Djinni

& djinni
Difficulty	8
Attacks	Weapon 2d8

& djinni
Difficulty	8
Attacks	Weapon 2d8
Base level	7
Base experience	97
Speed	12
Base AC	4
Base MR	30
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	0 (Not randomly generated)
Genocidable	No
Weight	1500
Nutritional value	400
Size	Medium
Resistances	poison, petrification
Resistances conveyed	None
A djinni: can fly. has a head, a couple of arms, and a torso. is poisonous to eat. does not eat. (*) is not a valid polymorphable form. can follow you to other levels. can pick up weapons and food. can be seen through infravision. never leaves a corpse.
Reference	monst.c#line2782

A djinni, & (plural djinn), is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The djinni is one of the few monsters in the demon monster class that is not a major demon. Djinn are capable of flight, will pick up and collect items, can be seen via infravision, and can follow the player character to other levels if they are adjacent.

A djinni has a single weapon attack, and possesses poison resistance and stoning resistance.

Djinns are poisonous to eat, which primarily comes up if they are digested by another monster.

Generation

Djinn are only generated on the Plane of Air, where three are guaranteed; additional djinn can be generated elsewhere by rubbing a magic lamp or drinking a smoky potion. A djinni generated this way might be tame, peaceful, or hostile - in some cases it might simply disappear, sometimes granting a wish first. A tame djinni makes a powerful pet in the early game—it is intelligent and will use weapons—but a wish is almost always more useful. Blessing the lamp or potion will increase the odds of receiving a wish.

A player or monster may not polymorph into a djinni.

Strategy

Early-game characters will want to be especially sure that any magic lamps they find are blessed, in order to minimize the chance of spawning a hostile djinni and subsequently dying. A particularly paranoid player may also want to save potential wishes from lamps or potions until they have sufficient armor or weapons to handle such a worst-case scenario; the djinn only has one attack, but can hit for up to 16 base damage.

Messages

The following messages can occur when you release a djinni from a magic lamp, or one is released from a smoky potion.

"I am in your debt. I will grant one wish!"

You get a wish, then the released djinni will vanish.

"Thank you for freeing me!"

The released djinni is tame.

"You freed me!"

The released djinni is peaceful.

"It is about time!"

The released djinni simply vanishes.

"You disturbed me, fool!"

The released djinni is hostile (or sometimes peaceful to a neutral hero, perhaps due to a bug).

"Sorry, I'm all out of wishes."

You have chatted to a tame djinni.

"I'm free!"

You chatted to a peaceful djinni.

"This will teach you not to disturb me!"

You chatted to a hostile djinni.

Encyclopedia entry

The djinn are genies from the elemental plane of Air. There,
among their kind, they have their own societies. They are
sometimes encountered on earth and may even be summoned here
to perform some service for powerful wizards. The wizards
often leave them about for later service, safely tucked away
in a flask or lamp. Once in a while, such a tool is found by
a lucky rogue, and some djinn are known to be so grateful
when released that they might grant their rescuer a wish.

Variants

NetHack-- and SLASH 6 (precursors of SLASH'EM) and SlashTHEM add three more types of genie, all from Dungeons & Dragons:

• The efreeti (&), from the Plane of Fire
• The dao (& in NetHack-- 3.1.3, & in SLASH 6), from the Plane of Earth
• The marid (& in NetHack-- 3.1.3, & in SLASH 6), from the Plane of Water

Of note is that the efreeti and marid are referenced in regular NetHack as hallucinatory monsters.

None of the genies are randomly generated. In SLASH 6, any one of the four types can be found in a potion or magic lamp, with the same probabilities of granting wishes, etc. as a djinni in regular NetHack. (The code for randomly selecting one of the four types is present in the SlashTHEM source as well, but commented out.) Despite the elemental affinities of the three new genies, according to the D&D source, djinn remain the only species that are guaranteed to appear on any of the Elemental Planes. (In NetHack-- 3.0.10, only the djinni can be found in a potion or lamp, and the Elemental Planes do not exist, so it is unclear how a player can find the other three types, apart from wishing for a figurine or a statue.)

These genies are almost identical to the djinni in terms of statistics: The only significant differences are that in SLASH 6 the efreeti resists fire and electrical damage (only fire in NetHack-- 3.0.10) and the marid resists cold damage. In NetHack-- 3.0.10 the dao phases like an earth elemental while the other three genies can fly; in SLASH 6 all four are flyers. All four genies have the same 2d8 physical attack.

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.4. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-364}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.