Converting Al-Qadim creatures
- Thread starter Shade
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As single creatures, flesh golems stack up pretty tough against nasnas... but for one use of Create Wondrous Item would create enough magic juice to taint two, four, or ten fruits.
In fact, these things are made to be used as a gang... those multiple saves for fear checks might be at a low DC, with with ten nasnas a frontline combatant hero will probably need to roll against most of those ten nasnas, and he's probably going to lose at least once.
Damn fine.
Should we flesh out the paralyzing fear effect for the Greater Nasnas? Does it make victims become Cowered, or actually Paralyzed, or under the effect of a Hold Person?
Then the most important question is which Tasked Genie are we going to work on? Perhaps we should only do one or two, jump off to something else, and then back to another couple of Tasked Genies.
Guardian tasked genies might be a logical choice... perhaps Deceiver or Oathbinder tasked genies.
Shade
Monster Junkie
Indeed. Plus, this thread is essentially completed, so it's not like there's a long line of conversions being kept at bay.
I'll get the first one going shortly.
Shade
Monster Junkie
Genie, Tasked (General)
Tasked genies may once have been genies of one of the four elemental realms. However, tasked genies have performed a single type of labor for so long that their forms have been permanently sculpted to suit their work. Their profession defines them and rules them; a tasked genie taken away from its work grows weak and sickly. Unlike most genies, tasked genies are not always uneasy or hostile in the presence of humans. They are still very proud of their superior skills, but their sense of worth is based on achievements, not birth. As long as they share an interest and aptitude for their craft and a willingness to defer to the genies’ greater knowledge, humans can consort with tasked genies with no ill effect.
Just as faerie creatures are more than mortal but less than divine, so are tasked genies among the most powerful spirits of the Land of Fate. Specifically, genies are elemental spirits which serve the unsympathetic forces of nature. They are free-willed, civilized, and highly intelligent. They eat, drink and reproduce just like humans, and they can die just as humans die. Their powers, however, inspire such fear and awe in the minds of primitive tribesmen that they are still worshipped and offered sacrifices as gods in remote and savage areas of the Burning Land. They can raise buildings overnight, their armies can appear and disappear from the field of battle, and their magic can whisk a person hundreds of miles in moments.
Most genies prefer to dwell apart from humans, but tasked genies are equally at home in the wilderness and in the cities. Genies that live on the elemental planes rarely come to the Land of Fate unless called, but elemental genies and some tasked genies who live in the Burning World prefer uninhabited wildernesses, ruins, deserted houses, cemetaries, rivers, and abandoned wells. Those who trespass on the home of a genie are usually warned off by an attempt to frighten; stones are thrown at the intruders by invisible genies or sudden sandstorms spring up to blind, confuse, and misdirect. If the trespassing continues, the travelers are attacked and shown no mercy.
The genies of Zakhara are nomads of a sort; their camps among the desert and ruins and their lodgings in the cities may disappear in an instant (usually at dawn or dusk), whenever a genie tribe decides to move on. But their camps don.t resemble the camps of nomads. They are often huge mansions or fortresses, yet they may vanish into the sands when discovered, like a dream fading in the morning light. At other times, however, genies in the wilderness take their discovery by others rather badly, and, instead of moving on, they try to force their discoverers away by throwing stones at them or by carrying them on the wind for many miles. For this reason, travelers through the desert often call out to the genies when approaching desolate lands and ask them for permission to pass through.
Unlike the genies of the four elements, tasked genies have very little regard for the castes, classes, and social distinctions of humans, as their lives and their status among their kind are almost entirely dependant on merit. Tasked genies have no nobility, only masters of their craft. They will as soon work for a pauper as for a sultan, as long as there is work to be done.
This lack of elitism does not mean that genies do not understand the nuances of politeness and proper etiquette. They may not think much of their master, but they will be unstintingly polite. Of course, genies can and do turn social conventions “topsy-turvy” when they are free to harass someone who has offended them or even just when the mood strikes them.
Tasked genies fall into two main categories: those bound by their profession to a certain location and those kept inactive in some way for long periods between bouts of servitude. The first group comprises the helpful tasked genies, those who create fantastic foods, art, and monuments. The second group has nothing to do when not called upon by genie nobles or powerful sha’irs. They are slowly driven insane by their magical isolation, and for this reason they delight in shedding blood when released from service. These include the warmonger, slayer, and guardian genies.
Tasked genies must always be either paid or enslaved before they will render service to a nongenie. Architect, artist, guardian, herdsman, and winemaker tasked genies are almost always simply paid for their work, as enslaving them decreases the quality and length of their service. Slayers are almost always enslaved, as they are too dangerous to be allowed to roam free and they cannot be expected to uphold any bargain they make. Warmonger tasked genies may either be paid or enslaved, but in either case their true reward is the sight of victory on the battlefield. The sweeping events they set in motion often continue long after the warmonger genie has been imprisoned or sent away.
Binding a particular tasked genie is a difficult undertaking requiring great wealth, wisdom, and patience. The procedure is equivalent to spell research, with the same costs and chances of success. Only a sha’ir may successfully learn the rituals for binding a tasked genie. The determination of success is made with the level of the spell being researched treated as equal to the tasked genie hit dice divided in half (round up). Thus, learning to bind a herdsman tasked genie requires as much effort as learning a second-level spell, while the ritual for commanding a guardian tasked genie will be discovered as if it were a seventh-level spell. Once the initial research is done, the tasked genie may be bound or commanded as detailed for sha’ir abilities.
Though only a single genie may be bound by a spell, some tasked genies will request aid from their brethren when commanded to undertake a large, short-term project for their masters such as shearing a huge herd of sheep or building fortifications in time to hold off invaders. Herdsman and builder tasked genies are particularly prone to calling on their kinfolk when presented with a huge task. These genies serve without demanding pay from the sha’ir so as to free their cousin from service more quickly. A sha’ir may bind no more than one tasked genie per year or face the wrath of the genie princes when he asks for an audience.
All tasked genies are extremely long-lived. Guardians are the tasked genies with the greatest longevity; they can serve for 1,001 years, so their age is truly great. Others, such as winemaker and herdsman tasked genies, are more closely tied to the seasonal cycles of the Land of Fate, and this seems to have made them shorter-lived than most genies. Their lifetime is only twice that of a human. The other tasked genies fall somewhere in between, with a great deal of individual variation. Tasked genies kept from their tasks invariably live short lives.
Genies occasionally take human lovers, but the result is almost always tragic. Those who love the genies lose all sense of reason and judgement and are often destroyed by their love for such a powerful spirit. Occasionally, however, the pair makes its peace and lives happily, almost always after a stormy courtship and almost always only after leaving human society. These liasons rarely produce children, but when they do the offspring have the powers, strength, and abilities of markeen, though they do not have a human double.
Originally appeared in Monstrous Compendium Al-Qadim Appendix (1992).
Tasked genies may once have been genies of one of the four elemental realms. However, tasked genies have performed a single type of labor for so long that their forms have been permanently sculpted to suit their work. Their profession defines them and rules them; a tasked genie taken away from its work grows weak and sickly. Unlike most genies, tasked genies are not always uneasy or hostile in the presence of humans. They are still very proud of their superior skills, but their sense of worth is based on achievements, not birth. As long as they share an interest and aptitude for their craft and a willingness to defer to the genies’ greater knowledge, humans can consort with tasked genies with no ill effect.
Just as faerie creatures are more than mortal but less than divine, so are tasked genies among the most powerful spirits of the Land of Fate. Specifically, genies are elemental spirits which serve the unsympathetic forces of nature. They are free-willed, civilized, and highly intelligent. They eat, drink and reproduce just like humans, and they can die just as humans die. Their powers, however, inspire such fear and awe in the minds of primitive tribesmen that they are still worshipped and offered sacrifices as gods in remote and savage areas of the Burning Land. They can raise buildings overnight, their armies can appear and disappear from the field of battle, and their magic can whisk a person hundreds of miles in moments.
Most genies prefer to dwell apart from humans, but tasked genies are equally at home in the wilderness and in the cities. Genies that live on the elemental planes rarely come to the Land of Fate unless called, but elemental genies and some tasked genies who live in the Burning World prefer uninhabited wildernesses, ruins, deserted houses, cemetaries, rivers, and abandoned wells. Those who trespass on the home of a genie are usually warned off by an attempt to frighten; stones are thrown at the intruders by invisible genies or sudden sandstorms spring up to blind, confuse, and misdirect. If the trespassing continues, the travelers are attacked and shown no mercy.
The genies of Zakhara are nomads of a sort; their camps among the desert and ruins and their lodgings in the cities may disappear in an instant (usually at dawn or dusk), whenever a genie tribe decides to move on. But their camps don.t resemble the camps of nomads. They are often huge mansions or fortresses, yet they may vanish into the sands when discovered, like a dream fading in the morning light. At other times, however, genies in the wilderness take their discovery by others rather badly, and, instead of moving on, they try to force their discoverers away by throwing stones at them or by carrying them on the wind for many miles. For this reason, travelers through the desert often call out to the genies when approaching desolate lands and ask them for permission to pass through.
Unlike the genies of the four elements, tasked genies have very little regard for the castes, classes, and social distinctions of humans, as their lives and their status among their kind are almost entirely dependant on merit. Tasked genies have no nobility, only masters of their craft. They will as soon work for a pauper as for a sultan, as long as there is work to be done.
This lack of elitism does not mean that genies do not understand the nuances of politeness and proper etiquette. They may not think much of their master, but they will be unstintingly polite. Of course, genies can and do turn social conventions “topsy-turvy” when they are free to harass someone who has offended them or even just when the mood strikes them.
Tasked genies fall into two main categories: those bound by their profession to a certain location and those kept inactive in some way for long periods between bouts of servitude. The first group comprises the helpful tasked genies, those who create fantastic foods, art, and monuments. The second group has nothing to do when not called upon by genie nobles or powerful sha’irs. They are slowly driven insane by their magical isolation, and for this reason they delight in shedding blood when released from service. These include the warmonger, slayer, and guardian genies.
Tasked genies must always be either paid or enslaved before they will render service to a nongenie. Architect, artist, guardian, herdsman, and winemaker tasked genies are almost always simply paid for their work, as enslaving them decreases the quality and length of their service. Slayers are almost always enslaved, as they are too dangerous to be allowed to roam free and they cannot be expected to uphold any bargain they make. Warmonger tasked genies may either be paid or enslaved, but in either case their true reward is the sight of victory on the battlefield. The sweeping events they set in motion often continue long after the warmonger genie has been imprisoned or sent away.
Binding a particular tasked genie is a difficult undertaking requiring great wealth, wisdom, and patience. The procedure is equivalent to spell research, with the same costs and chances of success. Only a sha’ir may successfully learn the rituals for binding a tasked genie. The determination of success is made with the level of the spell being researched treated as equal to the tasked genie hit dice divided in half (round up). Thus, learning to bind a herdsman tasked genie requires as much effort as learning a second-level spell, while the ritual for commanding a guardian tasked genie will be discovered as if it were a seventh-level spell. Once the initial research is done, the tasked genie may be bound or commanded as detailed for sha’ir abilities.
Though only a single genie may be bound by a spell, some tasked genies will request aid from their brethren when commanded to undertake a large, short-term project for their masters such as shearing a huge herd of sheep or building fortifications in time to hold off invaders. Herdsman and builder tasked genies are particularly prone to calling on their kinfolk when presented with a huge task. These genies serve without demanding pay from the sha’ir so as to free their cousin from service more quickly. A sha’ir may bind no more than one tasked genie per year or face the wrath of the genie princes when he asks for an audience.
All tasked genies are extremely long-lived. Guardians are the tasked genies with the greatest longevity; they can serve for 1,001 years, so their age is truly great. Others, such as winemaker and herdsman tasked genies, are more closely tied to the seasonal cycles of the Land of Fate, and this seems to have made them shorter-lived than most genies. Their lifetime is only twice that of a human. The other tasked genies fall somewhere in between, with a great deal of individual variation. Tasked genies kept from their tasks invariably live short lives.
Genies occasionally take human lovers, but the result is almost always tragic. Those who love the genies lose all sense of reason and judgement and are often destroyed by their love for such a powerful spirit. Occasionally, however, the pair makes its peace and lives happily, almost always after a stormy courtship and almost always only after leaving human society. These liasons rarely produce children, but when they do the offspring have the powers, strength, and abilities of markeen, though they do not have a human double.
Originally appeared in Monstrous Compendium Al-Qadim Appendix (1992).
Shade
Monster Junkie
Genie, Tasked, Architect/Builder
CLIMATE/TERRAIN: Any
FREQUENCY: Very rare
ORGANIZATION: Solitary
ACTIVITY CYCLE: Day
DIET: Omnivore
INTELLIGENCE: Genius (17)
TREASURE: Nil
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVEMENT: 15
HIT DICE: 9
THAC0: 11
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 4-24
SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below
SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
SIZE: M (7’ tall)
MORALE: Average (8-10)
LEVEL/XP VALUE: 5,000
The builder genies were once dao, but they have been reshaped by a life of construction and design. They are common in the Great Dismal Delve, but they are also sometimes bound by sha.ir to serve human princes. Some of them have been given to other noble genies as gifts from the noble dao. Their powers are responsible for many of the tales told of cities springing up overnight at the command of the genies.
Builder genies are bald and muscular like the dao, and they share the same taste in clothes and jewelry. They are often branded with a dao symbol denoting ownership, usually on the hand or forehead. They almost always carry drawing compasses and rulers, plumb bobs, chalk, levels, trowels, and builders’ squares.
Combat: A builder genie may use each of the following spelllike abilities three times per day: minor creation, vacancy, and warp wood. They may use each of the following once per day: stone shape, stone tell, and passwall. Once per month they may grant a wish related to buildings or construction.
Builder genies have a stupendous ability to find and exploit the weak points of any structure. When they direct the fire of siege engines against fortifications, structural damage done by the attackers is increased by 50%. A builder genie can collapse unfortified buildings and underground works in one turn if allowed to study them for an hour.
Unless a builder genie is commanded to defend a building, it will prefer to avoid combat and simply repair minor damage after a battle is resolved by others. If commanded to, a builder genie will defend its worksite, but it cannot be commanded to take part in battles outside buildings or in buildings it has had no part in making. Much like their dao brethren, builder genies prefer to let others do their fighting for them and will balance the odds in their favor as much as possible before a battle. They enjoy using mazes, battlements, and secret passages to lead opponents on chases through entire buildings that they have prepared with traps and ambush sites. In desperation, a builder genie may collapse part of a building it is working on to kill opponents who might otherwise destroy the whole project.
Habitat/Society: Builder genies live for their work; they want to be remembered for what they have done rather than for what pleasant genies they were to work with. This generally means that they are merciless on themselves and others when their work is at stake. The greatest compliment one can pay a builder genie is to admire his work; the greatest insult one can offer is to compliment the builder while criticizing his work.
Builder genies don’t care what they build; waterwheels or mosques with a dozen minarets receive equal care and planning. In all cases, builder genies will demand the longest-lasting and most expensive materials. Due to these stringent demands, the cost of a building designed or built by a builder genie will be four times the normal cost. It will have twice the strength and twice the useful life of a normal building.
Builder genies can imitate the style of any building they have seen, though they can only reproduce the structural details of buildings they have been able to examine closely for a day. They prefer to work in a style appropriate to the setting of a building, but they will build an opulent mausoleum in the middle of a poor fishing village if their master so commands. They will not hesitate to tell their master exactly why such a building is inappropriate among the dhows and huts, however. While their master’s project is always completed if at all possible, its final form may not be exactly what the patron had in mind. Builder genies can be notoriously literal in obeying instructions, and they can also bend instructions to suit their personal whims.
Ecology: Builder genies are slaves to the dao, and they resent the dao without being able to overthrow them. They are on excellent terms with the xorn, earth elementals, and pech. They are always willing to destroy existing structures to make way for their new, improved ones, although in the case of a masterwork, the builder genie may tear down the old and then rebuild it with improvements that only a master architect or stonemason might recognize.
Builder genies judge others on their building achievements. Races that have not built mansions, bridges, and graceful gates do not rate as civilized. Builder genies have great respect for the disciplined and exact hives and warrens of giant insects.
Originally appeared in Monstrous Compendium Al-Qadim Appendix (1992).
CLIMATE/TERRAIN: Any
FREQUENCY: Very rare
ORGANIZATION: Solitary
ACTIVITY CYCLE: Day
DIET: Omnivore
INTELLIGENCE: Genius (17)
TREASURE: Nil
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVEMENT: 15
HIT DICE: 9
THAC0: 11
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 4-24
SPECIAL ATTACKS: See below
SPECIAL DEFENSES: See below
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Nil
SIZE: M (7’ tall)
MORALE: Average (8-10)
LEVEL/XP VALUE: 5,000
The builder genies were once dao, but they have been reshaped by a life of construction and design. They are common in the Great Dismal Delve, but they are also sometimes bound by sha.ir to serve human princes. Some of them have been given to other noble genies as gifts from the noble dao. Their powers are responsible for many of the tales told of cities springing up overnight at the command of the genies.
Builder genies are bald and muscular like the dao, and they share the same taste in clothes and jewelry. They are often branded with a dao symbol denoting ownership, usually on the hand or forehead. They almost always carry drawing compasses and rulers, plumb bobs, chalk, levels, trowels, and builders’ squares.
Combat: A builder genie may use each of the following spelllike abilities three times per day: minor creation, vacancy, and warp wood. They may use each of the following once per day: stone shape, stone tell, and passwall. Once per month they may grant a wish related to buildings or construction.
Builder genies have a stupendous ability to find and exploit the weak points of any structure. When they direct the fire of siege engines against fortifications, structural damage done by the attackers is increased by 50%. A builder genie can collapse unfortified buildings and underground works in one turn if allowed to study them for an hour.
Unless a builder genie is commanded to defend a building, it will prefer to avoid combat and simply repair minor damage after a battle is resolved by others. If commanded to, a builder genie will defend its worksite, but it cannot be commanded to take part in battles outside buildings or in buildings it has had no part in making. Much like their dao brethren, builder genies prefer to let others do their fighting for them and will balance the odds in their favor as much as possible before a battle. They enjoy using mazes, battlements, and secret passages to lead opponents on chases through entire buildings that they have prepared with traps and ambush sites. In desperation, a builder genie may collapse part of a building it is working on to kill opponents who might otherwise destroy the whole project.
Habitat/Society: Builder genies live for their work; they want to be remembered for what they have done rather than for what pleasant genies they were to work with. This generally means that they are merciless on themselves and others when their work is at stake. The greatest compliment one can pay a builder genie is to admire his work; the greatest insult one can offer is to compliment the builder while criticizing his work.
Builder genies don’t care what they build; waterwheels or mosques with a dozen minarets receive equal care and planning. In all cases, builder genies will demand the longest-lasting and most expensive materials. Due to these stringent demands, the cost of a building designed or built by a builder genie will be four times the normal cost. It will have twice the strength and twice the useful life of a normal building.
Builder genies can imitate the style of any building they have seen, though they can only reproduce the structural details of buildings they have been able to examine closely for a day. They prefer to work in a style appropriate to the setting of a building, but they will build an opulent mausoleum in the middle of a poor fishing village if their master so commands. They will not hesitate to tell their master exactly why such a building is inappropriate among the dhows and huts, however. While their master’s project is always completed if at all possible, its final form may not be exactly what the patron had in mind. Builder genies can be notoriously literal in obeying instructions, and they can also bend instructions to suit their personal whims.
Ecology: Builder genies are slaves to the dao, and they resent the dao without being able to overthrow them. They are on excellent terms with the xorn, earth elementals, and pech. They are always willing to destroy existing structures to make way for their new, improved ones, although in the case of a masterwork, the builder genie may tear down the old and then rebuild it with improvements that only a master architect or stonemason might recognize.
Builder genies judge others on their building achievements. Races that have not built mansions, bridges, and graceful gates do not rate as civilized. Builder genies have great respect for the disciplined and exact hives and warrens of giant insects.
Originally appeared in Monstrous Compendium Al-Qadim Appendix (1992).
demiurge1138
Inventor of Super-Toast
Perhaps they can make Know (architecture and engineering) checks to ignore x points of hardness, and convey that information to allies?
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