Arabian Legend Games

[Hopeless]

Has anyone tried this?

Was wondering how to handle this since most of the movies along these lines have been Sinbad except for the Prince of Persia movie but I am wondering if there are any other examples to find inspiration from?

I guess I better read up on tropes dealing with this setting maybe going so far as to invert them for example a female sorceress whose actually on the good side but with the usual bad reputation but up against a foe whose kidnapped several of her friends to secure their powers for their own use and she's the only one left who can rescue them... but to do that she needs help...

I wonder how this would be handled without messing it up?

 

[The Wolf]

I'd suggest reading things like: One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, for starters.

 

[ryhopewood]

I'd suggest reading things like: One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, for starters.

There are a few resources for other games that might be useful like GURPS Arabian Nights.

 

[DamonJynx]

If you have access to it, you could use the setting info from D&D's Al-Quadim setting.

 

[Prime_Evil]

If you want a good fantasy novel in the style of the Arabian Nights, try Saladin Ahmed's outstanding Throne of the Crescent Moon - it's recently been nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Award for Best Novel, as well as making the Locus Recommended Reading List for 2012. The author has posted the first chapter online if you'd like to get a sense of what the book is like. Doctor Adoulla Makhslood is one of the most original heroes to appear in a fantasy novel for years (he's overweight, almost 60, a bit lazy, and devout in his religious beliefs - but also an implacable foe of necromancers and their creations), plus Mouw Awa is a truly nasty villain. Ahmed has also published a short world guide to the Kingdoms of the Crescent Moon on his blog for people who want to use it as an RPG setting.


I'd also recommend The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones and The Lion of Cairo by Scott Oden.

 

[soltakss]

Films/TV Series with Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin and Ali-Baba are a good place to start for the flavour of the setting.

The Arabian Nights (1001 Nights) are essential as they show that there are very many different stories, some about sex, some about magic, some about adventure but always about the people.

The setting is full of stereotypes - Viziers are often wicked abusers, Caliphs are normally good rulers, sorcerers are evil, genies can be good or evil, Christians are untrustworthy and so on.

As a Legend game, the flavour should definitely be Middle-Eastern, Persian or Arabic. Magic should be very rare, except for the occasional magic item (Flying carpet, magical ring, magical lamp, bound genies) and sorcerers should be evil NPCs. PCs shouldn't have access to magic, unless they are very strange. This should really cover the Islamic Golden Age, rather than a generic Arabian Nights, and should focus on Iraq/Persia as the main backgrounds. The religion is Islam, specifically Sunni Islam, and some of the tales really hammer this home, however, religion is rarely a major issue in the Tales unless threatened by heretics or non-believers.

The theme of the game should be adventure, adventure and adventure. Sub-themes are romance, rescuing princesses, thwarting evil Viziers, and beggars becoming rich.

 

[alex_greene]

Films/TV Series with Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin and Ali-Baba are a good place to start for the flavour of the setting.

The Arabian Nights (1001 Nights) are essential as they show that there are very many different stories, some about sex, some about magic, some about adventure but always about the people.

The setting is full of stereotypes - Viziers are often wicked abusers, Caliphs are normally good rulers, sorcerers are evil, genies can be good or evil, Christians are untrustworthy and so on.

As a Legend game, the flavour should definitely be Middle-Eastern, Persian or Arabic. Magic should be very rare, except for the occasional magic item (Flying carpet, magical ring, magical lamp, bound genies) and sorcerers should be evil NPCs. PCs shouldn't have access to magic, unless they are very strange. This should really cover the Islamic Golden Age, rather than a generic Arabian Nights, and should focus on Iraq/Persia as the main backgrounds. The religion is Islam, specifically Sunni Islam, and some of the tales really hammer this home, however, religion is rarely a major issue in the Tales unless threatened by heretics or non-believers.

The theme of the game should be adventure, adventure and adventure. Sub-themes are romance, rescuing princesses, thwarting evil Viziers, and beggars becoming rich.

Another thing - hang up your cynicism outside the gaming room. Characters are more likely to prevail if they have a kind heart than a strong sword arm; wit, wiles and wisdom are the watchword for many of the heroes of these tales.

In bands of adventurers, there is likely to be some differentiation of the heroic types - the Leader, the Strongman, the Loremaster, the Tinkerer, the Female Lead (who can also be a Sorceress though not an Evil one, or a Shapeshifter or Telepath or have some sort of mystic schtick) and so on. But deep down, there is an unwritten covenant - that it is a stout heart full of Good which will prevail, not magic, swords or nimble fingers.

It's a mindset which might take getting used to. It's been a long time since I was six years old.

 

[Hopeless]

Can't see my players pulling off a good sorceress so probably stick her as an npc.

The idea I'm currently thinking is that she's one of several but has a fearsome reputation mostly because her former apprentices would rather people leave her alone and deal with them only, but she is reclusive and outside of her apprentices the other sorcerors' have particularly good reason to be scared of her.

The story is that she was responsible for training four of these other sorceresses whom cover one of the elements (Air, Earth, Fire and Water and are called the Lady of (Element)) but once they thought they had learnt enough from her they left and only one of them remained in contact (this however has been kept secret so general knowledge is that she could contact her former tutor when she needed to rather than pop down the road to speak to her when she wasn't babysitting her god daughter).

Now however two of them have been killed, another lies in a coma and the fourth has gone missing and the Lady of the Earth's husband has asked for adventurers' to deliver a request for aid from the Lady of the Void his wife's former tutor.

Officially she's supposed to be living somewhere so far inland that noone can locate her home, but she's been living a normal life near the home of the Lady of the Earth and is asked by her god daughter the child of her closest friend the Lady of the Earth to help find her mother but she's kept her true identity a secret to all barring those she taught and only the Lady of the Earth knows where she was living.

As mentioned there are other sorcerors who were trained by her former apprentices and some are downright evil some of whom seek revenge on the so-called Lady of the Void (her title given to her by the Lady of the Air) beacuse she sealed away their powers something that will play a part in the game I'm thinking up.

Hmm have this idea that the PCs are unaware who she is so they set out on a quest to find her only she's intent on finding her missing estranged friend and the bad guys are unaware she's with them.

Needs more thought but thinking up scenes where to gain the aid of a caliph they have to restore his son to his normal form except he's been cursed because he hired another sorceror to transform the child of the sorceress who cursed him into the form of a baboon (oh yes I remember that movie!) and to succeed both will need their curses removed leaving the Caliph's son as the PC's new enemy!

Hmm the Lady of Water lies imprisoned in a palace of ice that slowly increasing in size and the Lady of Fire was poisoned and deliberately immersed in lava and her enraged spirit has awakened the volcano that serves as her grave...

The Lady of Air was paralysed by a half human demon whose an old enemy of the five Ladies and intended as a recurring nemesis starting off as a major bad guy and maybe given time they'll eventually be able to fight him on unfairly equal terms (well he is a villain after all!).

Sorry the ideas are coming in thick and fast need to think a bit more!

 

[Hopeless]

So we have a caliph whose son has been cursed into the form of a baboon and their only hope is for a Sorceror to be found who can remove the curse.

However the most famous of these are a group of Sorceresses who name themselves after the element they specialise in.

Which one would you head for first?

The Lady of Air whose the wife of the ruler of a rival kingdom?

The Lady of Fire who lives on an active volcanic island?

The Lady of Water who lives on the shores of the frigid north?

Or the Lady of Earth who lives inland and is known to be married?

There is also rumours of a fifth sorceress named the Lady of the Void who taught all four, but noone outside of the Ladies knows where she lives...

I want to fine tune how to handle this and assume it involves the PCs in charge of a ship but not necessarily limits them to just that, any suggestions?

 

[alex_greene]

Use various Lores. Some Lores will lead the characters to an island (for which they need a map, requiring a bit of a delve in some tomb) wherein they will find one of the Ladies, and a missing piece of the map which will lead them to one of the others.

Perhaps the first one knows what to do, but the others are all required to bring together the requisite ritual elements and knowledge to perform the Concert ritual - and the characters must perform tasks for each one as advance payment for performing the restoration ritual, after freeing them all.

There would then remain the problem of these sorceresses now being loose again in the world, after all the effort spent in separating and imprisoning them all in the first place ...

 

[Hopeless]

Ooh now thats an interesting idea!

I was going with one being in a paralytic coma, another trapped in a palace of ice, the third stuck in the heart of a volcano and the last imprisoned somewhere high up and leave the fifth as a mystery thats eventually solved once they locate all four and realise why the fifth has remained in hiding all that time...

Thanks will need to work on the villains next!