"Pirates of Gith"

4 posts / 0 new
Last post
Companero's picture
Offline
Namer
Joined: 2005-02-17
"Pirates of Gith"

I found this: http://spelljammer.org/monsters/conversions/PirateOfGith.html while searching Spelljammer, and thought you might be interested:

Quote:
Pirate of Gith, 1st-Level Warrior Medium Humanoid (Gith) Hit Dice: 1d8+1 (5 hp) Initiative: +5 (+1 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative) Speed: 20 ft. in breastplate (4 squares); base 30 ft. (6 squares) Armor Class: 17 (+5 breastplate, +1 buckler, +1 Dex), touch 11, flat-footed 16 Base Attack/Grapple: +1 / +2 Attack: Scimitar +2 melee (1d6+1/18-20), or light crossbow +2 ranged (1d8/19-20) Full Attack: Scimitar +2 melee (1d6+1/18-20), or light crossbow +2 ranged (1d8/19-20) Space/Reach: 5 ft. / 5 ft. Special Attacks: — Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., Spell-like Abilities Saves: Fort +3, Ref +1, Will -2 Abilities: Str 13, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 11, Wis 7, Cha 8 Skills: Profession (spacehand) +4, Use Rope +3 Feats: Improved Initiative Environment: Wildspace Organization: Company (2 to 4 3rd-level fighters), boarding party (11 to 20 3rd level fighters, plus 2 7th-level officers, 1 9th-level mate), or crew (30 to 100 3rd-level fighters, plus 1 7th-level leader per 10 members, 5 7th- level officers, 3 9th-level mates, 1 16th-level captain) Challenge Rating: 1/2 Treasure: Standard Alignment: Always lawful evil Advancement: By character class Level Adjustment: +1

Pirates of Gith are another branch of the race that evolved into the githyanki and githzerai. Their divergence occurred at a similar point to the majority of their related species. Unlike the githyanki, who are their closest evolutionary cousins, the pirates of Gith chose not to flee into the Astral Plane. Rather, they fled to arcane space, intent on wiping out the remains of the illithid space fleets. A regimented race, the pirates of Gith are of course best known for their piracy, looting other vessels and killing all those aboard.

Gith Pirates are fairly similar in build to the githyanki, being tall and emaciated. Their skin tones vary from a pale, grubby grey to an unhealthy jaundiced yellow, with fierce red eyes and hair that, while usually brown, can also be black or read in color. Their teeth are sharp and pointed and often filed in order to emphasize this feature. They favor decorative armor, scimitars and cutlasses, and brightly-colored garb such as that worn by buccaneers. Their costumes are usually remarkably tasteless, easily offending the eyesight of aesthetically sensitive folk.

Pirates of Gith speak their own language, and some may speak Githyanki as well. While they dislike the idea of learning other languages, they have found it convenient to learn Common, if only because it enables them to order crews of enemy ships to disarm their weapons, strike their colors and prepare to be slaughtered.

Combat
Pirates of Gith fight with a variety of weapons and armor, although heavy armor is a rarity since they are a spacefaring, ship-using race. They prefer swords to most other weapons, and scimitars and cutlasses most of all, preferring to move fast and use a keen-edged weapon. They favor enchantments that improve their weapons combat and feats that improve their chances of inflicting more grievous wounds. Prestige among a crew is determined by who caused the messiest and most painful deaths.

Spell-like Abilities: 3/day—true strike. A pirate of Gith of 3rd level or higher can use detect thoughts (DC 10) three times per day, a pirate of Gith of 9th level or higher can use plane shift (DC 13) three times per day. The save DCs are are Charisma-based.

Crews of Gith pirates traditionally save their plane shift abilities for a trick they have learned to perform in concert; if a crew of pirates of Gith all manifest those powers at the same time, they are able to shunt their ship into the Astral Plane. The circumstances under which this particular ability can be performed, however, are limited by the constraints of the ship in their possession. Their ship must be one of the elven living ships, such as a man-o'-war, or a craft of githyanki or Gith pirate design. Needless to say, most elven fleets offer a sizeable bounty for the heads of pirates of Gith.

Gith Pirate Society
Pirates of Gith are a pragmatic race that only considers a battle won if the entire enemy force has been destroyed. They have been known to attempt to commit genocide if another group try to settle too close to their territories, and are probably the most xenophobic of the gith races. While their greatest hatred is reserved for illithids, they hate all other gith races, including the githyanki, who they feel forsook Gith when they allowed Vlaakith CLVII to take the throne.

In a crew of Gith pirates, the highest-level fighter/cleric is likely to be the leader. Wizards are more common than sorcerer, since their knowledge of magic was largely taken from stolen spellbooks and tomes of magical theory.

Their society is extremely hierarchical, and although they tend not to fight too much amongst themselves, they punish their criminals (those who disobey superior officers) in a brutal and severe fashion; anyone who angers the captain ends up at the captain's table; usually as the first course. Pirates of Gith are a carnivorous race, and are not above cannibalism.

Gith Pirates as Characters
There are few pirates of Gith who seek the adventuring life. Those who do are renegades, seeking to escape their stifling society in an attempt to find some personal space and identity. Such renegades are usually hunted across Wildspace, not only by most intelligent races but also the pirates of Gith too. They may vary in alignment, and may even be less xenophobic than their fellows, but many of them tend to be aggressive and a little savage too.

Like githyanki, the favored class of the pirates of Gith is fighter, although they do not have any knightly orders since they owe no allegiance to the githyanki's lich-queen. Another significant difference is that clerics are allowed and indeed encouraged by their society. Quite who the pirates worship is unknown, although some sages suspect that they worship Gith. Others disagree, having found no trace of her in the planes, and explain the clerical spells away by claiming that Tiamat, in the guise of their ancestral leader, grants them their divine magic. They may in fact follow a variety of deities; all of them are lawful evil in alignment, and some of them are in fact deities of other races. Although they have never revealed who they worship, Gith Pirates are quick to affirm that any such deities were originally their own, and that other races have stolen and bastardized their worship. However, this is still not an admission of worship on their part, and the mystery of the deity of the Pirates of Gith remains.

Pirate of Gith characters possess the following racial traits.

+2 Dexterity, -2 Wisdom.
Medium Size.
A pirate of Gith's base land speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision out to 60 feet.
Special Qualities (see above): Spell-like Abilities.
Automatic Languages: Pirate of Gith. Bonus Languages: Githyanki, Common.
Favored Class: Fighter.
Level adjustment +1.
The pirate of Gith warrior presented here had the following ability scores before racial adjustments: Str 13, Dex 11, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 9, Cha 8.

In the Spheres
Pirates of Gith are a xenophobic spacefaring race, and as such rarely settle on the larger planetoids unless they are able to wipe out all competitors there first. The best way to make a pirate of Gith angry is to make him feel paranoid, and the best way to do that is to exist within fifteen thousand miles of him. Many crews spend their entire lives aboard ships, if their captain decides (as he often might) to suspend all planet leave indefinitely. They have started to create their own ships, although many others favor ships stolen from the Imperial Elven Navy—which, they claim, were designed and built by them originally.

The pirates are reluctant to venture into the Phlogiston, since the flow inhibits their ability to plane shift. As such, they are almost always encountered within crystal spheres. Sages suggest two reasons, however, for their proliferation throughout the spheres. Firstly, it is not inconceivable to imagine that they shunt their craft into the Astral Plane, and from there move into other worlds. Secondly, just because they do not wish to venture into the flow does not necessarily mean that they never do. They might retreat into the Phlogiston in order to evade elmarin, or may be required to do so if no elven ships are at their disposal and they wish to find new territories. Other bands of Gith's pirates may feel confident enough to venture out into the flow if they have conquered entire crystal spheres and are merely traveling between them, although most of the time travel through the Astral is quicker.

Erik's picture
Offline
Namer
Joined: 2005-03-11
"Pirates of Gith"

I was wondering why noone had mentioned these yet.
As far as I know, these guys were in 2ed too. Could anyone with the SJ books check it?

Kaelyn's picture
Offline
Namer
Joined: 2004-05-10
"Pirates of Gith"

"Erik" wrote:
I was wondering why noone had mentioned these yet. As far as I know, these guys were in 2ed too. Could anyone with the SJ books check it?

They were in the first Spelljammer Monstrous Compendium, and also in the Monstrous Manual (which became the core monster book in AD&D for a long time).

They're okay, I guess, but "githyanki in space" seems pretty unoriginal.

Loki De Carabas's picture
Offline
Namer
Joined: 2004-12-14
"Pirates of Gith"

Well, as the resident Spelljammer guy here allow me to make a comment or two.

The Pirates of Gith are mentioned in the original boxed set put out by TSR. They have the ability (when using the living ships of the elves) to shift a spelljamming craft from Wildspace into the Astral and back. They predominantly use them for ambushes and piracy. This was what first got me started on developing Planejamming for my own campaigns.

(NOTE; the data in this next paragraph is my own take on things and not from any of the original SJ amterials)
As to gith in space being boring, if you think it through its actually logical. When the 'zerai and 'yanki fled to other planes, some followers of Gith remained on the Prime where the remnants of the illithidae were. With hatred buring as hot as it does after millenia of thralldom they constantly engage the nautiloid ships of the mind flayers and prevent them from rebuilding their former empire.

__________________

DungeonMasterLoki aka George Williams

Planewalker Manager - If you have questions get in touch!
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/OfficialPlanescape
Twitter - http://twitter.com/planewalker
Google Plus - https://plus.google.com/communities/114763908734601085075

Dungeon Master of the Planejammer Campaign Series , Celebrating over 30 years!
https://planejammer-setting.obsidianportal.com/

Planescape, Dungeons & Dragons, their logos, Wizards of the Coast, and the Wizards of the Coast logo are ©2008, Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc. and used with permission.