Editing Gith (section)

===Basic "Core" Stuff===
They appear first in the Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix (these extras were printed with hole-punched pages so you could add them to a fuckhuge binder with all your Monstrous Compendium stuff in one place), and they get a bit of a concise facelift that reprints a very slightly expands on the previous material.  Everything was reprinted in the later Monster Manual (since TSR realized that loose-leaf sheets could get run through a copying machine, and gamers never needed the internet to pirate intellectual property).

The term "[[githyanki]]" is noted in 2nd edition to specifically mean "sons of Gith", and it is noted here that while the githyanki gladly fuck with other races and beings, they do not quarrel among themselves.  It also lists a number of special groups or castes among them who perform specific tasks: g'lathk (farmers who tend artificial chambers used to grow fungi, plants that don't need sunlight, and aquatic plants in water-gardens); mlar (the mages who use their magic for construction instead of combat); hr'a'cknir (craftsmen who harness astral psychic energy to perform unspecified jobs).  Because the [[cavalier]] didn't really make the cut to 2nd edition, githyanki "knights" were [[paladin]]s that used evil-version abilities (''detect good'', ''command undead'', etc.).

The [[githzerai]] got similar details.  Their capital city was called [[Shra'kt'lor]] here, and the entry provides us with the Legend of [[Zerthimon]].  After Gith defeated the mind flayers, Zerthimon opposed her on the grounds that she was a mean, evil bitch.  That went about as well as you could expect, leading to actual fighting between those who remained loyal to Gith, and those who felt she was an evil bitch. Zerthimon died, but his faction got away. The githzerai believe that Zerthimon is a divine figure now, and when he comes back like Jesus he's going to gather up the "zerths" (their term for fighter/mages) and lead his people to paradise. Apparently, the wizard-king is not happy with this legend or the religious fervor it creates, since it challenges his authority, but he hasn't been able to get rid of it.

Another tidbit in this early material for githzerai is that while the githyanki are generally militaristic and aggressive, the githzerai prefer to keep to themselves.  They do, however, get a nice party together called a "rrakkma", which spends 3 months scouring the planes for [[illithid]]s to kill; githzerai consider it an honor to participate in these little excursions.

They are noted for having [[Prime Material]] strongholds, but no mention of adamantine walls (and seriously, who wouldn't massacre these guys for that much delicious building material), though it does mention that the stronghold's presence destroys the landscape for miles around, possibly due to the extra-planar nature of the building material, or just mages fucking shit up to keep out trespassers. They aren't trying to deliberate mess shit up, though; the strongholds are, apparently, simply to give them a place to stage raids on any githyanki they find on the Prime Material.

Oh, and 2nd edition also notes here that neither gith-folk give a shit about the [[Blood War]]; they got illithids and each other to fuck up, no time for messing about with an eternal war involving a bunch of bloodthirsty, lying-ass fiends.