From Epic To Urban - The Uses of Lankhmar City of Adventure (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition : Official Game Accessory) by Anthony Pryor For Your Old School Campaign

"LANKHMAR...city of thieves, city of the night, city of adventure. Home of Fritz Leiber's famous heroes, FAFHRD™ and the GRAY MOUSER™; greatest adventurers in the world of Nehwon. The city of Lankhmar springs to life as an exciting Setting for the AD&D® game.
Visit the fabled Rainbow Palace, stroll the surly streets of the old town, haggle at the market place or risk the winding maze of the Tenderloin, From the wharves and shipyards to the dark sewers of this mighty metropolis,. LANKHMAR takes you on a full tour.
Also included are many encounters in LANKHMAR and adaptations of the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Its unique approach makes LANKHMAR a living, changing city.
Leave the dungeons and wilderness and step into a new world of intrigue and adventure. Enter the city of LANKHMAR; if you're lucky, you'll get out alive."

Lankhmar City of Adventure (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition : Official Game Accessory) Paperback – November 1, 1993 by Anthony Pryor (Author), Fred Fields (Editor)

Way back in the 90's I was running a complete Grimjack comic book from First comics  rpg campaign. I learned a lot back then. one of the things is never listen to the 'community' & that's because often over looks the good stuff. Manos review on Amazon  from 2011 encapsulates my feeling about Lankhmar: City of Adventure (2nd edition); "Now this is THE city supplement to buy.The streets are named, the map is very well setup for modding or using as-is, and just so much more.The only thing I didn't care for was in the very center on each district, the GM had to use a geomorph from the book. (The idea was to make each city unique, which was not really needed.)Having said that, it's still a 5+ item. In the second edition they added the sewer maps which just pushed it over the top for great that much more. (And all the Skaven, err... "Ratkin" scraps.)

(IMO) The best part? Most younger gamers have no experience with the old stuff, so you can just mangle it as you wish without breaking any of their sacred cows.

Lord knows this city had multiple names in multiple systems for me: D&D, RoleMaster, Palladium Fantasy... the game might have changed, but same city remained. The players actually dug it."

Here's the thing original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition's Dieties & Demigods could be scaled back to fit the player's PC's as needed. So could Lankhmar: City of Adventure (2nd edition) a lesson I learned from Grimjack's Mortal Gods story.  Its not about killing gods but bringing in the lessons of mythology. 



 Homer's The Iliad and the Odyssey, killed more gods & demigods then I've personally ever seen in a D&D campaign. The fact was & is that  Fritz Leiber's famous heroes, FAFHRD and the GRAY MOUSER, the greatest adventurers in the world of Nehwon showed that gods were alien, flawed,highly dangerous & profitable from time to time. Trust me I heard about using a second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons book back then as well from the old timers & from the then 2nd edition crowd of DM's as well. If you've got the players sometimes its best to turn your back & play at your table. Just because its a popular consensus doesn't make it right. Its only an opinion. At the end of the day its about what the players want.


Grimjack is the copyright & trade mark of Tim Truman & its writer John Ostrander. They went through Hell & back to secure the rights to their characters. This is a blog post for educational & entertainment purposes only. Not a copy right or trade mark violation on my part.

I never used the character of Grimjack only the idea of the city setting of Cynosure. What I used instead was Jeff Grub's Manual of the Planes from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.  This allowed me the AD&D's planes without the cannon baggage of the upcoming Planscape setting.



The real turning point for me was using The Best of the Dragon volume II's article by Ed Greenwood Theory and use of gates: From the city of Brass... to dead Orc Pass. There's a solid love of the hobby in these early issues of The Dragon for me. Its something I return to again & again.


I got really super tired of hearing all of the grumbling of the gamers & dungeon masters at my local hobby shops & what not. So I started doing things with the enthusiasm of the originators of the games that we loved.
Even gods could be scaled up or down for encounters with party members as needed there has never been a fear of not doing things 'right' for encounters. Next time another game takes me in a new direction. Keep em rolling..