Friday Encounter: The Genie's Lamp

Of all the D&D horror stories out there, I'm sure that a solid chunk of them (if we filter out the ones that involve the words "it's what my character would do," anyway) involve the wish spell. The fun thing about such a spell is that it can do anything. It's a feature that truly shows the infinite potential of a TRPG if what a player can do with it is only limited by their imagination, and encourages the sort of creative thinking and problem solving that make TRPGs truly shine for me. The downside of wish is that giving a player access to infinite potential is very easy to abuse...unless the DM decides to have some fun with it, anyway.

Here's an encounter that plays on an old trope to get players thinking of how well they use their wishes. Perhaps it's a bit trite. Practically everyone has seen a genie someone had to throttle in a bottle, right? (Is my theater kid self showing?) But the reason cliches like this exist is because there's something about them that appeals to us, and a lot of them could very easily make for some fun scenarios at the table. Part of what appealed to me about D&D growing up was the idea of stepping into the same kinds of stories I loved and getting to make the decisions for the protagonist(s), and I think there's something to be said about presenting players with recognizable scenarios that have been the plot of many a TV episode or thought experiment to see how they would approach them.

The Genie's Lamp

This encounter can be used anywhere. It could be in a dungeon, in the wilderness, after defeating a major opponent, or perhaps even in a town. It doesn't even have to be in Quel'Ahma (or wherever genies come from in your setting); captive genies fetch a high price on the black market, and the sorcerers who control them may spread far and wide. Whatever the case may be, the PCs should come across a brass lamp carved with elaborate designs - it might be abandoned, pawned off at a market, or looted off a defeated foe.

If the lamp is rubbed, a cascade of sparkling smoke pours from the spout - and from that smoke manifests Tahir Avram Majdi abd al-Malik, a noble djinn who has been held prisoner in the lamp for centuries, bound under the spell of a cruel magician who wished to harness the genie's powers for his own gain. Recognizing the PCs are unfamiliar to him, Tahir introduces himself and expresses his gratitude for being freed from his prison. As is customary among his people, he agrees to grant them a taste of his power as a reward for their generosity, promising three wishes, with no rules or restrictions applying (other than that they cannot wish for more wishes), before he returns to the flying city of Tasshen.

The twist is that the long years of confinement and servitude have caused Tahir to grow resentful of all mortals, and he sees the PCs as no different than the wizard who bound him in the first place. He still offers his services to them - it's tradition, after all - but secretly, he only intends to pay lip service to the idea. In reality, Tahir wants revenge, and he will go through whatever means necessary to twist the PCs' wishes against them, in a scheme to teach them that they cannot hope to control such great and powerful entities and get away unscathed.

Whatever the PCs wish for, Tahir will execute it in way that will harm, inconvenience, or negatively impact them the most while still falling under the parameters of what they wished for. He will never refuse a wish or produce something other than what was wished for, but his definition of "what was wished for" is a broad one, and he weighs his interpretation heavily against the PCs. Use your judgment on how to best twist a wish. For instance, if a PC wishes for a magical sword, Tahir will give them one that is cursed (it's still magical; they never asked for a good enchantment). If they wish for an adversary to be dead, Tahir might ensure that their death creates a power vacuum that an even greater foe could occupy - or even turn that enemy undead, but still very much active and against the party, and quite possibly stronger than before!

If the PCs call Tahir out on his tricks, he will not lie or make excuses, simply pointing out that he still gave the PCs what they wished for. If they attempt to harm him, he will jump back into the lamp and hide there, refusing to emerge until it is rubbed when the PCs have no harmful intentions. If the PCs try to get rid of the lamp, it will keep mysteriously turning up in their possession, though Tahir himself will never appear unless summoned by rubbing the lamp.

This is, effectively, a way to challenge the PCs into thinking creatively to try to outsmart the genie. They might twist their wishes to be as specific as possible, for instance - though Tahir will still try to find whatever loopholes he can. A truly creative PC might be able to weaponize Tahir's wishes into creating cataclysms that will be as harmful to enemies as they are to the party themselves!

Once three wishes have been made, Tahir keeps to his word and vanishes off to Tasshen, glad to finally be rid of those pesky mortals. The lamp then becomes an ordinary lamp, worth 80 GP.