Elemental Travels - Al'Sha-Ira
Welcome to another Foursaken Feature. A while back, I wrote a series of articles about fantastic locations in the elemental…sorry, I’m being told by my lawyer that, for legal reasons, I oughtn’t finish that sentence. The elemental plane then. The idea was to try and capture some of the fun and grandeur of the inner planes of the Planescape setting (seriously, if you haven’t read some of those old Planescape source books, do yourself a favor and read all of them right now) and put it in the 4th edition cosmology. It was intended for Dragon magazine, but between one thing and another, that didn’t work out. It seems a shame to waste it, so today I’d like to introduce you to one such location: Al’Sha-Ira.
Al’Sha-Ira
Al’Sha-Ira is one of the many ancient cities of the djinni, abandoned after their punishment at the hands of the gods after the end of a great war at the beginning of time. Magically resting upon a bank of clouds, and flying high over most features of the elemental realms, Al’Sha-Ira isn’t easy to reach for most creatures. Even further, when the gods cast the djinni out of the city, they instilled powerful wards over it, which make it difficult for elementally-attuned creatures to enter the city at all: the more closely attuned a creature is with the elements, the more difficult it is for him to enter.
For this reason, Al’Sha-Ira was recently claimed by a small group of refugees, mostly from the natural world, but also including some escaped slaves and other unfortunate natives, who are trying to turn it into a safe haven for travelers through the inhospitable chaos. This “bastion of the meek,” as its inhabitants like to call it, hasn’t earned them many friends amongst the powerful elemental creatures of the chaos, especially the djinni, who take great offense at seeing one of their cloud-cities commandeered by mere mortals.
Inhabitants and Culture
The refugees in Al’Sha-Ira are a loosely organized bunch, primarily humans, but with a handful of representatives of most other humanoid races, including a small number of those with racial ties to the djinni, who find the city’s wards highly uncomfortable, but can still enter largely unimpeded. The city’s population is less than a hundred, though it does continue to slowly grow, as more and more refugees trickle in from the harsh and unforgiving elemental chaos.
Any major disputes in Al’Sha-Ira are settled by a vote amongst the city’s inhabitants, and technically all the refugees are considered equals, but some citizens hold more sway than others. The most influential man in Al’Sha-Ira is Pandrek Quill, who led nearly half the city’s inhabitants to freedom after they were dragged into the chaos from the natural world during a slave raid several years ago. He believes that the refugees should start fighting back against the elementals, raiding their caravans and trading ships for supplies and freeing other slaves.
The other major faction amongst the refugees is led by an ex-monk named Izera, who argues that the refugees have already attracted the attention of too many powerful adversaries, and that they should focus on trying to create some allies, rather than only further enraging their enemies.
Finally, Al’Sha-Ira is also home to a number of strange golems, which the refugees have dubbed the Caretakers. These golems mostly busy themselves with maintaining the city, and are most likely the creations if the ancient djinni. They are typically silent, but, surprisingly, respond in cheerful tones to those who address them, indicating that they have some level of sentience. Still, they are very tight-lipped, and the refugees long ago gave up trying to get any useful information from them, more than satisfied at the Caretakers’ willingness to perform minor labor for them.
Major Areas
The Bastion: This is the refugees’ name for the portion of the city that they have reclaimed, short for “bastion of the meek,” a term coined by Pandrek. With such a small population, the entire city has yet to be fully explored, and the refugees primarily stick to this section of the city, near the center. Visitors to Al’Sha-Ira can find food and shelter here, as well as a number of goods and services. Though the refugees are far from rich, they all pitch in to contribute, and numerous portals (see below) allow them access to a wide variety of markets to get what they need.
The Portal Chamber: Located in the bastion, near the heart of the city, the portal chamber contains no less than five portals, which open up to various locations in the elemental realms. The portals are highly erratic, however, and not all of them work at a given time, nor do they always go to the same place. The pattern, if there is one, remains a mystery to the refugees, but many suspect that the large number of strange, ancient runes in the chamber may be the key to unraveling it.
The Outer City: Much of the ancient djinni city remains unexplored. Though the city almost certainly holds a number of relics from before the djinni were exiled, most of the refugees have preferred to stay in the safety of the bastion ever since several early groups of explorers never returned. The nature of any creatures lurking in the city’s outer reaches is a popular topic of discussion, albeit whispered, amongst the city’s inhabitants.
Adventures
Al’Sha-Ira is best suited as a base of operations for campaigns set in the elemental plane. It offers hospitality, services, easy but unreliable travel to a variety of destinations (allowing DMs some control over where the PCs have access to, while still allowing for quick and easy transport to places they want to go), and perhaps most importantly, safety from many of the dangers of the elemental realms. It is also rife with potential adventure hooks, from relatively simple, low-level adventures, such as travelling through the portals into unknown regions to gather food and supplies for the community, to epic, high-level adventures as the characters aid in the defense of the city against an army of archons or efreeti bent on wiping them out and somehow taking the city as their own. Ideally the community will grow and evolve as the characters do, with their actions helping to shape its eventual character.
The city is also rife with internal potential for adventure, from delving the ancient ruins for the lost treasures and lore of the djinni, to solving the enigma of the Caretakers, who clearly know more than they’re letting on, and whose loyalties may not ultimately lie with the residents of the bastion.
Finally, the PCs might be sent to the bastion by an elemental creature who wants to find out more about the city, whether a djinni who seeks lost djinni lore and culture, an efreeti who wants the PCs to gather intelligence on the city’s defenders, or just about any kind of powerful elemental creature who might want the PCs to find a way to destroy the city’s wards.