Subsisting in Bandar Karahc

This is yet another take on Jeff's excellent carousing table, only adapted for characters wishing to earn some quick cash in the city (or prevent perishing).

It's more or less a gamble to see if the work you put in earned you something. Like a Deck of Many Things, but for jobs. These jobs are supposed to be the kind that anyone can do without training or prior knowledge. Also, it's probably most useful for broke characters, just looking to get some cash right now.

Note: Since I forgot to include any money or ways of payment in my current game (it can happen), I'll use the term "BK" (for Bandar Karahcs) in the table below. If you happen to use this table you should probably replace that with gold/silver/copper pieces.

You roll twice: once for what type of job you did (list below), and once to see how many hours you could bare it (1d6).

The second roll is important because it determines whether or not you managed to work long enough to earn anything (or if you just quit in disgust).
Example: (+1 BK / 2 hours) means you'll get +1 BK for every two hours worked (round down). So if you rolled a 5 (meaning you worked for five hours), you'd earn 2 BK (5/2=2.5, or 2 rounded down).

Conditions may be stated as well in simple words (EXHAUSTED, ANGRY). These imply penalties to whatever type of rolls you do in your game (e.g. EXHAUSTED means penalty to all strength based checks). I guess you could allow a save for some of these penalties.
The only condition that's special is PICKPOCKET: roll another d6. If you beat the hours worked (for this particular job) you're good, otherwise you've been picked clean of any BKs you earned so far.

These activities are meant to take place during the day. The player may continue to "work" (by rolling again as stated above) until they're 1) tired, 2) the day becomes night, 3) the GM is tired. Just keep track of those hours worked.


JOBS

1. Sort fluorescence fish at the docks. Hands are glowing brightly (random color) the next two days (+1 BK / 2 hours. REEK, ILLUMINATED)
2. Barrel mover; roll them barrels all the way down to the docks. Don't think about opening any of them, even if the voice inside tells you to (+1 BK / 2 hours. TIRED)
3. An old woman asks for help with carrying her invisible dogs (all three of them) around town, since their invisible paws are cursed and will burn the ground. She pays with invisible money. (0 BK / hour. ANGRY, TIRED)
4. Keep the forge burning, keep the scary, cloaked, eyes-glowing-red, oversized blacksmith happy. (+1 BK / 2 hours. EXHAUSTED, NIGHTMARES)
5. Food taster for Botros abd Diryaq, the paranoid cook. He doesn't trust his own cooking to not be poisonous. (+1 BK / hour. STOMACH PAINS)
6. Go underground; the sewer's been clogging up at certain intersections. (+1 BK / hour. REEK, DISEASED)
7. Abdul Tajriba, the promising potion brewer, needs someone to test his latest mixtures on since he's all out of mice. (+2 BK / hour. STOMACH PAINS, RANDOM POTION EFFECT)
8. Animal wrestler for public amusement. (+1 BK / hour. EXHAUSTED, TORN CLOTHES, BEATEN UP, HOURS WORKED * 10 = HP LOST IN %)
9. Help a sloppy tanner (+1 BK / 6 hours. REEK, EXTREME HEADACHE)
10. Messenger by foot. Small parcels that smell of rosewater. Folded notes of unpleasantness where the letters bleed through (+1 BK / 3 hours. SORE FEET)
11. Load and unload ships as a docker. More barrels, more back pain. (+1 BK / 2 hours. EXHAUSTED, PICKPOCKET)
12. Rumormonger at the tavern by the docks. Tell them about abandoned limestone towers in the Al-Aalam desert, filled with treasures and tomes. Tell them about enchanted oases of blue-green water that makes you immortal. Tell them about the new menu. (+1 BK / hour. TIPSY, PICKPOCKET)
13. Collect debts from the cleanest of establishments to the darkest corners of this town. (+1 BK / 2 hours. PICKPOCKET, WATCHED)
14. Chase away the small djinns emerging from the tiny, southern sinkhole. The djinns are harmless but likes to scare small children. The djinnbusters won't catch them because they contain no fuel, but loud noises and arm waving scares them away (+1 BK / 2 hours. POSSIBLY TARGET FOR ECTOPLASMIC MISSILES)
15. The proclaimed imp peddler (no imps around though) needs you to run a few errands. Mostly salt, candles and fresh chicken blood. (+1 BK / hour. SHUNNED BY SUPERSTITIOUS LOCALS)
16. Where there's a caravan there's a camel. And where there's a camel there's... Grab that shuffle and get to work. These streets won't clean themselves (+1 BK / hour)
17. Help the rat catcher rid these streets of vermin. For some reason, she calls them by name (+1 BK / 2 hours. DISEASED)
18. Beg (+1 BK / 5 hours)
19. Take work as a hired mourner (+1 BK / 2 hours. EXTREME HEADACHE)
20. Scavenge the large pit of Jufra, in the middle of town. Old weapons and armor can be found here lumped together in an enormous pile, although most of it is rusted and bent and broken. The locals calls it Jufra Haram since it's said to be haunted and cursed. Most believe the pit is filling up with weapons from below, where two great djinn clans are fighting each other in an endless war. Climbing into the pit and searching for weapons is dangerous and tedious. (+1 BK / 4 hours. EXHAUSTED, SHUNNED BY SUPERSTITIOUS LOCALS)

The helpful necromancer in Bandar Karahc

There's a tavern located in the oldest parts of Bandar Karahc that houses a man by the name of Musahhar abd al-Baith. He keeps to himself in "his" corner of the establishment with his bottles and decoctions; potions he sells to weary travelers. He's always polite and friendly if approached.

He used to be called "the trickster" some 400 years ago, a nickname now forgotten but still relevant.

Musahhar has in his possession the dagger Ahya. Its blade, when sunken into a dead body, acts like a portal that lets an unholy spirit slip into the flesh and possess it for an unseen future. Striking a living creature with the dagger will exorcise the life essence and turn it into a restless, vengeful spirit; the body will start decaying as normal but cannot be used for possession (spirits call these bodies for "tainted vessels").

If a person asks him for help, but cannot afford any of his potions, Musahhar will gladly offer healing for free. Slowly whispering the word sudad over and over again into their ear, any life threatening injuries will heal up, all traces of poison will vanish, and all weariness will disappear.
    As life returns to the poor person, all hope will quickly disappear as he or she realizes that the helpful necromancer just placed them under a spell. As Musahhar hands over the conceiled dagger (wrapped in leather), the cursed person immediately knows what has to be done: within a week, he or she must stab a corpse with the weapon, and bring a spirit into this world.

If the spell is not fulfilled, Musahhar will get up and start searching for Ahya; for him, the dagger shines like a bright beacon, and this helpful necromancer has all the time in the world to go searching for his blade.

(Original drawing found at Telecanter's. Poorly photomanipulated by yours truly.)

The sand lung in Bandar Karahc

In the outskirts of Bandar Karahc you may find a building resembling a bowl turned upside down. It's covered with rusty plates, like a quilt, and it got exactly one entrance in the form of a small hole in the side, big enough for an adult to enter.

Anyone entering will find themselves following a winding, dark tunnel, sloping downward. At the end of the tunnel is a vast shaft, conical and seemingly bottomless.

Every ten minutes, the void fills with sand from the bottom up. It takes around two minutes to completely fill the space, after which the sand slowly descends again into the darkness.

This strange building is in fact the left lung of an interstellar, humanoid machine race.

These robotic creatures travels through the empty space looking for things to do. Although immortal, old age and the occasional plunge into planets' oceans makes their joints rust, leading to the inevitable and complete dismantling of themselves.
When this happens, their body parts spread across the universe, still functional; an arm may go into orbit around a planet, the head ends up in a sun, while the beating heart with its strong pulses may attract thousands of winged creatures from the reddish deep space.

Bandar Karahc got a lung. There are worst parts to get.

The Djinnbusters of Bandar Karahc

The desert town of Bandar Karahc is home to many strange things, one of them being the so called djinnbusters - ghost hunters of the dunes.

They're not organized.
It's not a cult.
They're not even particular good at what they do. They just happen to own an oil lamp that can catch nasty djinns.

A djinnbuster's oil lamp is his most important tool, but it's far from the only one. You see, catching a ghost is pretty simple: point the nozzle at the djinn and rub the lamp's body until the ghost is sucked inside.

Of course, first you'll need to find the bloody thing (I dare you to find an invisible djinn in the vast al-Musahhar desert).

Then, you'll need to prepare it. Preparing a ghost is what weakens it, and as all good djinnbusters know (e.g. all four of them), you can only catch a weakened ghost.
Some things known to weaken ghosts are:

1. Burning incense
2. Reciting poetry, telling jokes but leaving out the pun, crying
3. Dancing, clapping hands, spinning around
4. The sheer sight of wealth (and plenty of it)
5. Anointing, smearing it with fat mixtures
6. Chewing on your beard

Note: one djinn's weakness is another one's strength. The late djinnbuster Hadar abd al-Makul used to smear his body with almond oil to weaken ghosts (most djinns are allergic to nuts for some reason). That is, until he met the marid Halaba, who swallowed him whole thanks to the lubricant.

Learning the weaknesses of a ghost is what makes a good djinnbuster, and takes time, especially if you need to recite a special piece of poetry that the djinn hates, or burn a particular type of flower in its presence.

Or, you could gamble, and just throw a handful of dates at it and hope for the best.

After you weakened the ghost, rub your lamp and stay close to the ghost. If all goes well, the ghost is captured inside the lamp, immediately turned into fuel.

It's not the size of the oil lamp that determines how much fuel (e.g. captured ghosts) it can hold, but its quality in terms of material (clay, stone, bronze, gold, etc.), embellishment (carvings, gemstones) and sentimental value.

The most standard, lowest quality djinnbustin' oil lamp can hold roughly 4 units of fuel (+1d4 units/decoration that raises its quality).

The amount of fuel a djinnbuster can get out of a captured ghost is likewise determined by the quality of the djinn. Start with a base value of 1d4, and then add accordingly:

• Size:
• Capturing anything smaller than the size of an human adult is like pouring flour in your fuel chamber; it will just turn to a thick dough and you'll have to throw away the lamp.
• Other than that, add 1 unit of fuel per wow-factor regarding its size
•  Abilities (flying, shape shifting, invisibility, etc.):
• Add 1 unit of fuel per ability
• Age:
• Juvenile: these ghosts are more trouble than they're worth (no extra fuel)
• Old djinns: for every wow-factor regarding their age, divide the total amount of fuel by two. This is because their ectoplasm is going stale
• Other than that: 1 unit of fuel

If a djinnbuster captures a ghost whose total amount of fuel exceeds the capacity of the oil lamp, one of several things may happen:

1. The djinnbuster is possessed a number of days equal to the excess (e.g. capturing a 5 fuel djinn in a lamp with only room for 2 more units causes the djinnbuster to become possessed for 3 days)
2. (If the lamp isn't empty) Fuel equal to the ghost's value is sucked out of the lamp, creating another djinn of equal strength on the spot
3. The excess is stored in the djinnbuster's body: during the next couple of days (equal to the excess value), a new minor mutation occurs
4. Lamp explodes, spreading fuel everywhere. Stained objects become animated

To empty the lamp, the djinnbuster must burn the fuel during the night time (1 unit of fuel/hour). You may also do like the legendary Fatima al-Sabiha and drink the contents; to this day, people still claim to see her drifting across the sky.

Carta mundi

(Labels are missing because my player will see this. Andreas, the desert city of Bandar Karahc is in the top right corner.)

(And god jul, if you celebrate that kind of thing!)