I3-4-5: Desert of Desolation

Desert of Desolation comprises I3: Pharaoh, I4: Oasis of the White Palm, and I5: Lost Tomb of Martek. Tracy Hickman was the overall mastermind of these modules. We won't call it a "series" - we'll get to why not.

Tracy cowrote Pharaoh with newly-Mrs Laura Hickman in 1977, alongside that Hindustani brilliance which would become B7: Rahasia. The couple sold these two privately in Utah, which did well locally. But they got shafted on an unrelated business deal so sold these titles to TSR, who - in a rare flash of business sense - realised what a goldmine they had so hired them outright. Tracy did I4 instead with Philip Meyers. He did the last one on his own and it kind of shows.

Pharaoh

As backstory for I3, Pharaoh Amun-Re once upon a time offended Osiris by his acts of tyranny and blasphemy not least the erection of a grandiose "theft-proof" pyramid to himself. As a result, the god cursed Amun-Re to become a restless ghost whose presence blighted his own land into a barren waste. Only by having his fabulous treasure stolen would the curse be broken, banishing the desert that had swallowed up his kingdom and allowing Amun-Re's soul to enter the peace of the afterlife. The story begins when Amun-Re's ghost appears to the party as they wander the Desert of Desolation that has sprung up around his tomb, pleading with them to risk the traps and guardians of his pyramid and end his curse.

By happenstance this pyramid is the earliest ever Egyptian themed dungeon to see publication for Dungeons & Dragons. Alan Lucien had plotted "Tomb of Ra-Hotep" before that, but this would become something else.

Oopsie!

In the course of healing the land, the party has the opportunity to... kick off the next two modules. They might, accidentally, loose a Wishmaster-esque evil afrit. The party has to fix THAT by robbing more graves and collecting soul-gems. The first one is had in the Pharaoh's tomb in the first module. The other two are got in the course of I4, starting with a temple of Set and culminating in the tomb of Badr al-Musak.

Note how the plot of I3 is entirely disconnected with that of I4-5. Literally a side-encounter of the first one becomes the root of some other epic. (How very Arabian Nights...) DMs who want to play the "full" epic are therefore forced to railroad the PCs into doing something stupid. I3-5 is not a series, in a narrative sense; it is two adventures set in the same location. Thematically the two are mutually redundant, at that - the land was supposed to be healed in I3 and, oops, we're still in a desert I4-5.

I4 ramps up the Islam, by way of the Ibn Ishaq Sira. Hickman and Meyers pose a holy cold-war between the Thune Dervishes and the Symbayans. The Thune protect ALL the holy sites of the wastelands, whatever their supposed "alignment". The pegasi-riding Symbayans are monotheists to Anu. I4 would have you side with the latter against those intolerant fanatical ... pluralistic pagans. Well at least Hickman (and Meyers) allowed the Thune have an ethos (as The Great Lebowski might put it).

The finale I5 is mostly in one final tomb, that of Martek, where Hickman rewards you with a ... Liahona. Well so much for all the Islamic themes, here's that Hickmanite Mormonism you'd been wanting.

Legacy

It was all compiled into a single book and retconned for the Forgotten Realms setting. Hamfistedly. Although not such as to ruin them. Nor to fix them as a series...

Also the skate-ship in I5 was reused (maybe stolen) for the glass sailship in Dragonlance's Time of the Dragon. Since Hickman started the whole Dragonlance thing why not, we guess.