Michael Moorcock

I dare say, this page is delightfully British. Spot of tea?

Michael Moorcock (haha “more cock”) is a British author of science fiction and fantasy literature, most prominent for his "weird fiction" focus; the high-magic Sword & Sorcery "Eternal Champion" universe, most iconic for the subsetting focused on Elric of Melnibone, is the most notorious of his many, many works.

So why is he here? Because he invented a lot of stuff seen throughout /tg/! Moorcock's Eternal Champion cosmology directly inspired both the Alignment system of Dungeons & Dragons and the Chaos Gods of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000, with the eight-pointed star of Chaos lifted directly from the Eternal Champion universe with almost no changes. In addition, Elric's cursed sword Stormbringer inspired the Dungeons & Dragons artifact called Blackrazor (and Warcraft's Frostmourne for the /v/irgins) while Elric himself has influenced many characters, such as Warhammer Fantasy's Tyrion and Malus Darkblade.

Usually Moorcock has been cool with other fantasy authors lifting his work. After all he's credited influences of his own: Elric himself is Kullervo the Finn set in a Robert Howard setting. Although /b/ cucks will assume not even skin deep similarities/counters (like Elric himself is to Conan) to be plagiarism, notably with the (thanks to CDPR & /vg/) more successful Witcher series.

Before the Witcher controversy Moorcock's main contribution to fantasy skub was his criticism of certain of his fellow authors, focusing especially upon "Prof. T". After some sideswiping here and there - and presumably after Turin Turambar in The Silmarillion was noted as a similar antihero to Elric, due to both deriving from Kullervo - he composed the essay "Epic Pooh". This essay, even after being revised repeatedly for over three (3) decades, still hasn't dethroned the Oxford Don from his outsized influence over the field. Er. Points for trying?

Damn near everything in the World of Darkness RPG setting has been influenced directly or indirectly by Moorcock. Nearly every setting has a component of order, chaos, and entropy in conflict, which can be traced right back to Moorcock’s cosmic forces.

Gallery

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  The original, symmetrical, symbol of Chaos created by Moorcock

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  The modern rendition of Games Workshop's version, noticeably lacking any form of symmetry