Description
Ik-jar-salim was the monkey familiar to the great and powerful efreeti Abjar Hakoor-du-Balom-Asktee-Nas-Jii, known more usually as Lord Ash, faithful servant of Baal and Grand Sultan Ixingaltrix. Alas, powerful masters make powerful enemies and Lord Ash’s mighty spark was quenched, tricked into an iron flask that only—through a quirk of mad magic—could be opened by his familiar. The familiar was, at the same time (and to ensure a good job done) destroyed, quite messily, before its master. The flask was sunk, along with its master’s vessel—the fearsomely reputed pleasure barge Furnace—into the Boiling River within the City of Brass and forgotten.
Yet Lord Ash remained mercilessly awake, his mad prayers to Baal unanswered, while his ship’s iron cladding was eaten away over centuries. As the vessel decayed in the terrible river, its skeleton repelled the fire and slowly, so slowly, cast off the shackles of iron and mortal metals that weighed it to the bottom of the river. When its skeleton was stripped bare, the barge rose like oil on a mortal river.
Three nasty brothers are good at digging up old legends and stories. When one of them learnt that beneath the Boiling River lurked a powerful imprisoned efreeti rumored to grant wishes, they grew obsessed with finding it. And the rest is the subject of our tale, effendi!
This double-length City of Brass adventure for the 5th Edition of the world’s first RPG is meant for four 1st-level characters. Designed by Richard Pett, it features original cartography by Dyson Logos and art by M. Wayne Miller.
kiestered –
This was a fun one-shot to run with a first level party. I ran it online as an icebreaker for a bunch of players who had never played together before.
One note: A crit with a crocodile can one-shot even the best first level character. Be careful if you run that encounter.