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A few years ago I was in negotiation with Kemzer & Co. to do a "Sands of the Khydoban" adventure supplement for the Kingdoms of Kalamar Dungeons & Dragons setting. This was in my last year of living in Israel, so around 2002.

I did some artwork for the supplement to go along with it, mostly to show some ideas.


Sultry girl.


Another sultry girl, because there is no such thing as "too many sultry girls".


Castle guard.


Medieval Arab style bardic instrument samples.


Repressed and Sultry extremes.


My impression of some artwork I saw in a book about Medieval Islamic Armies.

That's that. The book was written and sent, and Kenzer & Co. looked it over but because I had just finished my archaeological studies and history studies in the Middle East, my setting was intrinsically identifiable as "too Earth History-like". In other words, I basically retold the history of Ancient Egypt, Sunni Islam and the Ottoman Empire all mixed together and placed it in a D&D setting. It was cool (they liked it, said it was great writing but not usable in its existing form), I had Gnoll Mameluk armies, animal-head gods, and prophets from the east with holy writings, etc.

Better luck next time, though. Enjoy the art, at least.

Wow. Those are pretty impressive. I like the whole Middle Eastern feel of them. The one thing I would point out (relatively minor nitpick) is that in the first picture, her head looks a little squished on the left (her right). But man, I wish I could draw like that.

Hey, that's the setting I was using as background ! I think I might borrow some of your pictures when it's my turn to DM again.

Can you post more pictures - the Gnoll mameluks would be interesting...?

Raesene wrote:Hey, that's the setting I was using as background ! I think I might borrow some of your pictures when it's my turn to DM again.

Can you post more pictures - the Gnoll mameluks would be interesting...?

I never did a picture with the Gnolls, which was something I was going to do if the project was picked up. I'd be more'n happy to share some of the ideas with you, though. I can't really use the setting except for my own enjoyment; I can't sell it because of the copyrights involved with both Kenzer & Co. and Wizards of the Coast... but I can post some of the interesting aspects in the Gaming forum if you're interested.

Definitely - I think other players on this board would also be interested.

so the discussion after post 186 is about you ?

Raesene wrote:Definitely - I think other players on this board would also be interested.

so the discussion after post 186 is about you ?

HOLY COW! That would be me, in fact.

Y'know, Ihaven't been to the Kenzer & Co site for a couple years... maybe I will dust this off and re-submit it.

Might be a good idea - after adding some central asian influence

EDIT: the posts are also quite recent as they are from mid-2007.

Why couldn't you use the names and such from Arabia?

havokeff wrote:Why couldn't you use the names and such from Arabia?

Maybe Kenzer feared it would end up too similar to Al-Qadim.

havokeff wrote:Why couldn't you use the names and such from Arabia?

This was the reply I got:

Noah Kolman wrote: After much discussion here, we have come to a decision on the Sands of the Khydoban. At this point, it would require too much work on our part to force this into Kalamar. The main problem is that most things have real world names instead of new Dejy names. Dave Kenzer thought that the book read more like an alternate history of earth with earth names than a Kalamar history. So the book will not be released as Sands of the Khydoban.

We do think it is well written, however, and would like to release it as amedieval Arabian setting under the d20 license, since it is our feeling that that is what you wanted to do anyways. So, if you could go through the document and remove all the Kalamar specific stuff and add whatever real world stuff you want, we should be good to go. When you get an idea of when you'll be able to do this, let me know.

We do like your writing, we just thought the current incarnation felt forced into Kalamar, and had too many real world names and references. If you have any questions, let me know.

Sincerely, Noah Kolman
Assistant Editor, KODT & Game Designer
Kenzer and Company
www.kenzerco.com

That was the gist of it, really.

Noah Kolman wrote: snip

Reads like a few months editing besides other tasks and your name is on a published RPG-supplement.

You should definitely ask whether they'd still be interested, and which version they'd prefer .

I'd me more than glad to do a major workover for a Khydoban specific setting. I remember some talk about an alternate-Earth D20 setting but as far as I know it never got off the ground.

After that letter I had a lot of turbulence in my life, including such things as going to Iraq, and a lot of things got pushed to the background for me. I recently uncovered the manuscript I did for this, and the pictures I posted here, and thought about it again... hmmm...

What are you waiting for ? Do it !

Edit: although that means there will be no posts of your ideas in the Gaming forum

True, but it'll have more cooler art done by folks hired by Kenzer-- folks who'll probably work in color, whereas I am not very good with color myself.

Folks at the K&Co. board seem up for it...

Let's hope Kenzer&Co also bites !

Raesene wrote:Let's hope Kenzer&Co also bites !

They have.

For the curious, I have re-opened my work with Kenzer & Company and hopefully the 'Sands of the Khydoban" supplement will be had. No time slot can be guessed right now, and of course I can't go into detail, but looks like it's a "go".

Kewl beans!

The feet seem a bit small and that horse is going to have a hell of a time grazing, otherwise it is nice.

Zor

Coyote wrote:

Raesene wrote:Let's hope Kenzer&Co also bites !

They have.

For the curious, I have re-opened my work with Kenzer & Company and hopefully the 'Sands of the Khydoban" supplement will be had. No time slot can be guessed right now, and of course I can't go into detail, but looks like it's a "go".

Kewl beans!

Congratulations ! And hurry up, I don't want to wait a long time

Zor wrote:The feet seem a bit small and that horse is going to have a hell of a time grazing, otherwise it is nice.

Zor

Y'know, I have been looking at that horse for ages, trying to figure out what was wrong. When drawing animals, I almost always screw up the leg-to-body proportions. I kept looking and looking at that horse and kept wracking my brain thinking, "the legs are fine, the body's fine, WTF?"

I never even looked at the head/neck proportions.

(thanks for catching that, I thought I was going blind or something).