Arabian Nights at the Gaming Table: The Emirates of Ylaruam

I started playing D&D at the tender age of eleven. My father dropped me off at the local library and told me to meet some new friends. I'd never heard of the game until then, but there was a D&D club that met every Saturday. I got thrown into the deep end, playing a pregen ranger from the Giants series (Beek Gwenders, for you old-timers) who was with a group going through the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks module, which was the hot new module that summer. Talk about a steep learning curve. I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but it seemed to be a lot of fun.

Fortunately for me, the library had a copy of the old Moldvay Basic rulebook, which they were kind enough to lend me for a week so I could get an idea of what was going on. The other players in the group sneered at the 'beginner' material, but it was a life-saver for me. And, being the contrarian that I am, I developed a fondness for the B/X material despite their disdain. I still didn't know what a 'faerie fire' spell was, but I didn't care. There was real magic in that book, and I devoured it.

For Christmas, my parents got me the Cook Expert Set, which was my first introduction to the campaign setting that would eventually become Mystara. I still remember the amazing map, the weird names and the brief descriptions that accompanied them. Names that would become legendary in gaming circles: Karameikos. Glantri. Thyatis. And the Emirates of Ylaruam.

Ylaruam wasn't a big deal; it was desert stuff, which didn't interest my twelve-year-old self. I liked the elves and the Vikings, and I hadn't been exposed to the richness of the Arabian Nights stories yet. Still, it was an interesting place, and B4, The Lost City, was set there, so it had something to recommend it.

Five years later, the Gazetteer series began. While Karameikos had pride of place, being the traditional starting-point for a B/X or BECMI campaign, Ylaruam was the surprising runner-up, getting the second volume. I bought it as eagerly as I bought the first one, expecting a similar treatment of the exotic desert land. However, it was a much different structure; the Gazetteer format wasn't yet laid out as it would later be. It was the same size of a book, but it's focus was much, much different.

Written by veteran game designer Ken Rolston, Ylaruam started off similarly to the Karameikos book, detailing the regions history from both the 'what historians know' and 'what the Immortals know' perspectives. The second one, obviously, is the 'real' history of the land, as opposed what is commonly believed by the populace. And there was a timeline as well. I love timelines. It's one of my favorite things about Mystara, in fact: The timelines in almost every product.

Then we get an overview of the geography and the climate. The latter isn't hard to figure out; it's a desert. It's dry, it's hot, it's inhospitable...what do you expect? There's always been some controversy surrounding Ylaruam, as it's situated north of an empire much like the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, and directly south of the Viking raiders of the Northern Reaches. How exactly do you get a desert in there?

I don't remember if it's detailed in this book or in a later supplement or article, but the official explanation for Ylaruam's weird geography is Immortal tampering and a micro-climate that is really, really hot and dry. It's also related to the Elves of Alfheim and their magical forest that they created; I think it helped wipe out the vegetation in Ylaruam by using up all the rainfall to grow their trees. Elves are like that sometimes. Anyway, that's the 'canon' version, or something close to it, at least.

Next up are the various peoples of Ylaruam, including the Alasiyans (your typical desert-riding, camel-rustling desert tribes), the Makistani (refugees from Ethengar, a Mongol-like culture to the northwest of Ylaruam), the Nithians (the original inhabitants, but they aren't in charge anymore due to a massive curse that I won't detail here), and the Thyatians, who used to be the colonial overlords of Ylaruam until they rebelled a century prior to the campaign starting time.

Then we get a brief treatise on Ylaruam's economics, including a breakdown of the different major regions, such as the Emirate of Alasiya, the dominant group in Ylaruam at this point. This is followed by a discussion of the Ylari religion, the preachings and teachings of Al-Kalim and the Eternal Truth. Al-Kalim is a not-so-subtle version of Mohammed; Al-Kalim's philosophy is very Muslim in its outlook. His history runs almost as long as the history described in the first couple of pages, though it doesn't go into detail about what he's really up to at this point. I won't spoil it for those who haven't read it yet.

There are dervishes in Ylaruam; these are men who live in the wilderness like John the Baptist; they are clerics, and have some unique spells that replace some of the standard ones in the game. Then there's some basic 'this is what life is like here' stuff, and a discussion of the government and the various factions. It's basically what you'd expect from a culture based on late-medieval Islam: emirs, pashas, and sultans abound. We even get a foreign relations section, where the surrounding nations and the Ylari attitudes toward magic are placed within the greater concept of the world. Bascially, the Ylari hate the Thyatians for being their old overlords, they hate magic-users in general, they're not too fond of elves, they like the dwarves, they're fine with Karameikos, and they put up with the Darokinians because of the trade routes both countries use.

Finally, we get to the middle of the book, which includes a few pages on the nation from the player characters' perspective: lists of rumors they could hear in the market square, for example. There's also a helpful page on how to create an Ylari character, especially their names. Finally, there's a page of special rules for being in the desert and trying to not die of thirst.

And that gets us through to the halfway point. I'm skimming the heck out of this, but it's too much to do in a single post.