Contents -
Preface..................................................................................3
Ch. 1: Primal Gith Lore ..................................................4
Mind Flayer Menace .......................................................4
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A World Apart ....................................................................5
Escape (Return of the Gith) ..........................................6
Ch. 2: Character Race Options ...................................7
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The Primal Gith.................................................................7
Primal Gith Names .....................................................8
Primal Gith Traits .......................................................8
Primal Gith Tables ......................................................9
Racial Feats .......................................................................10
Ch. 3: Character Class Options ................................12
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Monk ...................................................................................13
Way of the Planar Wind .........................................13
Ranger .................................................................................16
Diplomatic Conclave ...............................................16
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Sorcerer ..............................................................................19
Psionic Magic Origin ...............................................19
Warlock .............................................................................22
Undying Patron: Adlishar Rizaian
Customization Options .....................................23
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Ch. 4: Backgrounds and Psionic Feats .................26
Backgrounds....................................................................26
Arcane Shipwright ...................................................26
Diplomat ......................................................................28
Refugee .........................................................................30
Psionic Feats .....................................................................31
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Ch. 5: Magical Miscellany .........................................32
New Psionic Spells.........................................................32
New Magic Items............................................................35
Bestiary ..............................................................................37
Ethereal ooze ..............................................................37
Nautillith ......................................................................38
Swarm of nautilliths ...............................................39
Swarm of psychic echoes ......................................39
Thought eater ............................................................40
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Preface
The venerable Ulraunt, Keeper of the Tomes of Candlekeep, bid me write
these prefatory remarks given my unique link to the primal gith. It is
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the least I can do for the Old Buzzard; Ulraunt took me in and let me swear
myself among the Avowed, an honor never before extended to an illithid
(not even to a so-called renegade like myself). I share my monastic brothers
and sisters' love of books and was indeed returning from Oryndall's thought
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basins when the disaster you'll read of below occurred. My Elder Brain had sent me to
absorb all knowledge in Oryndall's encephalic fluid relevant to gith or psionics. But
before I could return, my link to the Brain was severed as my asteroid colony was
destroyed. I came instead to Candlekeep, where I now spend my days transcribing the
vast knowledge accessed in Oryndall into qualith and other more accessible forms.
I've been told some doubt the veracity of the primals' claim to be the fabled precursor
race of all githzerai and githyanki. It is indeed a startling claim. But as one wrapped
up in their history, I assure you it's all true. In some sense, my colony was directly
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responsible for preserving the racial stock of the gith progenitor. True, that was not our
intention, but perhaps this psionically fascinating race's survival expiates my past
sins in some small way. If not, then I accept that too.
My life is peppered with torments, not least of which is severance from my Elder
pl
Brain. While freeing me to thrive as an individual, severance is also anguish to any
illithid. It accounts for my sickly jaundice (saddling me with the offensive nick-
name Aristul 'the Yellow' notwithstanding attempts to restore a healthy lavender com-
plexion with theatrical greasepaint). I live with the fear that one day I'll come in con-
QSE
tact with another elder brain and lose the free will I now cherish. It is the selfsame fear
.YLULTLSEIYRAT
all races enslaved by my kind must have felt, so I suppose it's no more than I deserve.
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Whatever my fate, I fervently hope the gith know how sorry I am. For everything.
Aristul of the Avowed,
renegade illithid and master of planar lore
About This Book an unknown crystal sphere, altered during illi-
thid enslavement. The wildest claims posit the
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The gith have always been a part of D&D. They illithids created the gith, merging various huma-
can be traced back to the original Fiend Folio noids with arcane Far Realm powers.
published in 1981, and the githyanki were Now at last, with the primal gith having re-
actually introduced two years earlier in White emerged in spectacular fashion, the truth is
Dwarf magazine. Since then, the githyanki and known! Along with traits and other character
githzerai have been a part of every edition of options for this playable race, this supplement
D&D, up to and including monster stat blocks includes related subclasses, spells, feats, back-
and official playable race details for 5th Edition. grounds, and items available to any characters,
From that first Fiend Folio appearance, there's and monsters with a connection to the gith.
also been speculation as to the mysterious gith All material herein is designed to seamlessly
origins. Some speak of a forgotten race of "fore- integrate with 5th Edition rules, but players
runners" from which the gith subraces descen- and DMs should feel free to modify or ignore
ded. Others name the forerunners humans from any material so as to better suit the needs of
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your campaign. Enjoy!
photocopy this document for personal use only. The Primal Gith | Preface 3
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Chapter 1:
Primal Gith Lore
e their brains). For a more de-
pl
tailed mind flayer history and a
closer look at their physiology and
culture, see Chapter 1 of Volo's Guide to
Monsters.
L
ONG MILLENNIA AGO, THE GITH As inevitably followed from mind flayer con-
thrived on the only world they had tact with most populations, the gith too became
ever known. Theirs was an orderly, one of the illithids' enslaved races. As a psion-
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peaceable society, and all gith were ically endowed race themselves, the mind flayers
capable of astounding mental feats took a particular interest in the gith, finding
given their strongly psionic physiology. The gith them both fascinating and potentially threaten-
channeled their powers into creating wondrous ing. In most cases, the elder brains who con-
works of art, philosophy, music, and literature. trolled individual mind flayer colonies system-
In short, they led a wholly idyllic existence. atically slew those gith whose mental abilities
Idyllic, that is, until the day a vast nautiloid were strong enough to pose a threat. They
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fleet appeared in their heavens… stripped lesser gith of their powers through ago-
nizing psionic attacks that left them shattered.
Selective breeding and painstaking genetic
Mind Flayer Menace manipulation also changed the surviving gith
over the long centuries of their enslavement.
On that fateful day when their nautiloids These diminished gith were then shipped off as
appeared over the gith homeworld, the mind slaves to the far corners of the illithid empire.
flayers (also known as illithids), were the most But this approach was not used in all cases.
powerful race in the Inner Planes. They ruled One particular elder brain of singular cunning
from strongholds on the Astral and Ethereal decided that gith minds were a resource too
planes, and their empire spanned an untold valuable to destroy; why not exploit them and
number of worlds whose indigenous popula- learn from them? The elder brain saw to it that
tions they enslaved or consumed (by eating some ten thousand gith were transported to the
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brain grew lax, or perhaps Adlishar Rizaian had
merely been biding his time as he himself
studied his inquisitor. On that day, Rizaian
broke free from the brain's control and released
a massive psionic shockwave.
The elder brain descended briefly into mad-
ness before dying in a synaptic explosion that
sent out a discharge of psychic energy so great
it simultaneously killed very illithid in the
colony, each of whom had been linked to the
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brain's thoughts. Unfortunately the discharge
also killed Rizaian, but some combination of his
own substantial will and sense of unfinished
business, the shockwaves of psychic energy,
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and the arcane influence of the illithid
technology maintaining the pocket dimension
contrived to trap Rizaian's spirit in the Material
Plane. The gith leader had been transformed
into a ghost (see Monster Manual).
A World Apart
Tears of Selûne, an asteroid cluster that
e As for the rest of the thousands of gith on the
asteroid, they remained trapped in the
demiplane and in fact trapped within the
asteroid's bowels as no illithids were left alive
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up above to release them from their captivity,
followed the moon in its orbit around the planet
Toril. One huge asteroid had been converted
into an illithid colony capable of housing
thousands of gith prisoners below its surface. It
boasted docks for nautiloid ships, a substantial
defensive stronghold, and advanced research
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facilities overseen by the elder brain itself.
Recognizing these gith prisoners posed a
potential threat and also fearing prevailing
illithid wisdom might frown upon the research
taking place within the asteroid, the elder brain
used arcane mind flayer technology to pull the
asteroid temporarily into a pocket dimension so
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that it seemed to vanish from the Tears of
Selûne. Safely hidden away in this demiplane,
the elder brain's goal was to study the gith and
master their unique forms of psionic power.
Confident the prisoners could be kept sub-
dued through its own substantial power and
the colony's psionic forcefields, the brain regu-
larly summoned the gith's elder representative
to private meetings in which he probed the
gith's mind. This representative was Rizaian, a
venerable gith of astonishing mental prowess,
whom the gith called adlishar, meaning "first
among many." One day, however, the elder
Adlishar Rizaian
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let alone use the colony's technology to return regard, far more disturbing to Rizaian's
the asteroid to the Tears of Selûne. Their capti- followers even than the loss of their home, was
vity persisted for centuries, during which time discovering the descendants of those gith slaves
the gith survived, continuing to be fed through who had not been imprisoned with them were
automated technology and facing little in the now a sundered people. Although having de-
way of danger beyond the verminous nautilliths feated their old enemies in a spectacular upris-
(see Bestiary in Ch. 5 below), which now over- ing that brought about the destruction of the
ran the derelict colony without mind flayers to illithid empire, the githzerai of Limbo and the
trap them and keep them in check. Moreover, githyanki of the Astral Plane—descended from
the gith found that they did not age and could the primal gith race to which Rizaian's people
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not reproduce, as the demiplane seemed to belonged—had come to consider themselves
exist outside of time's flow, much in the way separate races, and bitter enmity and centuries
time has no sway on the Astral Plane. of warfare formed a gulf between them. Full
In the asteroid's caverns, they kept their lore details of the history and culture of the
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alive, honed their psionic abilities to the extent githyanki and githzerai appear in Chapter 4 of
the environment allowed, and they abided. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.
Through all the long centuries, the ghost of
Adlishar Rizaian remained with them, guiding
and encouraging them, sharing his newfound
insight into ethereal existence, and generally
keeping up morale as they waited… The Githy
a
profound nki and the Githze
ly scarre rai were s
to my fel d o
low mind by their enslavem
Escape (Return of the Gith)
e
Year by year, the asteroid's technology began to
fail and eventually to break down. In the end,
forgot th
compreh
reemerge
e
er with a
h
flayers t
ha
won their y were one race, t they
un
each oth freedom, they wag ited. Having
e war aga
end. It is m atred none can fu st
y fervent
in
lly
e nt
pl
the forcefields keeping the gith imprisoned were n
disrupted by the nautilliths' ever expanding one day q ce of the primal g hope the
uell that ith might
to the on h
nest-building activities. When the restraining going war atred and put an e
. nd
fields of magic vanished, the gith emerged into
the upper levels of the colony. In time, they — Aristu
l of the A
vowed
taught themselves to master the surviving
technology and, reversing the arcane process
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that had brought them into the demiplane, they I've heard tell of this renegade mind
reemerged in the belt of asteroids over Toril. flayer, Aristul the Yellow, who now
Using the derelict nautiloid ships, they calls himself one of the Avowed of
traveled first to where they believed their home Candlekeep. And while his rhetoric is
planet had been, but either they no longer very pretty, it seems a thinly veiled
retained accurate memories of its location or it attempt to assuage his own guilty
had been utterly destroyed by the illithids or in conscience over the fact that he
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some other devastation that had taken place in played a direct hand in what was
their long absence. Whatever the reason, they done to the gith. He says he would
had no home, and so the gith instead began to like to see our peoples reunited, but
settle down here, there, and everywhere— even were such a thing to come to
pass... An end to war? Our war is not
setting up colonies and negotiating for territory
only between githzerai and githyanki
of their own wherever the locals were willing to but against the scattered remains of
accept refugees—including on Toril and other the Illithid Empire. United or not,
worlds and planes. there will be no end to warfare
Tragically, however, they found that they until the last illithid is stamped out
could not easily settle among either the of existence. And I include Aristul
githzerai of Limbo or the githyanki of the Astral firmly among their number.
Plane, as allying themselves with one was seen — Zetch'r'r, githyanki warlord
as an act of open hostility by the other. In this
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Chapter 2:
Character Race Options
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M UCH LIKE THE RACES PRESENTED
in Volo's Guide to Monsters, the
character race presented in this
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chapter is rather distinctive and
far more rare in the D&D
multiverse than the options in the Player's
Handbook. As always, players should consult
with their DM before using this race.
The Primal Gith
WHAT'S IN A NAME? IN THAT FAR-OFF TIME BEFORE
the mind flayers came, we called ourselves
simply 'anchla,' meaning 'people' in our tongue.
The githyanki and githzerai name themselves for
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those circumstances change.
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their support or disdain for Gith, who was born, Nonetheless, the primal gith are an adaptive
lived and vanished during our long absence. But race whose members find it easy to see the
we're all one people, and so we too now name proverbial silver lining. As of old, they delight in
ourselves gith to reinforce that connection. using their psionic powers to beautify whatever
— Uweya, primal gith envoy to Silverymoon place they call home, continuing their long tra-
dition of making unique forms of art and music,
The primal gith now refer to those centuries of and famed for their philosophers and scholars
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imprisonment on the mind flayer asteroid as —both those from among the now-aging popu-
ir'zharn (a term in the gith tongue roughly lation who endured the "lost years" and those of
translating to "recall pain") or sometimes the next generation born since reemergence
merely as "the lost years." For the most part, from captivity in the timeless beyond.
however, they don't like to talk about it at all
and look instead to the future of all githkind.
Empathic Diplomats
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As the primal gith have expanded through the
A Refugee Culture multiverse and been forced to negotiate their
The primal gith have no home base like the own refugee status, they've found they are par-
githyanki's city of Tu'Narath on the Astral Plane ticularly adept at diplomacy. With increasing
or the githzerai capital of Shra'kt'lor formed frequency, they've even been called upon to use
from the chaos-stuff of Limbo. Moreover, they've uncanny powers of insight and persuasion to
discovered that their very presence in either of help settle long standing disputes among other
those cities makes the inhabitants uncomfort- peoples living in the locations where they settle.
able enough that none of the primal gith have Tragically, however, this knack has proven
permanently settled in either place. Instead unequal to the task of reconciling their own
they've become wanderers, sometimes settling kind. Although it is Adlishar Rizaian's most
down for a stretch when circumstances permit, fervent wish that the githyanki and githzerai be
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reunified, mistrust has made many among the
descendant subraces reluctant even to believe
Primal Gith Traits
the primal gith are who they claim to be. A Your primal gith character has the following
popular theory among githzerai is that the racial traits.
primal gith are part of a mind flayer plot to lull Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma
the gith into complacency and then crush them. score increases by 2, and your Intelligence
Many githyanki believe something similar but score increases by 1.
see the plot as one contrived by the githzerai to Age. Much like other gith, primal gith reach
get close enough to spy on them. adulthood in their late teens, but they live
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slightly longer, often two to three decades
beyond a century.
A Common Foe Alignment. Primal gith tend toward lawful
In the end, the one thing all gith have in com- alignments owing both to the mental discipline
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mon might be what brings them together: their arising from their psychic abilities and to their
shared loathing for the mind flayers. Much like deep reverence for tradition and honor. They
their githzerai and githyanki cousins, the primal are not an aggressive people and typically favor
gith harbor a deep and abiding hatred for the diplomacy over brute force, but that does not
surviving illithids and will stop at nothing to mean they are not capable of and willing to
see the destruction of every last shred of the employ impressive martial prowess when the
collapsed empire. It might well take war, then, need arises. Beyond their overall lawful
to bring about a gith peace. attitude, however, much as with humans, they
tend toward no particular morality; there are
Primal Gith Names
Many popular names among the primal gith
reflect earlier etymological variants of modern
e good, neutral, and evil individuals among the
primal gith.
Size. Like their two racial descendants, the
primal gith average about 6 feet in height and
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githyanki and githzerai names. Others are have sinewy, slender builds.
unique among the primal gith, either having Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
faded from use among the two descendant Mental Fortitude. You are resistant to
subraces over the centuries or having psychic damage.
developed in the relatively short span since the Martial Ceorl. You are proficient with
primal gith reemergence. quarterstaffs and sickles.
Primal Gith Psionics. You know the friends
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Female Primal Gith Names: Azivyl, Bynoor, and mage hand cantrips, and with the latter,
Ejelya, Fenevir, Pahyzel, Uweya, Vayra, the hand is invisible when you cast the cantrip
Vlaakith, Vythka, Vyzith with this trait.
Male Primal Gith Names: Dakk, Du'urth, Firz, Psionic Blast. You can use your action to
Kith, Rizaian, Xamodas, Zaerith, Zerthimon, release a wave of brain force in a 15-foot cone.
Zhasal, Zizsh When you do so, each creature in the cone
Sa
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