[OSSR]Lankhmar - City of Adventure

[Ancient History]

This was a by-blow of my most recent trip to Texas; somebody donated it for the auction, nobody bid on it, so they put it on the freebie table, and I dropped a donation in the bucket and brought it home.

Appendix N
Before we start though, some important background: Lankhmar is the principal setting in Fritz Leiber's adventures of Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser. As much as D&D was riffing off Tolkien, Robert E. Howard's Conan informed the barbarian, Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions was the source of trolls and paladins, Michael Moorcock invented soul-sucking swords, and Jack Vance basically wrote the blue print for the magic system, Fritz Leiber's stories pretty much defined the rogue as a character class.

Now, you can dispute that - you would be wrong, but you could argue that Conan himself was a thief and a rogue before he was a mercenary slayer and a king by his own hand. Bilbo Baggins was a thief that basically invented "Move Quietly." Leiber's lovable rogues weren't the only thieves in fantasy literature in the 1970s, not by a long shot. By they were fun. Still are. It was a very different kind of sword & sorcery, less broody and more of an air of adventure to it - very much a kind of Three Musketeers swashbuckle. It was venal and funny and cool, and the characters of Fafhrd and the Mouser are as close as you get in literature to what we think of today as D&D adventurers.



Copyright 1993
This was not the first attempt at mixing Leiber's creations with D&D directly. The Nehwon Mythos shows up in Deities & Demigods, and this very product had been initially published in 1985 for the first edition of AD&D. Which probably says something about the player base that eight years later, they were basically buying the same product again for a new edition. So one thing to keep an eye out for in this OSSR are the changes. One of the first things you notice is basically nobody that worked on the 1st edition book is credited in the 2nd edition book. I don't know if they lost the files or what, but Bruce Nesmith, Douglas Niles, and Ken Rolston are out; the whole 160 page book was written by Anthony Pryor. They kept Keith Parkinson's cover, but added in a bunch of interior art, and they list three cartographers, including Tracy Hickman.

So, y'know. It's more than just a facelift.

As licensed products go, it's pretty good. This was still basically the era of licensed products, when that was still a sizable attraction - GURPS ran a whole line on it. And it's always fun to see how D&D...dungeonizes some of its own source material. A bit snake-eating-its-own-tail, but...



...that can be fun, too. On to Lankhmar(TM) City of Adventure!

[Ancient History]

Introduction to the Second Edition

While working on t his product, intended to update the first edition of Lankhmar, City of Adventure, making it compatible with ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS(R) 2nd Edition, and to add material from new stories written or published in recent years, I learned the sad news that, after a life filled with honor and accomplishment, Fritz Leiber had died.

R.I.P.

In the real world, heroes and villains both die. For some of us, they have been dead before we were ever born - none of us here remember Hitler from life, or H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. So it is sometimes sad when you realize an author you know - or perhaps better to say, you know of and enjoy their work - passes away.

Indeed, Fritz Leiber and his friend and collaborator Harry Otto Fischer (who are said to be the original models for FAFHRD (TM) and the GRAY MOUSER (TM)) played what may well have been the first fantasy roleplaying game decades before the advent of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (R) game.

This is true, although the details are a bit vague - they played it on a chess board (because they didn't have hex), an eventually Leiber mentioned it to Gary Gygax who brought out a version of it as the Lankhmar board game in '76.



Chapter 1 is "A History of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser," and basically consists of summaries of every story and novel (which had been collected in seven books: Swords and Deviltry, Swords Against Death, Swords in the Mist, Swords Against Wizardry, Swards of Lankhmar, Swords and Ice Magic, The Knight and Knave of Swords). Which are all good books and you should read them, but I'm not going go through all of it; suffice to say that a bit like the Conan the Barbarian yarns of Robert E. Howard, the stories were written out-of-order, and it's up to fans to develop a chronology of which-adventure-occurred-first; complicated these days by the publication of alternate drafts and previously unpublished works. Not that I'm complaining.


Leiber corresponded with Lovecraft while the latter was dying of cancer, and Lovecraft gave notes, advice, and commentary on Leiber's first story of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

The commentary on some of these is a bit groan-worthy. Case in point:

A full range of fantasy magic and sorcery is showcased in this story: sendings, counter-charms, astrology, telekinesis, psionics, death spells, and more. The Lords of Quarmall and their servants are first-class magic-users who will provide challenging opposition for any PC magicians. Gwaay, of the lower levels, also appears to have awesome mental powers, enabling DMs to introduce the abilities discussed in The Complete Psionics Handbook.

...and then it decides to do a summary of Lankhmar(TM) Products from TSR - quite literally a sales pitch for out-of-print products that were probably still mouldering in the company warehouse, complete with alphanumeric designations. CA1 - Swords of the Undercity, CA2 - Swords of Deceit, LNA1 - Thieves of Lankhmar, etc. We're not going over that crap either; leave it to say that it is neither complete - doesn't include the original Lankhmar book for example, or Deities & Demigods - and really just a sales pitch for adventure modules. Fuck that.

Next up: Chapter 2, AD&D (R) Game Conversions

[nockermensch]

the characters of Fafhrd and the Mouser are as close as you get in literature to what we think of today as D&D adventurers.

This here.

I never made the connection between Lankhmar -> D&D Thieves, but it always looked obvious for me that Fritz Lieber had inspired the ethos of D&D adventuring.

The "archetypical D&D party", that meets on a tavern and then goes on an adventure to get gold and fame would look out of place on Middle Earth, but seems business as usual in Lankhmar.

[Judging__Eagle]

the characters of Fafhrd and the Mouser are as close as you get in literature to what we think of today as D&D adventurers.

This here.

I never made the connection between Lankhmar -> D&D Thieves, but it always looked obvious for me that Fritz Lieber had inspired the ethos of D&D adventuring.

The "archetypical D&D party", that meets on a tavern and then goes on an adventure to get gold and fame would look out of place on Middle Earth, but seems business as usual in Lankhmar.

By comparison for his 15 levels of rogue, he has 11 levels of fighter. Which seems to be a sizable difference from a 3 level splash of magic-user.

Now, it's likely that this type of multiclassing isn't "demi human split xp evenly" and more "human power-regain multiclassing". Both result inf horizontal power growth, and that after the base 9-10 HD, the character will take the best, or highest level, bonuses to HP/level. However the fact that the XP levels are no where near close to each other make me feel like his levels are based on the (humans only) D&D multiclassing system. Wherein PCs go through troughs and valleys of power; achieving high power in one class; then retaining HD/HP, and training in a new class. Only regaining original powers when their new class surpasses their previous.

To be honest, some version of this seems like what might have been a reasonable compromise in 3e D&D. Something like how Gestalt characters functioned in 3e. Probably made better is spellcasters weren't forced onto a "level appropriate power treadmill", and low-level spell had less HD caps and spell DCs were capped to caster power, not spell level.

[Ancient History]

Well, keep in mind those are Deities & Demigods stats, and don't follow the regular rules for multiclassing or dual-classing.

[Harshax]

Well, keep in mind those are Deities & Demigods stats, and don't follow the regular rules for multiclassing or dual-classing.

It's weird that the makers of D&D knew that the class/level system couldn't accurately depict every hero, and Fafhrd and Grey Mouser are just heroes not demigods, but usable multi-class rules only really show up 25 years later in 3rd edition.

If you follow the origin story of Mouse, he couldn't have advanced into the Fighter class at all because he doesn't have the more restrictive prerequisites for dual-class, which requires a score of 17 in the prerequisites of the new class.

We know from canon that Mouse starts out as a Wizard. He has at least a 15 in his Prime (INT). He can then dual class to Thief (Dex >= 17), but not Fighter (Str >= 17).

I can't recall all the stories at the moment. Maybe Mouse had a 17 Strength a one point, but that's a strange quality for a man nicknamed after a rodent to have.

The second rule of Dual-Class is that you must exceed the level of the previous class in order to freely mix abilities. That means Mouse would have had to spend 11 levels worth of time adventuring as a Fighter, before he gave it up permanently to become a thief.

This brings us to the third rule of Dual-Class, that you can't use the abilities of your previous class until your level in a new class is higher than your previous one. Also, once you switch, you can no longer advance levels in the class you leave behind. This is ignored in publications where you're provided with the stats of fictional heroes at different stages of their career. The D&D Conan modules spring to mind where his skills as a Fighter and a Thief improve during his career.

This also means that Mouser has spent far less time adventuring and earning experience as a Fighter/Thief/Wizard, than he earned separately as a Fighter or a Thief. This doesn't mirror canon at all ... I don't think there's ever a moment where Mouse is described as being a pure soldier.

If your target audience is already steeped in Appendix N, wouldn't it make sense that the game allowed players to emulate source material? I know the game is still taking baby steps out of the primordial mud of miniatures wargaming, but this still made me groan in disappointment.

[Judging__Eagle]

Well, keep in mind those are Deities & Demigods stats, and don't follow the regular rules for multiclassing or dual-classing.

That both makes it more confusing, b/c I never read the Deities & Demigods advancement mechanics; as well as making it more interesting, b/c this seems like some sort of unique 1e/2e mechanic that seems similar to 3e's Gestalt mechanics. Albeit with the option to advance class levels individually, separately, and from more than two classes at a time.

Edit; having now read the Deities & Demigods pdf on dnd.rem.uz. After reading the write ups for several "heroes"; other than Fafhd & Grey Mouser, I can't properly parse the advancement mechanic that Deities & Demigods uses for its entries. While I think that having multiple tracks of character levels, and being able to advance them separately is cool b/c there's nothing quite like it in any other edition, but the book doesn't clear up how a regular PC could advance this way. I'm going to assume it might be an Arcana Unearthed form of alternate advancement, or dieties and NPC heroes simply get the break the rules for creature design; which is pretty typical for rpgs.

[Harshax]

Well, keep in mind those are Deities & Demigods stats, and don't follow the regular rules for multiclassing or dual-classing.

That both makes it more confusing, b/c I never read the Deities & Demigods advancement mechanics; as well as making it more interesting, b/c this seems like some sort of unique 1e/2e mechanic that seems similar to 3e's Gestalt mechanics. Albeit with the option to advance class levels individually, separately, and from more than two classes at a time.

There are no advancement mechanics in Deities & Demigods, but the heroes described within clearly don't follow the rules presented in the Player's Handbook. They are cut from an entirely different cloth than PCs, who are more heroic than everyone else. That's very odd, because it means your PCs are always going to play second fiddle to characters from the franchise. So why the effort to present those settings and more importantly, why play them?

[Judging__Eagle]

There are no advancement mechanics in Deities & Demigods, but the heroes described within clearly don't follow the rules presented in the Player's Handbook. They are cut from an entirely different cloth than PCs, who are more heroic than everyone else. That's very odd, because it means your PCs are always going to play second fiddle to characters from the franchise. So why the effort to present those settings and more importantly, why play them?

I think what's really odd is this: the gamefied source material, breaks fundamental character design mechanics of the game; in order to have the presented NPC entry better cleave to the original source material.

Essentially, it's a tacit admission that rules which are supposed to emulated the source material cannot do so in any way shape or form. Specifically b/c any source material characters have to use groundbreaking creature generation mechanics that have while also disavowing the existing character creation mechanics.

Honestly, on the face of it, this actually seems like a bigger admission of failure on the part of the game designers than the 3e Dieties & Demigods book. Which was notorious for its terrible NPC deity builds. Just lvl 40 NPCs with of 20 levels in two classes; with class/progression bonuses that a 40th lvl PC would be unlikely to have b/c mortals get the Epic progression, and Deities get to stack whatever, whenever, whoever. While they may not have been 'optimized' class builds; they at least (mostly) used the same rules as any other creature in the game.

[Ancient History]

These are all good ruminations, and actually have some bearing on our current chapter...

Chapter 2, AD&D (R) Game Conversions


What a lot of folks tend to forget is that D&D - in any of its many incarnations - is a generic system. This is a matter of course, because the source material they drew on wandered all over the map in terms of setting; it was none of it consistent beyond a very superficial level of wizards and dudes-with-swords-and-axes. Which, you might meditate on, covers both Conan the Cimmerian and The Wizard of Oz. So what I'm saying is, there's a range of material to find expression for here.

That's especially hard on the simulationist aspect of early D&D - because D&D did grow out of wargaming, and the different settings, whether or not they are balanced internally in any way, sure as fuck aren't balanced against each other. This is one of the major problems besetting a lot of generic game systems - Frank eloquently went on about GURPS in this regard in one of our OSSRs - but it's perhaps especially evident in AD&D conversions, since such a lot of the source material is only barely internally consistent. Consider, for example, The Lord of the Rings - little plate mail, no closed helms, gunpowder and arbalests are the work of "the enemy," but no estocs or specialized pike weapons... and then consider Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser where there is no plate armor mentioned at all, but there's a frikkin' space station (we'll get to that later).

A large part of this is the deliberate aesthetic of the sword & sorcery and fantasy crowd. Firearms don't fit the mold of what people wanted in S&S; like the Society for Creative Anachronism, authors like Tolkien and Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber weren't going for historical accuracy, they're going for a pseudo-medieval period as they wanted it to be...before World War I, before poison gas and aircraft and submarines and bombs.



Anyway...this chapter basically sets up the AD&D 2nd edition mechanical equivalents for a lot of the basic Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser world assumptions, and sort of highlights how far apart they are in absolute terms. This isn't like Eberron where they just kitchen-sink everything: there are no orcs, no elves, no dwarfs or halflings.

Instead...ugh...for "Player Character Races" you can play different varieties of human. With their own special advantages and drawbacks. That's terrible.

Eevanmarenseers
These individuals come from a distant, decadent empire. All natives from Eevanmarensee are completely hairless, causing a -1 penalty to their charisma scores. Due to the ancient, wealthy nature of the empire, characters of this race receive 4x normal starting wealth. Eevanmarenseers may also be fire mages (see Magic Spellcasters, below).

Kleshites
This dark-complected race lives in the jungles in the south of the Lankhmar continent. They are a small, quick race, and receive a +1 to their dexterity scores. If you wish to experiment with the Earth Magic rules below, Kleshites may also be earth mages.

...also you can be Northerner, Mingol, or a Nehwon Ghouls (who are just humans with invisible flesh, but also racist against all non-transparent people, cannibals, and general assholes. More on those later.)

Class Restrictions are maybe one of the biggest red flags; Nehwon has a good bit of magic but most characters aren't running around with D&D level access to spells. So you have entries like:

Paladin: Paladins are very rare and are often considered slightly crazed. The city of Tisilinilit is known as a breeding ground for this class. paladins in Nehwon cannot use spells.

Rangers: Rangers are rare in Lankhmar, but are more common in the wilderness, especially the Cold Waste. Rangers in Nehwon-based campaigns cannot use spells. Many Cold Waste rangers also have bardic talents and may select the musical instrument proficiency at no penalty (thus occupying only one proficiency slot rather than two.

Thieves [...] Female thieves are common, but the straight-laced patriarchy of the guild will not allow female guildmembers, so all must be freelancers.

Bard: Nehwon bards function normally in all respects with the single exception that they cannot cast spells. [...]

But it's not all bad:

Clerics Clerics as a character class do not exist. See the Spellcasters section below for information on clerical magic.

Usage Note--Clerics vs. Priests: In all Nehwon and Lankhmar adventures, the term "priest" does not apply to the clerical character class. A Nehwon-based "priest" is an official representative of his or her religion and as such has only limited special powers (see 'Lankhmar's Gods" for granted powers). "Priest" is simply an occupation, and a priest may be of any character class. Note that a priest who is also a white wizard (see below) has the same abilities as a standard AD&D(R) cleric, even though he or she is not a member of that class.

I cannot stress how much I approve of this - I won't say that S&S and fantasy writers were atheistic, but as much as they populated their worlds with various gods and priests, they usually stopped short of making those folks getting special magic. In the Conan stories, a priest who casts spells is just a fucking wizard. Tolkien was doing the guilty-Christian thing and didn't even have priests or an organized church. Fafhrd does get religion at one point - we'll get to that - but a lot of the S&S and fantasy guys usually skip the theological implications entirely, going with the implicit "look, either the gods are just fictions made up by primitive people, or they're some ancient octopus or whatever, but they don't literally empower worshippers in most cases" - the notable exception being various brands of theistic Satanism or whatever your cultural equivalent is. Christians are pretty cool with Faustian bargains. More cool with those than miracles-on-demand, really.

Speaking of which...



Fritz Leiber didn't put a vast amount of thought into his magic system. That's not to say it is completely disorganized, because he did later take a stab at it, but for narrative purposes he kept it very fluid and theatrical, with a few familiar elements - silver tending to be a good breaker of many charms, cutting the wizard's head off being another. It also isn't very tactical; you don't see wizards just dashing off prismatic sprays like in Jack Vance novels.

So when trying to adapt Leiber's loose material to D&D mechanics...things get weird. First off, casting times and recovery times are longer; way, way longer. Anything that would take a Round to cast takes a Turn, a Turn an Hour, an Hour takes eight Hours. And after an eight-hour spell, the wizard has to go have a nap.



The big thing is that instead of normal wizards and clerics you have...White and Black Wizards.


No, seriously, absolutely not like this, but kinda sorta.

Black Wizards can be neutral through level 4, but they have to shift to Evil alignment before 5th level, and they can only get higher in level with tutelage from a higher-level black wizard. Also, each level you get to roll on a d12 table to pick up a fan-fucking-tastic disfigurement or weakness.
[/td][/tr]

Die Roll	Effect
1	Wizard loses sight in one eye; remaining eye grows milky, white, and dead-appearing
2	Wizard loses all hair
3	Wizard loses all sense of taste and smell
4	Wizard loses 1d6 points of charisma
5	Wizard develops serious facial or body tic
6	Wizard's face becomes misshapen and hideous
7	Wizard's hands shrink to clublike appendages (-1d8 dexterity)
8	Wizard's legs atrophy, causing limp and 1/2 movement rate
9	Wizard develops irrational fear of common object or animal
10	Wizard develops severe paranoia
11	Wizard loses endurance, must rest for one turn after any activity
12	Wizard develops allergy to any food not treated with rare herb

...for which awesome drawbacks, you get the benefit of casting as a regular D&D wizard. Albeit with longer casting times/recovery. Honestly, this shit was rife back in the day; same thing crippled Necromancers and Chaos Sorcerers in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game.

"White wizards" have to be good, and are basically wizards who have Wisdom as their primary stat and cast Cleric and Druid spells. You also need a higher-level white wizard to tutor you each level, and can't reach higher than 5th level unless Wisdom is your highest attribute (which can lead to the weird position where you read a magical manual, buff up, and then have to bulk down so that you can level up, but I digress).

Leiber doesn't usually draw the lines that explicitly when it comes to white magicians vs. black magicians, although it's not an uncommon Manichaean ideal, and magic in general tends to be necromancy and sorcery and things man-was-best-not-to-study kinda stuff. Then again, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser both deal with a pair of powerful magic-users on a regular basis, and those guys don't fall into either category...or any easy categorization.



A third variety also crops up here: Elementalists. This is not entirely a pitch to sell gamers on the Tome of Magic (AD&D 2nd edition), although that must have been a plus, since Leiber does explicitly mention elemental magic. He just doesn't go into great detail about it - at least, certainly not as much detail as this.


Six books in and we haven't upgraded our weapons yet.

Evil elementalist still have to roll for disfigurement, but can otherwise be of any alignment and have both Wisdom and Intelligence 15 or higher. There are some weird requirements as far as where they can apply their magic (it's supposed to only be when you're surrounded by the element, with air magic only possible if you're suspended in midair or some shit), and elementalists are supposed to become more...whatever as they grow in level. Aquatic for water mages, stocky and slow for earth mages, etc. There's no system for this. They also throw in Ice Magic and Wild Magic for shits and giggles.

The chapter ends with some notes on dual-classing ("Multi-talented individuals are well-known in Lankhmar. Both Fafhrd and the Mouser are dual-classed [...]") and then some tables for rolling followers if your fighter hits 9th level.

Next up: Chapter 3 - The City of Lankhmar

[Blicero]

Oh shit I did not realize Mike Mignola had done Fritz Leiber stories.

[Sir Aubergine]

Oh shit I did not realize Mike Mignola had done Fritz Leiber stories.

I know right. Instant smile plastered across my face when I recognized his art style. ◦°˚\(*❛‿❛)/˚°◦

[Ancient History]

You guys didn't know? Those collections are brilliant. Adapted by Howard Chaykin, drawn by Mike Mignola. You can still get the trades from Dark Horse.

[OgreBattle]

Holy cow I gotta check it out if it's got Mignola art

[hogarth]

There are no advancement mechanics in Deities & Demigods, but the heroes described within clearly don't follow the rules presented in the Player's Handbook.

Isn't there one Japanese hero who is a paladin/druid (among other classes)?

[tussock]

I read Gygax somewhere say the limits on all that were ignored if it suited the story to do so. Only people with 17+ Str really wanted to become Fighters, but if your character had to because you got stranded without a spellbook and stuff, you could earn XP as a Fighter by doing Fightery stuff too. Then probably switch back later because your character didn't have the stats to want to stick at it.

So when Elminster needed to add Ranger levels for the story and then go back to being a Wizard, he just did that, and all these Heroes did the same. Given that a high level Wizard getting a few Fighter levels did absolutely nothing for them, it didn't even matter.

[Ancient History]

Chapter 3 - The City of Lankhmar



This is basically the map that comes with the book, and this is the chapter that discusses the actual city itself. Discussing geography, which is necessarily an analog phenomenon, is difficult in words; you have to decide at what level you discuss it, and often break it into manageable chunks. In D&D, this was mostly handled expeditiously by taking the medieval-and-later concept of the city ward, district, or quarter and deciding that was going to be your smallest geographical unit, and then you could enumerate any number of individual locales within that district as you felt like writing until you had achieved wordcount. In real life, this tends to get messier and not many games actually bother putting out city books like this these days, but this is Lankhmar and they were riffing off of Fritz Leiber who liked to talk about all these things, so it's okay.

Now, you may well be asking what's up with the great honking blank squares in said map, and the book will tell you:

Various blank spaces appear on the map. These correspond to the geomorphic maps located in Appendix 2. When your players are exploring the city, assign one of these geomorphs to a blank space appropriate to that neighborhood. (Everyone knows what's along the main streets of the city, but it's anybody's guess what lies down the alleys until the PCs actually explore those areas.) This also allows you to insert your own shops, residences, temples, and other locations into the Lankhmar cityscape.

[

A geomorph is basically just a plug'n'play bit of cityscape that you can insert anywhere; the above are just examples.

As for the actual details...well, there's thirty pages of this stuff, and I'm too tired to even hit the highlights as far as individual locations and details from Leiber's stories goes. So instead, I want to talk about a couple things that aren't really discussed:

City Administration - Cities are weird things. Some are planned, others grow up more organically. Major architecture generally requires a degree of centralized planning and authority, as well as upkeep if you want it to survive for long. The higher and denser the population, the more infrastructure becomes important, and the more people are in a place the more reasons they need to be there, because cities are often dirty, crowded, and expensive.

Fritz Leiber, like a lot of fantasy and S&S writers, was not a city planner. He had very vague ideas about cities, mostly from living in them, as well as some literary and historical ideas of medieval and ancient cities. So Lankhmar is a walled city, and it has a city guard and a city jail, a couple of monuments and temples, markets and caravanserais, a number of trade guilds (including some which are outright fantasy, like the Thieve's Guild and the Slayer's Guild, along with more traditional ones like the Blacksmith's Guild and the Merchants Consortium), a host of nobility and a citadel where the Overlord stays. In general outline, it's somewhere between a Near Eastern city-state and a medieval European city. There's not a lot of talk about taxes, fire brigades, water supplies, etc. The income, status, duties, and responsibilities of the nobility are unspecific, as are the rights and lack thereof of citizens and visitors. People today tend to take for granted the right to travel from town to town and city to city, seeing the sights, buying stuff, etc. ...historically, this was not the case; so too, even if ultimate authority in a city was rested in a single individual, they usually had to deal with a great deal of laws, traditions, general uprisings, scheming minor nobility, officials, clerics, and soldiers. We don't get any of that here; it's basically the bluerpint for Ankh-Morpork without the hippopotami.

Leiber also hewed a little closer to Robert E. Howard than Tolkien, so it doesn't leave out the pimps, rakes, whores, inns, gambling, pawnbrokers, or tenements, which are all gratefully present in this book, if not in NSFW detail. I'm not saying prostitutes don't exist in Middle Earth, but Tolkien obviously preferred if they didn't. Another thing I want to point out:



Where the fuck are the farms? One of the things about cities is that they have people, and people have to eat. They also have to piss and shit, which involves quite a lot of organized waste disposal every day if you don't want to be literally up to your ears in human refuse; and the inevitable plagues/fires/etc. also means they have to deal with the dead. A lot of city ordinances come to be out of necessity, not just dickish petty officials. Historically, you had farms pretty much surrounding every piece of arable land around and sometimes in the city walls.

That's the thing about cities, even in medieval and ancient times: they don't stop at the walls. The town usually outgrew the walls pretty fast, but even before that you seldom just plunked a castle down and built the town around it (although yes, that did happen); for a city-state especially, the local prince and/or nobility usually had authority over whatever satellite villages were around the city, and could guarantee enough food and supplies to keep basic operations running - or at least to guarantee their own basic wealth. So when you think "the city" stops at the walls, you're really missing out on the bigger socio-political-economic picture.

Most of which isn't necessarily of direct interest or impediment to the average player character passing through - but the glossing-over of the details is why settings like Waterdeep for Forgotten Realms and Seattle for Shadowrun became so important. It really does help to have a consistent idea of how a city works, even if you end up not using all of it. Necessary, no. A good Mister Cavern can, like Fritz Leiber, roll with things by the seat of his pants, invent ancient city institutions on the spot as the needs of the story require it, and conveniently leave out anything not significant to the story at hand. But for AD&D, they approached this pretty much as they would for any other generic fantasy city, only with the moderate constraints of trying to keep it fairly true to the parts of the city that were depicted in Leiber's stories.

Such is life.



Next up: Chapter 4 - Nehwon Beyond Lankhmar

[talozin]

I admire the straightforwardness of having "Pimp Street" and "Whore Street" right there on the map. In a 1990s TSR product, no less! Can't say the word "demon", but whores are a-OK.

Except why are they parallel? You'd think someone involved in the cartography would have pointed out the obvious joke in having Pimp Street and Whore Street never actually intersect.

[Harshax]

I quite liked the the mini-map geomorphs. I recall that the city map inserts were provided to emulate the constant growth and decay that a chaotic metropolis like Lankhmar would undergo. I think the intention was for the MC to change them periodically. It was also a way, if you think about it, to justify new mini-dungeons/encounter locales popping up in the same areas that PCs had traveled to before. I the city is the only location in the setting, it can quickly become a very boring and predictable place to navigate. Since most PCs should be thieves, it added a stealth and reconnaissance mini-game to every adventure.

[Thaluikhain]

Where the fuck are the farms? One of the things about cities is that they have people, and people have to eat. They also have to piss and shit, which involves quite a lot of organized waste disposal every day if you don't want to be literally up to your ears in human refuse; and the inevitable plagues/fires/etc. also means they have to deal with the dead. A lot of city ordinances come to be out of necessity, not just dickish petty officials. Historically, you had farms pretty much surrounding every piece of arable land around and sometimes in the city walls.

That's the thing about cities, even in medieval and ancient times: they don't stop at the walls. The town usually outgrew the walls pretty fast, but even before that you seldom just plunked a castle down and built the town around it (although yes, that did happen); for a city-state especially, the local prince and/or nobility usually had authority over whatever satellite villages were around the city, and could guarantee enough food and supplies to keep basic operations running - or at least to guarantee their own basic wealth. So when you think "the city" stops at the walls, you're really missing out on the bigger socio-political-economic picture.

Grrr...yes. Absolutely nothing for miles around there, until you get to the next city (Osgiliath(), also surrounded by absolutely nothing.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Grrr...yes. Absolutely nothing for miles around there, until you get to the next city (Osgiliath(), also surrounded by absolutely nothing.

That's an adaptation issue. The book describes that area as highly agriculturally developed, and enclosed within its own wall.

[Mord]

The regions in the east of Gondor (Ithilien, Anorien, Cair Andros) used to be more heavily populated, but then the Shadow returned and everything went to shit. The stewards were forced to move the seat of government to a minor fortress-city on the edge of the gigantic military buffer zone that used to be the heartland of Gondor. Much like how the capital of the Western Roman Empire moved from Rome to Mediolanum and then to Ravenna as the military situation on the border got worse and the security of the Italian peninsula could no longer be taken for granted.

I would expect Gondor west of Minas Tirith and south of the White Mountains to be substantially better-cultivated.

[Ancient History]

Chapter 4 - Nehwon Beyond Lankhmar



So, the world is more than just a city. Unless you're talking about Sigil, which is another game setting entirely. When I was young, I loved these fantasy maps - still do - although today I understand that the scale of the things leaves...well, everything out. There should be a shit ton more villages, towns, roads, and things, but they leave a lot of that off to focus on major geographic features and major metropolises.

One thing they get right is the lack of firm borders. It takes a lot of effort to do a real representative map, and nation-states as we understand them today haven't existed for very long. Leiber filled the world with cities and kingdoms vibrant and decadent, new and ancient by turn; he didn't extend his worldbuilding to the point of tracking the movements of peoples and the rise and fall of empires, the devising of new languages, etc. - all the hallmarks of Robert E. Howard and J. R. R. Tolkien. So it's much more of a hodge-podge.

To call this a gazetteer would be generous; major landforms, city-states, etc. generally get a paragraph each. Points for effort, they manage to cram in a lot of the places from Leiber's stories (basically all the major locations and several minor ones), and include bits like the Caverns of Ningauble where adventurers from other worlds can stumble out into Newhon. 8 pages, let's move on.

Next up: Chapter 5, Newhon's People

[Ancient History]

Chapter 5, Newhon's People
This is actually a bunch of NPCs, drawn from the stories. My favorite bit:

Rat NPCs
Those NPCs with an (R) after their class and level are embers of the miniature rat society of Lankhmar Below. The game statistics given are those used when PCs are rat-sized as well. When encountered by human-sized PCs they have normal rat statistics, although they can use rat-rapiers and crossbows. Note also that rat NPCs' SL refers to their level in rat society. They have no SL in human Lankhmar.

This is the kind of shit that was eventually solved in d20 by genericizing all the goddamn classes and adapting weapons to the size of the user. Also, Leiber was the source of the Council of Thirteen that was eventually stolen for the Skaven by Games Workshop.

Aside: This is, as I mentioned, a used copy and it is full of weird annotations on this page is scribbled clearly in pencil:

d118 = d100 + 2d10 - 2

Your guess is as good as mine. Nothing on the page calls for a d118 roll.


Roll with it.

The largest entries are for the Twain, of course, just in case you want your player characters to kill a pair of living legends. Weirdly enough, they decided to give them three sets of stats - representing Youth/Peak/Mature. So Fafhrd is a Ranger 5/Thief 1/Bard 3 as a youth, Ranger 15/Thief 5/Bard 6 at his peak, and Ranger 10/Thief 3/Bard 4 in his maturity. Which is not how aging works in AD&D 2nd edition, or indeed in any edition of D&D that I'm aware of. Also, he has a Wisdom of 1. WTF?

Like the Mouser, Fafrd is susceptible to the charms of beautiful women. Any woman with a Charisma of 16 or 17 has a 50% chance of charming him, while a woman of Charisma 18 charms him automatically.

Oh, right, Fafhrd thinks with his dick.

In addition to breaking the rules for being a multiclass Ranger/Thief/Bard (although I admit Ranger works better than Barbarian), he has some special rules.

Like his father, Nalgron, Fafhrd is an expert climber. He climbs as a 15th level thief and is not subject to any modifiers for snow or ice.

The northern barbarian hates and fears wizardry. He has none of the spellcasting abilities normally associated with rangers and bards. However, he can charm with his songs and perform other natural abilities which have spell-like effects.

Having lived most of his life in the frigid northlands, Fafhrd is adept at survival in that environment. He receives a _3 on any saving through against cold and knows all the tricks for finding food, shelter and safety in frigid conditions.

This is typical NPC bullshit, especially since according to the earlier chapter no rangers or bards cast spells in Newhon. Bah, humfuck.


Also thinks with his dick.

The Gray Mouser comes across a little better; Fighter 4/Thief 5/Black Wizard 3 as a youth; Fighter 12/Thief 15/Black Wizard 3 at his peak; and Fighter 8/Thief 10/Black Wizard 3 in his maturity. Wisdom is also his dump stat, but he at least has a 9 in it. We won't go into all his special bullshit, except this one:

The Mouser is fascinated by magic. Unfortunately, he is somewhat unstable and has a tendency to lose or gamble away any magical items he gains. Although he is a 3rd level black wizard, he has no spell book, which means that he cannot cast spells in the normal course of an adventure. If he happens upon a spell book, he can use any spells it contains. Any spell book which the Mouser possesses invariably becomes lost or stolen.

I know why they did this, but it sort of underlines how bad D&D has been in every incarnation at people "dabbling" in different fields...and of course, sort of highlights the tendency in D&D to load up on magic items which are often quite scarce in fantasy. Gimli makes it through all of The Lord of the Rings without any magical weapons, for example.

The other NPC entries go on for pages, in the typical AD&D abbreviated paragraph format. Example:

Gnarlag of the Two Swords
F8; SL 2; AL CE; AC 8 (due to Dexterity); MV 12; hp 60; THAC0 13; #AT 3/2 (x2); Dmg 1d8x2 (broadswords, +1 for Strength); Str 15; Dex 15; Con 17; Int 11; Wis 9; Cha 10

An infamous bravo who favored the use of two swords (he can make twice the normal number of attacks without penalty), Gnarlag used to frequent the Rat's Nest tavern before being slain by Fafhrd while under the influence of the Cloud of Hate. Few mourned his passing.

Most of these NPCs lack any special powers/bullshit, although as is tradition, they like to squeeze some nonsense in there whenever possible:

Mor was a skilled ice magician and used frozen snowballs as offensive weapons. She and all the other Snow Women can throw such weapons at +1 to hit.

The women of the South throw like boys!

Ningauble and Sheelba aren't Nehwon wizards and so follow regular AD&D rules for the most part. Also, despite the argument that many characters in Newhon are dual-classed, 99% of these NPCs presented here are single-classed. Still, most of these characters are generic enough to drop into pretty much any D&D campaign.



I will mention one more, just for fun:

Slivikin
Magically-altered giant rat, AC 7; MV 12, Int average; AL LE; Sw 6; HD 1; hp 6; THAC0 20; #AT 1; Dmg 1d4; SA disease, summon rats; SZ T; ML 6; XP 65

It was most like a rat, yet it had a higher forehead and closer-set eyes than... a rat, while its forepaws, which it constantly rubbed together in what seemed restless glee, looked like tiny copies of (Hristomilo's) clubhands.

This repulsive beast was the magical familiar of the evil wizard Hristomilo. Slivikin could speak and sometimes accompanied guild thieves on missions to observe their performance and provide some measure of additional security. Slivikin could also communicate with normal rats and at any time in Lankhmar could summon 3d6 normal and 2d4 giant rats. If encountered in the sewers or Lankhmar Below, he could summon twice that number. He could manipulate small objects and often serves as "hands" for his master.

Slivikin and his rats consumed the bodies of Vlana and Ivrian after they were slain by Hristomilo. This creature's unsavoury career came to an abrupt end when skewered by the Gray Mouser's rapier, Scalpel.

Couple things here...first, Slivikin shows an obvious influence from Brown Jenkins in H. P. Lovecraft's "The Dreams in the Witch House." Second, while not the sole source of animal familiars as people know then in D&D today, he was a fairly sizable influence. Likewise, before there were familiar feats or any of that nonsense, wizards in AD&D could get away with a lot of "experimenting" and "improving" on their familiars, so Slivikin isn't by any means exceptional, even if AD&D never did familiar pit-fights like you could do in 3rd edition. Finally, yes it is very weird that you have different types of intelligent rats in Leiber's stories, and this one despite his human hands doesn't have a rat-rapier or something. Just roll with it.

We won't get into the time-traveler Karl Treuherz or rat-duelist Svivomilo or any of that nonsense. Let's just say the stories started weird and got weirder.

Next up: Chapter 6, Lankhmar's Gods

[hogarth]

We won't get into the time-traveler Karl Treuherz or rat-duelist Svivomilo or any of that nonsense.

I have to admit that the first NPC I thought of when I started reading this part of the review was Karl Treuherz. What class is he? A ranger?