The Genie
A man with vivid blue skin moves through a battlefield like a cyclone.
A woman, hair glittering with gemstones of every color, brandishes a heavy hammer.
A tall figure with ashen skin and hair of flame breathes molten life into his spear.
A stout woman sheds the illusion of her normal form, revealing the silvery scales of a fish and sea-green hair flowing in an unseen current.
Throughout the world, there are tales of people born with elemental abilities. In some regions, these individuals are called genies, and their natural affinities are second only to the elder elementals.
Noble Elementals
Genies throughout the world are born or reborn with the sure knowledge that they are royalty amongst elementals. The four genie families model their behaviors after the noble courts of mortals, and the individual genies are largely concerned with rank and relative authority.
Genies who reject this style of life are often outcasts among their kin, though if they maintain ties to their original mortal lives, they may find welcome there. Genies who cannot find a home in either often become bitter, though they may form quick bonds with like-minded individuals.
Mortal Souls
All genies, regardless of house, were once ordinary mortals. Through processes that nobody quite understands, their souls become entangled with elemental energies, either during their lifetime or after their death, causing them to be born anew as a genie, a hybrid of mortal being and elemental force. Depending on the element they become entangled with, the genies go by different names: dao for earth, djinn for air, efreet for fire, and marid for water.
Individual genies might remember all, some, or none of their original life as a mortal. Those who do remember their mortal lives might be proud of who they were, or pretend they do not remember.
Vanity and Decadence
The Four Families promote a lifestyle that embraces excess, though each house favors a different outlet for that excess. The dao, with their natural access to gemstones and rare metals, adorn everything in glittering jewelry. The djinni, due to their ephemeral nature, carve elaborate buildings from clouds or wood, and change the layout of their grounds each day. The efreet, prideful and powerful, wear robes made from the finest cloth, often plundered from other realms. The marids, whimsical and severe in turn, claim extravagant titles, often invented on the spot.
A common thread to the Four Families is that of servitude and favors owed. The nature of the servitude varies from one genie to another, with the more benign genies promoting an exchange of mutually beneficial favors, while the most cruel subjugate those who cross them or misstep in the politics of the court, forcing their rivals into slavery until their debts, political or material, are paid.
Creating a genie
When creating your genie, consider how you came to your power. Were you a mortal adventurer, transformed by strange magics during your quest? Were you born with a spark of magic that awoke later on? Did you die after a normal life, and reawaken as a genie?
Next, work with your DM to determine the role of your genie in the world. Have you encountered the families yet? If so, what is your standing in the ever-shifting heirarchy of court politics? How do others typically perceive your elemental nature, and how do you personally respond to that?
Finally, consider how your genie handles the natural drive to assume themselves royal? Do they resist, attempting to remain humble? Do they embrace it, claiming a higher position in the world whenever possible? Do they begrudgingly play at the family politics, only to reject their vanity when away on adventures? Each genie maintains a strong sense of individualism, and each responds in their own way.
Quick build
To quickly create a genie, use the following suggestions. First, your highest ability score should be Strength or Dexterity, followed by Charisma. Dao and Marids tend to favor Strength while Djinni and Efreeti tend to favor Dexterity. Second, choose the noble background.
Optional Rule: Multiclassing
If your group uses the optional rule on multiclassing in the Player's Handbook, here's what you need to know if you choose genie as one of your classes.
Ability Score Minimum. As a multiclass character, you must have at least a Charisma of 13 and either a Strength or a Dexterity of 13 to take a level in this class, or to take a level in another class if you are already a genie.
Proficiencies Gained. If genie isn't your initial class, here are the proficiencies you gain when you take your first level as a genie: light armor, shields, simple weapons, and any bonus proficiencies granted by your family.
The Genie
| Level | Proficiency Bonus |
Features | Genie Powers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | +2 | Genie Family, Elemental Nature | -- |
| 2nd | +2 | Genie Powers | 2 |
| 3rd | +2 | Elemental Strike (1d4) | 2 |
| 4th | +2 | Ability Score Improvement | 2 |
| 5th | +3 | Extra Attack | 3 |
| 6th | +3 | Family Feature | 3 |
| 7th | +3 | Elemental Strike (1d6) | 4 |
| 8th | +3 | Ability Score Improvement | 4 |
| 9th | +4 | Elemental Immunity | 5 |
| 10th | +4 | Family Feature | 5 |
| 11th | +4 | Flight | 5 |
| 12th | +4 | Ability Score Improvement | 6 |
| 13th | +5 | Elemental Strike (1d8) | 6 |
| 14th | +5 | Plane Shift | 6 |
| 15th | +5 | Family Feature | 7 |
| 16th | +5 | Ability Score Improvement | 7 |
| 17th | +6 | Elemental Strike Improvement | 7 |
| 18th | +6 | Elemental Strike (1d10) | 8 |
| 19th | +6 | Ability Score Improvement | 8 |
| 20th | +6 | Noble Soul | 8 |
Class Features
As a genie, you gain the following class features
Hit Points
- Hit Dice: 1d8 per genie level
- Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + your Constitution modifier
- Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per genie level after 1st
Proficiencies
- Armor: Light armor, shields
- Weapons: Simple weapons (your Family will also grant proficiency in select martial weapons)
- Saving Throws: Wisdom and Charisma
- Skills: Choose two from Athletics, Acrobatics, Deception, History, Intimidation, Perception, and Persuasion
Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:
- (a) any simple or martial weapon in which you are proficient
- (a) a shield or (b) a light crossbow and 20 bolts
- (a) leather armor or (b) scale mail (if proficient)
- (a) a diplomat's pack or (b) an explorer's pack
Elemental Nature
At 1st level, your nature as an elemental begins to manifest. You have advantage on saving throws against effects which cannot affect elementals (such as charm person). Casual observers can detect your elemental nature unless you take steps to obscure it. For example, an efreet might have hair that burns and smolders without end, requiring them to cover their head or shave in order to obscure their nature.
Genie Family
At 1st level when you become a genie, you are adopted into one of the four major families of genie: the Dao, the Djinni, the Efreeti, or the Marids. Your choice grants you features when you choose it and again at level 6, 10, and 15. Each of the families is described at the end of this class.
Genie Powers
Each genie develops their powers differently, whether by practice and design or by chaotic chance. At 2nd level, you gain two genie powers of your choice. Your power options are detailed at the end of the class description. When you gain certain genie levels, you gain additional powers of your choice, as shown in the Powers Known column of the genie table. Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the powers you know and replace it with another power that you could learn at that level.
If a genie power calls for an attack roll or a saving throw, you use your Charisma to calculate the attack bonus or saving throw DC, as follows:
Power Save DC
Power attack modifier
Elemental Strike
At 3rd level, you can coalesce your native element into a damaging blow. When you take the attack action on your turn, you may use your bonus action to make an elemental strike against a target within 5 feet of you. Your attack bonus for an elemental strike is equal to your Charisma modifier + your Proficiency bonus. On a hit, your elemental strike deals 1d4 damage plus your Charisma modifier. The damage type is based on your chosen Family.
| Family | Damage type |
|---|---|
| Dao | Acid |
| Djinn | Thunder |
| Efreet | Fire |
| Marid | Cold |
The damage of your elemental strike increases at certain levels, as indicated on the genie table. At level 17, you can make two elemental strikes each time you use this feature, instead of one.
Elemental Immunity
At 9th level, you are so attuned to your elemental plane that you gain immunity to the damage type associated with your elemental strike. If you have more than one damage type you can deal with your elemental strike due to a Genie Power, you only gain immunity to the original damage type of your strike.
Flight
At 11th level, you can disperse your lower body into a cloud of elemental energy or back again as an action on your turn. While in your cloud-like form, you have a fly speed equal to your base land speed. The appearance of your cloud corresponds to your family: shifting dust and sand for dao, a whirlwind for djinn, a column of flame for efreeti, and a spiral of bubbles or water for marid.
Plane Shift
At 14th level, you gain the ability to travel to your home plane and back. Once per day, you may cast the spell plane shift without requiring a spell slot or material components. You may only use this ability to travel to the elemental plane associated with your family, or back to the plane from which you last made that trip.
In addition, if an allied spellcaster chooses to cast the plane shift spell, you may choose to act as the expensive material component for your family's elemental plane, provided you are in contact with them when the spell is cast.
Noble Soul
At 20th level, you are a true noble genie. As a reaction when a creature you can hear within 60 feet states a clear desire, you may cast the wish spell in such a way that it fills that creature's desire. You cannot use this feature to grant the same creature's wish more than once per month, and you may only grant a single wish each day, regaining the ability to do so whenever you complete a long rest.
Genie Families
Every genie that is born is claimed, whether they accept it or not, by one of the Four Families, the largest social structure between genies. A family grants stronger ties to the element they represent, and in a pinch they can be a source of allies or traded favors.
Dao
The dao are resolute and strong, like the earth that is their native element. Powerful dao can walk through raw stone as easily as through an open door, and their favored hammers are often too heavy for others to lift.
Bonus Proficiencies
At 1st level, you gain proficiency in medium armor, mauls, morningstars, and warhammers.
You also learn to speak terran, a dialect of primordial used by earth elementals.
Earthguard
At 1st level, as an action, you can grant yourself temporary hit points equal to half your levels in this class plus your Constitution modifier (minimum 1). These temporary hit points vanish after one minute. You can only use this feature if you are in contact with unworked earth or stone.
Stone Strength
Also at 1st level, your carrying capacity is doubled, and you may treat yourself as one size larger when determining the maximum size of creature you can shove or grapple.
Punishing Blow
At 6th level, you learn to strike foes so powerfully that you hurl them away from you. When you deal damage with a melee attack on your turn, you can attempt a punishing blow as a bonus action. The target of your attack must make a Strength save against your genie power save DC. On a failed save, they are knocked back up to 15 feet (you choose how far, in increments of 5 feet) and take 1d6 bludgeoning damage. On a successful save, they are not knocked back.
The damage of this effect increases to 2d6 at 10th level and again to 3d6 at 15th level. The knockback is not changed.
Earthglide
At 10th level, you have a burrow speed equal to your speed. When burrowing through unworked earth or stone, you can do so without disturbing the material you move through.
Stone Skin
At 15th level, your armor class is increased by +2. While you have temporary hit points from your earthguard feature, this improves to +3. You cannot gain this benefit while wearing heavy armor, and this increase does not stack with increases to armor class from spells or magic items.
Djinn
The djinni are free-spirited and fickle, the same as an unbound zephyr. Powerful djinni are faster in flight than any other genie family, and rumors tell of djinni that can truly become wind.
Bonus Proficiencies
At 1st level, you gain proficiency in longbows, rapiers, scimitars, and shortswords.
You also learn to speak auran, a dialect of primordial used by air elementals.
Swift as Wind
At 1st level, your move speed is increased by 5 feet, and you can Dash as a bonus action.
Feather Light
Also at 1st level, you may calculate all fall damage as if you had fallen half the distance, and your weight is halved for the purposes of triggering traps.
Wind's Avoidance
At 6th level, you can Disengage as a bonus action, and as a reaction when you take damage from a weapon attack, you can reduce that damage taken by half.
Tornado Sprint
At 10th level, when you take the Dash action, the amount of bonus movement you get is increased by 15 feet.
Improved Flight
At 15th level, your fly speed increases by 10 feet, and you can shift into or out of your cloud form on your turn without taking an action.
Efreet
The efreeti are prideful and quick to anger, and no less dangerous than a wildfire. Powerful efreet can vanish in a flash of flame, only to reappear elsewhere, and they are second to none in weapons prowess.
Bonus Proficiencies
At 1st level, you gain proficiency in battleaxes, longswords, scimitars, and whips.
You also learn to speak ignan, a dialect of primordial used by fire elementals.
Blade Dancing
At 1st level, your prowess with weapons means that you can use your Dexterity score, instead of your Strength score, when wielding a versatile weapon in one hand.
Desertkin
Also at 1st level, you do not suffer ill effects due to weather or climate while traveling in arid or hot regions such as deserts.
Elemental Blades
At 6th level, you can wreath your weapons in elemental fire. When you hit with a weapon attack, you may apply the damage of your elemental strike (including your Charisma modifier) as additional damage on that attack, including multiplying the die on a critical hit.
You can use this ability twice. You gain an additional use at level 10 and again at level 15. You regain all uses whenever you complete a short or a long rest.
Ember Swift
At 10th level, your base speed increases by 10 feet. You do not provoke opportunity attacks when moving away from creatures that you have damaged with a melee attack on the same turn.
Fireburst
At 15th level, as an action, you can vanish in a burst of fire. Creatures within 10 feet of you must make a Dexterity saving throw against your genie power save DC. On a failed save, they take 8d6 fire damage, or half on a successful save. Then, you reappear at a point you can see up to 100 feet away.
Once you have used this feature, you cannot use it again until you have completed a short or a long rest.
Marid
The marid are whimsical and self-assured, flowing as they choose like a swift river. Even the weakest marid are as at home in water as they are on land, and the most powerful can command water to rise up and work for them.
Bonus Proficiencies
At 1st level, you gain proficiency in medium armor, glaives, longswords, and tridents.
You also learn to speak aquan, a dialect of primordial used by water elementals.
Amphibious
At 1st level, you can breathe both air and water, and you have a swim speed equal to your base land speed.
Deepsight
Also at 1st level, you gain darkvision with a range of 60 feet, or the range of your existing darkvision improves by 30 feet.
Water Whip
At 6th level, the range of your elemental strike is increased by 10 feet when used in melee. If a genie power allows you to make ranged attacks with your elemental strike, the range of that attack is increased by 30 feet.
Swift Current
At 10th level, your swim speed improves to twice your base land speed. In addition, you have a +1 bonus to attack rolls made while fighting underwater.
Aquatic Domain
At 15th level, you can create a magical field of water, forcing enemies to fight in an environment unsuited to them. As an action, you fill a 60 foot radius sphere centered on you with either fresh or salt water (your choice each time). For the next minute or until you fall unconscious, the water remains, suspended through your will.
Water from aquatic domain does not cause damage to any items within its area, though it will put out fires. Once you have used this feature, you cannot use it again until you have completed a long rest.
Genie Powers
If a genie power has prerequisites, you must meet them to learn it. You can learn the power at the same time that you meet its prerequisites. A level prerequisite refers to your level in this class.
Arcane Training
You learn two cantrips and one 1st-level spell of your choice from the bard and sorcerer spell lists. You can cast the 1st-level spell once without requiring a spell slot. You regain the ability to do so each time you complete a long rest. If you later lose this power, you also lose the knowledge of both cantrips and your chosen spell. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Bloodless Form
Prerequisites: 13th level
You are immune to all poison and disease.
Become Dust
Prerequisite: 3rd level
You can cast the spell invisibility once without requiring a spell slot. You regain the ability to do so each time you complete a short or a long rest.
Boulder Strike
Prerequisites: 3rd level, dao family
You can deal magical bludgeoning damage with your elemental strikes instead of acid. When you roll a 1 on a damage die for your elemental strike, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll, even if the new roll is a 1.
Crown of Command
Prerequisites: 9th level; dao family or efreet family
You can cast the spell dominate person once without requiring a spell slot. You regain the ability to do so each time you complete a long rest.
Cutting Waves
Prerequisites: 3rd level, marid family
You can deal magical slashing damage with your elemental strikes instead of cold. In addition, you can make an elemental strike in place any attack taken during the Attack action.
Elemental Bolts
Prerequisites: 5th level
You can make ranged attacks with a range of 60 feet when using your elemental strikes.
Fangs of Stone
Prerequisites: 3rd level, dao family
You can cast the spell spike growth once without requiring a spell slot. You regain the ability to do so each time you complete a short or a long rest.
Fulminating Strikes
Prerequisites: 3rd level, djinn family
Your elemental strikes can deal lightning damage instead of thunder. In addition, your elemental strikes score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.
Gift of Many Tongues
Prerequisite: 5th level
You understand all spoken language. When you speak, creatures can understand you as long as they speak at least one language.
Improved Deepsight
Prerequisite: Marid family
Your darkvision improves by an additional 30 feet.
Improved Earthguard
Prerequisites: 7th level, dao family
When you use your earthguard ability, you gain additional temporary hit points equal to your Constitution bonus (minimum 1). The duration of the temporary hit points granted by that feature increases to one hour.
Improved Elemental Blades
Prerequisites: 13th level, efreet family
You can use your elemental blades ability 2 additional times.
Improved Wind's Avoidance
Prerequisites: 9th level, djinn family
You can use Wind's Avoidance for any source of damage, not just weapon attacks.
Mage Eye
You can cast detect magic at will, without requiring a spell slot.
Misty Visions
You can cast silent image at will, without expending a spell slot or material components.
Martial Training
Choose two martial weapons. You are proficient in those weapons. In addition, you can learn one of the following fighting styles, as the fighter class feature of the same name: Defense, Dueling, Great Weapon Fighting, or Two-Weapon Fighting.
Mold Earth
Prerequisites: 11th level, dao family
You can cast the spell move earth or the spell stone shape once without requiring a spell slot. You regain the ability to do so each time you complete a long rest.
Mortal Guise
You can cast the spell disguise self at will, without requiring a spell slot. When you use it, you can perfectly obscure any unnatural features you possess due to your elemental nature ability.
Obscuring Mist
Prerequisite: Djinn family or marid family
You can cast the spell fog cloud twice without requiring a spell slot. You regain both uses each time you complete a short or a long rest.
Planar Fortitude
You require half as much food, water, and sleep as normal for your race, and can hold your breath for twice as long. You must still limit yourself to light activity for 8 hours to gain the benefit of a long rest.
Planar Vassal
Prerequisite: 9th level
You can cast the spell conjure elemental once without requiring a spell slot. When you do so, the type of elemental always corresponds to your family instead of the nearby terrain (earth elementals for dao, air elementals for djinni, fire elementals for efreeti, and water elementals for marids). You regain the ability to cast this spell each time you complete a long rest.
Radiant Burst
Prerequisites: 3rd level, efreet family
You can deal radiant damage with your elemental strikes instead of fire. When you deal damage with an elemental strike, you may cause one other creature within 5 feet of your target to take fire damage equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1). You can only use flame burst once on each turn.
Smoke Shift
Prerequisites: 5th level, djinn family or efreet family
You can cast the spell gaseous form once without requiring a spell slot. You regain the ability to do so each time you complete a short or a long rest.
Sure Footed
Prerequisite: dao family
You have advantage on Strength and Dexterity saving throws made against effects that would forcibly move you or knock you prone.
Tideshaper
Prerequisites: 7th level, marid family
You can cast the spell control water once without requiring a spell slot. You regain the ability to do so each time you complete a long rest.
Wall of Flames
Prerequisite: 9th level, efreet family
You can cast the spell wall of fire once without requiring a spell slot. You regain the ability to do so each time you complete a long rest.
Water Jet
Prerequisites: 13th level, marid family
As an action, you can create a jet of water in a 5-foot-wide, 60-foot-long line centered on you. Creatures in the line must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, they take 6d6 bludgeoning damage and are pushed back 20 feet and knocked prone. On a success, they take half the damage but are not pushed away or knocked prone. Huge or larger creatures have advantage on this saving throw.
You can use your water jet twice. You regain both uses whenever you complete a long rest.
Whirlwind
Prerequisite: 13th level, djinn family
You can create a powerful whirlwind as an action on your turn. The whirlwind fills a 5-foot-radius, 30-foot-tall cylinder centered on a point you can see within 120 feet. Any creature other than you within the whirlwind must make a Strength saving throw or be restrained. You can move the whirlwind up to 30 feet as an action, and creatures restrained by it move with it. The whirlwind ends if you lose sight of it or if you stop concentrating on it (as if concentrating on a spell). A creature can attempt another Strength saving throw to escape the whirlwind as an action on its turn.
You can create a whirlwind once. After you have done so, you cannot do so again until you have completed a long rest.