The Gith Are Now Aberrations in Dungeons & Dragons

The githyanki and githzerai are officially reclassified as aberrations in Dungeons & Dragons. In a video released today about the 2025 Monster Manual, D&D designers Jeremy Crawford and F. Wesley Schneider confirmed that the two classic D&D species are now being classified as aberrations. The reasoning given - the two gith species have been so transformed by living in the Astral Plane and Limbo, they've moved beyond being humanoids. Schneider also pointed out that the illithid's role in manipulating the gith also contributed to their new classification.

The video notes that this isn't technically a new change - the Planescape book released in 2023 had several githzerai statblocks that had aberration classifications.

The gith join a growing number of previously playable species that have new classifications. The goblin, kobolds, and kenku have also had their creature classifications changed in the 2025 Monster Manual. While players can currently use the 2014 rules for making characters of those species, it will be interesting to see how these reclassifications affect the character-building rules regarding these species when they are eventually updated for 2024 rules.

 

[Voadam]

The reasoning given - the two gith species have been so transformed by living in the Astral Plane and Limbo, they've moved beyond being humanoids. Schneider also pointed out that the illithid's role in manipulating the gith also contributed to their new classification.

Doesn't quite work for me on first read. Aberrations are not something I really associate with natives of the astral or outer planes. I also don't think of the mind flayers generally turning their slaves into aberrations the way aboleth slime alters things. The one big exception being through the cereberomophosis to make new mind flayers if that lore is adopted. I could see some psychic surgery making some alterations, but I do not picture it being to the level of changing slave population into a full on aberration type change.

 

[Voadam]

Dragonborn and Lizardfolk into Dragons.

You mean like kobolds?

 

[Smackpixi]

Are the new classifications of former humanoids logical? Like humanoids are all from the material plane and not mutated by anything, or at least not mutated by anything but gods? And fey from the Feywild, or shaped significantly by their shared time there? New abominations something changed by abominations, devils, demons. Monstrosities changed by nature, other humanoids, or themselves?

 

[Xenolith234]

Doesn't quite work for me on first read. Aberrations are not something I really associate with natives of the astral or outer planes. I also don't think of the mind flayers generally turning their slaves into aberrations the way aboleth slime alters things. The one big exception being through the cereberomophosis to make new mind flayers if that lore is adopted. I could see some psychic surgery making some alterations, but I do not picture it being to the level of changing slave population into a full on aberration type change.

Yeah, it should be something like an Outsider creature type, but that doesn’t exist anymore.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Lae’zel disapproves so strongly her searing anger burns this terrible, nonsensical, edgelord change from the face of existence.

 

[Corinnguard]

They ought to make the Aasimar into Celestials, the Tieflings into Fiends and the Genasi into Elementals.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Nope.

2014 is looking better every day.

Thats a thing with your ex...

To the topic: 3e had a lot of playable species that were not humanoids.

Aasimar were classified as outsiders. And this meant they were immune to all those humanoid spells. But they also had a level adjustment.

In a later species book, they added the option of playing a lesser variant of those species, that reclassified them as humanoids and removed the level penalty.

In MMotM goblins are humanoids with the fey ancestry. I don't have a problem with those two variants loving side by side. Many goblins are fey. Some goblins are more removed from the feywild and are humanoid with fey ancestry.

Keith baker showed how he would treat gnolls as fiends. I love his take.

Instead of constantly complaining when something changes, he finds an easy solution that makes sense in the world.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

They ought to make the Aasimar into Celestials, the Tieflings into Fiends and the Genasi into Elementals.

See post above. Aasimars used to be outsiders in 3e.

Elves are no feys though too. I think you can draw the line anywhere you want in a make believe game.
Accepting that helps a lot.

If one disapproves with a change, just change that detail back.
I am not sure about goblins. I don't mind or like every other change.
But If I think about goblins in Warcraft, they are weird little tinkers, probably closer to gnomes in D&D than goblins.

 

[Tonguez]

One would start to think that Humanoid is redundant

 

[Chaosmancer]

Doesn't quite work for me on first read. Aberrations are not something I really associate with natives of the astral or outer planes. I also don't think of the mind flayers generally turning their slaves into aberrations the way aboleth slime alters things. The one big exception being through the cereberomophosis to make new mind flayers if that lore is adopted. I could see some psychic surgery making some alterations, but I do not picture it being to the level of changing slave population into a full on aberration type change.

But that IS the Gith lore really. They were fundamentally altered to be the Slave Super-Soldiers of the Illithid Empire. They were not originally Gith, and no one except the Mind Flayers know what they once were. They have been changed and altered on every level. And this is like, 2e lore for them. You could easily reveal that the Gith never existed before the Mindflayers made them in test tubes from raw flesh.

And the Mindflayers did this sort of massive alteration to a LOT of beings. Chuul and Grimlocks being two others I know off the top of my head. They've always been the mad scientists of the Aberrations, remaking their enslaved creatures in the lab.