Amir Hassan Maryaba
"We have calcium in our bones,
iron in our veins,
carbon in our souls,
and nitrogen in our brains.
93 percent stardust,
with souls made of flames,
we are all just stars
that have people names."
~93 Percent Stardust, Nikita Gill
The Basics
Name: Amir Hassan Marbaya, née Monroe
Nickame: Ami (pronounced ah-me)
Gender: Male
Age: 33
Race: Jinn Prince from the Court of Air and Fire
Lineage: A Son of Sunday's King and a Mortal Woman
The Physical
Physical Description: Said to be 90% spirit and 10% flesh, the Jinn are natural shapeshifters. In actuality, they are 93% spirit and only 7% flesh with the 7% that is Amir Hassan's physical form usually being just over six feet tall with a lean frame of muscle covered in lightly colored skin. His hair falls to one side as though the wind only ever comes to him from the left and in fact, it does such that if he were to turn it would spin in a dance with him like a dervish seeking dharma. It is colored like wood or charcoal or ash depending on how the light strikes it though his eyes always remain the warmest golden brown.
He dresses well and enjoys the feeling of clothing on his skin, reminding him of the 7% that exists in the world of mankind, and routinely reads fashion magazines and blogs so he can remain stylish.
Alternate Form: The Jinn are natural shapeshifters, most commonly snakes and scorpions though his family has a particular disdain for serpents and prefers birds of prey such as falcons and owls. They can also take the face and form of others, change the color of their skin, grow as large as an elephant or as small as a mouse, and make themselves invisible though not entirely intangible as their spirit forms can be seen in fog, mist, steam, smoke, dust, and rain.
Talents & Weaknesses
Skills: As one of the youngest in his family, Ami is often tasked with dealing with mundane powers, primarily financial, but occasionally political. He is a student of history and the arts but has very little talent in the latter, aside from a dancer's grace, a conductor's ear, and a chef's palate.
Less skill than power, he picks up languages almost instantaneously and knows a half-dozen fluently, sometimes switching between them in mid-sentence.
Powers: Though the jinn are often associated with wish-granting, that power more often resides with the divs, a more monstrous creature often bound in prison jars and magic rings in order to protect mankind from their evil ways. This does not mean the jinn princes and princesses are without power and they do occasionally grant wishes, though less through reality-warping magical means and more typically through mundane means.
In addition to shapeshifting and invisibility, members of the Jinn Court are exceedingly long-lived and extremely hard to kill. Further, when in spirit form they can travel great distances at tremendous speed. They also have an affinity for fire with some being dangerously pyrokinetic whereas Ami only has some minor ability to create heat and summon flame commanding both to serve his pleasure.
The most notable power of the jinn is the ability to whisper, putting thoughts into a persons mind. While most only do this to lightly influence others, like an angel or devil on their shoulder, the strongest can induce vivid mental hallucinations and illusions or outright possess a weak mind. This is considered immoral by some jinn, excessive by most, and restraint is considered to be an act of proper etiquette, especially since they are not immune to the whisper of another jinn themselves, just more aware of it when it happens.
This whisper can also produce an aura like a White Court vampire's demon, changing the mood of a room, though, unlike the White Court, the Jinn Court is not limited to a single emotion, nor vulnerable to its counter. They are however at risk of something else that they call the hook or the net.
Though not outright mind-readers, the jinn have a finely tuned empathic sense and their whisper is like a fishermans line. When it catches something under the surface even if it wasnt something they were fishing for, they know. The danger in this is that the hook is sometimes hard for them to work loose and they may have to draw the thought, feeling, or emotion to the surface or snap the line, a painful experience for both them and the person holding the thought, feeling, or emotion. In the case of a more broadly cast net, they may sense something without knowing exactly where it comes from and become obsessive in their attempts to seek it out.
For that reason, most wise jinn are careful what they whisper and who they whisper it to but for almost all of the jinn there is an urge to dig into the depths of those they encounter and for younger jinn princes and princesses it is an essential part of their survival. It is also why to avoid such unwanted encounters, most older jinn remove themselves from the modern world and live in remote, sparsely populated places.
Vulnerabilities: Though they are extremely hard to kill, they can be injured and momentarily weakened fairly easily. In particular, like the Fae, jinn are uncomfortable around iron and can be especially harmed by iron weapons. They are also wary around dogs and wolves as any canine creature can sense their presence, even when they are invisible.
Jinn can be bound. One of the most common methods is to slip an iron pin into the fabric of their clothes. This will trap them in their physical form. Though technically there are fairly simple ways for them to escape this trap, tradition holds that they should first offer the person who bound them a 'wish' in exchange for removing the pin. This is generally a one-time offer and anyone taking advantage of it beyond the first time or asking for something excessive is likely to face trickery or revenge as a result.
There are more long-lasting binding rituals though only the most skilled wizard would be able to guess where to begin, let alone have the knowledge and power to succeed.
Even though they have a physical body and need to eat, drink and sleep, they are mostly made of spirit and it is this side of them that requires the most care. Young jinn scions are full of power and passion and most burn up (literally) before they even reach their 20th year. Those that survive learn to channel this passion through their senses and seek out visions of beauty and horror, moments of pleasure and pain, or other emotional experiences in life where they can share their aura, often enhancing the experience for those near them. Though they can do this easily in crowds at clubs, sporting events, restaurants, theaters, and other shared social events those experiences are generally less satisfying to them than more direct one on one experiences with an individual where they can more precisely hone the effect.
Many young jinn also like to share in the moment themselves, especially the mundane parts that spark the satisfaction of their own flesh. Alternatively, the jinn will sometimes follow a person into their dreams to craft an experience there though this in particular can sometimes be harmful or addictive to the subject.
In either case, they must release their power regularly or risk burning their body to a cinder and becoming an ifrit or worse.
Under The Hood
Personality: Ami is royalty, maybe not Fae royalty, but jinn royalty and it shows. He is confident, sure of himself, and tends to live by different standards than ordinary humanity. After all, the jinn were created after the angels and before man, so they are both above and below the moral hierarchy, but they are not apart like the Fae.
He prefers high culture to low but is known to sit ringside at a good boxing match or eat a folded slice of pizza now and then but won't be found at a strip club without top-notch bottle service or eating at any place with more than one or two locations in the world.
Whether cruel, kind or indifferent, all Jinn tend to be intense and Ami is no different, though he's perhaps a bit more measured and restrained than some of his kin, which is probably why it's him and not another arriving in town.
Backstory: Ami met his father when he was twelve. He recalls the king as an imposing man with fiery eyes hidden behind glasses as dark as a starless night. He recalls they had dinner in a fancy restaurant and it was the first time he'd eaten eel. It was one of his father's favorites, he was told, not by his father, but by an older man in attendance. Ami now knew the man as Ben and spoke to him more often than he did his father. In fact, he wasn't even sure he'd actually spoken to his father that night though he vaguely remembers a voice, a combination of languages and accents, mostly French and Farsi with maybe a little bit of German.
He knew that to be the whisper now and his head had hurt the next day like he'd gone out drinking, though he knew that wasn't the case even if they had a bit of sake with their meal. He never got hangovers. He'd tried quite a few times after that. He could get drunk certainly but by morning, by morning his mind was always clear as the new days sun.
He'd been sent to a fancy school after that meeting. He'd gone to several fancy schools, including university where he studied international law and finance in order to better serve his family's interests. It was quite a large family after all.
He had six half-brothers, three half-sisters, and one actual sister. He also had six uncles, seventy cousins, and countless kin. He'd only met a few of them over the years, fewer more than once, though knew all of their names as well as which ones he could go to if he was in trouble and which ones to avoid. That latter list was quite long. Most of his uncles were the sort you wanted to avoid, most of his uncles and most of his cousins, including the ones he'd met. The same could be said of a few of his half-brothers and at least one of his half-sisters, but they were kin and though he was wary of them all, he was protective too, after all, countless or not, there weren't many of his kind.
It was said only one in a million could be called jinn. It was actually more like one in one hundred million for while the jinn could have children with mankind, and almost exclusively did, most of those children were more flesh than spirit. Even then, many of them burned out young, either literally or figuratively. The ones that didn't were usually called jann or scions. There were probably quite a lot of them though most wouldn't know it as they had little in common with those who were granted the actual title, except perhaps a propensity to lead extraordinary lives.
Still, his immediate family was a large family and their interests were vast. There were seven estates, dozens of businesses, thousands of properties, and more investments than could be counted. Most of them were overseas, or at least, overseas from where he was now, though that was the point. They've avoided the states, the states, and most of western Europe. The Fae had too much claim over those places, but his uncles said the faeries were weak now and his father said they had proven themselves irresponsible stewards. At least that was Ami's understanding. He'd never actually dealt with them before, but that was part of what he was supposed to do, get the lay of the land and buy or take as much of it as he could, after all, the jinn would be much better stewards and according to one of his uncles, they were destined to rule the world.
Connections: He will be buying up several properties with potential connections associated with them. The jinn (and their children) fall under the watchful eye of Heaven and are likely known to the Knights of the Cross. He also has a cousin who recently exploded in a townhouse in Brooklyn.
Writing Sample:
"It's a complete yuslih, a do-over... obviously," he said, looking over the old shop, his nose wrinkling over the dust and scent of something that probably had patchouli in it. He'd never been fond of patchouli, except as a flower, and even then not for the scent, only the color and shape and feel of the petals. He liked the feel of flowers and he was under the impression people undervalued them in that regard. There was something soft and velvety about most petals and a delicacy in how you had to handle them or risk them being crushed. He had no need to be so delicate with the building he'd just purchased.
"And le plafond, the ceiling has to go. Have you seen the roof? It's a crime to keep that hidden from those below," he noted, as though it really was a crime, even if he understood why the place had been let to fall into such a state, dank and dark and old. But there were other ways to seem old and it didn't require neglect. In fact, some of the oldest places were the most beloved, wood gleaming with a century of touch and care.
"Viens avec moi, come on, I'll show you," he told the contractor, as though it was one of those things you needed to experience at least once in your life as Ami headed up the small stucco-covered stairs off to one side of the room.
"They'll be starting on the ceiling in a few days and the new stairs should be just behind. They'll be taking out the whole front to get them in so you'll have to work fast," he assured the contractor, the upstairs was just as dark as below, but only because the glass roof was so dirty with smoke and grime. It was probably a letdown and the man probably didn't think much of it, but Ami knew when he saw it again later after it had been cleaned he would change his mind.
"No cataloging necessary, just zài hézi lǐ, box it all up and take it to this warehouse until we're ready to move it back in," he handed the man a card with an address on it as though it was already a done deal that he'd do it. Truth was, it was, the thought to turn it down had never even crossed his mind. Sure, he'd have to hire a few more people and work day and night until it was done, that had crossed his mind, but he didn't have a problem with that, the money was good and the promise of plenty more work to follow was hard to resist. There was going to be plenty of work for others too. While the mover didn't need to catalog anything Ami would be hiring a librarian of sorts when they were ready to unpack, and probably a magician or wizard or sorcerer or whatever they called them here. Maybe they'd stay on to run the place when they were done, or he'd hire someone else, it didn't much matter, right now he had to get it all packed up and out of the way so they could gut the place and rebuild. An almost blank slate, he thought, appreciating the sentiment before realizing the mover was waiting to ask him a question, though it wasn't a very interesting one.
"When should I start?" he wondered. The answer was, right away.
The Jinn and the Court of Air and Fire, A Definitive and Woefully Incomplete Guide
There are dozens of stories of the jinn, djinn, genies, ifrits, and a dozen other names and creatures that fall under the auspices of the Court of Air and Fire. It is said the original jinn were created on Thursday and whereas the angels were created from light and Adam was created from mud, the jinn were created from Nar as-Samūm, the heart of the flame and born of the sun.
The first seven jinn were named kings and each given dominion over a day of the week and the seventy jinn who followed. Unlike the angels but like man, the jinn are born with fitra, or free will, the choice to accept or reject God's guidance. Some did and some didn't. Regardless, they were all, each and every one, put under the watchful eye of one of the angelic host and remain so to this day (including some who are now under the watchful eye of fallen angels).
Said to be 90% spirit and 10% flesh, the jinn are subject to bodily desires, including the need to eat and sleep, as well as the drive to procreate. Unfortunately, not all of their offspring are deemed suitable children. Whether spawned from or incorporated in, the Court of Air and Fire has a range of creatures within its ranks, from the ifrit to the Div. Though some are born of two jinn parents, most are born of jinn and mortal mates. These later offspring range from lowly jann with barely any inkling of power to the children of the kings, who if they show promise might be granted the title Jinn Prince or Princess. Beyond that are those that have lost their flesh and become pure spirit, becoming ifrit or ghosts or other things that are best bound or otherwise controlled.
Disclaimer
Careless Whispers: Mind 'control' is a tricky subject even beyond the context of RPOL guidelines and general roleplaying etiquette so it seems best to lay out the specifics of how the jinn 'whisper' will be presented in the game.
The jinn whisper will be presented as a 'thought' within a post and directed toward a recipient player(s). The recipient player(s) will then have a choice:
- Reject the thought outright and not receive it at all.
- Recognize the attempt at contact but ward it off.
- Receive the thought and recognize it as not their own and do with it as they will.
- Receive the thought as though it is their own and set it aside or reject it as a stray or errant idea from their subconscious.
- Receive the thought as though it is their own and accept it as such, doing with it what they will.
- Receive the thought, recognize it as not their own, and yet follow it anyway.
- Some other response you feel is appropriate for your character.