Motivations

The City of Brass story is a quest; player characters are asked to visit the city to find something important and return alive. The storyguide needs a suitable reason for their troupe to become interested, and the following three ideas may be used alone or in any combination that ignites a group's interest. Selfmotivated players might be interested in the adventure in and of itself. In the spirit of high adventure, similar to the motivation in many of the original stories, your magi might decide to visit the City of Brass of their own volition.

An elderly Egyptian Ex-Miscellanea magus named Ibrahim visits the covenant. He might be an old friend of one of the magi or merely a traveler asking for Hermetic hospitality. During dinner, he tells the characters the story of the City of Brass and reveals that 'Abd-Es-Samad is the founder of his magical lineage. He emphasizes the Brass Bottles of Suleiman, saying that his recent research focuses on identifying the magical secrets of these non-Hermetic objects. He has been unsuccessful, his original research foiled by a long succession of fraudulent relics, unpromising leads, and malign faerie interventions. However, he has recently acquired an authentic Brass Bottles of Solomon, and hopes it will provide the necessary Insight so that he can integrate Solomon's magic with Hermetic magic (see the Integration rules in Ancient Magic, pages 7-9).

If the magi take an interest in his research, Ibrahim shares his notes, hoping that together they might succeed where he alone has failed. He will not part with the bottle, but does allow others to experiment if he can assist in their lab. The bottle provides a single Insight, but for more Insight and Breakthrough points, the integrator needs more bottles, which can be found in the City of Brass. When the magi form an expedition to locate the City of Brass, Ibrahim expresses his sadness at not being able to participate. He is far too old to lead or even participate in the journey. He can provide an uncorrupted copy of 1,001 Arabian Nights, in Arabic, to aid magi in their quest.

If the characters express no interest in an expedition, Ibrahim leaves after a few days. It may be years before they hear from him again, when he writes them a letter discussing his sadness at his limited progress with the relic, which he has confirmed to be authentic. Shortly afterward, they hear of his passing into Final Twilight and the Brass Bottle mysteriously arrives at the player's covenant as a gift along with his blessing to use it as they will.

The covenant receives a strange and mystical iron tablet as a gift, payment of a debt, part of a legal settlement, or assignment for investigation. The tablet is inscribed in ancient Greek with a long flowing verse, lamenting the transience of the material world. The homily reads:

In the name of God, the Eternal, the Everlasting throughout all ages…

… be admonished by the misfortunes and calamities that thou beholdest, and be not deceived by the world and its beauty, and its

falsity and calumny, and its fallacy and finery; for it is a flatterer, a cheat, a traitor. Its things are borrowed, and it will take the loan from the borrower…

The verse extols the greatness of God, who alone is eternal and infinite, and describes the riches and wealth of a great kingdom, laid to ruin by the encroaching Sahara. The author ends his verse with his signature and seal: King Kush. This is the fabled lid of his sarcophagus, taken by Musa and presented to his caliph as a gift to inspire wisdom. Musa did not realize that the tablet also acted as a magical ward that protected the corpse from malevolent spirits. The strange glyphs and arcane symbols suggest that the magic was a non-Hermetic spell, equivalent to a high level Rego Vim effect. Intellego Vim spells cannot find any traces of magic, the residue of the effect having long since dissipated, but magi may accurately guess that the spell was broken when the table was removed from the sarcophagus. With the tablet removed, the dead king's spirit was vulnerable to the City of Brass's jinn, and the ruler of the 'Afrit, the Malik, took the king's remains and holds King Kush's ghost hostage.

Other ghosts loyal to King Kush, especially his son Prince Keshan, want to liberate their king. The prince believes that whoever has the tablet has the power to free his father, and following vague, mystical visions he has been seeking the tablet's owner. The process has been difficult, as the tablet has changed hands many times over the years and the visions are hazy. Recently, Keshan's visions have guided his soldiers as far as the covenant, but he is unsure how to proceed next.

Once the magi receive the tablet, the ghosts locate the covenant and repeatedly try to enter. They are unlikely to be able to cross the Aegis and their pleas in Greek or Arabic are unlikely to be understood by the covenfolk. This does not discourage them, and they continue to try to communicate their intent