Editing Genie

Genies, a term corrupted from the Arabian term "djinni", are mystical spirits originating from Arabic folklore and later getting incorporated into the religion of Islam as something of a grey area between their equivalent of JudeoChristian [[demons]] and simply another race of mortals. They are best known for their immense magical powers, which iconically allow them to literally alter reality as they see fit. Because of this, mages have a pretty long tradition of magically stuffing them into small objects (lamps are most iconic, but rings and vases are pretty common too) and compelling them to obey whoever holds their prison. They also tend to be [[Eldrad|major league dicks]], though whether this dickishness is because of the aforementioned "being stuck in a lamp and forced to grant wishes for every yahoo who can get ahold of it" or they got stuffed into a lamp for ''being'' a dick tends to vary.

The most common stories involving Genies involve someone setting one free and in return allowing them wishes, generally with a certain amount of mischief in creative interpretation. You rub a bottle, a genie comes out, make a wish and you end up running for your life from a 30 meter tall Nixon as he rampages through your hometown Kaiju Style.

They're usually pretty good looking, and it's not unheard of for them to have sex with or even marry mortals.

==[[Dungeons & Dragons]]==
[[File:Female Efreet PF.jpg|thumb|right|300px|A Pathfinder take on the Efreet.]]

Genies are one of the "big names" for the [[Elemental Planes]]; being the most human-like in appearance and intelligence, they present a "face" for interactions both positive and negative that the more primordial elementals lack. There are four species of genie, one for each of the four major elements: [[Djinn]] (air), [[Efreet]] (fire), [[Dao]] (earth), and [[Marid]] (water); some editions also have a fifth, the Jann, comprised of all four elements and thus needing to spend most of their time on the Prime Material. Although very different in personality, the various types each share certain traits, including polyamory (except the Jann) and large libidos, vaguely Middle Eastern cultures, and the ability to grant wishes with a laundry list of restrictions (notably, they can't grant wishes for themselves or other genies, and while they can grant one wish a day they can't grant another wish to the ''same'' creature until a very long period of time has passed).

Of these four (to five) races, it has always been the Djinn and the Efreet who have stuck out the most in the D&D player's mind. These two races have very clear archetypes; djinni are the "friendly leaning but dangerous if made moody" genies, whilst efreeti are the "obviously evil genies". In comparison, dao tend to boil down to "efreeti with earth powers and a lot more greed for gold and gems", whilst marids tend to boil down to "djinni with water powers, an even more fickle attitude, and a barrowload of extra ego". Jann, being both the weakest type of genie and the one type native to the Prime Material and thus more likely to be met in person on your travels than found in a magic item, come across more as a race of desert nomads with magic than "proper" genies.

In fact, it got to the point that 4e originally left those three races out; it wasn't until an article in [[Dungeon Magazine]] #199 that the dao and marids both returned to 4th edition (the Jann could suck it). And they were still pretty much identical to their classic depictions; dao were avaricious, evil, giant earth-genies obsessed with mineral wealth, and marids were arrogant, flamboyant, adventurous water genies who all to the last claimed a noble title. Whether this was deliberate - a lot of the later 4e Dungeon & Dragon magazine articles tended towards bringing back older lore - or was just a sign that the grid-filling nature of D&D genies robs even the best authors of their creativity, who can say?

[[Al-Qadim]], the "Arabian Nights" mini-setting for the [[Forgotten Realms]], placed a lot of emphasis on genies, naturally. It created the "Tasked Genie" designation, a variety of lesser genies specially molded to fulfill certain tasks until they had become entirely new species revolving around that task (specific strains: Administrator, Architect/Builder, Artist, Deceiver, Guardian, Harim Servant, Herdsman, Messenger, Miner, Oathbinder, Slayer, Warmonger and Winemaker). It created the Markeen, or "Genie Double", a genie cursed to be the exact physical replica of a mortal, and it introduced the [[Sha'ir]] class; a [[Wizard]] variant that drew its powers from the service of a minor allied genie called a gen.

Genies are one of the elementals most likely to produce [[genasi]] offspring, though [[Pathfinder]] also has a specific "genie-born" hybrid, the [[Suli]].

3.5's Tome of Magic introduced a new breed of genie; the Khayal, a "darkness elemental" genie native to the [[Plane of Shadow]]. Master wielders of shadow magic, khayal are distinguished by their dark, dusky-gray skin and their utter-black eyes, which appear more like night-filled holes in their skull than anything human-like. If one can look past that, they otherwise look like slightly taller than average humans. They regard the other elemental genies with varying levels of antipathy, but have an especial hatred for jann. Looking down on all other races, khayal culture revolves around deciving and manipulating them - although they are never anything but scrupulously honest with each other. Tradition holds that anyone who can irrefutably prove they have been lied to by a khayal is owed a single task from that genie in recompense, but they don't always live up to this. They have been known to assist mortals of their own volition, either out of mutual need or due to being impressed at the mortal's deceitfulness, but they display archetypical genie arrogance when they do.

3.5 also gave us the Frostfell sourcebook, and with it, the Qorrashi, who were associated with the Paraelemental Plane of Ice, but they only got an average-size soucebook bestiary-level description, so there's not much to say about them other than that they exist.

===D&D Genie Gallery===
<gallery>
<center>
File:2e Dao (MM).gif
File:2e Djinni (MM).gif
File:2e Efreet (MM).gif
File:2e Marid (MM).gif
File:2e Dao Female (LoF).png
File:2e Djinni Female (LoF).png
File:2e Efreet Female (LoF).png
File:2e Marid Female (LoF).png
File:2e Dao Male (LoF).png
File:2e Djinni Male (LoF).png
File:2e Efreet Male (LoF).png
File:2e Marid Male (LoF).png
File:2e Janni Female (LoF).png
File:2e Janni Male (LoF).png
File:Noble Dao.gif
File:Noble Djinni.gif
File:Noble Efreet.gif
File:Noble Marid.gif
File:3e Dao and Marid.png
File:4e Dao.png
File:4e Marid.png
File:4e Djinn Skylord.png
File:4e Djinn Stormsword.png
File:4e Djinn Thunderer.png
File:4e Djinn Windbow.png
File:4e Efreeti.png
File:4e Efreet Sultan of Brass.png
</center>
</gallery>

==Pathfinder==
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[[File:Pathfinder Genies.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The complete line-up of [[Golarion]] Genies.]]

Mostly identical to the classic D&D version, complete with dividing its genies into four elemental types. They call their earth genies "Shaitain", though.

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==[[Changeling: The Lost]]==
It's quite possible for a [[changeling]] - or, more fittingly, a True Fae - in [[Changeling: The Lost]] to style themselves after a genie. In fact, the splat ''Night Horrors: Grim Fears'' actually features a genie-motifed magically bound True Fae called Ybalashi, who is compelled to grant the wishes of whoever holds her vessel. Of course, as her title of "The Artisan of Poisoned Desires" suggests, making use of her magic isn't a smart thing to do.

==[[Warhammer Fantasy]]==
Whilst the [http://warhammerfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Djinn Djinn] are largely forgotten part of lore, [[Tzeentch]]ian Greater [[Daemon]], the [[Lord of Change]], has been known to act as a Genie - and, of course, always in a jerkass fashion.

For example, in one old Warhammer comic, an imprisoned [[Lord of Change]] was set free by three travelers. In "appreciation" for them setting it free, he would each give them a wish. The first wanted the ability to fly, and the Daemon turned him into a fly. When the two complained, it defended itself by claiming that he wasn't specific enough. So the second wished to live forever, and the daemon turned him into a vampire, which then forced the third companion, a Dwarf, to kill him. The dwarf, seeing that the Lord of Change would obviously screw over any wish it will grant, did the brilliant decision of making a wish that he was worth his weight in gold.........That worked just as about as well as you might expect since the daemon then turns him into a statue of solid gold.

Meanwhile, over in [[Mordheim]], the mercenary Nicodemus was a wizard's apprentice who foolishly freed a bounded Lord of Change and then wished to be "the greatest wizard in the world". This caused him to start growing into a giant spellcaster, and he was forced to come to Mordheim for a steady supply of the wyrdstone he needs in his growth-retardant potion. There's even a fan adventure where he runs out of potion long enough to grow to the size of a ''real'' giant.
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