else). It's not been all that uncommon for real-world royalty, either.
King Trope the Nth: Elric VIII, 428th emperor of Melnibone, son of Sadric LXXXVI.
Loyal To The Position: Valharik, the captain of the guard in Melnibone in the first novel, claims this as his reason for betraying his mistress Cymoril and following Yyrkoon's evil orders when he takes power in Melnibone, including cutting down one of his own men who tried to defend her against Yyrkoon and feeding the poor guy to Cymoril's slaves. Needless to say, Elric doesn't buy it.
Magitek: In The Sleeping Sorceress Elric rides a sentient, talking mechanical bird.
New Wave Science Fiction: Elric was born out of this movement (which also covered fantasy); in fact, Moorcock was one of the leaders of the movement.
One-Man Army: Pretty much anyone who wields The Black Sword, be it Mournblade, Stormbringer, or one of their equivalents in other stories of the Champion Eternal. Justified, since the Black Sword is a Soul Drinker and can pass on the stolen vitality of its victims onto the wielder, providing them with supernatural strength and endurance for as long as they keep killing. Elric, however, takes it Up to Eleven, since not only does he have Summon Magic, he's also known as one of the most powerful sorcerors in the world, effectively making him a Person of Mass Destruction.
Physical God: the Lords of Chaos and Order both qualify; it's only because of ancient treaties that they don't meddle more directly in the affairs of mortals. Once or twice, it's explicitly stated that the Young Kingdoms are a kind of Cold War territory in the cosmic struggle between the two poners... until Elric's actions change things for the worse.
Planar Champion: Elric, as an incarnation of the Champion Eternal, is one of the best-known examples, possibly even the Trope Codifier.
Plea of Personal Necessity: Darnizhaan tells Elric and Dyvim Slorm that killing him will begin the death of the world they know. When they decide to do so anyway, he says, "Fools! In destroying me, you destroy yourselves!"
Powered by a Forsaken Child: Pan Tang's war machine is fueled by conscripting the adult men of their tribute states, then sacrificing their wives and children, on arcane altars which are in operation 24 hours a day, depopulating an entire continent in the process, to summon the Lords of Chaos
Precursors: All the civilizations of the "Young Kingdoms" were built on the ruins of the old Melnibonean empire.
Squishy Wizard: Elric starts out as one, but gets better once he gets Stormbringer and ultimately gives it up.
Storm of Blades: At one point, Elric and his comrades are set upon by three Chaos Gods - including Arioch - and in order to kill them, Elric uses Stormbringer and Mournblade to summon over one hundred of their brother and sister swords from alternate realities.
To be fair, the story that Smiorgan died in was written before the one in which he was introduced. You could call this "Sudden Prequel Life Syndrome" instead.
Summon Magic: All magic in Elric's world is based upon summoning various demons and elemental spirits, and asking them for a favor. Elric is lucky that the Melnibonians have made ancient pacts with practically every single spirit and demon.
It's also noted that Nature Spirits have much lower "costs" than Gods of Law or Chaos, and indeed Elric calls for help from the former more often than he does the latter.
Torture Technician: Doctor Jest is the chief torturer of the Melnibonean empire, in charge of making spies spill their secrets for the Emperor in nightmarish fashion. He also serves as chief carver for the Emperor's table, using those same spies before they die. They must be able to see the parts he removes being cooked and devoured.
0 reviews