Editing Al-Qadim (section)

==Splatbooks==
As settings go, Al-Qadim got a fairly significant array of [[splatbook]]s. The core trinity (officially, core duo, but everybody considers ''City of Delights'' to be a third corebook) consist of ''Arabian Adventures'', ''Land of Fate'' and ''City of Delights'', whilst the rest expanded upon the setting in various ways.

''Arabian Adventures'' is supposed to present AL-Qadim as a general "theme", a way to build your own Arabian Nights-inspired D&D settings, in much the same way as the earlier [[Oriental Adventures]]. It's somewhat undercut because it opens with an examination of the Zakhara as a canon realm, covering in brief the land and its cultures. It also covers building characters, most notably how to adjust races to reflect the unique cultural aspects and prohibited characters, an assortment of new [[kits]], proficiencies and equipment, and new spells, and new setting-related rules, such as calling upon fate, the evil eye, survival in the desert, and how to handle armor vs. the intense tropical heat.

''Land of Fate'' acts as the campaign setting, exhaustively examining the different city states and expanding upon cultural aspects, including religion. it also features a bestiary with a number of uniquely Zakharan monsters.

''City of Delights'' fleshes out Huzuz, the capital city of Zakhara, home of its Grand Caliph. It expands upon the city's history and layout, talks about the character of its residents, expands upon daily life and culture, depicts notable figures, includes an examination of how to base a campaign out of Huzuz, and features a bestiary with a number of uniquely Zakharan monsters. This boxset is considered most useful for its aside on optional humanoid PCs, providing some slightly tweaked rules for playing [[goblinoid]], [[kobold]], [[lizardfolk]], [[orc]] and [[ogre]] (and their half-breed progeny) PCs. These rules are incomplete, still mandating access to [[The Complete Book of]] Humanoids for basic stats, but do expand their classes by comparison. 

Naturally, Al-Qadim has its own Monstrous Compendium Appendix - which, ironically, actually doesn't feature any of the monsters that appeared in ''Land of Fate'' or ''City of Delight''.

''[[The Complete Book of|The Complete Sha'ir's Handbook]]'' is an expansion of rules, [[kits]] and other materials for Al-Qadim's native [[wizard]] variants.

''Secrets of the Lamp'' might as well be TSR's definitive [[genie]] lore sourcebook, taking the meager lore from early planar sourcebooks like the [[Manual of the Planes]] and expanding upon it in significant ways, such as naming the various genie rulers for literally the first time in D&D's history. Ironically, pretty much none of this lore would be reprinted in [[Planescape]].