This is the first Stormbringer Companion, from 1983.

In the early 80s, Chaosium supported all its lines of games with Companions. These softcover books are generally potpourris of material, some original, some curated from their in-house magazine Different Worlds or independent fan zines. They tend to be mixed bags in terms of value. When Chaosium moved away from box sets in favor of square-bound rulebooks, some of the material from the Companions made its way into the large books, but most did not.

The Stormbringer Companion had a pretty good success rate in this regard. The front of the book contains NPCs and magical artifacts from the Elric stories that didn’t fit in the box set. The rest of the books is given over to adventures – two solo, four for groups. They’re all pretty good!

The solo scenarios are of interest to fans of the Elric stories – one is a reenactment of the sea battle for Melnibone, a pivotal moment in the stories, and the other reveals what Elric’s chum Moonglum was doing before the pair met. Unlike RuneQuest or Pendragon solo adventures, though, these stand alone and have no use for players in an on-going game. Both failed to be reprinted in the later, consolidated editions.

The regular scenarios do a good job of introducing the world and showing what Stormbringer games could be: dealing with demons, travelling the multiverse, coming into conflict with the vile sorcerers of Pan-Tang and more. One particularly devious dungeon crawl – The Hall of Risk – is an excellent riff on death trap dungeons and features a trap room with a life-sized chess board, which is always a good time.

A final note: I love the cover by the late, great Gene Day, who was with us far too briefly.