Zerth Freebooter

Combat

Zerth Freebooters can operate as fighters, fighter/mages, mages or thieves, with limits of 9 in each class. The highest-level fighter acts as captain, allowing the spellcasters to attend to combat or spelljamming. Thieves are often encountered, serving as tacticians and assassins. It is this group, along with the Zerth Freebooters' high magic resistance that gives them a much-needed edge against the Pirates of Gith.

Their weapons and armour are largely unremarkable; they brought few artifacts with them, and rarely have time to create their own. Therefore, they rely on trade with humans, elves, dwarfs and other spacefaring races as a source of equipment. They favour piratical weapons for their practicality (cutlasses, etc) and tend to wear light armour. There will always be at least five 'shock troops' on a Zerth Freebooter vessel who are specialized in the use of the ancestral weapon: the two-handed sword. Few if any zerth freebooters have been known to use Silver Swords, however.

Zerth Freebooters realize the value of cooperating with other spacefaring races, although they rarely fraternize with them. Their mission against the Pirates of Gith is akin to a holy war, and as such this takes priority over developing anything more than a military alliance. Detatchments of Zerth Freebooters are occasionally found on elven ships, in elf/githzerai operations, given that elven armadas frequently post bounties on the heads of Gith pirates. A Zerth Freebooter company prefers human and elven ships over those of other races.

Like the githzerai, Zerth Freebooters have the ability to plane shift three times per day. In addition, if a crew of Zerth Freebooters is in possession of a major or minor spelljamming helm and an elven craft, they are capable of combining their plane shift abilities to shunt the craft into another plane. However, this may only be used on an elven vessel of 60 tons or less. Naturally, this is a useful aid to pursuing Gith pirates. This ability can only be used in wildspace, however; it will not work in the phlogiston.

When in Limbo, Zerth Freebooters are able to pilot their ships flawlessly, traveling twice as fast as any other vessel. This is due to a variety of causes. Exchange of ideas with the githzerai has led to them developing a minor anarch's talent, which enables them to configure and reconfigure their ships with abandon. Secondly, as crews, Zerth Freebooters are remarkably efficient, each co-operating voluntarily and to the best of their ability. Thirdly, their chaotic alignments enable them to comprehend their surroundings and traverse them far more efficiently than any other Xaos-jammers.

Habitat/Society

The Zerth freebooter culture is primarily one of privateering against the Pirates of Gith. They will pursue Gith pirates to the exclusion of other enemies, with the possible exception of the illithids. The hatred of the mind flayers remains after millenia of freedom, and Zerth Freebooters have been known to set aside other goals to join their githzerai cousins in prime plane-based rrakkma bands.

Zerth Freebooters owe no loyalty except to their crewmates, their ship and the legend of Zerthimon. They make difficult allies, but deadly enemies. They are not part of conventional githzerai culture, and owe no allegiance to the githzerai wizard-king. As such, they rarely travel to the githzerai cities on Limbo, for fear of being encouraged to accept his rule. They are regarded as minor heroes by common githzerai, and as respected equals by zerths. Zaerith-Menyar-Ag-Gith tolerates them. He has yet to prune their numbers when certain individuals become too powerful because their line of work—a nearly perpetual state of war—does that job admirably.

Ecology

To date, Zerth Freebooters have not been the subject of intense study, and likely never will be. It is assumed that physiologically speaking, they are not unlike githzerai, although they are just as unknown.