In the Dragon article that previewed the githzerai race from the upcoming Player’s Handbook 3, the designers stated that the Githyanki were not being developed as a PC race due to their villainous nature and they feel the drow has taken up the available real estate for a villainous race in 4th Edition.
James Wyatt: “The githzerai’s evil kin are great villains, and we want to be careful about how often we turn villain races into player character options. Making the drow a playable race spent a lot of that currency, and we don’t want to overdo it.”
Mike Mearls: “While sometimes it’s fun to play against stereotypes, we don’t want every villainous race to go the way of the drow.”
This is an argument that I agreed with originally, but the more I’ve thought about it the more I begin to dislike the argument. When it comes to the core books for a game system, especially with a brand like D&D, a lot of attention needs to be paid to the racial balance and how that effects the game. The drow are the obvious first choice to fill the iconic “villainous race gone good” conceptual space, but I believe once you get further into a system and provide more abundant choices the concern of overloading a player with too many options for villainous races greatly diminishes.
While the drow may be the iconic D&D villainous race, your average DM running in a custom campaign setting may be just as likely to have a githyanki PC as any other monstrous race. This argument is inspired by the fact that in my current game one of my players (Joshx0rfz) has been playing a githyanki for 14 levels and his choice of that race has added a great deal to my campaign, the world it is played in, and the ongoing plots of the game. For the designers of D&D to say that the drow has taken up certain real estate is meaningless with regards to my game world, and unfortunately as a result anyone playing a githyanki has less options for feats and paragon paths than other races.
Even beyond my own campaign world, I feel that the “bad race gone good” concept can be approached from more directions than how it is handled with the drow and the githyanki are one of the best representations of this. In researching more about the races, githyanki are at least faithful to their own kind whereas the drow will kill their own family in service to lolth and the githyanki have some strong and definitive personality traits that can play really well as an adventurer. Though I had hoped the githyanki would be represented in the PHB3, I can understand limited print space and the restrictions of publishing, however the above argument scares me that Wizards may not be planning to release a full write-up for the githyanki any time soon. That’s why I am going to create my own!
Githyanki
Xenophobic and militaristic, these warrior people are both dedicated and fierce
Use the githyanki racial traits found in the back of the Monster Manual with the following changes:
Skill Bonuses: +2 History, +2 Insight (added Insight)
Danger Sense: You have a +2 racial bonus to initiative checks. (added ‘racial’ to the bonus)
It was through bloody uprising that the gith people earned their freedom from their mind flayer overlords, and that spirit of uprising lives on in the githyanki. Despite their common heritage with the githzerai, very few traits still link the two races. After fleeing to the Astral Sea, the githyanki cherish the strength and organization that led their ancestors to freedom and share a collective belief that their kind have truly earned their freedom among the stars. After centuries of militaristic upbringing, many githyanki have become xenophobic and cruel as they sail the currents of the astral sea and set up strongholds between the domains of the gods. While the githzerai contemplate and seek their place in the universe through meditation, the githyanki know their rightful place from birth to be at the top of all things.
Play a githyanki if you want…
- to be a calculating, commanding leader who has strong planar ties
- to have a strong will and natural telekinetic powers
- to be a member of a race that favors the Artificer, Swordmage, and Warlock or slightly favors the Battlemind, Psion, and Wizard
Physical Qualities
Similar in physical appearance to the githzerai, the githyanki are taller than humans and extremely gaunt but muscular. They also share the same angular features, pointed ears, deep set eyes, and flattened noses set high on their faces. Their skin tends toward yellow tones, though the githyanki have skin that shades occasionally into brown or orange. All githyanki have dark patterns of spots on their skin, typically around the eyes and along the shoulders, elbows, and knees. Githyanki typically have long hair, accentuated by braids inlaid with metalwork and gems. Both genders let the majority of the hair flow freely or tie it to stick out in large tufts. Githyanki hair is typically black, but red and brown sometimes occur.
Githyanki clothing reflects their militaristic lifestyle, often as a makeshift combination of cloth and armor adorned with ornate designs and jewelry. They are often seen wearing wrapped or draped cloths with pieces of finely worked metal used as pauldrons and chestplates worn over top, and they take great pride in their metal working particularly of silver and gold. Most githyanki express themselves through designs in their armor, weapons, and wearing piercings or jewelry in their hair.
Githyanki use a unique form of circular rune based writing called tir’su, and they speak deep speech as a result of years of slavery at the hands of mind flayers. Githyanki live about as long as humans.
Playing a Githyanki
Githyanki do not have families, instead they are a part of a military cadre that they belong to from birth. Details and names of parents and siblings are unknown and considered meaningless in comparison to the integrity of a military training unit. Nothing is easily given to a githyanki during the first years of life, as the young must learn to seek out and obtain what they desire by the most efficient means. Often their efforts involve a weapon, one of the most important possessions of a githyanki and the primary instrument in their pursuit of conquest. Most githyanki set out from their citadels and sail across the astral sea, or even the other worlds, searching for treasure and relics to add to their holdings.
Although the githyanki are often cruel and disdainful towards outsiders, their militaristic culture includes a strange sense of honor and duty that results in a rigid mindset focused on the greater good of their race. It is a rare occurrence for githyanki to attack another of their race, and it is equally as rare for a githyanki to stand by or not take action when their people are in danger. The result is a small number of githyanki that have worked with outsiders to eliminate threats to the members of the cadre or to the citadel in which they live. A few accounts have been recorded of githyanki that adventure with groups made up of other races forming unique psychic bonds that allows them to relay commands and messages in the midst of combat with short phrases or gestures, much like the bond a githyanki commander will form with their githyanki subordinates.
A cunning and direct race, their culture is built upon the idea that whatever is taken by force has been earned by merit. To a githyanki any obstacle, no matter how large, is simply a challenge to be overcome through greater intellect and perseverence. While a member of a different race may never be able to earn the respect of a githyanki, a certain level of military or intellectual prowess may earn the trust of a githyanki for a time. Githyanki attack mind flayers on sight and are often most cruel toward their githzerai kin.
All githyanki know that their eventual fate lies at the feet of their lich-queen as she consumes the souls of the most powerful of their race. While most githyanki accept this as their duty and service to the race, some will naturally view it as yet another obstacle to be surmounted. Building a life as an adventurer outside of the astral sea may seem like the best escape from fate, but the servants of the lich-queen cannot be avoided forever.
Githyanki Characteristics: calculating, cruel, disciplined, intolerant, militant, organized, suspicious, terse, vengeful
Male Names: Glathk, Hra’cknir, Ilzin, Klar, Lel, Merzim, Ral, Ru’kal, Sar’yel
Female Names: Alith, Laathik, Mlara, Pari, Rad’na, Uzera, Ythenu
Githyanki Adventurers
Three sample githyanki adventurers are described below.
Lel is a githyanki swordmage who was nearly killed when his cadre was defeated by a group of rrathmal githzerai. Instead of putting him to death, the githzerai trained Lel in their enlightened path and educated him in how to survive a soul rending death at the hands of his lich-queen Vlaakith. After returning home, Lel approached Vlaakith and sacrificed himself to her. He did not die, however, at least not entirely. Using the psychic methods of the githzerai a shred of Lel’s essence was preserved in the husk of his body and for the first time in known history a githyanki escaped the lich-queen’s grasp. Descending from the astral sea to the material world, Lel awoke in an unknown land to a new life of adventure. Combining the training of the githzerai with his githyanki upbringing, Lel took to seeking further enlightenment as an arcane sword-master vowing one day to return and free the rest of his people from their bond of servitude to Vlaakith.
Mlara, a githyanki star pact warlock, narrowly avoided death as her home citadel was ransacked by a group of rogue angels and maruts. Had it not been for her mysterious pact mentor’s warning, she surely would have died with all of her kin. Floating between worlds in the astral sea, Mlara was picked up by a group of adventurers. She had decided that picking her up was their mistake, but quickly changed her mind when she discovered the objective of the rogue angels and maruts. They were part of a cult trying to resurrect the dead god on which the githyanki capital city of Tu’narath rests and the adventurers had been working to stop them. It seemed Mlara would need their help to protect the entire githyanki race.
Glathk is a young githyanki warlord who was on an early mission into the material plane to establish a scouting post. Unfortunately his groups entrance into the material world was noticed by a group of aberrant foulspawn that tagged along and caused havoc amongst their ranks. Glathk later found himself as the only survivor of his cadre, stranded in the material world, and suffering from a strange form of nausea. His headaches quickly grew into strange psychic feedback that only ceased when he wandered into a nearby settlement. Cursed by his exposure to the Far Realm and by his exile from the Astral Sea, Glathk’s only respite from psychic backlash could be found in the presence of intelligent beings of what he considered lesser races. It wasn’t long before the foulspawn exploited the tear between worlds again and assaulted the settlement where Glathk was living. As the meek guards of the town began to falter before the aberrant creatures, Glathk jumped to their aid and organized a glorious defense of the town. Inspired and motivated by his latent psychic leadership, the town guards exalted Glathk as their savior and champion and the githyanki found a new calling in life as a protector of lesser races. At least until he could remove the curse of the far realm.
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Please let me know what you think of this write up for the githyanki race, and share any stories you have of them in your own games!
Write up some feats and a PP and submit it to Dragon ;p Maybe we can see some official support!
highbulp: I’m definitely planning to write up feats and a PP, not sure if I’ll submit them to Dragon since I’m publishing most of them here but I probably will anyway! Thanks!
I can understand not wanting to put them in the PHB3. There are a variety of reasons they might not want to do so. Not developing them as a PC race because of the Drow, though, makes no sense. Many people don’t like Drow… and Drow are wholly inappropriate for many campaigns. Alternatives are nice.
I partially agree with Stuart – I would have liked to have seen the race appear in PHB3, but not including Githyanki because of Drow seems a weak excuse – particularly as I DM to a Drow Ranger in one of my campaigns. I enjoy having the occasional monster race as a PC in a D&D Campaign, and I would have no problem DMing to a Gith. As a monster race, they have been one of my favs since they first appeared in the Fiend Folio (1st ed).
@Bart: I like your start on building a PC Githyanki, and I can’t wait to see the Feats and the Paragon Path you come up with!
.-= Neuroglyph´s last blog ..Gearing up for PAX East =-.
Hi!
Excuse the really basic questions. I haven’t played 4th edition yet, though I’m really curious how it has developed. I’m an old 1st and 2nd edition player getting re-interested in D&D.
Again, excuse the basic questions. When did the Drow become good? Also, are players in 4th ed discouraged from playing evil characters?
I’ve been really enjoying the blog. Thanks!
Doesn’t the Minotaur kind of blow their argument out of the water? I would certainly consider them a monster race.
I would imagine WotC would be open to developing Githyanki as a PC race in Dragon magazine.
Stuart, Neuroglyph: As I said in the post at first I agreed with their argument, because you really don’t want a party full of cliche “my race is evil but i’m a good guy now!” characters running around. But with regards to a system where a lot of people make up their own worlds, I see a definite need for support for a wider set of races. Also thanks for the comments! I’ll be finishing up the feats and PP and maybe some other things soon.
Tom: Basic questions are perfectly fine here! The drow are still very clearly an evil race, but the racial write up is clearly (and it makes sense for it to be) geared towards playing a drow that has turned away from their people and lolth. Players in 4th Edition are probably more discouraged from playing an evil character than in older editions, but that’s probably just because of the swing towards emphasizing the “heroism” of the players. That’s not to say you can’t play an evil character, Dave’s game had an evil cleric for the first few levels (and still has some questionable ones :P), but I would bet the large majority of players in 4E are playing good or neutral characters.
Kelsey: The minotaur is more of a monstrous race, whereas the drow are clearly in the villainous race category. There’s a fine line there, and it really doesn’t matter all that much, but I suppose the distinction is that you’ll find a LOT more neutral minotaurs then you will find neutral drow and slightly higher numbers when it comes to those of good alignment. Githyanki and drow can almost all be lumped into the evil category, whereas minotaurs are more of a savage-but-generally-neutral monster.
I have to agree that the Githyanki need a PC writeup and this one is very well done. I have always preferred the Githyanki over the Githzerai anyway. I suspect somewhere down the line WotC will released a villianous PC race book.
Minotaurs have slightly done a shift in perception with WoW and the Tauren. Alot of newer players see them as a primal race and not a truly evil one.
That makes sense, thanks for the info!
Nice write-up! I seriously hadn’t really thought about Githyanki in awhile, and was just looking into them again based on the dungeons I’m designing for the next few sessions of the campaign. A PC race is neat, but this also gives me ideas for Githyanki NPCs, which is awesome. I always like turning the combat from “We’re monsters! Let’s fight!” to “We’re real people! Consider carefully your actions here.”
As far as evil races, I really feel like WotC would prefer DnD to be a game of good heroes, rather than a game of choices. With the changes in the alignment system, and most of the races and quests geared towards good characters, it seems like a sort of gentle push in that direction. So I’m not surprised that they’re finding excuses to leave behind evil races for PCs.
Awesome write up and like the others I can’t wait to see what feats and PP you come up with. When I get my 4e Planescape campaign up and running, I’ll definitely be directing them here for more info.
(Oh, but one tiny nit to pick – first paragraph of the physical qualities is repetitive. A quick edit can clean that up easily.)
Ken Marable: Thanks for the nit-picking and compliments, something got copied a second time in writing/editing, I cleaned it up. Thanks again!
Remember, they have to save some races for PHB4… and 5… and 6… One set I’d like to see made into PC races is the Goblinoids. In Eberron there is a goblin nation. I’m playing a Bugbear warlord from house Deneith (they sometimes adopt mercenaries who serve them well) and I’d like to have more support to flesh out the feel. He’s a student of history and I can see lots of opportunities for someone who has studied the old ways of the Dhakaani. I don’t like that WotC has decided to limit their game world support to just two books per world. I could see a book based on the old empires of Eberron.
I tend to agree with WotC on this point, and actually think they’ve already gone a bit too far with the monstrous race thing. From my experience many players gravitate towards these races. I think it’s out of a desire to play out some psychopathic fantasy, which is why they’re always “unaligned” so that they have no moral compass to worry about. They haven’t even really gone “good”. In a campaign I’m about to start I have two half-orcs already and a shifter and almost had another shifter who is now going dragonborn and… a halfling. I may be old school but D&D is the stuff of elves and dwarves and would it kill anybody to play a human every once in a while. Almost all of the new races, tiefling, dragonborn, shifter, goliath are monster archetypes dressed up as playable races. The minotaur is even a PC race now. Shadar-kai, revenant, the list goes on. There’s already a ton of monster themed racial content out there set up to be played aside from drow. I’m actually not allowing anything not in PH1 or PH2 anymore. There’s more than enough stuff in there to choose from.
I get to be a human every day. That’s why I try to play something different when I game.
Players playing psychopathic amoral characters is a separate issue than what race you play. You can easily play that way using PHB races. And you can play honorable characters with monstrous races. My bugbear is honorable and hoping to become a Sentinel Marshal.
Do Goblins next! I think that Goblins as PCs are a much more realistic step than those crystal people in PHB3.
Jenny: Preferring PCs to lean “good” in D&D is nothing new; I would say that started at least with 2nd Edition and TSR, if not earlier.
I’m not sure how the changes in the alignment system push people towards good characters; there are fewer alignments now but just as many “good” as “evil”.
Froggy: I’ll add goblins to my list, right now there are a few others (mostly ones that aren’t even in the MM) that I’d like to write up. I’m glad you made a request! For the record the shardminds in the PHB3 are really cool.
Bruce: It’s probably not that new, but I’m also not a big fan of the new alignment system because for me it has led to most of my players simply choosing “unaligned” instead of making a decision (one that some players find difficult, but can help define a character better).
I would say that most people are unaligned in our world. I include in this people that may believe in good goals, but don’t put forth a lot of effort to back them up with action. My rule of thumb: A good person actively tries to make the world a better place because it’s the right thing to do. A lawful good person does this and also only uses the most honorable methods. An evil person doesn’t care about the harm he does in pursuit of his goals. For a chaotic evil person, the harm is an end unto itself. Unaligned covers all the people in between. Most of them are decent people, but not what I consider good.
Back on topic, I’d like to see if there’s a way to play more advanced creatures in 4e. In previous editions there were ways to play dragons. They didn’t always work and definitely weren’t balanced. My idea on playing something this powerful would be to use the hybrid system. They get a standard package of racial bonuses and they have to take “hybrid-[species]” as one of their options. I think this would allow racial powers without being overpowering. Some of the things that we think of as racial abilities would be handled by powers. In some cases, they won’t work the way we think of them. For example, a troll wouldn’t get regeneration as a class ability. But I could see many of his powers having a healing component to them – make X attack and heal con modifier damage as an at-will. Or they might grant a small amount of damage resistance to all but fire or acid. This could be increased by racial feats or boosted by powers. It’s just an idea, but it looks to be the best way to make this work into the balanced world of 4e.
Philo: I think the alignment thing depends on if you believe a person can act outside of their alignment. In Star Wars it was dealt with by jedi gaining dark side points when they acted outside of their code, but it wasn’t against the rules and in fact many jedi frequently gained dark side points in their adventuring. In the same way, I think alignment (especially when applied to real life) is more of a guideline to your behavior then an end-all-be-all. In my view a Chaotic Evil person might well be nice to animals or certain people, but still act their alignment the majority of the time. Just the same any lawful character (or person in real life) can be pushed to the limit of chaos or consciously break the rules at some point. I think if you’re going to apply alignments to real life, then you have to consider them as guidelines otherwise there’s no point because everyone would be unaligned as you said. 🙂
Your points on more advanced creatures in 4E are very interesting. I will say I’m working on a few less-typical monstrous races for 4E, but I hadn’t considered dragon and probably won’t ever write that up (unless it was for a Council of Wyrms style game). One good thing with 4th Edition in regards to various creatures as playable races is that the average strength of playable races has been increased to balance with things like the dragonborn, drow, and tiefling rather than using ECL or another method, they simply boosted the standard races. I think this makes it even more realistic to consider various monstrous races such as the minotaur, githyanki, and others.
Hobgoblins seem like an obvious PC race choice, but the whole spectrum of goblin races (gobline, hobgoblin, bugbear, who knows what else) is interesting enough to me that they’re not just another generic savage humanoid.