Gith: independent evolution or planar migration?

Love this idea. @Killer_DM pointed us to the Dark Sun Ecology netbook which theorized estivation as a primary driver behind the number and diversity of (hazardous) animal life.

4 Likes

I really like the idea of gith hordes rising after particularly wet years. Maybe humidity or damp eggs break down a bit allowing more of them to take to fertilization?

“When the desert rarely flowers, mark the day. For it won’t be long until the gith rise again.”

This could cause there to be an odd rain worship with the gith… and maybe even the rare rain cleric to come out of their numbers.

6 Likes

I like that idea Robert. I’ve now got an image of a crazy old Gith rain cleric doing a demented rain dance as part of his control weather spell casting :wink:

6 Likes

grabs an idea or two off the shelf You do that too? Just as well, my sack is getting full.

4 Likes

I don’t have any specific lore to back it up, but I suspect there probably weren’t Champions for ALL the races in the Green Age, just the powerful or populous ones.

If the list of races that had Champions is the full list of all Green Age demihuman/ humanoid races, that would mean that all currently extant demihuman/ humanoid races (except for Kreen and Gith) had to evolved or mutated from animals or: Humans, Halflings, Giants, Pterrans (maybe), Elves, Aarakocra, Dwarves, or Tari.

That seems unlikely, even if we assume that some races, like the Nikaal, have emmegrated to the Tablelands from far away.

It seem more logical (if not strictly supported by canon) to imagine that there were other Champions in other parts of the world for other races or that those races were too minor to have designated Champions.

Ssurrans, for example, may have been a little known offshoot race of Lizardfolk in the Green Age and Rajaat either figured Keltis would get them too, or just assumed they would be powerless to stop the Return to to the Blue Age and would die off.

4 Likes

Teenage mutant ninja gith-lings?

I know I’ve always run it as Rajaat specifically targeted two types of races for the Cleansing. He went after races that could potentially stop him (powerful in magic or psionics) and races that had a high population (high birthrate, lot of people do to longevity).

In my world the Pristine Tower was altered by Rajaat to not just focus magic, but absorb power from the sun directly and from the death of every cleansed being - but that death power could only be gathered from species created by the Pristine Tower. This is also why he was so powerful when he escaped, he had thousands of years of energy just soaked into the Pristine Tower he could call on. I had other Champions, the ones we know about are just the ones that were most active in the Tablelands in recent history, but nowhere near 1 per sentient race.

Back to the OP, Gith were degenerate Githyanki as detailed in the Black Spine adventure in my world.

2 Likes

Building on your explanation, maybe they were very rare at the time and definitely too primitive too be considered as a threat to rajaat future plans, and he could have easily eradicated them at his leisure once all the other more troublesome races have been disposed of.

This could also explain why they are much more numerous in the present, as after the cleansing wars there was a lot more room for them to breed and expand without competition as most of the civilized race were either eradicated completely, or has suffered a massive decrease in population from attempted genocide or the effects of rapid desertification due to the unrestrained defiling.

2 Likes

I will be adapting the Goodman Games version of The Lost City to my Dark Sun campaign, and deep in the caverns below the city there is one Illithid still working there, who works for Zargon to poison the water with mind altering mushrooms… I will add a Gith faction to the mix that will be in opposition to the illithid that the players can ally with if they choose to, or be aggressive with which ever they choose, but it will at least alert them to the presence of a mind flayer at some point still alive on Athas…

2 Likes