Al Qadim
Yep this week we're going to continue with the campaign settings for Dungeons and Dragons, old school (first and second edition) with a setting that I totally love: Al Qadim.
Al Qadim is the setting for Arabian Nights.
Genies... got em.
Desert warriors... got em.
Mysteries island kingdoms... got em.
Powerful desert sorcerors... yep got those too.
Everything you'd want in a campaign setting and more.
I love it.
It also happens to be the only campaign setting I have complete.
(Yeah call me major geek).
I own all the box sets, the monstrous compendium and the books.
There isn't alot of any of the above, so it wasn't a huge challenge to find them all.
What I really love about Al Qadim is the sense of awe and wonder the folks who wrote the books brought to the world.
The sense of genuiness.
It feels genuine.
From the genies in lamps to the holy slayers to the blood debt.
They culled the stories of a 1001 nights and other legends, not to mention a tremendous amount on the culture of the middle ages in the mid east.
Of course they changed a lot.
The concept of religion, while present (even in a radical form) is still polytheistic.
The races are all here too.
Elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, goblins you name it.
But the catch is, there are no real racial cultures, for the most part.
So you play an elf, you're pretty much treated like anyone else, same if you play an orgre or an orc.
More important than race is honor, station, piety and family.
These are important roleplaying elements.
That's another reason why I love this setting.
If you play in it correctly, you're actually forced to roleplay.
That's the trap of most settings.
Yes they all have s certain flavor, but they don't capture an essence, not like Al Qadim (or the even Oriental Adventures) did.
But it's easy to get away with playing the same types of characters.
Archetypes aren't a problem, every game system is based off archetypes.
The problem is getting into a rut while playing.
Bards are almost always the same.
As are fighters.
And wizards.
and... well you see my point.
That's why I am a fan of the kits.
Kit's are subjobs, or more definitive categories that characters can be placed in.
And kit's are mandatory for Al Qadim.
Why?
Well it's simple, they help add the flavor, and they aid in the roleplaying.
You'd roleplay a basic fighter much differently than you would a mumlak.
Mumlaks are slave soldiers. They spend their entire lives, from a baby till they die, in the service of their kingdom, or in this case the caliph.
And Sha'ir are not your run of the mill wizard.
They deal only with genie kind. IN fact they only way the can get spells is by sending their familiar, as small creature called a gen, to go get them.
Their real power comes from their ability to persuade and control genie.
Mostly why I love Al Qadim is because I like the stories the setting was inspired from.
Aladin and Ali Baba, Sinbad and the fourty thieves.
These tales are adventurous, tragic, and salacious and at times prurient are the epitome of what D&D and other roleplaying games were originally trying to capture.
High adventure, and epic events.
posted by F.G. Shaw @ 4:28 PM
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