What is a "gish"?

[Jackinthegreen]

I first encountered the word "gish" on the BG forums. I could tell right off the usage there was a fighter/mage type, but I wanted to know the history of it so I asked around a bit and found out it started with describing githyanki specifically.

I voted #2 because I find it a quick and easy term to use that almost everyone in the forum I most frequent (BG's successor, minmaxboards) uses to mean a general fighter/magic or psionic-user. That is mostly 3E and 4E gaming, though, so it's somewhat understandable that they use that definition since the LA on githyanki make them more difficult to use as characters in many cases. It's a term that works quite well for that subset of D&D gamers. For people who prefer 1st and 2nd editions, it probably won't work the same way since the rules and feel of the game are quite different.

 

[Starfox]

Magus is the singular of magi, the wise men of Old Testament fame*.

* And other sources, of course - I'm not making any claims of exclusivity here!

Magi were originally the clerics of Zoroastrianism, the Persian religion of antiquity up to the Muslim conquest. When the bible was written, there was nothing strange about this term, tough it was perhaps a bit exotic in the roman empire. Remember that the conquests of Alexander the Great and the period of Hellenism that followed brought Persia much closer to the west culturally in the period just before roman ascendancy. It was only later, when Zoroastrianism was all but extinct, that it gained its present meaning.

So what was once a Persian word for cleric became a generic term for magician in the west... Much like Gish was a specific class among the Githyanki and became the generic term for a fighter/magic-user. ^^

 

[TerraDave]

'gish' was introduced in the original Fiend Folio as a 4th level fighter 4th level magic user (in a little table, so there was no descriptive text beyond that). The term was generalized, including, sadly, by some of the wotcs themselves.

Obviously the F/MU concept did not originate with the Githyanki in D&D. It originated with the elf.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Nah. Magus is the singular of magi, the wise men of Old Testament fame*.

New Testament!

Magi were originally the clerics of Zoroastrianism, the Persian religion of antiquity up to the Muslim conquest. When the bible was written, there was nothing strange about this term, tough it was perhaps a bit exotic in the roman empire. Remember that the conquests of Alexander the Great and the period of Hellenism that followed brought Persia much closer to the west culturally in the period just before roman ascendancy. It was only later, when Zoroastrianism was all but extinct, that it gained its present meaning.

Yes -- the term is also transferred to a number of other wonder-workers in the first and second centuries CE (in the Roman East) as the specific application to Zoroastrians gets generalized by a population that doesn't care about the distinction and needs a helpful general term.

So it's a pretty good parallel for this discussion.

 

[Balesir]

As to how that applies to made up gaming terms, I don't really care. I was just giving the reason why I voted the way I did.

You might want to make that "D&D terms"; Magus has been used for many years in Ars Magica to mean a full member of the Order of Hermes.

 

[am181d]

I think the word you're looking for is "Jedi".

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Wait, wait, wait. People think we're talking about in-game use? I assumed this discussion was purely about out-of-game use. I don't use the term "gish" in game at all, no more than I use the term "fighter-mage."

Ditto. I've never used gith as a DM, never encountered them as a player, and I've never heard 'gish' outside of the interwebs.

I just think the term "magus", while vague, is a little less goofy.

That term really misled me, until I actually looked at the PF srd. As (Psi)SeveredHead says, 'magus' sounds like another way of saying 'wizard,' so I had assumed the class was some kind of full arcane caster.

(Maybe one that finally breaks through the silly arcane/divine divide? Nope, too much to hope for. )

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

You might want to make that "D&D terms"; Magus has been used for many years in Ars Magica to mean a full member of the Order of Hermes.

I was commenting on Gish, not Magus. But "D&D terms" would probably apply there as well.

 

[delericho]

New Testament!

Oops.

 

[Warbringer]

Long before the term Gish made its migration from Githyanki specific to a generalized term we all referred to the concept as a f-mu.

I still think Githyanki when I hear the term