DESCRIPTION
Like all gith, gith'yanki was tall and slender humanoids with rough, leathery yellow skin and bright black eyes that were sunken deep in their orbits. They had long and angular skulls, with small and highly placed flat noses, and ears that were pointed and serrated in the backside. They typically grew either red or black hair, which they styled in topknots. Their teeth were pointed.
PERSONALITY
Gith'yanki were typically cruel, arrogant, and aggressive. The few exceptional individuals who deserted from the rigid gith'yanki militaristic society tended to develop a disdain for rules. The high value they placed on individuality also caused them to become ambitious and self-centred. They were also known for their long memories.
Even the most open-minded gith'yanki came across as smug, sarcastic, rude, and overconfident, but they were generally capable of withstanding adversity without complaining. Clever and resourceful, gith'yanki adventurers were not known for their loyalty or ability to make new friends, but they were extremely persistent in the face of danger. Although rare, it was possible for gith'yanki to become disillusioned with their people's unsavoury habits and to try to set up a reputation on their own acts.
As a result of their long-lasting presence in the Astral Plane, where time did not pass, the gith'yanki developed a decadent lifestyle, picking up hobbies, arts, and studies in an endless search for novelty. After centuries, they developed a hollow culture of shallow and unfinished undertakings, never truly mastering any task or seeing any personal project to completion. This constant interest in novelty was also reflected in their dressing style: gith'yanki was fond of collecting and wearing extremely ornate and elaborate tokens of their defeated foes. It was common for their armour and weapons to be overly decorated with gems, feathers, precious metals, and other ostentatious ornaments.
ECOLOGY
Gith'yanki were similar to humans in many superficial respects, but generations of experimentation at the hands of mind flayers, as well as prolonged exposure to the Astral Plane, generated noticeable differences in their physiology, in addition to their innate psionic abilities. As a result of spending long periods of time without consuming food, their digestive systems had atrophied. For that reason, whenever they were outside of the Astral Plane, gith'yanki required frequent meals, often rich in meat. In addition, they found the gravity of Prime Material worlds uncomfortable.
Gith'yanki reproduced by laying eggs. It was unknown whether this trait had been acquired during their period of enslavement or as a result of exposure to the Astral Plane.
SOCIETY
Githyanki society was extremely well organized and orderly. It had a martial and meritocratic structure, with no regard for blood ties, and with both males and females training heavily in magic and combat. Although they were loyal to each other, they were also fiercely individualistic. Raiding illithid strongholds was considered a rite of passage.
Githyanki society was divided into three main castes. Although rigid, there was the possibility of moving between castes through intense competition. The major caste was the military, followed by the smaller
mlar, who was in charge of crafts and specialized tasks, and the
g'lathk, who was in charge of food production and labour.
Within each of the castes, there were further subdivisions according to specialized professions. The military caste included the
knights and the
warriors within the military hierarchy, in addition to the
gish and other spellcasters.
The
mlar were responsible for the construction of weapons, including
silver swords, and
astral ships. They were also in charge of constructing and repairing all gith'yanki buildings and tools, as well as the occasional art piece.
Mlar used their psionic abilities to replicate the effects of the fabricate, stone shape, and wall of stone spells, as well as other unique abilities to decorate and repair structures at a much higher efficiency than that of a regular worker.
The
g'lathk were most closely associated with farmers, although their main ability was to induce food growth in the Astral Plane, where nothing grew. Some channelled their psionic abilities to grow a type of fungus that required no sunlight, while others harvested an edible substance that grew only on the bodies of the god-isles. A third group cultivated plants and animals in tanks of magically treated water. This caste did not receive a lot of respect from other members of gith'yanki society, despite their importance. They were always found in small numbers, given that the gith'yanki only required food while outside of the Astral Plane.
Some gith'yanki specialized in manipulating the raw energy of the Astral Plane for various purposes. Known as
hr'a'cknir, they worked as healers, seers, and as helpers to the mlar, depending on the type of energy they specialized in.
- The ghustil were healers, specialized in channeling Astral energy into effects similar to cure wounds and remove curse, among others. Their abilities were crucial since natural healing did not work in the Astral Plane.
- The var'ith'n were responsible for converting energy into materials that the mlar could use to build special structures, such as astral ships.
- The senja'si were seers, focused on concentrating Astral energy into abilities similar to clairaudience/clairvoyance and legend lore.
- The y'rn specialized in transportation. They were capable of teleporting large amounts of material within the Astral Plane.
CITIES AND COMMUNITIES
In the timeless Astral Plane, the gith'yanki inhabited numerous fortresses constructed from materials imported to the plane, as well as cities built upon god-isles, the corpses of dead deities that could be found throughout the Astral Plane. Their largest residences were massive, lavishly decorated castles that, owing to the xenophobic nature of gith'yanki, were usually avoided by other creatures in the Astral Plane. These fortresses were sometimes as large as cities and were the centres of gith'yanki commerce and manufacturing.
Within their communities, gith'yanki typically lived alone, unless they chose to share their dwellings with someone close. Since there were no family units, those bonds were most common among training partners.
The gith'yanki capital and largest city,
Tu'narath, was built on the corpse of a deceased power known only as
The One in the Void. The most important commercial city was
Githmir, also the most cosmopolitan of gith'yanki communities. Other cities of note were
T'n'rekris and
Xamvadi'm, which were notorious rivals. Most of the gith'yanki population, however, lived in countless, much smaller communities scattered across the Astral Plane.
RELIGION
There was no religion in gith'yanki society. Their culture was too strongly based on individuality for any organized religion to thrive. Moreover, as a civilization that built its cities on top of the corpses of deities, they had difficulty recognizing divinity. However, they revered Vlaakith almost to the level of religious worship, and the lich-queen herself destroyed any gith'yanki who would start following another deity. For that reason, gith'yanki clerics existed, but were extremely rare and had to live in hiding.
The closest the gith'yanki had to religious figures were the knights, whose devotion to Vlaakith was comparable to that of paladins, even granting them a few powers similar to those of a paladin, such as
detect good,
cause disease, and
protection from good. Since Vlaakith was not a true deity, they did not receive spells or powers against undead.
RAIDS
The central aspect of gith'yanki society was its culture of plunder. Their ultimate goal, under Vlaakith, was to treat all worlds of the Material Plane as the gith'yanki's gardens, which they could loot at will and bring the spoils to their home in the Astral Plane, where they would never have to worry about food, water, and other concerns that were considered to be beneath them. The secondary goal was to root out and destroy as many illithid colonies as they could find, so illithid hunting parties were common. Since mind flayers were usually well hidden, gith'yanki warriors in the Material Plane were in a state of constant readiness for combat.
Participation in raids was seen as a great honour, met with excitement and anticipation by all members of gith'yanki society. Raiders expected to honour Vlaakith's will by maximizing plundering and the destruction left in their wake.
Raids were organized by the opening of
gates into a Material Plane world by Vlaakith herself, who could hold it open long enough for thousands of soldiers and tens of sky-ships to pass through in tight formation.
Raiding ships consisted of different kinds of flying ships operated by
spelljamming helms, whose technology the gith'yanki obtained from the mind flayers' nautiloids. Typical gith'yanki fleets consisted of small astral skiffs, capable of carrying about a dozen passengers; larger astral brigs that were more heavily armed and could carry up to 60 passengers; and a few planar raiders, their largest ships that could transport up to 100 passengers and served as their mobile headquarters during the raid. Each ship was usually piloted by a gish. Supreme commanders usually rode their red dragons into battle.
Raiding ships also frequently engaged in hunting, in particular astral whales, which were used as an additional source of food for raiding parties outside of the Astral. They sometimes also hunted other powerful creatures, such as astral devas, dhours, foo creatures, and shedim. They never hunted astral dreadnoughts.
The faction of gith'yanki society that remained most loyal to their original project of revenge against the mind flayers was known as the
gul'othran. They were usually the first responders whenever an illithid threat was detected, and they usually organized their main offensives on illithid colonies outside of the Astral Plane. Their ultimate goal, however, was to eliminate the illithid threat by conquest, permanently occupying worlds they invaded in order to prevent mind flayers from ever presenting a threat to those worlds again. Their goals differed from the rest of gith'yanki society, in the sense that they sought permanent conquest instead of mere plunder.
FAMILY AND PARENTING
Since it was impossible to age while in the Astral Plane, gith'yanki needed to hatch their eggs and raise their young in other planes of existence until they reached maturity. This difficulty, added with the gith'yanki's extremely long lifespan while in the Astral, led to a very low birth rate. Their favoured locations to raise and train young gith'yanki were hidden crèches located in remote places of the Prime Material Plane. There, caretakers known as
varsh were responsible for hatching the eggs and collectively raising the young. The length of an egg's stay in the Material Plane was timed carefully so that all eggs in a clutch hatched simultaneously. There were no families in gith'yanki society.
From a very young age, githyanki went through a rigid regime of training and combat practice, with increasingly higher expectations and more severe punishments, all the while hearing tales of Vlaakith and her immortal warriors. Fights to the death during training were not uncommon. Finally, at the conclusion of a young githyanki's training, the last test was to slay a mind flayer and bring its head to Vlaakith in Tu'narath. This rite of passage marked the githyanki's entry into adulthood and into the community.
RELATIONSHIPS
As a people, gith'yanki were generally proud and xenophobic. They viewed all other races with contempt and were generally unwilling to learn anything about other cultures, including other languages. They viewed Material Plane–dwellers as ignorant and incompetent, or, in worse cases, as potential slaves. They could only bring themselves to use magic items not of gith'yanki design if they were extremely powerful, and even then by rationalizing that any such items must have been designed with gith'yanki knowledge to begin with. It was uncommon, but not impossible, for a gith'yanki to overcome the prejudices of its people and start regarding others with respect.
A small contingent of red dragons served high-ranking gith'yanki as mounts and companions, following a treaty established with Sinainea early on in their history. They served their riders dutifully and without complaining or offering advice, which kept them outside of githyanki politics. Typically, the dragons served the gith'yanki during their young age, stationed at Tu'narath waiting to be dispatched on raids or as guards protecting their
crèches in the Prime Material Plane. As soon as they reached adulthood, the red dragons were dismissed, keeping the wealth accumulated over their years of service. They were then replaced by younger dragons, who were recruited by gith'yanki promising large treasures and long lives.
Since dragons did not age while in the Astral Plane, their preferred postings were those that allowed them to spend the most time in the Material Plane, such as overlooking crèches or participating in raids as frequently as possible. Some dragons forged a particularly strong mental bond with their riders, which turned the pair into a deadly weapon.
Gul'othran dragon riders preferred to bond with dragons native to the Material Plane, while
Tu'narathi dragon riders, who were in charge of defending the city of Tu'narath, tended to prefer to bond with red dragons native to the Astral Plane.
The dragons resented their time of servitude, but were easily convinced to participate in raids by the promise of treasure and of growing in power. The terms of the treaty forbade the githyanki to influence the dragons' behavior with psionics, but the dragons remained loyal as long as they were treated respectfully and were given ample opportunities to pillage. Although not all red dragons participated in the alliance with the githyanki, most did not consider them as enemies.
A common trait among all gith'yanki was their burning hatred of mind flayers and githzerai. They never ignored an opportunity to harm either, but were not above teaming up with gith'zerai against the illithids, their common enemy. In addition, gith'yanki generally abhorred flumphs and attacked them on sight.
DISSIDENTS
There was a small sect within githyanki society that fostered a reunification between the gith'yanki and the gith'zerai, known as the
Sha'sal Khou. Led by
Zetch'r'r from his stronghold in Tu'narath and composed of both gith'yanki and gith'zerai agents, the group acted by discouraging skirmishes between the two gith races, while at the same time looking for new recruits. The group maintained redoubts in the Prime Material Plane and hoped to build a nation where members of both races would call their children simply "
Gith".
Another gith'yanki sect broke off from their hierarchy at the time of the founding of Tu'narath. Pledging to never give up their freedom and mobility, the group, which became known as the far travelers, adopted a nomadic lifestyle of raiding and pillaging, living aboard their ships and never settling down in any location. Cut off from the rest of githyanki society, the far travelers did not participate in the pact with red dragons and did not have access to silver swords, but they still honored the rest of their race by sending annual tributes to Tu'narath.
HISTORY
The origin of the gith race before their enslavement was largely unknown. Not even the original name of the race was remembered, but it was referred to by some as "
the forerunners". Some sources claimed that they were originally humans from a world called
Pharagos. In all accounts, the forerunners had at some point become slaves of the illithids, a race devoted to mentally dominating sentient humanoids to work as the backbone of their vast empire, and were transformed through selective breeding and genetic experiments for several millennia.
After eventually developing mental resistance to their masters' mind control, the slaves revolted. Led by
Gith, the several rebellious factions united, thus causing the fall of the illithid empire.
Not satisfied with regaining their freedom and splintering the illithids' empire, Gith advocated for a campaign of total annihilation of the mind flayers and the subsequent destruction of any race that could potentially enslave them again. However, a faction within the society fostered peace, arguing that the race should focus on rebuilding their society in seclusion instead of persisting in a tyrannical conflict. Led by
Zerthimon, the splinter faction started undermining the gith'yanki's war efforts.[19] After a long civil war, Zerthimon was killed and the gith'yanki moved to the Astral Plane. The defeated faction, who called themselves
githzerai, retreated to Limbo. A third faction chose to relocate to wildspace to hunt down spacefaring mind flayers. They were known as the
Pirates of Gith.
In the aftermath of the civil war, the once-slave race had been splintered into the gith'yanki and the gith'zerai, the latter of whom were hated by the githyanki because their betrayal allowed the surviving illithids to retreat to isolated subterranean strongholds. The two races then began pursuing their separate agendas, but they grew a deep hatred of each other and were at war ever since.
In the first years after their independence, the githyanki started experimenting with breeding dogs in their colonies in the Material Plane in order to create a species that could aid them in their war effort against the mind flayers. This effort culminated with the creation of the breed of gith dogs known as the
kaoulgrim, a race of vicious bear-like dogs that excelled at detecting and hunting illithids.
Years after their exile in the Astral Plane, during the continuing war with the illithids, Gith's advisor,
Vlaakith I, suggested that she search for allies in the Outer Planes, in particular from Sincainea. Gith agreed to visit the Nine Hells for an audience, but never returned. Instead, the red dragon envoy
Ephelomon returned with a pledge from Sincainea that all red dragons would be allies to the gith'yanki and that a small contingent of red dragons would serve them as steeds. The envoy also decreed that Vlaakith I and her descendants would rule the gith'yanki in Gith's stead. Vlaakith I also played a crucial role in securing the githyanki's position in the Astral Plane. Ephelomon remained Vlaakith's consort ever since.
The latest descendant of the Vlaakith bloodline was
Vlaakith CLVII (157th), the
Lich-Queen, who had no heirs. She was the first of her line to follow the path of lichdom, feeding off the souls of her most powerful knights. She also secretly aspired to ascend to godhood by capturing the spark of divinity from
The One in the Void. She was supported by a small sect of sycophants known as the
ch'r'ai. After approximately 1,000 years of repeatedly casting wish spells for that purpose, she believed to be close to her goal, but some
hr'a'cknir foresaw that the deity would instead awaken and destroy Tu'narath.
Vlaakith also devised a method to infuse red dragon blood into newborn githyanki, which resulted in the creation of a new hybrid race known as the
duthka'gith. Generally despised by the rest of githyanki society, the duthka'gith served as elite shock warriors and palace guards.
