Djinn

[Iskander]

Since I never sat down and ran through the 100 questions for my Djinn, I figured I'd do it here, with commentary on my thought-process.

Concept: A Djinn in the Islamic tradition: created of smokeless flame after the Angels, but before Man. Closer to 1,001 Nights than Disney or D&D. But with cool bits I like. This burn is of a basic Djinn, with notes for one of the Shaytan.

Otherness
Stature: Middling

Form: Insubstantial (Djinn are said to be hard for Mankind to perceive, without great wisdom or great Faith. They could be all around us, and we would never know, unless they willed it. When we can see them, they look like regular folks... but see cosmetics, below.)

Natural Advantages: Created of Smokeless Flame, Faster Than The Blink of Soloman's Eye, Gift of Babel (The Djinn's powers mostly stem from their miraculous speed. They are described as fetching a chest from Sheba, and bringing it to the Queen in Solomon's court faster than the blink of his eye. That's fast. I also like the Gift of Babel trait that the Querubim and Daemonim have in BW, and it's appropriate for the Djinn to have it, too.)

Natural Disadvantages: Bound To A Vessel (Coupled with the Named trait, this makes Djinn summonable and biddable... or bargainable-with.)

Character Traits:: Wily, Believer, Arrogant (Shaytan)

Cosmetic Traits: Eyes of Flame, Bones of Brass, Carmine Skin (All optional, but that's more what I think of when I think Djinn, not Robin Williams. For Bones of Brass, the idea is that bones, hair and nails are all made of brass. )

Special Traits: Granter of Wishes, Named, Doppelganger/Telltales, Dissent Parasite(Shaytan only) (The Wishes are my nod to the non-scriptural mythology around Djinn. Some Djinn are Doppelgangers, and if yours is... take one of the cosmetic traits as its tell-tale. Note that many lesser Djinn assume the form of animals, not men.)

Locomotion: Faster Than That (This is in the Weird category. Djinn are just... faster than you. Always. They always have the Speed Multiplier advantage. Earth, air, water, vacuum; doesn't matter: Djinn are faster.)

Stats and Shades
Djinn in traditionally given free will, have super-speed, and that's about it. (Plus wishes. Ahem.) So their stats should not greatly exceed human-grade, I think, with the one ridiculous exception.
Will: B5 for Djinn, B6 for Shaytan (they stood up to God!)
Perception: B5
Agility: G5 (This may just be too high... but I don't think you can be miraculously fast, and a klutz.)
Speed: W10. (Yikes! BUT... Djinn are described as having Hermes- or Sleipnir-grade speed, beyond the ken of mortal man. So there.)
Power: B4 (They really don't need more than human power with that speed and agility)
Forte: B5 (They should be very hard to actually hit... but not terribly strong, I think.)

Instincts
This seems to me to be a good place to encode the divine rules that bind the Djinn's Granter of Wishes trait:
I1: I MUST grant three wishes for each of my many names.
I2: I MAY NOT grant a wish without a twist (Shaytan: cruel twist), or a price that is not worth the paying.
I3: I MUST come when called by the bearer of my vessel.

Beliefs - Djinn
B1: I will teach all who summon me the lesson they least wish to learn, in this way I serve God.
B2: There is no God but God, indivisible, ineffable, supreme: I shall share this truth.

Beliefs - Shaytan
B1: I shall be free of this binding: I will gull a mortal into releasing me from my vessel.
B2: Mortals are a small diversion to be savored: Trick them to their doom.
B3: I would see Mankind devoured in flame and the primacy of the Djinn restored: I will wager my True Name to obtain the Ring of Suleiman/Salama.

(to be continued... commentary welcome)

[Kestral]

Very evocative - I like it. The elephant in the room, of course, is the matter of the wishes. Any idea how you're going to handle that?

[Iskander]

Yeah - see the thread on the AdBu about Princess, Library, Djinn. Basically, he grants wishes. Period. But is constrained to pervert them or make a very bad (for the other person) bargain: that's the divine contract. To compel a wish from a Djinn, you must know one of his names that nobody has used before, or know his True Name (good luck with that).

Wishes are a way to get what you think you want in a way you really, really didn't want.

[Kestral]

Wishes are a way to get what you think you want in a way you really, really didn't want.

A situation familiar to anyone who played AD&D 2nd Edition. If you never had a player write out 10+ pages of handwritten instructions for their wish detailing all the ways in which the spell / genie / magic ring was and was not to carry out the intent of the wish, you didn't play AD&D long enough.

Going by the lack of IMS, PTGS and so on, I take it this isn't something you intend to enter combat mechanics with. I can see the reasoning there, and it's not as though you can actually force something with Speed W10 and what amounts to teleportation traits to be somewhere it doesn't want to be. But what about Duel of Wits? If ever there was a creature you wanted to win a DoW against without compromise, it'd be a wish-granting Djinn.

[doycet]

Going by the lack of IMS, PTGS and so on, I take it this isn't something you intend to enter combat mechanics with. I can see the reasoning there, and it's not as though you can actually force something with Speed W10 and what amounts to teleportation traits to be somewhere it doesn't want to be. But what about Duel of Wits? If ever there was a creature you wanted to win a DoW against without compromise, it'd be a wish-granting Djinn.

Well, in Islam, djinn are described as basically like men, but intangible. Living one step out of sync with us, but in a society that's pretty much the same.

So... take Alexander's stats, and use the Man LPs and you'd get something like...

Name: Prince the Djinn

Lifepaths: Born Noble, Lead to Noble Court, Page, Squire, Lead to Noble, Knight, Noble Prince

Age : Whatever

Stats: Wi: B6, Pe: B5, Po: B4, Fo: B5, Ag: G5, Sp: W10, Speed Mult.: x Whatever

Attributes: Ref: B6, Ste: B4, Hes: 4, Hea: B5, MW: B10, Circles: B4, Resources: B10

PTGS: Su: B3 Li: B6 Mi: B7 Se: B8 Tr: B9 Mo: B10

Beliefs:
I shall be free of this binding: I will gull a mortal into releasing me from my vessel.

I would see Mankind devoured in flame and the primacy of the Djinn restored: I will wager my True Name to obtain the Ring of Suleiman/Salama.

Noblesse Oblige: Mortals are a small diversion to be savored: Trick them to their doom.

Instincts:
I MUST grant three wishes for each of my many names.

I MAY NOT grant a wish without a twist (Shaytan: cruel twist), or a price that is not worth the paying.

I MUST come when called by the bearer of my vessel.

Traits: [Dt] Mark of Privilege, [Char] Pragmatic, [Dt] Sworn Homage, [Char] Your Grace, [Dt] Noblesse Oblige, [Char] Arrogant, [Char] Believer, [Char] Wily

Special Traits:
Created of Smokeless Flame, Faster Than The Blink of Soloman's Eye, Gift of Babel, Wish Granter
Bound To A Vessel, Named, Doppelganger/Telltales, Dissent Parasite

Skills: Brawling G4, Conspicuous B6, Crossbow G4, Disguise B5, Doctrine B2, Etiquette B5, Falconry B2, Falsehood B5, Heretical Doctrine B6, Inconspicuous B6, Intimidation B3, Knives G4, Mimicry B5, Mounted Combat Training, Obscure History B3, Read B4, Rhetoric B3, Riding B3, Sword G4, Write B3

Reputations: 3D Prince of the Djinn

Property: Iiiiitty Bitty Living Space (105 rps) (Which gives him enough Resources to grant the more pedestrian wishes without any magic.)

(Please don't let this random brainstorming interfere with Alexander's ongoing Monster Burn, I'm just cobbling something together without the books in front of me.)

[doycet]

Speaking of his Speed and the wishes thing: would it make sense to do that with some kind of Djinn-specific version of Faith/Miracles? Just set some djinn-only OBs for moving really fast and some other OBs for granting wishes.

You could make the OBs about the same as Miracles, but then give them big downward OB modifiers if they're done with a Twist of some kind. Which would mean that Djinn could do them without twists, but at the risk of bad consequences (which means they'd never do that :) ).

[ThisIsVictor]

If the Shaytan stood up to God wouldn't that push their Will into Gray range?

Also, as a college student studying Islam, this is awesome.

--Victor

[Kestral]

Speaking of his Speed and the wishes thing: would it make sense to do that with some kind of Djinn-specific version of Faith/Miracles? Just set some djinn-only OBs for moving really fast and some other OBs for granting wishes.

You could make the OBs about the same as Miracles, but then give them big downward OB modifiers if they're done with a Twist of some kind. Which would mean that Djinn could do them without twists, but at the risk of bad consequences (which means they'd never do that :) ).

Presumably it's necessary from a narrative standpoint for the Djinn to simply be able to perform on the requested wishes without any fuss over meeting an obstacle, at least for the purposes of the adventure he's burning up.

By the way, all this talk of djinns requires me to post a book recommendation: The Dervish House (http://www.amazon.com/Dervish-House-Ian-McDonald/dp/1616142049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287549270&sr=8-1=) by renowned sci-fi author Ian McDonald. Traditional Islamic djinns are a major plot element, as is the Green Saint.

[Iskander]

Going by the lack of IMS, PTGS ...

You see where it says "to be continued?" Yeah. Not finished.

Using the lifepaths of Man to define a Djinn's skills and other traits works very well, too.

[Iskander]

If the Shaytan stood up to God wouldn't that push their Will into Gray range?

I don't think so. Having free will is part of their shtick, so I don't see God forcing Iblis into a Duel of Wits about the Adam thing. If it was clear that the Shaytan had won that DoW (with the major compromise they suffered), then they'd have to have Grey Will and Grey duelling skills, too.

Wishes are utterly game breaking, so my plan has been to have them be: relatively hard to obtain, earth-shatteringly stupid to request, and not rolled-for.

One note to Doyce's proto-burn: The Djinn's reflexes should be B8. (10 speed + 3 white shade + 5 perception + 5 agility + 2 grey shade) -> rounddown(25/3) = 8.

A Djinn is a scarier opponent than you might think at first glance: he will almost always win positioning, and very frequently have more actions in every volley than you do. Avoid, Avoid, Strike / Avoid, Avoid / Avoid, Avoid, Strike would have him flitting about the battle space slashing his opponents while their mouths hang open.

[ThisIsVictor]

I don't think so. Having free will is part of their shtick, so I don't see God forcing Iblis into a Duel of Wits about the Adam thing. If it was clear that the Shaytan had won that DoW (with the major compromise they suffered), then they'd have to have Grey Will and Grey duelling skills, too.

I gotchya.

[doycet]

Wishes are utterly game breaking, so my plan has been to have them be: relatively hard to obtain, earth-shatteringly stupid to request, and not rolled-for.

I like the way this man thinks.



One note to Doyce's proto-burn: The Djinn's reflexes should be B8. (10 speed + 3 white shade + 5 perception + 5 agility + 2 grey shade) -> rounddown(25/3) = 8.


Yeah, I let the online character burner do the math for me, but I'm not surprised that the white and grey stats broke it a bit. Something to add to that bug-report thread.

[Nihilium]

First off, let me say this monster gave me an idea for a one-off test-scenario for Burning Wheel, that would probarly work with a group I know. ("The Sword" really didn't.) Good work!


Wishes are utterly game breaking, so my plan has been to have them be: relatively hard to obtain, earth-shatteringly stupid to request, and not rolled-for.


A situation familiar to anyone who played AD&D 2nd Edition. If you never had a player write out 10+ pages of handwritten instructions for their wish detailing all the ways in which the spell / genie / magic ring was and was not to carry out the intent of the wish, you didn't play AD&D long enough.

I think a "the Monkey's Paw"-approch is an excellent method to granting wishes. What you wish for is granted, but how you obtain your wish is what leaves a rotten taste in your mouth (begging itself another wish to remedy the situation). Something is always added to your wish.

examples:

You wish for the war to be over, with you as an unquestioned winner.

A few days later you learn that the enemy has capitulated and sworn a blood oath to refer you your rule. Another few days and you learn that it was you son who offered himself to appease their accursed monster. For as long as your familiy provides the first-born princeling when the monster stirs, (every few hundred years) their whole kingdom will loyally support your [family's] rule.


You wish for a sword arm that cannot be defeated in battle.

At sunup's duel, you stare upon the other champion and find yourself to be in love...


This approach deals well with the AD&D-approach of carefully technically written 101 page contract concerning granting the wish. What I'd just do when someone writes down a ten-page++ list of what the wish will include, like a castle with rooms that grant bonuses for every skill on the list and magically & psionically repels dragons and includes a teleport without error chamber keyword-operated, etc... is to just have them read it aloud:

Player (drawing breath): "I want a castle that-"

DM (as wishgranter): "G R A N T E D!"


In BW I'd probarly just remind them that technical writing takes time* and that they are busy fighting for what you believe. Also, the player in a BW campaign should be interested in finding a djinni, they'd probarly relish in the horror of the twisted wishes anyway... :)



*) ask Games Workshop)

[Iskander]

Or have them make an (obscenely high) Composition test to formally compose their ideas into an airtight statement of desire.