WotC_Rodney on Ari M. and Al Qadim

[I'm A Banana]

No, he could be taken as saying that any D&D that is linked to FR doesn't get his money

This. I want a campaign setting without baggage.

Personally, I'd like a link to another "setting", FR or whatever, so we can have foreigners turning up from time to time to provide a bit of contrast.

Um....Ew.

Look, if I *want* European Fantasy Mashup Time, a little sidebar on mixing and matching with Al Qadim might be quite sufficient. Kind of like the notes throughout 3e's OA. That's TOTALLY fine.

HOWEVER, how many knights of the round table or settlers or crusaders did Aladdin or Ali Baba or Sinbad need?

IMO, one of the biggest mistakes of 'cultural' campaign settings is giving core European-esque D&D folks too much influence over the setting (see Maztica). The original Al Qadim was blissfully free of most FR influence, but the mere setting on a similar planet with similar metaphysics was enough to stop me from picking it up the first time around in 2e.

A few notes on how these two flavors mix, and I'm good to go. For the most part, I don't want to involve foreigners. The setting should stand proud without any outside influence.

This is all IMO, of course, and not everyone needs to agree, but I am adamantly NOT a fan of any page space on this being blown talking about people from far away lands. It should be as irrelevant as, say, Nyambe in the core rules. That is to say: basically irrelevant.

 

[amethal]

Look, if I *want* European Fantasy Mashup Time, a little sidebar on mixing and matching with Al Qadim might be quite sufficient. Kind of like the notes throughout 3e's OA. That's TOTALLY fine.

A few notes on how these two flavors mix, and I'm good to go. For the most part, I don't want to involve foreigners. The setting should stand proud without any outside influence.

That's fine with me as well.

If we disagree, its just on a question of degree - I could probably stretch to a page on it

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

That's fine with me as well.

If we disagree, its just on a question of degree - I could probably stretch to a page on it

Agreed.

Though I could accept something like the Byzantines - wily Greeks are always fun and I don't mind having adversaries or foreigners proximate to the setting. The cosmopolitan nature of the Near East is well worth embracing.

What I do mind is taking what's familiar to core DnD and making it proximate to the new genre.

A few notes and sidebars are a fantastic idea.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I'm a long-time FR campaigner, and I think that the two settings should be kept separate for their own sakes. FR shouldn't have had all this quasi-historical add-on stuff to begin with (and besides, it already has Calimshan, which was the closest thing in Ed Greenwood's original conception to a quasi-RW setting and is already stepping on Zakhara's toes flavor-wise); and AQ has the wonderful advantage of potentially spawning, by implication, an entire well-integrated, flavorful circa-9th-century fantasy Earth. (I'd probably go with a dark, secret-society-ruled Europe in the Ars Magica style.)

AQ does handle races in a very interesting manner. I like the translation of Islamic assimilationist dynamics to elves, dwarves, etc. as opposed to Zanj, Malians, Turks, Arabs, etc. The only issue I have with AQ is really that the races lose any actual raison d'etre they have other than being guys in funny suits. Without an elf "culture," a dwarf "culture," etc., one wonders why to have humanlike races at all.

 

[FourthBear]

One problem with a campaign world like Zakhara on the world of Toril was always the gods and cosmology. They frankly never really fit together well. Realms cosmology pretty firmly has a world creation myth involving Selune, Shar and Chauntea. And has the gods overseen by Ao the Overpower and various racial introduction stories. The religions of Zakhara were pretty much 180 degrees away from this and never really worked well with either of these concepts. So if there is going to be a return of a Zakhara like land, I would prefer it to be not associated with the Realms (or any other campaign I can think of).

 

[Nymrohd]

The think is Zakhara really had no relation to Faerun whatsoever. They were on the same map, but we never saw them interacting between the Durpari trade patterns and the pirates of the Great Sea

 

[Ranger REG]

I'm a long-time FR campaigner, and I think that the two settings should be kept separate for their own sakes. FR shouldn't have had all this quasi-historical add-on stuff to begin with (and besides, it already has Calimshan, which was the closest thing in Ed Greenwood's original conception to a quasi-RW setting and is already stepping on Zakhara's toes flavor-wise);

Meh.

Calimshan could be the quasi-RW equivalent of Moorish Spain.

Of course you still have Anauroch, which is totally outside the bound of RW in terms of how it exist.

OBTW, I am also a long-time FR campaigner. Doesn't mean everyone who plays FR for a long time agrees with you.

If you want to keep the campaign separate, that's fine by me, but it is be no different than one group playing Vampire in a Chicago setting as opposed to another group playing Vampire in a LA setting.

Or my group playing a Corymyr campaign as opposed to your group playing a Corymyr campaign.

Meh.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Hum... Isn't Thetyr Al-Andaluz and moor Spain, and Calimshan more the Ottomans?

 

[Klaus]

That's fine with me as well.

If we disagree, its just on a question of degree - I could probably stretch to a page on it

Kinda like monsters are (were) getting paragraphs for "[Monster] in Faerun" and "[Monster] in Eberron".

Devote two pages to "Zakhara in Faerun" and "Zakhara in Eberron" or "Adapting Zakhara".

 

[Fenes]

There's room for alternate god systems, the adama (or something like that) belief in the shining south works as well.

IMC, I simply assumed that the various gods are worshipped in different guises and forms, when applicable. In my custom semphar, the population worships the four elements, and beliefs each person's character is composed of a balance of all four elements, and their respective clichee-types. I made them a heretic splitter group from the land of fate that arrived in Semphar 1000 years ago by portal, led by a prophet.