Editing Gith (section)

==4th Edition==
Despite the reputation 4e has for changing lore immensely, even going so far as to replace [[Limbo]] and the [[Elemental Planes]] and [[Energy Planes]] with the [[Elemental Chaos]], the lore for the gith-races ultimately didn't change that much in 4e. Perhaps the biggest tweak to the overall story is that 4e asserts the ultimate reason for the civil was that Gith basically turned out to be a ''lousy'' peace-time leader, running the now-free gith like a great military army and ultimately keeping them as little freer than they had been under the [[illithid]]s. Whatever the reason, the races split and went their separate ways, with Gith leading her [[githyanki]] followers to the [[Astral Sea]], where they founded a loosely-knit empire of raiders, centered on their capital city of [[Tu'narath]]. In comparison, the [[githzerai]] moved to the [[Elemental Chaos]], although they also maintain hidden communes in remote areas of the mortal world.

4th edition also provided the most concrete answer to Gith's fate so far.  In "Secrets of the Astral Sea", it's stated that Gith bartered away her soul, and the souls of Vlaakith and all future githyanki leaders, in exchange for the Red Dragon Pact. It also notes that nobody is sure what Tiamat has actually gained from the pact; the three most common theories are that she mistakenly believed the githyanki would ultimately become her personal dedicated race of humanoid worshippers (only to be backstabbed by their psycho-atheist beliefs), that she has manipulated the contract so she can call in one fucking '''huge''' debt when the githyanki finally end their Crusade by killing off the illithids, or that the souls of the githyanki leaders hold sufficient magical power that she can ultimately use to force the githyanki to serve her.

Further details would be provided in [[Dragon Magazine]] #377; initially, Gith had reluctantly sought alliances with other deities, but was rejected either due to being too evil, too warlike, too weak, or simply because she refused to let the githyanki worship a god. The closest thing she had to a success was in [[Baator]], with [[Archdevil#Dispater|Dispater]], and even then they couldn't close the deal because Gith wisely refused to sell the souls of all githyanki in perpetuity to the [[archdevil]]. Instead, Dispater ended up arranging for the meeting between Gith, Vlaakith and Ephelomon, with himself as mediator and observer, of course. It was Dispater who suggested that he be allowed to "host" Gith's soul in his own "care" for the duration of the pact. Curiously, he did not speak up against Gith making one of the terms of the contract that the githyanki would be free to pursue their own destinies and never be required to be subservient to [[Tiamat]] - a part of the bargain that Ephelomon agreed to and which probably put him in Tiamat's bad books for centuries.

In the 4e adventure path, [[Scales of War]], because Tiamat breaks the pact between herself and the githyanki, Gith's soul is ultimately freed from Baator. Returning to [[Tu'narath]], she possesses a githyanki woman and claims to be Vlaakith reborn, ultimately aiding the party in defeating Emperor Zetch'r'r before taking rulership over the githyanki once again. Her ultimate plans are left to the DM from there.