Black Sword (1985) is the finale of the events begun in Stealer of Souls. The merchants who hired Elric are dead, so now Freyda’s vengeance turns toward the man who actually murdered her father.

I like this one a bit less than its predecessor. Both are rather on rails and make the players secondary to an NPC, but there is more wiggle room in Souls. This one has the added complication of having characters from Moorcock’s stories to navigate around, though well done setting it during the period of time Elric swore to not use Stormbringer, making him slightly less deadly a character to cross. Not that Elric’s oaths are anything to rely on.

The first half explores the fallout of the events of “Kings in Darkness,” a story that admittedly left less of an impression on me than “Stealer of Souls” (Theleb K’aarna is a really excellent villain, I guess — his soul was so rotten even Stormbringer couldn’t bring itself to drink it). The stuff in Org, which tends toward the creepy, is the highlight. Once the group catches up with Elric, though, everything falls apart. There are all sorts of possibilities, but the most likely is that the players watch Freyda and Elric duel. The whole point is to convince Freyda to agree to terms of first fall or first blood rather than a fight to the death, so this is rather…anticlimactic (a fight to the death means that Elric is going to cheat and win no matter what oaths he swears, so that will likely involve murdering all the players, which is not great).

Anyway, the Days deliver some excellent art in both scenarios. I really love the work of all three — Dan, Dave and Gene — on the Stormbringer line during this period. They have the ability to get weird, but not too weird, and lend the books a nice feeling of consistency.