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What do the PCs find in a City of the Jann?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6976257" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Yet more inhabitants...</p><p></p><p>The Honorable Mufti, His Excellency, Wazir Shabbar Shubayr Ibn Malouf Al-Saqui, Ambassador Plenipotentiary of Her Most Resplendent Majesty Shabanu Naheeda Nathifa Aibna Shabbalock Al-Thalji, Ruler over all Frozen Lands (“Wazir Al-Saqui”, “Mufti Al-Saqui”, “Abassador Al-Saqui”, “The Ice Wazir”): Shabbar Shubayr Ibn Malouf Al-Saqui believes he is by far the highest ranking being of the most noble race in Qaybar – of much greater rank than the city’s Emir - and if it were not for the great value his posting had to his Empress the Shabnu, and the confidence that she showed in his ability he would not suffer to be among such a hideous and barbarous city. In particular, hot sand strikes him as perhaps the most abominable thing ever to exist. However, Wazir Al-Saqui is a skilled enough ambassador to not let those opinions be known, at least overtly. Wazir Al-Saqui is a Noble Quarashi (10HD, Rog8) that stands over 12’ high. He is of slender build. His skin is light blue, and he goes about shirtless – his chest and arms decorated only with delicate traceries of frost. He wears white pants embodied with gold thread, and his feet are shod with high boots of white leather (actually, yeti skin). He does not like the boots, and would prefer to be unshod – but, sand. Wazir Al-Saqui has a comely but stern face, capable of the most severe expressions, with a smile that offers all the warmth and comfort of the slumber that creeps upon someone just before they freeze to death. He is hairless, but his chin is decorated with an elegant goatee made of sea rime, and his bald pate is covered by an elaborate upswept spiky coif of the same material that makes his full height over 14’. His manners are always elegant and proper, and he makes every appearance of being gracious – at least toward those Jann of sufficiently high rank he is willing to speak to them. Those he considers inferior by more than one or two degrees, he considers beneath his notice and has only indifferent cruelty toward them if they force themselves on his awareness. Wazir Shabbar Shubayr Inb Malouf Al-Saqui has dined in the courts of the Great Padisha of the Marid and the Great Caliph of the Djinn, and served as ambassador for his lady to those most exalted royal beings. So it is only by her direct command that he has humbled himself to this seemingly dishonorable posting. Wazir Al-Saqui is on a mission of the utmost delicacy and importance, upon which he believes depends the fate of the entire multi-verse. The Quarash have long held that the division of the elements into four regions is a great oversight, and that quite properly ice ought to hold a place among the elements as important as the other four. It is their strongest desire to enlarge the para-elemental plane of ice to a full elemental plane, equal to all others and in so doing obtain the respect that they so rightly deserve. Shabanu Naheeda believes that the secret to obtaining this dream is here in Qaybar with the Jann. Her Wazir is charged with the following: gain the trust of the Jann and their Emir by supporting them against their mutual enemies the cursed Efreet. Convince the Emir to alter their great spell so that rather than being transported to the land of fire that they should sojourn in the land of ice. If he is not willing or is unable to do this, suss out the secrets of the spell so that they may subvert it for their purpose. Finally, he is to discover the secrets of the Seal of Jafar Al-Samal and if possible obtain it, so that they may bind the other Genie to their will and finally accomplish their grand design. So far these plans have not advanced very far, but he has learned much of the city and who controls the real levers of power within it. He has also learned - to both his frustration and pleasure - that, if the Jann of Qaybar do not necessarily match him in nobility or power, some of them are quite his equal in treachery.</p><p></p><p>Munir Abdul-Hamid Haik (“Munir Haik”): Munir Haik is a celebrated and wealthy member of the alchemist’s guild, most famous for inventing the process of replicating stored memories – which vastly increased the profit of the trade. In his craft he is ably assisted by his intelligent and famously beautiful wife, the lovely Shifa. Munir Haik is himself a dark hair Jann of medium height with walnut skin and large black eyes. His hands are delicate and graceful, like those of a musician. He prefers to dress in dark browns and blacks, and goes about veiled and covered in public – uncovering his face only when he is at his ease. Out of the jealousy of his rivals, he has been forced to hire several bodyguards – fierce desert Jann of the nomad tribes famous for their loyalty and their bloodlust. These are always about his person unless he is in his sanctum. Munir Haik is an introverted Jann, though he can speak eloquently and even wittily in small groups, he quickly becomes embarrassed in crowds and is prone to stuttering. The process for replicating memories has several limitations – it cannot be used to create a copy of a copy, the copy is never entirely perfect, and the process inevitably degrades the quality of the original memory, resulting in less and less immediacy as time passes until the original memory is unusable. True connoisseurs therefore always try to purchase unspoiled originals, but the first 2 to 6 copies are generally deemed acceptable depending on the skill of the alchemist. The greatest advantage however of the process is that it makes people much more willing to share their memory, something only the truly desperate did before. Now however, the only slightly desperate can sell memories and then for a portion of the purchase price experience one of the copies of their original memory so that the experience is not wholly lost to them. When he is not supervising his apprentices and the journeymen to whom he has imparted his secrets, Haik – like many alchemists of the city - spends most of his time seeking ways to improve the process. There is some matter between Munir Haik and the widow of his former master, Hamid Bey Kattan, that is source of much and diverse speculation. Some say that the Beyg Kattan maintained a secret affair with Munir, and that she had to kill her husband to cover it up. Others say that the affair began after her husband’s death, when the younger Jann comforted her in her grief. Others say that Munir stole her husband’s discovery and killed him to have it for her own, and that the Beyg even now is plotting a grand revenge upon the younger alchemist. Others say that this is all a bunch of hog’s water. Whatever the case, relations have become frostier of late, and her former friend is no longer found in her salons. </p><p></p><p>Shifa Fawziya Haik (“Shifa Haik”): Shifa Haik is the wife of Munir Haik, and his most able assistant. Indeed, some say that the shy, demure Jann is more gifted than the Master, and that it is she that now does most of the advanced – and darker - research, leaving her husband to conduct the daily affairs of business. Shifa is by fashionable Jann standards one of the more desirable women of the city, petite but curvaceous, large almond shaped eyes the color of night just before dawn, small nosed and eternally youthful, lips like darkened bronze, with skin the color of fresh cream and hair as black as a raven’s wing. She wears diaphanous veils in public, and usually in private also, and favors simple white dresses and pearls – which she can afford in quantity with her families wealth. It is presumed, as with most alchemists of the city, that her perfect skin has been marked by many tattoos, but as she is fastidious about her modesty no one but her husband can speak to the truth of that. She is however a fiercely intelligent and bookish female, skilled in all matters arcane, and conversant in all particulars of philosophy and the practical arts. She avoids fashionable crowds, and prefers in fact to spend her time studying alchemy. Everyone remarks how well suited Munir and Shifa are as a couple, though getting them both in public and away from their work can be a chore. Likewise, among the alchemists Shifa is renowned for being able to maintain her appearance of vigor, and there is no small amount of envy in this because the art of alchemy is often wearing on the health, particularly if one has to draw much of their own blood to obtain the otherwise hard to obtain necessary fresh humors. Those who know her best though, say that a shadow has past over her beauty, staining her laugh and her countenance in some subtle way. Shifa and Munir have one very young child, a girl named Saniyah.</p><p></p><p>Mash'al Nsfifrit (“Mash’al the Publican”): Mash’al is an unusual fire genasi of apparent elvish heritage. He has soot black skin, and flame red hair. Two of his lower teeth protrude upward and slightly outward, and his arms and chest are marked with glowing flame colored tattoos. His ears are large and leaf shaped and his chin, eyes, and nose of an elvish look. He is not tall, but well muscled and dresses in black and reds with embroidered fire motifs. Mash’al is a very hard worker with an intense focus, manic energy, and a one track mind. He ran a public house of low regard in a little esteemed portion of the city, catering mostly to common laborers in trades involving fire – and he became well regarded as a brewer and distiller of such beverages as appealed to such persons. By a stroke of good fortune however, The House of Mash’al found itself quite unexpectedly the beneficiary of gentrification that made his property among the most fashionable and desirable in the city. He was soon able to expand operations to include an inn, and has over the last two hundred years become the preferred resort for strangers to the city who lack introductions. Even Dao merchants and such fire creatures such as Azer that the Emir suffers to enter the city do not now decline his elegant accommodations. Any clueless and seemingly lost visitor that asks for the best inn in the city is likely to be directed to the House of Mash’al, either as an honest answer or to make a fool of the fool. Mash’al has made a habit of freeing his favorite slave and marrying her, but owing to his longevity he has outlived each one. He is now on his eighth wife, a plump slightly ugly human woman named Lubna who bakes fragrant herbed breads and spicy grilled meats, and has a staff largely composed of various offspring that have lacked the initiative to run away. Mash’al has a reputation to maintain, and prefers not to serve mortal customers or anyone that might offend his more noble guests. Mere humans or other rabble are directed to the nearby hostel and tavern of one of his favored sons Milond, a house of much less repute and elegance that still serves the common laborers who were Mash’al former trade. Those that don’t take the hint are charged at least triple his already exorbitant rates, and more if they appear they might be sympathetic to the water parties. Countriwise, to seek accommodations in the House of Mash’al is to tacitly admit to being of the fire or earth parties, and so will likely give a bad first impression members of the air, water, or neutral parties.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6976257, member: 4937"] Yet more inhabitants... The Honorable Mufti, His Excellency, Wazir Shabbar Shubayr Ibn Malouf Al-Saqui, Ambassador Plenipotentiary of Her Most Resplendent Majesty Shabanu Naheeda Nathifa Aibna Shabbalock Al-Thalji, Ruler over all Frozen Lands (“Wazir Al-Saqui”, “Mufti Al-Saqui”, “Abassador Al-Saqui”, “The Ice Wazir”): Shabbar Shubayr Ibn Malouf Al-Saqui believes he is by far the highest ranking being of the most noble race in Qaybar – of much greater rank than the city’s Emir - and if it were not for the great value his posting had to his Empress the Shabnu, and the confidence that she showed in his ability he would not suffer to be among such a hideous and barbarous city. In particular, hot sand strikes him as perhaps the most abominable thing ever to exist. However, Wazir Al-Saqui is a skilled enough ambassador to not let those opinions be known, at least overtly. Wazir Al-Saqui is a Noble Quarashi (10HD, Rog8) that stands over 12’ high. He is of slender build. His skin is light blue, and he goes about shirtless – his chest and arms decorated only with delicate traceries of frost. He wears white pants embodied with gold thread, and his feet are shod with high boots of white leather (actually, yeti skin). He does not like the boots, and would prefer to be unshod – but, sand. Wazir Al-Saqui has a comely but stern face, capable of the most severe expressions, with a smile that offers all the warmth and comfort of the slumber that creeps upon someone just before they freeze to death. He is hairless, but his chin is decorated with an elegant goatee made of sea rime, and his bald pate is covered by an elaborate upswept spiky coif of the same material that makes his full height over 14’. His manners are always elegant and proper, and he makes every appearance of being gracious – at least toward those Jann of sufficiently high rank he is willing to speak to them. Those he considers inferior by more than one or two degrees, he considers beneath his notice and has only indifferent cruelty toward them if they force themselves on his awareness. Wazir Shabbar Shubayr Inb Malouf Al-Saqui has dined in the courts of the Great Padisha of the Marid and the Great Caliph of the Djinn, and served as ambassador for his lady to those most exalted royal beings. So it is only by her direct command that he has humbled himself to this seemingly dishonorable posting. Wazir Al-Saqui is on a mission of the utmost delicacy and importance, upon which he believes depends the fate of the entire multi-verse. The Quarash have long held that the division of the elements into four regions is a great oversight, and that quite properly ice ought to hold a place among the elements as important as the other four. It is their strongest desire to enlarge the para-elemental plane of ice to a full elemental plane, equal to all others and in so doing obtain the respect that they so rightly deserve. Shabanu Naheeda believes that the secret to obtaining this dream is here in Qaybar with the Jann. Her Wazir is charged with the following: gain the trust of the Jann and their Emir by supporting them against their mutual enemies the cursed Efreet. Convince the Emir to alter their great spell so that rather than being transported to the land of fire that they should sojourn in the land of ice. If he is not willing or is unable to do this, suss out the secrets of the spell so that they may subvert it for their purpose. Finally, he is to discover the secrets of the Seal of Jafar Al-Samal and if possible obtain it, so that they may bind the other Genie to their will and finally accomplish their grand design. So far these plans have not advanced very far, but he has learned much of the city and who controls the real levers of power within it. He has also learned - to both his frustration and pleasure - that, if the Jann of Qaybar do not necessarily match him in nobility or power, some of them are quite his equal in treachery. Munir Abdul-Hamid Haik (“Munir Haik”): Munir Haik is a celebrated and wealthy member of the alchemist’s guild, most famous for inventing the process of replicating stored memories – which vastly increased the profit of the trade. In his craft he is ably assisted by his intelligent and famously beautiful wife, the lovely Shifa. Munir Haik is himself a dark hair Jann of medium height with walnut skin and large black eyes. His hands are delicate and graceful, like those of a musician. He prefers to dress in dark browns and blacks, and goes about veiled and covered in public – uncovering his face only when he is at his ease. Out of the jealousy of his rivals, he has been forced to hire several bodyguards – fierce desert Jann of the nomad tribes famous for their loyalty and their bloodlust. These are always about his person unless he is in his sanctum. Munir Haik is an introverted Jann, though he can speak eloquently and even wittily in small groups, he quickly becomes embarrassed in crowds and is prone to stuttering. The process for replicating memories has several limitations – it cannot be used to create a copy of a copy, the copy is never entirely perfect, and the process inevitably degrades the quality of the original memory, resulting in less and less immediacy as time passes until the original memory is unusable. True connoisseurs therefore always try to purchase unspoiled originals, but the first 2 to 6 copies are generally deemed acceptable depending on the skill of the alchemist. The greatest advantage however of the process is that it makes people much more willing to share their memory, something only the truly desperate did before. Now however, the only slightly desperate can sell memories and then for a portion of the purchase price experience one of the copies of their original memory so that the experience is not wholly lost to them. When he is not supervising his apprentices and the journeymen to whom he has imparted his secrets, Haik – like many alchemists of the city - spends most of his time seeking ways to improve the process. There is some matter between Munir Haik and the widow of his former master, Hamid Bey Kattan, that is source of much and diverse speculation. Some say that the Beyg Kattan maintained a secret affair with Munir, and that she had to kill her husband to cover it up. Others say that the affair began after her husband’s death, when the younger Jann comforted her in her grief. Others say that Munir stole her husband’s discovery and killed him to have it for her own, and that the Beyg even now is plotting a grand revenge upon the younger alchemist. Others say that this is all a bunch of hog’s water. Whatever the case, relations have become frostier of late, and her former friend is no longer found in her salons. Shifa Fawziya Haik (“Shifa Haik”): Shifa Haik is the wife of Munir Haik, and his most able assistant. Indeed, some say that the shy, demure Jann is more gifted than the Master, and that it is she that now does most of the advanced – and darker - research, leaving her husband to conduct the daily affairs of business. Shifa is by fashionable Jann standards one of the more desirable women of the city, petite but curvaceous, large almond shaped eyes the color of night just before dawn, small nosed and eternally youthful, lips like darkened bronze, with skin the color of fresh cream and hair as black as a raven’s wing. She wears diaphanous veils in public, and usually in private also, and favors simple white dresses and pearls – which she can afford in quantity with her families wealth. It is presumed, as with most alchemists of the city, that her perfect skin has been marked by many tattoos, but as she is fastidious about her modesty no one but her husband can speak to the truth of that. She is however a fiercely intelligent and bookish female, skilled in all matters arcane, and conversant in all particulars of philosophy and the practical arts. She avoids fashionable crowds, and prefers in fact to spend her time studying alchemy. Everyone remarks how well suited Munir and Shifa are as a couple, though getting them both in public and away from their work can be a chore. Likewise, among the alchemists Shifa is renowned for being able to maintain her appearance of vigor, and there is no small amount of envy in this because the art of alchemy is often wearing on the health, particularly if one has to draw much of their own blood to obtain the otherwise hard to obtain necessary fresh humors. Those who know her best though, say that a shadow has past over her beauty, staining her laugh and her countenance in some subtle way. Shifa and Munir have one very young child, a girl named Saniyah. Mash'al Nsfifrit (“Mash’al the Publican”): Mash’al is an unusual fire genasi of apparent elvish heritage. He has soot black skin, and flame red hair. Two of his lower teeth protrude upward and slightly outward, and his arms and chest are marked with glowing flame colored tattoos. His ears are large and leaf shaped and his chin, eyes, and nose of an elvish look. He is not tall, but well muscled and dresses in black and reds with embroidered fire motifs. Mash’al is a very hard worker with an intense focus, manic energy, and a one track mind. He ran a public house of low regard in a little esteemed portion of the city, catering mostly to common laborers in trades involving fire – and he became well regarded as a brewer and distiller of such beverages as appealed to such persons. By a stroke of good fortune however, The House of Mash’al found itself quite unexpectedly the beneficiary of gentrification that made his property among the most fashionable and desirable in the city. He was soon able to expand operations to include an inn, and has over the last two hundred years become the preferred resort for strangers to the city who lack introductions. Even Dao merchants and such fire creatures such as Azer that the Emir suffers to enter the city do not now decline his elegant accommodations. Any clueless and seemingly lost visitor that asks for the best inn in the city is likely to be directed to the House of Mash’al, either as an honest answer or to make a fool of the fool. Mash’al has made a habit of freeing his favorite slave and marrying her, but owing to his longevity he has outlived each one. He is now on his eighth wife, a plump slightly ugly human woman named Lubna who bakes fragrant herbed breads and spicy grilled meats, and has a staff largely composed of various offspring that have lacked the initiative to run away. Mash’al has a reputation to maintain, and prefers not to serve mortal customers or anyone that might offend his more noble guests. Mere humans or other rabble are directed to the nearby hostel and tavern of one of his favored sons Milond, a house of much less repute and elegance that still serves the common laborers who were Mash’al former trade. Those that don’t take the hint are charged at least triple his already exorbitant rates, and more if they appear they might be sympathetic to the water parties. Countriwise, to seek accommodations in the House of Mash’al is to tacitly admit to being of the fire or earth parties, and so will likely give a bad first impression members of the air, water, or neutral parties. [/QUOTE]
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