Editing X4-5-10: Desert Nomads series (section)

==X10: Red Arrow, Black Shield==
Did the players ever wonder: hey, the X4-5 backstory sounds better than the actual series, I'd rather role-play how Darokin fights this war. Here Dobson grants them that chance... and himself the chance to sell [[BATTLESYSTEM]]!! boxes to a new corner of TSR fandom.

This module starts by running the party off the bordertown Akesoli - no Pramayama for them, the Master's punch hits right at home. Darokin knows it hasn't a chance especially once totally-not-Arab nation Ylaruam sides with its fellow(?) Nomads. So the party must roam the Known World convincing other nations to join the fight. There are tie-ins with earlier X-series modules that the party can play, especially down in Minrothad and Ierendi. (For the former, [[X8: Drums on Fire Mountain]] is transferred from Thyatis, likely to push the party toward doing... ''other'' tasks for Emperor Thincol. For the latter, righteous shade is cast upon [[XL1: Quest for the Heartstone|the X''L'' "series"]].) The module has a subplot whose settings, by coincidence, contain fragments of a Crystal Dagger Of MacGuffin. Gee, wonder how that'll work?

The players can have the party - if close enough - participate in some of the battles, as leaders and/or heroes. Here are ''Companion Set'' war-machine stats and those ''BATTLESYSTEM'' encounters. There's also a flowchart-system for travelling cities at a pinch, the Chase Flow Chart: which saves time exploring a massive map if the party's just there for one simple task. Like running like a rabbit OUT of the map.

The artwork is notably bad: some cribbed from ''[[X3: Curse of Xanathon]]''; some just from the headlines. I mean seriously, check out Hosadus. It being 1985, there was some level of anti-Khomeinist sentiment in Western countries.