[DF] Arabian Nights questions

[b-dog]

So I have GURPS Arabian Nights and I also own all the GURPS DF books. So I was wondering how to combine the two. What would be good dungeons? What types of things would be 8n them? What kinds of treasures and monsters? What would the towns be like for the PCs to find clues in or to exchange magic items? Would there be older cultures like the ruins from the Egyptians for the PCs to explore? How would you turn mythical Arabia into a DF world? Thanks.

[simply Nathan]

What do you want to know that wasn't already brought up and asked in this thread? Why not just continue that one instead of starting a new one?

[Phil Masters]

To be fair to b-dog, that other thread is about an existing campaign (which also leans quite a bit on Ars Magica), rather than asking about how to do this from scratch.

So to answer the question - yes, sure, the two modes should merge fairly nicely. Actually, there were supposedly professional tomb-raiding treasure-hunters in medieval Egypt, who even wrote books about how not to fall into pit traps and such. That's one clue about potential inspirations; yes, all those ancient Egyptian(-style) tombs and pyramids and such scattered round parts of the scenery. You also get stories in the original Nights like "Aladdin" and "Judar and his brothers" which are basically about underground treasure-seekers, and locations like the City of Brass which are surface-level exploration objectives.

Fighters and rogues can be much the same; wizards would, I guess, just be one notch more hammy or scholarly, but could basically work on the same basis; martial artists would, I guess, still be wacky pseudo-easterners; rangers could be more like hawk-eyed Bedouin than Aragorn...

Clerics are a bit tricky if you're going for a properly Islamic-style culture, but I guess you can just make them devout religious scholars who can assert the power of Allah with 100% conviction when faced with pagan horrors, and who also know some lawful white/natural magic to perform tasks like healing. (Paladins would then be warrior-scholars. They should probably be required to have some Poetry skill, and use it to promote their own image as cool champions of virtue between adventures. They might even end up merged with bards.) Or you could push the whole thing back to pre-Islamic times with a more polytheistic vibe. Druids ... I'd dump, frankly. They're not exactly essential to dungeoneering. Necromancers and demonologists would be pagan bad dudes with Secrets.

The Town would of course be functionally quite similar, but you can run especially atmospheric roleplaying scenes in the bazaar. You don't get so many inns, though, so everyone should be permitted and possibly required to take a Claim to Hospitality with some local merchant house (somebody's cousin), madrassah, or treasure-seeking brotherhood.

And so on.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by b-dog

So I have GURPS Arabian Nights and I also own all the GURPS DF books. So I was wondering how to combine the two. What would be good dungeons? What types of things would be 8n them? What kinds of treasures and monsters? What would the towns be like for the PCs to find clues in or to exchange magic items? Would there be older cultures like the ruins from the Egyptians for the PCs to explore? How would you turn mythical Arabia into a DF world? Thanks.

The City of Brass was a quest for a lost city. And there would certainly be lost cities in an Arabian Nights world as the area has civilizations piled on each other as one nomad wave after another broke in, and as Warring States periods, smashed a previous empire.

If you need historical details all you have to do is look them up. But in fact you don't need to bother. The feel of it is enough especially as a Medieval Islamic scholar without the benefit of intensive archeological digging or the ability to decrypt extinct languages would know less about Lost Cities then a modern would. And of course in gaming terms ignorance is titilation, horror, or in general, fun.

[b-dog]

Thanks for the comments. I am really interested in the Arabian Nights setting. I really liked Sinbad the Sailor too. I imagine he would be a great model for adventuring to exotic isles and lands. I would think a DF Arabian Nights could extend into Ethiopia and into the rest of Africa pretty easily and be a lot of fun. It could also extend into India and be really exotic and interesting. What I like about the setting is that it has a dominant Islamic culture but thereally are many old cultures to explore a well, especially for raiding ancient temples and tombs.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Thanks for the comments. I am really interested in the Arabian Nights setting. I really liked Sinbad the Sailor too. I imagine he would be a great model for adventuring to exotic isles and lands. I would think a DF Arabian Nights could extend into Ethiopia and into the rest of Africa pretty easily and be a lot of fun. It could also extend into India and be really exotic and interesting. What I like about the setting is that it has a dominant Islamic culture but thereally are many old cultures to explore a well, especially for raiding ancient temples and tombs.

There's lot's of things you can do with it. You can be a minority faith(I suggested one based on the exile of Zoroastrians to India and perhaps you can also use a Sacred Fire as a Macguffin). There can be an apocolyptic setting after the Mongols ride through. You can have a normal religious war with a familiar lineup(Muslims vs Latins and/or Byzantines, Sunni vs Shia, etc) rather then an outside context enemy like the Mongols. Or set it in Iberia during the Reconquista, on either side. Or simply a traditional desert "rustling match" as I like to call bedouin wars in an Incredably Lame Pun. Or you can be merchants travelling from whereever to whereever-Islamistan after all covered an extrodinary part of the world and their economic sphere was even greater then their political one.

For details if you want to bother, David Nichole's medieval military history is fascinating. Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World is fairly cheap on Kindle; I am always recomending Daily Lifes but they are well recomendable. Braudel's histories are very good and very detailed. Jason Goodwin's Lord's of the Horizons is both educational and readable. And there are plenty of others. For chrome you can even get a Claudia Roden cookbook.

[b-dog]

I will try to check out the book that you recommend. What I really need is a lot of little details and touches to make the DF Arabian Nights come to life. The small things like the treasures and dungeon archetecture and items found in it help give an exotic feel which is what I am interested in. Not too much history or philosophy, just things that have Arabian descriptions to them.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by b-dog

I will try to check out the book that you recommend. What I really need is a lot of little details and touches to make the DF Arabian Nights come to life. The small things like the treasures and dungeon archetecture and items found in it help give an exotic feel which is what I am interested in. Not too much history or philosophy, just things that have Arabian descriptions to them.

You don't really need to be an expert in history or philosophy because most characters will not be; learning was far more difficult to get in those days because of economic needs and the lack of cheap informational technology and so on. Thus it is not hard to roleplay. Even if you know in your mind what real life lost city the Lost City is intended to be, having it be just The Lost City to your players has advantages. They will be ignorant except about their own trades(the latter knowledge is unfortunately difficult to simulate) and will regard actual scholars with an ambiguous sort of awe. You might find the game more interesting if you personally are an expert in history or philosophy or the history of philosophy and have a bent that way. But that is not necessary to construct the flavor.

For a fiction with a good "flavor" try, LLoyd Alexander's Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio. Or Irving's Tales of the Alhambra. Or of course 1001 nights.

[jason taylor]

For something that can make a "dungeon" what you might do is watch a cheap docu from the library about a Middle Eastern palace or temple or other such building. That will get some of the idea of what you might want to put in.

Or any abandoned city. Middle Eastern cities tend to be maze like rather then planned because each ethnic, sectarian, or occupational group claims it's own turf and ghettoizes itself. When you find an abandoned one it won't be predictable.

And there can be interesting things found underground. Read a little of the stories from the real Cliffhangers days archeologists. For instance Aurel Stein found a fascinating collection of scrolls in a Buddhist monks cave. Unfortunately from your point of view they were mostly local government records of the so-and-so sues someone because his dog bit his cow or whatever kind. But you can make it a storehouse of magic lore. Or say that only someone who has the Amulet of Hidden Knowledge can read it and it looks like mundane government records to the rest of us poor mortals.

And often when you dig far enough under one city you will find another city. It should not be to hard to put a few jinn or ghouls there.

As far as treasure goes, it will be much the same as elsewhere. You might put a greater proportion of silks and spices though and otherwise more orientilia. The gold and silver is of course the same as everywhere. What you might do is a quick read on jewels; some of the stones with the most romantic history give an idea of what you might want. The Peacock Throne for instance was plunder by the Persian warlord Nadir Shah. Much of the treasure would reflect the fact of being on the trade routes. Stuff from India and China would be there. And there might be expensive items that reflect local culture; get a good idea of what the rich and powerful would pay a premium to get. Fine carven chess sets. Illuminated books. Whatever.

[jason taylor]

The cedar timber, this was brought from a mountain named Lebanon. The Assyrian people brought it to Babylon; from Babylon the Carians and the Yaun� [=Greeks] brought it to Susa. The yak�-timber was brought from Gandara and from Carmania.
The gold was brought from Lydia and from Bactria, which here was wrought. The precious stone lapis lazuli and carnelian which was wrought here, this was brought from Sogdia. The precious stone turquoise, this was brought from Chorasmia, which was wrought here.
The silver and the ebony were brought from Egypt. The ornamentation with which the wall was adorned, that from Yaun� was brought. The ivory which was wrought here, was brought from Kush and from India and from Arachosia.
The stone columns which were here wrought, a village named Abiradu, in Elam - from there were brought. The stone-cutters who wrought the stone, those were Yaun� and Lydians.
The goldsmiths who wrought the gold, those were Medes and Egyptians. The men who wrought the wood, those were Lydians and Egyptians. The men who wrought the baked brick, those were Babylonians. The men who adorned the wall, those were Medes and Egyptians.
(description of Darius' palace.

That is something like what Arabian Nights people would think of as a treasure.

Or try this:

http://www.academia.edu/9905137/LEGE...RSIAN_TREASURE

Or this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxus_Treasure

Or just look at appropriate photos from the British Museum.