AD&D 2E Al-Qadim campaign setting

[cbwjm]

With the GM's sale on at the moment I decided to complete my collection of Al-Qadim PDFs from the DMs Guild. I never actually got to play this setting, but I absolutely love it. Making a setting where genies are all over the place, unique types of wizards with secret organisations (must be hard to be a fire elementalist while not being a member of the brotherhood of flame). The sha'ir and its very unique spellcasting ability allowing even a 1st level sha'ir to potentially cast a higher level spell or even a priest spell, binding or entreating genies having a sha'ir on your team would be very useful in the sandy deserts of Al-Qadim.

Genies were expanded upon, no longer were their just the elemental genies and the jann, now there were tasked genies that had transformed from their original elemental type to fit a specific task, such as summoning or binding a builder genie to make yourself a wizard's tower or palace.

A very homogenous setting, it would work well for later editions as elves, humans, dwarves, goblins, ogres, and orcs all lived together in the land of enlightenment without the stricter dividing lines of other settings. Even ogres might be found in the cities of enlightenment. I'd love to run adventures for it based on the movies and stories which inspired it. Sinbad, Aladdin (who apparently may have originally been Chinese), any of the stories of 1001 nights could easily be converted into adventures of the setting, though it's been so long since I've read them that I can't think of any off the top of my head except for Ali-Baba and his 40 thieves and the story of Aladdin (probably more disney than original story though)

I also like that the name of the setting is apparently complete nonsense that the designers liked the sound of.

Anyone else have fond memories of playing or reading even reading through the setting and imagining adventures within it?

 

[Eric V]

My absolute fav setting. I ran it in 5e, making a mega campaign out of A Dozen and One Adventures, Assassin Mountain, Cities of Bone, and Ruined Kingdoms. Obviously some changes had to be made, but in spirit it was basically the same. We loved it until the mechanics of 5e kinda got in the way.

I loved even just reading it over and over again.

 

[cbwjm]

That'd be cool, I like taking published adventures and converting them into campaign, I did a mini campaign woth the thunder rift modules.

I've mostly been reading the campaign guides for Al-Qadum but will be reading through the adventures as well. Might even be able to convince some friends to play some of them.

 

[Eric V]

That'd be cool, I like taking published adventures and converting them into campaign, I did a mini campaign woth the thunder rift modules.

I've mostly been reading the campaign guides for Al-Qadum but will be reading through the adventures as well. Might even be able to convince some friends to play some of them.

I found them to be full of flavour; I really enjoyed Kurtz's work.

 

[cbwjm]

I was reading the yak men description, they have a whole mountain kingdom and send spies into the zakharan cities using a magic jar ability to take over people. Reading about them, I can see a campaign or set of adventures stopping them from advancing their plots.

There's so many threads of intrigue in the campaign as well, even without using the adventures I'm sure people could be kept busy unravelling the various plots of power groups in the setting.

 

[SableWyvern]

Over the past decade, I've hunted down most of the box sets for the awesome maps. I had no interest in AD&D back in the day, and it's only relatively recently that I discovered how good many of the 2e settings were. Al Qadim is definitely up there as one of my favourites, and I have plans to run it at some point using Mythras.

I stumbled across Al Qadim because I was looking for a Persian/Arabian Nights style game or setting, and I was quite shocked at how good it was. For my own use, I won't be including all the demi-human/humanoid races (I was looking for an Arabian Nights setting, not a Persian D&D setting) and I don't really like how militant the various churches are written as being, but these are all things that are quite easy to tweak while retaining the things that make the setting great.

 

[Tonguez]

Probably because of my love of the various Sinbad the Sailor movies of the 1950-1970's I absolutely love Al-Qadim and in particular the Golden Voyages, Corsairs of the Great Sea. Along with City of Delights.
Its a fantastic setting that works well to capture a different flavour than the rest of FR while incorporating all the fantasy tropes. Being focussed on Cosmopolitan Cities and then expanding to desert Trade Caravans, sailing the exotic Islands and fighting Pirates its broad enough to expand from Arabian Adventures to the entire Indian Ocean - The Zanji Coast and Sahel States, Indian Ports, South East Asia and north to Ottoman Empire and Central Asia.

And yes the original story of Alladin says that he came from an unnamed City of China - which considering that the story was told in Persia was probably referring to one of the Muslim influenced Central Asian cities on China's Western Frontier.