Editing Lankhmar (section)

== Description  ==
Lankhmar is richly described as a populous and labyrinthine [[city]] rife with corruption, "the City of the Black Toga." It is decadent or squalid in roughly equal parts and said to be so shrouded by [[smog]] that the stars are rarely sighted (the city's alternate name is "the City of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes"). Located next to the Inner Sea, Lankhmar is visited by ships from across Nehwon and is the starting point for Fafhrd and the Mouser's many sea voyages.

The city is ostensibly ruled by an overlord and his nobility. The Thieves' Guild is influential, too, and controls Lankhmar's abundant criminal element, with the notable exceptions of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Streets in Lankhmar are often evocatively named (the Thieves' Guild is located on Cheap Street near Death's Alley and Murder Alley). Commonly referenced locations are the '''Silver Eel Tavern''', behind which is '''Bone Alley''', and the '''Golden Lamprey Inn'''. The main meeting place is the '''Plaza of Dark Delights''', which is the setting for the story "[[Bazaar of the Bizarre|The Bazaar of the Bizarre]]".  The religious center of Lankhmar is the '''Street of the Gods''' (the Gods in Lankhmar), along which numerous (and often bizarre) cults seek to arrange themselves in order of popularity. The true gods of Lankhmar, however, are feared rather than worshipped. These "Black Bones" (mummified ancestors of the Lankhmarese) occasionally leave their temple and battle threats to the city—or threats to their own position as the preeminent religion within Lankhmar.

Beneath Lankhmar is an [[underground city]] inhabited by [[Sentience|sentient]] [[rat]]s. At one point, the Mouser, magically reduced in size, infiltrates this hidden world.

Leiber's Lankhmar bears considerable similarity to 16th Century [[Seville]] as depicted in [[Miguel de Cervantes]]' classical [[picaresque]] tale "[[Rinconete y Cortadillo]]"{{cn|date=July 2020}}: a bustling, cosmopolitan maritime city, into whose port galleons sail laden with gold from which only a few benefit, with a thoroughly corrupt civil government and a powerful and well-organized Thieves' Guild—all seen through the eyes of two young adventurers who formed a partnership to guard each other's back in this dangerous milieu. However, Cervantes' protagonists, less daring than Leiber's, do not confront the Thieves' Guild but instead enter its ranks.

In its earliest incarnations, Lankhmar was sometimes called "Lankmar" or "Lahkmar". The change in the final published spelling may have been due to Leiber misreading some of the early maps created by [[Harry Otto Fischer|Harry Fischer]] and his wife Martha.<ref>{{cite journal |last=MacKnight |first=Frederick |title=The Formative Years of 'Fafhrd' and 'The Mouser' |journal=The Dragon |issue=30 |date=October 1979 |page=17 |publisher=TSR Periodicals}}</ref>