Jack Vance's Dying Earth. Good stuff. It's many short stories put together... the first 5 or so are all related. Super entertaining.
[[[Btw, search for “Gaun jack vance”… trying to find art of the white long armed, furred legged monsters… instead found many book covers of Vance, many are excellent.
And I just drew my own Gaun… less ugly drawn than my imagination, heh.
Also, read “Night Lamp”, one of Vance’s best after the first book]]]
I might be on 2nd to last story. First story still favorite.
Update - ok, I have finished it. Very good. Happy to say only one “main character “ was a real bad guy, so it was easy to read and fun. The magic was the best, but there were lots of cool parts like the giant head which might have been an influence on the giant head on Doctor Who circa 2015 or so, and even more likely the giant head w the sphere of annihilation in the dnd module Tomb of Horrors.
I need to come back to this and update it with all the references to D&D spells I keep finding... I know I did a little of this on an older post, but now I have seen more.
- The Excellent Prismatic Spray - such an excellent battle in chapter 1. Comes up again in maybe ch. 2.
- A weird ring that you can pass over your head to feet and become inviz... the light becomes darker from the inside. Can pick it up and carry it around, then you and "it" are both inviz.
- In chapter 4 or 5, there was a Wizard Mouth... placed on a dude's forehead. It spoke with the dude's voice, not the wizard, so... not precisely the same.
- An imp (demon) in a jar.
- There was the crazy demon or gy thing where they summoned / captured the visage of a goddess, and started shooting spells at her which seemed to harm her a little.
- Swapping someone's face with a demon. Weird! I guess you could almost say it's like "alter self", but definitely more like a permanent curse.
- Evil lady summoned 3 winged monsters for transportation. They would normally eat you. So cast a sort of charm on them to prevent harming.
- Charm/geas/compulsion type spell - a very strong one. But also a loophole, where you can command someone to use their own willpower/decisions and they go back to normal.
- Bounce back spell Rune.
- A really weird spell, sort of like a reverse gravity/telekinetic grab, but it then would spin the enemy faster and faster until ripped into pieces.
Random:
- I love when the Deodand comes to the door and asks rather politely to open up so it can eat someone. So freaky
- The brakes. Pg. 115, Guyal on horse through the brakes, eluding the four oasts (weird 8-9 ft. Tall humanoids that are animal minded , like a horse),
- Canebrake rattlesnakes is what I think of.
Monsters
Other notes around d&d influences … to be cleaned up :
Pg 71 origin of blade barrier? Scribd website version of book.
Pg 75, wizard mouth? On his head.
Pg. 102 and several pages before… anti-gravity mentioned. It is in the tower, but he thought it a killing spell at first.
Pg. 105… slime blog tentacles (not a monster but magic helpers with mouth and eyes all over, all over city)… similar to Gibbering Mouthers a little,bit.
Pg. 105, brain controlling residents. Like mindflayer motherbrain.
Pg. 112, the expansible egg, mentioned earlier… it is like the magic Hut spell. Tensors eh
Pg 147, giant face.. on wall and floor… hissing like gas from mouth… tongue into hand snatch ankle. Nostril houses ghost. —- is this the origin of giant face Tomb of Horrors
