Wandering Jinn

[DagaZ]

Wandering Jinn
Stock: Jinn
Class: Wanderer
Starting abilities: Will 4, Health 4

Skills: Arcanist 3, Lore Master 3, Fighter 2, Pathfinder 2, Scholar 2, Theologian 2

Trait: Made From Smokeless Fire
Weapons: Any
Armor: Any

Starting weapons: one weapon of your choice
Starting armor: none

Wises: Choose one of the following: Realms-wise or Jinn Sorcery-wise; Take a second wise of you choice.

Nature descriptors
If you’re a wandering jinn, write Nature: Jinn on your character sheet. Your descriptors are Defying, Whispering and choose one: Wandering, Ruling or Teaching.

Special Jinn Nature questions:
Is your soul bound to the road and your destiny uncertain? Or were you exiled for defying the rule of the Ogre King and cannot return?
[ul]
[li]If you chose to live on the road and have the Wandering descriptor, raise Nature by one. Raise your Pathfinder skill by one and lower your Lore Master by one.
[/li][li]If you were exiled from the jinn realms, nothing changes.
[/li][/ul]
Do you share the wisdom of your people with the lesser magi? Or do you keep the secrets of the jinni sorcery hidden from human eyes?
[ul]
[li]If you teach humans in the arcane arts and have the Teaching descriptor, raise Nature by one. If you don’t, nothing changes.
[/li][li]If you guard the secrets of the jinn magic, raise Lore Master by one, but lower Mentor by one. If you don’t have Mentor skill, lower Haggler, Manipulator, Orator or Persuader instead.
[/li][/ul]
Do you seek to mingle and adapt in this land of Men forgetting the realms you call home? Or do you seek to build a new kingdom under a wisdom you call your own?
[ul]
[li]If you try to adapt in the human lands, lower Nature by one.
[/li][li]If you seek to build a new kingdom and have the Ruling descriptor, raise Nature by one. Replace your home trait with Ambitious.
[/li][/ul]

Made From Smokeless Fire—The creator shaped you from fire and wind. You are passionate and fiery, but also prone to destroy everything around you. You are lithe and changing, fickle and mercurial.

I’m struggling with Nature questions. Thor’s post prompted me to experiment with descriptors.

I want to open the “eastern” area of my setting. Stay tuned for level benefits

Stay cool

[jovialbard]

The core Stocks use the following guidlines for nature questions:
Two of the questions either raise your nature or optionally replace/increase a trait
The other question either raises your nature and lowers a skill (or corresponding ability if you don’t have the skill) or does nothing

You could follow those guidlines as well, but I don’t see why you would have to. My concern is that the outcome of your questions seem to have more to do with specializing or optimizing your character build with various skill choices. Nature questions for the core stocks seem to be more about providing an opportunity to customize who you are with traits, rather than what you can do with skills… except for the one type of question that reduces a skill, but it isn’t a skill trade so it feels more like a cost for being too similar to your own kind.

It’s interesting that you give players a choice of nature, adds some more player choice, but I’m not sure it fits the spirit of nature. Nature isn’t who you are, it’s where you come from. If you want to offer 2 or 3 subspecies of jinn that are all basically the same class but have a minor difference in skills/natures/traits, that could be cool, but a nature difference should not be a character choice it should be a cultural or stock choice. Also, may I propose Misleading as a nature descriptor to either work into Jinn in general or one of the subspecies choices?

That’s just my take on your work so far, but I definitely love the flavor of this class/stock though and I’m looking forward to seeing what you do with the level benefits.

[DagaZ]

Yeah, I think that I’m pushing Nature rules too much. Maybe I could define Nature descriptors DURING the questionnaire.

Jinns are a broad mythological category to pick from, it was hard enough for me to narrow down to these five descriptors. I’m leaving Defying, Ruling and changing Whispering to Luring. Now how about something like:

Is your soul bound to the road and your destiny uncertain? Or were you exiled for defying the rule of the Ogre King and cannot return?
[ul]
[li]If you chose to live on the road raise Nature by one and replace Ruling with Wandering as a descriptor.
[/li][li]If you were exiled from the jinn realms you might increase or replace your home trait with Defiant or Wanderlust.
[/li][/ul]
Do you share the wisdom of your people with the lesser magi? Or do you keep the secrets of the jinni sorcery hidden from human eyes?
[ul]
[li]If you teach humans in the arcane arts you might change your Ruling or Wandering descriptor with Teaching.
[/li][li]If you guard the secrets of the jinn magic, raise Nature by one, but reduce Mentor by one, if you don’t have the skill, reduce Haggler, Manipulator, Orator or Persuader instead.
[/li][/ul]
Do you start to mingle and adapt to these land of Men forgetting the realms you call home? Or do you seek to build a new kingdom under a wisdom you call your own?
[ul]
[li]If you try to adapt in the human lands, increase your Nature by one and replace your Ruling or Teaching descriptor with Wandering.
[/li][li]If you seek to build a new kingdom increase or replace your home trait with Ambitious or Imposing and replace your Teaching or Wandering descriptor with Ruling.
[/li][/ul]

How about now? Now I’m writing some homes for my future jinnis.

Stay cool

[jovialbard]

Better, it feels more character driven now and less skill driven. However, I’m still of the opinion that Nature descriptors aren’t mean to be a character choice, and these are character questions, so I disagree with having them involved there at all if I’m being conservative. On the other hand this is interesting and results in more character choices, so I’m not really vehement in my opposition.

I’m not super familiar with Jinn, may I ask why you chose Defying and Luring as the permanent nature descriptors? What makes them more central and less intrinsic than Ruling?

[DagaZ]

I’m not expert either, but from tvtropes and wikipedia:

@"TVTropes"

God told the Djinn that they should bow to man’s superiority, but their leader, Iblis, refused to do so; thus, a good chunk of them ended up imprisoned by Suleiman and other holy men in lamps and such and forced to grant wishes. Genies in Islam can also possess humans for a variety of reasons — they might have a crush on the human, or they might just be a jerkwad. During exorcisms, the genie is given the option to convert to Islam, leave the body of the human or die. Iblis, by the way, never repented, and in fact swore that he would corrupt mankind… in other words, he’s their version of Satan (and in fact is sometimes called Shayṭān).

Defying God I think is a great character establishing moment , also I see the djinn as proud, arrogant people, and I can’t find some way to make it a Nature descriptor, so I break it down into Defying (those who are above you) and Ruling (those who are beneath). Those who humble themselves/are humbled have to start Wandering in foreign lands or learn to be proud of their heritage by Teaching others.

Some other things I paid attention when trying to come up with descriptors.

@"Wikipedia"

The social organization of the jinn community resembles that of humans; e.g., they have kings, courts of law, weddings, and mourning rituals. A few traditions (hadith), divide jinn into three classes: those who have wings and fly in the air, those who resemble snakes and dogs, and those who travel about ceaselessly.

@"Wikipedia"

Ibn Taymiyyah believed the jinn were generally “ignorant, untruthful, oppressive and treacherous”, thus representing the very strict interpretations adhered by the Salafi schools of thought. Ibn Taymiyyah believes that the jinn account for much of the “magic” perceived by humans, cooperating with magicians to lift items in the air unseen, delivering hidden truths to fortune tellers, and mimicking the voices of deceased humans during seances.

In my setting I’m reinterpreting this as djinn Teaching humans the ways of magic (or more accurately some ways of magic).

I came with Luring after reading

@"Wikipedia"

A related belief is that every person is assigned one’s own special jinni, also called a qarīn, and if the qarin is evil it could whisper to people’s souls and tell them to submit to evil desires. The notion of a qarin is not universally accepted among all Muslims, but it is generally accepted that Shayṭān whispers in human minds, and he is assigned to each human being.

In a hadith recorded by Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, the companion Abdullah, son of Masud reported: 'The Prophet Muhammad said: 'There is not one of you who does not have a jinnī appointed to be his constant companion (qarīn).’ They said, ‘And you too, O Messenger of Allah?’ He said, ‘Me too, but Allah has helped me and he has submitted, so that he only helps me to do good.’ ’

Regardless, my settings djinn and mythological conceptions of djinn will be really different.

One of my players said that he had too few skills, any thoughts on that?

Stay cool

[jovialbard]

Maybe make Lore Master 4, that would put it in line with Dwarf/Elf/Halfling for number of skill points. Humans get less skill points for their class but the bonus human skill.

Brainstorming based on the quotes you brought up:
3 types of jinn: air, earth, and fire
All three types of jinn have the natures: Betraying (or Defying) and Corrupting (or Manipulating or Luring)
All three types of jinn have the following skills: Lore Master 4, Scholar 2, Theologian 2, Manipulator 2
Air jinn have wings, their third nature is Teaching and they have Arcanist 3 and Mentor 2
Earth jinn have furry bodies, a snake like tail, and a forked tongue, their third nature is Commanding and they have Fighter 3 and Orator 2
Fire jinn are energetic and can never tolerate being stuck in the same place for long, their third nature is Wandering and they have Pathfinder 3 and Scout 2

Just some random thoughts that came to mind, feel free to take pieces or just disagree with the whole idea, I wouldn’t be offended

eta: you could also customize the level benefits by subspecies, with one choice available to any type of jinn that has to do with manipulating, corrupting, and controlling others while the other option is different depending on the type of jinn, with air having access to magician spells, earth having access to some warrior type abilities, and fire having access to innate abilities that allow them to speak languages or wear different faces