The Swords of Lankhmar
Pict from https://www.reddit.com/r/badscificovers/comments/upgoye/the_swords_of_lankhmar_by_fritz_leiber/
It is good. Starts of with an action sequence… two wizards and a mob of fighter types fight them. Kinda funny. The idea around a copper or something 30 foot wire on a sword to thwart a lightning spell is interesting. Wished he didn’t use the word “stuff” when describing the lightning but i guess from the two heroes perspective it was a whatever thing… maybe. Then again before that described as blue white ghostly fiery… semi translucent or something. And later states lightning plainly eh?
WORDS/PHRASES TO USE IN DND
- Sniggered
- Fie fie
- A Wand to mean a quaterstaff. Around page 35, the fiht on the deck of the Squid ship.
- They began to drub away at each other with wands (quaterstaffs ).
- ‘Tis poisoned too, I wot. (Pg. 60) —verbFirst-person singular simple present form of wit
- Measure seconds as heartbeats instead. Ex. “For a score of heartbeats….”
- Kreese instead of Kris knife. A Malay or Indonesian dagger. Pronounced kreese afterall, hmmph. Takes a 1968 book to teach the pronunciation through actual English spellimg, Gottverdammter Nirgendswelt!. .. So yeah, a dude from Germany time travels to them... it's a little jarring but these scifi fantasy crossovers were normal and not crossovers back then I guess. I guess. He was a fun character at least.
- Bowshot as distance.
IDEAS
- A coin in pocket but one side honed to razor sharpness to cut bonds if trapped. Pg. 62.
SPOILERS BELOW SPOILERS
Are there some were-rats or what?! I think the albino lady is one. Let’s see… I am on page 31 or so. After the double headed (one lrg one small) sea dragon with the rider mage with the German ish name. And they see the ship was sank by rats including one white one.
Easter Egg/Origins
- 3.5e dnd miniatures had the white albino wererat… I have it. Related? Surely.
- Hisvet has a pipe flute thing to inspire the rats = dnd's pipe of the sewers.
Interesting- Does the author like mice, cats, mammals, or … were-things?
- The Gray Mouser? As in a cat. Setting up the anti rats.
- Wererats?
- Fafhrd’s hairy chest (mentioned often, called ape by enemy). You get a werewolf feeling,a not really but almost something. The ladies like it.
- Pg 60 or 61, author/character acknowledges- “that most misnamed Mouser”… since he was on the side of rats at first.
- Mouser’s dagger is named “Cat’s Claw”.
Critique/Review a little bit
- They are likable scoundrels. The over the top scoundrelness is probably taking it too far to be realistic. Fun though, if not analyzed too seriously.
- I find it comical the author says in the preface that he wants these guys to be more realistic, and not super powerful or something... then in the main first scene 2 guys take out like 20 guys, including reacting to lightning bolts and stuff. Still fun of course.
- He does go overboard describing clothes on new characters. You'd be tempted to almost guess the importance of a character by how huge a paragraph is devoted to their clothing. It's a bit much on random characters and even bigger characters... all characters. I would have liked to have seen that much description on the sea serpent dragon things, or to have made the spell casting in the first scene cooler instead of half comical. Also, did he ever describe the two main guys in such detail, I kind of think not.
- UPDATE from here
- After the 1/3 mark to my current halfway mark, the book gets really interesting.
- Great language usage. Odd words that take thought or research in a fun way.
- The wizard is weird and cool. Sheelba of the Eyeless Face so far. Weird animals in the salt marsh. Ghouls that aren’t dnd ghouls, weird transparent wild people. The Mingol (think Mongol) mare that Fafhrd gets is one of their best allies.
- Page 130, good stuff. Ilthmar is weird. Rat god icon all over. Brigands right away. Guards are crooks. It is the crossroads for their world. Fafhrd had a good fight. A few pages earlier Mouser had a good fight with rats (mini wererats?). Just realized that in Harry Potter there was a wererat.
- Ningauble of the seven eyes is coming up. He is Fafhrd’s wizard friend. Lives in a mazy, enchanted cave near Ilthmar.
- Gliptkerio the toga waering overlord and Samanda the fat miniboss lady are some kind of unlikeable, vile, terrible, stupid but very evil slave lashers. Hope they croak soon. I have to skip half the slave torture stuff, can’t stand it. It gets to the point where you want the wererats to win.
- Pg 137, a possible rare mistake in vocabulary… used “pillbug”, but could have said ballbug or something perhaps. Pills didn’t exist back then, right? Or just how old is the word pill or pillbug? Nevermind, 1400 year, so close enough.
- We meet the other wizard/warlock , Ningauble, equally not showing face or hand (tentacle guessed/implied)… this one having a flutey tone of voice. Ok wow, the seven green catlike eyes are on long eyestalks, wow.
- He is much different in attitude than Sheelba. High pitched voice, never full of BS, says sorry, is rather kind, tries to be helpful even when Fafhrd is being jerky demanding. Isn’t afraid to say “I haven’t the faintest idea”, but he is helpful.
- See maps https://imgv2-1-f.scribdassets.com/img/document/466296724/original/f7cf877b59/1?v=1
- And info and picts https://www.blackgate.com/2018/04/10/danger-in-every-dark-alley-40-years-of-adventuring-in-lankhmar-fritz-leibers-great-fantasy-metropolis/
D&D Origins/Influences
- The thief class, eh?
- Lightning bolt from hands spell probably.
- Magic Missile maybe. Remember how it used to be an actual physical missile, like an arrow? The 2nd wizard uses a wand that reappears in his hand to cast over and over... and it floats into the air, it turns into a bird (falcon like) into a dagger with wings. Cast like 3 of them.
- Wererats.
- Direrats.
- Pg 144, the stalactite fell and almost killed Fafhrd… origin for Piercers maybe. They had been threatening to fall. Note, the cave of Ningauble is enchanted for protection.
- Pg. 150ish… shrink (oposite of Enlarge spell)… Mouser as a mouse almost.
- Pg. 168, geas as a spell is mentioned by Sheelba of Ningauble… true or joke.True, seepage189.
- Pg. 173, a mummifiedhuman eye. Like the eye of Vecna?
- Pg 189, mummies maybe. Well, definitely there are mummies in this book... weak to fire, but sort of invulnerable to small physical attacks it seems. Probably inspired D&D, yep.
=====references below
Here's an old 2002 website with picts, I like this guy: https://www.stormbringer.net/mouser.html
This blog talks about the order to read them, seems to ahve a point. He also "accidentally" read the Swords of Lankhmar first. And he doesn't seem to list the "Scylla's Daughter" portion like he should: https://realmofzhu.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-history-of-lankhmar-or-arranging.html
- Except he doesn't mention that Scylla's Daughter was in like 1961ish, but is part of the 1968 Swords of Lankhmar.
- Except he also doesn't mention this stuff from wikiped:
- Leiber's first professional sale was "Two Sought Adventure" (Unknown, August 1939),[21] which introduced his most famous characters, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.
Goodman Games says read them in this order... possibly The Swords of Lankhmar first. OK, I did that, so let see what else:
- https://goodman-games.com/where-to-start-with-fritz-leibers-fafhrd-and-the-gray-mouser/
- Says "Swords of Lankhmar" are for those that like a big fat novel. Yeah, good write up about it:
- quote: The Swords of Lankhmar is a good place to start for readers that have a strong preference for novels over short fiction. Like the novella “The Lords of Quarmall” (Swords Against Wizardry), The Swords of Lankhmar was written in the sixties but expanded from earlier material. In the case of The Swords of Lankhmar, the first quarter of the book comprises the story “The Grain Ships,” but it has been updated and used as the jumping-off point for the larger events of the novel. For much of the rest of the story, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are undergoing separate adventures, only reuniting at the end.... Overall, it’s a great balance between the fast-paced drive and fertile invention of the early short stories and the more fully fleshed-out world one expects from a fantasy novel. As frustrating as it may be for our heroes to spend most of the action separated from one another (since they are so good as a team), it does serve to both quicken the pace, add dramatic tension, and allow the reader to experience a bit more of the bizarre world of Nehwon.
- But Goodman recommends to read these if you like short stories, true Sword and Sorcery (I think I'll like even better);
- Swords Against Death, book two in the chronology, collects the earliest Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories and is a re-titling (and update) of their first collection, Two Sought Adventure. Both it and the next volume, Swords in the Mist, contain Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in the mode with which most fans associate their adventures. These are true sword-and-sorcery tales, fast-paced and lean tales of wild happenings and strange adventures, breezy, fun, standalone short stories originally intended for magazine publication. Standouts in Swords Against Death include “Thieves House,” “The Seven Black Priests,” and “Bazaar of the Bizarre,” as well as the first-ever published Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story, “The Jewels in the Forest.”
- Swords in the Mist, book three, gives us “The Cloud of Hate,” “When the Sea-King’s Away,” and, possibly the greatest Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story ever written: “Lean Times in Lankhmar.” In my opinion, “Lean Times” is most enjoyable when the reader is already familiar with prior adventures of the Twain – it isn’t a case of needing earlier information to understand the piece, more of getting the most out of a story that is best appreciated when one is emotionally invested in these two characters. And if that applies in the case of this, one of Leiber’s finest tales, it applies even more especially when approaching some of his less strong – one could say more self-indulgent – stories.
- This link allows us to skip things written in 1970 or later, which should be skipped most say:
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