Githzerai

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Dungeons & Dragons creature
Githzerai
Alignment Neutral
Type Humanoid
Subtype Extraplanar
Source books
First appearance Fiend Folio (1981)

In the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, githzerai are extraplanar humanoid creatures, that reside on the Plane of Limbo.

Contents

[edit] Publication history

The githzerai were created by Charles Stross for the Fiend Folio Tome of Creatures Malevolent and Benign (1981). They were originally introduced as monsters, but they are a playable character race in the Planescape campaign setting, and have been detailed further in D&D 3.0 and 3.5.

[edit] Licensing

The githzerai is considered a "Product Identity" by Wizards of the Coast and as such is not released under its Open Gaming License.[1]

[edit] Description

Githzerai look very human, though they are thinner and their skin tone is frequently gray or yellowish. They are, on average, six feet in height and about one hundred sixty pounds in weight. Most have a high natural resistance to magic. Most Githzerai roaming the Planes are either monks, mages or rogues. Combinations thereof are also possible. They seldom become priests. Instead of worshipping a god—a form of slavery, in their opinion—they revere the memory of their ancient hero, Zerthimon. His followers call themselves zerth.

Unlike their relatives the githyanki, the githzerai do not normally fight with weapons, nor do they utilize long-distance psionic attacks against their enemies. Rather, the githzerai prefer to bring the "good fight" to their enemies—typically meaning the githyanki and the illithids. Their combat abilities—including their psionic powers—are geared more toward unarmed combat, hence the large number of githzerai who become warrior monks. Githzerai often organize war parties called rrakkma for the explicit purpose of hunting illithids. A rrakkma does not return from such an excursion until it has killed at least as many illithids as there are githzerai in the war party.

[edit] History

The ancestors of the githzerai (the "forerunners") were once slaves to the illithids, a race of powerful telepaths who mentally enslaved sentient humanoids to work as the backbone of their vast worlds-spanning empire. It is believed these slaves were originally humans transformed through selective breeding. Eventually, these slaves developed mental resistance to their masters' mind control and, under the guidance of their leader Gith, revolted; thus did the greatest empire the universe ever see fall.

Gith, however, was not satisfied with the destruction of the illithids alone, and sought to spread the war to any race that could potentially enslave her people again. She was opposed in this endeavor by the followers of Zerthimon, who believed that such a path would lead their people to corruption and ruin. Thus, at the Pronouncement of Two Skies, the gith race factionalized into the githyanki and the githzerai, the former of whom settled in the astral plane.

[edit] Githzerai in other media

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Frequently Asked Questions. D20srd.org. Retrieved on 2007-02-23.

[edit] References

[edit] External links


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