Githzerai populations

This rule I hate, always did, always will. Time catches up while hunger, thirst, poison duration, etc., don't. Meh. IMC, no way.

This explanation makes sense to me, but I would still have to go with the obvious one - designers of every edition tend to pull population numbers out of their portable holes.

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See, what bothers me is that the time-catching-up rule seems to be a 2E holdover. In 2E, aging was part of the in-game mech regulative process - haste, time stop (?), and the like used to age you a few years, etc. In 3.x E, age is more or less irrelevant (sans the ability score alterations), and most things are regulated by XP deductions ... except Astral travel. Grumble.

More importantly, this rule is not necessary. What does it regulate, exactly? PCs camping on the Astral for decades to get stat boosts?! What it does is make the "BBG's Astral-based stronghold" concept invalid, and make the 'yanki use a deus ex machina (secret anti-age spells) whenever they visit the Prime!

[/rant]

But in the end, as you say, *shrug*.

That's funny, because actually, aging should be linked directly to time. The process of aging, as currently biologically understood, is linked most closely to the gradual depletion of telomere length as cells continue to replicate. Assuming time truly doesn't pass on the astral plane, and there are no cell divisions there, then the body does not age, period. Aging might be fundamentally a corallary to the passage of time, at least for anything with a metabolism (though interestingly, prokaryotic organisms, lacking telomeres, don't really 'age' in a biological sense and there's nothing that says the system has to work the way it does, it just functions that way) but time supposedly doesn't pass on the astral. Looking at the aging rule it implies that somehow the soul has some set time in the mortal coil that doesn't have any relation with biological age at all.

By the way, on the subject of the original topic, I'd probably set the popoulations of Githyanki and Githzerai roughly equal. Probably I figure on each race having a total population in the low billions (4-7 billion seems like a good range to me, you know about 2-3 full middle ages prime worlds). The Githyanki population has a very low birth rate, but also a very low death rate, while the Githzerai population has a high birth rate and high death rate. The githanki may die more often in battle than Githzerai, though this is debatable since their better trained soldies are more likely to survive their first battle than Githzerai will. However, I think Githyanki deaths in battle, or Githzerai for that matter are at best a small fraction of the race's total casualties, and Githzerai, despite the best efforts of the Anarchs, die mostly simply cause they live in Limbo, with huge environmental hazards (Slaadi qualify as an environmental hazard). On the Astral a Githyanki in trouble can flat outrun just about anything bothering him.

I do agree that the Githyanki population is much more dispersed. They've colonized just about every spare piece of rock/dead god they can find out in the astral, but most of them are tiny, able to hold a few dozen at most. The Githzerai, by contrast, need to work together in large groups because the ratio of Anarachs to everyone else is pretty low, and because any settlement has to have the force to withstand five or six slaad deciding to rip through the place imitating a sandstorm (or possibly trying to 'improve' the architecture or any number of other bizarre contingencies) with minimal loses, so they have a dense population.

I just meant that the rate of deaths in battle was unlikely to be a substantial drain on the population, given how it never has been in actual history. Obviously some die in battle, and some are certainly killed by astral vortexs or similar hazards, but I'd say the primary cause of death is simply dementia. Githyanki, for all their defiance of time, are not immortal, and don't have the special mental modifications needed for effective immortality. Additionally, the constant exposure to astral radiation in an environment where new information is being absorded but the brain never undergoes any physiological neural changes means that the Githyanki brain is stacked like a house of ephemeral cards. At some point, and I'd say around the 250-300 year mark, Githyanki just loose it in an Alzhiemer's like way and are left to fade and die.

I was trying to imply that because Githyanki society is inherently martial the mass of their population is better trained, not that they are any better on a one to one or even army to army level. The Githyanki as a race, have no commoners, everyone is either a warriors, a spellcaster or psionicist, or some kind of expert with powers over the astral. Every, last one. The Githzerai, by contrast, do have commoners, they also have non-combatant experts, and the average Githzerai militiaman at a Limbo fortress has levels in warrior, not fighter, like every last Githyanki Githwarrior does. That's the difference.

As far as the Slaadi go, maybe you're right, though I was thinking more of predation on travelling Githzerai and the nasty problem that if a town's anarch goes down everyone might end up dead real soon afterwards.

Are there any non-'zerai anarchs in 2E sources? Do we know of permanent non-zerai settlements in Limbo that would require established anarch-training?

Well, looking at what the average Githyanki Githwarrior does with his time: they spend endless periods in the astral sparring and training with their fellow soldiers, meaning people of roughly the same CR as themselves, who all gain experience together. While there's obviously going to be a mix of experience, and training only goes so far, I'd say that in any Githyanki fortress dividing up the Githwarriors evenly between the levels 1-6 might be a good representation (the human model would be pyramidal)

Traditionally, militaristic societies such as those of the githyanki are a result of high birth rates and high death rates. The older a population gets, the more sedate it becomes, but I'm sure the psychology of the gith races is different from that of Earth humans. Realistically though, the psychology of all D&D humans/humanoids would be radically different from the real world because we don't have to compete with other intelligent creatures on our planet. There's a fine line between realism and boring anthropological simulation. I would err on the side of fun fantasy rather than demographic verisimilitude.

Given that the Astral is an infinite plane, who knows what the real population might be?

Frank Herbert's Dune novels are an interesting look at what human(oid) demography and evolution might be like, if you take outer space for an analogue of astral space and replace Lich Queen with Kwisatz Haderach (God-king).

"With so many specialized types of humans and prolonged lifespans, it is not overly surprising that civilization has not undergone any truly drastic changes since Leto II's transformation. This book focuses on the Bene Gesserit, the sisterhood who have grand designs for humanity. Among others jockeying for power are the Tleilaxu who have mastered biology in other fashions. More dangerous still are the Honored Matres, a powerful organization that is a dark doppleganger of the Bene Gesserit." --Heretics of Dune

Not all of Earth was medieval at the same time exactly, notably Asia. I would estimate the population of an average D&D world at about 1-2 billion total sentients (keep in mind that D&D worlds have sentients living in areas we do not, such as the Underdark and the Oceans, that add to the total. The longevity of Europeans has produced a demographic decline, true, but there are many cultural and economic factors involved in that beyond longevity, and there are still plenty of people migrating to Europe to make up the difference, even if they aren't Europeans.

Actually I think the weak spot in the Dune analogy is that in Dune getting places was very difficult, and as such conquering worlds was almost impossible (because the spacing guild didn't want it to happen). PS is a universe filled with trade and travel.

My objectives wit the Githyanki/Githzerai population estimates are they should be numerous enough to be A) a substantial presence in humanoid settlements on the planes as they supposedly are B) capable of really smacking some people around if they need to (ie. if the fiends wanted to try to conquer the Astral it would take too great of an outlay of resources to remove those troops from the blood war. But they should also not be numerous enough to A) conquer whole planes/crystal spheres on a whim or B) ruthlessly dominate other races.

In my perspective the least numerous planar race there is happens to be the Bladelings, with a population of perhaps 1-2 million. They're unbelievably rare, enough so that most people from Acheron don't even know they exist. So the Githyanki and Githzerai need to be several orders of magnitude more numerous.