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+--- Thread: Maus and Lankhmar (/showthread.php?tid=570)
Re: Maus and Lankhmar - Havard - 01-19-2011
DungeonDevil Wrote:The Tower of Glass (at least one of them) comes from Irish Mythology. It is thought to be on Tory Island.
Interesting!
Irish Mythology Wrote:Balor put on the appearance of a little boy with red hair.
In the days when the Tuatha de Danaan lived openly and freely in Ireland, Balor. the King of the Fomorians, lived over the sea on an Isle of the Tower of Glass. Balor was very envious of a cow that Cian of the Tuatha de Danaan owned, a beast whose udders were always full, however much milk was taken from them. So Balor made a journey to Ireland in order to steal it.
One day the cow was being held outside a smithy while Cian was inside at work with his brother Goibniu. Balor "put on the appearance of a little boy, having red hair," walked over to the man who was holding the cow and told him that his two brothers inside were hatching a plot to defraud him. This third brother rushed into the workshop leaving the cow standing where she was. A few moments later, realising that they might all have been duped, they rushed out again only to find that the cow had disappeared.
Cian sought advice from a lady-druid about how to recover the cow. She gave him some women’s clothes to wear and carried him across with her to the Isle of the Tower of Glass in "a blast of wind."
Source: http://www.eleusinianm.co.uk/CircleLine ... emple.html
-Havard
Re: Maus and Lankhmar - Havard - 01-19-2011
Rafael Wrote:Yepp. Yet, there is a 60s sci-fi novel of the same name by Robert Silverberg that very much fits into the overall tone of the Valley of the Ancients/City of the Gods plot.
Namely, it features humanoid androids, and a Egg-of-Coot-like entity; and, more importantly, it is used as the wharf to a City-of-Gods-like spaceship.
8) 8) 8)
Quote:Now, since the tower is not mentioned before DA 3, I think, the big question remains if it was a place that was later dropped in by the TSR staff, or intentionally put there by Dave Arneson - which, for the question about where he drew his inspiration from, is integral, in the end.
There are a few sources to look at for Arneson's pre- DA Module City of the Gods. The FFC mentions various expeditions to the Valley of the Ancients, most ending with disasters.
However, Oerth Journal #6 which recounts Robilar and Mordenkeinen's journey to the City of the Gods does feature several towers:
Oerth Journal Wrote:Surely [The City of Gods] was a sight. All golds and silvers, with towers and buildings of the oddest shapes and hues and sizes. Many towers seemed proportioned the same; but this in no way indicated mundanity, for surely the towers gleamed in morning's sunlight. Metal towers, and hundreds of them! Both Mordenkainen and Robilar muttered a few prayers to the gods of protection as they started along its strange streets. After a moment they stopped before what appeared to be a tower that twisted like a plant to the height of at least a hundred feet above them. Its base penetrated a large chasm in the ground.
I believe that with the exception of a few changes in DA4, David Ritchie kept fairly true to Arneson's notes and only expanded on things that Arneson had handed over to him rather than making up too many new elements.
Where Ritchie becomes visible is perhaps in situations like the Wizards Cabal. It is possible that the Wizards Cabal Arneson imagined was closer to the one in the ZGG version, but since Ritchie only possessed spares notes on what the Cabal actually was, he decided to make them a secret and sinister organization staging the kidnapping of Uther for instance. Ritchie is given a skeleton framework by Arneson and the former fills in the details needed for his modules to work. Unfortunately since neither of the two is among us anymore we will never know for certain.
-Havard
Re: Maus and Lankhmar - Rafael - 01-21-2011
Just a quick note:
Reading through a German translation of Swords and Deviltry, Swords against Death, and Swords in the Mist.
Apart from very generic similarities and common tropes, in that the books tell tales about wandering adventurers in a sword & sorcery world, I don't feel like there would be a profound similarity.
What do you think of this?
Re: Maus and Lankhmar - Havard - 01-22-2011
Rafael Wrote:Just a quick note:
Reading through a German translation of Swords and Deviltry, Swords against Death, and Swords in the Mist.
Apart from very generic similarities and common tropes, in that the books tell tales about wandering adventurers in a sword & sorcery world, I don't feel like there would be a profound similarity.
What do you think of this?
Are these set outside of Lankhmar? Although there could be useful ideas drawn from Newhon in general (already mentioned Frogmen, Frogton, Sinking Lands), I was mainly thinking that the descriptions of the city of Lankhmar itself could be used for Maus...
-Havard
Re: Maus and Lankhmar - Rafael - 01-22-2011
Part yes, part no.
Also, the area in Lankhmar is called "the sunken land", if it is based on that particular short story.
(From "Swords Against Death".)
The connection to Blackmoor, apart from very generic tropes, is small.
As to Lankhmar being useful to describe a city of thieves as a principle, yes, that is certainly possible.
But from a textual point, my clear answer would be no.
hock:
Re: Maus and Lankhmar - Havard - 05-30-2011
Rafael Wrote:As to Lankhmar being useful to describe a city of thieves as a principle, yes, that is certainly possible.
But from a textual point, my clear answer would be no.
I am tempted to think the connection goes beyond that. Not only do we have the city's name Maus, which is remarkably similar to the name of one of the main characters, but we also have two cities dominated by Thieves Guilds. I suspect that Scott Belfry controlled Maus and played games in it with Arneson, inspired by the Lankhmar stories. It also seems likely that the Lankhmar characters were important sources of inspiration for the Thief Class.
Now the question is: How can we make use of this to expand Maus?
-Havard
Re: Maus and Lankhmar - Rafael - 05-30-2011
Because of the beverage rule, I am 99% sure this is what *Maus* was named after:
![[Image: Artikel-000840-000002.jpg]](http://www.whisky-depot-koeln.de/Webshop/Fotos/Artikel-000840-000002.jpg)
As long as we don't have anything but a perceived homophony of two words,
I am opposed to accepting this as a valid theory, sorry. :wink:
Re: Maus and Lankhmar - Rafael - 05-30-2011
Havard Wrote:Not only do we have the city's name Maus, which is remarkably similar to the name of one of the main characters, but we also have two cities dominated by Thieves Guilds. I suspect that Scott Belfry controlled Maus and played games in it with Arneson, inspired by the Lankhmar stories. It also seems likely that the Lankhmar characters were important sources of inspiration for the Thief Class.
So, who would then be Fafhrd to Belfry's Mouser?
Also, isn't the Lankhmar Thieves Guild evil?
Also, did Belfry and Marfeldt play at the same time? Wasn't there a time gap between that?
Re: Maus and Lankhmar - Havard - 05-30-2011
Rafael Wrote:Because of the beverage rule, I am 99% sure this is what *Maus* was named after:
As long as we don't have anything but a perceived homophony of two words,
I am opposed to accepting this as a valid theory, sorry. :wink:
Good find! I bow to the knowledge of beverages of our German/Spanish conneseur.
However, I wouldnt rule out that while the beverage may have been the origin of the name, this could have given other associations to the players (and Dave) later on, bringing in ideas from the Leiber novels. So the two theories may not be mutually exclusive.
Rafael Wrote:Havard Wrote:Not only do we have the city's name Maus, which is remarkably similar to the name of one of the main characters, but we also have two cities dominated by Thieves Guilds. I suspect that Scott Belfry controlled Maus and played games in it with Arneson, inspired by the Lankhmar stories. It also seems likely that the Lankhmar characters were important sources of inspiration for the Thief Class.
So, who would then be Fafhrd to Belfry's Mouser?
This is exactly the sort of ideas/questions I am looking for!
Quote:Also, isn't the Lankhmar Thieves Guild evil?
Correct. Could it be that Belfry only became the Guild Master in the events covered by the DA modules? (ie after the campaign itself). Or even during the campaign, but at a later stage? I don't know if the same happens in the Lankhmar novels, but it would seem as a natural conclusion of the series that Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser eventually take over the Guild which opposes them? This certainly could be how things played out in the game.
Quote:Also, did Belfry and Marfeldt play at the same time? Wasn't there a time gap between that?
Marfeldt is indeed a good candidate for the Fafhrd role. I think the two may have played together early in the game, but Marfeldt's player dropped out, or switched from the group including Greg, to one running in the weekdays, that was not used so much as a basis for the FFC.
Edit: I am going into a broader comparison between the two settings here.
-Havard
Re: Maus and Lankhmar - Rafael - 05-30-2011
Havard Wrote:Good find! I bow to the knowledge of beverages of our German/Spanish conneseur.
However, I wouldnt rule out that while the beverage may have been the origin of the name, this could have given other associations to the players (and Dave) later on, bringing in ideas from the Leiber novels. So the two theories may not be mutually exclusive.
Sorry for being so destructive, but I think you're wrong:
Just how generic is the idea of a Northern port city with a strong Thieves Guild? Other than the name, it could just be medieval Hamburg. Or, why not the thieves guild from Port Kar, from the Gor novels, which are proven to have had an impact on the game?
Or, AFAIK, the Midkemia crew was already active convention-wise in the 70s. They had one iconic early D&D Thieves Guild, why not theirs, the Mockers?
The point is, we have the beverage rule, and no other statement that Lankhmar was indeed appreciated by the group (in contrast to the early Greyhawk crowd, from which the positive outlook on Leiber mainly stems).
But, for example, the Conan novels Sprague de Camp wrote in the 60s ALSO feature port cities with thieves guilds:
Why Lankhmar, and not one of them?