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. 
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• 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.
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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/
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Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, book one I am reading

The Swords of Lankhmar

Started reading around July 1st, 2026. Still only like 1/4 the way through it. UPDATE - from the 1/3 way thru to halfway mark, the book gets really good and interesting. See review down below.

Pict from https://www.reddit.com/r/badscificovers/comments/upgoye/the_swords_of_lankhmar_by_fritz_leiber/

Via https://www.mycast.io/stories/fafhrd-and-the-gray-mouser/roles/the-gray-mouser/73037

 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. 
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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.
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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”.
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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. 
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=====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:
• https://swordandsorceryreviews.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-complete-fafhrd-and-gray-mouser.html
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