Referenced By / The Elric Saga

As one of the paradigmatic works of Sword and Sorcery, the Elric Saga has inspired a lot of references in later works.

Anime and Manga

• Griffith is based heavily on Elric, in terms of both his elfin appearance and status as an Unscrupulous Hero with a Clingy Macguffin (though in this case, it isn't his sword) who eventually becomes a full-fledged Villain Protagonist.
• As mentioned in the main page, The Elric Brothers of Fullmetal Alchemist are named in honor of Elric himself.

Comic Books

• Jim Starlin's Adam Warlock saga from the 70's is partially inspired by Elric, with Adam being the angsty, existenzialistic protagonist and the Soul Gem having the power of absorbing the souls of Warlock's enemies.
• Elric was parodied in Cerebus the Aardvark via the character Elrod of Melvinbone: Elrod looked like Elric (and at least claimed to have a similar back-story), but had the personality and mannerisms of Foghorn Leghorn. Also, his sword Seersucker was black from rust.
• Journey into Mystery (Gillen) was originally supposed to be inspired by the saga, and while plans changed, one can still see some similarities especially in the final fate of main characters.

Film

• Hellboy II: The Golden Army features an expy of Elric as its main antagonist.

Literature

• The Black Sword was parodied in the Discworld novel The Colour of Magic, as the dread black sword Kring, which talks, or rather drones, incessantly, suffers from a mid-life existential crisis, and speculates on its being beaten into a ploughshare ("whatever one of those is"), which he has heard is the afterlife promised to all good swords.
  • There is also the not-very-good teenage necromancer and demonologist who is the eponymous lead character in Eric. The difference that missing letter "l" could have made...
• The series has also been influence on The Witcher books.
• Anomander Rake from Malazan Book of the Fallen is pretty much what if Elric was a 2.5 meters tall dark skinned elf-like character. He even has a magic sword that traps the soul of his enemies.
• Sorrento wields a virtual recreation of Stormbringer in Ready Player Two.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • One of King Aegon the Unworthy's bastards is an albino spymaster who is an ambiguously evil sorcerer with a Cool Sword and former Hand of the King Brynden Rivers. He is clearly meant to be an Expy of Elric.
  • The Valyrian Freehold shares too many similarities with the Empire of Melniboné to forget. Both are decadent empires that got destroyed, that used to rule the world and the seas, by riding dragons, and controlling all types of dark and forbidden sorcerers. Not to mention that the Targaryen bloodline shares a lot with Elric itself, having white albino hair, and many inheriting weak physiques and other problems through their "cursed" blood.
• In Tailchaser's Song, a fantasy about cats, the feline creator goddess Meerclar Allmother shares her name with Meerclar of the Cats, one of Melniboné's Beast-Lords.

Live-Action TV

• In Game of Thrones, when Joffrey Baratheon asks what he should name his new Valyrian Steel sword, one of his courtiers suggests "Stormbringer".

Music

• Elric has inspired an awful lot of Heavy Mithril, due to a combination of Michael Moorcock´s own associations with the Notting Hill hippies with the fact that a lot of events in the saga are seriously METAL!!!
• Moorcock himself wrote Black Blade for Blue Öyster Cult, and additionally saw his saga reworked by Hawkwind into the album The Chronicle of the Black Sword.
• Deep Purple was aware of the Elric books when they wrote "Stormbringer" and chose the name for the song because of this, but the song itself isn't about the eponymous sword (they figured that Moorcock got the name from mythology, but he actually made it up himself).
• The Power Metal band Domine has a large number of Moorcock related songs. Elric himself even appears on multiple album covers.
• Blind Guardian also have a couple of songs based on the series.
• Spanish power metal band Dark Moor's "The Fall of Melnibone" is based on the saga.
• The title track of New Wave of British Heavy Metal band Diamond Head's Borrowed Time album is based on Elric. He also appears on the album cover.
• The song "Nadsokor" by cult metal act Cirith Ungol is about the City of Beggars from the saga. Elric has graced the cover art of several of their albums.
• Doom Metal band Doomsword have a few songs based on Elric, as well as a cover of Cirith Ungol's Nadsokor.
• US metal band Ra Pariah has "Bane of the Black Sword" based on the saga.
• Elric is the subject of "Steel Versus Steel" by heavy metal band Grand Magus.
• Black Metal band Númenor has several songs based on Moorcock's work.
• "Elric, the Dragon Prince", by Power Metal band Skelator, is a rock-operatic adaptation of roughly the first half of the Elric saga.
• Daniel Rosten, vocalist of Marduk and Funeral Mist, briefly took "Arioch" as a stage name.
• The British heavy metal band Tygers of Pan Tang named themselves after the elite warriors of the kingdom that leads the forces of Chaos in Elric´s world.

Tabletop Games

• The original alignments of Dungeons & Dragons are taken in part from the Elric series, and in part from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. Further, the game's iconic sword Blackrazor (from the equally iconic module White Plume Mountain) is essentially a Stormbringer Captain Ersatz.
• The setting of Warhammer, prior to the End Times, was heavily influenced by this series. Special mention goes to the Dark Elf Malus Darkblade, who's pretty much Elric with the Serial Numbers Filed Off (although Malus is more villainous than Elric), and the Chaos champion Count Mordrek the Damned, who is likewise Gaynor the Damned. A few more subtle influences also leak through, such as Teclis being a mighty sorcerer who depends upon restorative elixirs and potions to sustain his otherwise sickly body, though his personality is nothing like Elric's.
  Realm of Chaos Rulebook: And thanks to Moorcock, whose fault all this is.
• The Magus class in Pathfinder takes a lot of inspiration from Elric, particularly the Bladebound Magus archetype and Seltyiel's character design (he's a half-elf with white hair.)
• The Melnibonéan race is a major inspiration for just about all of the depraved, intrigue-ridden, campy and torture-loving Dark Elf races who infest fantasy RPGs, from the Drow from Dungeons and Dragons, to the Dark Elves from the original Warhammer, and the Dark Eldar from Warhammer 40,000.
• Game publisher White Wolf's name itself was inspired by Elric's in-story nickname.
• Daemon Blades, the favorite weapons of many a Chaos Lord and Daemon Prince in Warhammer 40,000 are patterned almost entirely on Stormbringer, from their need to consume the souls of their victims to power them up to their penchant for killing their owners. Drach'nyen, the most famous of them all and the weapon of Abaddon the Despoiler, actually sticks out as unusual for being docile enough that it doesn't try to kill its wielder.
• The Cursed Wanderer archetype in the Mutants & Masterminds fantasy sourcebook Warriors and Warlocks is very blatantly modelled on Elric.

Video Games

• Arthas from the Warcraft universe is a noble prince who sought the runeblade Frostmourne to defeat a demon lord causing a Zombie Apocalypse in his kingdom of Lordaeron. He succeeded, but the blade's necromantic powers ended up corrupting him, eventually causing him to murder his father and rule over the hordes of the undead himself as the Lich King. After his corruption, his appearance also becomes nearly identical to Elric.
• The Shin Megami Tensei series share the premise of the main character getting dragged in the conflict between entities of Law and Chaos.
• Elric's obvious influence on the Legacy of Kain series of is clear to see. Main protagonist Kain himself a member of an amoral race who has a soul-sucking sword and meddles in the affairs of gods and men and wants his race to flourish no matter what the cost. The baggage and angst related to the weapon and fate is taken by the other protagonist, Raziel.
• In Ultima VII one Infinity +1 Sword is a sentient black sword.
• In The Sims Medieval, one of the Knight's quests has them discover a sword called Animuslaver that's an amalgam of Stormbringer and the One Ring. They need the Spy's help to overcome its corrupting influence.

Real Life

• Goblin Spider Genus Xiombarg is named after one of the lords of Chaos in the Series