- Carry great weights (djinn: up to 6,000; efreet: up to 10,000. Call it 1,000 gp/HD, but djinn get a -1 HD penalty because they are aerial beings)
- Create permanent soft or organic items
- Create temporary metallic items (gold lasts 1 day, softer metals last longer, harder metals last a shorter time)
- Create illusions, no concentration needed
- Turn invisible
In addition to these generic "magic giant" powers, djinn have the powers of the air (turn into whirlwind, become gaseous) and efreet have powers of the flame (Wall of Fire, immolate themselves.) You could generalize the "magic giant" template and come up with other varieties: add these to Invisible Stalkers to get a simpler "generic demon"; give these powers to the rakshasha and ogre-mage; give an efreet volcano powers and call him a volcano god.
I hadn't thought about it before, but I really like this idea of the djinn being just like ordinary people with a couple of magic tricks up their sleeves, rather than having "wish" powers. Much more Vancian, and much easier to control as a DM.
ReplyDeleteMythology is often far more grounded in material reality than is commonly assumed. I like this take very much. It would be particularly entertaining to have a PC discover that the fire god she had been worshiping all those years was actually an efreet. I also like to grant high level magic-users the ability to delegate powers, making them also potential small gods (like the sorcerer kings of Athas).
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