Gith (race)

The gith were a race of humanoids who had been enslaved by mind flayers for countless generations. Some sages claimed that they were once descended from humans,  while others maintained that their original race was in fact unknown. After breaking free from their enslavement, philosophical differences led to a bitter internal conflict, which divided the gith into two main different races at constant odds with each other: the githyanki and the githzerai.

"The githyanki and the githzerai were so profoundly scarred by their enslavement to the mind flayers that they forget they were one race, united. Having won their freedom, they wage war against each other with a hatred none can fully comprehend."

- Aristul the Yellow

Description
Gith were tall and emaciated-looking humanoids. They had pale yellow skin, sometimes with greenish or brownish tones. Their skulls were long and angular, with deep-set eyes, flattened noses, and pointed, serrated ears. Typical hair colors included black, red, russet, and sometimes gray.

Society
The gith were an utterly sundered race. Divided by generations of conflict and ideological differences, the two main sects of the gith people regarded each other with nothing but contempt, hate, and wariness. The intense hatred that divided the race was further exploited and amplified by the mind flayers themselves, who kept spies in both githyanki and githzerai communities tasked with stoking their ancient rivalries.

However, a splinter faction of renegade githyanki and githzerai known as the Sha'sal Khou sought to overcome the differences between the two races and bring them together as a single people. They worked secretly within the two races discouraging violence against each other in the hopes of becoming able to call their people simply "gith".

Two other subraces existed among the gith:
 * The isolationist pirates of Gith chose to remain in the Prime Material plane and did not follow their cousins into the Astral Plane or Limbo. Instead, they chose a lifestyle of piracy in wildspace, although they retained their extremely militarized society.
 * The githvyrik, a small group of gith who did not identify as either githyanki or githzerai.

Language
The githyanki and the githzerai each spoke their own dialect of the Gith language, which used a unique form of writing called tir'su. It was an alphabetical set of runes in which words were formed in circles instead of linearly, with the letters of a given word linked in a ring. Githyanki arranged the characters clockwise from the top, while githzerai arranged them counter-clockwise from the bottom. Sentences were formed by a series of these rings.

Origins
The ancient origin of the gith was clouded in mystery. Even the name of that original race, which some referred to as "the forerunners", was lost to time. Some sources claimed that they were originally humans from a world called Pharagos, located in an unknown crystal sphere that had been conquered by the illithids during the expansion of their empire, and who had been slowly altered by the mind flayers' genetic experiments. Others claimed that they might have been created by the illithids themselves through mixing humanoid hosts with powers from the Far Realm.

It had been suggested that the enslavement of the gith and the duergar happened during the early expansion of the mind flayer empire. Whether the gith were human or some unknown humanoid race, centuries of servitude and selective breeding changed them considerably. In a practical sense, the gith were in fact made by the mind flayers.

Although revolts were not uncommon among the mind flayers' slaves, for a long time they posed no challenge. However, over time some slaves developed some resistance against their masters' mind control and started secretly improving their psionic abilities. When they judged that the time was right, the forerunners, under the guidance of their leader Gith, revolted in an unprecedented uprising, causing a chain reaction that culminated in the death of countless elder brains and ushered the downfall of the entire illithid empire. In less than a year, the devastation brought the mind flayers to the brink of extinction and forced the surviving enclaves into hiding, a downfall from which they never fully recovered.

Civil War and Separation
Soon after conquering their freedom, Gith ordered the continuation of the war effort. The mind flayers were to be hunted down to the last one and the gith were to establish a new empire based on conquest. At this point, Zerthimon, a gith who had gathered a significant following during the fight for freedom, challenged Gith's leadership and her motives, arguing that she would end up leading the people into a similar tyranny that their former masters enforced.

The disagreement led to a violent civil war among the gith. Zerthimon was killed, and his followers, who called themselves "githzerai" (meaning "those who spurn Gith" in the Gith language ), retreated to Limbo in defeat–but not before dealing substantial damage to Gith's forces, which could no longer sustain a continuing campaign against the mind flayers. This internal struggle gave sufficient time for the surviving mind flayers to retreat and hide in well defended underground locations.

Gith led her surviving followers, who at this point started calling themselves "githyanki" (meaning "children of Gith" ), to the former illithid settlements in the Astral Plane, where they could regroup and gather their strength in order to resume their plans of conquering the entire multiverse, as well as exterminating both the mind flayers and the githzerai.

Thus, the two divided races remained bitter enemies that constantly thwarted each other's plans. The githyanki expanded their conquering efforts to include raids into githzerai strongholds. The githzerai, while also deploying missions to root out and destroy illithid settlements, maintained a steady effort to oppose the githyanki militaristic expansion. This enduring conflict prevented either race from obtaining a decisive victory against the mind flayers and brought the conflict to a stalemate.

Notable Gith

 * Al'chaia, the githyanki leader of the Stardock crèche in the late 15 century DR.
 * Vhostym, a githvyrik.
 * Yrlakka, a githzerai member of the Sha'sal Khou.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage
 * Novels
 * Dawn of Night