Several centuries ago it started. It has yet to end.

I was born in a time when the plains were very big and life was simple. I could live like my brethren upon bloody meat and salty tears. I hunted with my nose and watched the moon. I slept soundly. It was a perfect time for one life.

When my young adulthood seemed interminable, the others in the Kaszh accorded it to the luck of good family when I was forty, amazing at sixty, and frightening at eighty. Some called it a blessing from the moon, some said it was an affliction of the blood; I called it a curse and it set me apart for now I was the Other. I could not enjoy the simple pleasures a gnoll could typically relish because now all of my actions were exceptional and important.

I left my home and my people at eighty-four. I wore the same face as when I was twenty. I sought anonymity in an unfriendly world and found so much more.

It was a land of many peoples that I discovered. I encountered friendship and prejudice, knowledge and ignorance, wealth and poverty and everywhere great power. It is the land of Greyhawk I traveled and I understood that my home and my people were insignificant within the vastness of what is. I decided it would be beneficial for me to explore and understand this world as best I could, as it seemed my time had few limitations. I quickly learned that a gnollish lifestyle was a liability in the world and despite everything I had been told as a pup, the gnollish peoples were far from the dominant race. Embracing the possibilities, I opened my mind and learned all I feasibly could as I traveled all across the continent

The year is 563 in the Common Years of the Human Nations. I have returned to my Kaszh just in time to usher in a new age. Humans have come to our home and I have become the necessary medium between them and us. I smoothed the relations and secured our sovereignty and a seat of governance. I returned as a stranger and now I am Khan of the mightiest kaszh in the south and Prince among the pirate captains of the Hold of the Sea Princes. My people suspect nothing of my age. They most likely would not care.

I must admit, I am a scholar first and a Khan second. My travels have taught me to respect knowledge -- I seek to know everything. The knowledge I have gained has become the manifestation of who I am and all of the things I do are powerfully enhanced by all of the things I know. Every night I go to my tent, set down my axe and shield, light a series of candles surrounding my table fashioned of stacked crates, and open a book to begin a new understanding that evening. I have studied many disciplines. History, sciences of earth and magic and extra-reality consciousnesses, behavior and culture, geography, religion...it is all a feast to feed me as long as I breath the air of this world. Here is the repository for all of the texts I have read. I invite you to take a turn through the pages. If you fancy, join the other warriors at the campfire and engage in lively discussion of things mundane or topics of great depth.

In the morning, after a couple hours of rest, I will retrieve my gear and trudge into the light of the new day of hard work, dirt and sometimes bloody battle.

I am T'mok Gurzi. Welcome to my world.