What do the PCs find in a City of the Jann?

Brandegoris said:

Travel through the city at different points should include "Elevators" of pure air that lift residents up and down.
Maybe a river that defies Gravity and is used with Boats to travel the city.

An Aquarium that doesn't need to stay behind glass? its like a city Park in a normal material plane city and people can enter and walk around within it. Perhaps if they cant breath under water they can pay for apparatus or a Spell to be able to go in? From like a vendor?

Races through a desert landscape quarter where they race sand ships for sport in an Enormous "arena" area?

Gladiatorial Style games where people fight Elemental style battles ( Magical or otherwise)
The Arena Magically keeps the most destructive magic from spilling into the city or to the Spectators?

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was said:

..huge libraries
..elaborate bathhouses
..magnificent city gardens: rare plants and elemental/magic sculptures.
..open-air amphitheater: strange wind instruments
..maybe some type of aerial races

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Some kind of race seems really apropos, I totally agree. I'd been thinking of saluqi (desert hound) races, wherein participants can either bet on their own hounds or polymorph into hounds to race... but I like the idea of a wondrous aerial steeplechase through the city... IIRC the City of Brass has something similar (and the PCs in this game are likely to visit the City of Brass), so I'll have to come up with a way to differentiate it.

I also was thinking of bathhouses, libraries, hanging (maybe floating) gardens, amphitheaters, and animal menageries / aquariums.

I also really like the idea of "air elevators"! Maybe that's how non-jann who can't fly on their own get around the city?

pemerton said:

My conception of Jann is shaped by this, from the original MM2:

Jannee tend to be suspicious of humans. They do not like demihumans, and detest humanoids. Jannee will accept djinn, but shun daos, efreet, and marids. They favor dwelling in forlorn desert areas at hidden oases, where they have privacy and safety. They will sometimes befriend humans or work with them for some desired reward such as potent magic items.

The society of jannee is very open, and males and females are regarded as equals.​

This makes me see them as rather xenophobic, and also (given their acceptance of djinn) as rather mercurial (though I'm not sure how that fits with their dislike of marids). That mercurial nature seems to be reinforced by their high fly speed (faster than djinni - 30" vs 24"), and their ability to change size and turn invisible and ethereal. The equality of men and women reinforces a sense of a fluid rather than static society. (Although perhaps that is in tension with their hierarchical tribal structure?)

Given that they have all those abilities, and 6+2 HD by default, I'm not sure why safety should be such a high priority for them - maybe they are worried about efreet and/or blue dragons?

In any event, I would expect their city to be hidden and planeshifting, as it is described in the OP. I would also expect it to reflect the seemingly mercurial nature of the Jannee - as well as their broadly Arab/Central Asian them. It should have spires, and buildings/structures that float in the air, and itself be ever-changing in its layout. (Which fits with the idea of it being labyrinthine.)

Conversely, it should not be static, or solid, or predictable. So I wouldn't see a map as being appropriate.

When necessary, the most powerful Jannee - the viziers - would use their powers of Augury and Divination to predict both the plane-hopping path of the city, and the changing details of its internal layout.

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Yes, I was thinking along similar lines, especially about the viziers using augury and divination to predict the city's planeshifts.

I like the idea of the city's layout changing; that seems apropos of both the city's planeshifting nature and the mercurial nature of the jann. Some kind of map will be helpful, but maybe just of wards/districts...

I actually devised the city as a crescent-shape to accommodate Inner Planer shifting... On the Planes of Fire or Water, the hollow area of the crescent might be a bay (of fire or water, respectively). On the Plane of Earth, it might be a vast chasm or a mountain spire. On the Plane of Air it might be a skyship port. And on the Material Plane it might accommodate a tent village outside the walls of human(oid) nomads come to petition the Emir.

I think that overall, the Jann are going to most relate to things that they see as being fusions of multiple elements, and will specifically call out and celebrate those things.

Para-elementals - Smoke, Ice, Lava, Mud
Elements in Composite or Transient States - Mists, Steams, Hot Water, Dusts, Glasses, Salts, Bricks/Pottery/Glazes
Living Creatures Generally, but especially ones that undergo metamorphosis or live on the boundary of two worlds - Mangroves, Cypresses, Frogs, Bats, Butterflies, Mudskippers, Diving Birds, Shore Birds, Crabs

I imagine a hot spring or thermal area that has been channeled into a garden of steams and tropical plants, with fountains of boiling water. I imagine palace interiors made out of pink hued polished rock salt and cypress wood. I imagine fire glazed porcelain - the product of water, fire, and earth and so cannot exist on the elemental planes - decorated fancifully and highly prized. I imagine buildings made of multicolored bricks, and covered with mosaics of multicolored tiles. I imagine towers of obsidian glass, and carefully tilled rock gardens where pillows and waves of stone formed where lava cooled meeting the sea are treated as priceless works of natural art. I imagine halls decorated with towering windows of stained glass. Potted plants and aquariums and terrariums are very common. Exotic water lilies and brightly colored frogs are purchased with jewels from the best breeders. Amidst this consensus style, partisans display their loyalty to their preferred elemental ancestors with ever burning fires, solidly built houses of granite, chert or flint, ice sculptures kept magically cool in the desert heat, ponds of lava where tame fire creatures can frolic, and such like. Gulls are held sacred in the city by long tradition, and flying in flocks above its plazas. Stylized Herons, Cranes, Salamanders, Land Crabs, and Bats are painted or carved onto seemingly ever surface, and one temple - now half abandoned - releases great clouds of bats to fly over the city at nightfall. In one corner of the city is an eternal rainstorm, the work of a house allied with the Marids, headed by a grizzled, one eyed, jann knight whose lack of tact is as legendary as his role in overthrowing their former Effretti taskmasters. When the old man is feeling especially grumpy, flashes of lightning and peals of thunder ring out over the city. The water from this rainstorm, forms a legendary hanging garden which runs down through one portion of the city till it meets its counter part, a stream of hot water arising from a more literally fiery quarter. Round about where these two streams meet is the great marketplace of the city, and round about that is the tangled souk with its tall polymorphic buildings that change shape on every midnight and wander about, it narrow near lightless alleys, and infinite odors and perfumes. Legend has it that if one is not careful in the souk, the buildings will wander behind you so that you'll be left on streets that have no exit, and wander eternally through streets where demons ply their wares, and ghouls barter for rotten meat.

Have you considered the fashion of the city? I could imagine that an elemental race like the Jann might use pure elements for things such as clothing and construction. Imagine a dress made entirely out of woven fire or a house built entirely out of elemental earth.

[MENTION=6867728]ArchfiendBobbie[/MENTION] I imagine the jann as having a certain hauteur, preferring rare minerals either woven into their silks directly or using rare mineral dyes. These would be minerals found in ecological border zones (e.g. peat bogs, lava fields), with a tendency toward rust-tones and shimmering multi-hued tones. Jewelry would be especially popular, inlaid with rainbow obsidian, aquamarine, fire opals, and other stones.

Added a few bits also...

An Ethereal City. Qaybar exists as much on its current plane as it does in the Border Ethereal, where the ground level streets are shrouded in thick bluish mists and the minarets glow faintly against a sea of the cosmos. Special guardians and magical pathways known as the Masarat al-Jann are found in the mists. This is the spiritual heart of Qaybar, sought after by malevolent forces which assail the city with ether cyclones (seemingly common storms on the Material or Inner Plane). Jann alchemists and philosophers believe it is in the Border Ethereal where the Seal of Jafar al-Samal was hidden and where lies hope for the transcendence of the jann race into a form equal to other genies.

Charm of Qaybar (supernatural gift). This charm, given to trusted friends of the Emir of Qaybar, allows you to enter the Border Ethereal by touching one of the smoky quartz “ether plates” in Qaybar, and return to the Material Plane in the same manner. However, you cannot move through physical matter until activating a moonstone plate as described below. This charm allows you to use the “Paths of the Jann” (Masarat al-Jann) via special plates hidden throughout Qaybar’s reflection on the Border Ethereal:
Moonstone Plates. You can see moonstone plates gleaming in the distance like torches (beyond the normal 60 foot visbility). By touching one as an action, you move through physical matter on the Material Plane as per etherealness. However, your movement is still obstructed by gorgon’s blood mortar, wall of force, and forcecage as normal. Touching another moonstone plate returns you to being constrained by physical matter.
Jade Plates. You can see jade plates gleaming in the distance like torches. By touching one as an action you experience normal gravity drawing you to the structure the plate is built into. Touching another jade plate ends this effect, and non-gravity of the Ethereal resumes for you.
Topaz Plates. You can see topaz plates gleaming in the distance like torches. By touching one as an action you can teleport between linked topaz plates.
Black Opal Plates. You can see black opal plates gleaming in the distance like torches. By touching one as an action you are cloaked from see invisibility, truesight, and other traits and magic used on the Material Plane that detect Ethereal creatures. However, during this time your attacks and spells are utterly harmless, passing through creatures. Touching another black opal plate ends the effect.
Diamond Plates. By touching one as an action you enter the dreamscape of the nearest sleeping creature (or a sleeping creature who you carry a token of). Somewhere within the dreamscape will be another diamond plate allowing you to leave, though it may be hidden.

Celebrim said:

I think that overall, the Jann are going to most relate to things that they see as being fusions of multiple elements, and will specifically call out and celebrate those things.

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Pure genius! The rest really read like an entry from Invisible Cities

A "Garden of Steams" is a location just begging to be written up! In my push to make playable material, it's easy for me to overlook the pure creative process of cataloguing what a visitor to an imaginary place would see. The wonder. I'll see what I can craft spring-boarding from your delightful writing.

Inhabitants of Qaybar

Maktab Al Rasam: The most celebrated artist of Qaybar and also the most mysterious. No one knows his real name, and as far as anyone knows, no one has ever interacted with him on an extended basis. He performs only one sort of art. In the early morning before first light he finds a quiet street somewhere in the city and carefully creates a painting made of colored sand and chalk, laid carefully down on the street in a thin and wholly transient layer. The subject matter is extremely varied, but he has a fondness for complicated geometric shapes, stylized animals and plants, and abstract forms. The size of the painting can vary from between a foot across to on rare occasions vast pieces of artwork 30' or more across. He's widely regarded as having the most subtle and best executed art in the city. Centuries ago when his work first came to attention, each noble house tried to commission him to design murals and create paintings for them, but he proved quite impossible to communicate with. A slender being of not extraordinary height, he is always cowled, with his lower face wrapped in a scarf. He flees if interrupted in his work, leaving it unfinished, and seldom has been known to speak. When he does, it is as one who is very nervous, but he is apparently fluent in many languages. He has proven to have extraordinary powers of evasion and stealth, and the few times he's been successfully cornered he has managed at some point to distract his would be employers or captors and disappear without a trace. After many such attempts, it has become a matter of tact and politeness to ignore the artist in his work, and the main families have all agreed to a truce with respect to 'the Rasam'. Although his creations seldom last more than a few days before wind obliterates them, it is considered very poor manners and very bad luck to step on them - to the extent that denizens of the city will leave through windows or depart over roofs rather than their doors to avoid being seen destroying a painting. Several attempts have been made to preserve his work, but the sand drawings have always proven far to delicate to move, and all have agreed that even the most successful attempts fail to capture the subtlety of the original's lines.

Khalil Alddafdae Bazzi Al Marbi ('Khahil Al Marbi'): A tall Jann with swallow skin. His long black hair is braided and carefully gathered into a great black turban like the dome of a tower, and his carefully coifed, oiled, and perfumed beard terminates in a jaunty spiral. The nails of his long slender fingers are painted, and each has a fine ring bearing a tasteful stone. Khahil Al Marbi always dresses in blacks and other somber tones. He seldom in fact appears in public save at the most stylish and desirable banquets, and then he is noted for being excessively taciturn and paranoid. Although he has several less distinguished rivals, Khalil Al Marbi is the acknowledged master in the art of breeding amphibians of every sort, but most especially brightly colored frogs in vivid nearly florescent hues. Few great families considering themselves stylish unless they have a terrarium displaying his works, and each family desires to gain exclusive access to a particular breed with unusual patterns or colors which no other family possesses. Great fortunes are exchanged for frogs or newts of the most vivid and exotic sort. Less discussed, but an open secret known to all in the city, is that Khalil Al Marbi is also one of the cities greatest artisans in the manufacture of poisons, capable of producing as they say in the city, "a poison for every occasion and circumstance". For his part "Al Marbi" is extremely secretive and paranoid, never taking apprentices despite endless offers and promises of wealth, and never allowing anyone into his home beyond the front parlor. He is known only to trust his three servants: a notoriously foul-mouthed and odiferous creature called Barakaka (ooze mephit/rogue 6) that delivers messages, a hulking Ogrima that serves as Khalil Al Marbi's doorman and bodyguard, and a hunchbacked goblin known only as "the Toad" that serves as his manservant. All have proven unswervingly loyal to their lord, even when anyone is desperate enough to stoop to the embarrassing task of attempting to bribe ones of such uncouth station and breeding. Khalil Al Marbi only purchases breeding stock from a handful of trusted merchants, only one of which lives within the city, and anyone wishing to deal with Al Marbi must generally deal through intermediaries.

Gamali Sabbagh Tartib al Zuhur ("Gamali Al Zuhur"): A broad shouldered tan skinned Jann with dark red hair and a short trim beard, Al Zuhur is the leading botanist of Qaybar, famous for his greenhouses, his extravagant lilies and orchids, his careful manners, and his sunny optimistic disposition. He wears multicolored silks, often embroidered, and much garish jewelry. Although he has never married, he lives in a great household with a half-dozen concubines, and a dozen apprentices - each of which tries to ape the mannerisms and fashion of his master. Despite his manners, he is something of a recluse, seldom found outside the labyrinth of his beloved greenhouses - many of which contain plants of a most exotic and dangerous sort. He conducts business through his ever changing cast of apprentices. Ever changing, because each apprentice strives to win the trust and approval of the master at the expense if necessary of his rivals - up to and including acts of subtle murder and sabotage. Al Zuhur is widely regarded despite his manners and appearance as one of the most dangerous persons in the whole city, and a Jann not lightly to be crossed. He is a master and purveyor of all manner of potions, poisons and narcotics, and it is said he has a secret greenhouse where he maintains a crop of rare black lotuses. Gamali al Zahur and Khahil al Marbi are said to have an old grudge between them, and it is said that each is engaged in attempting to outdo the other and produce a poison for which the other cannot produce or concoct an antidote, and that this is the reason both are so seldom seen outside their respective fortress like homes. Whether this is true or what is the exact cause of the grudge, none can or is willing to say, but it is certainly true that either refuses to discuss anything touching upon his rival.

Quickleaf said:

@ArchfiendBobbie I imagine the jann as having a certain hauteur, preferring rare minerals either woven into their silks directly or using rare mineral dyes. These would be minerals found in ecological border zones (e.g. peat bogs, lava fields), with a tendency toward rust-tones and shimmering multi-hued tones. Jewelry would be especially popular, inlaid with rainbow obsidian, aquamarine, fire opals, and other stones.

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What about including stones or materials made out of pure elements to reflect their elemental nature? Maybe gems made out of pure fire, water, and air for the ruling elite to show off both their wealth and their magical talent.

I suggest this because the wealthy and ruling elite of a nation always find some way to set themselves apart, some method to make it clear they are better than the common rabble. If normal jann are going for a certain hauteur, there has to be some way the nobility is set apart so they can be identified for what they are at a glance. And a race inherently magical is likely to use magic for that in some way.

ArchfiendBobbie said:

What about including stones or materials made out of pure elements to reflect their elemental nature? Maybe gems made out of pure fire, water, and air for the ruling elite to show off both their wealth and their magical talent.

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I would imagine that one major aspect of Jann culture is that they have a bit of inferiority complex concerning their mixed heritage and non-elemental nature. As such, I think that the last thing that they would do is celebrate elements and purity. Moreover, wouldn't something like a gem of pure fire, seem more like a statement of support for their former Efreeti overlords than any sort of defiant pro-Material Plane statement?

I suggest this because the wealthy and ruling elite of a nation always find some way to set themselves apart, some method to make it clear they are better than the common rabble.

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In this case though, it's less about the need to say that they are better than say humans - because that's just obvious and wouldn't even really be in question - and instead more about the need to say that they are at least equal to and perhaps superior to the other Genie races.

Celebrim said:

I would imagine that one major aspect of Jann culture is that they have a bit of inferiority complex concerning their mixed heritage and non-elemental nature. As such, I think that the last thing that they would do is celebrate elements and purity. Moreover, wouldn't something like a gem of pure fire, seem more like a statement of support for their former Efreeti overlords than any sort of defiant pro-Material Plane statement?

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I think it would if they were just using each pure element stone on its own. Mixing all four into the same design would both show off the mixed elemental nature of the Material Plane. You could also include a stealth insult by having statues and royal outfits that have the mixture of all four elemental stones placed above a line of just pure fire elemental stones.

In this case though, it's less about the need to say that they are better than say humans - because that's just obvious and wouldn't even really be in question - and instead more about the need to say that they are at least equal to and perhaps superior to the other Genie races.

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I could see using the four elemental stones together as showing that, depending on how it's spun. The idea that they mastered all four and use all four together could imply that the mixture of all four is stronger than the individuals. Especially if used in a stealth insult fashion, as outlined above, towards lines of just one element.