and six full color plates made a striking impression. Just as important, the Al-Qadim line marked the first time TSR used one artist for interior illustration throughout a whole line: the remarkable Karl Waller, whose atmospheric work conveys exactly the textures, exoticism, muscular genies, and empty desert expanses appropriate to the game line." He went on to say: "Still, even in its time the Arabian Adventures rulebook fell short of perfection. Though pretty, it lacks a distinctive writing style and sense of atmosphere. [...] does it simulate the flavor of the Arabian Nights tales? Only in part." He commented that the character kits "have flavor to spare", and Waller's art "inspires many adventure ideas. Yet for all their beauty, these pages only rarely describe the elements of Arabian adventures—the causes that assassins die for, the bargains that genies make, ambitions and aspirations of PCs, and the conventions of Arabian folktales. There is no attempt at all to describe what you actually do in an Al-Qadim campaign: explore the southern seas, wage holy war, stage palace intrigues, and so on. (This lack was remedied, in part, only in early 1994, in Gregory W. Detwiler's excellent article "Campaign Journal: Arabian Adventures Galore" in Dragon Magazine #202.)" He commented further, saying that the rulebook's "lack of Arabian flavor may derive partly from the uneasy relationship between the Arabian Nights adventures and standard AD&D rules. It's hard enough justifying elves and dwarves in this setting, and there's a worse lack. The Al-Qadim campaign accepts slavery and polygamy as facts of life, and dispassionately discusses the ways of holy slayers, but it never dares hint at that ultimate taboo of all AD&D campaign worlds, monotheism. We must presume that developing a fantasy equivalent of Allah would offend Muslims, whereas compromising Islamic culture with a polytheistic hodgepodge is just fine. No doubt TSR also wished to avoid unpleasant links to the modern Islamic world in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War." Varney concluded the review by saying: "The Al-Qadim rulebook impeccably presents a good set of tools for building an Arabian AD&D campaign, although it leaves the actual construction work to you—or to the host of supplements that followed. Given the fine quality of most of those supplements, this core product becomes essential for Arabian AD&D adventure." Reviews White Wolf #34 References Al-Qadim supplements Role-playing game supplements introduced in 1992