TheRPGSite

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.  (https://ejtaal.net/aa/#hw4=743,ll=2178,ls=5,la=3008,sg=727,ha=495,br=654,pr=107,aan=423,mgf=612,vi=261,kz=1698,mr=440,mn=948,uqw=1101,umr=737,ums=618,umj=544,ulq=1231,uqa=299,uqq=247,bdw=h604,amr=h439,asb=h664,auh=h1083,dhq=h380,mht=h618,msb=h166,tla=h77,amj=h535,ens=h325,mis=h1492)

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.  (https://ejtaal.net/aa/#hw4=743,ll=2178,ls=5,la=3008,sg=727,ha=495,br=654,pr=107,aan=423,mgf=612,vi=261,kz=1698,mr=440,mn=948,uqw=1101,umr=737,ums=618,umj=544,ulq=1231,uqa=299,uqq=247,bdw=h604,amr=h439,asb=h664,auh=h1083,dhq=h380,mht=h618,msb=h166,tla=h77,amj=h535,ens=h325,mis=h1492)

No disagreement there. I made a mistake: marid specifically translates to giant (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AF#Arabic), although ifrit are sometimes described as giants (https://www.britannica.com/topic/ifrit). 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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jann_(legendary_creature)). 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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinn_(mythology)). 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.

You mean someone actively looking to be irked for the purposes of social outrage is only looking at the surface of the very thing they're irked by? This is shocking to me.

I'm still irked that Lake Geneva Wisconsin culturally appropriated from the Swiss!

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1066466And 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.

Basically everyone has some sacred cows, though some people have more than others. For example, Shark started a long thread recently on "Why Did They Kill The Paladin? (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?39662-Why-Did-They-Kill-The-Paladin) ", which was about stifling creativity about what paladins should be like, as you phrase it.

I usually like killing sacred cows for delicious sacred hamburger. Still, I don't think it's cause for much resentment that some people are attached to them.

Actually, mangled naming bothers me more than straying from mythology. And I am bugged by ignorance of the source more than deliberate change.

Quote from: jhkim;1066474Actually, mangled naming bothers me more than straying from mythology. And I am bugged by ignorance of the source more than deliberate change.

I have no problem with people killing sacred cows in their games or with a person being personally annoyed by ignorance of source material. What I dislike is everyone treating this like a zero sum game where the goal is for everyone to do things the same: the right way to be creative. It comes from all sides I agree. It is when it becomes a rule, or just a basic assumption of the community, then I think it turns from your personal annoyance to something that stifles people to be creative (which is what this is all about).

Specifically on the point of knowledge of source material: I am all for it and strive for it myself. But nothing kills enthusiasm for a genre, myth or history faster in my experience than making people feel small because they don't know as much as you or as some expert. I think it is okay for people to come at this from different levels of experience, knowledge and education level.

One of my main concerns with the 'culturally Authentic=equals morally better and better quality play' is it becomes elitist and it often pits people who have the masters degrees and PhDs in the hobby against those who don't (or it pits the people who have dedicated a million nerd hours into something against those who haven't). Some will have deep knowledge of middle eastern folklore and Arabic when they make genies for a game, some will be going off pop culture knowledges. I don't think either way is wrong.

Quote from: jhkim;1066474I usually like killing sacred cows for delicious sacred hamburger. Still, I don't think it's cause for much resentment that some people are attached to them.

.

That isn't what I was trying to say. I was saying if you establish a bar to entry with a list of rules for proper handling of myth in creative ventures like Box of Crayons is doing, people react to that with resentment. It doesn't produce greater interest in understanding the source material. It puts people on the defensive. They become more closed to what you are suggesting rather than more open.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1066480That isn't what I was trying to say. I was saying if you establish a bar to entry with a list of rules for proper handling of myth in creative ventures like Box of Crayons is doing, people react to that with resentment. It doesn't produce greater interest in understanding the source material. It puts people on the defensive. They become more closed to what you are suggesting rather than more open.

Gee, that sounds familiar. ;)

Oh boy here we go again. Are you sure you found the right website?

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1066477One of my main concerns with the 'culturally Authentic=equals morally better and better quality play' is it becomes elitist and it often pits people who have the masters degrees and PhDs in the hobby against those who don't (or it pits the people who have dedicated a million nerd hours into something against those who haven't). Some will have deep knowledge of middle eastern folklore and Arabic when they make genies for a game, some will be going off pop culture knowledges. I don't think either way is wrong.

I completely agree with this. Purist vs non-purist, authentic vs non-authentic, edition X vs edition Y - these are generally just arguments over taste in RPGs - and the answer has to be that its fine to have different tastes.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1066480That isn't what I was trying to say. I was saying if you establish a bar to entry with a list of rules for proper handling of myth in creative ventures like Box of Crayons is doing, people react to that with resentment. It doesn't produce greater interest in understanding the source material. It puts people on the defensive. They become more closed to what you are suggesting rather than more open.

Yeah. I disagree with BoxCrayonTales, I'm just saying that everyone's got some point of taste that gets them upset. Whether its purism for Gygaxian D&D or purism for Greek myth or purism for whatever, it's generally wrong - but also not something to get resentful or defensive about.

Many folklore monsters have different names that effectively name the same creature, especially if the monster occurs in various cultures or their tales are retold in various languages. I understand the OP's issue and I appreciate the oddness in naming. D&D has Red Dragons and Frost Giants, but no Ice Genie or Swamp Scorpion.

However, in general, I prefer monsters to have unique names - ESPECIALLY if it adds to the flavor the setting. AKA, in Al-Qadim, it's cool to have arabic sounding monsters.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1066492Many folklore monsters have different names that effectively name the same creature, especially if the monster occurs in various cultures or their tales are retold in various languages. I understand the OP's issue and I appreciate the oddness in naming. D&D has Red Dragons and Frost Giants, but no Ice Genie or Swamp Scorpion.

However, in general, I prefer monsters to have unique names - ESPECIALLY if it adds to the flavor the setting. AKA, in Al-Qadim, it's cool to have arabic sounding monsters.

Greetings!

Yeah, you're quite right, Spinachcat. I'm reminded of the oh, you know, how in Gaelic, Germanic, and Slavic languages and mythology--there's a dozen different names each all for essentially the same type of creature. Russian and Slavic myths, for example, having at least a dozen different regional names for the same small group of water or forest dryads and nymphs. Even with that--I'm using Greek derivations that translate over to these creatures described in the Slavic languages, which also embrace many different regional variations.

Jhinn, Genie, Jhann--all the same names for essentially the same creature. People have been using those names for such creatures for centuries--long before game designers ever came on the scene. :)

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

So whats next? The cultural mis-appropriation of Kanaloa as is represented by the Mind Flayer? Krypto is a gross misrepresentation of Laelaps? Buggs Bunny is a pale imitation of Tu'er Shen?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066440I'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.

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?

I rather have a name any name than just water, fire etc. As a good example of boring and bad design is the number of boring names for Giants in Pathfinder imo. Okay we have a water Giant, then a Ocean, River, Lake, Sewer Giant. With nothing that makes them really stand out beyond living in their element, nothing in terms of special abilities related to their element and the only real difference is the art.

What's next though Orc sounds too much like PorK and you can no longer eat bacon or pork chops because your triggered by the orc sound in Pork.

Trust the Gene Genie ...

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1066466But 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.

You make a good point and I apologize if I came across as one true wayist. I easily give that impression when arguing about my pet peeves.

I don't know Arabic, yes, but I do recognize the problems with transliterations and such since Arabic inflects through transfixing and has consonants which don't exist in English or can even be transcribed with the Latin alphabet. This made my research of etymology really difficult due to the bazillion inconsistent spellings of simple words. I know that we English speakers are butchering the inflection terribly but I don't know how to address that.

You're right about folklore having lots of different connotations. In my research I discovered that Shaitan alone, for example, means "accuser", "devil" or "sand storm" depending on context.

To get back to my original problem that everything else spun from, my beef was with the names Genie, Djinn and Jann. I think it is annoying and confusing to use different spellings of the same word for different creatures.

During my most recent research I stumbled upon a surprising solution. According to a book on Google books, there is apparent a jinn tribe called al-Jimm (J-M-M being a root with possible meanings related to "large group of people, multitude, to abound, to be plentiful; forelock; to relax"). The Arabic word for "garden" is janna (with related words using the root J-N-N).

So instead of Djinn and Jann, those tribes could be (and I'm probably butchering the inflection here) Banu al-Jimm and Banu al-Janna meaning the "tribe of plenty" and the "tribe of the garden". At least in my opinion, the new names retain the overall shape of the old names while fixing the spelling and meaning problem.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1066492Many folklore monsters have different names that effectively name the same creature, especially if the monster occurs in various cultures or their tales are retold in various languages. I understand the OP's issue and I appreciate the oddness in naming. D&D has Red Dragons and Frost Giants, but no Ice Genie or Swamp Scorpion.

However, in general, I prefer monsters to have unique names - ESPECIALLY if it adds to the flavor the setting. AKA, in Al-Qadim, it's cool to have arabic sounding monsters.

That's a very good point.

However, I have to raise a particular objection. All supposedly unique names, when you get right down to it, can essentially be broken down into more basic words if you trace their etymology far back enough. Or it is a word in a foreign language with a simple meaning or three. Or the one who named them made up gibberish and called it a name. You can see this no better than in the "Atlas of True Names" that was first published a few years back, or in any articles about world building place names.

For example, I was able to trace the etymology of ghoul (which has historically been translated as "ogre", which in anthropology and folklore isn't related to the D&D's systematization) back to a root with a general meaning of seizing, snatching, grabbing and such. In at least some languages, the word for "lion" comes from roots with the same meaning (referring to their hunting behavior probably). Not only that, but words for "witch" or "ogre" in some languages were derived from the same root. This made my research very difficult initially before I learned that this was the case, since translations obscured this subtlety: one North African creation myth I read claimed that the first couple to live in the wilds became the first lion and lioness, but the specific translation I read translated this as a nonsensical lion and witch.

Languages have such fascinating baggage, don't they?

In any case, your suggestion for "Arabic-sounding names" would result in either Arabic-sounding gibberish or meaningful Arabic words depending on how much the writer cared. Much like how Tolkien included dense notes for translating his works into other languages while retaining the meaning, I prefer that all names be meaningful on their own rather than gibberish the writer made up on the fly.

Quote from: sureshot;1066518I rather have a name any name than just water, fire etc. As a good example of boring and bad design is the number of boring names for Giants in Pathfinder imo. Okay we have a water Giant, then a Ocean, River, Lake, Sewer Giant. With nothing that makes them really stand out beyond living in their element, nothing in terms of special abilities related to their element and the only real difference is the art.

Those are all good criticisms of the monster design. They really do need more interesting special abilities. One idea I had was to syncretize giants from Greek and Norse myth. In Greek myth the giants are the children of Gaia and their name is postulated to literally mean "earth born", so we have a solid basis for earth giants there. What makes them stand out from D&D norms is that they are often depicted with radically non-human features such as snakes for legs, the face and paws of a lion, a bazillion heads and limbs, covered in eyes, etc. And that's just in the depictions that have survived to the modern day; countless more have been lost to time. Some Norse myths relate similar features for their giants, such as Ymir's six-headed son, even to the point of being wholly animal in form such as Sleipnir, Fenris and Jormungand. (BTW, one book of North African folktales relates that genies can appear in similarly crazy forms, such as one example given being three-headed, six-armed, and one-legged. (https://books.google.com/books?id=WewsDwAAQBAJ&q=three+heads%2C+six+arms%2C+and+one+leg#v=snippet&q=three%20heads%2C%20six%20arms%2C%20and%20one%20leg&f=false))

I think the criticism of the naming scheme is the weakest, since as I said before any name will either be gibberish or untranslated foreign words.

For example, in the Pathfinder bestiaries the frost giant eight-legged horse centaur with incongruous horns was named "svathurim." Surprisingly, this name is not Norse-sounding gibberish. Although the spelling threw me off at first, it appears to be derived from Old English swathu ("footpath") and hrim ("hoarfrost") or their cognates in other Germanic languages. I'm not entirely sure what it is supposed to mean, but it seems like it was derived from an actual description of the monsters as in real languages.

A more famous example would probably be the unicorn, whose name literally means "one horn" in Latin. (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unicorn) The manticore derives from Persian for man-eater, but in folk-etymology it was rendered as "man-tiger." (http://www.mlecshs.com/m-w/manticore-n-word-of-the-day-from-the-oed/)

The Chinese word for "vampire" consists of three words literally meaning "blood-sucking demon," (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%90%B8%E8%A1%80%E9%AC%BC) and this spelling was loaned into Japanese and Korean (although pronounced completely differently).

If I sound one true wayist then I apologize. Let me know if I'm getting overzealous on you.

no no no! You have to rename them all "People of Element" :rolleyes:

Quote from: Omega;1066565no no no! You have to rename them all "People of Element" :rolleyes:

I have no problem with this.

In my research I have uncovered more passages suggesting jinn that live in elements other than smokeless fire, although I'm not sure if this means they were actually made of said element.

Quote from: Allah: the Concept of God in Islam. by Yasin T. al-Jibouri .p204Jinns reside wherever humans dont live around: deserts, oceans, uninhabited islands, forests etc. Some of them are good, but most of them are bad, as is with the human race. Jinns are also various species; here is a brief description of some of them:

One of their species is called SHAQQ. These are bedeviled jinns who look semi-humanoid, and they love to intercept travellers and aggravate them. Their of their species are so dangerous, those who are exposed to them may lose their sanity; they are: TABI, QAREEN and KHABIL. Those who reside in the seas and the oceans are known as DILHAB. Another species RI'EE, also called ARRAF, are harmless; they love to share some of the knowledge with humans; so they select the most brilliant from among the humans for their company. Among the other harmful species of the jinns are: ABAQAR and SA'LAT and they like to live in orchards. Another species , GHOOL, prefer to assume various forms and shapes to inflict harm on humans. MARID is also a harmful species of the jinns, and so are the NISNAS who look like the SHAQQ in form and shape; they have faces which look like humans but not exactly so. HATIF is a species of jinn that prefer to use sound to do their mischief, preferring to be seen by humans only as forms rather than beings. HAJIS jinns apply the method of intuition to communicate with humans, inspiring evil thoughs to them. All of these species are mentioned in Vol. 1 of al-Zamakhshari's encyclopaedia titled Rabee al-Abrar.

I think the more important question is, where are my goddamn wishes?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066583In my research I have uncovered more passages suggesting jinn that live in elements other than smokeless fire, although I'm not sure if this means they were actually made of said element.

QuoteOne of their species is called SHAQQ.

Ok, the jokes are writing themselves now.

(http://www.everythingaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/kazaam.jpg)

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1066586I think the more important question is, where are my goddamn wishes?

See? You're committing the mistake. You don't ask for wishes. You ask for MORE GENIES. The Barbara Eden kind, preferably. But I'll happily take her evil brunette cousin.

What kind of genie is Shazzan? And more importantly - are the kids riding the bitchen winged camel culturally appropriating someone?

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Quote from: Ratman_tf;1066586I think the more important question is, where are my goddamn wishes?

It varies. A couple of days ago I watched a Hungarian folk tale series on Youtube. In the story of the lazy boy, he catches a talking fish that gives him wishes after he releases it. Wish granting is found in folk tales from all over the world.

Which reminds me... I think the root of my peeve is that D&D is a mishmash of myths from countless cultures with no attempt made at comparative mythology or religious syncretism. That is, all cultures display recurring archetypes in their myths that result in similar situations that led one to assume that they share a common source of inspiration.

Norse jotunn, Greek gigas, Indian rakshasa, Japanese oni, Arabic jinn, Celtic fairies, etc are all variations on the same sets of recurring archetypes. For example: they commonly live in their own country like Jotunheim, Jinnistan, Otherworld, or Tartarus; have highly variable morality ranging from man-eating monsters to converting to Islam to making dangerous bargains; vary in size and form from bottled imps to planet-sized snakes to dudes with fifty heads covered in eyes; are often empowered by the elements or tied to nature in some way.

It isn't a stretch to assume that if these monsters really existed then they would be part of the same general taxonomy that inspired the cultural myths, rather than arbitrarily segregated into distinct incompatible D&D types like fiends, fey, elementals, giants, etc.

You can actually see this happening in real world syncretism. Long before D&D wrote about five elemental genies, Malay culture was integrating Arabic beliefs in jinn with local beliefs in elemental nature spirits and the humor theory of Plato shared by Arab alchemists. There were jinn of the air, the black earth, the fiery sunset and the sea who caused sickness by making imbalance in the humors. There's no distinction between jinn and other spirits or elemental beings or fairies and so forth, they are all jinn.

I'm terribly sorry if I came off as anal-retentive obsessive-compulsive before. To be honest I think that the D&D taxonomy is needlessly complex and more trouble than it's worth to keep track of.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066605It varies. A couple of days ago I watched a Hungarian folk tale series on Youtube. In the story of the lazy boy, he catches a talking fish that gives him wishes after he releases it. Wish granting is found in folk tales from all over the world.

I think I've seen that series! If it's the series I'm thinking of, it was animated and played on PBS in the 80's.

QuoteWhich reminds me... I think the root of my peeve is that D&D is a mishmash of myths from countless cultures with no attempt made at comparative mythology or religious syncretism.

As previously noted, you are really barking up the wrong tree. D&D's goal was never mythological accuracy, much less religious syncretism.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1066607As previously noted, you are really barking up the wrong tree. D&D's goal was never mythological accuracy, much less religious syncretism.

Religious syncretism is actually the opposite of mythological accuracy. It consists of remixing myths from other cultures in order to fit them into your own or vice versa.

The Christmas holiday is a perfect example of this, as every aspect of it was co-opted from other cultural festivals. In fact, the modern image of Santa Claus was invented by the Coca Cola company.

If D&D isn't trying to be accurate to myths, then there's no reason they can't undergo rounds of much-needed simplification like rewriting genies and giants as the same. I'm writing several blog articles which do that for a lot of monsters, because to be very honest D&D has a huge problem with filler and redundancy.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066622If D&D isn't trying to be accurate to myths, then there's no reason they can't undergo rounds of much-needed simplification like rewriting genies and giants as the same.

There's no reason they should, either.

QuoteI'm writing several blog articles which do that for a lot of monsters, because to be very honest D&D has a huge problem with filler and redundancy.

Good for you. the RPG scene can always benefit from new ideas, and new takes on old ideas.

Am I the only one thinking that what we are seeing here (and in the other thread) are what, in my neck of the woods, we call 'a wind up'?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066622If D&D isn't trying to be accurate to myths, then there's no reason they can't undergo rounds of much-needed simplification like rewriting genies and giants as the same. I'm writing several blog articles which do that for a lot of monsters, because to be very honest D&D has a huge problem with filler and redundancy.

Except Genies and Giants are NOT necessarily the same. Genies could be shapeshifers while Giants are limited to a single form. Genies might be constrained to physical objects (i.e. the classic ring or lamp) while Giants roam where they will. Genies might be compelled to grant wishes for those who capture them while Giants simply stomp on you for having the temerity to try and enslave them.

I hate to say it, but this is your "one-true wayism" showing through again. If genies and giants aren't considered the same creature as you think they should be (even though they are very different beings in many myths) then D&D is doing it wrong.

Again, if you want to make a "Myth-authentic" world and try and sell that, go right ahead. But stop with the "if its not my way its wrong" crap. That wins no one over to your cause. Indeed, I'd say all your One-True-Way arguments have poisoned a lot of people here against actually listening to your good points.

Quote from: Gruntfuttock;1066631Am I the only one thinking that what we are seeing here (and in the other thread) are what, in my neck of the woods, we call 'a wind up'?

Nope. There's a lot of jargon going on that's very familiar. I'm willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt, though.

Quote from: Chris24601;1066632Except Genies and Giants are NOT necessarily the same. Genies could be shapeshifers while Giants are limited to a single form. Genies might be constrained to physical objects (i.e. the classic ring or lamp) while Giants roam where they will. Genies might be compelled to grant wishes for those who capture them while Giants simply stomp on you for having the temerity to try and enslave them.

You seem to have misunderstood my point. You listed differences between genies and giants, great. I'll just re-quote you with the names changed to illustrate what I was actually trying to say but got misinterpreted: "Except ogres and ogres are NOT necessarily the same. Ogres could be shapeshifers while ogres are limited to a single form. Ogres might be constrained to physical objects (i.e. the classic ring or lamp) while ogres roam where they will. Ogres might be compelled to grant wishes for those who capture them while ogres simply stomp on you for having the temerity to try and enslave them."

Quote from: Chris24601;1066632I hate to say it, but this is your "one-true wayism" showing through again. If genies and giants aren't considered the same creature as you think they should be (even though they are very different beings in many myths) then D&D is doing it wrong.

Genies and giants never coexisted in the same cultural myths. Your argument for keeping them separate has no basis in mythology, but in D&D-specific fluff. My argument isn't to pick and choose which of those is right and then force everything to conform. I've been researching comparative mythology and I've learned that mythology is actually vague and inconsistent. D&D is unique in that it forces everything to conform to a specific behavior.

In other words, why can't we have both?

Quote from: Chris24601;1066632Again, if you want to make a "Myth-authentic" world and try and sell that, go right ahead.

Claiming that something is "myth-authentic" sounds non-credulous because myths are hardly static, clear or consistent. Generally people who use that as an advertising point are really saying it is authentic to their personal interpretation of the myths.

I want to avoid that, so I'm working to shoehorn all myths into a shared context regardless of all the crazy contradictions that creates. Trying to resolve the contradictions, rather than pick one fact and ignore all the others, is where most of my fun comes from.

With combining giants and genies, that means I have to pick which of those facts you listed are true on an individual basis... in addition to any number of other features. As I mentioned earlier, the myths of giants and jinn are much more diverse than D&D. I specifically listed a jinn that had three heads, six arms and one leg and a giant with a lion's head, lion's paws, and live snakes for legs as eye-catching examples.

Quote from: Chris24601;1066632But stop with the "if its not my way its wrong" crap. That wins no one over to your cause. Indeed, I'd say all your One-True-Way arguments have poisoned a lot of people here against actually listening to your good points.

I'm trying to avoid this but that's difficult when I'm less than eloquent in the first place and others keep misunderstanding my points.

I've specifically been trying to avoid one-true-way by tossing myths into a blender. I dislike D&D monsters specifically because they, in my opinion, fall into a one-true-way trap. One-note-joke trap? Whatever. You may disagree with my use of that terminology but I don't know any other way to put it succinctly.

Real myths have jinn with three heads, six arms and one leg, among countless other possible manifestations. D&D never ever does and all monsters are just multiplications of a specific character with zero room for anything outside that. Thus, in my opinion the myth is superior because it is not straight-jacketed.

I don't know how else to explain my beliefs in this matter. Maybe you'll find it easier to explain in your own words.

I thought we've long established the obvious:

D&D *is* its own brand of fantasy.

Why is this even an issue?

Quote from: tenbones;1066770I thought we've long established the obvious:

D&D *is* its own brand of fantasy.

Why is this even an issue?

Because we've got an armchair expert with a stick up his ass over make believe monsters in a pop culture game.

Quote from: tenbones;1066770I thought we've long established the obvious:

D&D *is* its own brand of fantasy.

Why is this even an issue?

Is it? I thought a lot of D&Disms were needlessly confusing so I wanted to simplify things. So I decided to ask for some second opinions and advice. Somewhere along the line this became a vicious argument.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1066466But Crayon, you are just using wikipages to look this stuff up.

There is nothing wrong with using Wikipedia as research, I do it all the time.

However, you have to realise that it might not be completely accurate and is probably only scratching the surface. If you want to go deeper, then you need to do a lot more studying.

To be honest, for RPGs, I find Wikipedia to be just the right level of detail for settings.

What you shouldn't do is get on your high horse about terminology based on superficial research.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066781Is it? I thought a lot of D&Disms were needlessly confusing so I wanted to simplify things. So I decided to ask for some second opinions and advice. Somewhere along the line this became a vicious argument.

But you seem to be demanding that WE also simplify things in line with your vision... and in every example so far its been with a side-helping of "must portray in culturally sensitive (as determined by Wikipedia) fashion".

Take your ridiculous Giants must equal Genies thing where you went and subbed Ogre for both things... you're trying to force Genies and Giants to be smooshed into the same thing when there are MANY examples of differences between how the two are presented in different mythologies. The Norse Giants (upon whom the D&D giants are much more firmly based) would never be confused for Arabic Genies. The fact that we have words from different myths allows D&D to distinguish between these two, often wildly different creatures in settings that are neither Norse nor Arabic.

You may not THINK you're acting like an SJW... but you sound exactly like a "One True Way" SJW. You want to squeeze everything into a box that fits your Wikipedia-derived model and if we disagree, we need to get in line with your vision.

You say you want advice? Here's mine. If no one else agrees with you, maybe the problem isn't with everyone else, but with the ideas you're trying to foist on them.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066781Is it? I thought a lot of D&Disms were needlessly confusing so I wanted to simplify things. So I decided to ask for some second opinions and advice. Somewhere along the line this became a vicious argument.

But it's already simplified. There is already consensus in D&D circles. The goal being if you have something to add to the consensus, a new perspective, *create it*. If it's good - it'll get adopted.

Don't deconstruct for some silly out-of-game narrative. Make something relevant. Create a bunch of BoxCrayonTales "Geniekind" writeups and post them. If they're *GOOD* people will like them.

Questioning the validity of something established under the pretense of being concerned about the historical roots of how something is presented is passive-aggressive, and besides the entire point. We're here for gaming. Not political correctness in gaming.

This is the very thing that SJW's don't understand - deconstructing something you think is bad isn't better than constructing something good that might be better. If you need a good example of this: Look at what Marvel Comics has done to its characters. Star Wars too

This is why Genies in D&D are fine as is. Make something different if you think it's better. And I fully encourage you to create your BoxCrayonTale's World of Simplified D&D - shiny and new. DO IT. Make it good. Put all your beliefs into it. And put it up for public consumption. (or private critique). I'm sure many people here would happily offer that to you in good faith.

Quote from: Chris24601;1066798But you seem to be demanding that WE also simplify things in line with your vision... and in every example so far its been with a side-helping of "must portray in culturally sensitive (as determined by Wikipedia) fashion".

Take your ridiculous Giants must equal Genies thing where you went and subbed Ogre for both things... you're trying to force Genies and Giants to be smooshed into the same thing when there are MANY examples of differences between how the two are presented in different mythologies. The Norse Giants (upon whom the D&D giants are much more firmly based) would never be confused for Arabic Genies. The fact that we have words from different myths allows D&D to distinguish between these two, often wildly different creatures in settings that are neither Norse nor Arabic.

You may not THINK you're acting like an SJW... but you sound exactly like a "One True Way" SJW. You want to squeeze everything into a box that fits your Wikipedia-derived model and if we disagree, we need to get in line with your vision.

You say you want advice? Here's mine. If no one else agrees with you, maybe the problem isn't with everyone else, but with the ideas you're trying to foist on them.

Pretty much everything you are accusing me of here is completely wrong. I am sorry if I made you feel that way, but absolutely none of that is true. Back to my actual argument... You may be fine with treating all these things as different species or whatever, but I think that the D&Disms are anal-retentive obsessive-compulsive unnecessary things. That is my personal opinion, not the way I think everyone should be forced to act.

If I was world building from scratch, there is no way I would make an arbitrary (and it is entirely arbitrary) distinction between "genies" and "giants" just because D&D did it first. No culture on Earth does that. They simplify foreign myths when they adopt them. I gave an example of how Malay culture combined the jinn myths brought by Islam with their own myths of spirits.

Why would a fire giant not be able to grant wishes or change shape? Because the holy inerrant monster manual does not include said traits in its write up of fire giants? This is fiction. Loki was a frost giant and he assumed the form of a mare to seduce a stallion and gave birth to an eight-legged horse that could fly. Most myths and fairy tales and such sound like acid trips when you think about them critically. D&D, at least as you seem to interpret it, just seems to love sucking all the fun and fantasy out of them by forcing all sorts of excessive and unnecessary systematization.

Myths are not static and are not "correct" because they are fiction people use to deal with their social and psychological issues. When you are dealing with myths, you are dealing with stories people told and modified to suit their tastes. Absolutely everything is arbitrary and streamlined over centuries of retelling. Genies live in lamps and grant wishes because one particular storyteller decided that would be good for one story he wrote, and other storytellers added their own twists like genies that did not do any of those things. They were not trying to force everything to fit into an arbitrary mold like D&D does.

So I do not see any point to maintaining an arbitrary distinction between genies and giants just because the monster manual lists them separately. I feel well within my rights to throw them into a blender and modify them as desired whenever I need something, and I feel absolutely no need to be consistent when I do that. If I want a genie with three heads, six arms and one leg, or a giant with a lion's head, lion's paws and live snakes for legs, or a frost giant with the power to change shape and grant wishes and whatever else I need at the time, I will add them and I will not get upset that they contradict the monster manual.

I came here to ask for ideas that I could not come up with myself. I am not omniscient. Please do not be a religious zealot who tells me that I cannot do that because it contradicts your religion centered on the monster manual. That is not nice and not helpful at all.

Quote from: tenbones;1066819But it's already simplified. There is already consensus in D&D circles. The goal being if you have something to add to the consensus, a new perspective, *create it*. If it's good - it'll get adopted.

Don't deconstruct for some silly out-of-game narrative. Make something relevant. Create a bunch of BoxCrayonTales "Geniekind" writeups and post them. If they're *GOOD* people will like them.

Questioning the validity of something established under the pretense of being concerned about the historical roots of how something is presented is passive-aggressive, and besides the entire point. We're here for gaming. Not political correctness in gaming.

This is the very thing that SJW's don't understand - deconstructing something you think is bad isn't better than constructing something good that might be better. If you need a good example of this: Look at what Marvel Comics has done to its characters. Star Wars too

This is why Genies in D&D are fine as is. Make something different if you think it's better. And I fully encourage you to create your BoxCrayonTale's World of Simplified D&D - shiny and new. DO IT. Make it good. Put all your beliefs into it. And put it up for public consumption. (or private critique). I'm sure many people here would happily offer that to you in good faith.

I am not arguing for cultural sensitivity here. I do not understand why people think that. That is wrong.

I think it is unnecessary to have confusingly similar names or to maintain arbitrary categories that do not have solid justification. We have giants, genies, onis and such. Why do they need to be distinct? They never co-existed in any real mythology and fit into the same recurring archetypes.

So my question here is what would you think is a good model for reorganizing them? I am not interested in forcing everything to conform to one model, but rather get guidelines for some universal toolkit that could be used to produce a wish-master fire-man, or a giant cannibal with snakes for legs covered in eyes, or a horned demon in a leopard skin bikini, all of whom have wildly divergent abilities but originate from the same source.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066822I am not arguing for cultural sensitivity here. I do not understand why people think that. That is wrong.

Maybe it's because of the nature of a lot of the threads you post? I think it's that.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066822I think it is unnecessary to have confusingly similar names or to maintain arbitrary categories that do not have solid justification. We have giants, genies, onis and such. Why do they need to be distinct? They never co-existed in any real mythology and fit into the same recurring archetypes.

And yet... we have them. I honestly have never heard *anyone* complain about these things. The only complaints I've ever heard were in 1e/2e about the ever growing list of what constituted a Goblinoid for the purposes of the Ranger Enemy bonus. And even then - it was never this big of a deal.

IF it's an issue - invent your taxonomy for a setting. Post it.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066822So my question here is what would you think is a good model for reorganizing them? I am not interested in forcing everything to conform to one model, but rather get guidelines for some universal toolkit that could be used to produce a wish-master fire-man, or a giant cannibal with snakes for legs covered in eyes, or a horned demon in a leopard skin bikini, all of whom have wildly divergent abilities but originate from the same source.

Well the problem here is I treat them all as distinct. I have no real problem with it. I consider Geniekind to be inherently more "magical" than giantkind - though they're both tied to elemental forces. If I were going to create a setting where these things factored in and I would err on the side of the cosmological forces that they are distinctly tied to. And EVEN then... I consider them distinct. If I were going to merge them I'd say a Genie is a term a Giant would use for one of their kind that is a powerful elemental sorcerer and the type of Genie they are is indicated by the type of element they've achieved mastery in.

So a Storm Giant Archmage with mastery of Air-magic might be Djinn. A Fire Giant with mastery of fire would be an Efreet. Maybe the different Giant-types gain bonuses to certain elements based on their kind, but they're not mandated to learn magic of that type. So you can have a Stone Giant that has mastered Fire Magic. or whatever. Genie becomes a title - not a distinct race. Something like that.

But overall - this only matters insofar as it is a conceit of the setting's lore.

Quote from: tenbones;1066826Well the problem here is I treat them all as distinct. I have no real problem with it. I consider Geniekind to be inherently more "magical" than giantkind - though they're both tied to elemental forces. If I were going to create a setting where these things factored in and I would err on the side of the cosmological forces that they are distinctly tied to. And EVEN then... I consider them distinct. If I were going to merge them I'd say a Genie is a term a Giant would use for one of their kind that is a powerful elemental sorcerer and the type of Genie they are is indicated by the type of element they've achieved mastery in.

So a Storm Giant Archmage with mastery of Air-magic might be Djinn. A Fire Giant with mastery of fire would be an Efreet. Maybe the different Giant-types gain bonuses to certain elements based on their kind, but they're not mandated to learn magic of that type. So you can have a Stone Giant that has mastered Fire Magic. or whatever. Genie becomes a title - not a distinct race. Something like that.

But overall - this only matters insofar as it is a conceit of the setting's lore.

I have been entertaining multiple different solutions on my blog. In a series on giants, I mentioned that D&D and PF have included entire races based on extremely one-note concepts like having six arms or two heads and so forth. I decided to treat giants as one race divided into many tribes. Some tribes may be distinguished by particular physical features, but all giants are subject to random mutations simply because they are literally the grandchildren of Chaos through their mother Gaia.

So Argus Panoptes might have children with a thousand eyes each, but his siblings include the cyclopes. There is no reason that Argus' children could not include cylopes, or that the Elder Cyclopes' children could not include giants with a thousand eyes, or that any of their kids could not have three heads, six arms and one leg (which is probably a giant snake). EDIT: Or be born human, for that matter. (By comparison, in Greek myth the cyclops Polyphemus was the son of Poseidon, who was nephew to the Elder Cyclopes and Younger Cyclopes.)

Genies never existed in Greek myth, but they are analogous to many different Greek entities like the rustic deities, giants, and such. Within Arabic folklore the genies are equally diverse and are suspected to descend from Pre-Islamic divinities and spirits. So I really do not understand why they should be treated as distinct in any setting where they are real, because they are clearly cultural equivalents.

The goblinoids issue you mention is a perfect illustration of my peeve. D&D demands clear mutually exclusive categories for everything, but these do not exist in myth (or in any sane tagging system like image booru). Years ago when I was only familiar with D&D I used to think in clear category terms, but reading non-D&D fiction, studying mythology and looking through OSR reinventions really opened my mind. The 13th Age supplement on nymphs, for example, has them start out as humanoid then become elemental to reflect their age or something but the type mechanic therein is barely important to the rules anyway.

You're saying that you don't like D&D's settings. And you want them to create a setting that caters to your particular tastes.


... my suggestion is you stop pestering us in the choir and get your ass to the back of our million-person line that have been saying this for multiple editions over the course of decades. Get out of here carpet-bagger!!! Stop cutting into the line!


Or you create the thing you want. And share it.

Is it wrong that I only pop into these threads to see everyone dogpile boxcrayontales?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1066822So my question here is what would you think is a good model for reorganizing them? I am not interested in forcing everything to conform to one model, but rather get guidelines for some universal toolkit that could be used to produce a wish-master fire-man, or a giant cannibal with snakes for legs covered in eyes, or a horned demon in a leopard skin bikini, all of whom have wildly divergent abilities but originate from the same source.

Are we just talking D&D here or other games?

Some games have a more realistic way of treating demons and genies, trying to base them on medieval descriptions.

Quote from: tenbones;1066840You're saying that you don't like D&D's settings. And you want them to create a setting that caters to your particular tastes.


... my suggestion is you stop pestering us in the choir and get your ass to the back of our million-person line that have been saying this for multiple editions over the course of decades. Get out of here carpet-bagger!!! Stop cutting into the line!


Or you create the thing you want. And share it.

Do you want the blog link? It is terribly amateurish but I've been trying to layout my thoughts there for a couple of years now.

Quote from: Spike;1066917Is it wrong that I only pop into these threads to see everyone dogpile boxcrayontales?

I don't see a problem. The dogpiling has to do with replies mistaking me for an SJW when my complaints aren't about being culturally sensitive (whatever that means), especially not when the culture in question will never actually read the material or be impacted by it. I'm more of a grammar nazi, except with world mythology.

Quote from: soltakss;1067111Are we just talking D&D here or other games?

Some games have a more realistic way of treating demons and genies, trying to base them on medieval descriptions.

It varies depending on what mythology you use as the baseline.

In Arabic folklore genies are the generic spirits of pre-Islamic times, only being codified in Islam as a pre-human race created by God who have free will like humans do. In areas where Islam has spread, there's been syncretism. In Malay, for example, genies have been combined with native beliefs in spirits that cause illnesses.

In medieval Christian lore, you might be able to divide all supernatural entities into demons, angels, and fairies. Demons follow Satan, whereas fairies took no side.