Category Archives: gith

Wandering Monsters: Heirs of Gith

Though I have played a githzerai monk in 4th Edition and used gith in a low-level Dark Sun campaign (also 4th Edition), most of my exposure to things gith-related comes from Planescape: Torment’s Dak’kon, and I am not even sure how much that–or even this–adheres to the “official” lore dispersed within a myriad of Planescape supplements.

While part of the reason I have yet to really use them is that not many games I run get to either the Astral Sea or Elemental Chaos, another major factor is that like so many other humanoid races they are incredibly underwhelming, confusing, and at times contradictory.

Taking it from the top, I guess they used to be a race of evil humans. I do not know why they were all universally evil, but this is apparently significant enough to note. Mind flayers conquered them somehow, for some reason, and bred them to be warriors and bodyguards. This caused them to gradually change physically, and they developed psionic powers that either the mind flayers did not notice, or figured that psychic warriors were underpowered anyway, so who cares. Eventually they freed themselves and split into two separate monster entries.

So, basically the mind flayers somehow conquered an entire race of humans, who were all evil, mind you, and then they bred the entire race into warriors? When your default Intelligence and Wisdom scores both clock in at the high teens, I guess I assumed that it granted you a considerable degree of reason and foresight, both things that this line of action seems to lack.

Moving on, the githzerai decided to move to Limbo/The Elemental Chaos, where they all live in fortress monasteries, again, for some reason. They also abide by rules and schedules strict enough to frustrate a modron. They hate githyanki and mind flayers so much that they build monasteries in the Prime Material/natural world to stage raids against both (the former of which also builds fortresses in the Prime Material/natural world).

Why? Why are they still fighting? What does either side have to gain from this? This is not a “rich” history. It just feels flat and forced, like they are constantly going well out of their to fight each other–I imagine interplanar portals are not cheap to make or maintain–just because. They are literally worlds apart, and they still cannot move past this? Do they not have better things to do or worry about?

Githyanki are not any better. They moved to the Astral Plane/Astral Sea again, which might be more inhospitable than Limbo/The Elemental Chaos, somehow made a deal with Tiamat on red dragons, and are still evil because. The bit about silver swords I can actually get behind, maybe, if only because of their association with the Astral Plane/Astral Sea. Mind you, I think it is silly to exclude them from githzerai due to an emphasis on “martial arts”, given that in 4th Edition at least monks got a lot of mileage out of weapons.

Really this article just served to bring to the forefront everything wrong with both…races? Should they be separate races? I do not think so. At best I would go with subraces, but I think that they are different enough culturally to make do. Of course, I would also not shunt the majority into alternate dimensions and make them keep fighting each other for no discernible reason. If I really wanted to go that route, I would plop them both on the same plane and give them something to fight for, which should not be hard given that there are plenty of instances in our history where two ideals clash.

The Heirs of Ruin, Play Report 8

The characters arrived at South Ledopolos and met with the Stoneblood clan to inform them about the fate of Baranus. They buried his bones and held a wake, telling stories and drinking drinks the likes of which could even get a dwarf drunk. Branor asked about any legends concerning the purported city to the west, and got some stock-legend tropes about it once being a great dwarf city that was destroyed during a great war. If nothing else, it reinforced the fact that something was out there. Maximus met with a former war buddy of his, who–after hearing about him being tried with treason, the murdered family, and having to flee Balic–offered him a job cleaning gith out of a cave that he strongly suspected contained silver.

Seeing as they were preparing a trip to the Giant’s Rib Mountains, he figured that extra coin couldn’t hurt.

The next day after their hangovers were cured they set out for the nearby hills, but quickly got caught in a sandstorm. While waiting it out they saw would could only be described as a massive chunk of ground drift overhead, and though the storm soon ended they were quickly spotted by foraging jhakars. They killed the jhakars and scavenged them for survival days before pressing on. After another hour of climbing–or teleporting in the case of the shardmind–they found a cave entrance sealed by a boulder, with a strange symbol painted on it. Being seasoned grave robbers adventurers, they moved the boulder and soon realized from the smell that it was a tomb containing a trio of gith mummies. 
Though their touch prevented Maximus from healing Branor–who was toe-to-toe with all three of them–they were able to rapidly destroy them, and once they got it down to one Sardis just marked it with her aegis and kept away, making it very difficult to land any additional hits. Later I realized that I had intended them for a party of three, and with five people I really should have added a fourth. Oh well, easy 750 XP for them. My main regret is that no one contracted mummy rot.