Al-Qadim

Al-Qadim is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game which was developed by Jeff Grubb with Andria Hayday for TSR, Inc., and was first released in 1992. Al-Qadim uses One Thousand and One Nights as a theme and is set in the land of Zakhara, called the Land of Fate. Thematically, the land of Zakhara is a blend of the historical Muslim Caliphates, the stories of legend, and a wealth of Hollywood cinematic history. Zakhara is a peninsula on the continent of Faerûn in the world of Toril, the locale of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, although Al-Qadim is designed to stand on its own or be added to any existing campaign setting. The basic campaign setting was divided between two game products: Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures, a sourcebook describing character creation rules, equipment, and spells unique to the setting, and Al-Qadim: Land of Fate, a boxed set describing the land of Zakhara, with separate sourcebooks for the players and the Dungeon Master. The first Al-Qadim product, Arabian Adventures, was released in 1992. Arabian Adventures presents only the basic rules for playing a D&D game set in a general Arabian setting, much like the Oriental Adventures book. The specific details of the setting are dealt with in later publications. The Al-Qadim setting was designed with a limited scope, and was intended as a two-year project that was extended one more year beyond that because of its popularity. Shannon Appelcline commented on Al-Qadim's 1992 release as "an Arabic setting that ended up placed in the southern Forgotten Realms.