On Moorcock and the origins of GW's Chaos.

25mm Warhammer Background
by Barry Gibson

Introduction
The reason why I thought it was a good idea to write some thoughts on this particular book was because it is cited as the chief source or inspiration behind Games Workshop's concept of Chaos. In fact it is one of the key sources of influence on the whole of the Warhammer (both fantasy & 40k) worlds. Something that influential is certainly deserving of attention. I started reviewing it for my own curiosity mostly because it has such a legacy in Game Workshops notion of Chaos.

What follows is a discussion of Moorcock's Elric and how this might relate to wargaming. My specific aim is to discuss what I see are the crucial elements of Elric and to think about the implications of the core concepts of this novel. I want to share how reading the book enhanced my understanding of Games Workshops notion of Chaos and also to highlight some thoughts which might be relevant to anyone looking for ways to build on their core ideas.

Having read Elric I discovered a number of things. I have always thought that the concept of Chaos at the heart of Games Workshop was a very pregnant idea. In addition I had also felt that we just didn't get the whole picture of what it could actually mean. Most of the time I felt this was because I was new to the hobby and that I just hadn't quite got the full picture. You know you always hear those old fogies spouting on about "When they was Citadel Miniatures!"

As a relative newcomer to the hobby I always that this impression that there was something wrong in the game balance because Chaos was allowed to dominate - I mean they always seemed so much cooler than the other armies! It always seemed all powerful and enticing without much explanation. I never understood why. It was however, only when I read Moorcock that I discovered that they could actually look to balance the equation by revisiting the origins of chaos and drawing on Moorcock's concepts of law and balance.

There is of course no logical reason why GW would have to push for a similar balance. They definitely could be forgiven - after all they have the small matter of a large multinational to run! As hobbyists however we have time to explore these things in much more depth. On reading the issues of White Dwarf that I have bought - such activity is certainly encouraged. Ok so here we go!

Before reading on please understand this is simply the way I like to see Chaos! I thought it would be nice to have a chance to share these thoughts with anyone who could stay awake long enough to read the article!

Moorcock's Elric

Until recently the whole GW concept of chaos suffered from a distinct lack of clarity. The mixing of races like the Beastmen and Skaven was not well defined. Now things are much better and I agree with many others that the recent GW Chaos army concepts are the best that they have ever produced. As for Elric what a book! If you do not know anything about Elric I would suggest going to Amazon.com to have a quick look through the customer reviews they tell enough about the book. In addition you can pick up a copy for around £6. I want to focus here on the core underlying concepts in the book and to think carefully about what these would mean for anyone trying to establish a miniatures game on those concepts.

There is so much in this quote alone and this is why it is a beautiful book. First of all we have a sense of how the 'Doomed folk' wielding powers, perhaps not completely understood by them, caused a great cataclysm which wrought great changes on the world. Secondly, within the quote there is a strain of anti-modernism (anti-the notion that our society is getting better and better) since the Doomed people exist in a disenchanted world, a world where 'they had no Gods to frighten them'. Yet this disenchantment is set in opposition with a hero who has a relationship with the very real Chaos gods, a hero who welcomes the Gods back. Thirdly, and most significantly for the plot of the book there is a negative reference to the albino Elric's relationship with his 'parents'. He references his past, underlying nature and the struggle he has now entered with these. This is the major plot of the book.

There are already several major themes you could use to weave into any game system based on this world:

The self-overcoming of Elric
the man who hates his people and his past and who recognises their influence in him and who wishes to change against all the odds. This is simply stated as the self overcoming and is best represented in existentialist literature. In this you can find a suitable reference in Nietzsche's concept of the eternal recurrence of the same and its relationship to the superman.

The paradox disenchantment in a re-enchanted fiction
all the way through the book there are references to disenchantment and yet in this book the God's walk the earth. A disenchanted world is set in paradoxical opposition with the presence of Gods and people who can wield their power.

The Risks and dangers associated with Magic
the realised dangers of using magic (which by definition means something not fully understood) and the potential for future mutation or uncontrolled outcomes of that magic use.

The self-overcoming of Elric

A focus on the moment has been a characteristic of existentialist thinking since Nietzsche spoke of the noon of life. The mention of the moment suggests that it would be fruitful to think in more depth about Nietzsche’s philosophy of the eternal recurrence of the same and its centrality to the notion of the self-overcoming the same (hereafter simply termed self-overcoming). I draw heavily on two sources the work of Lowith (Lowith, K.1997, Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Enternal Recurrence of the Same University of California Press, Berkley, CA.) and Lloyd (Lloyd, G. 1993, Being in Time: Selves and Narrators in Philosophy and Literature Routledge, London.).

The eternal recurrence of the same has a lot to say about the predicament of Elric's biography, which appears chaotic. It is worth considering this quotation:

The idea of the eternal recurrence is not aimed at suggesting cyclical notions of being in time, which is the Dwarf’s interpretation of the problem, before he is scorned by Zarathustra. Heidegger’s interpretation of the meeting of the two paths is particularly useful for it indicates that there is in fact no collision in the moment but rather that past and future both pursue each other in the moment. What is not yet now becomes the now and subsequently becomes the no longer now perpetually.

This is said to be a ‘spectator’s’ view of time, abandoning it entails becoming ones self, becoming the ‘moment’ and therefore living in the moment. The person therefore performs actions orientated towards the future whilst at the same time accepting and affirming the past. Such an orientation encourages ‘strife’ between what is becoming and what has been given it as its endowment from the past. The sense of agency at the heart of the moment carries with it a sense of the weightiness of the doctrine of eternal recurrence. The agency spoken of here is of course bound very closely to the doctrine of the ‘superman’ which, in light of the burden of eternal recurrence, refers to the self overcoming (Lowith, 1997).

Heidegger’s interpretation of the eternal return emphasises future orientated action. In Elric the past is looked at with considerable burden. In addition, Elric's accounts of his identity are permeated with a sense of having to overcome the self he had become - a kind of self-overcoming.

In the framework of self-overcoming Elric has to accept that self-overcoming could not occur unless he accepts that everything that has happened is integral to who he is and subsequently to who he will become. He has to learn to accept that the chaos of his identity will eternally recur. In the above quote he leaves his sedentary life with his wife to once again become the wanderer. One of the key images associated with Nietzsche is of course the wanderer which is in turn beautifully illustrated on the front cover of the Penguin edition of Ecce Homo using Caspar David Friedrich's picture of the Traveller Looking Over Sea of Fog, 1818. The image of the 'Traveller Looking Over Sea of Fog' is used by Penguin to emphasise the loneliness and aloofness of the wanderer:

Here the image of the 'Traveller Looking Over Sea of Fog' is used by Penguin to emphasise the loneliness and aloofness of the wanderer.

Heidegger however emphasises the future from the moment and the importance of action towards the future. The idea of eternal return however also suggests the relation between the moment and the past. The longing for eternal return also means a turning away from the future, in equal measure, and thus the centrality of the moment:

This is a very important part of Nietzsche’s perspective. In turn whilst Elric does display some desire for a new heir a new self. This reflects his desire and struggle to become someone else. In this way Elric is condemned to accept that he will always in some sense be an ‘outsider’. Nietzsche’s perspective on the determinacy of the past into the fluidity of the future encourages the person in becoming and overcoming the self to have no remorse.

The extension of the determinate past into the fluid future is crucial to how Lloyd interprets the centrality of narrative (Lloyd, 1993). There are two important ways in which narratives from the standpoint of Nietzsche are to be understood. First, they reflect how the present gets something of the determinacy of the past. Second, recurrence can also affect the past by giving it a sense of the not-yet done with. In this way then recurrence allows consideration of how narratives allow the barriers between the past and the present to be removed. The past becomes less fixed and the process of self-overcoming becomes more likely and hence it points to the significance of the moment in existentialist thinking.

Moorcock discusses the role of existentialist thinking as perhaps the major influence on him whilst he was writing Elric (see here). In this discussion he responds by citing Camus as a major source. Yet from Lowith's account of Nietzsche you can see that the moment is crucial to the free spirit, to the superman. The closeness of living in the moment for Elric had the following implications:

This is the real Chaos of Elric. It is the heart of the novel and on this essence the story turns. Living in the moment means he is destined to be alone, apart from men, an outsider. It is here that you can see the idealism of the superman also encapsulated in his struggle to overcome who he was, to overcome his ancestors.

Being caught in the moment is to be caught between opposite impulses just as Zarathustra was standing on the threshold of the present, between past and future. To do this is to love ones fate.

The paradox disenchantment in a re-enchanted fiction

As we have seen to live in the moment is to enjoy ones fate and not to wish things to be other than they are. This is the recurrence of the same in the moment that we spoke of before and it is the essence of Elric as the hero of the book. He fights to overcome his nature and in the end discovers the joy of loving his fate. Yet in this quotation we also see a desire for logic, for rationality, whilst at the same time acknowledging the place of chance in the making of things.

I like this quote because it also resonates so well with game playing especially battle games, since all the planning and logic in the world turn on the result of a dice roll. Basing a game on such a world seems very fitting. It is here that the fickle nature of chance and chaos re-enters the equation:

In this quotation the idea of morals and gods being each others pawns is revisited alongside the threat to all civilisation. There is celebration of 'civilisation', which we can equate with rationality and logic dependant on the fickle dark Gods of chaos. This is all so paradoxical but fits well with any game concept. I mean most games depend on a rules system and some element of chance after all!

The Risks and dangers associated with Magic
The magic of the Elric universe is fickle and often exacts a very high price. If you wanted to get this into any magic system you would have to have the interplay of risk and logic almost equally balanced. There is much to be gained in summoning Chaos gods but the process is fraught with failure and often these Gods exact a very high price.

In addition to this the nature of Chaos in Elric is such that there are often cataclysmic consequences associated with using something that is not really fully understood. In this sense people and things might be affected by Chaos through such releases of the wild powers. For me the result is magical mutation. Cataclysmic consequences might lead to cultures founded on a profound fear of magic, or alternatively cultures based on a twisted understanding of magic.

Conclusions
There are three major themes in Elric each of which lend themselves quite well to gaming. They do however have very different implications for any game which might wish to base itself on the core issues.

In terms of self-overcoming there would be a challenge to do more with personalities, to think more about how the personality of characters in battles can be used to give the game a greater sense of narrative. Is it possible to write up motivations of characters and to think about personal rivalries and how these might shape what occurs in terms of the game narrative? The player of a good force could toy with having an inherently evil character on their side who is going through the same personal conflicts as Elric. Rules might even be generated to give personality profiles more meaning. More thought should perhaps be given to the role of heroic and traitorous acts in shaping a battle.

Such comments undoubtedly walk a thin line between roleplaying and wargaming which have traditionally been separate camps. However as someone who enjoys roleplaying a lot I would love to see just how aspects of roleplaying might be used to enhance wargaming (and I don't mean we would all have to stand around pontificating as we play the game). The outcome might become a matter of not just luck and tactics but also how the narrative of character interaction shapes the battle. In this way you can perhaps try to circumvent the worst excesses of wargaming competitiveness by giving more control to personality profiles and the narrative of the game.

The paradox of disenchantment is more difficult to address especially in a war game. The people of Troos are only a small part of the overall Elric narrative and so not that crucial however there is something important here for gaming. In this context this reference can best be understood above all about how we play and what we experience when we play.

In Elric there is a reference to times when people did not need gods. Such a disenchanted world might be efficient but it certainly is not going to be entertaining or interesting to live in. Wargaming like roleplaying and reading fantasy literature is as much about suspension of unbelief and re-enchanting our world as it is about executing cunning battle plans and 'winning' a game. Some might argue that there will always be a naked self interest and competitiveness in wargaming. If this is all that it is about then surely it must be a boring hobby? Surely all it is about at this stage is a series of systematic dice rolls on a series of carefully arranged tables? To what extent does an over emphasis on the game system reduce our experience of re-enchantment?

In many ways I am not arguing for more rules to help the re-enchantment process but a series of guidelines for the gamer to take control of producing their own path to a better gaming experience. In essence it is what we feel the spirit of this site is about. Trying to break the over dependence of gamers on others to produce their worlds and gaming experience for them. Try breaking that hold and thinking for yourself. If we can perhaps work to producing some guidelines for doing this then it would be mission accomplished.

When it comes to the Risks and dangers associated with Magic fantasy worlds are always in perpetual danger from titanic forces. This perpetual threat is however uncommon in war games. It is difficult to find a game where magic is unpredictable and hard to control. Magic users in Elric more often than not where threatened when the forces of chaos where unleashed. Indeed the power of chaos was often so great that the magic user risked being consumed by even daring to disturb such forces. Therefore when they worked they were often devastating, when they failed however....

In my short experience of war gaming not many magic systems are unpredictable, there appears to be little sense of risk and chance in invoking such powers. All of this is of course against the nature of magic itself. Where is the enchantment when your magic user's fireball routinely appears because you knew all you had to do was take a level 5 mage?

This point is once again related to disenchantment, there is nothing more enchanting than an unlikely thing called magic actually making a difference in battle. Too often magic systems are vaguely described and reduce to their instrumental effects. There is little in the way of inspiration or cultural interpretation for the army being fought. I would prefer to see a game where if a magic spell was cast that every unit should have to roll simply because either the other side or the home side managed to do something incredulous. The alternative is to keep going on about how the fire bolt has hit that unit of Ratmen make five rolls for a kill on a 3. Great! Now where is my beer? I'm bored.

So what of Games Workshop and Chaos? I hope if you have managed to get through this article (you are probably the only one!) that you can see so much more could be brought to their game simply by exploring the source material and thinking carefully about how to weave narratives into your campaigns. I hope you can see that this literature is to be respected - I can see why it inspired a game such as Warhammer. I am also glad that it did.

Barry Gibson

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