Stormbringer Redux 18 addendum - First Time Summonings: Number & Failure Conditions

When you’re doing a deep dive in complicated, vague, and sometimes scattered material like Stormbringer, it is inevitable that you miss things. In my last post, my thoughts on the mechanics of First Time Summonings were repositioned so many times they got lost in the shuffle.

Perhaps this is a good thing. First Time Summonings are a thorny issue, so best looked at by themselves.

FIRST TIME SUMMONING MECHANICS (New / Long Summoning) 

For the first time summoning of an entity, there are 4 aspects that must be considered:

1 Time

2 Number of rolls

3 A series of successes

4 The cost of failure

1 SUMMONING TIME

As noted in the last post, I jettisoned the Chaos Value system of 4E and linked summoning time back to the old 1E sorcerer levels, with 1 hour per entity level:

“For New / Long Summoning, time is 1 hour per entity level (Elementals = 1, Demons = 2, Elemental Lords = 3, Beast Lords = 4, Lords of Higher Worlds = 5).” (previous post)

So if you want to summon Pyaray, better cancel all appointments for the next five hours. However, this is the MINIMUM time required, as the time can increase drastically with failed rolls, as the next aspect shows.

NB: Although in 1E, the rules state that an elemental ‘must’ be bound before doing anything [5.4], I disagree with this, as we shall see in the next post on Bargaining and Binding.

2 NUMBER OF ROLLS + 3 A SERIES OF SUCCESSES

In the 1E rulebook, the entity level not only determines the hours required for a summoning, they also decide how many rolls IN SEQUENCE are required for a successful summoning:

“The Type of magical entity being summoned can be used as a value to determine the number of times a sorcerer must make his Summoning roll in order to summon the entity.” [5.3.1 in the 4E book, my italics] 

Honestly, I don’t ever recall using this rule back in the day. This injucture is repeated no less than three times in the same section, so the designers must have thought it important.

I agree with them.

However, it is not mentioned if this is the first time summoning, or subsequent times. Considering how hard it was for Elric and others to summon Arioch for the first time in the fiction, I’ll interpret this as the first attempt at summoning a new entity, whether from a grimoire or in FREE INT but never used. The following extract from Elric of Melnibone provides an insight into how apt this mechanic is:

When he had meditated for more than five hours, Elric took a brush and a jar of ink and began to paint both walls and floor with complicated symbols, some of which were so intricate, that they seemed to disappear at an angle to the surface on which they had been laid. At last this was done and Elric spreadeagled himself in the very centre of his huge rune, face down, one hand upon his grimoire, the other (with the Actorios upon it) stretched palm down. The moon was full. A shaft of its light fell directly upon Elric's head, turning the hair to silver. And then the Summoning began.

Elric sent his mind into twisting tunnels of logic, across endless plains of ideas, through mountains of symbolism and endless universes of alternate truths; he sent his mind out further and further and as it went he sent with it the words which issued from his writhing lips—words that few of his contemporaries would understand, though their very sound would chill the blood of any listener. And his body heaved as he forced it to remain in its original position and from time to time a groan would escape him. And through all this a few words came again and again.

One of these words was a name. 'Arioch'.

The rulebook adds that if even one of these multiple rolls is failed, the process must be restarted. For example, if you’re summoning Donblas, Lawful Lord of Commerce,  for whatever reason, you need 5 rolls. If you succeed at 4 but flub the last one, you must start the whole process over. You’ve spent 4 hours gametime, as well as lost the 5 POW cost for summoning a Lord of the Higher Worlds.

This is fine by me. But wait, there’s more!

4 THE COST OF FAILURE

However, the rules continue that there is a heavy price to be paid if you fail a New / Long first time summoning, one that might render a character useless as a sorcerer. For example, if you’re trying to summon a Type 3 entity (Elemental Ruler) for the first time, the rules state:

“For every roll he fails, the sorcerer loses 1 off of a random characteristic. Roll ID8 to see which characteristic is reduced: 1 = STR, 2 = CON, 3-4 = INT,5-6=POW,7=DEX,8=CHA.” [5.3.1 in 4E]

WHOA. This is a big incentive to NEVER do sorcery. And I LIKE it. Since sorcerers are stated to start with one entity already, this means they have one safe with no risk. It is when they try to call new ones that they may damage themselves.

In game terms, older Stormbringer is often derided for allowing sorcerers to quickly load up on demons and fatally unbalance the game. With the risks of summoning failure this high, you can expect players not to tempt fate overmuch, or for sorcerers to survive doing so.

One last thing to remember, is that whether a summoning attempt succeeds or fails, the sorcerer still has to pay the cost in POW loss equal to the entity level.

CONCLUSION

When you are updating and clarifying old rules like these, you have to look at the big picture. Was the reason for the original rules sound? Does the rule or mechanic stand up for modern people playing an old game? Does it evoke the IP, or take away from immersion? Is a change necessary, or just a clarification or tightening up of mechanics?

In a way, I feel like Fuzz on Car SOS, taking a vintage vehicle and making it run faster and smoother on modern roads with as much of the original body intact, but with power steering and other necessities added in seamlessly.

I hope you agree it is worth the effort.