Al-hassan was an efreeti of no small repute, yet for most of his existence he lived in the shadow of a greater genie—his brother, Jhavhul. His brother was always there to steal his glory and build upon his ideas, so when Jhavhul abandoned the City of Brass, Al-hassan seized the chance to step up and become a prince in his own right. Yet Al-hassan quickly found that even with Jhavhul gone, the other efreet continued to think of him as “Jhavhul’s brother.” Al-hassan grew more and more frustrated, and when he heard that his brother had been enslaved on the Material Plane by a mage-priest named Ezer Hazzebaim, he cheered.
Al-hassan spared no expense tracking Ezer down, eventually finding the mage-priest licking his wounds and sulking in a fortified hideaway. After an initially rocky reception, Al-hassan managed to secure an audience with him, eager to learn if he’d found an ally. Al-hassan and Hazzebaim reached an accord wherein the efreeti would “share” wishes with the wizard-priest. For every two wishes he granted Ezer, the mystic would wish for something Alhassan desired—ironically a similar arrangement that Jhavhul himself would soon arrange with his cult in the House of the Beast back on the Material Plane. With the aid of his own incestuous wishing, Al-hassan hoped to advance far in the Sultan’s Court, and so the two returned to the City of Brass as allies.
Yet unknown to the arrogant and ambitious efreeti, his “ally” Ezer was anything but—in allying with this man, Al-hassan had unknowingly placed his beloved City of Brass in great danger. Ezer Hazzebaim is a member of the nephilim, a race of outsiders native to the Material Plane.
Unlike the majority of his kind, Ezer felt his mortal “half ” was limiting him, holding him back from achieving true greatness. He had long sought a way to shed his mortal half, to become a creature more suited to serve his chosen patron—Rovagug. What better method was there to achieve this end than to absorb the residual power from the grave of one of the Rough Beast’s own spawn? Ezer had hoped to use his enslaved efreeti’s wishes to achieve this goal, but ironically, his defeat and flight from the Material Plane may have saved him. In the months after he fled that fight, he further researched his plan and came to the conclusion that, had Jhavhul not ruined everything, and had he attempted to transfuse a portion of Xotani’s essence into his own body to become a “true child of the Great Beyond” (essentially shedding his native subtype), the attempt would almost certainly have backfired. The spawn of Rovagug are tremendous creatures, difficult to kill, and once dead, difficult to keep that way. Ezer’s additional research suggested that instead of infusing him with Xotani’s essence, his plan would have used his own life to spark a sudden resurrection in the Firebleeder’s old bones, snuffing Ezer out in the process.
Yet this discovery has only strengthened Ezer’s desire to shed his mortal chains. Abandoning Xotani, he turned his research instead to finding a place in the Great Beyond where he could simply suffuse himself with raw power and transcend his limitations. Again and again, his research led him to the same result—an ancient and powerful artifact called the Codex of Infinite Planes. Yet before he could seek this legendary tome, Ezer knew he had to prepare himself.
The wards on the artifact were mighty, yet there existed methods to safely study the codex. One such method was said to be with the aid of a powerful magic item—the fabled Impossible Eye, reputedly one of many treasures kept by the grand vizier of the City of Brass.
So when Al-hassan approached Ezer, the nephilim played his cards masterfully. He secured from the efreeti a new supply of wishes, a fair amount of treasure, and perhaps best of all, a safe place to forge his plans to steal the Impossible Eye. Ezer had no wish to enrage a figure so prominent and powerful as the grand vizier, but in Alhassan he had a convenient proxy. Ezer swayed Al-hassan into seeking to gain the Impossible Eye, thinking it to be for his own benefit. Ezer eventually led a covert team of mercenaries and rebellious efreet into the tower while the grand vizier was otherwise occupied at court. Yet word of Jhavhul’s disappearance had spread beyond the Plane of Fire, and those who had grudges against the efreeti saw this as their chance to act.
While Al-hassan magically monitored Ezer’s assault from Bayt al-Bazan, he was surprised by a raid of marids intent on recovering a princess of their race that Jhavhul had captured ages ago—the princess Shazathared, who had languished as one of Bayt al-Bazan’s prisoners for centuries. Overwhelmed by the marids’ assault, Al-hassan was slain in a tremendous battle that claimed the lives of the raiders as well. Without Al-hassan’s magical support suppressing the grand vizier’s contingencies, the grand vizier suddenly became alerted to the assault on his tower and teleported back to his residence. Ezer, the Impossible Eye in his grasp, knew that his time was short. Rather than lingering to examine the protective wards overlaid upon the artifact before transporting it to a carefully prepared safehold, he snatched the Impossible Eye and fled back to his sanctuary at Bayt al-Bazan, abandoning his minions to be cut down by the grand vizier’s guards.
As his magical mirror slipped through his grasp, the grand vizier lashed out with his long-prepared magical contingencies, reaching out through the mirror across the length of the City of Brass. The power of his furious magic exploded from the mirror and reacted strangely with the potent magical wards that both Al-hassan and Ezer had placed throughout Bayt al-Bazan. Ezer himself was drawn into the Impossible Eye and trapped, while everything and everyone else in Jhavhul’s palace suffered a different fate. The grand vizier’s rage engulfed Bayt al-Bazan in a powerful curse, using the Impossible Eye to create a reflection of the palace and trapping those inside, turning Bayt al-Bazan into a prison—and a trap. From the outside, the palace seemed unchanged, but any who entered the building would immediately be trapped within, unable to escape.
After his wrath was spent, the grand vizier calmed and considered. In his fury to lash out at Ezer and the inhabitants of the palace, he realized he had effectively imprisoned his own treasure. In time, of course, the grand vizier could unweave his curse and retrieve his property, but he realized that, in Bayt al-Bazan, the Impossible Eye was more secure than ever. The Grand Vizier chose to leave the palace as a perpetual trap—a warning to all those in the City of Brass of what they could expect to suffer for attempting to steal from his treasuries.
And so Bayt al-Bazan has stood abandoned and unclaimed for centuries, protected by the forbidding curse of the grand vizier. Inside, its unfortunately immortal denizens have descended into factions, each controlling a portion of the palace, most awaiting salvation when the True Master, Jhavhul, returns to set them free.
Yet Jhavhul is no fool. When he escaped from Kakishon, he knew that he had been missing for centuries, and knew not what surprises awaited him back in Bayt al-Bazan. Instead of risking his own safety, he instead discharged several of his efreeti agents to the City of Brass to secure his long-vacated holdings and gather reinforcements, sending with them the Scroll of Kakishon to be placed in storage in the palace treasury in preparation for his final transformation into a creature worthy of Ymeri’s love. Upon entering his long-abandoned citadel, however, Jhavhul’s servants became imprisoned within as well. Their arrival alerted the grand vizier to stirrings in his old snare. In response he sent a draconic ally to investigate and ensure that none had escaped. Meanwhile, within the cursed citadel, factions long resigned to an awkward peace have begun to waken in response to the unanticipated intrusion.
This adventure begins as the PCs escape Kakishon only to find themselves emerging from the map-portal within the treasury of Bayt al-Bazan, where it was deposited by Jhavhul’s retainers. The PCs must navigate a veritable maze of palace chambers and corridors to find a way to escape the cursed citadel, but opportunity awaits within as well. In order to lift the curse and escape the palace, the PCs must set right an ancient theft by defeating the one who stole the Impossible Eye so long ago, proving to the grand vizier that the age of punishment upon Bayt al-Bazan can come to a close.