I haven’t played dnd since the 3-3.5 transition and I just found a new group to play with. I have a few ideas for characters and was hoping for some advice on one of them. The dm says that the group is story/rp driven and not to min-max. I’m supposed to use 2024 content if it’s been reprinted but can use 5th edition content that hasn’t been updated to 2024.

The character is a kobold genie warlock. He was born into a cult and was physically small and weak so he was mostly relegated to menial tasks and overlooked. He is charismatic and crafty so he survived in the cult by playing into the perception that he was unimportant and harmless. Because he was so nonthreatening he was trusted and the leader chose him to do things like cleaning the inner sanctuary. While cleaning the master’s quarters he met a djinni that the master had bound to a vessel and enslaved for a long time. The djinni saw him as an opportunity. He befriended my character, telling him stories of life outside of the cult and teaching him new skills and magic. Over time my character came to trust the dijinni and the dijinni offered him a deal. If my character would help the dijinni escape then the dijinni would give my character what he most desired, the power to decide his own destiny. My character helped the dijinni escape and in return the dijinni altered his appearance and bound him to the dijinni as a warlock.

I would prioritize the character’s abilities as charisma-wisdom-dex-intelligence-con-strength. For his background I was thinking acolyte and taking druid spells for the magic initiate feat. I would do the pact of the book for the first level invocation. This gives me a lot of cantrips and a few free first level spells and I would eldritch blast probably one other offensive cantrip but I would try to focus on utility spells. I would take goodberry for the free first level druid spell because I think that it fits well with the minimalist survival concept from the backstory.

I’m trying to leave things open to try to give the DM as much opportunity as possible to work what she wants to into the game. It’s probably a dragon cult since the character is a kobold but it doesn’t have to be. The size of the cult could be whatever it needs to be, it could be stand-alone or part of a larger organization. Why did the dijinni bind the character instead of just giving him power? Does he want the character to do something specific? Does he just like him? What’s the djinni’s plans? Does he want revenge on the cult? Does he want to build his own cult?