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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6975973" data-attributes="member: 4937">Ahh... ok.  I'm not familiar with 5e cosmology.  In 1e through 3e, extreme levels of adaptation were needed to survive on the elemental plane of fire.  But regardless, I suggest you work out in advance how this is all going to work.  For example, when they hit the elemental plain of water, are they going to be in a bubble of air, or is everything going to be underwater?   When they get to the elemental plain of earth, are all the spaces suddenly going to be filled with solid rock, or is city going to snap neatly into a cave that fits it?  If you don't have a bubble, then the city is absolutely going to be dominated by the need to be continually preparing for the next transition as the overwhelming factor in civic life.  I have done basically zero world building along the lines of a city that is prepared for radical transitions in its environment.  I'm also unsure that the Jann are well enough adapted to the other planes to live there without a bubble of some sort.Yes, but I realized that I was getting all my world building completely wrong.  I was building for a society that had been largely stable for centuries and had reached a decadent pinnacle.  I wasn't building for a society that had a violent revolution 10 or 20 years prior, was in the process of rebuilding from that while facing the absolute certainty of having to defend itself to the last in a century.  That society would look completely different, and almost all of my characters are wrong for it.  The society that got out from under the throne of the Efreet a few years ago and was about to face another plunge would be 100% devoted to military affairs and could afford to be 100% devoted to military affairs.  Unless you know that you can weather the coming storm, no one is going to relax and do anything else.  Forget art and decoration, we need walls, siege engines, gates, weapons, armies, fortresses, and mighty spells and we need them now.I don't know that my timeline is better, but I think Qaybar is a very different place if this is the first cycle that they've been free or if they know that in most cycles they become enslaved.  Qaybar only looks like what you've been describing if Qaybar has gone through the trials of several cycles and been able to handle them.  Some of my PC really can only be understood as being someone who remembers what it was like before Qaybar had relative peace, security, prosperity, and stability.  The Qaybar early post revolution is dominated 100% by characters like  Maysoon Lubadah Kanaan and Sheik Abdul Rayib Bey Salib.  There are no other factions around really at that point.  Everyone is basically either Fanatics or Extreme Fanatics, and everyone is going to be pretty much going, "They are going to want revenge, and we've only got 100 years to get ready."   Your description of Qaybar places the armed forces as being only about 3% of the populace.  In a situation of existential survival, I'd expect the armed forces to be closer to 8-10% of the populace.   My assumption was that the first 3-5 cycles, the Efreet wanted revenge, but gradually as it became clear that retaking Qaybar was a costly enterprise with small reward, the Efreet finally rationalized to themselves that they didn't really want that wet, dirty, breezy city with its mongrel inhabitants scarcely fit to be slaves anyway.  Ok.  Well, if you are high level, a city of Jann makes a better locus for adventures than an ordinary city.So, might I suggest you outline what you are thinking of in very broad terms as the history of the city?Rough Draft to Get you Started~5000 Years Ago - A Jann Hero is charged with protecting the Seal of Jafar al-Samal.  He founds Qaybar in the caldera of an extinct volcano, and hides the seal.  He charges his descendants with protecting the seal from harm.  During this time, Qaybar is mostly a small quasi-religious outpost, visited by desert nomads sporadically to settle disputes, exchange brides, barter, and perform sacrifices and festivals.  ~4000 Years Ago - A Pasha of the Efreet is charged with creating an outpost or settlement on the Prime Material Plane.  He chooses Qaybar as a likely target, secretly hoping to discover the seal of Jafar al-Samal and with it over throw the Sultan.  Armed with the Sultans armies, he quickly destroys the descendants of the ancient hero, and with it knowledge of the location of the seal.  With the with aid of laborers on the Plane of Fire stokes its flames to make the environment suitably hot, and after investigating but not finding the seal, appoints one of his sons as Malik of the city to rule over it.  ~4000-1000 Years Ago - The outpost of Qaybar grows into a small city from which the Efreet now rule the surrounding region with an flaming iron hand.  They take many slaves, but favor the Jann for their hardiness.  Jann population grows to nearly an order of magnitude larger than the their Efreet masters.~1010 Years Ago: The Jann begin to rise up, aided by Djinn, Jann nomads (some of whom were escaped slaves), and (to a largely unacknowledged extent, human slaves and neighboring human cities with grudges against the Efreet).~1000 Years Ago: After brutal fighting, the Malik is killed.  A small band of heroes of the fighting rediscover the location of the seal of Seal of Jafar al-Samal.  After discovering that some of their Djinn allies now wish to steal the seal for their own, claiming that they alone have the power to protect it, the heroes vow to prevent it falling into hands of any genie, and cast a great spell using a mix of mortal, immortal and divine magic that causes Qaybar and its immediate environs to begin to planeshift semi-randomly about the inner planes, thereby ensuring that no power of the inner planes except the Jann will find Qaybar a favorable center of power for long.  They appoint their leader to be the new Emir, and swear absolute secrecy regarding the location and even existence of the seal.~900 Years Ago: The Efreet seek to retake Qaybar and exact vengeance when it arrives on the Plane of Fire.  Many of the heroes of the revolution are slain in the siege, but despite 20 years of fighting Qaybar remains standing.~700 Years Ago: Qaybar is briefly overrun by an angry Sultan who dispatches his whole army against the city, killing many of the Jann but at great cost in lives.  They try to remove the curse on Qaybar but fail, owing to the use of mortal magic in its creation.~670 Years Ago: Efreet are forced to abandon their occupation after Qaybar planeshifts to the Elemental plane of Water, resulting in great loss of life and the death of one of the Sultans sons.~500 Years Ago: The last major attempt to subjugate Qaybar occurs, but during the siege, one of the Pashas uses the opportunity to stage a palace coup and slay the then Sultan.  The armies are withdrawn.Present Day:  Whatever plots you want to lay in motion.Modify this to fit whatever your secrets are and whatever you know or have already established about the time line.Assumption: The City of Brass is no more than about 1/10th as populace as it is sometimes portrayed in 3e.</blockquote>

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