Gith (race)

The gith were a race of humanoids who had been enslaved by mind flayers for countless generations. Although some sages claimed that they were once descended from humans, 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.

Society
The gith were an utterly sundered race. Divided by generations of conflict and ideological differences, the tho sects of the gith people regarded each other with nothing but contempt, hate, and weariness.

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".

A third subrace 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.

Origins
The ancient origin of the gith was clouded in mystery. Even the name of that original race was lost to time, as some referred to it as "the forerunners". Some claimed that they were originally humans from 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.

Although revolts were not uncommon among the mind flayers' slaves, for a long time they posed no challenge. However, over time some slaves developed mental resistance to their masters' mind control and started secretly improving their psionic abilities. When they judged that the time was right, the gith, 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. 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 that the war continued. 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 continued campaign against the mind flayers.

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 until they could regroup and gather their strength in order to resume their plans of conquering the entire multiverse and 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 divided 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.

Appearances

 * Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage