Djinni

Version 0.31: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

Djinn are beings of smokeless fire. They enter the world spontaneously and without explanation, born with a tireless hunger for knowledge and adventure. Djinn have a unique relationship with magic: rather than learning spells from books, their spells come from within, welling up from their fiery core as they gain experience. They draw from that same fiery core to cast spells - for Djinn, magical power and health are one and the same. As elemental beings, Djinn are immune to poison and highly resistant to fire, though cold damage is deeply inimical to them. Since they float through the air without need for legs or feet, they cannot wear boots. Djinn are middlingly competent at most forms of physical combat, but have a particular aptitude for spellcasting. Their aptitudes for all forms of magic are phenomenal, though their unique relationship with magic means that they cannot choose to train magic skills independently.

Innate Abilities

• Djinn are made of fire, not flesh:
  • Fire Resistance 2: Djinn are highly resistant to fire.
  • Poison Immunity: Djinn are immune to poison.
  • Miasma Immunity: Djinn are immune to miasma and sickness.
  • Cold Vulnerability: Djinn take extra damage from cold.
  • Djinn cannot be put to sleep and do not have blood.
• Floating: Djinn's gaseous lower bodies allow them to fly permanently, but they are unable to wear boots.
• Extra Vitality 1: Djinn have +4 maximum HP.
• HP Casting: Djinn spend HP instead of MP for all purposes.
  • Djinn have zero MP. This makes MP restoration and spirit shield useless. It also renders immunity to MP drain (e.g. from ghost moths) and the antimagic wielding penalty. Only MP "costs", from spells, abilities, and ability-like passives like infusion consume HP.
• Innate Casting: Djinn are unable to learn spells from spellbooks. Instead, they learn spells as they grow. Djinn still get all the starting spells from their background.
  • Due to their unconventional approach to magic (and the 21-spell limit), Djinn are unable to worship Sif Muna, Vehumet, or Kikubaaqudgha.
  • Djinn are forced to train all spell schools, including Spellcasting, at once. You can either train all the spell schools together, or none of them.

Djinn have a base Strength of 7, Intelligence of 9, and Dexterity of 8 (before Background modifiers).

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Gladiator
• Warrior-mages: Transmuter
• Mages: Hedge Wizard, Fire Elementalist, Ice Elementalist

Level Bonuses

• +1 Intelligence or Dexterity every 4th level.
• 10% less HP than average.
• +4 willpower per level.
• Djinn receive random spells at every odd level, starting at XL 3. Spell specifics are listed below.

Spells

XL	3	5	7	9	11	13	15	17	19	21	23	25	27
Spell levels	1	2	2-3	3-4	4-5	5	6	6-7	6-7	7-8	7-8	8-9	9

Djinn can acquire any player spell, but there are several restrictions:

• Spells must be new, which excludes the spells your Background starts with and spells you have already received.
• Spells must be castable, which excludes Sublimation of Blood and spells from sacrificed magic schools.
  • Djinn can still receive spells forbidden by their god, however (such as Necromancy spells when following a good god, or any spell at all when following Trog).
  • Djinn can only receive Spellforged Servitor or Iskenderun's Battlesphere if they already have a spell that can be used by the servitor or trigger the battlesphere, respectively.

All eligible spells have the same chance to be gifted at a level up.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Djinn receive the skills, equipment, and spells listed for their background, save for the following restriction:

• For magic skills, Djinn get a special modifier. Djinn takes the backgrounds highest base skill, as if they had Human aptitudes, then apply it to all spell schools equally. For example, an Ice Elementalist's highest skill is 4 Ice Magic, so a Djinn Ice Elementalist gets 4 Spellcasting, 4 Fire Magic, 4 Ice Magic, etc.
• Djinn do not get potions of magic.

Difficulty of Play

Djinn, in many ways, are simpler spellcasters. Players don't have to worry about running out of MP, decide which spell schools to train, or even choose which spells to learn! However, magic-using Djinn have to be careful about their HP reserves, especially in dangerous situations where a few extra HP could make the difference between life and death. Also, they must adapt to whatever random spells they get, which may not synergize well with their current abilities or the player's preferred playstyle.

Djinn have +11 aptitudes in magic, but are forced to train all skills equally. At the start of the game, this equates to training a single school at a -2.8 aptitude. But by the time a caster reaches mid-game, their effective aptitude is much higher than this in practice. And, since every school is trained at once, dual- and triple-school spells are very easy to train. Overall, a dedicated mage will not have trouble casting spells.

Other than that, poison immunity is helpful to survive the earlier portions of the game, and Djinn are passable in "pure" melee combat.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	0	Armour	0	Spellcasting	11
		Dodging	1
Maces & Flails	-2	Shields	0	Conjurations	11
Axes	-2	Stealth	-1	Hexes	11
Polearms	-2			Summonings	11
Staves	-1	Invocations	0	Necromancy	11
Unarmed Combat	0	Evocations	0	Translocations	11
Throwing	-2	Shapeshifting	-2	Alchemy	11
				Fire Magic	11
Short Blades	-1			Ice Magic	11
Long Blades	-1			Air Magic	11
Ranged Weapons	-2	Experience	1	Earth Magic	11

Strategy

• Djinn that want to cast any significant amount of spells will want to invest not only in Spellcasting, but also Fighting, to give themselves plenty of fuel for their spells. A source of increased regeneration is also useful to have.

God Choice

Traditional, spell granting "magic" gods are unavailable for Djinn, but most other religions are reasonable to choose from:

• Ashenzari is a generally strong god who offers skill boosts. Since Djinn can't worship Vehumet, Ash is the only god that can lower your spell failure rates directly.
• Makhleb recovers HP on kill, which lets you cast spells more freely; a moderately strong god choice for spellcasting Djinn.
• Elyvilon can be a good choice for the HP restoration, while The Shining One acts like Makhleb against undead and demonic creatures. Mind that you can still get evil spells when worshipping a good god, which the god will prevent you from casting.

History

• Prior to 0.31, Djinn had a -3 Spellcasting aptitude, and could not learn any other spell school. However, a level of Spellcasting counted as a level in every spell school (in addition to the bonus from Spellcasting itself).
  • Djinn skill training was slightly slower (roughly -0.16 aptitude), and their starting skills were particularly worse (due to having a "-3" aptitude).
  • Djinn could not benefit from the magical staff melee bonus, the pain brand, or manuals of unlearnable spell schools. However, Ashenzari curses were particularly strong: Djinn were more likely to get useful curses, and "Introspection" curses benefited Fighting and the equivalent of every spell school.
• The modern incarnation of Djinn, inspired by the Djinn of old and the Oni variant found in some forks of Dungeon Crawl, was added in 0.27.
• Djinn were considered for inclusion in both 0.13 and 0.14, but were ultimately cut before being included in any stable release. The old version had a more conventional approach to learning magic, but used 2 of their EP (HP and MP combined) for each MP spent. They were also subject to several special cases (complete immunity to all forms of fire including hellfire, spell hunger caused magical contamination, only certain methods of channeling worked).