# Sword & Sorcery *Blood, steel and paperback covers* - Tour: Tour - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/tours/sword-and-sorcery-lineage/ > Twelve stops follow the barbarians, thieves and doomed sorcerers of the pulps from Weird Tales through Frazetta's paperback covers and Appendix N into the dungeon, the cinema and the grim fantasy of today. **Why it matters:** Sword and sorcery supplied D&D with its thieves, fighters, wandering adventurers and Law-versus-Chaos cosmology, as much as Tolkien supplied its races. This tour traces that second, rougher lineage. Before Tolkien's elves arrived in American paperbacks, fantasy in the United States belonged largely to the pulps. In cheap magazines such as [Weird Tales](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/weird-tales/), writers like [Robert E. Howard](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/robert-e-howard/), [C. L. Moore](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/c-l-moore/), [Clark Ashton Smith](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/clark-ashton-smith/) and [Fritz Leiber](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/fritz-leiber/) told stories of barbarians, thieves and sorcerers with personal stakes and bloody consequences. Leiber eventually gave the form its name: [Sword & Sorcery](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/sword-and-sorcery/). This tour follows that tradition. The first stops are the founders: [Conan](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/conan-the-cimmerian/), Moore's Jirel of Joiry, Smith's decadent wizards and Leiber's [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/fafhrd-and-the-gray-mouser/). Then comes the revival of the 1960s, when [Michael Moorcock](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/michael-moorcock/)'s [Elric](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/elric-of-melnibone/) turned the barbarian hero inside out, and [Frank Frazetta](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/frank-frazetta/)'s Conan covers made the genre a visual phenomenon on paperback racks. The genre's influence on games is easy to underestimate. [Gary Gygax](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/gary-gygax/)'s [Appendix N](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/appendix-n/) lists Howard, Leiber and Moorcock prominently, and D&D's thief, its fighter and its [Alignment](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/alignment/) system of Law and Chaos all have roots here. The [Thieves' World](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/thieves-world/) anthologies brought novelists and game publishers together. [Conan the Barbarian](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/conan-the-barbarian-film/) took the barbarian to the cinema in 1982. The final stops show the tradition's survival. [Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dungeon-crawl-classics/) builds a whole RPG around Appendix N, and [The First Law](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-first-law/) shows how much modern [Grimdark](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/grimdark/) owes to the pulps, even as it adds new cynicism of its own. Notice, too, how often this lineage runs through cheap formats: pulp magazines, paperback reprints, fanzines and boxed game supplements. Sword and sorcery was rarely respectable, and that is part of why game designers felt free to borrow from it. As you walk, compare these stories with the [High / Epic Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/high-fantasy/) of the Tolkien tradition. Sword and sorcery rarely saves the world. Its heroes want gold, revenge or survival, and that is exactly what most D&D characters want too. ## Stops 1. [Weird Tales](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/weird-tales/) — Start with a cheap Chicago pulp whose first issue appeared in 1923. Its pages carried Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Conan and Jirel of Joiry. Sword and sorcery grew up among its horror stories, and never entirely lost the smell of the crypt. 2. [Conan the Cimmerian](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/conan-the-cimmerian/) — Robert E. Howard's barbarian first appeared in December 1932: thief, pirate, mercenary and king in an invented prehistoric age. Notice the personal stakes and the distrust of sorcery and civilization, which define the genre. 3. [C. L. Moore](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/c-l-moore/) — In October 1934 C. L. Moore, writing under her initials, sent Jirel of Joiry into a hellish underworld to find a weapon for revenge. The genre's first great woman warrior was created only two years after Conan. 4. [Clark Ashton Smith](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/clark-ashton-smith/) — Howard's and Lovecraft's fellow contributor wrote jeweled, decadent tales of dying continents and doomed wizards. His Averoigne stories were credited as the inspiration for the 1981 D&D module Castle Amber. 5. [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/fafhrd-and-the-gray-mouser/) — Fritz Leiber's pair of rogues began in 1939, and Leiber later named the genre. Their city of Lankhmar is the model rotten city of fantasy, and the Mouser is one of the ancestors of the D&D thief. 6. [The Elric Saga](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/elric-of-melnibone/) — Michael Moorcock's 1961 albino emperor inverted Conan: sickly, sorcerous, bound to a soul-drinking sword and caught in the war of Law and Chaos. That cosmic war became D&D's alignment system and Warhammer's Chaos. 7. [Frank Frazetta](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/frank-frazetta/) — From 1966, Frazetta's paintings for the Lancer Conan paperbacks showed what sword and sorcery looked like, and sold the books to a new generation. Look at any fantasy game box of the 1970s and 1980s for his influence. 8. [Appendix N](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/appendix-n/) — Gary Gygax's 1979 reading list in the Dungeon Masters Guide names Howard, Leiber, Moorcock, Smith and others. It is the clearest evidence of how much D&D owed to the pulps as well as to Tolkien. 9. [Thieves' World](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/thieves-world/) — Robert Asprin's 1979 shared-world anthologies put many fantasy writers in one squalid city, Sanctuary. Chaosium's 1981 box gave it statistics for nine RPG systems, bringing fiction and gaming together. 10. [Conan the Barbarian](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/conan-the-barbarian-film/) — John Milius's 1982 film, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and a look shaped by Frazetta's covers, carried the barbarian to the cinema and started a wave of sword-and-sorcery films. 11. [Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dungeon-crawl-classics/) — Goodman Games' 2012 RPG deliberately rebuilds play around Appendix N: doomed peasants, dangerous magic and weird dungeons. It shows the pulp tradition returning to the game table on purpose. 12. [The First Law](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-first-law/) — End with a modern heir. Joe Abercrombie's 2006–08 trilogy of barbarians, torturers and compromised heroes is usually filed as grimdark, but its violence, cynicism and personal stakes owe much to the sword-and-sorcery tradition. ## Facts - Robert E. Howard's Conan debuted in 'The Phoenix on the Sword,' Weird Tales, December 1932. - C. L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry debuted in 'Black God's Kiss,' the cover story of Weird Tales for October 1934. - In 1961 Fritz Leiber proposed the name 'sword-and-sorcery' for the genre Howard had begun. - Gygax credited D&D's Law-versus-Chaos alignments to Michael Moorcock and Poul Anderson. --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.