Frifle is a portmanteau of Fafhrd and Rifle. In fact, Leiber refers to Sheelba as "he" throughout the six books of the series, switching to "she" for the first time only in the last book, The Knight and Knave of Swords, without explanation. This series was collected by Dark Horse Comics in a trade paperback collection published in June 2008. Many of them take place in and around its greatest city, Lankhmar. The official comic explains how both Frifle and Grey Mauser ended up in the Gungeon, and that their original goal was to kill the past due to an accident. Ningauble of the Seven Eyes and Sheelba of the Eyeless Face are two wizards who serve as patrons for Fafhrd and the Mouser.
Nehwon is named after the pattern of "Erewhon", a fantasy land created by Samuel Butler. Fischer may have created Sheelba as a tribute to his wife Martha.[11].
a thieves' guild, and a general air of degeneracy) may instead be common tropes of fantasy literature, although it could be argued, especially in the case of the thieves' guild, that many of the tropes in question originated with Leiber. In the first installment of the Baldur's Gate series of video games, the name "Fafhrd" appears as a password needed to gain entrance to the Thieves' Guild. In contrast to Ningauble's love of often pointless storytelling, Sheelba is taciturn, choosing his/her words as if they were valuables to be disbursed parsimoniously. An issue of Conan the Barbarian written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Barry Smith features two thieves called Fafnir and Blackrat. Fischer initially created them in a letter to Leiber in September 1934, naming at the same time their home city of Lankhmar.
The last Lankhmar product produced prior to 3rd Edition D&D was. The stories were ordered and combined with new material to tell the story of the heroes’ lives, from callow youths to middle-aged men. None knew whether he had the gift of foresight, or whether he merely set the stage for future events with such a bewildering cunning that only an efreet or an adept could evade acting the part given him.
For the second-best thieves in Lankhmar? For combat at a distance, he often carries a bow and arrow which he wields effectively even while on horseback or at sea, and which he's able to use despite his final handicap (he loses a hand). Tyre), Steven Saylor's short story "Ill Seen in Tyre" takes his Roma Sub Rosa series hero Gordianus to the city of Tyre a hundred years later, where the two visitors from Nehwon are remembered as local legends.[19]. Both are rogues, living in a decadent world where only the ruthless and cynical survive. Fafhrd occasionally pays heed to the gods Kos and Issek of the Jug, while with Mouser, it's Mog the Spider God. He also carries a poignard named Heartseeker and a short hand-axe which has never been named. Fafhrd is a dreamer; the Gray Mouser is street-wise.
Below is a list of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books in order of when they were originally released (which is also their chronological order): One of his motives in writing them was to have a couple of fantasy heroes closer to true human nature than the likes of Howard's Conan the Barbarian or Burroughs's Tarzan. "You're a hero. It is described as "a world like and unlike our own". In the introductions to the Ace paperback edition, Leiber also listed a number of swordsmen that Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, The names of Ningauble and Sheelba may be a.
The majority of the stories are set in the fictional world of Nehwon ("ne hwon", or "Nowhen" backwards: contrasted to Samuel Butler's 1872 "Erehwon" (Nowhere)). "I thought you were a brave man, addicted to deeds of derring-do." Fafhrd talks like a romantic, but his strength and practicality usually wins through, while the cynical-sounding Mouser is prone to showing strains of sentiment at unexpected times. The stories of the two were only loosely connected until the 1960s, when Leiber organized them chronologically and added additional material in preparation for paperback publication.