Genie
A genie is an outsider native to one of the Elemental Planes, and often composed primarily of elemental material. The five best known races of genies are djinn (of elemental air), efreet (of elemental fire), marid (of elemental water), Dao (of elemental earth), and jann (composed of all four elements, and native to the Material Plane). Other, lesser genie races exist, including the diminutive zhyen and malignant black jinn. Geniekind is a term used to describe the plethora of genies.
History
A genie is born when the soul of a sentient living creature meld with the primordial matter of an elemental plane. Only under rare circumstances do such an elemental-infused soul coalesce into a manifest form and create a genie. A genie usually retains no connection to the soul that gave it form. That life force was a building block that determined the genie's form and apparent gender, as well as one or two key personality traits. Their own stories, however call them "the first people", claiming that their suffering at the claws of Rovagug was the start of the war between him and the other gods. Concurrent with the creation of the genies, the dark demigod Ahriman came into existence as the genies' destructive shadow. Ahriman hates the genies with ever fiber of his being. He created the corrupt divs from the souls of evil genies to bedevil them.Ecology
Most genies, save the nomadic jann, live decadent lives in opulent palaces or cities on the elemental planes; the most magnificent are the Opaline Vault of the dao and the efreet's City of Brass. Genies are effectively immortal, immune to the ravages of time and old age. When struck down by violence, a genie's body evaporates, dissolves, or crumbles into its constituent elements. Upon its death, a genie's soul is reabsorbed into the elemental plane of its birth and reincarnated into a new body. However, some genies meet a terrible fate as an undead ghul or edimmu, and the most evil of all genies' souls find their way to Abaddon and are transfigured into divs.Interactions with mortals
Genies are sometimes bound to magic items and forced to serve others. Examples of these items include a ring of genie summoning, a lamp of genie summoning, and an astrolabe of entrapment. All genies resent this kind of enslavement. It is possible to free a genie trapped by this kind of servitude by either destroying the device binding them, or using a wish to free the genie. Genies freed from this imprisonment are almost always incredibly grateful to whoever freed them, though they typically do not hang around for long once freed. Many genies can grant wishes to those who bind them, best them, or earn from them a favor by freeing them. However, it is widely held that one must be very wary of the wording used in such a wish. When dealing with genies, the saying "be careful what you wished for" takes on a life and death meaning. Genies are able to breed with mortals, giving rise to the races collectively known as genasi. Ifrits are the result of unions with efreet, oreads with dao, sylphs with djinn, undines with marids, and suli with jann.
Comments