The long awaited first supplement for the Elric! Game is here, and it's worth the wait. Make no mistake; Melnibone is the best roleplaying supplement for any game to appear in a long while, and it deserves to be played and used for years to come.
The 121-page book begins with the Dragon Isle's misty undocumented history and then progresses onto recorded facts. The origin of the Black Swords are explained in conjunction with the founding of the Melnibonean Empire, and the move from Balance to Chaos is beautifully written, as is the current obsession with magic and use of drugs. The rise of the Young Kingdoms, current events and a list of future events that hold close to the novels make for a spirited look at the state of the empire.
The geographic overview is just as inspired, and the descriptions of the Meadows of Lassitude, the Lake of the Moon and A'sha'hiian are as dense and evocative as they are informative. Flora and fauna are briefly described, although much of the discussion is centered on the island dragons, who maintain a close relationship with their inhuman co-inhabitants. Imrryr, the Dreaming City, gets exhaustive treatment as well, with details on its history, geography, fortifications and architecture. Sprinkled liberally throughout is a fine attention to detail -- the elephant sized hands that amble slowly about the Courtyard of Hands, the dry deposit of venom that cakes the dragons' lower jaw and is collected by brave alchemists, the underground sea-maze all ships must navigate to reach the harbor of the Dream City. The list goes on.
Amazingly, the chapter describing the Melniboneans themselves is even more fascinating. Viewed as decadent, cruel and evil by the Young Kingdoms, Richard Watts goes to great lengths to create and understanding of the inhuman "Dragon Folk." The notion that good and evil are unknown to Melniboneans goes far in explaining actions humans would call immoral. The chapter goes on to talk about the race's physical details, society, education, food, language, recreation, and even fashion sense. Again, the attention to detail is astounding -- the relationship between slave and master, interaction with lowly foreigners, and preoccupation with drug use are all wonderfully researched and illustrated.
Chapters covering Melnibonean religious beliefs, island encounters and statistics for typical and important residents are brief and to the point, although again, a surprising amount of very useful information is crammed into these pages. Many of the encounters suggest adventures.
Then comes the good stuff. Three scenarios make up the second half of the supplement. "The Sojourner's Guide to Melnibone" has the players encountering a ship owned by The League of Tumultuous Erudition, a group of chaotically aligned scribes based in the Young Kingdoms. Humorous and quirky, the League offers the party a chance to explore the Dragon Isle and discover the fate of an important scribe gone missing on Melnibone. While they are there, the league-master asks the party to map out unknown territories. The adventure offers players and introduction to the island and gives them free reign to explore and find trouble. An obnoxious demon "mascot" should keep Pcs on their toes, and the encounters themselves are odd and engaging. Highlights include a crew of starving (and dangerous) pirates, entertaining a group of bored Melniboneans, and witnessing a human "mural" of painted slaves. The adventure ends with hilarious argument between the chaotic League and another lawful order of scribes bent on confiscating and hiding the characters' discoveries.
"The Suffer Glass" takes a different, more serious approach to adventure. The mysterious Doctor Qua hires the party to journey back into Melnibonean history to retrieve an ancient artifact. In order to actually move among the inhuman Dragon Lords, the party must, for the duration of the adventure, become Melnibonean. Referees will have great fun watching the players squirm as they wrestle with Melnibonean morality, or lack thereof. A neat twist on time travel can result in the adventure ending several ways, any of which should be a surprise.
The final adventure, "The Ghost of Cities," explores Melnibone's romantic side. The players are "hired" by a Melnibonean family to find and return a dreaming relative's soul, lost in a gloomy twilight city, caught between realities. Players must learn the reason for the relative's disappearance and deal with the insane Pan Tangian sorcerer also trapped there. The adventure is full of arresting bits, like the malicious son of the family, bent on causing mischief while the party makes its ethereal search, or the vampiric roses that take root in the souls of their pickers. With its intertwining realities, "The Ghost of Cities" is probably the trickiest of the three adventures to referee, but it also contains the most fully developed characters.
The artwork is excellent throughout, and many of the illustrations even manage to break subtle new ground. With as many great supplements as Chaosium puts out, it's nice to see the company can still reach down and come up with a supplement so good that it reminds us why we all got into this hobby in the first place. Bravo.
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