Excerpt: City of Brass

[malraux]

I would kind of think of Sigil as the place where an individual could find what they were looking for, but the City of Brass is the wholeseller's choice. At least thats what I envision.

 

[Asmor]

The sigil sequence for this portal is widely known

 

[gizmo33]

I'm not a fan of WotC's publishing of 3 page snippets on iconic planar settings - which seems to be all that they've ever done. The last thing I bought from them that did this was the Fiendish Codex II. The details in products like this seem rather superficial and uninspiring. For example, if you've already told me that the city is a hub of planar trade, then telling me that the warehouses "hold goods from across the plane for trade in the city" is obnoxious. I know what a warehouse is. And I don't need a rundown of the obvious fire monsters and their obvious roles in the city.

There is a corps of "fanatical efreeti warriors". I'm not really sure what they're fanatical about - I would assume it's some sort of cult around the ruler of the city, but otherwise there's no religion even though they say there are shrines to the efreeti ruler. Why anyone in the DnD universe would worship someone who is not a god is beyond me. And efreeti don't seem bound by much in terms of laws, so a corps of fanatical warriors seems a little inconsistent with the rest of the setting. I suppose the designers envisioned some band of efreeti smashing themselves against the PCs without retreating, and hoped that no one would really ask any questions.

"Lawbreakers are sentenced to a period of slavery." I would presume lawbreaking would include trying to kill the Efreeti ruler. I would assume such a lawbreaker would not be sentenced to slavery. I think there could have been a better way of wording this so as not to be such an over-generalization.

I agree that some geomorphs would be useful. A big aerial picture of the city is pretty much useless even if it is pretty. Strictly speaking a picture is not a map. If I went to the store and bought a roadmap and it was just a bunch of aerial photographs of the east coast I'd be angry. For the CoB, I could get as much use out of a few labeled squares on a piece of paper as what they provided.

I'd really like to see someone roll up their sleeves and actually create an adventure in the CoB. The last thing I want to see is yet another rehash of the same old superficial information that's already been dealt with in prior editions. Something like what the GDQ modules did for the Underdark would be cool.

 

[Asmor]

I'd really like to see someone roll up their sleeves and actually create an adventure in the CoB.

Not exactly what you're looking for, but the last paragraph, about how most of the slaves are slaves because of unpaid debt, gave me an idea instantly. My PCs are currently looking for a large sum of money to get a mystery item out of hock in Sigil.

It's almost like this article was posted just for me.

 

[Psion]

I'd really like to see someone roll up their sleeves and actually create an adventure in the CoB.

You are aware of the City of the Brass Boxed Set that some of us have been referring to since page 1?

Or are you strictly speaking some WotC and/or 4e offering?

 

[Victim]

By any comparison, Sigil is better positioned as a trade city. It has portals leading anywhere, plus many permanent portals well known and exploited by various planar organizations, trade groups, etc. It doesn't require transit through an environment inherently hostile to a majority of lifeforms like the Elemental Plane of Fire (or Elemental Chaos). Everyone and their brother wants to conquer Sigil, and it's only the fact than any attempt leads to mazing and/or blood-spattered death by Her Serenity that keeps it from being a constant war zone. The CoB hasn't ever really had any major attempts to seize it, probably because of its location and its relative comparison as a trade city to any number of cities on the planes like the City of Glass, Shrak'at'lor, Dis, Tradegate and any of the other gatetowns, etc. It's good, but it's nowhere near the best.

The CoB is rather hot compared to Sigil. Sigil may have portions heavily cloaked in fog, mildly acidic rain, and for the Lower Ward a ton of soot and ash, but it's a hell of a lot more receptive for most merchants than a city surrounded on all sides by flame, where water is even more scarce than Sigil, and life is generally unpleasant for non-natives, etc.

Plus, the Efreet have a rather more unreceptive sense of laws for the city than Sigil (except for the Hive). The CoB's legal system is probably comperable to Sigil's if Sigil's was entirely run by the Mercykillers.

So Sigil is one step short of being a warzone. It's legal system (such as it is) is run in pieces by 3 separate factions, none of which is strictly subordinate to any other. Sigil itself is jumble of rather distinct micro environments. And you wonder why its not a bigger trade hub? IIRC, many of Sigil's portals are somewhat idiosyncratic, and thus not especially suitable for moving large amounts of cargo.

Maybe the stability provided by the City of Brass facilitates trade?

 

[avin]

Still not envision CoB as THE trade point. Heck, a lot of good aligned people would never trade there because of slavery...

Don't get me wrong, I use City of Brass, and like it. But it's not the eldest city on my games and Sigil's beginning is unknown, as far as I know.

Well, whatever... it's pointless, your arguments can't convice me and vice-versa...

 

[Treebore]

I'd really like to see someone roll up their sleeves and actually create an adventure in the CoB. The last thing I want to see is yet another rehash of the same old superficial information that's already been dealt with in prior editions. Something like what the GDQ modules did for the Underdark would be cool.

Well, it may be done for 3E, but Necromancer's City of Brass has adventures written in it, and those adventure ideas and maps will work in any edition.

 

[gizmo33]

Not exactly what you're looking for, but the last paragraph, about how most of the slaves are slaves because of unpaid debt, gave me an idea instantly. My PCs are currently looking for a large sum of money to get a mystery item out of hock in Sigil.

It's almost like this article was posted just for me.

The idea of people becoming slaves because of breaking laws, owing money (which is probably a subset of the first condition) or being captured in war (which the City of Brass article leaves an open question) is pretty standard historical stuff. Some folks might appreciate a rehash of basic stuff within a supplement like this. But I would compare it to a discussion of sword-making technology in the "Street of Steel" description. I don't think those sorts of generic cultural issues are appropriately discussed in a supplement like this. There isn't enough about efreeti slavery vs. standard slavery IMO to warrant the time that was spent on it. I would think that anyone who had anything interesting to say about the City of Brass would rather spend his time on that stuff instead of just cutting-and-pasting boilerplate cultural details into the book.

And that's just the one example. Pretty much every other section of the preview was as predictable and shallow.

I also think that giving certain details in paragraph form is a waste of space. List the different quarters of the city with their notable features. Don't make me hunt around in different paragraphs trying to guess where the Ashlarks district is described.

 

[Asmor]

Don't forget: Sigil is called "The Cage" for a reason.

There are an infinite number of ways to leave it, but there's not a whole lot of people who know how to reliably.

It's relatively easy to wind up in Sigil, but not quite so easy to leave.