A Githyanki-Japan Comparison

So in the Rrakkma project thread Nemui compared githyanki generals to the Japanese shogun. I got to thinking about it and came up with some stuff that may hopefully be useful.

Comparison of the Githyanki and Japanese culture of the Sengoku period

Okay, this isn’t meant to be particularly formal, and admittedly I’m not a serious student of Japanese history and culture or anything of the kind. Most of my sources are more or less game based even, but there’s enough historical information at my disposal that I feel I can put some ideas out there. Besides, this is fantasy anyway.

Basically, it occurred to me based on Nemui’s post that there seems to be a great deal of similarity between the culture of the Githyanki and that of Japan in the 15th through early 17th centuries during the Sengoku Jidai, or civil war. So I’m going to take the various bits and pieces of the Githyanki mindset as outlined in Guide to the Astral and compare them to what I know of this period in Japan, I think it might give us something interesting to work with.

Military Mindset: The Githyanki are a highly militarized race, perhaps moreso than any other mortal one because they don’t need to feed most of their population most of the time. They lavish a tremendous amount of respect on their military skills and weapons and armor. They fight as a group but value individual achievements.

Sengoku Japan was similarly militarized, with probably as many weapons in the country as there were hands to wield them. They likewise had incredibly ornate weapons and armor, ones sometimes more famous than the people wearing them, and raw skill was tremendously valued, though it took a back seat to competence in actual battle. Japanese samurai in battle fought as a unit, more or less, since the peasant ashigaru soldiers did as well, but they focused on individual achievements.

Rights of Individuality: The Githyanki are noted as rarely keeping slaves and choosing death over surrender. They are loyal to their leaders but those leaders respect the individual freedoms of those beneath them. Samurai had somewhat similar strictures, and though they perhaps valued loyalty a bit more highly, you could always kill yourself as a means of refusing any order.

Order imposed upon the chaotic: For the Githyanki failure is unforgivable and the commands of a leader are always to be obeyed, but there are no real laws. This is similar to Sengoku Japan, were laws changed at the whims of whoever currently held power, and you could get away with almost anything if you had enough force backing you. Tradition held much stronger than law, and was what gave an otherwise disjointed society a common thread.

Insular Behavior: The Githyanki are portrayed as intensely xenophobic. It should almost go without saying that the Sengoku Japanese were as well, though the Githyanki might even take it farther.

Societal Structures: Githyanki society is basically divided into those who fight (or cast spells/use psionics) and everybody else. The everybody else are inherently less respected than those who fight, even though their tasks are still critically important. The Japanese caste system was very much similar, with warriors at the top, and everybody else less important. So much so that when a peasant (Toyotomi Hideyoshi) actually did conquer the country, he was not allowed to officially become Shogun or anything or the kind because he had begun life as a peasant.

The Lich Queen: The Githyanki are united by their worship of a legendary lineage, that of Gith, but it is the line of her chief advisor who actually controls the population, and their unity is more or less spiritual. Likewise the Japanese were united by their belief that they were chosen by the gods and their Emperor was descended from them, even though the imperial court held no power and the strongest generals, the Shoguns ran the country, and their position was also hereditary.

So, I’m seeing a lot of commonality here, which lends itself to some inspiration. To keep the analogy going to include Incursion, the death of the Lich queen corresponds with the fall of the long-term Shogunate (the Japanese equivalence is the fall of the Ashikaga Shogunate in 1467). In the Japanese case this led to the 150 Sengoku civil war, which only really ended when Tokogawa Ieyashu became shogun in 1603.

However, there is one key difference between the Githyanki and the Japanese: the Githyanki have outside enemies. Perhaps if one considers how the Japanese might have reacted to the fall of the Shogunate corresponding to threats from the Mongols or Europeans it might be enlightening.