How do you or your players react to Arabic plurals: jinni/jinn, ifrit/afarit?
I kind of like it, but then again I tried to learn Arabic for four years (weekly privat lessons, all for naught). As for the monster – the ifrit is like a jinni, but fire instead of air, thus, *living flame* and *wall of fire* instead of *gaseous form* and *whirlwind*. I’m still wondering how I’d handle *creation* in game when it comes to treasure. I don’t like how other monster manuals limit the creation to food and water, or how other creation spells are nerfed and make created matter ephemeral (gold will disappear after a few minutes and the like).
There’s the option of saying “they’ll try to twist your words” which seems to be a recipe for disaster at the table, or there’s Zak idea that creation by elemental forces draws other elemental forces trying to right the wrong and I think that’s the post solution. Yes, you can have a ship of gold made by a jinni, but eventually afarit start showing up, attempting to tear it down. It only has permanence when all the elemental genies work together…
I’m not sure I want to go all the way and say that the mere presence of a jinni already provokes an ifrit to show up sooner or later. I kind of like how my players keep carrying a ring of the jinn along and it’s always the same old grumpy hateful jinni that shows up and complains about the job it’s being tasked to do.
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I’ve confused players by using ghouleh (the female form of the ghoul [ghūl or غول]). The plural is ghilan, by the way. Then again these are considered a particularly demonic type of jinn associated with the star Algol.
[Like Lovecraft and various Arabian tales, I’ve always found ghouls more interesting as intelligent creatures with very unsavoury habits.]
Although generally I use the types of demons of the desert (Children of Iblis) as rankings of their power, not for their elemental associations. Jinn are demons that can be commanded by a master magician (with care or wisdom). Ifrit are more powerful and probably impossible for a mere magician to command (but not to banish). Marid are natural disasters beyond the control of anyone. Everyone (even the fiercest ifrit), tip-toes around them in fear of waking them up.
Incidentally jinn are traditionally the Tribe of Fire (which is why Lucifer/Iblis has associations with fire), who refused to prostrate themselves before Allah. As opposed to the Angels who are the Tribe of Light and sing Allah’s praises.
Incidentally I love the fact that they used the term Goa’uld for the bad guys in *Stargate* - demonic eaters of the dead is a good definition for what they do (in a metaphysical sense).
– Ian Borchardt 2016-10-30
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My groups generally embraced the whole djinn/djinni thing. Though the fact that it’s slaadi/slaad does get confusing. 😝
– Brian Murphy 2016-10-30
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Easiest social option:
I just allow them to create stuff, and trust that my players will do something fun with it, rather than use it to break the game. If they demand to be “king of the world” then I’d ask everyone at the table if that’s the game they want, and launch into a game about these PCs trying to hold court and manage everything in the world from their distant position. If not, I’d just tell them OOCly to pick something else, or ICly that it’s too much for the magic to handle.
System-handled option:
If I want creation to be useful, but reigned-in, I’ll allow one “magic” to apply to the item. So you could create, say, warm clothes that give the equivalent of protection from cold. Or wings that give flight. But not a bird-suit that protects from both (that would be either a bigger creation event that combines them as some ritual or something, or it’d be two items)
The other thing is, even if they create something mundane like gold - it’s still magic. So if someone casts area dispel, or they travel through an anti-magic field, or something, the items will vanish/revert.
Magic users tend to have access and use these sorts of creations a lot. But they also tend to be the ones dispelling or being caught in a dispel - so they might enchant a standard robe to be kingly mage robes, that way if it’s dispelled they’re not naked. They might still want to get a ring of featherfall, rather than rely on their created wings, in case they get hit mid-air (where the ring will continue working after the dispel, but the wings would have been destroyed)
Mages tend to either not use these sorts of items, or have a separate “spell chamber” where they’ll do their experiments/summoning/whatever, so if they need to dispel things in a hurry they don’t destroy their household full of awesome stuff.
Passing through a brief anti-magic field is a pretty standard precaution for banks, government offices, and other similarly important locations. Merchants are aware of the possibility of “fairy gold” and if they discover that you pay in it, will take a dim view and spread the word. Of course, there are also grey markets where people will buy “fairy gold” for 10c on the dollar, as there are still plenty of uses for it (such as bribing guards, etc. who won’t realise until long after you’ve left, or more likely would have passed the coin along already.)
– Tony Demetriou 2016-10-30
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An interesting approach is to have the jinn procure the requested object rather than create it. They can’t procure specifically named stuff (although the stuff they procure can have names if they are things like slave girls, for example - you just can’t specify what slave girls get stolen). If something valuable is taken then it is relatively easy to relocate because of sympathy and the fact that it was stolen magically. Of course jinn are lazy so they only go as far as they need to, so if horses are stolen you are likely to meet the people the jinn stole them from (especially if the Law of Dramatic Inevitability is enacted).
The best way is not to have the jinn take the treasure for you (because that automatically invokes story complications if you are true to the tales), but rather havethe jinn locate a treasure for you to steal (cf the old SPI boardgame *Demons*). Think magically instead of physically - it you take the treasure it is yours, but if the jinn takes it it is still the original owner’s treasure.
[With magical gold I did like the economic system in *Aysle*. One talent is sufficient magical effort to make one talent worth of gold. Sort of takes the wind out of counterfeiting gold with magic.]
According to the stories faerie gold never lasts unless it is given honestly. Commanding or tricking gold means it will disappear when it is most advantageous to do so, as part of the faerie’s curse on whoever stole it. [But if given as a bargain, the bargain must be kept by the faerie.]
There is also the standard punishments for issuing false currency (counterfeiting), which don’t change just because you used magic to do so. Such as having molten lead poured down your gullet. Magic just makes the task easier, but also, more detectable. I wouldn’t use anti-magic spells - detect magic is enough (although you can also use the legend that faerie magic cannot abide the touch of cold iron so the simple solution is that merchants will simply have a cold iron plate on which payment is deposited - every shop will have one).
And finally there are the complications involved in suddenly having incredible treasure and no means to justify your having it. And everyone else wanting it too.
[Perhaps the jinn can only create gold dinars, which are kind of a give-away that someone has a jinn hidden away.]
As Tony has mentioned, it is often more fun to give them what they wish for and then (if you want a karmically balanced universe), hang them with it. And more fun if it isn’t handled like a malicious wish spell. Let them have the wealth, fine clothes and weapons. magnificent steeds and then discover why people that have these things employ guards and servants and the like,
– Ian Borchardt 2016-10-31
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Thank you both! I’ll have to write something about wish handling into the book because I remember how unsatisfactory the old DMG by Gygax was to my 15y old self.
– Alex Schroeder 2016-10-31
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I always disliked the malicious glee the rules implied the gamemaster should take with wishes. About the only way that is really viable is if the wish is being granted by a hostile entity forced to provide it (such as Greater Demons in *The Fantasy Trip*).
– Ian Borchardt 2016-10-31