Gnolls are tall, hyena-faced nomads who wander in loose clans.
Personality: Gnolls run in clans dominated by their females which can
comprise up to 100 individuals. Each clan "owns" a small stretch of plains,
their territorial hunting grounds, spending their days in caves or covered
pits. Clans mark their territories by erecting standing stones or sharpened
stakes at the boundaries. Females form the core of the clan, and they have a
loose hierarchy where the stronger females get a larger share of food than
the weaker ones, sometimes after fierce fights. The most powerful female
gnolls tend to be very large and very fat. Males tend to be smaller and even
more violent, screaming and whooping, biting and biting when the females
won't let them have their way; occasionally a number of them will gang up on
a female and beat her if no other females are around to stop it. Males are
usually transients anyway, wandering from their birth clans and often moving
from clan to clan. Males exist outside the machiavellian politics of the
females, but are still affected by them.
In various societies, gnolls are ruled by chieftains chosen either from the
males or females by the adepts, by war-leaders chosen by the priests, by
priest-kings chosen by the council of tribes, by hereditary emperors with the
aid of a council of high priests, or by an elite cabal of
philosopher-scientists who are the secret power behind the gnollish
megacorporations.
Gnolls normally eat the sick and old members of their clan, which is one of
the reasons the healthy males are encouraged to move away. Gnolls from
different clans war with each other in pitched mass battles and will eat the
other clans' dead or wounded, though the fights are usually nonlethal.
Young gnolls try to kill and eat one another from the moment they can walk,
which is usually in a few weeks. There is not much their mothers can do
about this, although in more civilized societies they may keep their infants
in specially reinforced kennels for the first several months of their life,
but large gnoll litters are about 25% smaller by the time they reach
adulthood and calm down.
Females will mate only with males from other clans. Gnolls have no marriage
customs; only a privileged few males are even allowed into the females' inner
sanctums. Females are often witches.
Gnolls don't cooperate very well, generally hunting alone except when facing
very powerful foes, in which case one or more leaders may organize a pack.
Physical Description: Gnolls stand seven and a half feet tall, with
greenish-gray skin, a furry body, and a head like a hyena's, with a reddish
gray to dirty yellow mane. They crack bones with their powerful jaws. Their
large shoulders and thick necks dominate their torsos, enabling them to carry
large four-legged beasts or humanoids like so many rabbits, their short,
dark-muzzled heads hunched down below. Gnolls have spotted bodies and round,
forward-pointing ears. Nocturnal carnivores, they generally kill their own
prey, but they will eat the dead if given a chance. Females have genitals
that look identical to those of the males and they don't develop breasts
until they're pregnant or nursing, so often the only way to tell the sexes
apart is by their size, or by the female's jewelry, ceremonial body paint,
scars, and tattoos, and elaborate headdress.
Relations: Most other races distrust gnolls, seeing them as cannibalistic
savages, which is usually true. Of the sects and factions, gnolls like the
Fated, the Ragers, the Ciphers, and the Dead the best.
Alignment: Gnolls are violent and untrustworthy, with little understanding of
kindness and charity. They tend strongly towards chaos and evil, although a
few of them have turned towards neutral deites like animal totems or Wotan.
Gnollish Lands: Gnolls live on fairly flat, grassy plains with few or no
trees. Some marshes and sometimes, rocky country. Within its vast range, the
gnoll occurs in many different landscapes, from extremely hot and arid
low-lying areas in the north and south to the cold heights of dense mist
forests on mountains.
Religion: From the earliest days of their race, gnolls worshipped the phases
of the moon, screaming and singing their yodeling howls at the white eye in
the hunter's sky. Gorellik, the great hyaenadon spirit who first taught
gnolls how to train their brothers the hyaenadons and their servants the dire
lions to hunt, became the second thing for gnolls to revere, and his worship
became closely associated with the moon's three phases. Perhaps gnolls were
originally beast-spirits who learned how to join themselves with giants, but
the gnolls rarely have any opinion on their origin, and Gorellik received no
credit; he was only a child of Meyanok, the diseased serpent. Occasionally,
gnolls claim to be "the last race of gods," born after the flinds, or somehow
made from divine essence in the same way the other great spirits are, but
this only sets them as equals to Gorellik, reducing him to the status of
racial hero. This is but one of the reasons why faith in Gorellik is now in
its waning phase.
Meanwhile, a plane of the Abyss existed that was nothing but the rotting
corpses of sentients drawn from other layers of the Abyss and the material
plane as well. Like falling stars drawn towards a planetoid, the archetype of
the sentient corpse drew its kind inward, and the plane fed and grew. In this
plane the ghouls, maurezhi, and nabassu thrived. As this improved its
status, the layer began to reward the devouring of its corpses, and in this
environment one of the scavengers eventually emerged as a ruler. His name is
represented as a primal laugh-howl: Yeenoghu. Ultimately, the demon lord was
to dominate two layers, the 421st and 422nd: the Salted Wound and the Seeping
Woods.
Like the hyaenadons, gnolls were often carrion eaters, and as Yeenoghu's
power grew he noted this and determined the entire race would be his.
Largely, he's succeeded, offering more power than the Laughing Father of the
Hunt could, especially to the often disenfranchised males. With the power of
Yeenoghu behind them, many male clerics or adepts have grown to dominate
their tribes. The remaining worshippers of Gorellik treat their hyaenadons
and dire lions better and eat carrion as a matter of mere convenience instead
of as a sacred imperative as Yeenoghu's followers do, and they tend to be
more matriarchal. Where both Powers are revered, Yeenoghu is always more
important, since his fading rival lacks the personality to inspire as much as
he once did, while for the gnolls the demon prince's moon is waxing or full,
still active and interested in mortal affairs.
For the cultists of Yeenoghu, the pursuit of more and more worthy carrion is
the most holy act they can pursue. The grisly body parts Yeenoghuans use as
trophies are scored with patterns of knife or tooth marks to indicate the
corpse's previous status. Important and esepecially strong, intelligent, or
charismatic people may be targeted so that they can be slain, buried, and
eaten in ceremony, in Yeenoghu's name.
Yeenoghu desires to spread his dominion to all those who consume corpses,
thereby cementing a continuous energy loop between himself, his plane, his
servants, and cannibalistic necrophages everywhere. If everyone eats corpses,
everyone will serve Yeenoghu. This is not yet a true statement; many, even
among gnolls and ghouls, eat the occasional moldering corpse without being
responsible to the hungering lord in any way. This is why Yeenoghu must have
two goals: to encourage the consumption of sentient corpses among those who
haven't tried them, and to conquer those who do so already.
Yeenoghu has cults among humans in isolated xenophobic communities, the lairs
of strangely inbred families, and the filthy hearts of impoverished cities.
Occasionally, as among the ghouls of Nehwon, an elder race of living
creatures with transparent flesh, he'll gain dominion over entire
city-states. Yeenoghu has cultists among many races with kinship to dogs,
crows, vultures, wolves, worms, pigs, and swine. Often, in Yeenoghu-lead
societies, the ancient leaders will be transformed into the undead form of
ghouls to lead the community in blind hunger long after their reign should
have ended. Gnolls and flinds generally reject this because the stench of
ghoul or ghast flesh makes them too hungry to follow what they perceive as
food, or to do anything but pounce. This creates a gap between Yeenoghu's two
major sets of followers that he has never been able to bridge. Gnolls who
become ghouls must leave the clan to avoid being devoured by their former
allies. Hungry gnolls will ignore the risk of paralysis for the sake of tasty
undead meat.
Temples to Yeenoghu always contain a trophy room, as well as a filthy celler
in which corpses can be allowed to age.
With the aid of his servants, Yeenoghu offers power with a price. The price
is service to the Devourer of the Departed and an increasing urge to consume
the deceased, an act which ultimately increases the power of Yeenoghu's layer
of origin. The giggling tempters of the ghoul-king love to increase their
victims' association of dead flesh with real rewards.
The demon-prince's method of seducing others into his sphere of influence
works in stages. Initially, the Jackal sends a cultist to encourage the
vulnerable. Yeenoghu's cult is strongest among the gnolls and flinds, but
also exists wherever food is scarce and corpses are common. Yeenoghu seeks
first to change his victims' dietary mores, then her habits, creating a
horrible addiction, and finally to use the addiction as leverage to control
the addict or to convince the victim to commit evils in order to feed their
urge.
Important and reluctant marks may earn a visit from a succubus, incubus, or
glabrezu. Yeenoghu's tempter demons aren't particularly interested in sex:
they use their charm and persuasion to push their victms toward fouler deeds.
Through centuries of experience, they can be quite cunning, not just showing
up with a "It's delicious, why don't you try it?" but manipulating events to
create a perceived need to join the incubus in its favorite repast. The
succubus or incubus -- whispering demon -- tries to bind its victim with a
psychological dependence on the tempter or one of Yeenoghu's cults, so much
so that they are willing to do anything, anything to please their
psychological center.
"Don't you love me? Do you really, really love me? Why can't you accept the
need for this? Our need for this? Jamie doesn't need his body any more, and
we need his spiritual strength to survive."
"But we killed him! We killed him and left his body to rot!"
"You killed him, honey. You did it for us."
Yeenoghu uses the lure of carrion to draw prize vrocks to himself, turning
them into ghouls in all but name: rotting, rubbery, gibbering, slightly
canine corpse-eating vrock armies to do Yeenoghu's will.
Yeenoghu's influence over the genie courts, traditionally enforced by minions
working from the Plane of Shadow, has also waned during the long Retreat of
Shades (the negative energy plane's long waning stage when it moves further
from the Material; gnollish sages track this by observing the peculiarities
of the moon's phases), and in many cases needs to be renewed from scratch.
Yeenoghu once could claim authority over various degenerate genies and the
most powerful of the great ghuls, but today many of his most loyal followers
have been destroyed or gone torpid, leaving younger, independent ghuls to
fill the void.
Yeenoghu ultimately would like to get the lady Zuggtmoy, demon queen of
fungi, under his power, since mold devours the dead as well as anything.
Yeenoghu lusts also after the territories held by the lords Zalintar and
Ma'azbert. He needs to deal with the current king of the ghouls, the lord of
the White Kingdom, who is threatening Yeenoghu's age-old hold over his race
by allying with Nerull, god of murder and undeath. Ghouls have long been
Yeenoghu's exclusive domain, seperate from other forms of unlife since he
tempted them away from Orcus, and until he manages to make ghouls of all
undead things, Yeenoghu aims to keep it that way.
The emnity between Yeenoghu and Baphomet is at first glance hard to
understand. Though their spheres of influence overlap slightly in Baphomet's
"Maze of Bone" doctrine, they are generally seperate. The territories of
their respective species, gnolls and minotaurs, don't overlap much either,
though ghouls occasionally invade the lightless tunnels of the bull-men.
Gnolls function best on the plains and hills and minotaurs lurk below ground
and in cities and boats, disliking the open spaces in which gnolls thrive.
No, the emnity between the two princes of demonkind has nothing to do with
thir mortal followers and everything to do with their personal grudge.
Yeenoghu was actually trying to assault the realm of Pale Night, one of the
most ancient of, or more ancient than, all tanar'ri, under the impression
that her influence over bones would be a valuable addition to his portfolio.
Pale Night has dwelled within Baphomet's shifting maze almost as long as
Baphomet has ruled it; before that, she dwelled in Degrazazt and before that
within a pale, cold absence called the Souless Sounding that wasn't an
Abyssal layer, yet was connected to them all. She has not been interested in
ruling a realm or larger domain, aware that to control the Abyss you risk
being controlled and preferring to work through pawns.
Pale Night established herself as a subcult within Baphomet's crude and
violent faith, offering forbidden revelations to those who solved the secret
of the labyrinthine rituals; the chosen must become both high priest and
priestess within the tangled order at different times before finally retiring
to become hierophants.
When a young and cocky Yeenoghu heard of the elder demon who concealed her
secrets in a fortress of bone he became determined to investigate.
Yeenoghu's assault, involving flights of dread linnorms and ghoul hordes, did
a great deal of damage before Baphomet was finally able to repel it days away
from Pale Night's sanctum. The horned and the hyena-faced Powers have hated
one another ever since, and minotaurs, even those who serve Geryon, will
attack gnolls and ghouls on sight.
Some gnoll societies have adopted other patrons. Erythnul, a god of hate,
envy, malice, panic, and slaughter, is a popular choice, and his cult members
can be distinguished by their red armor and maces, and the claim that their
ancestors were spawned from that shape-shifter's blood. Some have turned to
one or the other of the various evil giant gods -- Vaprak, Grolantor,
Karontor, or Memnor -- admiring their size and strength. Some few have even
been subverted into joining the cult of Baphomet with promises of power and
slow indoctrination through secret gnollish hunting orders, which ultimately
show them tailored mazes. Not being one of the Young Races, they can't walk
the Elder Path of transformation, and so can't be transformed into minotaurs
themselves, but they can still walk Pale Night's path of secrets. These
gnolls are considered to be traitors to their people and are attacked by
gnolls as if they were minotaurs themselves.
Even more rarely, gnolls turn to neutral or good deities, commonly gods of
death and carrion like Odin, Osiris, or the Morrigan. Some have even
converted to Christianity and Islam. In postindustrial societies, many gnoll
clans have fallen behind technologically and are forced to compromise in
order to get work in the cities of other races.
Language: Barking and whining, their howls sound like laughter. They're not;
they're often the harbinger of death.
The gnollish language evolved from this primitive beginning to become a rich
and musical tongue which depends as much on rhythm and meter as it does
individual words. The harmonies of Gnollish are wild and erratic, ranging
from soaring wails to sharp staccatos, yet fitting together into a logical
whole.
Names: Gnolls are named during hunting or battle some time between the ages
of two and twenty, after their deeds: Soul-Render, Wind-Tamer, World-Bridger,
and Moon-seeker.
Adventurers: Gnollish adventurers are often males seeking new clans, females
seeking magic, or hunters pursuing their prey far beyond the lands they know.
Gnollish Racial Traits:
* Str +4, Con +2, Int -2, Cha -2; +2d8 HD; +1 base attack
* Tough: Gnolls get a +3 Fort and a +1 natural armor.
* Bestial senses: +3 racial bonus to Listen, and a +3 to Spot.
* Game Balance: Gnolls are treated as having two character levels besides any
levels they have in whatever classes they take.
* Medium-size: As Medium-sized creatures, gnolls have no special bonuses or
penalties due to their size.
* A gnoll's base movement rate is 30 feet.
* Darkvision: Gnolls can see in the dark up to 60 feet. Darkvision is black
and white only but is otherwise like normal sight, and gnolls can fuction
just fine with no light at all.
* Automatic Languages: Common and Gnollish. Bonus Languages: Giant, Goblin,
Orc, Elf.
* Favored Class: Ranger. A multiclass gnoll's ranger class does not count
when determining whether it suffers an XP penalty for multiclassing.
^
rip van wormer
"Oie...we got HockeStick you Baseball playing Foo Foos."