City of Brass

From 4th Edition

City of Brass
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City of Brass Traits
Elemental realm. Size and Shape: Walled metropolis surrounded by a sea of fire; bounded. Gravity: Elemental bouyancy Mutability: Normal. Fire Affinity: Attacks with the fire keyword gain a +1 bonus to the attack roll, and attacks with the cold keyword deal half damage (ongoing cold damage is not affected).
City of Brass Characteristics
The capital city of the efreets, the City of Brass is the marketplace of the universe, where virtually anything can be bought or sold. Population: Approximately 500,000. Efreets form the upper class of the city, with only a handful of disgraced members standing outside the noble caste. Other residents include salamanders, archons, azers, genasi, fire giants and titans, demons, and other intelligent elemental creatures, as well as a smaller number of visitors and immigrants from the natural world. Roughly two-thirds of the city’s residents are slaves. Government: Bashamgurda is the Lord of the Efreets, ruling the city from his Charcoal Palace. Defense: An entire caste of slaves are born and raised as soldiers to defend the City of Brass against incursion from the wider Elemental Chaos and the Abyss. These include archons, azers, and salamanders. A corps of fanatical efreet warriors called the Unquenchable patrol the Charcoal Palace. The city guard, housed in the Ashlarks district, consists primarily of archon and salamander soldiers. Inns and Taverns: The best place for visitors to find food or lodging is the district of Iskalat, near the city’s harbor. The inns and taverns ringing the harbor cater to travelers from across the Elemental Chaos and other planes beyond. Guests are advised to keep a close eye on their valuables and be wary of con artists, but little risk of death or enslavement exists. Supplies: Commoner’s Market; Street of Steel in the Keffinspires; Marlgate warehouses; Pyraculum bazaar. Anything can be bought in the City of Brass. The Commoner’s Market in the district of Avencina is an ideal place to secure both ordinary and exotic goods of a nonmagical nature. The Keffinspires district is home to most of the city’s smiths, who make and sell magical and mundane item, including weapons and armor. The warehouses of the Marlgate district hold goods brought from across the planes for trade in the city, and the bazaars of Pyraculum offer the greatest diversity of high-quality goods. Temples: The City of Brass is hostile to worshipers of the deities, and holds no public temples to any gods. The primordial known as the Fire Lord, Imix, has an opulent temple in the Furnace called the Eternal Flame Pavilion. Residents of the city are strongly encouraged to offerpraise and gratitude to the lord of the Charcoal Palace in large shrines located in each district.

The oldest city in all creation, the City of Brass is a nexus for planar travelers. Those willing to look long and hard enough can find anything they have ever imagined somewhere in its labyrinthine avenues. With numerous grand bazaars and ornate shops, the City of Brass is the mercantile center of the universe. Built on a vast basalt plate in an immense volcanic field on the edge of a fiery sea, the City of Brass is a still point in the churning tempest of the plane, and a relatively hospitable destination for mortal travelers. It is the home of the fiery efreets, and the temperature is invariably hot — comparable to a sweltering summer day in most places; more like the inside of a smelting forge or the slopes of an active volcano in others.

Contents 1 Approaching the City of Brass 2 Architecture 3 Illumination 4 Laws and Society 5 The Districts 5.1 Arches 5.2 Ashlarks 5.3 Avencina 5.4 Castings 5.5 The Char 5.6 Cindersweeps 5.7 The Foundry 5.8 The Furnace 5.9 Iskalat 5.10 Keffinspires 5.11 Marlgate 5.12 The Plume 5.13 Pyraculum 5.14 Rookery

Approaching the City of Brass

Though not as well connected as Sigil, the City of Brass contains many permanent planar portals linking it to other locations, as well as a large number of teleportation circles that allow ritual casters access to the city. The vast majority of both portals and circles are controlled by efreet nobles who maintain tight security to prevent enemies from using them. One teleportation circle is carved in a huge brass plate just outside the Diamond Gate, right alongside the major thoroughfare leading into the Keffinspires district of the city. The sigil sequence for this portal is widely known, making it the most common means of reaching the City of Brass. A large contingent of archon guards stand to repel any incursion from this access point.

Travelers within the Elemental Chaos commonly make use of planar dromonds to reach the City of Brass, and less often find their way to the city on spelljammers, lightning skiffs, or chaos gliders. Experienced dromond captains claim that all magma flows and seas of liquid fire lead eventually to the Sea of Fire and the harbor of the City of Brass, particularly if one is traveling from another efreet settlement. The powerful will of the efreets creates stable, navigable channels of fiery liquid connecting their settlements to the capital city.

Travelers who don’t come by way of the Sea of Fire cross the basalt plain and enter the city though one of seven gates: the Gate of the Eternal Sun into the Rookery, the Diamond Gate or the Shimmering Gate into Keffinspires, the Gate of Ashes into Avencina, the Golden Gate into the Plume, or the Prism Gate or the Gate of the Desert Wind into Cindersweeps. Each of these gates (along with the harbor’s Magma Gate) is a fortress with a permanent garrison, numerous obstacles and towers, and a dedicated military commander.

Architecture

Even the poorest neighborhoods of the City of Brass feature monumental buildings made of granite, basalt, obsidian, or other igneous rock. Buildings made of any more combustible materials do not last long in the city’s fiery environment. The wealthier neighborhoods also include buildings plated with or made from solid brass, copper, or iron, and trimmed with precious metal filigree. The city’s skyline features slender towers, glittering domes, terraced ziggurats, and tall spires reaching high into the smoke-clouded sky. Colorful murals and ornate sculptures adorn buildings and public areas.

In much of the city, stone buildings show signs of wear, some even crumbling and in various states of disrepair. This leads some to suggest (privately) that the efreets’ control over the surrounding maelstrom is not as complete as they claim.

Illumination

The surrounding Sea of Fire and the fiery canals crisscrossing the city provide a dim red glow throughout the City of Brass. Pots of unquenchable elemental fire hang at intervals along the streets to supplement this illumination.

Laws and Society

The City of Brass has a highly developed dual set of laws—one code for efreets, and another for everyone else. Few restrictions are placed on the efreets’ behavior or trade. Members of other races labor under numerous regulations pertaining to how they conduct themselves, how they do business, and the taxes they must pay on their transactions. These laws are well publicized (posted at the gates and in each inn and public house) and are relatively simple to follow for those who wish to obey them. Some of the more obvious laws prohibit theft, murder, kidnapping, and misrepresentation of goods.

Lawbreakers are sentenced to a period of slavery under the control of the offended party—often the city itself, though such slaves are usually sold in the markets in the Arches. The original length of servitude can be extended for additional infractions, ranging from speaking impolitely to one’s master (seven days for a first infraction, or if a year has passed since the last infraction) to attempting to escape (one year plus one year for each day the slave was missing). Aside from breaking laws, the most common way that visitors to the City of Brass become slaves is by borrowing money and not being able to repay it (and the accrued interest) in time.

Slaves must wear and display bracelets indicating their servitude and their master. They are commonly bought and sold during the period of their slavery. Once the sentence is served, a slave again becomes a free person.

The Districts

Like many other metropolises, the City of Brass is organized into districts—fourteen different sectors, each with its own local character.

Arches

This area lies between the naval yards and the well-to-do neighborhood of the Foundry. Its most notable location is a bustling slave market.

Ashlarks

This residential area is home to many of the free non-efreets of the city, as well as a few of the least prominent efreet houses. The landmark feature here is Long Castle, home to the city guard.

Avencina

Avencina is a rowdy, lower-class district where many races mingle. It contains the Commoner’s Market, one of the city’s largest open-air bazaars. Though buying or selling stolen merchandise is strictly illegal, one would be hard pressed to explain the many used, “secondhand” items in any other way. All merchandise is sold as-is. Frequently, a vendor selling in the market one day isn’t there the next (or, at least, not in the same disguise).

Castings

In the shadow of the Furnace, this district is home to the barracks of the city’s slave army. A great monument in the form of a giant archway, called the Gate of the Fallen, celebrates the many victories of the efreets in battle. It depicts them triumphing over most of the creatures native to the Elemental Chaos and the natural world.

The Char

The smell of molten metal suffuses this business district, where metalworking businesses congregate. The area houses the Red Wyrm Smelter, which has several different slave-operated workshops and refines great quantities of ore brought into the city. The Forge of Manacles makes shackles for the city’s slaves, and Locksmith’s Row provides the fasteners. The massive Firespring creates fire archon soldiers for the city’s defense.

Cindersweeps

This neighborhood houses lowerclass, free residents for the most part. The notable features are the Military Dock, Drydocks, and the Keep of Fire Striking Steel. The fortress serves as an armory for the harbor garrisons. The Naval Yards allow restricted admittance to the city’s canal system via the Naranj Canal.

The Foundry

Visitors to the city sometimes make the mistake of going to the Foundry district in search of the metalsmiths who actually do business in the Char or Keffinspires. The Foundry is the third most exclusive neighborhood of the city, boasting large, ornate mansions and beautiful memorials to past notable personages. Efreets not well enough connected to live near the palaces of the Furnace and not wealthy enough to live in the Plume reside here. In addition, the wealthiest members of other races live here, since only efreets are allowed to live in the Furnace or the Plume. The prominent locations in the district are the Plaza of the Hunters, the Plaza of the Silver Chariot, the Gate of Glory, and the Fountain of Clearest Azure.

The Furnace

The most exquisite district in the City of Brass is the Furnace, a perfect hemisphere with the Charcoal Palace rising from its center. Government offices in the Red Pillar Halls surround the palace and accompanying areas, which include the Barracks of the Ring of Fire (the Lord of the Efreets’ personal guard), and the Eternal Flame Pavilion (a shrine sheathed in beaten gold, dedicated to the primordial Fire Lord, Imix).

Iskalat

This district contains public docks for planar dromonds and other vessels that sail on the Sea of Fire. The Magma Gate allows entrance to the harbor, and from there to the city’s canal system. Anyone who makes a living from vessels (repair, provisioning, or housing/recreation for travelers) lives and does business here. The district’s a lively one, with many different races of planar travelers occupying the numerous inns and taverns. A notable landmark is the obsidian-walled Octagon, a great prison containing magic cells designed to keep even powerful creatures carefully sealed away.

Keffinspires

The main feature of this merchant district is the Street of Steel, where numerous smiths manufacture and sell weapons, armor, tools, and other items. The smiths of this district include a sizeable population of azers.

Marlgate

Located just south of the Ashlarks and north of Iskalat, this district holds the warehouses that store all that is worth having. The goods from the holds of planar dromonds are bought here and sold in bulk.

The Plume

Second in splendor to the Furnace alone, the Plume houses the wealthiest and most noble of the efreet houses. Only efreets can own or occupy property in this district. Magnificent buildings overlook splendid open courtyards. The district also houses the Castle of the Sun and Moon, where the city’s finest legions live and train.

Pyraculum

This area houses the City Market, which is larger and slightly more upscale than the bazaar found in Avencina. Artisans of different races live and work here.

Rookery

An infamous quarter of the City of Brass, this area is renowned throughout the plane as the most dangerous and lawless area of the city. Even the city guards sometimes fear this place. Its gambling dens, pleasure gardens, and fighting pits never close.