From: chaosium@netcom.com (Sam Shirley & Les Brooks)
Subject: Cthulhu vs. Stormbringer
System: Call of Cthulhu
System: Elric!

Recently, a player wanted to know whether Elric's demon blade could be used to destroy great Cthulhu. Les and I discussed it, and determined
this ruling:

If you refer to pages 117 and 122 of the Elric rulebook, you see that Stormbringer fights with an 880% skill, doing 17d10+1d6 damage per blow. A large amount, one would think, except that the Call of Cthulhu rulebook clearly says "At zero Hit Points, Cthulhu bursts and dissolves into a disgusting, cloying greenish cloud, then immediately starts to reform into his horrible form. He takes 1D10+10 minutes to gain full solidity, and when he does, then he has a full 160 hit points again." Physical damage, obviously, is not effective in destroying Cthulhu.

This leaves us relying on Stormbringer's other great power, a 1D100 Drain Soul, which allows it to siphon off 1D100 POW points per combat
round. Cthulhu is listed in the rulebook with a mere POW of 42, but then, he is listed as having only 160 Hit Points, and that is shown as
no real limit when he is able to reconstitute, fully formed. Hit Points, though, are corporeal, while POW is clearly of the soul. Philosophically, we must ask if Cthulhu is of one essential essence, irreplaceable, or if as a deity, he represents an eternal, supernal principle of a higher level than the sword Stormbringer.

Let us consider the origin of Stormbringer. Referring to the upcoming Melnibone sourcebook, we learn that it and Mournblade were created by the older ones," an ancient and inhumanly lawful race of quasi-immortals. They were forged of the stuff of Chaos by Lawful smiths, to aid them in their wars, and placed in the keeping of the proto-Melniboneans.

Merely semi-deistic, Cthulhu is not a true god in the sense of Azathoth or Yog-Sothoth, and exhibits only a small subset of their transrational, hyperdimensional nature. He is the supreme example of the race of Star-Spawn, and their high priest. Cthulhu's POW could be drained by Stormbringer, but such an act would undoubtedly gain the attention of Nyarlathotep, and through him Azathoth, "that last, amorphous blight on nethermost confusion, which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity." The outer gods would manifest, jealous to protect their deistic prerogative, a maddened Azathoth included. Cults would view this as a sign of the apocalypse, snow-balling their summonings into this one. Stormbringer may destroy Cthulhu, but in so doing end this world.

I say let them have the sword, and go to it!

Sam Shirley & Les Brooks