Into the Tale

The simplest way to begin is to journey to Egypt by mundane means and then retrace the steps of Musa's expedition. Trade between Venice and Alexandria is thriving and characters may be able to use their mundane contacts to book passage on a merchant vessel or procure their own ship. This is perhaps the easiest way, but not necessarily the safest. It requires wandering through the desert, which may tax the survival skills of the player characters. There is also the danger of nomadic raiders and wild animals to contend with, and as they draw closer to the regio they may encounter malicious jinn and other dangerous creatures. You may decide that entrances to the City of Brass may be accessed from other mundane desert areas such as the western Maghrib, the Great Syrian Desert, the Empty Quarter of Arabia or at the edge of the Taklimakan, depending on your saga.

A more direct yet more dangerous route is to leap directly into the Magic Realm and navigate the Twilight Void. This is easier said than done, and lessens the opportunity for grogs and companions to play a part in the story, but may be suitable for exceptionally high-powered or fastpaced sagas. This requires that the magi correctly identify the city's location as being within the Magic Realm rather than Arcadia or somewhere in the mundane realm, which of course requires research. See Realms of Power: Magic, Chapter Three for details on direct travel to and through the Magic Realm.

Alternatively, characters with Faerie Lore may decide that the best route involves tracing the story back through Faerie by entering into Arcadia on a quest for the city. A character with Arcadian Travel may attempt to use her knowledge to navigate to the mundane location of the Marble Palace but risks being side tracked into a Faerie reflection of the true city by Faerie jinn feeding off the human vitality created by the retelling of the tale. She may become lost in one of the other tales from the 1001 Nights, but such an adventure is beyond the scope of this book.