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<blockquote data-quote="Justice and Rule" data-source="post: 8508560" data-attributes="member: 6778210">Okay, so it's wrong to say that D&amp;D and others are just &quot;depicting a part of the mythos of a culture&quot;, because a lot of what goes on with genies is just wholesale made-up. For example, the City of Brass is not where ifrits dwell, but is a dead city that is trapped against outsiders. So there are plenty of additions, largely meant to distinguish them from the other kinds of genies (because, largely speaking, there wasn't much to distinguish them outside of being good or evil).And in trying to put them into a box to distinguish them, we can see the problem: they are the &quot;evil&quot; genies, so they are largely are pastiches of evil Arab tropes because they are meant to be Arab-coded and thus people use the tropes that evil Arabs have normally been depicted with. The logical line is there, the problem is that those tropes are bad and shouldn't be used anymore.This is why I want to move them out of where D&amp;D has placed them: the whole Plane of Fire needs a rework from a social standpoint. We don't need every elemental plane having genies; it feels weirdly too organized and they all still feel kind of samey. I'd rather Djinn be genies with a broader culture and track to the Elemental Plane of Air, and then create several different races for the other planes. Move Marids and Efreets back to being malevolent spirits closer to their classics (I resist making them demons or devils because I feel like everything has to get into that whole &quot;Bloodwar&quot; thing and the whole weird cosmology of the three different sides in that).I mean, it absolutely does. They are absolutely depicted wearing Arabic-styled clothing and Arab-styled cultures. The City of Brass has Arabesque architecture and it's ruled by a Grand Sultan, for Pelor's sake. And you know what that Sultan's name is? Marrake al-Sidan al-Hariq ben Lazan. To deny that they are being depicted as Arab misses everything about them. </blockquote>

[QUOTE="Justice and Rule, post: 8508560, member: 6778210"] Okay, so it's wrong to say that D&D and others are just "depicting a part of the mythos of a culture", because a lot of what goes on with genies is just wholesale made-up. For example, the City of Brass is not where ifrits dwell, but is a dead city that is trapped against outsiders. So there are plenty of additions, largely meant to distinguish them from the other kinds of genies (because, largely speaking, there wasn't much to distinguish them outside of being good or evil). And in trying to put them into a box to distinguish them, we can see the problem: they are the "evil" genies, so they are largely are pastiches of evil Arab tropes because they are meant to be Arab-coded and thus people use the tropes that evil Arabs have normally been depicted with. The logical line is there, the problem is that those tropes are [I]bad [/I]and shouldn't be used anymore. This is why I want to move them out of where D&D has placed them: the whole Plane of Fire needs a rework from a social standpoint. We don't need every elemental plane having genies; it feels weirdly too organized and they all still feel kind of samey. I'd rather Djinn be genies with a broader culture and track to the Elemental Plane of Air, and then create several different races for the other planes. Move Marids and Efreets back to being malevolent spirits closer to their classics (I resist making them demons or devils because I feel like everything has to get into that whole "Bloodwar" thing and the whole weird cosmology of the three different sides in that). I mean, it absolutely does. They are absolutely depicted wearing Arabic-styled clothing and Arab-styled cultures. The City of Brass has Arabesque architecture and it's ruled by a Grand Sultan, for Pelor's sake. And you know what that Sultan's name is? Marrake al-Sidan al-Hariq ben Lazan. To deny that they are being depicted as Arab misses [I]everything about them. [/I] [/QUOTE]

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