One of my peeves with the genies is that they use different spellings of the same Arabic word to refer to different monsters. For example: genie, djinni, and janni are all the same word. This problem only gets worse if you start diving into third-party products that add things like planetouched and pseudo-elemental genies. For whatever reason, writers think every genie variant absolutely needs a unique name with varying degrees of creativity and confusion.

(BTW, I have no idea why genies are distinguished from giants. They originate from different cultures but if those cultures met then they would probably be considered cultural equivalents. The Arabic word genie and its synonyms are often translated as "giant," further emphasizing my point. In fact, genies were and still are originally associated solely with fire, not the other elements.)

In standard D&D we have the djinn, efreet, marid, dao and jann. Djinn and jann are just variant spellings of genie. Efreet and marid are synonyms of genie (and commonly translated as "giant"), but at least the words look different. Dao is... Chinese? (Pathfinder calls them Shaitan, meaning "accuser" or "dust devil.")

How difficult would it have been to just call them air genies, fire genies, water genies, earth genies and non-elemental genies?

3pp just gets worse. Tome of Horrors introduces the abasheen, burning dervish, hawanar, and seraph genies. Abasheen seems to be derived from a Arabic word for "Abyssinian" (Ethiopian), burnish dervish is an English phrase, hawanar seems to be the Arabic words for "air" and "fire" glued together (bro, do you even inflect?), and seraph is a type of angel described in Christian and Hebrew lore. The abasheen are air genies who live as second-class citizens serving the djinn. The seraph are fire genies locked in an eternal blood feud with the efreet.

How difficult would it have been to call them those other air genies, smoke genies, and those other fire genies?

Monster Menagerie: A Council of Genies introduces more pseudo-elemental genies. We got afara (something Arabic meaning "to leap or roll in ash and dust"), electricus (from the English electricity), guayota (name for a chthonic deity from the Canary Islands), hrimthur (Old Norse for "frost giant"), inhabitors (from English inhabit), mireimer (from mire and emir? IDK), obscurial (from English obscure), prince of beasts (an English phrase), spell fetches (another English phrase), tephran (from some Greek word for "ashes" or "volcanic rock"), and yazata (Avestan word for Zoroastrian deities).

How difficult would it have been to call them soot genies, lightning genies, void genies, ice genies, artificer genies, mud genies, shadow genies, lava genies and light genies?

For that matter, why not give these tribes names that are meaningful in general English? For example, the efreet and seraph could be renamed "Tribe of the Wicked Demons" and "Tribe of the Purifying Vipers" after the possible meanings of their names in the original languages.

Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions.

Just my opinion here, but I think you spend a lot of time getting worked up about monster names and representations in fantasy games.

Quote from: Imaginos;1066429Just my opinion here, but I think you spend a lot of time getting worked up about monster names and representations in fantasy games.

Agreed and seconded. I think he needs a break from rpgs. Or to be taken under the care of a mental health care professional. As there are things in rpgs to actually getting worked up about.

I prefer they have actually names. Even if it sounds like a bad bowel movement. Not to mention a creature made up fo air called air Genie or similar is boring in the extreme.

Jesus wept here we go again.

Quote from: Imaginos;1066429Just my opinion here, but I think you spend a lot of time getting worked up about monster names and representations in fantasy games.

I'm not broken up about this that I can tell, aside from finding the identical pronunciation silly. I'm bored and I can't remember the last time I asked anyone else for a second opinion. I enjoy engaging in deconstructionism, the critical analysis method.

Quote from: sureshot;1066434I prefer they have actually names. Even if it sounds like a bad bowel movement. Not to mention a creature made up fo air called air Genie or similar is boring in the extreme.

The most popular monsters have those sorts of easily comprehensible names. Red dragon, frost giant, air elemental, gelatinous cube, rust monster, etc.

"Bad bowel movement" is putting it mildly. The non-element genie's name sounds like "Johnny" or "Janet." How would you feel if your entire species were called Johnnies and Janets?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066428Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions.

This is the level of nerd nitpicking that kills the fun of the game. If you have interesting ideas for Genies based on your research, knock yourself out. But remember, this is a game that drew inspiration from toy rubber monsters. The goal was never mythological accuracy, and "deconstructing" it on that ground is dubious at best.

I studied arabic for two years. By no means am I an expert in it, or in middle eastern myth and legend, but as far as I know, Jinn are not giants. I don't have my Hans Wehr dictionary handy, but looking it up the online version the root of jinn means to conceal or hide. But also has additional possible meanings like 'to make crazy'. Jinn themselves are simply defined in Hans Wehr as invisible creatures how make themselves harmful or helpful to mortals. I think in the Quran they seem like beings who are more in the category of angels or demons. They also vary a lot depending on what source you are talking about and there are all kinds of variations on Jinn. Again, no expert, but I don't think this is as easy a topic to crack as you make it sound in the OP. I toiled at this for years and still know very, very little.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066428In standard D&D we have the djinn, efreet, marid, dao and jann. Djinn and jann are just variant spellings of genie. Efreet and marid are synonyms of genie (and commonly translated as "giant"), but at least the words look different. Dao is... Chinese? (Pathfinder calls them Shaitan, meaning "accuser" or "dust devil.")
.

See my above post, and again, I am not an expert, but Ifrit, I am pretty sure, is a type of Jinn. It isn't a simple synonym. But like most arabic words, it has a three letter root with meaning beyond what the name signifies. Ifrit is also something mentioned in the Quran. No idea on Dao. But Shaitan is basically the arabic word for Satan. Interestingly, the wiki says that the root for Ifrit is 'A-F-R (tried to put the arabic but isn't working) and that means 'to come from dust'. But in the hans Wehr Dictionary, there is a second section of words, from the one associated with Ifrit: Ta'afraja. And that means to behave like a demon or devil. Ifrit itself in the hans werh is defined as:

"Malicious, mischievous, sly, cunning, crafty, wily; afreet, demon, imp, devil...."

Again this just the Hans Wehr definition. So it is a starting point. If you start looking at the actual uses of the term in different sources, you probably would get a much more full picture of what it encompasses.

EDIT Here is a link to the Hans Wehr page if you find it helpful (right column of page 730): 'A-F-R.

My thoughts: This is a dumb topic.

My Opinion: I think you should start by calibrating which is more offensive about Pepe Le'Pew: He's a black skunk? He's French? He's a sexual predator? He's into cross-species bestiality? He's might really be albino in blackface? or the fact that he's a cartoon and promoting ALL of the above, and Warner Bros. is fully to blame. And what is the sociological impact of this reality on the Toon RPG? And where does that rate on your Peeve-o-Meter?

I think if these things can be answered, we'd end up cutting through a LOT of pages of snark and semi-serious discussion over what I think is silly.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1066445This is the level of nerd nitpicking that kills the fun of the game. If you have interesting ideas for Genies based on your research, knock yourself out. But remember, this is a game that drew inspiration from toy rubber monsters. The goal was never mythological accuracy, and "deconstructing" it on that ground is dubious at best.

No disagreement there. My research has proved endlessly fascinating and I learn new things all the time.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1066446I studied arabic for two years. By no means am I an expert in it, or in middle eastern myth and legend, but as far as I know, Jinn are not giants. I don't have my Hans Wehr dictionary handy, but looking it up the online version the root of jinn means to conceal or hide. But also has additional possible meanings like 'to make crazy'. Jinn themselves are simply defined in Hans Wehr as invisible creatures how make themselves harmful or helpful to mortals. I think in the Quran they seem like beings who are more in the category of angels or demons. They also vary a lot depending on what source you are talking about and there are all kinds of variations on Jinn. Again, no expert, but I don't think this is as easy a topic to crack as you make it sound in the OP. I toiled at this for years and still know very, very little.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1066449See my above post, and again, I am not an expert, but Ifrit, I am pretty sure, is a type of Jinn. It isn't a simple synonym. But like most arabic words, it has a three letter root with meaning beyond what the name signifies. Ifrit is also something mentioned in the Quran. No idea on Dao. But Shaitan is basically the arabic word for Satan. Interestingly, the wiki says that the root for Ifrit is 'A-F-R (tried to put the arabic but isn't working) and that means 'to come from dust'. But in the hans Wehr Dictionary, there is a second section of words, from the one associated with Ifrit: Ta'afraja. And that means to behave like a demon or devil. Ifrit itself in the hans werh is defined as:

"Malicious, mischievous, sly, cunning, crafty, wily; afreet, demon, imp, devil...."

Again this just the Hans Wehr definition. So it is a starting point. If you start looking at the actual uses of the term in different sources, you probably would get a much more full picture of what it encompasses.

EDIT Here is a link to the Hans Wehr page if you find it helpful (right column of page 730): 'A-F-R.

No disagreement there. I made a mistake: marid specifically translates to giant, although ifrit are sometimes described as giants. The folklore isn't consistent, as it is wont.

Want to know something interesting? Although jann and jinn (rhymes with John and gene) are the exact same word in general Arabic, there are some extremely obscure traditions that distinguish jann from jinn. Three such definitions are identified, all of which are completely different: the genie genus, the first jinn created by god and father to the rest, or the most primitive and weakest form of jinn.

Not only that, but other obscure traditions identify creatures related to jinn including hinn and binn. The actual definitions vary by tradition, with hinn referring to either a low caste jinn (or a jinn's dog, or some intermediate category between human and jinn)... or a precursor race to both humans and jinn that was made from air as opposed to humans and jinn being made from earth and fire, respectively.

Again, the references to hinn and jann are obscure and are definitely not part of widely known folklore.

I dunno, it always seemed like an obvious extrapolation. Djinni are associated with wind, while Ifrit (Efreet) with fire. So why not come up with 2 more elemental genies?

Quote from: JeremyR;1066457I dunno, it always seemed like an obvious extrapolation. Djinni are associated with wind, while Ifrit (Efreet) with fire. So why not come up with 2 more elemental genies?

You would think so, wouldn't you? The problem is that those words don't mean those things in Arabic. Gygax and friends added those connotations all on their own. In Arabic, djinn or jinn means "spirit of smokeless fire", while ifrit means "wicked", "cunning" or "demon".

Arabic authors and Gygax came at this from completely different directions. Gygax and friends essentially conflated the Jinn, which were uniquely associated with fire, with Paracelsus' concept of elementals in general; other authors didn't do this until he did. Arabic authors, on the other hand, created wholly new creatures that were equivalent to but not the same as Jinn, but only in some obscure traditions: e.g. Hinn for air, Binn for water.

Things get weird when you try to recreate Gygax's scheme in Arabic. Near as I have been able to determine, the correct Arabic phrases are Jaan Al A'rd (genie of earth), Jaan Al-Bah'ar (genie of water), Talab ka Jinn (genie of water in Hindi), Jaan Al Ha'wa (genie of air), and Jaan Al Na'r (genie of fire).

Quote from: JeremyR;1066457I dunno, it always seemed like an obvious extrapolation. Djinni are associated with wind, while Ifrit (Efreet) with fire. So why not come up with 2 more elemental genies?

Dao - Earth

Marid - Water.

Whatt're ya, new?

Quote from: tenbones;1066464Dao - Earth

Marid - Water.

Whatt're ya, new?

Beat me to it.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066462You would think so, wouldn't you? The problem is that those words don't mean those things in Arabic. Gygax and friends added those connotations all on their own. In Arabic, djinn or jinn means "spirit of smokeless fire", while ifrit means "wicked", "cunning" or "demon".

Arabic authors and Gygax came at this from completely different directions. Gygax and friends essentially conflated the Jinn, which were uniquely associated with fire, with Paracelsus' concept of elementals in general; other authors didn't do this until he did. Arabic authors, on the other hand, created wholly new creatures that were equivalent to but not the same as Jinn, but only in some obscure traditions: e.g. Hinn for air, Binn for water.

Things get weird when you try to recreate Gygax's scheme in Arabic. Near as I have been able to determine, the correct Arabic phrases are Jaan Al A'rd (genie of earth), Jaan Al-Bah'ar (genie of water), Talab ka Jinn (genie of water in Hindi), Jaan Al Ha'wa (genie of air), and Jaan Al Na'r (genie of fire).

But Crayon, you are just using wikipages to look this stuff up. I promise you, arabic is a lot more complicated than you are making it out to be. And you have the benefit of the internet, which Gygax didn't. At that time, he'd have very few resources to help him even approach what you are trying to do (and you should look up both the Idafa construct and Sun/Moon letters (as well as rules governing , to make sure you are achieving what you want here). I am not trying to be pedantic, I just think if you want to make the argument that more rigor with language is needed, you should probably understand that it takes 6 months alone to learn the arabic alphabet for most people, then several years of formal study, and some kind of immersion. And if you stop at all, you are likely to forget just about everything. This is not easy stuff and you are making it out like its simple as pie to understand source languages.

And I have to say, it looks like you are just taking the first definition you find and running with it. How is that any different from what you are accusing Gygax and company of? There is a wealth of folklore, myth and religious jurisprudence on the things you are talking about here. Again, I don't think you need to go that deep with this stuff. But if you are, you probably shouldn't cast judgement using wikipages or google translate.

I understand your interest in authentic language and culture. I do not understand why that is being equated with good quality or morality. It isn't a crime to misunderstand something from another culture and produce a mistake that makes something new. It also isn't a requirement of all creative endeavors that people hold masters degrees or know an entire other language. Making mistakes in translation is a pretty basic step in how culture tends to spread and lead to new things. Again I think there is room for 'authentic' and 'inspired' stuff to co-exist. The basic thing to take home is, don't get all your information about the world from game books and fantasy stories. Those are imagination driven and people will often take a kernel of something, or just an evocative sounding word, and go in all kinds of directions with it.

And I don't necessarily disagree with some of your underlying interests here. I think better understanding of other cultures and their mythology is good on the whole. But if you are going to use real world myth and legend as a hammer that stifles people's creativity, I think you only end up breeding resentment. Again, not everyone is going to have the same level of expertise with this stuff.