Dr. Simon Reads Appendix N Part Fifteen: Fritz Leiber

Dr. Simon Reads Appendix N Part Fifteen: Fritz Leiber

This is an ongoing sporadic series, in which I explore classic fantasy and science fiction works. Appendix N is the bibliography of Gary Gygax's original Dungeon Masters Guide, and lists a range of classic SF and fantasy authors that influenced his interest in the fantastical. See the first part of this series for more information.

This time around, I have reached the works of:

Fritz Leiber

First, a note. The next author should be Sterling Lanier, but his works are currently very hard to get hold of, so I’ve skipped over him but left him a place at Number 14 should I ever be able to get hold of him. Luckily, there’s only really one book, Heiro’s Journey, so perhaps one day.

Back to Fritz Leiber.

Born in Chicago, 1910, and died in 1992 in San Francisco, Leiber was an actor as well as a writer, a lay preacher, and a graduate in psychology and physiology (like me! Well, not the lay preacher bit, and I've only done a tiny bit of acting). The first Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser story (Two Sought Adventure, later renamed  Jewels in the Forest) was published in 1939. Later life, after the death of his first wife Jonquil, was marred by a bout of alcoholism but, rather wonderfully, royalties from having his works used by TSR helped support him in his recovery.

Leiber overlaps several of the other authors in the group – he communicated with HP Lovecraft, and later formed SAGA (Swordsmen and Sorcerers’ Guild of America) with Lin Carter. Leiber is also credited as coining the phrase “swords and sorcery” to describe the genre.

Fahfhrd and the Grey Mouser

Now, I’d read all of Leiber’s works long ago, and scoured through them to create a Nehwon-based setting for a long running RuneQuest campaign, so I didn’t think I needed to reread all of them. It was, however, worth checking to see if I still enjoyed his work as much as I did (mumble) years ago, and so I got my hands on Swords Against Death, the second book in a series of six collections. For some reason the Kindle version came with part of the third book, Swords in the Mist, which was fortuitous. These two instalments have the most individual stories overall – all of the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser books tend towards full stories and a several shorter linking pieces which were probably written after the rest to make a chronological narrative.

The protagonists are Fafhrd, a tall, red-bearded northern barbarian with a straightforward attitude to life, little fear of danger (except where gods and the supernatural are concerned), and a barbarian’s simple humour. His lifelong comrade in arms is the Grey Mouser (once known as Mouse), small, wiry and sardonic, with a dry sense of humour, a knack for trickery, and somewhat more neurotic and civilised compared to Fafhrd. Together the two are an unstoppable team; sometimes at odds, mostly working together, usually each egging the other into unwise situations in the hopes of treasure. They are, in other words, quintessential RPG adventurers.

The first book in the series, Swords Against Deviltry, gives origin stories for young Fafhrd, and a much shorter one for Grey Mouser, followed by their meeting in the seedy city of Lankhmar, City of Seven-Score Thousand Smokes, City of a Thousand Gods, etc. and their ill-fated raid on the Thieves’ Guild which leads to the deaths of their lady loves through the sinister magic of the Guild mage Hristomilo.

Leiber was apparently very taken with the Jungian notion of the “animus/anima”, the male or female halves of the soul, which is perhaps why throughout the books Fafhrd ends up with women with a “vl” in their name (Vlana being the first, also Vlex etc.) while Mouser ends up with women with “iv” in their names (starting with Ivrian, later Ivivis etc.). The second book, Swords Against Death, follows a loose narrative arc where the heroes seek to exorcise the grief in memory of Vlana and Ivrian, killed by Hristomilo, competing against Death himself to lay to rest their ghosts. On the way they cross the Outer Sea with the faithful Ourph the Mingol, fight against fanatical priests of an ancient volcano god, steal the gem-mind of a living building, and take vengeance on the Thieves’ Guild when the new Guildmaster unwisely chooses to desecrate the bones of the dead Master Thieves.

Things that live that should not live are a running theme throughout these stories, even though each is essentially self contained.

Swords in the Mist is less thematically connected, essentially being what the duo did next. It does, however, include some of my favourite Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories, including the wonderful Lean Times in Lankhmar where through a series of improbable events Fafhrd ends up being mistaken for (and perhaps becoming for a moment?) the incarnation of the martyr-god Issek of the Jug. Other great sources for adventure include The Birds of Tyaa (which is actually in Swords Against Death) and The Cloud of Hate. Perhaps there is a through-line after all, of different cults and strange gods. Later in the book there’s a lengthy story where the duo end up heading into ancient Tyre on Earth, where they get mixed up in a Zoroastrian-based conflict between gods.

And here it should be noted that the two end up serving two strange otherworldly wizard patrons – Grey Mouser working for Sheelba of the Eyeless Face, a taciturn and cranky individual that lives in a hut that walks on its stilts. Fafhrd, meanwhile, serves Ningauble of the Seven Eyes, a vaguely serpentine creature whose caves can be conduits to other worlds, and the reason that the duo spend some time on Earth.

Book four, Swords Against Wizardry, is basically two long stories with a couple of linking tales, that take the protagonists to the highest mountain on Nehwon in Stardock and then into the depths of the decandent underground kingdom of Quarmall where they serve the rival Lords of Quarmall.

Book five, Swords of Lankhmar is a novella, where an underground nation of intelligent rats plot to take over the above-ground human city of Lankhmar, and is a great source of ideas for a were-rat based adventure.

Finally, Swords and Ice Magic sees another crossover with Earth, where the two protagonists head to the far northern Rime Isle (which is equivalent to Iceland) and end up foiling an attempt by Odin and Tyr to enter the world of Nehwon. There is a seventh book, A Knight and a Knave of Swords, which follows the older Fafhrd and Grey Mouser after they have settled on Rime Isle (where they finally meet women that they can be with permanently), but I haven’t read this, and in a way I don’t want to.

I can honestly say that I still love Leiber’s writing style. His names can be utterly bonkers sometimes, but I always loved the way some of the more distant parts of Nehwon are described with the same epithets each time (“crystal-spired Tisilinit” or the Empire of Eevanmaransee where people, cats, dogs and rats are all hairless). There’s also a style which I’ve come to christen the “Leiber List”, whereby Leiber runs of a big list of sights or smells or items. I unfortunately didn’t bookmark any, but did find this from Their Mistress, The Sea from Swords in the Mist – “Fafhrd, first to recover, took back command from Ourph, and immediately started ordering an endless series of seamanlike exercises; reefing, furlings, raisings, and changing of sails; shiftings of ballast; inspection of crawl-spaces for rats and roaches; luffings, tackings, jibbings, and the like.”

The stories are generally succinct, full of twists and turns, great set-pieces and fun ideas (I love the fight in Seven Black Priests that takes place while sliding down an ice slope, for example).

Gaming Inspirations.

Aside from the fact that the Nehwon Mythos is the only authorial property that remained in Deities and Demigods, and aside from the later publication of various Lankhmar setting modules, I’d say that it’s arguable that The Grey Mouser is the inspiration for the D&D Thief (later Rogue) class. He’s adept with rapier and dagger, with disguises, with sneaking, with a well-aimed knife thrown to the eye, and he has a minor facility to use magical scrolls given to him by Sheelba. Fafhrd, meanwhile, is pretty much the larger “fighting man” (moreso than a “barbarian”. And the two of them together make a mini-adventuring party.

Nothing much of Nehwon makes its way to the wider game, outside of the Nehwon Mythos section. Arguably were-rats get their inspiration from the rats of Lankhmar Below. If anything, the biggest inspiration is probably the way that the city of Lankhmar, with its Overlord, Thieves’ and Assassins’ Guilds, and the seedy Silver Eel tavern influenced a certain Sir Terry Pratchett to create the city of Ankh-Morpork, with its Patrician, Thieves’ and Assassins’ Guilds, and the seedy Mended Drum tavern.

And really, if you want city-based adventure ideas, you owe it to yourself to plunder the Lankhmar stories.