The Snow Women

Nehwon Gazetteer | Stories of Lankhmar

Published: 1970

Each Snow Woman, usually with the aid of the rest, worked to maintain absolute control of her man, though leaving him seemingly free, and it was whispered that recalcitrant husbands had been injured and even slain, generally by some frigid instrumentality. While at the same time witchy cliques and individual sorceresses played against each other a power game in which the brawniest and boldest of men, even chiefs and priests, were but counters.

- from The Snow Women

No one at that moment could have guessed that the Gray Mouser was once named Mouse, or that Fafhrd had recently been a youth whose voice was by training high-pitched, who wore white furs only, and who still slept in his mother’s tent although he was eighteen.

- from Induction

Snow, ice, and cold–willing agents of the Snow Women–seek to oppress Fafhrd. Whether threatening life with icy death, a snowy blanket weighing on the soul, or becoming a frigid prison keeping man rooted in place, the elements of cold dominate all men in the Cold Waste. Fafhrd, in particular, is targeted by the Snow Women for his willfulness and his fancies towards civilization.

Fafhrd is at a crossroads in life. The ghost of Nalgron, Fafhrd’s father, shows Fafhrd one possible future from his ice-hard grave. Mor, his mother, dictates another–one for a dutiful son of the Cold Waste. Mara, his snow-bride, promises yet another–one appropriate for a barbarian-husband of the Cold Waste. Vlana, the culture-dancer from the civilized south, represents the path away from all icy oppression.

The last path, if taken, is fraught with great peril and the wrath of all Snow Women!

Characters:
Effendrit, Essedinex, Harrax, Hinerio, Hor, Hrey, Hringorl, Mara of the Snow Clan, Mor, Nalgron, Skif, Vellix the Venturer, Vilis, Vlana, Zax.

Cities:
Cold Corner, Gnamph Nar, Horborixen, Ilthmar, Klelg Nar, Kvarch Nar, Mlurg Nar, Quarmall, Sarheenmar, Tisilinilit.

Geography:
Bones of the Old Ones, Cold Waste, Gran Hanack, Inner Sea, Land of Lankhmar, Land of the Eight Cities, Mountains of the Giants, Trollstep Canyon, Trollstep Mountains, White Fang.

Guilds:
Thieves’ Guild, Whores’ Guild.