Arabian Nights at the Gaming Table: Arabian Adventures, Part VI

We had our first taste of snow this morning. A cold, wet, insta-melt snow powered by winds strong enough to blow the trampoline halfway across the yard, or about a hundred feet overnight. So, it seems only fitting that I continue our examination of the Arabian Adventures rulebook and get back to desert stuff.

So, we're looking at priest kits. No specialty priests; there aren't any in Zakhara. So, regardless of what god a Zakharan priest worships, he gets the same, standard clerical abilities based on his kit. There are seven kits to look at: the Clerics of Order (three kits) and the Free Priests (four kits). The Clerics of Order are the Pragmatists, the Ethoists, and the Moralists; the Free Priests include the Hakimas (wise women), Kahins (idol-priests), Mystics, and Outland priests (the outsiders).

We'll start with the Clerics of Order. The Pragmatists are the most common cleric of the Land of Fate, wandering about and preaching tolerance and mediation instead of kicking followers of other religions in the shins. They can and will fight when necessary, but it's not their go-to tactic for the most part. Any cleric (race, gender, etc.) can be a Pragmatist. They get Religion as a bonus proficiency, of course, and their most popular church is the Temple of Ten Thousand Gods. They get the standard spell spheres that clerics get, regardless of which deity (or deities) they serve. Basically, they're as close to a bog-standard D&D cleric as Al-Qadim has to offer.

Next up are the Ethoists, or Clerics of the Faith Ethical. These are the temple workers, the ones who maintain the mosques and monasteries, sort of like a parish priest. They can't be chaotic, but that's the only restriction on the kit in terms of who can take it. Eventually (around 8th level) they are the ones who set up new mosques and temples. They're less tolerant than the Pragmatists when it comes to religious ecumenism, insisting that those who don't follow the same faith they do are misguided. But they won't push people around about it, either. They get Religion and Bureaucracy as their bonus proficiencies, as well as a few special benefits from the kit. Safe haven, food and board within the temple, borrowing money, fighter-servants when needed, and an assistant once they've gained a few levels. Like the Pragmatist, the Ethoist gets the standard cleric spheres, and they can, of course, turn undead.

Third, we have the Moralists. These are the Taliban-types, the hardcore, strict types who follow every dietary law and consider themselves the 'purest' of all priests. Militant and arrogant, you're either part of their faith, or you're a godless heathen. Their favorite colors are black and white. Moralists must be lawful, and of any race or gender (although the Moralists do segregate men and women). They also take vows of celibacy and chastity, and give their lives entirely to the mosque. They are not at all fun at parties, and even the lawful-good ones can be implacable enemies of a group of PCs if they don't measure up. They get Religion and Debate as their bonus proficiencies, as well as the same benefits the Ethoists get. Their spells are cleric-standard. They also have some serious clout within their temple, able to push around lower-level moralists. However, this cuts both ways; higher-level moralists will tell them what to do, and they'd better get it done. Oh, and the temple gets 50% of whatever money they earn adventuring or whatever.

So, those are the 'traditional' clerics of Zakhara. Next up, we have the Free Priests, starting with the Hakima, or wise woman. These are not pacifists, but they aren't bloodthirsty fighters, either. These women (no men allowed) have a special ability to see the truth, which makes them valuable advisors to rulers and leaders. They don't do a lot of fighting, having only a few weapons to choose from, and while they get no bonus proficiencies, they are considered to have access to all NWP groups, meaning they don't pay extra slots for any proficiency regardless of who normally has access to it. Their primary power is their truth-sight, which allows them to detect all sorts of things, including disguised shapeshifters, depending on their level. They get a limited selection of spells, and can't turn undead. They also can't use any class-specific magic items, only the general-use ones. Only human and half-elven women can become Hakimas.

The Kahin, or idol-priest, worship powers that predate Zakhara's enlightenment, and thus are considered uncultured and uncivilized by the majority of the people. They are as close as Zakhara gets to having druids, but they aren't quite the same. They are always some variation of neutral in alignment, and there are no other restrictions on who can become a Kahin. They are wanderers and teachers, rather than settling down, and tend to preach a doctrine of moderation in all things in tune with the environment. No, they aren't Greenpeace. They get Survival as a bonus proficiency, but only get to wear hide armor and no shields. Their special abilities don't kick in until they get to 16th level, at which point they start collecting immunities to various things (weapons, elements, creatures, etc.). Their spells are limited, mostly the same as a druid would get. They don't turn undead, either.

Mystics are hermits in the desert, sort of like the desert dervishes of Arabian tales. They can use additional weapons beyond those a cleric normally can, and get Religion and one other bonus proficiency. The other proficiency has to relate to how they receive their spells; dancing, meditation, singing, etc. are typical methods to get spells. They get the standard clerical spells, and can turn undead. They even attract followers at high levels like standard clerics do. However, their spells can only be retrieved through their particular method, and Clerics of Order don't like them (2-point reaction penalty for Pragmatists and Ethoists, 4-point penalty for Moralists). Any race or gender can become a mystic, and demihumans with this kit can exceed their maximum level by 2.

Outland Priests are the outsiders, yadda yadda yadda, like the other 'non-kit' kits for non-Zakharan characters. They can even be specialty priests and have outsider kits. However, they get reaction penalties in Zakhara, which get worse with native priests (-2 for most people, -3 for pragmatists, and -4 for ethoists and moralists). Other than that, there's nothing special about these guys; they're visitors from another land, nothing more.

And that concludes our overview of the various kits of Zakhara. Next time, we'll tackle the new proficiencies of the Land of Fate.

Arabian Nights at the Gaming Table: Arabian Adventures, Part V

Let's get sneaky, shall we? The rogue kits of Al-Qadim are a diverse bunch, from the gregarious barber to the deadly holy slayer. There are seven kits in total, but not all of them are for thieves; bards are rogues, too. The seven are the sa'luk, the barber, the beggar-thief, the holy slayer, the matrud, merchant-rogue, and rawun.

We start off with the sa'luk, who is basically the adventuring thief of the Arabian lands. It's the 'generic' rogue kit of Zakhara, and includes the outlanders (like the ajami wizard). The difference with these outsiders, though, is that they aren't treated as outsiders the way the wizards are; thieves stick together, even if they are different. They can even take kits from other sources like the Complete Thieves' Handbook, keeping most of their special benefits. The kit is also for local thieves, though; like the outsiders, they are free-roaming adventurers, not tied to any particular location. Bards can take this kit as well as thieves.

The barber, on the other hand, is found in just about any bazaar, and most of them are quite gregarious and friendly. But they are skilled with their razors, skilled enough that some of them double as surgeons and doctors. This kit is open to thieves and bards, any race or gender. They tend to congregate in cities, not the desert. They get healing and herbalism as bonus proficiencies, which is a pretty sweet deal, since they normally cost two slots apiece. Bards who are barbers also get reading/writing and a modern language for free. The amusing thing about this kit is the description of how barbers are portrayed in folk tales. They talk and talk and talk, going into long-winded nested stories that go on forever, driving customers crazy. That is actually taken directly from the Arabian Nights, where there is indeed a barber who does exactly that, telling ridiculous stories about his seven brothers that ultimately has no point. 

All barbers have the bard's ability to discern the general use and purpose of a magical item; bards get 5% per level, thieves get 3%. They get less regular thieving skill points than they otherwise would at first level, since so much of their training involves learning how to barber (and heal people).

Next up is the beggar-thief. Hi, Aladdin! This is exactly what it looks like: thieves who are also beggars. Again, these are more of a city dweller; there aren't too many opportunities to fleece passers-by in the middle of a desert. This is a thief-only kit, and western beggar-thieves (from the Complete Thieves' Handbook) are considered sa'luks in Zakhara, not beggars. Don't ask me why; I didn't write the book.

Obviously, beggars get begging as a bonus proficiency. They can have other marketable skills such as weaving or tailoring, but beggars don't generally want people to know they could work for a living; it cuts into their profits. Their starting equipment is...a bowl. Nothing like reinforcing the stereotype, is there? They also don't tend to wear armor, since it interferes with their begging. Magic items are even worse, since they're a flat -5 to the begging proficiency check. They're great at disappearing in crowds, but they are treated as having the lowest of stations (because they do). Any race or gender can be a beggar-thief, of course.

Fun fact: Dragon 22 was the first (and only, prior to Al-Qadim's launch) magazine to include an article about the holy slayers, the original assassins. And unlike the 1st edition assassins, these guys are religious zealots who kill not for money, but for paradise. Well, here they are, in all their hidden glory. The holy slayers are fanatics who serve their own particular fellowship and its leadership. They are described as 'ghosts of the desert.' They tend to live in remote locations where their recruits are brought and trained. In Zakhara, there are several of these fellowships, including the Soft Whisper (all females), the Wind of Fate (all males), the Wrath of the Old, the Storm Which Destroys, and Grey Fire; there are probably others as well.

Holy slayers have a simple life: live your life as normal until the call comes, at which time you drop everything and do whatever your master commands. Word of advice: Don't ignore the call, unless you want to spend the rest of you (likely short) life dodging the people who trained you. If you really screw the pooch, the Grandfather (or Grandmother) might come after you personally.

Holy slayers get to specialize in a weapon, just as fighters do; each fellowship has their signature weapon (all one-handed). They have superior stealth abilities compared to other thieves, but lower pickpocket and read languages skill. They get Disguise as a bonus proficiency, which enables them to hide in between suicide missions Elves, gnomes and halflings are rarely holy slayers, although dwarves are more common (especially among moralist dwarves). Bards can't be holy slayers.

The fifth kit is the matrud; these are the desert thieves (no bards), rejected by their tribes and living on the edges of what they think of as civilization. Another thief-only kit, these guys can be found everywhere from the sea to the desert; they're outcast, as well-respected as beggars. In fact, they eke out a living by doing things even the beggars don't want to do. They're very transient, usually one step ahead of the local law. They travel light, and can be of any race and gender; non-human matruds are sometimes branded or otherwise marked.

Merchant-rogues are the stereotype for all merchants; not all merchants are thieves, but enough of them are that the label sticks. That and their notorious haggling practices convinces most people that none of them can be trusted to be honest. This reputation makes it easier for merchant-rogues to operate; everyone expects you to be a thief anyway, so why disappoint them? This is another thief-only class. Needless to say, they get haggling as a bonus proficiency, and often improve it to obscenely high levels. Their special abilities revolve around money: They can buy in bulk at low prices from other merchants, and they can set up a profitable company. I mean, any character could do that, but these guys are really good at it. Of course, they have to pay taxes on their profits, because even fantasy worlds can't escape the taxman.

Finally, there are the rawuns, the bards of the desert (no thieves allowed). Like their western counterparts, rawuns are the tale-tellers, the walking Wikipedias, and party animals. Most of them are members of desert tribes; they might appear in the cities as well. Desert rawuns are often advisers to shieks and tribal leaders, while in the cities they can be street entertaininers all the way up to grand viziers. They can all sing (bonus proficiency) and can recite epic poems from memory; they love to collect books and scrolls to add to their knowledge. They get a bonus to their legend lore ability, and have the terrifying ability to call down the evil eye upon someone once a day. They can also remove it from someone else instead.

And that's Zakhara's rogues. One more set of kits to go: the priests.

Arabian Nights at the Gaming Table: Arabian Adventures, Part IV

Well, so much for consistency. Let's try this again. We're back to the Arabian Adventures kits, and this time we're looking at the wizards. There are only three wizard kits in Arabian Adventures, four if you count the 'outlander' wizard kit. Two of the kits are pretty standard wizards, but the third is Al-Qadim's signature class, and one of the best design concepts TSR ever came up with.

We'll do the easy ones first. The sorcerer is the bog-standard wizard, or at least as close to it as you get in this game. Wizard spells in Al-Qadim are divided into five categories: the four elements of flame, sand, sea, and wind, and the 'universal' category, where everything else fits. Sorcerers get to use any spells in the universal category, and also pick two elements to use. Unlike the 'normal' elements of air, earth, fire and water, there are no opposing elements in Al-Qadim; a sorcerer can pick any two elements, such as fire and water, if that's what he wants. However, they can never use spells from the other two elements, no matter what. Or at least, they can't ever 'learn' them, but perhaps a scroll or a wand would be permitted. That should be a DM's call, but I'm inclined to widen the ban just to keep the character's theme intact. Otherwise, you end up with 'my sorcerer specializes in wind and sea spells, but he carries a wand of fireballs just in case.' Yeah, we'll make that a wider ban.

Sorcerers are the most common wizards in Zakhara, although they aren't hanging out on every street corner (unless you really want to do that). They're also the most socially accepted of the wizard classes, having the least damaging reputation compared to the other two. Any race allowed to have magic-users can be a sorcerer, and of course there are no gender limits, because women could and were sorcerers in the Arabian Nights stories.

Next up is the elementalist. There are really four of these kits, one for each element, but their abilities are functionally identical regardless of the element they choose. Each of these can use universal spells, and only one element. However, they get some nice bonuses with their element, adding +2 to any saving throws or proficiency checks related to their element, as well as +1 to damage inflicted with it.  They also reduce the target's saving throws by -2 when attacking with spells of their element. Conversely, if they are attacked by magic using their element, they get two points taken off of the damage done.

Now, for the downside. Elementalists are the most feared of Zakharan wizards, thanks to the reputation of one particular group of elementalists: The Brotherhood of the True Flame. These are called out as one of the big bad organizations of Al-Qadim, being a sort-of magical mafia that takes down not only any mages of other elements, but even fellow fire elementalists who don't join their ranks. And they are not a nice group at all; even flame elementalists who aren't part of the Brotherhood have a tendency toward evil alignments. So fearsome is their reputation that any elementalist is going to be looked at sideways, regardless of how nice they might be. Most people don't differentiate between True Flame elementalists and any other group. It might be possible to use that reputation in social circumstances, but overall, it's a definite negative. Thanks to the reputation and predatory nature of the Brotherhood, elementalists are a rare breed in Zakhara.

The ajami is the outsider wizard, the foreigner who has no culture and no manners by Zakharan standards. Note that western elementalist wizards (from the Tome of Magic) are considered ajami, not elementalists, in Zakhara. There's nothing special about these guys, although they can replace the 'ajami' kit with one from another source (such as the Complete Wizard's Handbook).

Finally, we get to the big guy: the sha'ir. These are, as mentioned earlier, Al-Qadim's signature class, the one class that definitely screams 'Arabian Nights' tales. These are the genie masters (or genie worshipers, or genie servants, or whatever relationship they have with the genies might be). They are unlike other wizards in that they don't study scrolls and spellbooks and memorize their magic ahead of time. Instead, they each have a small familiar called a 'gen', a tiny elemental of one of the four (Arabian) elements. The gen is a spell-fetcher, going out to 'find' a spell for its master and bringing it back so the sha'ir can cast the spell.

It's a pretty neat concept, but it seems pretty limited. After all, the gen can only get one spell at a time, and it takes a while to get them. However, there are some serious advantages to this method of spell-casting.

First, the sha'ir isn't restricted to spells in his spellbook; he can get any spell he wants. And I do mean any spell, including cleric spells. Mind you, those ones can (and do) take longer to retrieve. However, it's still a big deal when your sha'ir can pull out a neutralize poison to save your dying cleric.

Second, the sha'ir has a special bond with genies, and gains special abilities related to them. These won't be detailed until a later chapter, but they can be pretty significant, especially at higher levels. Let's just say that now we know where efreet bottles and rings of djinni summoning come from.

Sha'irs are usually loners, but some will serve as advisors to powerful rulers. And, unlike sorcerers and elementalists, anyone can be a sha'ir; dwarven and halfling sha'irs are permitted, although they have significant level restrictions.

And there we have the Arabian wizards. Ja'far from Aladdin would probably be a sorcerer, since he used both sand and flame magic, and he really didn't have much of a relationship with the Genie.

Next up, the rogue kits!

Arabian Nights at the Gaming Table: Arabian Adventures, Part III

Hey, two posts in the same week! Improvement!

So, we're taking a look at Chapter 3, which is all about Kits. I'm going to break this chapter up into a couple of parts, since there is a lot to go through here. Not one page at a time, though. Remember, this is a 2e book, so players of more recent editions might not recognize some of the terminology. Since I don't know anything about 4e or beyond, I can't really help bridge those gaps. Sorry. I do know that proficiencies are basically skills, although the mechanics are different from 3e. and 3.5.

After the usual introduction and explanation of the various aspects of kits, we get straight to the warriors. Most of these are available to fighters, rangers and paladins, although there are some exceptions. I wonder how paladins and rangers would work in this setting; paladins are pretty obviously Christian warriors, based on both Joan of Arc and Sir Galahad. And rangers come straight out of Lord of the Rings, essentially a gaming version of Aragorn. I suppose it was easier to look at these as archetypes instead of creating a whole new class, but it's an awkward fit for a setting based on Islamic fairy tales.

Anyway, the seven warriors are: The Askar, your basic, typical warrior; Corsairs, your sailors and pirates; Desert riders, the 'nomad' types who ride horses and/or camels; the Faris, or holy warrior (the paladin equivalent); the Mamluk, slave-soldiers who are usually in charge anyway; Mercenary Barbarians, the 'uncivilized' types from outskirt lands, and Outland Warriors, who are outright foreigners (typical 'western' characters from the core books).

One more thing: Being a fantasy world, there are no gender restrictions for any of these kits; women can be mamluks or corsairs just as well as the men.

The Askar are the 'urban' fighters, the village militias and such. They can be caravan guards or palace officials, and are generally the fighters trusted with important missions. However, they're more provincial, assuming that wherever they are from is better than everywhere else, and they aren't afraid to show it. They are also more literate than typical warriors, getting reading/writing as a bonus proficiency. Their only special benefit is their 'home town' bonuses, where they get a +2 bonus to proficiency checks related to town business. It's not applicable in combat or other situations, just when dealing with the locals in their own town. They can also buy their starting equipment at cheaper prices in their home town, which is a nice bonus for beginning characters. Any race can be an askar, as can any of the three warrior classes.

Next is the Corsair. Rangers can't be corsairs, but paladins can. Hey, a paladin's sea-warhorse! There's an image for you. Anyway, corsairs are brave, meritorious, and free, riding the waves instead of the dunes. They are not quite outside the societal bounds, but they are on the borders of civilization. They tend to hop from port to port, and love to explore and find new lands. Sinbad is the obvious archetype here. However, they are also pirates, looting and pillaging in the style of the Barbary Pirates from our history. They start out with seamanship as a bonus proficiency, and are restricted to light armor (no better than studded leather) at first. They can upgrade if they want, but they lose a lot of their efficiency when wearing metal armor, including their two-weapon fighting ability. They fight like rangers in that respect, with no penalties to attack rolls for using two weapons. They start out with less money than the typical warrior, which isn't that big a deal since their armor purchases are restricted anyway. Any race can be a corsair, including a gnome, halfling or dwarf. Good luck to the latter with swimming in the ocean.

Alright, the Desert Riders. These guys are the 'classic' Arabian warriors, sweeping out of the desert on their mounts and terrorizing the civilized peoples in the cities. Well, not necessarily. But they are definitely survivalists in the desert. To their fellow nomads, desert riders are the ultimate warriors (no, not the wrestler), the heroic paragons they all aspire to be like. To the small towns they like to raid, they're just thieves and terrorists. Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinions. Desert riders can be good or evil, so there isn't a 'standard' type of warrior among their number. Their most important possession is their mount, which can be either a camel or a horse. They start with riding specialization with one of the two types of mount, which makes them even better riders, and they also have survival proficiency for the desert. They won't wear anything heavier than chain mail, since they live in the desert. Their expertise with their own mounts makes them experts in evaluating other horses or camels, meaning that any horse (or camel) they buy will always improve in quality while in their care. Some unscrupulous types might train up a horse to a better quality, then sell it; after a week, the horse (or camel) reverts back to its original quality. This doesn't help the desert riders' reputation. Outside of the desert, they are less effective at proficiency checks (but not combat). They start with a mount, as well as a small amount of coin to buy their weapons and such. Only humans, elves and half-elves can be desert riders, since the other races are too small to properly ride a horse (or camel).

The Faris is the paladin of the Arabian desert, although they are not restricted to a good alignment; they can serve evil causes as well. However, the majority are good, and this is definitely the paladin kit to take, with their abilities meshing well with those of this kit. They get religion as a bonus proficiency, of course. They aren't restricted in their armor or weapons, although considering the terrain and climate, they probably won't be wearing full plate armor. They get bonuses when dealing with members of their faith, whether laypeople or clergy, and can draw upon the local temple's resources for a brief time (no more than a week). However, they can't borrow magic items, full stop. On the negative side, they are also obedient to their faith, which means the local imam can pluck him out of his adventuring party and tell him to go chastise the desert riders who just sacked the temple on the other side of those hills. If he doesn't do what he's told, there are consequences. They also tithe 20% of their income from adventuring (or anything else). Any starting money they don't spend gets donated. Any race can be a farisan.

Mamluks are a historical group, based on the jannisaries of the Ottoman Empire. They are slaves, bred for battle, but they are also bureaucrats and professional soldiers, to the point that they were effectively running Turkey for a time. They are a strict meritocracy; you didn't have nepotism to help you advance, since everyone in the organization was a slave, even the highest-ranked generals. The mamluks of the Land of Fate wear facial tattoos to identify their particular organization and their rank within that group. Rival groups tend to respect each other, since they're all very good at what they do. Mamluk adventurers are a possibility, since they can be given leave from their units (with the understanding that they will report anything they learn back to their superiors). They use the curved khopesh sword that was common in Egypt, and get both reading/writing and bureaucracy as bonus proficiencies. Their starting equipment includes a set of laminated scale mail and their sword, as well as a little bit of money. They don't need much money; their needs are taken care of by their organization. They are part of a chain of command, giving orders to lower-level members and taking orders from higher-ranked ones. All races can become mamluks; demi-humans, with their longer lifespans, tend to rise high in the ranks over time.

Mercenary Barbarians are the uncivilized warriors, but not the European-style foreigners; they get the next kit. These are the tribes living on the outskirts of Zakharan civilization: the hill tribes, the plainsmen, and the jungle warriors. They've left their homes to come to the Land of Fate, for various reasons. Being uncivilized, they take a -2 penalty to reaction checks from anyone not from the same homeland as they are, and reactions will never be higher than 'indifferent.' These are mercenaries, as the title indicates, so they basically fight for the money. Unlike the mamluks, these warriors aren't organized, sometimes having rivalries even with warriors from their own homelands. They all learn the short sword and the spear, as well as a third weapon from their own homeland. They also get survival as a bonus proficiency (based on their home terrain), as well as the Midani language, which is Zakhara's equivalent of the 'common' tongue. Their reputation as savage brutes gives them an advantage in intimidating native Zakharans, but it also gives them the penalty mentioned above. They don't get to keep any of their starting money, either; whatever they don't spend is lost. Any race can be a barbarian mercenary.

Finally, there is the Outland Warrior. These are the foreigners, whether they be from the 'west' or the 'far east,' viewed as uncivilized savages regardless of how they see themselves. They don't even speak the language! The interesting part of this kit is that it can encompass kits from other sourcebooks like the Complete Fighter's Handbook; any of those kits will qualify as an 'outland warrior' in Zakhara. They are restricted in that they can't learn any of the Zakharan-specific weapons or proficiencies at first; they are newcomers, after all. Any race can be an outland warrior, although some of the demi-humans from other lands might struggle with Zakhara's racial equality; elves and dwarves don't hate each other here, and just because you're a dwarf doesn't mean you can go all John Cleese on an orcish wedding and expect to be treated as anything but a mass murderer by the authorities.

Next time: The Wizard kits, including the legendary sha'ir!

Arabian Nights at the Gaming Table: Arabian Adventures, Part II

Since Castalia House has been so kind as to link to my previous post, I suppose it's high time I write the next one in this series. I really, really need to get more consistent on this.

So, Chapter 2 of the Arabian Adventures rulebook discusses Characters. Specifically, PC races and classes. The ability scores get a two-sentence paragraph that says 'look at the Player's Handbook for this info'. That's easy enough; there are no special rules for ability scores in Al-Qadim.

Races are likewise the same as they are in the PH, although humans dominate the culture. Elves don't stick to the forests (which is good, since Al-Qadim has a lot of desert terrain), dwarves aren't restricted to living in the mountains and hills, and humanoids (orcs, goblins, gnolls, even ogres) can be found in the cities.

Here's the part that doesn't jive well with me. "Despite their small numbers, nonhumans suffer almost none of the prejudices found in most "Western" AD&D campaigns. In comparison, Zakhara is an egalitarian society. Here the standard “racial hatreds” of the AD&D game—such as the antipathy between dwarf and elf, or hatred between gnome and goblin—no longer exist. Zakharan elves deal with orcs and dwarves as easily as they deal with humans (though it’s true that many elves ultimately prefer to deal with other elves)."

Well, that's a noble, very modern Western viewpoint. Without getting political, I'm going to point out that the Islamic culture on which this is based has no such egalitarianism at any point in its history. So, this is very much a Westernized, idealized fantasy version of the world. I'm sure there are people who enjoy playing in that sort of game, but it just cuts against the grain for me. One of the fun things about playing the demihuman races in D&D is the fact that they are different, and they get treated differently by the normal people in society. Can you imagine if Drizzt Do'Urden had surfaced in Zakhara instead of Icewind Dale? I mean, aside from the constant heatstroke he'd be suffering. But there goes all that story potential of a drow on the surface; he'd be treated as a religious outsider, but being a drow wouldn't faze anyone, not even the elves.

No, the racial issues being handwaved away by the sheer awesomeness of the Law of the Loregiver isn't a good take, in my opinion. Better to just leave the demihumans out altogether, or create new ones.

Oh, and the racial harmony in Zakhara means dwarves and gnomes don't even get their combat bonuses against certain humanoids. We also learn that dwarves and gnomes can actually become wizards in this setting, although dwarves are restricted to the sha'ir kit, can't multiclass, and are restricted to 10th level. Gnomes aren't forced to be illusionists, since the normal specialist wizards aren't available in Zakhara.

Speaking of kits, this is one of the highlights of the book. There are no generic 'fighters' or 'wizards' in Zakhara; every character must take not only a class, but a kit as well. There are no druids or, as mentioned above, specialist wizards in Zakhara, unless they are foreigners. And even the foreigners get their own kits. Multi-class characters must also take kits, one for each of their classes. So, instead of an elven fighter-wizard, you might have an elven corsair/water elementalist, which would be a pretty potent combination.

Each kit has a special statistic called 'station,' which ranks from 1-20 and determines your place in the social pecking order; the higher, the better. The highest station a PC can start with is 12, for one of the three kits of priests (Pragmatist, Ethoist, and Moralist). Beggar-thieves can't start higher than 3. NPCs can, of course, go higher. Station can be improved through experience or money. If your experience level is higher than your initial station score, your station automatically moves up to match. I just had a vision of a 20th-level beggar-thief now dealing on equal terms with the Sultan of the realm.

Station has gaming effects; the highest-station person in the party is assumed to be its leader/spokesperson, and interruptions from their lessers (other PCs with lower station scores) will impact the speaker's station. Being a criminal, enslaved, or too broke to buy a meal will negatively affect your station, of course. Station can be masked, although you risk being found out, which will have negative consequences.

In some parts of the Land of Fate, station is fixed in a caste system. You can fall, but you can't rise. There is no specific such land indicated here (since the setting hasn't been put together yet), but the DM can include such places if he wants. In caste systems, don't speak to people too low on the station totem pole, or your own will drop.

Next up, names. There are some example names taken from the Arabian Nights as well as actual Middle Eastern names, with examples of how to construct surnames. There's also a note that 'Abdul' is not a name; it means 'slave of the', which is nonsensical and doesn't work.

And that does it for chapter two; next up, the big chapter on kits. Which I will do this week, period.

Arabian Nights at the Gaming Table: Arabian Adventures

After the middling reaction (at best) to the Emirates of Ylaruam, TSR took their Arabian Nights interest into 2nd Edition AD&D with the first product of the Al-Qadim line, Arabian Adventures. The book makes it clear: Unlike GAZ2, this time we're going full-blown fantastic adventures, leaving the real-world comparisons to a minimum. Genies, sorcerers, desert scions with secret noble bloodlines...oh, yeah. Bring it all on. We even get the introductory scene from the Arabian Nights stories, with King Shahryar and Scheherazade and the start of the tales (not the Richard Burton version, of course; TSR was very much a PG company at this time).

After the introductory story, we are told that this book is about stories Scheherazade might have told if she'd gone on for another thousand nights. And there will be a fantastic setting filled with those magical wonders, with lots of fun stuff to explore, fight, and steal. Because the only difference between a hero and a grave-robber is whether or not the character is a PC, right?

They do pay some small homage to the historical Arabic Empire and culture, although there is no monotheistic religion here; even in a fantasy Arabia, TSR wasn't going to do 'Fantasy Islam,' especially in the wake of the first Gulf War (Arabian Adventures came out in 1992, one year after the first Iraq invasion). The Arabian Nights themselves, obviously, are a major influence, but not only in their literary form; Hollywood movies and North American perceptions of the Arabian Nights are also going to factor heavily. Sounds like a fun place to adventure to me.

So, Chapter 1 is an overview of Zakhara, the Land of Fate, where this fantasy Arabia is located. It's officially set in the Forgotten Realms (because everything had to be about the Realms in the early 1990s), but it doesn't have to be there. It's placed south of the main FR setting, Faerun, and west of the Kara-Tur, the land of the Oriental Adventures setting, so you can have a whole Marco Polo thing going on if you really want.

Needless to say, Zakhara's primary terrain feature is...desert. Two of them, in fact: The High Desert and the Haunted Lands. It's not all desert, of course; there's lush jungle to the northeast, and coastal lowlands where the cities are across the southern parts of the land. Lots of islands, too. Because you can't do Sinbad without lots of islands. Most of these islands are in the Crowded Sea, which is the sea to the south. On the north coast are the Corsair Domains, where lots of pirates hang out. Because if there aren't any pirates, what's the point of being on the water in the first place?

Arabian Adventures took a very different view on race in D&D; tolerance is the name of the game, and everyone in Zakhara gets along regardless of their race. So, elves and dwarves hang out at the bazaar, gnomes and half-orcs swap humorous stories at the coffee houses, and ogres give halflings piggyback rides on religious holidays. The reason for this is that everyone is so enlightened thanks to the amazing laws produced by the Loregiver (a woman who takes Mohammed's place in history), which convinced everyone to hold hands and sing Kumbaya across the desert. Okay, then. However, racial level limits and class restrictions still apply, so your half-orc isn't going to be a mighty sorcerer no matter how pious he might be. That wouldn't happen until 3rd edition eight years later.

Instead, culture in Zakhara is cut across two basic lines: the Al-Badia, or nomads, who hang out in the deserts, and the Al-Hadhar, who live in the cities and villages of the Land of Fate. The Al-Badia hold the city-dwellers in contempt as soft, money-grubbing effete snobs; the Al-Hadhar consider the nomads to be smelly, uncivilized, and poor. They don't go to war with each other; that would be uncivilized, after all. They just don't hang out at the pub on Sundays.

Honor gets a big writeup, because it's pretty darn important in this setting. I find it interesting that both the Oriental and Arabian Adventures books put an emphasis on honor, to the point where an OA character whose honor score drops below zero is literally removed from the game with their character sheet torn up. Meanwhile, the standard medieval fantasy setting that is generic D&D, complete with knights in shining armor, hardly ever mentions the word. Now, I realize that D&D's pulp roots focused more on barbarians and rugged individualist adventurers rather than Camelot and Roland, but still. Honor mattered in Europe, too.

Still, in today's touchy cultural setting, the honor section of AA isn't going to sit well with too many people; there's a section on honor killings and how people who dishonor their families will be killed by their own family members, and everyone's fine with it. Yeah, that hasn't aged very well.

Let's move on to family instead. Assuming your character doesn't give your family a reason to murder you in cold blood, family bonds are important. Families will consist of children, parents, grandparents, even great-grandparents if they're still around. Now, that could get awkward as you get back a few generations and end up with eight sets of great-grandparents, but things get simplified as married women end up as part of their husband's families. Cousins, uncles and aunts are still a thing, but families are maintained on the male side.

Next up is 'purity.' Coming from a traditional Catholic perspective, the Zakharan idea of purity doesn't quite square. Right in the first paragraph, polygamy is justified as the man being legally married to his entire harem. Divorce is totally fine, and nobody seems to care about it. I particularly like the last two sentences: "The fact that a sheikh or king is married to a particular woman for only few weeks or even days implies no impropriety for him or for her. Long or short, a marriage is sacred in the Land of Fate."

I'm not really sure that a Britney Spears-style marriage would count as 'sacred.' Maybe that's just me.

This is where the Islamic influence comes in; women don't touch other men in case they become 'violently tempted' by their charms. Even flirting is considered a sin. And yes, the burqa makes an appearance, although it isn't actually named. And women tend to spend a lot of time in the house, be it a tent or a palace, so as to avoid the risk of impurity. I doubt that too many gamers followed these rules. I certainly wouldn't want to play in a group that did.

Hospitality and piety are the next concepts; the Bond of Salt is discussed (as it was in GAZ2), wherein if you take salt in someone's home, you're considered a guest. And while the religion in question isn't Islam (being polytheistic), there is still a lot of the Islamic mindset going on (as we saw above). Mind you, the Arabian Nights stories were the same, so it's not surprising.

The last part of this chapter is a brief discussion of Fate (personified as a female being who is superior to the gods and goddesses of the realm) and the Loregiver, the woman who in ancient times gave the Law that got everyone to be nice to each other. it's been five centuries since the Laws were discovered, and they were just so darn awesome that everyone agreed to follow them.

So, that's the introduction and first chapter of the book. There's lots more to come, of course; it's a 160-page book, and we're just hitting page 20. This should keep me busy, assuming I remember to post more than once every other week.

Arabian Nights at the Gaming Table: The Emirates of Ylaruam, cont.

Welcome back, and let's get this Gazetteer finished tonight. There are some more 'procedures' discussed on the next page, including awarding XPs for role-playing points of honor and the social structure of the setting, as well as a Storytelling rating for characters who want to channel their inner Scheherazade. It's based on your non-physical stats (Int, Wis, Cha) and level, and you had better roll high if you don't want to lose the audience (or worse, anger them to the point that you actually lose XP). Since BECMI goes up to level 36, the best base score a character could possibly have is 18 for all three ability scores, plus 36 more, or 90 total, to which you get to add a 3d6 roll, so you'll get a pretty awesome reaction even if you're a foreigner trying to tell the story to a pack of evil efreeti. Not too many characters are going to reach that level, though.

Next, there's a discussion about the Dervishes, or desert druids. These guys don't actually follow the BECMI rules for druids, and are more like clerics in that they get to turn undead. They also have high constitutions and save as dwarves. They also get their own unique spell list which mixes the cleric and druid spells with a few unique ones. This is an interesting addition to the setting, since this is the first variant class in BECMI after the publication of the boxed sets. It's restricted to NPCs, but how many DMs are going to actually follow that?

There's a very helpful page on courtesy tips for foreigners, introduced, like many of the sections in the gazetteer, as a narration from a friendly NPC. There's also a brief section on how to use the Nahmeh (the setting's equivalent to the Koran, although it's not detailed), and how you can just take well-known quotations and adapt them to make them sound more Arabian. It's a useful tip for any setting, really.

Ah, a glossary. Usually found at the end of the book, this is at the end of the Player's Section, and gives a list of typical terms for locations and cultural markers in the Emirates, as well as a few things about the overall Known World setting, which is a handy thing to have for newcomers to the setting, regardless of what part of the world you're adventuring in.

A page of Ylari customs finishes off the Society in the Emirates portion. I should note that the Player's Section was just the middle eight pages of the book, which split the Society section. The customs listed here are useful for gaming and setting adventures, whether it's games and contests that are popular in Ylaruam, or how to flatter your host in hospitality encounters. Good stuff that helps bring out the flavor of the setting.

Now we get to the centerpiece of the book, which is a description of the Village of Kirkuk, a useful starting place for an Ylaruam campaign. It is not, however, given an official location on the map; it's described as simply an important stop on a well-traveled caravan route, with a sacred grotto where Al-Kalim spent some time during his time killing Thyatians. We are promised a DM's map and key plus a list of important NPCs, but it's not on the inside cover as advertised. And while the player's map of Kirkuk is supposed to be on the reverse of the large color map that comes with the book, the back of the map is a white blank space. Oops.

Anyway, Kirkuk is well-described, and it's the only place in Ylaruam that is well-described. But with only 400 residents, it's not much of a place. However, it does have a couple of interesting points that can lead to adventures. First, there is the Well of the Faithful Prophet, the grotto that Al-Kalim visited years ago. It's under a curse, which has poisoned the well. There is an adventure seed to fix the curse, of course, because what else are curses for?

Second, there is Barimoor. Barimoor is an Alphatian wizard seeking Immortality, and he is using his underground complex beneath Ylaruam to help him get there. Barimoor is a great choice for campaign's Big Bad, one the PCs shouldn't even learn about until they're name level. He's been there for eight centuries, with the patience of a spider and the cunning of a high-level evil wizard. He's cautious and taking his time; after all, he's expecting to become an Immortal at some point, so time really is on his side. Barimoor has a LOT of minions, and his various quests and plots can lead to all kinds of interesting adventures. He's not explicitly set in Kirkuk, but he does have agents there, agents that don't even know they work for him (they're magically controlled). Lots of opportunity for mischief there.

There are a few adventure seeds given for Kirkuk, which is a pretty busy place for a small village in the desert on a caravan route. Many of them are in the spirit of the Arabian Nights stories; an old beggar has been babbling in an unknown language; turns out it's the tongue of the Elemental Plane of Fire, and he finally figured out what he wanted to say, and opened up a portal to the Plane just as the PCs happen by. There's a missing nobleman's son who the PCs have been hired to bring back, except that he fled from his father to escape marriage to a spinster, and loves the beautiful maiden instead. Stuff like that, which is all over the Arabian Nights stories.

The last major section of this book is the Campaigning section. This book is unique among the Gazetteers in that it barely details the important cities of the nation; the city of Ylaruam is the least-detailed capital city of any Gazetteer, meriting only a few scattered paragraphs throughout the book. Kirkuk, by contrast, gets fifteen pages.

So, the campaigning section gives a more general overview of things; where are the characters from (natives or foreigners)? Why are they adventuring in this inhospitable desert terrain? The DM is urged to get beginner PCs (native or foreigners) to Kirkuk to start things off, placing it on the map wherever is most convenient for future plans. Pick a Big Bad (Barimoor is one option among several) or two. There's also a list of monsters likely to be found in the setting, from aerial servants to bandits, from camels to lizard men, from manscorpions to zombies. There's quite the selection to work with, with challenges at all levels of play.

There's also a chapter on treasure hunting, because what would the Arabian Nights be without fabulous treasures to find? There is even a list of magical artifacts to find for all levels of play, from Basic to Master levels. Of course, the Master level items are a bit more powerful than the Basic ones.

Finally, there are some adventure seeds for the overall campaign (not necessarily Kirkuk-related). The very first one involves an evil sorcerer who tricks the PCs into going into a cave to retrieve fabulous treasures. Sound familiar? At least they aren't so blatant as to say the sorcerer wants a certain lamp.

Another of the adventure seeds takes the PCs to the fabled City of Brass, which doesn't get detailed, but there are some very juicy tidbits to give an idea of what this City might contain. Check this out: "Inside is an impossible paradise of a lush green jungle and fierce beasts abiding peacefully with their normal prey. They are finally greeted by a talking lion, who takes them to the throne room where they see a beautiful enchantress. She gestures and everything changes again. The characters awake before the gates they shattered at a touch. The jungle has withered, the ground is littered with skeletons, and gaunt men and women wander mindlessly to and fro, marked by the plague."

Good stuff, and there's more where that came from. The adventure seeds are evocative, presenting a wide range of opportunities for adventures of all sorts. Ylaruam might be a big desert just south of a Viking realm, but it's got lots of stuff going on, stuff your PCs will enjoy exploring and overcoming.

Finally, there is the Suggested Reading section. It mentions a few gaming modules from both BECMI and AD&D, some other game references, suggestions to research Egyptians, Mongols, Arabs, the Crusades, and deserts, and one fiction suggestion: Frank Herbert's Dune. It's science fiction, but it's got desert warriors and high-tech magical items, so why not?

You know what they didn't recommend?

Any version of the Arabian Nights! Say what?! You would think that a gazetteer set in an Arabian desert with genies, beggars, and storytellers might want to point gamers in the direction of the most obvious source material there is. But they didn't.

Regardless, Ylaruam is a fun change of pace for a campaign, worthy of checking out. If you want a hardcopy, it's not cheap, going for around $70 minimum on eBay. But you can also get the PDF at Drivethru.rpg if that suits your fancy. I'm glad I still have the original copy I bought way back in the day, and I'll hang on to it.

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.

Arabian Nights at the Gaming Table

The Arabian Nights have been a part of Western culture's landscape for three centuries since the first stories of Scheherazade were translated into European languages in the early eighteenth century. One of the first complete translations into English is, of course, Sir Richard Burton's translation, of which I am fortunate enough to own a complete set, in the original printing. It's not a kid-friendly version, of course, but it's certainly full of adventure.

Hollywood got hold of these stories early on; Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, was made in 1902 by Georges Méliès, one of the earliest important film producers. Ray Harryhausen thrilled audiences with The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and two sequels. And, of course, Disney made that fairly well-known movie in the early 1990s, Aladdin. The spectacle, exotic settings, and fantastic creatures have enthralled audiences for generations, both in print and in film.

So, it was only natural that tabletop gaming would eventually come around to the Arabian Nights setting. GURPS did it with Arabian Nights, a treatise on gaming in the setting, one that, according to a review in Dragon Magazine, took a very dry tone and sucked all the fun out of the setting. Fortunately, TSR did it quite a bit better.

The first time TSR used an Arabian setting was in The Emirates of Ylaruam, published as part of the Gazetteer series for BECMI D&D. The second in that series, it was not as well-received as the first offering, The Grand Duchy of Karameikos, but it included some useful ideas for desert gaming, and had an in-setting religion that was not even remotely subtle about its similarities to Islam. There wasn't a lot of detail on the setting; instead, the book focused on a small, starting village where adventures could be found. It was a game effort, though not their best.

Five years later, in 1992, TSR expanded their marquee setting, the Forgotten Realms, with the Al-Qadim setting. This was a limited line, deliberately set up to run for only two or three years. It was a good idea, as it kept the setting from becoming too bloated and losing the uniqueness. The line began with the Arabian Adventures rulebook, which gave the basic rules and setting information needed to get started. The highlight of the rules was the kits, which offered a fantastic amount of flavor to get players in the right frame of mind to play in Al-Qadim. Barbers, desert riders, moralist priests, sorcerers...and, of course, the setting's signature class, the sha'ir, the genie master.

The line was expanded with two setting boxed sets (Land of Fate and City of Delights), eight adventure boxed sets that expanded the setting and provided lots of adventures all over the place, a Monstrous Compendium expansion with a surprisingly low number of evil monsters to beat up, and the Complete Sha'ir's Handbook, which detailed the class and offered more kits for specialist wizards. In addition, the Complete Book of Necromancers added more detail to the setting in the form of the Isle of the Necromancer-Kings, which was officially set in Al-Qadim, specifically the Ruined Kingdoms region.

The line was beautifully produced, with a consistent art ethos throughout the entire series, as well as the signature golden lining on the pages. Running only for three years, the line remains popular with a small subset of gamers who have converted the setting to third and even fifth edition D&D.

While the line is complete, there are a couple of sub-settings that could have used more detail. The first is the Cities of the Pantheon, which were given only a little detail in the Land of Fate boxed set. These cities, full of moralist priests, would have made an interesting place to visit. And the Land of the Yak-Men, one of the setting's more intriguing villains, are virtually left alone in the official material. If there had been two more adventure boxed sets with these settings as the base, the setting would be as complete as it could possibly need to be. Still, they covered a lot, and it's good material.

Since I'm still reading the Arabian Nights, and I've always been a fan of this setting since it came out in 1992, I'm going to do some retrospectives on each of the products. Not one page at a time like I did with Traveller; I'm crazy, not stupid. But I'll give each product a look-through, and talk about some of the interesting bits that can be found within.

Arabian Nights, Nights 9-12

Man, that last post was a long one, wasn't it? And believe me, I'm condensing the stories as best I can. The thing I noticed about the last four stories was that there weren't any jinnis, other than the one the fisherman was bargaining with. There was an ogress, a really stupid prince, an even stupider king, and a nasty witch who turned her cousin/husband into a half-pillar of stone because she wanted to play the close-buttocks game with an ugly leper slave. Icky.

So, let's continue with NIGHT NUMBER NINE.

When last we left, the king pretending to be the lecherous, leprous slave had tricked the witch-queen into reversing the curse on the prince, and she was about to free the city, as well. And so she does, and the fish stand up and become men again. The lake becomes a city, and the curse is gone. So, she goes back to her "lover" and the king slices her in half, then quarters, just to be sure. Well, she would have turned him into a newt or something, if she could have. But that was it for the nasty witch, and the prince was quite thankful and happy. Now, the two of them left, the King adopting the Prince as his son, since he didn't have one anyway. Hurray! Happy endings all around!

Except that the story doesn't appear to be done yet, as they head back to the Sultan's palace, with an escort of Mamelukes. I should mention that these guys are military slaves, soldiers owned by the sultan or king. Historically, they were common in the Ottoman Empire, and often acted as administrators and even rulers of some cities. There, some history in your entertainment!

Back to the sultan, who rewards the fisherman (remember him?) by marrying one of his daughters, marrying another one off to the prince, and making the fisherman's son the head treasurer of the kingdom. One has to wonder if that son had any experience with making monetary policies for a kingdom. I would guess 'no,' which makes him qualified to run the Federal Reserve.

Anyway, that is the end of the story of the Fisherman and the Djinni, finally. But Scheherazade informs her husband that she has an even better story to tell:

The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad.

This story starts in Baghdad, where a porter, who happens to be a bachelor and planning to stay that way, comes across a woman who would be a leading lady in Bollywood today. She's so gorgeous that he almost doesn't hear her hire him, but he readily takes the job and starts carrying her stuff. She does some shopping, and he gets to follow around this stunning beauty all day, thinking he's got it made. We get a lot of descriptions of the things she's buying, and this guy must be built like Arnold Schwarzenegger to carry it all. I don't think it would all fit in the trunk of my car, you know? But he's following her like a faithful puppy dog, carrying whatever she buys. It's enough to feed an army a seven-course mean and have leftovers. He finally notes that had he known what she was going to do, he would have brought a pony or a camel to help. She tells him that the reward will be worth it. Having read ahead, I can't disagree.

The shopping spree takes two pages, then she finally leads him to a mansion. She knocks, and while the porter is still thinking how hot she is, another woman opens the door, and she's even better-looking than the first one. She's so beautiful that the description of her takes up half a page, including some poetry. Well, the porter is just beside himself (not really, but having a twin would have helped with the carrying). The shopping girl tells the other one to help the porter with his stuff, and they invite him in. And there in the mansion is yet another woman, the best-looking of the three. They take the merchandise from him and toss him a couple of gold dinars, but he's still dumbstruck by the bevy of beauties and doesn't leave. So, they throw him another coin, but he's not worried about the money, and flat-out suggests that three women all alone need a fourth to keep them company. And wouldn't you know it, that line works on them, but they don't want to give up their secret, which we don't know what it is yet. He assures them that he is good with secrets, and they finally agree to let him stay with them.

After the first few stories, I'm sure you can guess where this is leading. And Scheherazade does not disappoint. They do some partying and drinking, then some drinking and partying, until the girl that was doing the shopping finally strips down and jumps in the pond in the courtyard. Then she gets on the porter's lap and starts asking him what he calls her privates. Yeah, I'm being delicate; trust me, the book is not. Not even close. But here's where it starts to get weird. Every time he guesses, he's wrong, and she smacks him around for a bit. Stark naked, mind you. The writers of these stories were into some kinky stuff. Finally he turns the tables and asks what she calls it. And she gives him the answer: "The basil of the bridges."

More partying and drinking, and the second woman who answered the door repeats the same scenario as her sister did, including the beating him until he's sore when he guesses wrong. She calls it 'the husked sesame seed'. Third time's the charm, and the last woman goes through the same procedure, and calls it...'the Khan of Abu Mansur.' Yeah, I don't get that one either. There doesn't seem to be any sort of clue or point to all this except to include a picture of one of the naked women cavorting at the porter's feet. Well, whatever floats the reader's boat, I guess.

Anyway, the porter decides to play as well and gets naked, swims around, and then asks them to name his special party favor. They start guessing...and Scheherazade stops her story there. I'm sure the king was really excited to keep hearing this story the next night. But, she lived another day, and thus we come to NIGHT NUMBER TEN.

The story picks up again with the ladies still guessing, and he turns their own secret names back on them. I'm not going to get more detailed than that; my son wants to read my blog. So, the party goes on, and while it's not explicit, it's pretty obvious what goes on after that. So, we'll skip to later on, where they tell him he can't stay the night unless he promises to do as he's told, ask no questions, and read what's written above the door. He does, and it says, 'Whoso speaketh of what concerneth him not, shall hear what pleaseth him not.' He agrees to their conditions, probably because he's already having the time of his life and doesn't want to stop. They start eating the magnificent feast the shopping girl bought, and then there's a knock at the door.

One of the girls opens the door, and there are three one-eyed men with shaved heads out there, called 'Kalandars,' who are looking for a place to stay for the night. She convinces the others to let them in, figuring they can have some fun with them. So the Kalandars come in and are pretty impressed with the place, and think the porter (who is drunk and has been bruised pretty badly by the three women) is a beggar like they are. He takes offense, but the girls quickly make peace between them, and they join the feast. The beggars get some musical instruments and begin to play, which draws outside attention, and there's another knock at the gate. This time it's the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, his bodyguard Masrur, and his vizier, Ja'afar, and anyone who's seen a Disney movie knows that name. Actually, Burton informs us in the footnotes that these are historical figures, who will show up often in these stories.

The Caliph is looking for a party as well, and the vizier suggests this isn't the best place to do so. But the Caliph has the final say, so of course the girls let them in. Ja'afar says that they are merchants from out-of-town, not disclosing their true identities just yet. They get the same condition that the porter and the Kalandars got, which is to shut up and not ask questions about stuff that doesn't concern them.

The party goes on for a while, although I will hasten to point out that everyone is clothed; they're mainly eating and drinking. Then the girls have something they have to do, and the table is cleared off. The men are told to sit in various couches, and you would think this is going to lead to another story I am going to delicately gloss over. You would be wrong; it's a whole different kind of weird. The shopping girl tells the porter to give her a hand, and they bring out two black women from a closet, with chains around their necks. They then proceed to whip them and, when finished, hug them and kiss their foreheads.

I'm not really sure how to describe this stuff; it's just weird. I can't even make snarky comments. Needless to say, the Caliph is curious as hell as to why they're doing this. He's not upset by it, but he wants to know what's going on. Ja'afar reminds him that they promised to mind their own business. Then one of the girls...you know what? This is just too weird to explain. It turns out she's got scars and welts on her back as well (which the porter didn't see earlier when she was bouncing naked on his knee, but whatever), and finally the Caliph demands to know what's going on. The Kalandars are wondering what they've gotten themselves into as well. The men gang up and demand to know what these girls are up to. The girls reply by summoning seven black slaves with swords and order them to tie the  men up together by the elbows. They'll question them before having them decapitated. The porter protests that he didn't break his promise...and Scheherazade stops.

Believe me, there was a lot of weirdness in the part I skipped over. Maybe it will get explained later, but not so far. I told you, this is definitely not the Disney version of these stories.

Moving along, Scheherazade continues on with NIGHT NUMBER ELEVEN.

So, the lady starts questioning the men; the Caliph tells Ja'afar to tell them who he is before something bad happens; Ja'afar points out that he earned it, which doesn't do wonders for his employer-employee relations. The lady starts with the Kalandars, and asks them some questions about who and what they are. It turns out that all three are princes from different countries, and each of them has a story about how he lost his eye and became a wandering mendicant. Coincidences are a big thing in these stories.

The ladies let the porter go, but he wants to stick around to hear the stories, which is good, since that's the point of this entire exercise. So, one of the one-eyed men steps forward and begins to tell:

The First Kalandar's Tale.

This guy is a prince, with a cousin who was born on the same day as him. The cousins grow up to be great friends, and one day while dipping heavily into the wine together, the cousin asks the prince to help him with something really important and not to stop him from doing it. 'No problem,' says the prince, and the cousin leaves, coming back with a veiled woman. He asks the prince to take the lady to a specific burial ground and go into a sepulchre (sort of like a tomb) and wait for him. No, that's not at all ominous.

The prince does what he's asked, and shortly after the cousin arrives, carrying water, mortar, and a trowel. He opens a hole in the sepulchre's floor, then digs through the dirt until he reaches an iron plate. Below it is a staircase, and he tells the woman to make her final choice. She goes in, and the cousin asks the prince to put everything back the way it was, including the flagstones on the floor so no one can tell they went down there. He'd been working on this place for a whole year in secret. He then goes down, and that is the last time the prince sees him. He bricks up the place as requested, still a bit tipsy from drinking.

The next day, the prince regrets what had happened, and wonders if it was all a dream. No one has seen the cousin, and the prince goes hunting for the sepulchre to no avail. He repeats this for a whole week, until he heads home to his father the Sultan (not the same sultan as in the previous story). On the way, though, he gets attacked by rioters; it turns out that his father's rulership was in the process of being demolished by a mob. The prince finds out that his father's vizier had led a rebellion and overthrown the sultan, killing him in the process. This is a problem for the prince, since he had accidentally put out the vizier's eye with an arrow some time past. Sure enough, the prince gets brought, shackled, to the vizier, who orders him to be beheaded. The prince protests that it was accidental, to which the vizier decides to do it to him on purpose, and puts out his left eye. He then orders one of his swordsmen to bring him out to the wastelands, kill him, and leave him for the animals to feast on.

You remember Snow White? Yeah, same thing here, although the one-eyed prince doesn't sing about it. But the swordsman, who had served his father, lets him go and warns him never to come back or they're both dead. So, the prince returns to his uncle's home, telling him about the coup. The uncle is distraught because his son (the cousin, remember?) has been missing for a while. The prince tells him what the cousin had done, and the uncle goes with him to find the tomb. This time, they actually find it, and break into the trap-door. Going down together, they run into some blinding smoke. Continuing, they find a saloon, with tons of provisions handy, as well as a canopy over a couch. The uncle checks out the couch, and there finds the cousin and his lady together and naked, but burned to a crisp. The uncle then spits in his son's burned face and tells him he got what he deserved. And on that note, Scheherazade goes to sleep, and you just know the king isn't going to leave it at that.

NIGHT NUMBER TWELVE, and Scheherazade resumes the story. It turns out that the lady wasn't just some cute thing the cousin picked up; it was his sister (also the prince's cousin). Yep, let's add incest to the stories, because why not? She must have been veiled up pretty well for the prince not to recognize her, since he would have known her pretty well. And no one in the palace seemed to be wondering where she was, being the uncle's daughter and all. But, there it is, and the uncle flat-out says that Satan got hold of them both and drove them to unnatural lusts for each other. Well, at least they're saying incest is bad. That's a good sign, even though you have had cousins married in a few stories prior to this. I suppose 'cousin-marriage' wasn't considered as bad as 'sister-marriage' back then.

So, the uncle adopts the one-eyed prince as his son now, and they put the tomb back the way it was, leaving the charred couple to their eternal embrace. When they get back to the uncle's palace, they hear the marching of armies, and the vizier who had taken the prince's eye is on the conquest kick, wanting to take the uncle's lands as well, thereby assuring no challenger to his ill-gotten throne. And he's hired a bunch of mercenaries, so he's got the upper hand. The uncle is killed (orphaning the prince once again), and the prince escapes by shaving his head and dressing up like a beggar, leaving the city and heading for Baghdad, where he fell in with the other two Kalandars and found the ladies' house.

His story impresses the ladies enough that they let him live, and then we hear:

The Second Kalandar's Tale.

This one was a prince as well, highly educated and well-known across many lands for the breadth of his learning. A far-off King wanted to meet him, so he went to sea and sailed for a full month to get to the land of Hind. Unfortunately, before they get to the king's palace, a huge dust-storm comes up, and an hour later they are surrounded by a troop of fifty horsemen, who don't answer to the King of Hind, and don't care that the travelers are his invited guests. They rob them blind (no, they don't put his eye out), and the prince is left out in the wilderness with most of his entourage killed by the bandits.

He manages to find a cave in a mountain, then sets out the next day until he arrives at a city. Unfortunately, it's not the city he wants to go to; in fact, it's run by one of his father's blood-enemies, so if he announces his presence or reveals his identity, he's dead meat. He takes up work as a woodcutter, since nobody in this city cares about his book-smarts. He ends up working as a woodcutter for a year.

One day, he starts digging up a tree but finds a copper ring attached to a trap-door. Under the trap-door is a (surprise!) staircase, and down there he finds a beautiful woman. She asks him if he's a man or a jinni, and tells him that she's been there for twenty-five years without having seen any man in all that time. She is a princess, and was kidnapped on her wedding day (to her cousin, of course) by a jinni who locked her up here and shows up every ten days for a tryst, keeping her well-fed and comfortable but imprisoned. She can summon him at any time by brushing up against an alcove in the cavern. She's not happy about it, and since he's not due back for another six days, she tells the woodcutting prince that he's got five days to stay with her, with the implied rewards therein.

They get to partying and carrying on, and after some drinking and fornicating, he gets the idea to take her away from this place. She says no, that he's going to have to be content with getting nine days out of ten with her, but the jinni isn't to be crossed. Princey-boy had a bit too much wine in him, because he starts bragging that he can take down a jinni, and that in fact he was an expert in doing just that. She argues with him that suicide isn't painless, but he gives the alcove a swift kick--

And Scheherazade ends it there. Another cliffhanger, and we're done with this post as well. At least we've got another jinni; it's been a few nights without one showing up. There wasn't much magic in these four nights, except for the witch-queen who got sliced and diced at the beginning of Night Nine, just a bunch of people running into a whole pile of weird coincidences. Oh, and sex, because that's a big thing in these stories. As you can tell.

So, that's it for this one; come back for the next one, where I'll close the gap between where I've read and where I am in these posts. I'm reading Night Seventeen tonight, so I'm almost caught up. I'm going to try to summarize the stories a bit better in the future, since these posts are quite long.

The Thousand Nights and a Night, Nights 5-8

Salaam and good evening to you, worthy friends. Please, come closer...

Too close! A little too close! I--

Oh, sorry; flashback. It's time to follow the continuing adventures of Scheherazade's imagination, and I'm going to post four nights at a time until I'm caught up. Which will take a while, since I just finished reading Night fifteen. But it will happen.

So, when we last left Scheherazade and her psychotic wife-murdering husband, she had been just about to tell how the king told his vizier the tale of:

King Sindibad and His Falcon.

No, this isn't that Sinbad; he shows up later. This is a king who had a prized falcon and carried it with him everywhere and all the time. The story doesn't specify, but I wouldn't be surprised if the bird sleeps at night on his arm, too. So, the king goes out hunting one day, because that's what kings do, and challenges his huntsmen that whoever lets the gazelle jump over his head will be executed. Well, you know what happens next, right? The huntsmen point and laugh at the king when the gazelle swan dives over his head and runs away. The king calls a mulligan and chases the gazelle into the mountains. When he catches up to it, he lets the falcon finish the gazelle off and does hunting things to it afterward to package it up for the trip home. Being thirsty, he sees a tree that is dripping water, like melted butter. So he takes a cup and fills it up, offering it to the bird, which promptly turns the cup over and spills it. The king tries it again, with the same result, and a third time. Irritated with the vexing falcon, he thinks the bird is somehow defective, and he cuts off her wing with his sword. That's a bit extreme, don't you think? Especially since it was his favorite bird and all. So, they dying bird points with its remaining wing up into the tree, and the king looks up to see a whole bunch of snakes, dripping poison from their fangs.

Are there any snakes that actually do that? That seems a bit much. So, he takes the dead bird back with him, along with the gazelle. And...that's it, except for the king's wailing and gnashing of teeth, but that's pretty much standard for stories like this. And the other king (the one telling the story, not Sindibad) starts another story right away, telling his vizier the tale of:

The Husband and the Parrot.

Basically, this is a story in which the husband has to go on a long trip, and buys a parrot to leave at home to keep an eye on things and tell him what went on while he was gone. That's a pretty smart parrot. And of course, every husband who leaves his wife in these stories suffers the same fate: She cheats on him. Although this is the first of these adultery stories in which she's not with a black man. Variety is the key to good storytelling, after all.

So, the wayward husband returns from his business trip, and the parrot dutifully tells him that his wife entertained a young man every day while he was gone. Well, he's not going to take that sort of disrespect, and goes all Mike Tyson on her. After the bruises heal, the unfaithful wife figures that one of the slave-girls tattled, and interrogates them. One of them admits that the parrot was the culprit, and so as soon as the husband leaves on another trip (do they never learn?), she gets the slave-girls to set up a hand-mill right under the cage and grind whatever they can, sprinkle water through the roof of the cage, and run around the room flashing bright lights with a mirror into the cage. She could have put the bird under a sheet and hung the cage outside, but I guess she wanted to give the slave-girls something to do while she entertained her boy-toy.

The next morning the husband returns, and this time the parrot's got nothing to report except the stormy weather it experienced throughout the night. Since it was mid-summer and there was no storms, the husband thinks the parrot screwed up and kills the bird. Of course, it's only a few days later that one of the slave-girls tells him what really happened. So he lies in wait until the young fellow comes out of his wife's bedchamber, at which time he beheads them both like any sensible cuckolded husband would do.

What? Just me? Carry on, then.

So, that's the end of the king's stories, but the vizier counters with a story of his own. In Scheherazade's world, nobody can take any course of action without reciting a moral lesson in the form of a wild story. The vizier tells his king the tale of:

The Prince and the Ogress.

Well, that's encouraging; no jinni or ifrit this time around. So, a young prince goes hunting (like I said, it's really common), and his trusted (and totally not trustworthy) vizier sends him after a big animal (what kind is not specified, but how many big animals are there in the Arabian peninsula, anyway? Seriously, other than camels and horses, are there any?). The prince gets lost, but runs into a crying damsel. She claims to be a princess who fell asleep while part of a caravan and fell off her horse, being abandoned by the caravan's crew.

Okay, if he doesn't immediately figure out that she's a lying ogress, I'm done with him. Seriously, it's in the story's name! Besides, what caravan is going to continue on while the princess slips into a coma and falls off her horse? Come on! Of course, he isn't a complete moron, and sees right through--

Oh. No, he falls for it completely. Look, I'm a guy, and I'll be the first to admit that I'll pay close attention to a pretty face. But there isn't a woman alive that could make that story believable. This guy is an absolute idiot. She should just go ahead and eat him; the gene pool will thank her later.

So, the moron takes her on his horse, and as they are riding, they pass a ruined building. She actually calls for a potty break! Prince Moron waits while she disappears into the ruin, wondering what's taking her so long. Apparently constipation wasn't a problem for these people. Finally, he goes to find her, and stumbles across her looking much different. Spoiler alert: She's really an ogress, or a 'ghulah' in this story. In the footnotes, Burton compares her to a lamia, Lilith from Hebrew myth, and Baba Yaga. And she's telling her family about the succulent meal she just brought them. I hope they don't believe in 'you are what you eat,' because this meal will make them grossly stupid.

So, Prince Moron turns and runs like hell back to his horse and--what? He just stands there shaking while she comes back out (is she disguised again? I think so, but it's not made clear). She asks him what's wrong, and he says he spotted an enemy that he's scared of. And now her brains dribble out of her head, because she suggests he buy off his enemy so he can leave in peace. But no, this enemy wants nothing but his life. And then...seriously, this happens. The ogress, the demonic hellspawn that wants to eat him, tells him to pray to Allah, who will surely protect him. And he does. And, guess what? IT WORKS! She turns away from him and leaves! That's like a coach drawing up a play for the other team, letting them run it, and getting fooled by it! This is easily the stupidest story so far. I feel like I lost IQ points reading it.

Oh, but here's the best part. The prince gets home and blames the vizier for what happened to him, and the king executes the vizier! What?! What did the vizier have to do with it? He didn't summon the ogress from the pits of Hell and send it after the idiot prince! He's the one who was stupid enough to fall for the girl's story, not the vizier!

But, the vizier (the one telling the story, not the one who got beheaded in the story) thinks this is a story that will convince the king to kill the guy who healed him (remember him?). And lo and behold, it is. Somehow, that story convinces the king that the man who healed him from advanced leprosy is really a spy plotting his death.

So, the king summons the healer, who shows up expecting to get more rewards, and he's humming poetry and having a great time, praising the king in his songs. So, he comes to the king's throne, bows, and the king informs him that his reward for his service is to be executed as a spy. This doesn't exactly sit well with the healer, whose name is Duban, by the way. He protests, but the king is adamant, because he's as stupid as the prince in the vizier's story. Maybe that's why the vizier picked that story; it's important for the audience to identify with the main character.

Anyway, Duban tries everything to keep his head attached, but the king isn't having it. Finally, Duban acquiesces to his fate and asks permission to return home and take care of his debts and hand out his books on medicine. Oh, and he'll also bring the king a gift, a book of secrets that will allow the king to make Duban's head continue to speak even after it's removed from his body. This impresses the king, who agrees to Duban's request, because he's an idiot. So, Duban goes and does what he promised, pays off his debts, distributes his books, and makes funeral arrangements. See, I would have hopped onto the nearest camel and high-tailed it out of there. But Duban is wiser than I, because he comes back. Wait. Did I say wiser? I meant he's a moron, too.

Or is he? Because he instructs the king on what to do when his head is removed and put on a platter covered with a special powder. And then...slice! The head comes off, and they put it on the powdered platter, and sure enough, the head begins to speak, instructing the king to turn the pages and read three lines from each page. He does so, because he's still an idiot, even though the pages are blank. And, to the surprise of no one, the pages are poisoned, and the king's been moistening his finger to turn the pages, thus licking the poison, and he dies just before the head does.

Got all that? Good, because all that was the story told by the fisherman to the ifrit after shoving him back in the jar. Nested stories, remember? Oh, and that's the end of the fifth night.

Night six, and Scheherazade goes back to the fisherman, telling the ifrit that he's going to suffer the same fate because he threatened to kill the fisherman for the crime of letting him out of his thousand-plus-year imprisonment. The ifrit is still begging for mercy, even teasing a story of his own, but refusing to tell it unless he's released. Then he makes a vow and a covenant with the fisherman, promising that he absolutely won't kill him, and he'll even help him with his fishing since that's what caused all the trouble in the first place.

Bolstered by the promises of the totally trustworthy demonic and psychotic spirit-creature, the fisherman agrees, and the ifrit swears by Allah to do exactly what he said. Okay, so he's actually going to follow through on the promise not to kill the fisherman. Great! He opens the jar, and the ifrit comes out, then punts the jar way out into the sea. This does not boost the fisherman's confidence, and he literally pisses his pants, then reminds the ifrit that he promised Allah he'd be good.

The ifrit leads him into the wilderness beyond the city, and they find a mountain-tarn (a small lake). The ifrit wades in and invites the fisherman to follow him. When he does, he sees that he is surrounded by multi-colored fish like he's never seen before. We're not getting that story the ifrit promised, apparently. Can't trust an ifrit, can you? Altough the fisherman did, and now he's got some pretty fancy fish. The ifrit tells him not to fish more than once a day, and then leaves, without killing the fisherman. Okay, then.

Still with me? Good, because here is where the story gets complicated. The fisherman takes four of these fish and puts them in a bowl, then brings them to the king's palace as a gift. The king is just as impressed as the fisherman, because despite having been king of these parts for a long time, he's never seen fish like these. So naturally, he has them sent to the kitchen for frying, paying the fisherman four hundred dinars for the catch. Nice deal. Not the same as getting a princess for a bride, but then he's just a fisherman.

Meanwhile, the cook starts cleaning them and frying them, just like you're supposed to do with fish. But then a gorgeous young woman comes in through the wall, dressed to the nines, and starts talking to the fish about their covenant while sticking a wand in the pan. The cook faints, so she misses the part where the (cleaned, deboned and frying) fish raise their heads from the pan and reply, singing a song while they're at it. The girl flips over the frying pan and goes back through the wall, which closes up behind her. When the cook comes to, she sees the fish burnt to a crisp. So, naturally, she faints again. Because no one has ever burned multi-colored fish in a pan before. The vizier shows up, demanding the fish. So the cook tells her what happened, and the vizier slaps her around for making up such a ridiculous story.

No? Oh, he just sends for the fisherman to get more fish. He does, and the whole scene repeats again. At this point, Scheherazade ends her story for the night, much shorter than the previous night was.

Night number seven, and once again the girl with the magic wand makes the fish get up and dance in the frying pan before disappearing. This time, the vizier witnessed it, so he goes to the king, who wants to see it for himself. So the fisherman is summoned to get yet another batch of fish, and the whole scene starts all over again. Except this time, it's not a pretty girl that comes through the wall; it's a huge black slave (how do we know he's a slave? I don't know; it just says he is), who bursts in like the Kool-Aid Man and does the same trick with the fish before leaving.

So now, having seen it with his own eyes, the king is intrigued and wants to know more about these fish. He interrogates the fisherman (politely; he kept bringing him fish, after all) and finds out that the fishpond is only half an hour away from the city. So the king takes a group of men, and with the fisherman as a guide (who is now cursing the ifrit for putting him in this position), heads off to the mountain-tarn to see these magical fishes. And...now the wilderness is a desert? That's a lot of soil erosion in two days. But they find the tarn anyway, which none of them have ever seen before despite having lived all their lives in this region.

Having set his guards up around the perimeter, the king tells his vizier that he has a gut feeling that he has to figure out the mystery of this fish-tarn. He orders the vizier to guard his tent and pretend he's in there, sick, while he heads off somewhere (with guards all around the place; is this king secretly a ninja?) to solve the mystery. He changes clothes and takes his sword, and it's two days of a march before he finds a palace. Two days from the tarn? How does he know they even know about it, since he only lived half an hour away?

But, this being a fantasy story, of course he gets some answers. Of a sort. The place is deserted, and wandering around he finds that it's beautifully furnished and full of rich treasures. But he also hears a lamenting voice singing a dismal and depressing song. Looking around, he finds a young, handsome prince who is sitting on a couch...because the lower half of his body is encased in stone due to a curse. Naturally, the king wants to know how this happened, which leads us to the tale of:

The Ensorcelled Prince.

The prince tells the story of how he married his cousin (like I said, this isn't uncommon in these stories), and thought that it was a happy marriage. I'm sure that by now, you can figure out what's going on, and what she's doing, and who she's doing it with. Hey, the variety was in the last story, remember? Back to the usual. The slave-girls betray her secret, and he learns that she's been drugging his wine to make him sleep so she can go and have her fun. So, that night when she drugs the wine, he only pretends to drink it and fall asleep, then he follows her to the slave quarters of the city. We're talking slums here. She goes into one of the mud-brick huts, and the prince climbs up to a hole in the roof to see what's going on. Sure enough, she's shacking up with a 'hideous' black slave with huge lips, who is also a leper and a paralytic. Seriously? I mean, I've heard the phrase, 'once you go black, you never go back,' but come on! Is this prince that much of a loser in the sack? Or is she just into some really kinky stuff?

And get this: She's apologizing to the slave for being late! And she's running down her husband, calling him all kinds of ugly, asking the slave to forgive her and promising that she's only for him. And he's not buying it! And the cuckolded husband is still up on the roof, watching through the skylight (hole in the roof) as she strips off and begs for some food, which turns out to be rat-stew. Yikes. And then she climbs into bed with her leprous lover, which finally sets off the prince, who comes down and swings for the neck...and Scheherazade is done for the night.

One more to go today. And apparently, this prince sucks at swordfighting, because he missed the guy's neck, only slicing a couple of arteries. Oh, is that all? But the tramp wakes up (she fell asleep that fast? Before they actually did anything?), and the prince leaves. Seriously? He just goes home and waits for her to come back. And she does, not having seen who actually attacked them.

And in the morning, she comes in to their bedroom and tells him that she needs to leave for a while She's in mourning; her hair is cut, and she's wearing black. Then she recites a country song to him, saying that her mother is dead, her father was just killed in a jihad, and one of her brothers died of a snakebite, and the other fell off a cliff. Laying it on a bit thick, isn't she? Of course, this prince isn't as much of an idiot as the other one was; he knows she's lying. But he lets her go, and she builds a cenotaph and sneaks her not-dead-yet slave-lover inside to tend to him. Even without the 'close-buttocks game' action going on, she's still attached to this guy. This goes on for two whole years, until the prince catches her crying about her broken heart. He tries to get her to stop her mourning, but she threatens to kill herself. I would have told her to go ahead, but that's just me.

She keeps it up for a third year, when he catches her inside tending to her mute and impotent lover. Finally, he's had enough, and he confronts her and admits that he was the one who cut the slave's throat. He even draws his sword to finish them both off, but she just laughs at him. It turns out that she's a witch, and she curses him to be half-stone. Then she curses the entire city, turning the entire thing into the tarn...and turning all the people therein into fish, color-coded by their religions for convenience. Yep, every white fish the fisherman caught and handed over to the king to fry was a Muslim. Not satisfied with that measure of revenge, the nasty woman gives the prince a daily whipping just to remind him who's really in charge. How good was this guy in bed, anyway? Because that seems like a severe overreaction on her part.

So, the King (who was trying to solve the mystery of the fish, remember) asks how he can help his fellow nobleman out of this horrible situation. The prince tells him where the slave is holed up, and the king goes in to see the slave lying there, as he has for the past few years. The king stays hidden, watching when the witch comes to whip her husband once again. Then she leaves him, going back to the cenotaph. And after she pleads with her lover to speak to her, the king twists his tongue and lays on a heavy accent, convincing her that he can't speak to her because of how she is treating her husband and his subjects. He talks her into freeing the prince from his stony prison, and she reverses the spell and orders him to leave on pain of death. Then the king, still faking an accent in the darkness, pleads with her to freeing all the people and restoring the city as well. She heads off to do just that...

And the night ends, and so does this very long blog post. Tune in next time to see what happens next!