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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6976323" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, it would help if you let me know where I should be going with the social status of the NPCs.  I've been trying to leave the very upper crust of society to you and focusing mostly on the 2%ers (except obviously the Sheik), but if you want more of a slice of street life or more thuggish villains I can go that way as well.On that note, and example of branching out in a new direction:Rafi Adel Ibn-Baz (“Rafi Baz”, “Tip Top”): Rafi “Tip Top” Ibn-Baz is in theory a sometime student from a reputable family who gets occasional work as a scribe, clerk, or computer to pay the fees of his tutors.  In practice, “Tip Top” is the leader (Jann Rog3/Rng3) of an irregular militia called The Chimney Sweeps that favors the Emir, the Emir’s allies, the Great Caliph of the Djinn and in general the traditional politics of the city.  Slightly older than his fellows, the young Jann cuts a dashing figure with bronze skin, straw colored hair, and a matching Van Dyke beard.  He wears sand colored clothing and a veil of the style favored by nomads, a small neat turban, and on cool nights a buff coat of deer skin he purchased from a human merchant.  He is charismatic and charming, and adopts the mannerisms of a rake in public, while able to be intellectual and refined in private.  His followers include a dozen other young Jann of both genders, and two dozen mixed air genasi, smoke genasi, ice genasi, and humans (Rog3-Rog6).  In order to gain membership in the Chimney Sweeps, it is necessary to demonstrate either the ability to fly or complete fearlessness at heights and mastery of climbing.  Indeed, several of the Chimney Sweeps have vowed never again to touch the streets or the ground, and travel only by flying or running across the roof tops.  All the Chimney sweeps consequently have the following advantages – they can move at full speed while climbing, balancing, or on sloping surfaces without penalty, they gain a +1 bonus to AC when on a different elevation than their attacker, and they have resistance to falling damage.  They are always proficient in Athletics and Acrobatics.  Rafi is a romantic and a daydreamer, and slightly delusional.  In his own mind, his actions are not illegal, petty or immoral, but rather the direct continuation of the great resistance fighters that helped liberate Qaybar of old, and that the violence his band undertakes and the surveillance that they engage in are helping to keep the city free from its enemies.  So great is his charisma and oratory skill, that all his gang believes it, and would – if it came to it - give their lives for the imagined cause or in service to the Emir, which they believe they are performing.  Mostly this service consists of skulking about and trespassing on rooftops and observing rival gangs, or known leaders of opposing political parties.  Occasionally they harass opponents by throwing bits of roofing tile or broken pottery, or swarming down to deliver a buffeting – sometimes with clubs.  In serious confrontations, they can equip themselves with bows and daggers, but such overt bloodshed draws too much attention and is seldom undertaken save when tempers are high on all sides.  The symbol of the gang is dandylion thistle or other downy seed, which is pinned to ones clothing, or drawn in chalk to mark the gang’s territory. Aside from their vigilante actions, most of the gang are able to find occasional work, including not ironically as chimney sweeps (at least, for the non-Jann, as the Jann themselves would never engage in such a plebian trade), and they hire out as messengers or couriers from time to time.  Unbeknownst to Rafi, several members of the gang have ties to The Coiled Madam, and though they would not consciously betray the gang, they do pass information to her concerning what they have observed.  The Chimney Sweeps are experts in shape the Smoke Medina, and though they do not go into its lower reaches, they are from its roofs able to observe its mythic tangling and the places which fade off the map and reappear.  It’s possible that a party lost in the Smoke Medina would attract the attention of Rafi or other members of the Chimney Sweeps, who might rescue them by lowering down a rope.  They also mark but never enter the passages that lead to the Charnel Quarter, but could - if they were inclined - direct someone how to enter (a service few others in the city could perform, and most others that could are of a far shadier demeanor).</blockquote>

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