Monday, April 5, 2021

Pulp Fantasy Library: Jewels in the Forest

The matter of the literary inspirations to Dungeons & Dragons is a contentious one and, to some extent, not unreasonably. For all the stories and books that clearly contain elements Arneson and Gygax borrowed in piling up the bricolage that became the world's first fantasy roleplaying game, there are comparatively few one could uncontroversially claim are its direct inspirations. For myself, I would point to Fritz Leiber's tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser as examples of such stories. Moreso than Robert E. Howard's Conan yarns or Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings – or indeed most putative contenders to the throne of D&D-stories-before-the-fact – Leiber's fiction comes closest, I think, to offering narratives that are not too dissimilar to what might go on in a D&D adventure. The key to this is not so much the setting or even the situations, though both certainly play important roles, but in the characters of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, both of whom very much feel like characters in a long-running RPG campaign played by good friends.

You can see a lot of what I'm talking about in "Jewels in the Forest," a short story originally appearing under the title "Two Sought Adventure" in the August 1939 issue of Unknown. (The original title was re-purposed for the 1957 collection in which it would later appear, along with several other stories of the Twain.) Take note of its publication date. That's only three years after the death of Howard and two years after the publication of The Hobbit. "Jewels in the Forest" is thus a very early example of the type of fantasy story that inspired D&D – and, to my mind, is a much better illustration of the kinds of adventures in which player characters engage, not least of all because of how Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser interact with one another and the world they inhabit.

The story begins with the bold duo in the titular forest, seeking out "the great treasure house" of Urgaan of Angargni. The Mouser had learned of the trove from an ancient scroll he'd obtained, whose margins contained "faint lines of diminutive red script." The script spoke of Urgaan's vast wealth and warned:
Let fools seek it. They shall win it not. For although my treasure house may be empty as air, no deadly creature in rocky lair, no sentinel outside anywhere, no pitfall, poison, trap, or snare, above and below the whole place bare, of demon or devil not a hair, no serpent lethal-fanged yet fair, no skull with mortal eye a-glare, yet have I left a guardian there. Let the wise read this riddle and forbear.
Rather than deterring him, the riddle only emboldened the pair, who are determined to find Urgaan's tower and steal away with its valuable contents. Along the way, they encounter – and put to flight – a group of bandits, whom the Mouser believes might have been in the employ of Lord Rannarsh, "a rich man and a greedy one, who slavers at the thought of jewels." Fafhrd is skeptical, calling his friend "oversubtle." Still, he agrees that they should be cautious before proceeding deeper into the forest. 

As they ponder their next steps from horseback, they come across a clearing that holds a peasant's cottage that is home to "a wiry old man, his skin as bronze as his homespun tunic." The Mouser calls to him, claiming that they are weary travelers seeking lodging for the night in exchange for some silver coins. The pair ask about "an old, deserted place … called the House of Angargni," who the man admits is only a short distance from his dwelling and yet he claims not to know anything about it. However, the man's son, who lives with him and four other family members, explains that "She's just an old place. No good for anything."

Unfailing in their intentions, the Twain set off to take a look at the place before supper is served. 
The treasure house of Urgaan of Angargni was a peculiar structure. The main feature was a large, shallow dome, resting on walls that formed an octagon. In front, and merging into it, were two lesser domes. Between these gaped a great square doorway. The tower rose asymmetrically from the rear part of the chief dome. The eyes of the Mouser sought hurriedly through the dimming twilight for the cause of the salient peculiarity of the structure, and decided it lay in the utter simplicity. There were no pillars, no outjutting cornices, no friezes, no architectural ornaments of any sort, skull-embellished or otherwise. Save for the doorway and a few tiny windows set in unexpected places, the House of Angargni was a compact mass of uniformly gray stones most closely joined.

Finding nothing obvious to aid them in their plans, they return to the cottage to dine with the peasant family. What follows is an absolutely delightful vignette, in which the Mouser performs feats of legerdemain to entertain them all, after which he shares wine from his own saddlebags. Fafhrd meanwhile sings sea-chanteys and lusty songs that prove equally amusing. It's a brief scene and yet it's probably one of my favorites in all of pulp fantasy, demonstrating not just the fundamental good-heartedness of the pair but also Leiber's skills as a writer. 

The next morning, as the duo head out for the tower – and whatever dangers lies within – the adolescent daughter of the peasant family sneaks up on them, out of concern, it seems, for their well-being. She asks them not to go there, because, she explains, "a giant be inside." Needless to say, Fafhrd and the Mouser are skeptical of her claim, but they humor her, promising "We'll be on watch for your gray giant." The conversation between them takes just long enough to delay their progress toward the tower, enabling them to spy the appearance of "half a dozen stocky men in black chain-mail shirts, bows on their backs, shortswords at their sides. They immediately recognized them as the supposed bandits they'd bested earlier, suggesting that, contrary to Fafhrd's doubts, they do indeed have a rival for treasure hoard in the House of Argagni.

"Jewels in the Forest" is a rollicking story of a seemingly simple theft becoming more complicated than anticipated, filled with mystery, tension, and, above all, camaraderie. It's this last quality that stands especially stands out to me and elevates not just this tale but all the adventures of the Twain as near-perfect exemplars of what a good roleplaying game session is actually like. Their loyalty to and affection for one another is without question, of course, but they bicker, insult, and disagree about the best course of action. They'll always have each other's back, but that doesn't mean they always pull in the same direction. If that doesn't sound like nearly every party of player characters I've encountered, I don't know what does. 

19 comments:

  1. I agree. My first AD&D 1e GMs were all fans of the Twain, so that might be why - but those sorts of stories all worked well. Especially the bickering, and sometimes working at cross purposes, but still ‘having each other’s back’. All my best games, as player or GM, have been like that (or close to).

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  2. I have run versions of this story innumerable times since discovering the story in 92 or 93. It’s one of my favorites. I feel it also had an influence of one of the adventures in the Green Devil Face zine.

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  3. Without wishing to give too many spoilers, there's also the fact that Fafhrd and the Mouser are presented with plenty of grim evidence that they have entered a deathtrap, and yet they proceed just the same. That too reminds me of the swaggering (and sometimes misplaced) confidence of many D&D parties I have known. It also makes me think Fritz Leiber would have been a good DM, signalling the presence of traps while leaving it to the players to figure out where and what they are.

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  4. Agreed, of all the fantasy authors in the years before D&D came along Leiber's work is the closest in feel to the early edition games in my memory. If those stories had come out later on people would likely have suspected them of being derived from an actual tabletop campaign.

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  5. I wonder if the resemblance between some adventure stories of the Twain and D&D might not stem from the inspiration Fritz Leiber took from his "adventures" with his friend Harry Fisher? Fisher (Gray Mouser) and Leiber (Fafhrd) reportedly shared a bit of a "game" of their devising which involved the Twain years prior to D&D's appearance. Perhaps stories such as this one "feel" a bit like D&D for the reason that gaming inspired the story. It would not be the first incident of a cycle of influence coming round full circle.

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  6. I thoroughly agree. The Fafhrd and Gray Mouser tales, more than anything else in Appendix N, feel like D&D games.

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  7. I've seen many people online say that of all the Appendix N material, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are the ones that feel most like DnD. I haven't actually read everything in Appendix N, but when I read "Ill Met in Lankhmar", I immediately thought "that's the most D&D thing I've read outside of an actual D&D game"

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  8. For me it is the earliest stories, the ones collected in Swords Against Death, that convey this feeling the most. Leiber could write.

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  9. I'll add my voice to the swelling chorus of opinions that these stories feel more like D&D than anything else in Appendix N. In fact, the only other early story that really feels this way to me is "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" by Clark Ashton Smith, who is notoriously not in Appendix N.

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    1. That's another excellent choice for a truly "D&D-esque" story.

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  10. I'd just like to "+1" everything said here- Fritz "wrote the book' for D&D.

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  11. I've used the basic premise for this story many a time in my own games. A great tale by a great writer.

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  12. Leiber is great, and very D&D, but I think Vance’s Dying Earth and Eyes of the Overworld capture it better.

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    1. I recently read Vance's Dying Earth expecting the same---but for me it didn't deliver that D&D vibe. Since then, I've been wondering why others feel differently. It was so "detached" with its narrative.

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    2. Vance never felt like D&D to me either. He was a creative genius and I love his writing style, but his main characters are almost always loners, something that is not the norm for D&D gaming or even (mostly) fiction. The Lyonesse books have more of a fantasy feel than Dying Earth, but that's hardly surprising. The former are fantasy, while DE is picaresque far-future scifi with a healthy dose of Clarke's "any sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic" Law.

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  13. I would just like to say, Leiber was really, playing D&D. the characters are based on him and his roommate (Harry Otto Fischer, another writer) and they even wrote a boardgame based on it. in 1940. which Leiber dug out to show Gygax, hoping to get some cash. As I understand it, Leiber made more from licensing to TSR than he did from his writings, in later years.

    so anyways, the point is, this was gaming, and the interactions feel like it.

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  14. The only authour I've read who I'd say really approaches the "D&D-ness" of Lieber is L. Sprague de Camp, though he does it in an entirely different fashion. Lieber has party dynamics down to an art, but in de Camp I see the dread hand of the DM. He is the master of twists upon twists, and I can just hear the exasperation of the player characters as nothing's ever as simple as it seems.

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