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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9827333" data-attributes="member: 6750502">Post-Review Thoughts on Efreeti SlaverySo, one more thing that entered my thoughts for this post-review post. It was brought up by Ramien on RPGnet, asking if the Tomes ever address the fact that the Wish Economy is built around the enslavement of rather powerful beings. And furthermore, that said powerful beings will likely have other people trying to free them, to say nothing of the alignment implications of enslaving people.It was something that crossed my mind before, but I didn't find a good enough place to insert my concerns in the review, and at first it feels like a drop in the bucket in comparison to all the other unintended consequences. But given how often the Wish Economy is brought up in the Tomes and Tome-adjacent material, it does bear mention.At the very least, one has to ask how the City of Brass will react to their people being used as slaves across the Elemental Planes. Because if it appears that the Sultan of the City is unable to do anything about it, that will make the efreeti look weak and encourage more people to take advantage of them. Or maybe efreeti slavery is tolerated in that the ones summoned are actually criminals and dissidents being punished?And given that slavery is objectively evil in most D&D settings, the Great Wheel Cosmology would likely have it so that the Good and Chaotic Neutral planes wouldn't be profiting from the Wish Economy due to the "blood money." Does this mean that Celestia and the Beastlands are economic backwaters in comparison to say, Mechanus or the Nine Hells?Finally, in order to craft a Candle of Invocation, one must be the same alignment as the intended entity to be summoned. Meaning that a Candle that can summon an efreet must be crafted by a 17+ level Lawful Evil spellcaster. Even presuming that they'd sell such an item on the open or black market, characters who purchase that are making a high-level evil mage somewhere 8.4k GP richer. What are the moral consequences of engaging in the Wish Economy at this scale, and should PCs who wish to wash their hands of such systemic injustice be "disempowered" by the Tomes' expected level of optimization for just refusing to interact with anything above the gold economy? And besides the moral implications, possessing such an item should be akin to buying nuclear arms on the black market. Not only will efreeti hit squads be after you, so too will good-aligned groups who are anti-slavery and don't want unethical mortals bringing Lawful Evil beings of elemental fire to their doorstep in the first place.All of the above can make for great moral and world-building questions, to say nothing of interesting adventures. Yet it's still a missed opportunity, for the Tomes don't examine these worldbuilding implications, because none of what I said is brought up. Not even in the High Adventures in the Elemental Planes chapter, which is where one would expect to see it.</blockquote>

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