
Dim the lights. The shadows part, revealing "an albino with bone white skin and crimson eyes, a sorcerer-emperor of a decaying kingdom which has ruled the world for ten thousand years."
Veteran genre author Michael Moorcock describes his most famous fantasy creation, Elric of Melniboné, as being as "physically weak as he is mentally powerful. He learns his magical craft through a series of dreams, taking decades in the dreamtime but only a single night in his real time. He depends upon a soul-sucking black sword for sustenance and has certain moral doubts about this method of staying alive..."