Planescape – Races / Characters

Races in the Planescape setting of Dungeons & Dragons.

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Bariaur

Origin: Planescape

Natives of the Plane of Ysgard, the Bariaur are centaur-like beings who possess the upper body of humanoids and the lower bodies of mountain sheep or goats.

All There in the Manual: Very little information was provided about the bariaur in the original Planescape run; instead, their creator went on to write two sourcebooks all about them and made them freely available online, fleshing out their culture and their spirituality.
Animal Gender-Bender: A small minority of females are born with horns like a ram, whilst an even smaller minority of males are born hornless.
Gender-Restricted Ability: Cultural more than physical, but in bariaur society, only ewes (or hornless rams) practice magic, whilst rams (and horned ewes) practice martial combat.
I Resemble That Remark!: Literally! Bariaur hate to be compared to centaurs, and regard it as quite insulting, but they share the exact same body structure, the same herbivorous appetite, and even many cultural traits.
No Guy Wants an Amazon: Horned ewes are considered very unlucky and unappealing in bariaur culture, which actually drives many of them to study martial combat; they're outcasts anyway, so they may as well gain the strength to force others to respect them.
Our Centaurs Are Different: They're extraplanar beings who resemble mountain sheep or goats with the torso of a humanoid being growing from where the head should be.
Use Your Head: It goes without saying that horned bariaur can deliver killer headbutts, especially if they can build up ramming speed first.

Githzerai

A Human Subspecies descended from a Slave Race created by the illithids and which successfully revolted against them, githzerai are the descendants of a branch of the race that chose to give up warmongering once they were freed and begin concentrating on a race-wide pursuit of personal enlightenment.

Bare-Fisted Monk: Their culture resonates strongly with the precepts of the Monk class, and githzerai are considered to make iconic D&D monks, much like halfling rogues, elf wizards, dwarf fighters and orc barbarians. Ironically, they only gained this trait in 3rd edition; in AD&D, they were more associated with the Magic Knight class.
Berserk Button: They hate illithids, and are extremely hostile to the githyanki as well, although they will always choose to confront an illithid over a githyanki.
Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Downplayed; despite their mammalian ancestry and appearance, githzerai canonically reproduce by laying eggs.
Early-Installment Weirdness:
- When initially introduced into the game, githzerai were a very Chaos-aligned race, with strong anarchistic leanings and a drive for independence and freedom above all else. After the popularity of the very Lawful natured Dak'kon in Planescape: Torment, and the increased association of the Monk class with the Lawful alignment, the race was reflavored to be more strictly Lawful in nature.
- They also originally had their own tyrannical wizard-king and self-proclaimed god, a mirror to Vlaakith CLVII, who was retconned out of the lore and replaced with Zerthimon, who was originally a purely legendary character.
- Their appearances changed remarkably; initially, they looked almost perfectly human, but were redesigned to more closely resemble githyanki in 3rd edition.
Good Counterpart: To the githyanki; githzerai chose to seek a spiritual awakening to recover from their experiences as a Slave Race, whilst the githyanki chose to declare war on all other races so none would ever be strong enough to enslave them again.
Human Subspecies: The githzerai are actually descended from human beings, mutated by a combination of ancient illithid flesh-crafting and their generations spent in either Limbo or the Elemental Chaos, depending on your choice of cosmology.
Hunter of Monsters: Githzerai will occasional form mind flayer hunting parties called rrakma. Such parties don't return to their monasteries until they've slain at least as many mind flayers as party members.
Magic Knight: Much like their githyanki kin, githzerai have a strong tradition of multiclassed fighter/wizards, which they refer to as Zerths.
Meaningful Name: Githzerai means "Those Who Spurn Gith" in their own tongue, reinforcing the ancient split that divided their people.
Naytheist: A variation on the trope. The githzerai acknowledge the deities as valid powers, but do not worship them, instead preferring to seek a more philosophical/secular form of freedom. It's not as intense as the githyanki's loathing of the gods as oppressors, but there are definite similarities.
Psychic Powers: All githzerai possess potent psionic abilities, a result of the mutations they underwent at illithid hands.
Reconcile the Bitter Foes: There is a secret underground society amongst both the githyanki and the githzerai dedicated to reconciling their races, called the Sha’sal Khou.
Reimagining the Artifact: Their homeland remains Limbo, even after they stopped being Chaotic. This was changed to them being there because they see it as the ultimate test to their tradition — and it doesn't hurt that the place is pretty much impregnable.
Rubber-Forehead Aliens: Githzerai share the same features as githyanki, namely yellow skin, elf-like ears, and somewhat skeletal faces, with sunken eyes and flattened noses that are more nasal slits than anything. Indeed, many wouldn't be able to tell the two apart at a casual glance.
Slave Race: Their ancestors were humans enslaved by the illithids for labor and food.

Githyanki

Notorious bandits and raiders of the Astral, Githyanki are one of the two descendants of a race that once served the illithids as slave-labor and food. However, with the aid of two great leaders; Gith and Zerthimon, they rose up and threw off their chains, massacring their former masters. At the pivotal moment of achieving total victory, however, their ancestors schismed due a conflict between their leaders; Gith wanted to conquer the multiverse to ensure that no race would ever have power over them again, whilst Zerthimon argued for a peaceful path focused on internal mastery that would render them immune to slavery. The Githyanki stayed true to Gith, and settled on the Astral, from which they have continued their warlike path ever since.

Bad Boss: Vlaakith CLVII consumes the souls of any githyanki who gets too strong^notein the meta, reaches a certain level, out of paranoia that a sufficiently strong githyanki may lead a rebellion against her. She's indoctrinated her people to not protest against this, though sources differ on whether they know she's eating souls and believe it to be an honor anyway, or if she hides the true fate of those she "honors".
Berserk Button:
- The illithids are their oldest and truest Berserk Button, and have top priority in their list of threats. The githyanki devote their lives to rooting out and slaying mind flayers.
- The githzerai are the githyanki's second-worst enemy, with emphasis on the "second" — they will actually put aside their normal hostilities and team up to destroy illithids. Otherwise, they fight to the death pretty much whenever they see each other.
- 5th edition adds a new one; being called out on how their "shepherding" of Astral communities is essentially a form of slave ownership will result in their immediately massacring whatever band of unfortunates they are robbing, in order to prove they aren't slavers.
Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Downplayed; despite their mammalian ancestry and appearance, githyanki canonically reproduce by laying eggs. According to Lae'zel from Baldurs Gate 3, their historical documents indicate that they picked this trait up after moving to the Astral Sea.
Dragon Ascendant: The githyanki have been ruled for untold millennia by the Vlaakith dynasty, descended from Vlaakith I, Gith's second-in-command, who was the only one who returned when the two went to parlay with Tiamat. There are hints that Vlaakith may have betrayed her leader to seize power, but nothing concrete.
Dragon Rider: Thanks to Gith's ancient pact with Tiamat, the githyanki have a long-lasting and deeply respectful partnership with the red dragon subrace of chromatic dragons, with young dragons serving as the iconic mounts of the most esteemed githyanki knights.
Elites Are More Glamorous: The most powerful githyanki warriors are all called "knights", and their position is cemented by the fact that they develop powers analogous to a blackguard/antipaladin.
Enemy Mine: Despite the loathing the githyanki have for the githzerai, they WILL work together with their "cousins" to combat illithid threats.
God Save Us from the Queen!: Vlaakith CLVII, the last of the Vlaakith dynasty, who chose to become a powerful lich-queen rather than die and pass on the throne to her daughter. She rules over her people as a veritable iron-fisted goddess, plots to betray the most ancient githyanki customs, and eats the souls of her strongest warriors to consolidate all her power.
Godhood Seeker: Socially, Vlaakith CLVII is pretty much the goddess of the githyanki, but that's not enough for her; she wants to become a full-fledged deity. This aspect became particularly prominent in 3rd Edition, when an entire adventure^note"The Lich-Queen's Beloved" was devoted to her attempt to complete a divine ascension, which the players have to stop.
Hollywood Atheist: A variation on the trope. The githyanki notably refuse to worship gods, because they view the strictures of faith as being a particularly insidious form of slavery. Clerics are seen as, essentially, "trustees" — quislings who have been granted power to oppress the rest of their people in exchange for loyalty to their masters.
Human Subspecies: The githyanki are actually descended from human beings, mutated by a combination of ancient illithid flesh-crafting and their generations spent in the Astral.
Hypocrite: This could practically be considered their hat:
- The githyanki abhor slavery, yet can only survive in the Astral by preying on other people and essentially reducing small settlements to slavery, forcing them to give up everything but the bare minimum to survive and then leaving them to recover before plundering them again.
- Their fascistic culture means that the githyanki fundamentally are slaves to their own lich-queen; she even has an almost god-like reverence from her people, who sneer at the faith of other races and denounce the gods as tyrants.
- Third edition furthers Vlaakith CLVII's "god in all but name" status by having her create a cadre of warlocks who draw power from her, the Ch'r'ai. "The Lich-Queen's Beloved" makes it explicit that she intends for them to become her priesthood when she ascends to full godhood.
- The githyanki respect, trust and admire their red dragon allies, but shun and loath the half-red dragon duthka'giths, privately worrying that they may be intended to replace them.
Hypocrisy Nod: "The Lich-Queen's Beloved" notes that many githyanki are unsettled by the Ch'r'ai, who seem a bit too priest-like for the githyanki's tastes.
Magic Knight: Githyanki fighter-mages are so iconic to the race as a whole that their in-universe name for them, "Gish", has become a memetic term for this trope in the D&D fandom as a whole.
Meaningful Name: Githyanki means "Child of Gith" in their own tongue, reinforcing the ancient split that divided their people.
National Weapon: Knights and leaders are given Githyanki silver swords that can damage both the mind and body. They hunt down any outsiders who are in possession of these swords. Githyanki squads who fail to retrieve these swords are themselves executed.
Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid: Duthka'giths, introduced in 3rd edition, are hybrids of githyanki and red dragon (with a dash of demon) whose creation was mandated by Vlaakith CLVII as a race of Super Soldiers.
Promoted to Playable: Githyanki first became playable in the 2nd edition sourcebook "The Guide to the Astral Plane". They appeared in multiple sourcebooks as a playable race in 3rd edition, had player mechanics in the back of the first monster manual in 4th edition, and finally received their player mechanics at the same time as the githzerai in 5th edition.
Psychic Powers: All githyanki possess potent psionic abilities, a result of the mutations they underwent at illithid hands.
Reconcile the Bitter Foes: There is a secret underground society amongst both the githyanki and the githzerai dedicated to reconciling their races, called the Sha’sal Khou.
Rubber-Forehead Aliens: Githyanki look like slender humanoids with yellow skin, fangs, and faces that can be described as "skull-like", with sunken eyesockets and semi-vestigial noses that have receded to a flattened expanse of skin with two nasal slits in it.
Slave Race: They were this, originally, and they are sworn to never be one again. Ironically, many would argue that they've ended up becoming slaves again to their Lich-Queen, and just haven't accepted it.
The Undead: "The Lich-Queen's Beloved" identifies two unique strains of githyanki undead that Vlaakith CLVII creates from those whose souls she consumes: githyanki knights become tl'a'ikith, ghostly warriors wielding spectral swords, and githyanki warlocks and gish become kr'y'izoth, beings of black flame wrapped in tattered wrappings.
Won the War, Lost the Peace: They had the illithids on the ropes, but failed to exterminate them, and now the mind flayers have scattered to the point they may never be able to finish the job. The githyanki blame the githzerai for this.

Mephits

One of the lesser races, Mephits are a race of small, fiendish-looking humanoids native to the various elemental planes. They are commonly called by malevolent beings of the Lower Planes as expendable servitors, mostly because, although technically not evil in alignment, mephits are such unpleasant little buggers that they typically end up being killed as soon as they are no longer needed.

Cypher Language: There's actually an established form of code language involving sending mephits to people you don't like, where the type(s) of mephit sent and the number of them sent conveys different responses or information. For obvious reasons, you only send mephits to rivals, enemies and other people you just don't like. The precise details of the code?
- Air: The gift of an air mephit indicates that the sender intends to either ambush the recipient or politically betray them. Naturally, these are usually timed to arrive after the plot is already in motion.
- Ash: These mephits are normally only sent to get the last word in, as they indicate a very strong and very rude refusal to correspond with the recipient anymore. They signal the recipient is no longer seen as being worth talking talk.
- Dust: Receiving a Dust Mephit is a subtle threat, typically indicating that the giver has recognized some plot you are holding against him.
- Earth: Indicating a strong refusal to concede to demands, sending an Earth Mephit to somebody is a very firm declaration of "NO!"
- Fire: These mephits indicate displeasure with some recent action of the recipient's, with the number sent indicating just how mad the sender is.
- Ice: These mephits indicate that the recipient is now officially forbidden from entering the home of the sender, with the number of Ice Mephits sent roughly indicating just how harshly they will be punished if they try.
- Lightning: Serving as a simultaneous warning and boast, the gift of a Lightning Mephit cautions the recipient to reconsider their tactics against the sender, as the sender has acquired some hidden ally who can swing things in their favor. These mephits are often, but not always, a bluff.
- Magma: One of these mephits is only sent in response to the sender having recently bested the recipient in some intellectual or diplomatic challenge. Basically, it's the sender's way of gloating.
- Mineral: An exception to the general rule of mephit code, the gift of a Mineral Mephit indicates that the sender is willing to compromise on something and is asking for more direct communication to be opened.
- Mist: Getting one of these indicates that someone close to you is an assassin, but the mephit itself almost never knows who. Given the usual audience for mephit codes, it's typically intended to inspire paranoia.
- Ooze: These mephits are intended as sarcastic gifts, and basically serve as a way for the sender to say that the recipient is a weakling.
- Radiant: Like the Mineral Mephits, these are an exception to the generally hostile nature of the mephit code. The gift of a Radiant Mephit is essentially like receiving a white flag; it indicates that the sender wants to declare a truce.
- Salt: As the most unpleasant of all mephits, sending somebody a Salt Mephit serves as a declaration of open warfare between sender and recipient.
- Smoke: Similar in nature to Salt Mephits, but less extreme; the gift of a Smoke Mephit is a sign of insolence and contempt, and is usually used to declare a vendetta.
- Steam: Serving as opposite of the Earth Mephit, the gift of a Steam Mephit indicates that the sender is agreeing to some request of the recipient. There is, however, a connotation of gloating — it serves as a way to say "yes, but I told you so!"
- Void: As mentioned above, the Plane of Void (or Vacuum, depending on where you look) has no native mephits, so "to get a Void Mephit" means to never get a reply.
- Water: Serving as formal answer to an Air Mephit, the gift of a Water Mephit indicates a sarcastic congratulation on a failed attempt by the recipient to trap or plot against the sender.
- The Mimir fansite also adds the Shadow Mephit, which, in the Mephit Code, means that one of the recipient's enemies has discovered one of the recipient's plans and is now subverting that plan by manipulating it to their own ends. For obvious reasons, this is the most terrifying mephit it's possible to send to beings that fancy themselves The Chessmaster, although fear of Gone Horribly Right keeps the vast majority of people "honest" and so refusing to use Shadow Mephits for bluff messages.
Deadpan Snarker: Salt Mephits are known for their sarcastic and acidulous wit, which makes them perhaps the most unpleasant of their kind and so typically the shortest lived once summoned.
Elemental Embodiment: Unlike their equivalents the Imp and the Quasit, mephits are a kind of lowly elemental creature. Traditionally, there is a mephit for every elemental, quasielemental and paraelemental plane bar the Plane of Vacuum/Void, which has no inherent life. 5th edition drastically undercut this by instead making mephits only native to the paraelemental planes (quasielemental planes no longer existing), reducing them to just the four breeds of magma, ooze, smoke and ice.
Familiar: Mephits have been established as an elemental creature used as familiars by spellcasters throughout D&D's many editions.
The Gadfly: Mephits are notorious for both their love of mischief and their poor impulse control, which leads to them incessantly pulling pranks or making a nuisance of themselves.
Half-Human Hybrid: No, seriously; 3rd edition introduced the Mephlings, which are the result of crossbreeding between mephits and humans. Try not to think about the potential ugly implications of that.
The Imp: They actually form a trinity of imp-like creatures in D&D, alongside the imp (a lesser baatezu) and the quasit (a lesser tanar'ri). They stand apart from their kin by being elementals rather than fiends.
Small Name, Big Ego: Despite being small, weak and stupid, mephits are notoriously braggadocios and vain, loving to give themselves absurdly pompous titles.

Modrons

The outsiders native to Mechanus, the Lawful Neutral plane, who originate from their segment of the gear-world known as Regulus. The Modrons are a bizarre hierarchy of construct-like beings, starting at the barely-sentient Monodrone and ascending all the way to the godlike Primus, the One and the Prime.

Clockwork Creature: Subverted; they look like cyborgs, and are made partially of metal, but they're very much living creatures. Which means, for instance, spells that only work on living beings, like healing potions, work on them just fine.
Everyone Has Standards: One of the Secundus tainted by Orcus participated in a traditional challenge of killing the most chaotic beings as possible in one week to decide who would succeed the Primus Orcus killed and impersonated before leaving. He did so by invading the Gnome afterlife with his army. He was disqualified, as while the Gnomes are Chaotic Good, they're not opposed to the Modrons, and he also didn't do the killing himself.
Hive Mind: Sort of. Modrons are in a sense, extensions of Primus, a godlike being whose own thoughts direct and move the whole race.
Lawful Stupid: As elemental incarnations of the Lawful Neutral Character Alignment, Modrons are lawful to the extent that it makes them seem quite insane to human perspectives. To put this in perspective; during the second adventure of "The Great Modron March", the players have to deal with the fact that the Modrons refuse to accept that a city in their way has changed in the three centuries since the last march and so will blithely march their way through the city, smashing buildings that are in their path and trampling any living creature that fails to get out of the way.
Living Polyhedron: The lowest ranked Modrons look like animated geometric bodies — monodrones are spheres, duodrones are rectangles, tridrones are pyramids and quadrones are cubes.
Order Is Not Good: Beyond the fact that their obsessively orderly minds make them an absolute nightmare to interact with, the adventure The Great Modron March makes it clear that Modrons can be as indiscriminately destructive as the fiends under the right circumstances.
Promoted to Playable: The "Rogue Modron" was one of the second wave of playable races associated with the Planescape setting, debuting in a sourcebook called "The Planeswalker's Handbook" alongside the aasimar and genasi after the boxed set had already introduced tieflings, bariaurs and githzerai.
Rogue Drone: Every so often, a modron "goes rogue" due to having been touched by chaos in some fashion. This splits themi off from the Hive Mind and causes them to develop their own individual sense of self. Whilst there are procedures by which a "rogue modron" can lawfully detach themselves from modron society, most modrons are instead forced to flee to avoid being destroyed. The phenomena largely occurs with quadrones (and, much more rarely, tridrones and pentadrones), as these are the modrons closest to humanoid in their sapience level; monodrones and duodrones are too simplistic to really develop personalities, whilst the higher ranked modrons are so alien in their mental abilities that they are much more resistant to developing individual personalities.

Rilmani

The outsiders native to the Outlands, the True Neutral plane. Cold-hearted objectivists to the core, they consider themselves the caretakers of the multiverse, intervening throughout reality to keep everything ticking along in cosmic harmony.

Balance Between Good and Evil: Overlaps with Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous. The cornerstone of their purpose is that the rilmani believe the four great cosmic forces — Law, Chaos, Good and Evil — must all be kept in a fairly balanced state, and that to allow otherwise would cause the multiverse to come apart.
Stupid Neutral: Like all exemplars, they are defined by their ingrained connection to one Character Alignment — in their case, True Neutral. Because they see this as keeping a balance between the forces of Law, Chaos, Good and Evil, that means they do actively alternate between working alongside and working against different powers and factions to adjust the Balance. However, unlike their compatriots the Modrons and Slaadi, they're not so caught up in this to be unaware of the potential for this to simply end up supporting chaos — Jemorille the Exile was banished from the Outlands due to his repeated bungling via being very hamfisted in his methods.

Slaadi

The outsiders native to Limbo, the Chaotic Neutral plane. These bizarre, flippant, frog-like creatures act as though virtually mindless, roaming aimlessly through the planes in search of prey and entertainment.

Chaotic Stupid: As elemental incarnations of the Chaotic Neutral Character Alignment, Slaadi are chaotic to the extent that it makes them seem quite insane to human perspectives.
Chest Burster: The slaadi reproductive cycle is based on two colors. Red slaadi infect victims with tadpole-like slaad larvae that eventually burst out of their host's body, creating blue slaadi (or green slaadi, if the host was a powerful wizard). Blue slaadi have a mutagenic toxin in their bite that can turn victims into new red slaadi.
Extreme Omnivore: As "chaos elementals", Slaadi will eat just about anything that catches their eyes.
Reality Warper: They have the ability to shape the essence of Limbo to a degree proportionate to their intelligence; mortals can learn how to do this, but slaadi do it by instinct.

Yugoloths

The third branch of the fiend family, the daemons to the tanar'ri (demons) and baatezu (devils). Lords of Gehenna, the Neutral Evil with a hint of Lawful plane, although they originated in the Grey Waste, the pure Neutral Evil plane. 5e changes their origins to being created by a coven of powerful Night Hags as warriors for Asmodeus, but having broken free when the coven fell to infighting.

Authority Equals Asskicking: Subverted. The lowest ranking Yugoloth is actually stronger than the next rank. Those who realize this get singled out as potential candidates for promotion.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: A Yugoloth's loyalty lasts only as long as its pay, and it will happily turn on its employer if given a better offer.
Deal with the Devil: They do make these, mostly offering their services in exchange for pay. Unlike devils, they won't ask for souls, but devils are also bound to hold up their end of the deal, while a Yugoloth can betray you any time it wants.
Evil Tower of Ominousness: They have two of these, the Tower of the Arcanaloths on Gehenna, and the much larger Khin-Oin on the Grey Waste. Attempts have been made to build a third tower on Carceri, but the geheleths keep tearing it down.
Hermaphrodite: According to the "Faces of Evil: The Fiends" sourcebook, yugoloths are all either hermaphroditic or genderless, in terms of reproductive capability, adopting genders pretty much according to their whim.
I Know Your True Name: The true names of all Yugoloths save the General of Gehenna are written down in the Books of Keeping, and learning said names can allow you to bind the Yugoloths to your service.
Neutral Evil: In-Universe, they are the Outsider embodiments of this alignment. As such, a Yugoloth's first question in any situation is always "what's in it for me?", and they work both for greed and to satisfy their bloodlust.
No Mouth: The highest-ranking Yugoloths, the Ultroloths, don't have mouths.
Plague Master: The Oinoloth (the powerful Yugoloth that currently rules the tower of Khin-Oin) can control the plagues of the Grey Waste. 5e changed things up by turning 'Oinoloth' into another category of Yugoloths who specialize in disease and biological warfare.
Precursors: Legends tell of the baernoloths, ancient fiends who created the yugoloths, and also purged Law and Chaos from themselves by transferring it into larvae which became the first baatezu and tanar'ri. Of course, while the baernoloths clearly do exist (one of them plays a vital role in one module) almost all legends about them are told by the yugoloths, and thus subject to scrutiny.
Restraining Bolt: A Yugoloth must obey anyone who holds one of the Books of Keeping and cannot betray them, but they will make their displeasure known.
War for Fun and Profit: They most often serve as mercenaries in the Blood War, but some conspiracy theorists think they're actually behind it.

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