From: Shannon Appel <appel@erzo.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Review: The Octagon of Chaos
System: Stormbringer

A while ago, in V3.3 of the digest, I wrote some reviews on all of the out of print Chaosium Stormbringer supplements. Since, I've picked up one more old Stormbringer supplement, The Octagon of Chaos, published by Theatre of the Mind (TOME).

In the mid eighties, TOME was doing supplements for a couple of different Chaosium games. Besides The Octagon of Chaos, they also published five Call of Cthulhu supplements. I've seen advertisements for a second Stormbringer supplement, also, called Bloodlust!, but as far as I know, it was never published.

The Octagon of Chaos (068612)
written by Tony Fiorito
Published by TOME, 1986
54 pages

The adventure of the Octagon of Chaos starts quite strongly. The players are abruptly thrust into the time of Sadric the Eighty-Sixth. It is twenty years before the birth of Elric, the White Wolf. Two pages of text detail the time, including information on the various Young Kingdoms, and the important personalities of the era.

The actual scenerio too, has a strong basis. It centers around the Octagon of Chaos, an ancient Melnibone stronghold, just recently abandoned by the Bright Empire. At the center of the stronghold is a great statue of Mabelrode, container of forbidden secrets of the ancient chaos god.

The adventure revolves around the search for the Octagon of Chaos and the exploration of the ruins. To a large extent, it is a dungeon crawl, in which the adventurers explore an ancient ruin inhabited by monsters. Fortunately, there are several redeeming features. The setup is interesting (if a bit arbitrary in places), and gives a good sense of the Young Kingdoms. The exploration of the ruins is further complicated by a group of Pan Tangians who also which to steal the ancient secrets of the Melniboneans. Several pages of encounters are given, that could be used in any Elric! or Stormbringer game. Finally, the Octagon of Chaos is sufficiently well integrated into the history of Melnibone that it can provide interesting knowledge of the past rather than just another place to bash evil monsters.

To be honest, I'd be somewhat reluctant to run The Octagon of Chaos as is. However, I do think that it's just chock full of good ideas which can be used in a Stormbringer campaign. Especially useful is the information on the era twenty years before the birth of Elric. If you don't mind doing a bit of work, I'd say that The Octagon of Chaos is a good buy.

Although originally written for the Second Edition of Stormbringer, Elric! should still be fairly compatible with Elric! Some adversaries should probably be given spells, but beyond that, little work would be needed to convert the scenerio.

The Octagon of Chaos was originally published eight years ago, but I have seen it in game stores within the last year. If you look around a bit, it should not be too hard to pick up a copy.