Janni Genie [Al-Qadim]

Jann (singular janni) look like tall, handsome humans or half-elves with sand- and earth-colored skin, so unlike djinn they can walk among mortals unnoticed. Their eyes, blue, green, brown or black, seem to throw off colored sparks.

They lack other genies' telepathy, but speak the common trade tongue, the shared genie language and, as the priest spell, with any animal of low intelligence or better; animals they talk with will not attack them.

Desert heat and blowing sand cannot hurt their tough skin. They fight in lamellar that gives AC 2 without its usual drawbacks, using great scimitars (2d8 / 4d4) and composite long bows with flight arrows (1d6/1d6), with Strength bonuses on both, or bare hands for 1d8. Males have 18/01 to 18/00 Strength; half of females have 18 and half 18/50.

Jann have spell-like powers at 12th level unless noted, using just one at a time, at most one each round. They also breathe water and fly at will without affecting those powers.

Bold on home ground, they are uneasy and uncommon away from the desert where legend says their race was born. Within a mile of open desert they have 20% magic resistance; elsewhere, whether in farmland or at sea, they have none. This resistance never blocks a genie-caller's summons, which rests on an old pact between mortals and genies.

Jann can visit the Astral and Ethereal and the four elemental planes, often as lone tourists or servants of other genies, but only for 48 hours at a stretch, after which they need 48 hours on the Prime Material before going back. Every hour beyond the limit costs 1 hit point until they return or die. A janni may bring six hand-holding companions and shield them, but the protection ends at 48 hours or the moment the janni leaves, stranding them.

Some claim jann were made to dodge the rule against genies granting wishes to genies; it did not work. They guard the wild desert for their genie lords and the mortal caliph, roaming like the desert nomads, though they move camp less often and keep permanent sites. Clans of 1d20+10 follow 8 HD sheikhs under greater tribes, chiefly a sorcerous house in the high desert and the unruly jann of the haunted wastes, with many independent clans besides. Amirs rule the great tribes with 9 HD; leaders have 17-18 Intelligence and a 10% chance of 19 Strength (+3/+7). Each amir keeps one or two viziers with 8 HD and 17-20 Intelligence who use fire truth, divination, augury and detect magic three times daily at 12th level.

Herding camels, goats and sheep between pastures and oases, jann embody desert virtue: strong, brave and proud, quick to repay insult, generous to guests who return the courtesy. Families live in bright tents; males and females are equals and either may take several spouses. A wedded male stays close to his kin; a wedded female joins her first spouse's household until she remarries, when her tent is pitched on neutral ground, and children move out when a tent grows crowded. At hidden oases, holy sites and empty cities they build communal halls: prayer houses, bathhouses with rooms for visiting marids, smokehouses for efreet and audience halls for amirs.

In their desert, jann welcome newcomers, especially when they outnumber them, judging individuals as just or unjust rather than by race; at the borders, where their magic resistance fades, they are warier. They are close to djinn and will summon them from Air in emergencies, put up with greedy efreet, tolerate dao with thin patience since dao sometimes enslave jann, and treat marids as the royalty they claim to be. Jann live up to 300 years and must eat, drink and breathe.