Sound of fantasy horn (real)

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=68Hds0OYrbg&ra=m

Time 8:27

Swords in the Mist, Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser - I now read

 Starting Swords in the Mist now.  

Wikiped says Contents

"The Cloud of Hate" (1963)
"Lean Times in Lankhmar" (1959)
"Their Mistress, the Sea" (1968)
"When the Sea-King's Away" (1960)
"The Wrong Branch" (1968)
"Adept's Gambit" (1947)

Origins

• Could the 1980s movie “the fog” by Carpenter be influenced by this first story of an evil sentient fog with an evil red light in it… disguised as normal fog. Pg. 17 has four killers walking nearly invisible through the fog… with weapons attacking folks and feeding the fog. 
• Dnd - eldrich things (magic from wizards at least in part) mentioned - lightning from clouds, black coalescing shadows that suffocate men in a forest, sea serpents, smoke from a wizard’s fire that snakes out to strangle. 
• Pg. 27 Issek of the jug vs. Jugged Issek, who was confined in an earthenware jar for 17 years. Could it be the idea for the weird goofy living Jug/pot people of Elden Ring???
• Mingol glue, pg.59…. Mayne lead to dnd super glue… i forget the name. 
• Xx

Trivia

• Mouser is revealed as perhaps slightly evil, more so than Fafhrd for sure, on pg. 18. The fog was easily resisted by Fafhrd, not so easily by Mouser. 
• Sheelba is described as demonic and Ningauble as alien and multi-serpentine… through others’ views… in “Lean times in Lankhmar”. 
• Fafhrd is pronounced close to “fafherd” so it says in “Lean times…” pg. 24.

Analysis

• Story 1. Solid. Freaky cultists, magic fog monsters, fighting. 
• Story 2. Overly descriptive (of boring or silly religious dudes) in the first half of story 2. I mean it is kinda entertaining, but it’s too much for me. Need action. Need weird and fantastical. Update - the whole thing was a comedy, no fantasy. This was the "change up the heroes... make them look different... one gains weight, etc." thing. 
• Story 3,super short… probably written to tie stories together.  Nothing happens really... they ride in their boat and become "normal" again.   
• 
  

D&D ideas to use; Names: 

• Names: Gnarlag, Skel, Kreshmar. Sory 2- Pulg. 
• Cultists create the evil fog near a river. This fog turned into a squidlike fog monster w ten tentacles… grew a single red eye as big as a face. Had infected evil types to become truly murderous, and when it sucked up enough life force from whomever, that’s when it started to look like a giant monster with an eye. Can grab weapons. A single pinkish silvery thread connected it to the larger evil fog. Cut that, and you beat that one part. Dying, weapons drop, fog disperses, and a stink.
• X

Mistakes in continuity

• Pg.27, says the twain heroes split up… Fafhrd joined up as an acolyte with Bwadres worshipping Issek of the jug, a religious type “godlet”. But in another story I thought it said Mouser and Fafhrd met for the first time after that. 

Scifi trivia and Golden Age reads

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GhNtYhvDsvo&t=856s

Time 14:20 shows that yeah, Ridley Scott probably stole this old idea of planting eggs in spaceship crewmen feom this story “Discord in scarlett” by A. E. Van Vogt. 

Or did that author van Vogt steal from John Campbell’s creatures in “Who goes there”?

Youtuber J. Scott Phillips. 

Ningauble of the Seven Eyes - art

Fantastic Stories cover "Adept's Gambit". 

Ningauble of the Seven Eyes. Wow, I guess that's what he looks like... was hiding his face and hands and feet in the stories I've read so far, but did freakily reveal his 7 eyes that can extend very very far... they're supposed to glow slightly green and have cat-like pupils. 

On the picture. Nice and freaky, I like it. Thanks/credit for picture (of an old maganize) to Goodman Games and the Lankhmar PDFs I got from that humble bundle last year. This was in the PDF named "DCCL 8 EightCities". 

BTW, that usual yellowish comicbook art you see everywhere of them incorrectly shows hands (wrapped and less fingers on Nongauble) on Sheelba and Ningauble. I just finished reading the stories in “swords against death” and specifically nobody knows if the two wizards have human anatomy on their faces or hands still (or feet). When Fafhrd gets to borrow the blindfold of true seeing, one of the wizards, I think Sheelba, says NOT to put it on right then or risk insanity and death (implying the perhaps Lovecraftian nature of the two wizards).

Trivia from that PDF (note that "The Twain" means Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser): 

Something that was produced though was the game of

Lankhmar, originally released by TSR in 1976 and ushering

in a long-time partnership between Leiber and the “Game

Wizards.” The game of Lankhmar was based on a wargame

of sorts created by Leiber and Fischer and played during the

years of the Great Depression. The original board, a massive

piece of cardboard that showed the terrain and geography of

Nehwon, was long lost along with the rules the two wrote.

When Gygax learned of this game, he expressed a desire to

reproduce it, leaving Leiber and Fischer with the chore of reconstructing the game from memory. These rewritten rules,

penned in longhand, can be found in the Papers Collection.

 As part of the development of the game, Gygax sent Leiber

and Fischer a number of illustrations done by David C.

Sutherland, III, each depicting his take on the characters

in the game. Fischer sent these back to TSR with a number

of corrections, pointing out where Sutherland had veered

away from Fischer’s own personal interpretations of the

characters and cultures of Nehwon. Sadly, these corrections

arrived too late for them to be implemented. The annotated

illustrations are preserved in the Collection, granting an interesting insight into how the Twain’s co-creator envisioned

the duo and the world they inhabited.

That B&W one is from https://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2019/03/fafhrd-grey-mouser-by-russ-nicholson.html pointing to artist https://russnicholson.blogspot.com/2019/03/as-one-came-lets-see-if.html
 

Get Tenkar’s book

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-yYZdrUi_Zw

Transcription from vids, so it's not super fancy prose... it's just basic info, which is just fine. It'll be updated a couple times a year. 

He says "Download link is right here https://tenkars-tavern.games/TavernGuide

— no email, no signup, no store page. It's CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, so print it, share it, post it in your Discord, hand it to your table. Read the chapter that matches whatever's actually broken at your table this week, pick one procedure out of it, and run it three times before you judge it. Then tell me whether it held up."

Extra good parts: 

• The Three Steps, on page 7. 
• Telegraphing Danger: The Escalation Ladder, on page 8. 
• Room Description: Scene, Oddity, Risk
• Adding These Procedures Without Burning Your Table Out
• What This Handbook Assumes: The B/X Loop - ...common sense first, dice only if needed....

The three steps (I'll paste the whole thing)

Step one: the player states intent, and "I search" doesn't count. "I'm checking the fireplace for drafts." "I'm feeling the mortar lines for a seam." "I want to know if that chest's lid seam looks tampered with." Intent tells you what kind of clue to hand back.

Step two: you respond with information, not a verdict. Not "you find a secret door" — "the soot above the fireplace is thicker on the left, but there's a clean arc on the right, like something's been swung open, and you feel a faint cool draft near the right inner stone." You've told them nothing is confirmed and everything is worth pursuing. Layer the clues if a player keeps investigating: one standout detail, one suspicious detail, one confirmation of safety.

Step three: roll only when time, risk, or precision are actually in question. Not "did you find it" — "can you do this quickly," "can you do it quietly," "does this trigger while you're working it." The roll stops being permission to discover and becomes a cost for speed or stealth.

Applied to traps, the same three steps hold, with one addition: think about what job the trap is doing. Traps exist to make the dungeon feel engineered — somebody built this place and expected intruders — and to make time matter, the same way searching does. If a trap doesn't create a decision, it's just random damage.

WORKED EXAMPLE — THE NEEDLE CHEST

Slot-machine version: "I check for traps." Roll. Fail. Open it. Save vs. poison or die. Nobody learned

anything — that's a death tax, not play.

Clean version: "Before we touch it, I check the lock, the lid seam, the hinges — anything out of place."

You: "There's a hairline scratch around the lock plate, like it's been removed and reset. The keyhole smells

faintly of bitter almonds." Now the table has a real decision — rotate the chest so the lock faces away and

work it with a pole (slow, safe, a turn); force it (fast, loud, risks the contents); or hand it to the thief with

time to work (a roll, but a chosen one).

Give real credit to good tools and good method. A 10-ft pole probing ahead, chalk or flour dusted on a floor to catch a disturbed seam, a mirror on a rod checking behind a statue, water or oil poured along a seam to reveal airflow — if the approach is sound, let it succeed outright. The thief's Find/Remove Traps skill isn't the only way into this system; it's the cleanest option for a fine, dangerous mechanism under time pressure. Everyone gets to investigate and attempt a bypass. Only the thief gets to neutralize the hard ones cleanly.

 

Telegraphing Danger: The Escalation Ladder (just a piece of his write up below)

Three rules keep this from turning into spoilers. Give clues, not labels — "little animal skeletons in the corner, all frozen mid-scream," never "this is a basilisk's lair." Make every warning actionable — a scratched note reading "mirrors help" is useful; a vague sense of dread is not. And keep the truth accurate but incomplete — the player should be thinking it might be poison, might be gas, might be something on the ceiling. Uncertainty creates tension. Ignorance just creates resentment.

Room Description: Scene, Oddity, Risk (summary here, but read his details, good stuff)

• 10 second delivery
• Scene -Shape and obvious function of room. 
• Present one oddity - something that invites interaction. 
• Imply one risk. What it might "cost" to interact. 

Adding These Procedures Without Burning Your Table Out

• If it doesn't fit your table, don't use it at your table. 
• Add one tool at a time, so you can keep up. 

What This Handbook Assumes: The B/X L

• The referee describes a situation. The players ask questions and declare actions. The referee resolves — common sense first, dice only when needed. Time passes, resources get spent.
  
  

Books To Read Maybe

• The rest of the Dying Earth stuff. What's up with this cool cover from 1974 (but different author, not Jack Vance. But check out the name, Michael Shea is the same name as the 35-45ish year old guy on youtube doing all the Lazy Dungeonmaster type books for D&D 5e type stuff. I bet his parents read this book):

• Most of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stuff. I'm still in the middle of Swords against Death. 

A book list of fantasy and sf, some good ones, maybe some I need to read:  

• https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u8CFFCVBRP4&t=325s
• Long running series or shared worlds with various authors. 
• Dragonriders of Prrn had more than I knew. 
• Elric has new ones. 

Swords Against Death - Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser- need to read authors

Reading it. More sword and sorcery than most other Leiber books, Goodman says.  

Published dates per short story (seems halfway correct from Amazon, puke):

• The Circle Curse (1970) - Oh, they go back to Lankhmar in the end. Circle, OK.  
• The Jewels in the Forest (1970, isn't it really from 193x?) - weird one. Pretty fun. 
• Thieves' House (1943) - Black skeletons. Skulls with jewels for eyes. 
• The Bleak Shore (1940) - “The Bleak Shore, The Bleak Shore, The Bleak Shore”. Freaky and potentially deadly so far. Let's see what happens. Ships. Read. 
• The Howling Tower (1941) - wolves or hounds or people? 
• The Sunken Land (1942) - 
• The Seven Black Priests (1953) - my favorite short story so far. 
• Claws from the Night (1951) - birds. 
• The Price of Pain-Ease (1970) - Sheelba is in it. OK, here he becomes the patron of Mouser. Ningauble, in his mazy cave, talkative, also becomes patron of Fafhrd.
• Bazaar of the Bizarre (1963) - ppl say its good. Sheelba is here. Ningauble, too. Yes this is a fun one, some humor!

Comments on stories

• The Seven Black Priests is my favorite so far. The poison dart, conical hat, ~3 foot tall, covered in grease black priests were cool.  The introduction with the first one was just right… he was painted by the author as a man, but then you saw what happened/his response if there were intruders. Dangerous. Fanatical. Unrelenting. I loved how they kept popping up from nowhere. And their evil idol was menacing. Their background in the jungles of Klesh, but then their relocation in an opposite cold world was surprising yet effective. 

Trivia -

• Hot blooded and furred snakes of the north, Fafhrd let’s us know.  Any chance this is related to dnd’s burning hot insectoid worm giant monster -> Remorhaz? Nah, I think the snakes are just warm blooded snakes, as they mention them more later. 
• MISTAKE The bubble of Nehwon thing is different here compared to "The Swords of Lankhmar"… mentioned on pg. 16 as a mere made up spur of the moment thing. I don't know which story was first; it's just a minor inconsistency. 
• MISTAKE The wizard warlock Sheelba … is seen for the first time in his walking hut. But in Swords of Lankhmar, Mouser is surprised when it walks. And Fafhrd I believe near the end indicates he never saw the hut before (right?). I don't know which story was first; it's just a minor inconsistency. 
• Pg. 16, fireflies exist here… other short stories/book (The Swords of Lankhmar) had fire beetles.
• Pg. 208, says they steal to replace lost  weapons and rename them the same thing every time. Graywand, Heartseeker, Cat’s claw and Scalpel.
•  Pg. 214, once again Sheelba is described as maybe having tentacles instead of legs based on his uncomfortable squatting posture. So is that color picture of … oh yeah that picture was Ningauble, not Sheelba, that showed monstrous legs and claws. I bet they both are never revealed. 
• Pg. 217, the Shadowlands have a Really good description. Almost night with clouds, but only a mist at most. An open Black cedar forest. Black antelope and reindeer nibble grass. No people. Boulders of black.  Many faraway lights of every hue but blue… only when approached they’d be gone.  No trace of ashes from a fire. Ghosts???
• Pg. 221, Sheelba and Ningauble are said to be the two most powerful wizards…and were able to do powerful magic in a temper moody “revenge” (made very lighthearted in the story).  Ning  “magicked” all stolen belongings from a house to be gone. And Sheel did burn a whole house down magically. Seemingly both from afar, but unspecified actually. 
• Sheelba and Ning are in the last story. 
• Archimage is a real word, pronounced ark-uh-maje. Maybe like archetype(???). 
• Archbishop is pronounced arCHbishop. 
• Archangel is pronounced (ark anjul)
• Pg. 230 lists… devils, sword armed demons, cults, lamias, succubi, bacchantes, and hamadryads. 
• Pg. 235, Fafhrd suggests the two good mages come to help fight as sorcerous “archery and artillery” while he be the assault battalion. 
• Leiber did fencing they say… so better fight scenes (think Salvatore). 
• Leiber pronounced (lye ber) as expected. Fafhrd is (Faf  hrd) not (Fawf hrd) or a short o sound. Also Leiber like mouser pronounced mouZer, but that’s optional says the dictionary. 

More words n phrases to use/ideas

• Time in “when the first stars show”
• Hearing it whippoorwill might be a bad omen.. Anaugry of a bad omen. An augury of ill omen.
• And the day of the toad a bad day to enter a deserted home. Bad luck.
• Building… outjutting cornices and friezes
• Mayhap
• Feather you with arrows 
• Make yourself scarce
• Almost got home an attack
• Sibilant (hiss like sound)
• A faint, high, listless voice came from the dark….
• …gleamed the Sapphire eyes of a brazen dragonhead that was the pommel of his longsword. 

D&d and one OSE origins

• Pg 34has a list of d&d dungeoneering gear. Rope, mallet and pry-bar. Wedges. Candles. Flint. Chisels.A pick. etc
• Pg. 43 his “good luck” amulets, talismans, … prayers and cantrips. 
• Pg. 49, fear… a spell? Described well. 
• Pg. 66, mentions leather, with studs of brass.  The maybe not real studded leather of dnd?
• Pg. 68, good room descr. “It was a large room full of alcoves, and like the rest of the building, of dark smooth stone walls and floor. On a heavy cypress table four earthenware lamps paced randomly lit the place. “ That’s paraphrasing. 
• Pg.72  and 98 and earlier… a skull and a hand (pair of hands?) … bejeweled… able to kill by strangulation if menaced(?). Vecna inspiration? Later were many jewel eyed skeletons all related to this short story. Think demi-lich art in ad&d (CORRECTION - Monster Manual 2 of 1st edition doesn't have jewels in the eyes... jewels don't show up that I can see until 3.0e's Monster Manuals, so nevermind). 
• Pg. 98 has black skeleton, and a few OSE modules inspired by these black skeletons, eh? 
• Pg 158, stealing a jewel3 eye from a giant evil idol. Like the old 1e book cover. 
• Pg 167, a sleepspell
• Pg 167, a cursed object… taking over your mind
• Pg. 236, the Cloak of Invisibility - master sorcerers can prepare and see thru it. Blood will not be hidden. 
• Pg. 236, The Blindfold of True Seeing, (dnd spell True Seeing) it shows all things as they truly are. Origin of the 1980s movie, They Live, with Roddy Piper and the sunglasses… especially since “The Devourers” are evil greedy merchants from another universe with plans to trick people into (being like slaves and) buying their trash and not worried about people running out of cash/things… they’d just move on to a new universe. Actual trash and worse… worn out loincloths, broken bits of glass, roaches, maggots, etc.
• Pg. 237ish… Sheelba once again pulled something from his face hole (if I understood).  Does Orco of the He-man cartoon do the same? He is also a mage without human legs or face… blue hands, eh? 
• Pg. 240, the tall black iron statue… with a sword… is alive.  AKA, an iron golem in D&D. Though in the book, a being… a Devourer.  
• *** reading that Cervantes (of Don Quixote fame) invented the “thieves guild”, though dnd uses the one from Leiber in these Fafhrd Mouser stories.  

Need to read

• The Tale of Satampra Zeiros by Clark Ashton Smith. It is very D&D, also. Says commenter on Grognardia about Jewels In the Forest and Swords Against Death… https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2021/04/pulp-fantasy-library-jewels-in-forest.html
• Andre Alice Norton’s stuff (also Alice Andre Norton). She did The Beastmaster, but it was scifi not fantasy like the movie. She won awards… had a bunch of books.  
• Kane stories by Karl Edward… he fuses Kane into an immortal evil Elric plus Conan they say. But he is a villain sort of (hero sometimes) so maybe I won’t like it. Start with “Darkness Weaves” probably. Others say start w “Bloodstone” then “black crusade” then “darkness weaves”. 
• Who is Robert Bloch Blake? Another pulp guy?
• Poul Anderson.
• Jack Vance, more. 
• 
  
• past masters like Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, E. R. Eddison, C. L. Moore, and Lord Dunsany, you come very quickly to Fritz Leiber.
• 
  

Magic item ideas - old school

 Time 10:37 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_wxKYt_www&t=611s

• Ring of the mole - puts out a magical shell in a 5' radius. Digs thru dirt or ice at 10’ per old school Turn, aka 10 minutes. The tunnel fills in behind you. 
• Ring of Flashing Swords - produces a magical energy sword that can cut through any non-magical armor. 1-8 dmg. Can be used by any class. 
• Ring of Reverse Striking - cursed. Looks EXACTLY like hte Ring of Flashing Swords, but once in combat, it attacks the wearer's head. 
• Ring of Water Walking
• Ring of Weight - Cursed/trick ring. Looks just like Water Walking ring, but it waits for you to be above a 20 foot drop in the water, then you sink. Cannot remove after activated sink curse, except for Remove Curse. 
• 
  

Origins, Charm Person spell, fire-beetles, sea nymphs , slime monsters, Lankhmar

Btw, lotsa good info and pictures here https://www.blackgate.com/2018/04/10/danger-in-every-dark-alley-40-years-of-adventuring-in-lankhmar-fritz-leibers-great-fantasy-metropolis/

 The Swords of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber has 'em, fire beetles, on pg 95.

“Fire-beetles, glow-wasps, and night-bees supping at the Closet flowers…”. Though they are meant to be as fireflies and glowworms…not actual fire.

SPOILERS

• Gray Mouser has a silver tiny needle in his forehead… magically charming him to the wererat chick, Hisvet. 
• Also…woo nymph and sea nymph mentioned arounf pg 97.
• Mentions slime monster dividing in two to reproduce. Like adnd slimes often do. Pg 100.
• Ghouls, though half transparent… looking more like skeletons. 
• Dire rats all over… size of housecats..
• Pg 109… mentioned possible potion for evil eye kill (eye bite), clairvoyant spying, … potion to incr cunning or mental smarts.
• Animals more in the salt marsh - water cobras, giant worms (size of a rat maybe, but surely gave Gygax ideas for purple worms), sea leeches, poison eels, saw beaked cadaver birds falapping low, claw footed salt soiders.
• More Origins here in my other post: https://trilodroid.blogspot.com/2026/07/fafhrd-and-gray-mouser-book-one-i-read.html

The deep voiced creepy wizard Sheelba of the Eyeless is very influential on DCC. This guy hides his face in a hood, never seen, has no eyes so far by page 105-110 (Mouser imagines blind? Skin Flesh instead of eyes?  AntennaE? A skull?… perhaps Skeletor comes from him also.). Sheelba also never shows his fingers, if he has any. Gray Mouser wonders if he has a chin or elbows. All this points to maybe tentacles for arms, eh?.  Compare to DCC magic user types and the corruption - scroll way down https://deathtrap-games.blogspot.com/2020/07/game-review-dungeon-crawl-classics-rpg.html

Fun phrase - “ten hundred and one [gods] of Lankhmar…” referring to the thousands and thousands of gods.

BTW, The Swords of Lankhmar was written in chunks. Check out this 1961 piece called "Scylla's Daughter" that was just the ship section with the "dragons" and the German:

• https://sffremembrance.com/2022/12/03/novella-review-scyllas-daughter-by-fritz-leiber/
• https://writingatlas.com/story/1499/fritz-leiber-scylla-s-daughter/
• 
  
  
  
  

Draw Steel game, MCDM

 Says it is tactical and 4e influenced in a good way. 

https://www.enworld.org/threads/draw-steel-fake-variety-helps-no-one.714344/

Read https://medium.com/@pictor_dice_camp/draw-steel-is-a-lot-6843841de2f4 it

Says 

• You are big damn heroes. A level 1 character in Draw Steel is powerful, you can do some great things. The game describes you as already being a hero at a local level. You may already be a legend in your home village. You should expect to be world-famous figures by level 9 or 10. You don’t track torches and rations, for the most part, you don’t even really track money. Strap on your armour, pick up your sword, and go be a hero.
• This game has a HEAVY focus on tactical, action-based combat, with minis, on a grid. Not only does it require a grid, but it expects you will be spending a large portion of your time there. It also has a big focus on movement, including forced. Throws, slams, sending your opponent into a wall, or off the edge of the cliff. It doesn’t want anyone standing still.

Throne of the gods, adnd item, fun ideas; free 1e modules

 Page121 says https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkhGHabBa1E&t=301s

 https://adnd2e.fandom.com/wiki/Throne_of_the_Gods_(Magic_Throne)

https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=5574

https://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/Throne_of_the_Gods

Free 1e stuff here - https://www.dragonsfoot.org/

For Gold and Glory is a 2e OSR game

Mr. Rourke says it is good and streamlined.  

Btw, the Brit adnd, becmi, etc. guy youtuber - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6FNbPlG0nM&t=304s

PF 1e Spell stuff

 

This guy responding pretty much always thinks level 2 spells aren't enough dmg so... with a grain of salt, but definitely some smart analysis too:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/1m8yipv/daily_spell_discussion_for_jul_25_2025_burning/ 

Guess I'm going with same old same old burning sphere, to get hits each round while maybe doing other things. It takes a MOVE action in PF 1e tho so careful. 

I got the flurry of snowballs too, since it is a nice 30 ft cone. Might be casting it "from my bonded object amulet" once a day thing.