Zerathi

The zerathi share an ancient history with the vorthani: both sprang from the slaves the warrior Vorath freed from the mind reavers ages ago, and the zerathi are the smaller, more repressed branch. Monastic and chaotic neutral, they look far more human than their cousins, with plain, faintly noble faces, human skin tones and sober, practical clothes.

They fight and cast without flourish, and their strong magic resistance makes up for weaker martial skill. Each has a class and level setting Hit Dice (hit points rolled normally) and THAC0. Mages wear nothing (AC 10), thieves are AC 7 and warriors 6-1d6 (AC 5 to 0); only fighters and fighter/mages may earn extra attacks.

Fighters of 5th level or more carry silver swords, two-handed swords +3; each astral hit has a 5% chance to sever a silver cord unless the target is mind barred. These holy blades are never willingly surrendered, and lost ones are hunted down.

Every zerathi can plane shift to any plane, though they mostly use it to reach their fortresses on the Prime Material. Rumor says their mental powers run deeper than anyone has documented.

After the revolt, these people rejected Vorath's path and followed a powerful wizard who named himself their king and later their god. He is no god, but he rules absolutely, and any zerathi growing strong enough to threaten him is destroyed first. Most never pass 7th level and none pass 9th, with one exception: a rare few become thieves, who may reach 12th level. They never lead, yet hold some unexplained religious role; a traveling band has a 10% chance that a 6th to 10th-level thief replaces one lower-level member.

Their faith centers on Zerath, who denounced Vorath as hateful and unfit to rule once the slaves were free, splitting the people in a great battle. Vorath's followers became the vorthani; Zerath's, who take his name, became the zerathi. Zerath died freeing his people from her, and they believe he will return as a god to lead them to a home on another plane, gathering first the chosen ones who serve as focal points of his attention. The nameless wizard-king sees the legend as a threat to his rule, and rightly. He persecutes the chosen but has never stamped the faith out and must now endure it.

Their power center is the plane of raw chaos, where fortresses of about 3,000 zerathi, each under an absolute supreme leader, and cities of 100,000 or more impose order on the chaos. The greatest, a fortress-capital of some 2,000,000, is their military headquarters, where generals and nobles plan the wars against vorthani and mind reavers.

Their handful of Prime Material fortresses are squat towers of adamantite rising from dusty plains, each holding about 500 under a supreme leader. Miles of dead wasteland surround each, either from the otherplanar stuff of the walls or from magic meant to keep natives away. These strongholds exist to watch the vorthani and launch precise strikes that keep them from gaining ground. They seek no conquest and avoid harming natives, but never at the cost of a sound plan. They readily hire Prime mercenaries for this war.

Hatred of the mind reavers, whom they blame for splitting their people, remains strong. Sworn reaver-hunt bands of 30 to 60 warriors under a sergeant roam the inner and outer planes for about three months at a time, wiping out every reaver nest they find, and serving in one is a great honor. They shun fiends, stay out of the endless war between demons and devils and visit the lower planes only when they must. They coexist with the chaos toads.

Scholars covet their effortless plane-walking, and attempts to capture one alive for study cause frequent clashes with humans. None has succeeded.