Githyanki Religion

GithyankiReligion Althoughgithyanki as a race recognise no deities or divine beings, their culture stillhas many hallmarks of an organised religion. The githyanki are fanaticallyloyal to Vlaakith CLVII, and there's not a githwarrior in existence thatcouldn't recount the legends of Gith word for word. Despite that, there are nopriests in regular githyanki society. Perhaps the presence of the Dead Gods hashelped turn the githyanki away from such ideas; the corpses of long-forgottenpowers can scarcely be said to be conducive to the worship of suchhyper-beings. More likely, however, is the fanatical orthodoxy inspired in thegithyanki by their lich-queen. A soul in the hands of the gods is a soul out ofher hands; such heresies would be considered dangerous to gith society, andunderstandably they are mercilessly quashed. This hatred of unorthodoxy couldalso account to the githyanki's famous hostility to outsiders; their ideas andbeliefs are truly unwelcome.

"It'llhave to go."

- AGithwarrior upon seeing his first sight outside the Astral Plane.

Of course, there are alwaysgoing to be individuals who break with convention; those who, not content withconventional society, will try to look beyond that for something to believe in.There are those metaphysically minded githyanki who put their faith in theunincarnate spirit of Freedom. Often, this makes little difference; evil comesquite naturally to githyanki and the weight of history weighs heavy on theirshoulders. When such an example of githkind cuts you in half it might becomforting to reflect that your killer does so not because you are an outsider,but because he's comfortable with his evil.

Normally, the spirit of freedomis personified as one of the aspects of Gith, but there are those who aresufficiently open-minded to realise that this spirit is also exemplified bysuch individuals as Zerthimon, the Anarchists, and countless other individualsthroughout the multiverse. For githyanki, however, Gith provides the typicalmodel example of this spirit, with her demonstration of rebellion in its mosttotal form.

Worship of the spirit of freedomis an internal, rather than an external affair. Priests of this force tend tobe loners, not confined to a temple or organised church. They have few books,no symbols, no congregations. Their simple lesson is 'learn for thyself'. It isunlikely, therefore, that you could approach such an individual for guidance.

The githyanki are essentially anastral race, which means that conventional religions do not tend to beparticularly accessible to them. Of course, the numerous husks that are theDead Gods could prove to be something of a deterrent to such practices. Whyworship a power if he could well end up floating aimlessly in the Astral beforelong? Of course, there's no accounting for peoples' beliefs these days, and infact the presence of the Dead Gods has produced at least two examples ofgithyanki heresy; the first is centred on the Guardian of the Dead Gods, untilrecently known as Anubis. The githyanki worshippers of the Guardian are a verysmall sect - no more than three, and numbers are not set to increase - who haveset up a small shrine on the brow of Maanzecorian. Such is their break withgithyanki tradition that they treat the corpse of the Dead God with respect,when any self-respecting githwarrior would have done all he could to defile thecarcass as soon as he found it.

Stranger yet are the priests ofthe Dead Gods themselves! Many of these also have the Dustmen as their factionof choice, and derive a sense of satisfaction from the irony of the situation.They consider themselves dead, they reason, so why not worship powers who aredead? Of course, their fellows, who often seek to kill them, view theseindividuals as insane aberrations.

"Ifthey think they're dead, who are we to prove them wrong? KILL 'EM!"

-K'k'k'vak,a githyanki knight leading another pogrom against the Priests of the Dead Gods.