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While most think of "Jinn" as just another way to refer to one of the Ifrit, the Jinn are actually a disparate assortment of elemental races with an origin shrouded in the mists of the First Age. One of the first Elemental Courts, the Jinn retain the ties and bonds that once joined them together even as they struggle and plot against each other.

Types of the Jinn

• Greater Jinn
  • Marid are known only to wizened Southern Savants and the most well-read Immaculate Scholars,-- a terrible primordial Demon from the time before the world was made safe for Man, the Marid were high amongst the rolls of the enemies of Heaven. Obscure Immaculate Texts that talk of them at all name the Marid as horrors so terrible that even the Anathema warred against them. Their battles in the dark times before the coming of the Immaculate Dragons were said to have scarred the world, and in battling them the Anathema convinced men-- for a time,-- that they were other than the monsters that they later proved of themselves. Little is known of the fate of Marid. Some savants say that the Anathema destroyed them utterly, while others suggest that they were banished outside of time by fell magics. When stories of the Marid are shared at all, though, it is always said that one should never deal with them.
    "They lack any power that you do not give them," is the most common refrain in said stories. "Do not listen to their lies."
  • Ifrit are powerful spirits of smokeless fire who rule over the Courts of the Jinn, in strict obedience with the rules of Heaven. Powerful Sorcerers and Fierce Warriors, the Ifrit are considered the Nobility of their kind and rule over the rest of their cousins from a thousand-and-one different Courts in the inhospitable wastes of the Deep South. The Ifrit Courts are prone to internecine violence; their wars playing out over the sun-kissed ravines and sandy dunes of the South as the various Lords of the Smokeless Flame play against one another for power and prestige. Haughty and prideful, Ifrit Nobles only bow to their Lords, and an Ifrit Lord would only kneel to the slumbering Dragon of Flame. Though most would never admit it, Ifrit tend to mimic and syncretize the mores of Southern Nobility, viewing themselves as an ancient and noble people but otherwise lacking any way of expressing such.
  • Janni are born from a uniquely Southern Phenomena: the Sandstorm. Much like the elemental conflux that births them, Janni are harsh and abrasive, and the most powerful of them can casually seal the fate of a Town or a Caravan if not appeased. Even appeasement isn't sure, as Janni are renowned for their mercurial natures: left to their own devices they'd eventually destroy any and all 'intruders' into their sphere of power. They seem to take an especial joy in destroying humanity and its works, as if driven by a powerful urge to swallow everything of Man under the sands. Thankfully, Janni are rarely left to their own devices, the Ifrit keeping an especially close eye on their cousins. Most are all-but-leashed to the service of one Lord or another, often used as Enforcers for the Court but otherwise bound away.
• Lesser Jinn
  • Ghul are an type of Jinn formed when someone dies without a proper burial in the deep south. The dried-out sand-scoured corpses that result have been known to crawl out of their sandy graves; the hungry ghost merging with a nascent elemental spirit to create this ill-understood hybrid which is neither fully reanimated-corpse nor truly an elemental. Ifrit most often consider these creatures too unsavory to keep at Court and other Elementals are even less welcoming; nor do humans commonly find the presence of the corpse-eating Ghuls to be something that they can countenance. Humans often can't fully eject these macabre Jinn, though, with the result that isolated Deep Southern settlements sometimes host a corpse-eater or three on the outskirts. They're not so much 'worshipped' as 'placated', existing on the very outer edge of human society, dwelling in crypts or graveyards.
  • Nasnas are a common sort of elemental, formed in the deepest depths of the Sun's Sea, where burning sand stretches as far as the eye can see. There on the endless dunes, where everything feels eternal but constantly changes, in a landscape that seems still but is constantly moving, the sand can sometimes get restless. Nasnas are born from such restless sand when elemental energies imbues sand with a semblance of life. These Jinn are given forms somewhere between animal and man: men with the heads of falcons or crocodiles, massive elephant-men or the (literal) tiger-warriors that hunt the Raksha at the bidding of their Ifrit Lords. Amongst the most common Jinn in the Ifrit Courts, Nasnas are notable as masters of illusion, their own forms a gentle mirage hiding the fact that they're just sand with delusions of life.
  • Si'lat, the Friendly Flames, understand and love humanity beyond any of the Jinn because they are born of us. Since time immemorial, we have gathered around the fire and told stories to the flames: stories of our great love affairs, of mighty hunts and terrible beasts, of great heroes and wicked villains. Often we'll come back, time and again, to the same fire pit night after night. The Si'lat answer this unspoken invitation, walking out of the flames with faces out of our stories, figures that we recognize as one of our own even if we do not recognize their divinity. They dance and drink with us, join us at our feasts and-- for a time,-- express the love that they hold for us. Then, before the morning, they leave and very often we only realize they were with us with the benefit of hindsight. They know us; and walk amongst us unseen and for that reason they are favored by the Ifrit just as they were by the Marid.
  • Shiqq are a wild, primordial race of Jinn-- sometimes known as the Unchained,-- who take the form of a flickering ever-changing flame. They have no true shape or body of their own, often-times going disguised as a campfire or even the burning flame of a torch, though the lack of any smoke can give away their true nature to the knowledgeable. It's only when they start moving that their nature is truly manifest, though, their flames occasionally pulling itself into a vaguely humanoid configuration before once again falling back to the primordial flame. Largely indifferent to humans, the Unchained are only safe within the Courts of the Ifrit due to their propensity to parasitize and consume Spirits of lesser Essence. Infesting another with their fiery essence, Shiqq slowly burn away their host while they get stronger. The process is, eventually, fatal to the host though it has sometimes resulted in the creation of another Shiqq when used on Fire Elementals, certain Demons, and the very rare lesser God. Only the most powerful Shiqq can survive long without the patronage of a powerful Jinn Lord.