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Arabian Adventures is an expansion for 2nd edition AD&D. It covers new rules and atmosphere for running an Arabian campaign. The specific campaign area (Zakhara) is not described much in the rules, and they are basically completely independent of them and could be used in any campaign. The book does an excellent job of presenting new rules that capture the feel of "Arabian Nights", but I was left wishing there was even more in the book.

The soft-cover handbook is well-organized. There is a good table of contents, and a fairly good index in the back. There is also an index of wizards spells and even footnotes for all the black and white illustrations in the book at the end. The cover illustration is very good, and the black-and-white illustrations inside capture the atmosphere well: they were all done by Karl Waller. The color illustrations inside were done by various artists, and they are almost all pretty bad.

The book has eight chapters and an introduction. The introduction starts with a fable of Scheherazade. It mainly tries to set the tone and explain the influences that formed the product. This is an excellent idea and gives a good idea what to expect: a focus on historical Arabia, mixed with fantastic tales from Arabian folklore, and with a dash of western conceptions of Arabia.

The first chapter has no rules and attempts to explain the culture and habits of the Land of Fate. It does a decent job in the short space provided, but it would have been better to have at least twice as much of this material.

The second chapter focuses on making characters for Al-Qadim. It describes all the factors that differentiate the characters from their vanilla AD&D counterparts. Zakhara (the Land of Fate) has almost no racial intolerance, it is superseded by cultural and religious intolerances. In addition, this chapter introduces a concept called Station that measures your standing and respect in the community. It's a well-thought out concept and they even have rules for faking it and how to modify how easy it is to change one's Station. As a nice final touch, the sourcebook gives common names that can be used for male and female characters.

The third chapter presents the kits available in Zakhara. Kits are mandatory, and this creates some problems. Many kits give benefits that mirror those of classes. For some reason, rangers cannot become corsairs, and corsairs gain the same two-weapon ability as rangers. This kit layering on classes is somewhat clunky - I think it would have been far better to restrict characters to the basic four classes and allow them to customize through kits, or to just present new classes. Layering kits on a large variety of classes produces strange results, such that a kit modifies a thief's skills but not a bard's.

Many of the kits are interesting, and there was some effort to have new forms of magic. The sha'ir is interesting, since the class's magic paradigm is completely different from the standard AD&D one, which can only be a good thing.

Chapter four introduces new proficiencies (skills) for Arabian campaigns. Yes, haggle is here. In general, these are ok and what is expected. I wish there had been more of them, covering more interesting facets, like rug-weaving or perhaps preaching or story-telling.

Chapter five introduces several new rules, like penalties due to heavy armor, the effects of calling on Fate, and the Evil Eye. This is an excellent idea, because the first time a character gets struck with the evil eye, they will really wake up to the fact they are in a different milieu.

Chapter six gives new equipment and price lists. This is fairly detailed and a good resource.

Chapter seven is a long discussion on playing a sha'ir and the nature of their gens and their powers and relations with genies. This is an excellent chapter and heavy use of sha'irs will certainly enliven the campaign, since their abilities are very different from standard mages. In general this section explains pretty clearly what the sha'ir has to do to utilize his powers and gives good guidelines on how to adjudicate their effects. Just this chapter alone is worth the price of the book for its ideas and rules.

Chapter eight gives new wizards spells with an Arabian flavor. Some of these seem a little under-powered. For example, desert fist is a fifth level spell that does 4d4 points of damage and forces all of the items on a target to save vs. crushing blow. It seems like this could be fourth or even third level. In addition, there are no cleric spells given, which seems like a real oversight. Many of the Dark Sun spells could probably be adapted, but real Arabian spells should have been included.

Ultimately, this is an excellent source-book. It expands the rules and ideas in AD&D and gives pretty good rules to play Arabian adventures. Ultimately it suffers from not changing things enough and not presenting enough material. New classes would have been a good idea since many of the classes in AD&D don't really fit the new paradigm. In addition, more work could have been done on the thief and priest classes to give them more of an Arabian flair as was done for the wizards. Definitely get this book if you are at all interested in Arabian campaigns, but you will be left wanting more.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Al-Qadim Arabian Adventures
Author: Jeff Grubb with Andria Hayday Category: game Company/Publisher: TSR Line: AD&D Cost: $18.00 Page count: 158 ISBN: 1-56076-358-2 SKU: TAR2126 Capsule Review by James Landry on 05/16/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Historical	Arabian Adventures is an expansion for 2nd edition AD&D. It covers new rules and atmosphere for running an Arabian campaign. The specific campaign area (Zakhara) is not described much in the rules, and they are basically completely independent of them and could be used in any campaign. The book does an excellent job of presenting new rules that capture the feel of "Arabian Nights", but I was left wishing there was even more in the book. The soft-cover handbook is well-organized. There is a good table of contents, and a fairly good index in the back. There is also an index of wizards spells and even footnotes for all the black and white illustrations in the book at the end. The cover illustration is very good, and the black-and-white illustrations inside capture the atmosphere well: they were all done by Karl Waller. The color illustrations inside were done by various artists, and they are almost all pretty bad. The book has eight chapters and an introduction. The introduction starts with a fable of Scheherazade. It mainly tries to set the tone and explain the influences that formed the product. This is an excellent idea and gives a good idea what to expect: a focus on historical Arabia, mixed with fantastic tales from Arabian folklore, and with a dash of western conceptions of Arabia. The first chapter has no rules and attempts to explain the culture and habits of the Land of Fate. It does a decent job in the short space provided, but it would have been better to have at least twice as much of this material. The second chapter focuses on making characters for Al-Qadim. It describes all the factors that differentiate the characters from their vanilla AD&D counterparts. Zakhara (the Land of Fate) has almost no racial intolerance, it is superseded by cultural and religious intolerances. In addition, this chapter introduces a concept called Station that measures your standing and respect in the community. It's a well-thought out concept and they even have rules for faking it and how to modify how easy it is to change one's Station. As a nice final touch, the sourcebook gives common names that can be used for male and female characters. The third chapter presents the kits available in Zakhara. Kits are mandatory, and this creates some problems. Many kits give benefits that mirror those of classes. For some reason, rangers cannot become corsairs, and corsairs gain the same two-weapon ability as rangers. This kit layering on classes is somewhat clunky - I think it would have been far better to restrict characters to the basic four classes and allow them to customize through kits, or to just present new classes. Layering kits on a large variety of classes produces strange results, such that a kit modifies a thief's skills but not a bard's. Many of the kits are interesting, and there was some effort to have new forms of magic. The sha'ir is interesting, since the class's magic paradigm is completely different from the standard AD&D one, which can only be a good thing. Chapter four introduces new proficiencies (skills) for Arabian campaigns. Yes, haggle is here. In general, these are ok and what is expected. I wish there had been more of them, covering more interesting facets, like rug-weaving or perhaps preaching or story-telling. Chapter five introduces several new rules, like penalties due to heavy armor, the effects of calling on Fate, and the Evil Eye. This is an excellent idea, because the first time a character gets struck with the evil eye, they will really wake up to the fact they are in a different milieu. Chapter six gives new equipment and price lists. This is fairly detailed and a good resource. Chapter seven is a long discussion on playing a sha'ir and the nature of their gens and their powers and relations with genies. This is an excellent chapter and heavy use of sha'irs will certainly enliven the campaign, since their abilities are very different from standard mages. In general this section explains pretty clearly what the sha'ir has to do to utilize his powers and gives good guidelines on how to adjudicate their effects. Just this chapter alone is worth the price of the book for its ideas and rules. Chapter eight gives new wizards spells with an Arabian flavor. Some of these seem a little under-powered. For example, desert fist is a fifth level spell that does 4d4 points of damage and forces all of the items on a target to save vs. crushing blow. It seems like this could be fourth or even third level. In addition, there are no cleric spells given, which seems like a real oversight. Many of the Dark Sun spells could probably be adapted, but real Arabian spells should have been included. Ultimately, this is an excellent source-book. It expands the rules and ideas in AD&D and gives pretty good rules to play Arabian adventures. Ultimately it suffers from not changing things enough and not presenting enough material. New classes would have been a good idea since many of the classes in AD&D don't really fit the new paradigm. In addition, more work could have been done on the thief and priest classes to give them more of an Arabian flair as was done for the wizards. Definitely get this book if you are at all interested in Arabian campaigns, but you will be left wanting more. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Al-Qadim Arabian Adventures