Base Camp (Chit Chat)

[MevlyTM]

I think the best approach, if we can swing it, is to distract Jab-Afri. According to the description of the spell, if he becomes distracted, then the Djinn will immediately turn on him and attack him. That would take care of both of them for us (for a while, anyway). Apparently the pirate mage is back at/near the ruins, concentrating on the elemental from afar - quite clever. I'm thinking of sending Taku to scratch his eyes out to distract him. If I understand correctly, the elemental would then immediately return to attack the caster that summoned it. But I'm not sure if I want to risk my familiar; she's only got 3 hp.

Protection from Evil specifically states that it includes summoned creatures, which the Djinn is if it was summoned via Conjure Elemental. It would be unable to touch us. But who knows what other ways it might attack us (though we would get +2 AC). We could just hide within the radius with Rostram and let the Djinn flail about. That could buy the other party time to distract Jab-Afri to get the elemental to attack him. Now if only they knew...

[Rhialto]

That assumes the djinni is really an air elemental summoned by the conjure elemental spell. If it is a real djinn or an elemental summoned by other means, the plan won't work.

BTW, if it comes to a fight, your efreet might be the best weapon we have.

@Longman: what has Rostam seen of the djinn? Was it always a whirlwind, or did it also assume humanoid form? IIRC you already said that Rostam did not see how the djinn was summoned.

[Longman]

Rostam did not see it summoned but he saw it in action. It was a dark-skinned humanoid with a big nose, wearing a turban, about 10 feet tall, and seemingly incredibly strong. He did not see it become a whirlwind. He saw it on one end of the ship and a whirlwind at the other end of the ship, carrying it over the water to the beach and lifting it onshore. That's all he saw.

Maju happens to know (I rolled for him) that a Djinni can take on both a humanoid form and a whirlwind form. He thinks all Djinni must be summoned, somehow - - but he doesn't have Protection from Evil as a spell and he really has no idea if the paladin's power will work on this Djinni or whirlwind or whatever it is. Rostam doesn't know, either.

[mTeasdale]

Woe, do you think we should attack the pirate or stay hidden and try to leave the place ?

[Woe]

I'm not sure. We can take Apinya but Kanya will be extremely hard to take down unless you can get the drop on her fast. Longman might have changed her spells, but hold person and fear both will hard to avoid. I keep hoping that "person coming down the stairs" is YC, because three on her will be much easier to neutralize her. If you go for it, I'll provide cover fire best I can (or switch to melee -- details).

Longman -- I'm assuming that Kanya is somewhat renowned and we'd know she's an annoying spellcaster. Ok with you?

[Longman]

Yes, you'd know she was a spell-caster.

You'd also know she probably hasn't changed her spells. It's still the same day. In a fantasy world you'd know stuff like that.

[MevlyTM]

Okay. I completely misunderstood what was going on. It's a Djinni. I thought it was an air elemental. In that case, I think it's best to just release Maju's own Efreeti now and let them battle it out in the desert. We don't want the Djinni getting close to the party - he could easily steal Maju's Efreeti bottle, which would cause all sorts of trouble. My only disappointment would be that we wouldn't get to watch the battle (though Maju would send Taku to observe and report). Any thoughts?

[Longman]

Maju - this misunderstanding may be a product of the way I initially described the Djinni as an 'Djinn (air elemental)' in Rostam's background.

I've just tinkered with that a bit to say what he really saw: a Djinni and a whirlwind at opposite ends of the ship, dragging it over the reefs and onto the shore.

Looks like Jab-Afri may have access to both? However you know that a Djinni can also take on a whirlwind form. So you are not sure what is what. All you know is that your familiar has seen a 'whirlwind' approaching, miles to the north-west, from the direction of the ruins.

If you want to send out the Efreet, you can do that in the play thread. The original rules were:

The Efreet only has 4 hours of service left to run (or 4 more openings of the bottle, whichever comes first), after which time he will return to his home plane. (Hopefully. Unless he doesn't decide to hang around and kill you first...)

The last opening was well under an hour, IIRC. You summoned him to impress Teruk and the villagers, and it worked very well. The Efreet (Laylat AlHariq) asked to be released inside a volcano on the island. You made vague promises, and put him back again.

[MevlyTM]

Okay. That makes more sense. Based on what Taku said, do we have any indication how far the Djinni is? I'm trying to figure out how long Maju's efreeti would be out of the bottle if he's sent off to battle the Djinni.

[Longman]

You think the two flying creatures would probably meet in battle after about half an hour. Not a guarantee.

Therefore, if the battle took 10 mins max, your efreet would probably be back to you in an hour and 10 mins.

Here's the difficulty - Djinni can go invisible at will. So can your efreet. But if one saw the other coming in the air, who knows what would happen in the air over the desert?