The Adventurers©

Vilkata

    Millennia ago the mind flayers conquered a race of evil humans and bound them to service, usually employing them as slaves but from time to time selecting particularly choice victims for food. The humans harbored deep resentment for centuries but could not summon up sufficient strength to free themselves from the mind flayer yolk. Gradually, in secret, they developed their powers and strength. Then under the leadership of the supreme leader Glith, they rebelled against their captors and, after a long and vicious struggle, succeeded in gaining their autonomy. From that moment, the race became known as the githyanki and they quickly gained a reputation as powerful psionists and deadly fighters with an instinct for violence.

    The githyanki now dwell in the Astral Plane but from time to time project themselves to the Primal Plane ( an innate ability now common to all members of the race) and set up temporary refuges underground, using these bases from which they launch raids on humans and mind flayers alike.

    The githyanki dwell in huge castles on the Astral Plane, each castle being ruled by a supreme leader. The supreme leaders have power of life and death over all under their rule. Each castle will also contain 40 knights (anti-paladins of 9th level), the supreme leaders elite supporting force, personal guard, and up to 1,000 githyanki of lower level.

    They use armor and weapons as humans do, though the ornate ness of their design is often a distinguishing feature. When on war expeditions they wear a +4 splint mail (AC-0) but do not carry shields. Fighters and fighter/magic-users of 5th level and above will usually carry two-handed swords of +1 bonus, otherwise using a normal two-handed swords. A githyanki fighter of 7th level and above will usually carry a +2 or +3 long sword while a knight of 7th level and above will have a silver sword - a +3 two-handed sword which if used astrally, has a 20% chance per melee round of cutting the silver cord ( this does not affect mind barred victims). A supreme leader will wield a special silver sword which is +5, fully vorpal and affects mind barred victims. The silver swords are non-aligned, though they have intelligence of 8 or more and appropriate powers. Githyanki will go to almost any length to prevent any of these silver swords from falling into human hands and the loss of a special silver sword will promote the immediate formation of a very powerful raiding party of githyanki whose task is to recover the sword - failure to do so means instant death.

    Outside their Prime Material Plane lairs, githyanki will rarely be encountered in parties larger than 4, a typical party consisting of a fighter/magic-user leader, a fighter, and two trainees of any class. Rarely the githyanki parties encountered will have a special mission in which case there will only be one trainee and the party will be led by a knight.

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