Yithians are, at their core, rational beings, and so their
society is built on a foundation of shared resources
managed under strict rules. Their government is a
federation more akin to a league of communities than
a homogeneous nation-state. There are four major
geographic regions in this federation, each with its own
governing council. The four councils act as a voting body
that elects a board of governors to preside over yithian
government as a whole, though only yithian elders can
be a part of either group. Citizens disagreeing with their
council’s decisions can raise the matter to the board,
which adjudicates the final decision in the best interests
of the Great Race.
Although crime is incredibly rare among their kind,
accused lawbreakers are treated with extreme respect,
as no member of the Great Race wishes to see its kind’s
numbers diminished by such uncivilized sentences
as banishment or death. Judgment and sentencing are
pronounced only after careful consideration of the
accused’s motivations, and such deliberations have
been known to take decades—even centuries—as the
accused’s actions must be evaluated against the scope of
an immortal life span. Those yithians convicted of lesser
crimes lose certain privileges within their society, while
more serious offenses result in punishments that wrench
and damage the convict’s mind without the release of
death. Only the most heinous crimes end up earning the
nearly unthinkable act of execution.
By learning from countless other cultures, the yithians
have created highly advanced technology that automates
the production of food and other goods. Great machines
maintain their cities’ structures, even in the face of
sudden geological upheaval. Meanwhile, freed from the
banalities of manual labor, yithians are able to focus on
studying science, pursuing artistic visions, and collecting
even more knowledge.
Despite being a generally peaceful people, the struggles
against flying polyps and other creatures on their world,
such as the star-headed elder things, also forced the
Great Race to turn its collective minds toward developing
powerfully destructive weapons. When yithians are
pushed to the point where they see no other choice than
to engage in warfare, the results are cataclysmic.
Schisms within yithian culture are uncommon, but
they have certainly been part of the culture’s history,
sometimes erupting into devastating civil wars. Most
yithians, however, understand the importance of
preserving the minds of their citizens in order to avoid
threatening the existence of their whole species. Greater
threats, like the flying polyps, overshadow almost any
ideological differences.
As beings of pure thought who have existed for
an incomprehensible length of time, yithians are
an enigma to most other creatures they encounter.
The paths of logic a yithian mind follows are paved
with eons of experience and knowledge. Only the
most capable minds can talk with them and not lose
themselves in the process. Yithians are inscrutable, even
when inhabiting the bodies of familiar species. Yithians
place their own survival and the eradication of the
flying polyps above all else, making them seem cold and
unfeeling to creatures that may act more according to
emotion, morality, or other such base impulses.
The truth is far more complicated, of course. Yithians
are quite willing to work with other creatures. They
sometimes share access to their libraries, especially when
they can gain new knowledge in return. When their needs
coincide with those of other species, yithians can bring
the full power of their intellects to bear, drawing on the
wisdom of innumerable worlds to formulate plans and
create weapons, making them powerful allies. However,
one must never forget that these are also beings whose
rational thinking leads them to annihilate the minds of
entire species in order to ensure their own continued
existence above all else.
Through their experiences with a wide variety of
cultures, yithians have come in contact with nearly
every class imaginable. The creatures’ love of knowledge
usually leads them to take levels in alchemist, arcanist,
investigator, occultist, psychic, wizard, and even witch.
More martial-minded characters focus on eradicating
flying polyps wherever they are encountered, taking
levels in kineticist, magus, ranger, and slayer. Yithians
do not typically worship divine beings, seeing little
need for devotion to anything beyond the Great Race, so
they tend not to take levels in cleric, oracle, paladin, or
similar classes. A rare few, however, come to know the
divine powers of a particular world and will take levels in
inquisitor, using their chosen deity’s power to seek out
and destroy their hated aberrant enemies.
