#zerthimon

[hjinnnkuo]

I want to draw them again (For some reason I think the gith people may be more simple and unadorned before they built their empire

[sixteen-strikes]

Doodle dump

If Voss was hanging around in camp instead of the sewer. I still can't believe they did nothing with the fact that he is older than the dead 3 and Karsus.

Mother Gith's stellar parenting (also vines that will always live in my heart)

And some more gay frogs😊

[pocketpauling]

While I know the doylist explanation is "Planescape Torment and Neverwinter Nights 2 are two different games made by two different teams" I find some humor in the watsonian implication that Zerthimon made one of the greatest swords in all of history for Gith but he himself just uses some shit he pulled out of a random body

[wuhuha]

Just trying to get a feel for what Zerthimon looks like

[des-no9]

on Gith, Vlaakith 1 and Zerthimon

My mind's been whirring a tonne about the og trio the past several days because of @gothyanki and @nothingimportantanywhere so this is all thanks to them, their ideas and I just need to write some of this down.

It mostly stems from our desire to make more of Gith, of Vlaakith 1 and why she did what she did rather than the classic FR evil because evil.

However, thinking more on my githyanki language of love and affection and how too that impacted on their culture, and how they could have been, once, a more family, emotionally connected and caring within eachother, race.

During the uprising and gaining their freedom from the Illithid, I HC that Gith, Vlaakith and Zerthimon grew close and worked together for their people, becoming these revered figureheads for everything they achieved.

Gith the charismatic, powerful, furious leader; Vlaakith almost devotion to her, initially. A quieter presence of the three, but intelligent, scheming - close to what the githyanki of today see as gish (assassins and spies). Where Zerthimon was a balance between the three. Strategist, speaker. And they were all messily in love.

They formed (what they thought) unbreakable bonds between the three of them from the strife, the pain. Enduring slavery, breaking their shackles, and becoming their own people.

And then once freedom, the purpose of gaining that freedom that bound them all together is no more and changes. It's something else now. Survival; beginnings; hope; creation; domination; power; celebration. Whatever it means, not all three of them end up sharing the same vision. Because going through something like that changes you, irrevocably.

And some point through it all, there was Orpheus.

And for me, I think he could have been a catalyst for a lot of the breakdown of the three.

I like to HC that he's the son of Gith and Zerthimon, and initially while gaining their freedom, he was raised between all three, but when they saw he'd inherited his mothers powers too (they'd desperately hoped. I think this is a big reason maybe why Gith had a child. A failsafe, just incase the worst happened to her and there would be someone else to carry on where she left off) Gith and Zerthimon started to train Orpheus to hone his skills and powers so he could be the heir Gith wanted.

And Vlaakith watched most of this from the sidelines, feeling more like an outsider everyday. Resentment building that she wasn't, and couldn't truly be part of Orpheus in the way Gith and Zerthimon were.

(I need to be inside your son the way you are, my lover, but can never be. Vlaakith a little unhinged. Gith and Vlaaktih the original toxic yuri write that down)

She helped train him too, but Orpheus preferred his fathers skills and ways, and what psionic power Vlaakith had paled in comparion to Gith's. She was a shadow to so many, but she never expected she'd start becoming one to the two most important people in her life.

(re Orpheus knowing about both his parents: I'm unsure how explicit I want them to be about that with him or how much he or they cared to tell him the specifics of his dad. I think it's pretty obvious, but the significance of them being a 'unit' rather than just, Zerth being an imporant 'figure' in Orpheus' life idk. I'm fully on board with (fuck) Boy Prince Orpheus era where he's a little high on my power and status lording over all you losers. But that comes more once Gith's ascended the throne)

Anyway. So post-freedom, post Gith on the throne and Vlaakith becoming her right hand, Zerth doing his thing and they kind of....really started to fracture in their ideals and ways.

Gith became obsessed with never being a slave to anyone again. That fear drove her almost mad, I think. And so did Zerthimon turning away from her own vision, especially since they shared a son. He was the future, the security, the power and promise of their people, of her vision, and freedom.

She saw it as a betrayal. As him lying down and quashing that rage he should feel after all they'd been through. Why aren't you angry, why don't you want to rage across the endless and all after what happened to us and rip apart the planes which are now ours?

He tried, consistent at her side to sway her. But the uprising had changed her. Broken her in a way he'd been too close to see. Now stood back, the cracks were like maws.

Vlaakith stood fast by Gith during the civil war. If she doesn't want you anymore, Zerth, then she'll only have me. But Vlaakith's jealousy over Gith's power, how the people revered her, Orpheus - fucking Orpheus - and once more, Vlaakith was the shadow, the second glance, third.

(Orpheus' thoughts on the civil war are for another post because hoo boy that'll be a long one too)

Everyone wanted Gith. An audience, honour to view, to speak to witness their breaker of shackles.

Everyone took a piece, while Vlaakith was losing hers.

Obsessiveness consumed her to the point that 'if I can't have you anymore, no-one else will'.

So fast forward to their visit to Tiamat, and Gith being the offering for the dragons, and Vlaaktih sitting upon Gith's throne, becoming her.

I can't have you, so no-one else can-

I can't be you-

I can be you, watch me.

Then, with Oprheus, it's only sensible to her that she imprisons him. But that takes time. Patience. The shadows she's so used to, and ultiamtely, sealing Gith's power in a neat little box until that day she figures out how to consume Orpheus and his power for her own, and there will be nothing left for Gith then, but her.

Then from Vlaaktih, broken and bitter and twisted by so much, this bleeds and breeds and spreads and beats into the githyanki culture and the githyanki we know today, with so much less love, no family, empathy-

-just paragons of rage, power, hate, I take what's mine, I keep it, I am what I say I am, i conquer worlds, I conquer you.

[swtorpadawan]

When your third-favorite D&D race gets a mention in 'Baldur's Gate III'

#representgithzerai

[gothyanki]

three gith and a baby

Favourite baby Orpheus origin?

Adopted

Gith/Vlaakith I spawn

Gith/Zerthimon spawn

Biological offspring of all three

Gith was a literal single bio-parent (like BG3-era githyanki)

Some other option (elaborate in comments if you want!)

Voting ended onNov 9, 2023

It's been pretty easy for me to dodge around the question of Orpheus' bio-parentage in the fic I'm writing (one is set before he was so much as a twinkle in anyone's eye and the other is from child!Voss' POV very early on in their acquaintance), but it's going to come up at some point if I continue the series and I genuinely can't decide what I want to go with. I personally don't think it's that important - what matters is that Orpheus is Gith's spiritual successor, that they're alike on some level - but I also don't necessarily want to keep it ambiguous forever. All the interesting headcanons I've seen floating around gave me the absolutely galaxy-brained idea to Put It To The People (in the form of a poll that will probably max out at three responses, but That Is Fine - every little helps!)

[paragonrobits]

The Nameless One: What is that blade you have? It shifted; moved in response to your voice. Dak'kon: It is a karach blade. It is an object that lets others know the rank of the wielder. The Nameless One: What rank does the blade signify? Dak'kon: The blade is a symbol carried by the zerth. A zerth is one who knows the words of Zerthimon. Dak'kon: In knowing the words of Zerthimon, they know themselves. The Nameless One: Zerthimon? Dak'kon: Zerthimon founded our race. He knew the githzerai before they knew themselves Dak'kon: He defined the People. He gave them one mind.