Gish

In the lore of Dungeons & Dragons, gish refer to a class of githyanki warrior of great skill, often combining melee combat and the use of magic. The term has acquired a secondary meaning, that of a character build, mainly in fantasy role-playing games, that is skilled in both physical melee combat and the use of magic

Etymology

The term gish first appears on page 43 of the 1981 Fiend Folio for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, in which it refers to a githyanki multi-class character with 4 levels in fighter and 4 levels in magic-user. Two such gishes were said to appear in the mixed party of githyanki that player characters could encounter. (Although the githyanki themselves were created by Charles Stross in White Dwarf issue 12 in 1979, the term gish did not appear in the issue and was likely added to the Fiend Folio by editor Don Turnbull.)

The word gish has continued to be used in official D&D products up to the present day, always in reference to the githyanki, but it became more widespread by its use in books for the Planescape campaign setting for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition. For example, in A Guide to the Astral Plane (1996), the word is said to be a githyanki word meaning skilled.

The term was used in fan circles in the 2nd edition era to mean a non-specific mage/fighter combination, but became particularly popular during Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition and version 3.5, especially in discussions of optimization, when the wealth of character options made character builds more varied. Although the original meaning persists, and this usage has followed out of favor, it is still sometimes used in this sense, essentially as a synonym for fighter/magic-user or f/mu.