Stormbringer is a magic sword featured in a number of fantasy stories by the author Michael Moorcock. It is described as a huge, black sword covered with strange runes, created by the forces of Chaos. The sword has a will of its own and it is hinted that the sword may be controlled by an inhabiting entity. It is wielded by the doomed albino emperor Elric of Melniboné. Stormbringer makes its first appearance in the 1961 novella The Dreaming City. In the four novellas collected in the 1965 book Stormbringer, the sword's true nature is revealed.

Description

This powerful enchanted black blade is a member of a demon race that takes on the form of a sword, and as such is an agent of Chaos. Stormbringer's edge is capable of cutting through virtually any material not protected by potent sorcery, and it can drink the soul from (and thereby kill) any unprotected living creature upon delivering any wound, even a scratch. Its most distinctive features are that it has a mind and will of its own, and that it feeds upon the souls of those it kills. Elric loathes the sword but is almost helpless without the strength and vitality it confers on him.

Stormbringer's hunger for souls is such that it frequently betrays Elric

In the book The Quest for Tanelorn, a character claims that the demon in the sword is named Shaitan – a variant of 'Satan', and in Arabic a word meaning a devil, if not the Devil. In the same book it is revealed that the demon can inhabit either the black sword or the black jewel, the jewel which was once embedded in the skull of Dorian Hawkmoon. Moorcock intended the sword character to serve as a key element of his discussion of "how mankind's wish-fantasies can bring about the destruction of... part of mankind". Claiming influence from Freud and Jung he says: "The whole point of Elric's soul-eating sword, Stormbringer, was addiction: to sex, to violence, to big, black, phallic swords, to drugs, to escape. That's why it went down so well in the rock’n’roll world".

Literature scholar Dennis Wilson Wise wrote that "a weapon like Stormbringer reinforces liberal selfhood in a particularly concrete way. It carries a continuous external threat to personal autonomy, and it subverts a fully rational self-determination. Modern fantasy heroes, especially in epic fantasy, often rail against "destiny" or a prophecy, but such destinies and prophecies lack Stormbringer's sentient specificity." featured a magical sword called Blackrazor, a black vampiric blade created from an extra-dimensional being. Schick later said that he was "a little embarrassed to this day by Blackrazor, inasmuch as it's such a blatant rip-off of Elric's Stormbringer; I would not have put it into the scenario if I ever thought it might be published".

  • The Melnibonéan character profiles are included in the first edition of Deities & Demigods, a TSR AD&D resource.
  • In the opening animation short for the 1983 Daicon IV Nihon SF Taikai convention, the 'Bunny Girl' is shown riding a sword with the same visual design as Stormbringer as one of numerous classic fantasy and sci-fi references in the film.
  • In the fighting game series The King of Fighters, the character Heidern possesses a special move named "Stormbringer", where he stabs and drains life from the enemy.
  • In the Game of Thrones episode, "The Lion and the Rose", one name that the crowd shouts out as a name for Joffrey Baratheon's Valyrian steel sword is "Stormbringer".
  • In Ready Player Two, written by Ernest Cline, Nolan Sorrento wields Stormbringer after his escape from A Maximum-Security Prison.
  • In Stardew Valley the level 4 Shadow Dagger has the description "when you hold the blade to your ear you can hear 1,000 souls shrieking". A reference to Stormbringer.
  • In 1974, Deep Purple released an album titled Stormbringer, which included a song of the same name.
  • In 2014, Grand Magus released the song "Steel Versus Steel" [from the album Triumph and Power] which is about Elric and Stormbringer.
  • The Warhammer 40,000 sword Drach’nyen is also a demon that takes the form of a sword
  • The roguelike game Nethack features a black runesword called Stormbringer, which drains the life of the living beings that it hits. It also may attack without the player meaning it.

References

  • Stormbringer.net – an overview of the Elric saga