The mage in town calls himself a djinn. What is that, and can I be one?

Steps

1. Find Theodoris in Magdal’s Rest. He is the apprentice the town’s own arrival speech names as the one who can teach the magical arts; his house and his tome errand are covered on their own pages.
2. Talk to him about anything at all. Nothing here is gated behind the tome quest — one of the two recordings gets the whole speech before finishing the errand, the other after.
3. Ask him who he is rather than what he sells. The topic that opens this is a plain question about himself; both recordings reach it by choosing to ask rather than by advancing a quest.
4. Ask the follow-up when he stalls. He answers the first question with “You really don’t know, do you?” and stops. The definition is behind a second option, phrased as asking for the short version.
5. Keep going past the definition. The part about kings, gods and ostracism, and the part about the saint’s call, are further topics again. A player who takes the definition and leaves gets about a third of it.

The definition, word for word

Both recordings transcribe this identically, and it is the closest thing the game has offered to an explanation of how its magic works: “A [djinn] is someone who learned how the tapestry of the world is wound. We can manipulate the threads and make something from nothing. Anyone can pull on a thread with a little training. A [djinn] knows which threads to pull, when, and most importantly, why.”

The third sentence is the one worth re-reading. It says outright that magic is not a djinn faculty — anyone can pull a thread with a little training. What separates a djinn is knowing which thread, when, and why. That is consistent with the fact that the player character, whatever race you chose, learns spells from a tome bought off this very NPC.

This page does not turn that sentence into a mechanic. Nothing in the sources ties the speech to a skill, a stat or a cap, and the site’s pages on how skills and spellcasting actually behave are built from recorded play rather than from lore.

How he introduces himself

“I am a [djinn], a weaver of threads, a tailor of fates. I’m sure you know the rest. My robes probably gave it away. I am surprised you speak to me so willingly. Most of this town look down upon the [djinn] because of the folk tales of vile sorcery and creating monsters. Perhaps those never reached your village.”

One of the two caption tracks drops the middle clause — it has “I am a [djinn]” and then “a tailor of fates” with nothing between them. That gap is not this site guessing: the player says on camera, in the same second, “Some of the dialogue isn’t there.” The other track has the full line. So “a weaver of threads” rests on one recording, with a second recording documenting its own hole where the words belong.

He gives a title as well, and it is on this site’s page about his tome quest: an apprentice fresh out of the academy, looking to make a name for himself, who adds on one recording that “a [djinn] apprentice is still far mightier than most of the island. Mind you, do not test me.” The title word itself is a problem and is treated as one below.

Why the town dislikes them

“Many of us make our living offering our services to mundane, non-[djinn] patrons. Most of society ostracizes us because of this power. Kings and gods alike view us as threats to their sovereignty. Thus, we mainly prefer the company of other [djinn].” Both recordings, same words.

Two things in the world outside this conversation line up with it. The unlucky man living apart from Magdal’s Rest bought his cursed die from what he calls “one of those magic folk” — a trader in exactly the position this speech describes, selling a service to a mundane patron, with a result that ruined the buyer’s life. And the town’s arrival speech introduces Theodoris by species before it introduces him by trade.

This page does not connect the die to Theodoris. Two different beings are involved on two different recordings, no source names the die’s seller, and the resemblance is a resemblance.

The line that touches the main story

“If you think I’m here for the saint, you’re mistaken. [Djinn] appear to be uniquely immune to the call for whatever reason. Legends say this island still has a lot of things left undiscovered. [One word, rendered ‘tones’ on both tracks], artifacts, creatures. If I document some of this, I may get the appointment I desire.”

Every other named character in this repository is on the island because the saint called them. Theodoris is the exception, he says so unprompted, and he gives a species-wide reason rather than a personal one. That makes him the only source in this repository for the claim that the call has a category of being it does not reach.

The bracketed word is left unresolved on purpose. Both caption tracks render it “tones”, which is most naturally either tomes or stones. He is a tome merchant, which makes tomes the tempting reading, and that is exactly why it is not printed as fact here.

“The appointment I desire” is not explained anywhere. No source cited here says what he is applying for, to whom, or whether documenting the island is a quest that can be advanced.

The word this site will not spell

Across the recordings in this repository the species word is rendered gin, jin, chin, fin and — in one arrival speech — djinn. Machine captions establish what was said, never how it is written. This site uses “djinn” as the ordinary English word for the kind of being described, and puts it in brackets wherever it stands in for the game’s own proper noun, so that no reader takes the spelling off this page as the game’s.

His title has the same problem and it is worse, because the definition speech makes a second reading plausible. One caption renders it “Threadbear” and this site has printed “Threadbare”. A being who calls himself a weaver of threads and a tailor of fates could as easily hold a title that reads Threadbearer. Nothing cited here shows the word on screen, and this page prints none of the three as correct.

What he says about the visions

One recording asks him what to do about the visions the player keeps having. His answer, on that recording alone: “What is there to do? Ignore them. Find whatever it is in them. Flee to the wilderness like the rest. Whatever you do, do not believe anyone who says they have the answer. They are lying.”

It is published because it is unusual, and it is attributed to one recording because it is on one. A character explicitly outside the saint’s call telling the player that everyone claiming to have the answer is lying is the kind of line a reader looking for the main quest will want to have seen, whatever it turns out to mean.

Requirements / limits

• This is two recordings out of thirty-three. The speech is optional dialogue with an NPC most players visit once for a shop, and thirty-one recordings in this repository never open the topic.
• Nothing here is developer text. NerveLabs has published nothing about the djinn in any changelog cited on this site; the Update 7 notes contain no occurrence of the species word, of threads, or of this character.
• The species spelling is not established and is not printed. Five caption renderings exist and no source shows the word written on screen.
• The title — Threadbear, Threadbare or Threadbearer — is not established either, and this page corrects nothing about the version already published on the tome-quest page beyond saying it is uncertain.
• One clause of the self-introduction has a single source. The second recording has a documented caption dropout at that exact point rather than a different reading.
• The visions answer has one source and is labelled as such on the page itself.
• No source cited here shows a djinn option at character creation. Three of the six race names on that screen are unreadable in every caption track this site has, so the absence of an option is not asserted — only the absence of evidence for one.
• Both recordings predate Update 7. No cited line says this dialogue changed, and none says it did not.

Common mistakes

• Assuming you can play as one. The character-creation screen in every recording here offers races the site describes elsewhere, and no recording shows this species among them. That is not proof it is absent, and it is very far from proof it is present.
• Taking a caption’s spelling as the game’s. Five renderings of one word exist across these files. Any guide printing one of them as the correct spelling has picked a caption, not read the game.
• Waiting until the tome quest is finished. The speech is not a reward. One of the two recordings gets it before the errand is done.
• Stopping after the definition. The ostracism and the immunity-to-the-call lines are two topics further on, and they are the ones that touch the rest of the game.
• Confusing this with the lecture he gives when he hands the tome back. That is a different speech, about envisioning the world as thousands of little threads, and nobody in this repository has transcribed it in full — both recordings of it talk over it or cut away.
• Reading “anyone can pull on a thread with a little training” as a promise about your character sheet. It is a line of dialogue. What your character can actually learn is on this site’s pages about skills and about buying spells.

Still unverified

• How is the species word spelled in game?Not verifiedFive caption renderings across this repository — gin, jin, chin, fin, djinn. No source shows it written on screen.
• Is his title Threadbear, Threadbare or Threadbearer?Not verifiedOne caption renders it Threadbear. The thread imagery in this speech makes Threadbearer plausible. Nothing shows the word written.
• What is “the appointment I desire”?Not verifiedHe names it once and never explains it. No recording here reaches a quest about documenting the island.
• Is the immunity to the call true, or is it his belief?Single unconfirmed reportHe states it about his species. He is the only djinn in this repository and the only source for the claim.
• Can the player be a djinn?Not verifiedNo recording cited here shows the option. Three of six race names on the creation screen are unreadable in every caption track available, so absence of evidence is all this is.
• Did the die’s seller belong to this species?Not verifiedThe unlucky man calls the seller “one of those magic folk” and does not name a species. The resemblance is recorded and not claimed.