Maus and Lankhmar

[Havard]

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.

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!

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.

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