Has anyone ever felt like making gnolls into something more than just fuzzy orcs? Giving them a full-fledged culture of their own and making them potential players on the world stage?
Because I've had this seed for a gnollish empire I want to develop for ages and I can't figure out where to go from here. I mean, I want to flesh out their pantheon, but I can't get my head around how to start doing so.
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Eating sentient beings, worshipping children because of a difficult and often deadly childbirth, matriarchal. Compared to the orcs, they're far less technological and more barbaric, outright in stone age.
There's a start I guess.
I'm pretty sure they already do, but no wild pack of murderhobos has ever stopped to wonder about the culture of the things they're murdering.
To expand upon that empire reference...
Gnolls reign over their own empire in the "not!Africa" region; a tropical and arid land of savannahs and open scrubland. Their "hat" is "Decadent But Dangerous Easterners"; their empire is built on a combination of martial skill, trade in luxuries (fine metal work, gems, drugs, black magic).
The gnolls worship a pantheon of "dark gods", somewhere between demon princes who've chilled out on the whole "destroy everything" rhetoric and lesser gods. Chief of the pack is Lamashtu, who fits the "Dark Mother" godly archetype - wicked and lusty chief goddess with powers over nature and fertility. The lesser gods in the pantheon are focused on roles such as war, various forms of hedonism (gluttony, carnality, drug-use, fine art, excess decoration), and magic.
Driving philosophy of the gnolls is hedonism: the purpose of life is to seek pleasure and indulge yourself. They lean strongly as a race towards Chaotic Neutral; self-centered, impulsive and lazy, but not inherently hostile towards other races as a matter of default. A typical gnoll wants to throw parties where she can lounge around on silk divans wearing shiny jewelry whilst eating and drinking herself into a stupor, not destroy cities and eat live babies.
Technically, gnolls are matriarchal, as the females are bigger and stronger than the males and claim this represents the nature/blessing of Lamashtu herself. In practice, the prevalance of necromantic talents amongst the males means that many males exert open political power, as the empire depends on them to run things.
See, the empire's workforce is built on necromancy on a massive scale. Armies of skeletons, bone golems and other skeletal undead form the grunt labor that keeps the empire running by doing all the boring task.
The empire also makes heavy use of conventional slavery. As such slaves are required to do tasks that require independent thought and finesse, however, they are not as oppressed and downtrodden as they might be. A living slave is a valuable piece of property and treated as such. It's even possible for a slave to win freedom through loyalty and skill.
With none of the traditional constraints on drugs, alchemy or magic, the gnoll empire is a hotbed of black market trade and a veritable mecca for necromancers, warlocks and jaded hedonists.
Although its existence rankles many of the more hardline goodly faiths, the gnoll empire goes unchallenged because of its legitimate trade and because, so far, the other kingdoms have accepted it's better to have them content and lazy than roused to savage wars of vengeance; unlike hobgoblins, they're not particularly ambitious conquerors and so acts of aggression are comparatively rare.
If they're hedonists, they obviously need a god for every single type of pleasure, instead of one umbrella Slaanesh.
You've got a god of drugs, a god of sex, a god of music, a god of masochistic pain... a god of a really good bath... you get the idea.
Maybe. Religions ain't my strongpoint when it comes to worldbuilding, so I could really use help on it; this is all I've come up with in terms of pantheon concepts.
In general: the pantheon is female dominated, with more goddesses than gods. This reinforces the matriarchal status of the gnolls, as assimilated from spotted hyenas.
The Chief Goddess: A female deity who serves as the ruler and/or mother and/or lover (or both) of the other deities. Maybe make her a Lamashtu riff, with powers over nature & fertility, which is Lamashtu's portfolio (just twisted) in Pathfinder.
The War Goddess: This is either a gender-swapped expy of Yeenoghu, or else steals a little from Ishtar and is goddess of both war and love. Savage, primal, vicious; revel in the carnage and butcher those against you. If a Gnollish Ishtar, likewise encourages you to be fearless and passionate in love.
The Pleasure God/dess: Probably the closest thing to a straight-up "good" god in the gnoll pantheon. Gender-shifting party girl/boy, who encourages its followers to eat, drink and make merry. Hugely popular in the empire in its current stable position. Essentially a less grimdark Slaanesh in gnoll format.
The Hunting God: Oldest of the gods next to the Chief Goddess, probably her consort. A Gorellik-expy with a dash of Erathis, god of hunting, wisdom and virility. Has lost some prominence due to gnolls no longer being tribal hunter-gatherers, but still respected.
Had to split this into two for length reasons.
Gods of Magic: Not sure if there should be a single "God of Magic" figure, but gnolls in this empire would definitely favor AD&D's "Undead Master" kit, so there's certainly three specific mage-gods. God of Necromancy is the most powerful of the male gods in modern gnoll society, maybe a new consort and/or favored son of the Chief Goddess. Goddess of Conjuration is seen as the Queen of Fiends, summoning planar beings and forcing them to submit. God of Enchantment is an androgynous, whimsical creature, child of the Pleasure God.
God/dess of Chattel: Not sure if male or female suits this better; this'd be simultaneously the god of slavery and the god of agriculture, as the two practices are linked in gnollish eyes. Exhorts discipline and authority, but also not to abuse chattel. Stern, but not uncaring, really.
Sorry, what exactly you need then?
You've been asking for a pantheon, but you're posting it yourself.
Was there any need at all?
I feel like you could have a whole bunch of gods running around: after all, if the top goddess is a hedonistic mother goddess then I'd imagine she would've had plenty of children, of lesser gods and demigods and whatnot.
A god for each magical school, a god for each pleasure, a god for various types of warfare, several hunters, one god for farming and another for animals (and slaves) and a third for gardening, and so forth.
And many demigod heroes running around, of course. Take a page out of Greek myth for that. Make her a female Zeus that pops out these litters with different dads, some mortals and others divine, for each.
I'm trying to figure out:
Firstly: If this pantheon works as it is.
Secondly: if there are any roles I'm missing to complete this pantheon.
Finally: how to actually take each god from just this basic concept to a full-fledged deity. Names, behaviors, refining the basic concept, etc.
Oh, definitely agree with that. In fact, something I was contemplating is that the Pantheon recognizes a "Titan-esque" Elder Mother God, who birthed the first gods but who isn't really worshipped because she is basically a divine beast - doesn't really think like a sapient creature - and the Chief Goddess is one of her daughters who took over leading due to actually thinking like a person, ala Zeus.
Alright, let's see to go by points:
Probably the pantheon would go well enough as it is with an evil-based race, although consider potentially to add a deity about suffering, which gnolls usually like to inflict. Maybe a twin of the pleasure goddess, if a twisted one (gender shifted, maybe. Bonus points if they aren't twins, but the same entity that split in two).
One thing you should attempt to consider to build your whole pantheon , is the "creation" myth.
Did the Chief goddess create everything or just the gnolls in this scenario? Who's the first born from her? Who she hates? Who -doesn't- hate her? Being gnolls, I'd imagine there could be plenty of backstabbing (frontstabbing?) and infighting.
Maybe these conflicts among deities are how the gnolls justify natural cataclysms or certain events. Even seasons. For example, Spring could be the pleasure's goddess' doing, and so on.
PSEUDOPENISES
Furthermore, just throwing random thoughts:
Chief goddess: her personality is generally 'benevolent' towards her kin, but she's prone to backlashing and not getting shit from anyone. Combattive, will stand her ground whenever it's a combat or just a talk. She'll do anything to keep the "Alpha Bitch" position.
War Goddess: likely first daughter of the Chief one, she took a lot from her mother. Ends up infighting with her, but she actually finds huge respect towards her. She'll butcher anyone in the Chief's name. Or her own name. Or for Bob "you know the one from that little town that got that nice bakery" 's name. Even without a name as long there is a good excuse.
Pleasure goddess: lazy, to a fault. "Black sheep" of the family, avoids all the squabble and just is laid back and enjoys life.
Hunting God: Could be either the lover of the chief, or the War goddess' younger brother. Probably in competition with the war one. The hunting god, might not be as strong as the war one, but clearly is more sly and smarter.
God of magic: I was considering a Voodoo-like deity of magic in this case. Maybe a sort of witch doctor that is "secretly" considering to overtake the Chief goddess. But biding its time, as it knows that his physical power isn't great enough, but his arts are growing more powerful and tricky by the day. Necromancy of course is his big jig, but other arts are also involved.
>She'll butcher anyone in the Chief's name. Or her own name. Or for Bob "you know the one from that little town that got that nice bakery" 's name.
Sounds like the type to not only also to sleep around a lot, but also to fall in love a lot - and then do as you say she does. Intensely loyal to her family, to herself, and to whoever she's involved with at the moment, she will always come with an excuse to fight for their honor or pleasure.
Possibly a dual-goddess of war and love - true, legitimate love, not just lust and drug-fueled rutting.
Yes. 4e did. 5e undid it.
Enjoy your pseudopenisposts.
To further expand on this: due to her influence, in gnoll culture, all war and most violence in general has its roots in love.
Which in turn leads to most fertility rites of the gnolls to double as combat rites and training.
this allows the important females of the tribe to stay out of combat but remain physically fit and able to defend their title from usurpers and the like
I have them in a strong support role for another culture. They aren't movers or shakers, but they are influential enough that without them, the other culture would take a huge step down in power.
I have them as nomadic desert tribes that hunt giant earth elementals to harvest for stone, gems, and metals that they trade to the local kingdoms of crocodilemen. They started out hunting the largest to incapacitate them, so they can harvest goods, the largest tending to have an oasis growing on their back. But they soon found the demand for the goods they can get from the elementals were in good demand for trade, so they started hunting the smaller ones to break up and take back to trade. This allowed the Gnoll tribes to grow larger than before, so now large caravans can be seen crossing the desert.
They also ride dinosaurs.
Look up cynocephali. They're medieval dog headed men.
Has anyone ever felt like killing a furry in real life? I know it's unfortunately a criminal offence, but it's probably worth it going to prison with the knowledge that you made the world an unquestionably better place for everyone.
Go back to 2006, goon.
>you will never gas a furry convention
>you will never torch a furry's house down with a flamethrower
>you will never construct a macabre monument to all of the furfaggots you have killed with the bloody, singed remains of their neon-colored fursuits
>Has anyone ever felt like making gnolls into something more than just fuzzy orcs? Giving them a full-fledged culture of their own and making them potential players on the world stage?
Yes, and you've probably read my cliff notes on them since I was in the previous gnoll threads where you fleshed out aspects of yours.
Pantheons suck when it comes to making them. Getting the right feel is such a pain. I've been stuck on making mine for like 2 years, since I have the unenviable task of making at least 27 gods for my gnolls. The things I do to satisfy my worldbuilding autism.
>They also ride dinosaurs.
Huh, Id never really given any thought to dinosaurs being in that general area of my world, and having gnolls use tham like domestic beasts seems interesting. And if I mix that with the drakes, dragonets, and other draconic species, that would help flesh out and solidify the region since they sit right next to the big ol' dragon empire.
>(you)
There, now you can go off into another thread since we've given what you want.
Removing the savagery from them misses the point of them and their design.
Savagery is a point of view.
To a northern feudal knight, they're still uncivilized unwashed barbarians.
I'd like to keep the race's general alignment in the Chaotic Neutral and Neutral Evil radius; as I said way up at thread start, Chaotic Evil gnolls are overdone, especially comparing 5e lore for them to 4e lore.
Still, thanks for the sincere offer of help. Hmm... how does this look as the seed for a creation myth?
In The Beginning, there were two gods; Grandmother and Grandfather. Grandmother was fierce and strong, a savage hunter who prowled the young earth, killing and eating whatever she deigned to track, gorging until her belly was full and then playing with the remains. Grandfather was wise and gentle, a calm god who sought only to care for his mate. He kept her safe and treated her wounds, and tried to keep her from danger. From their coupling was born The First Litter, the eldest of the Gods who watch over the gnolls today.
The First Litter followed Grandmother and Grandfather, until the day that, in her madness, Grandmother turned on Grandfather and ate him. The First Litter, aghast at their mother's behavior, drove her away into the wastelands beyond, where she still roams as a feral, savage monster. In honor of Grandfather, and Grandmother as she was, the First Litter created a people to embody the best of both their traits; the first Gnolls.
This is rudimentary, but I'm getting a very "pagan" feel from this pantheon, so lots of sex, violence and weirdness feels right to me. Plus, making gnolls metaphysically descendants of a giant, feral, divine hyena (sort of Gorellik & Yeenoghu's bastard daughter) and a more human-like god feels like it has potential.
You know, as I mentioned above, I wasn't sure if the War Goddess shouldn't be an Ishtar-inspired deity, covering War and Love, but posts like that really cement that it sounds a good plan.
The Chief Goddess almost has to be a gender-flipped hyena-woman version of Zeus, though. In both the Alpha Bitch who means well but tends to fuck things up because, well, she's a bitch sense, and in the "she's a hornball" sense.
>Savagery is a point of view.
This is your first problem. You need clear design.
Also, if you've never read Digger, you should. It's got some pretty good grist for gnoll stuff, and is a good comic overall.
Who's doing that? We're just fleshing them out into something more than the one note savagery that 5e does. Besides, I started making my gnoll culture long before the shit that was 5e was even conceived, so i'm used to them being something more than just always hungry demonkin.
Here, have a gnoll princess from my preferred system that does them well. She's one of the big slave traders in the city of Katapesh.
Yes it does, and it is definitely a good read too.
So, hopefully relevant query; how weird do you think gnollish religion can get and still "feel" gnollish?
For example, gnolls and minotaurs hating each other has been around pretty much since Baphomet and Yeenoghu were both introduced. If the gnoll/minotaur enmity instead stems from an incident in which the gnoll goddess bit off the penis of the minotaur god for trying to rape her (or just being a lousy lover), which turned him into a goddess in turn, does that still feel like something you'd associate with gnolls?
Keep in mind, hyenas themselves have a lot of sexual-related aspects in mythology. Spotted hyenas in particular were believed to be gender-benders who routinely switched between male and female.
Are your minotaurs all male? If they are, that sort of a thing would be plain hilarious.
I totally stole pic for inspiration.
Not really.
However, I did some idle contemplation recently of a setting in which minotaurs are actually believed to be an all-female race... but that's because of the race's dirty little secret.
The "real" minotaurs are male demon-beasts, the females are an amazonian tribe who found they could take on the minotaur's strength and power by consuming minotaur flesh, so they secretly not only hunt demon-cults to capture new minotaurs to eat, they keep a small number of minotaurs captive and breed with them; daughters are kept to directly strengthen the tribe, sons are eaten to metaphysically strengthen it.
All you need to know about Gnolls are two quotes.
" Fisi, the hyena, hermaphroditic, self-eating devourer of the dead, trailer of calving cows, ham-stringer, potential biter-off of your face at night while you slept, sad yowler, camp-follower, stinking, foul, with jaws that crack the bones the lion leaves, belly dragging, loping away on the brown plain, looking back, mongrel dog-smart in the face; " - Hemingway's Green Hills of Africa
"We leap from branch to branch to suck the eggs, and we pluck the little birds; then we put their nests upon our heads after the fashion of caps.
"We do not fail to snatch away the worst of the cows, and we destroy the lynxes' eyes. Tearing the flowers, crushing the fruits, agitating the springs, we are the masters—by the strength of our arms and the fierceness of our hearts.
"Be bold, comrades, and snap your jaws!"
Blood and milk flow from their lips. The rain streams over their hairy backs." - Gustave Flaubert's The Temptation of St.Anthony
>matriarchal
>in the genus that coined the term "alpha male"
Why?
Maybe because hyena aren't canines?
Touche, I suppose it is based off the spotted hyena which is the only variety where the males aren't the larger sex
So, really, what gods do folks think would be absolutely essential for the kingdom I outlined in the opening posts? What sort of things are important enough they need deities to cover them?
I drafted my list, but I'm really in need of refinement for it.
So, what do folks think of this creation myth seed?
If it works, how do I properly differentiate between "Grandmother" and the Alpha Bitch, our "she-Zeus"? Grandmother's clerics are more along the lines of mad, beast-worshipping druids than anything, but what kind of portfolio can the Chief claim?
how many nipples are we talking about here?
For Gnollish religion, it's also obviously important to put thought into who they consider to be their equivalent of an evil God, or one that is in opposition to the rest of their pantheon and stands as a symbol of opposition towards Gnolls.
I've been rolling around an idea wherein long ago, a demon in Gnoll form (or so they say) rose to a position of terrible power. Cruel beyond measure and immune to weapons forged in the mortal realms, it took the betrayal of her slaver-priests to finally wrest her from her psychotic seat of power. Even then though, they were unable to kill her, managing only to trap her deep underground. Keeping her there is an entirely different challenge though, as without regular blood sacrifice her powers will begin to return and she would be able to escape her oubliette. Slaves make up the runaway majority of sacrifices, supplied by a system of slave tithes paid by the raider clans. This is part of what makes Gnolls as aggressive as they are, they have a constant need for slaves.
Of course, if one actually WANTED to free The Bitch, who's actual name has been systematically scoured from every ancient record, they could begin making blood sacrifices TO her rather than AGAINST her. A corrupt cult could lead to a dramatic spike in slaver activity, as the shackle-priests are forced to butcher more in an attempt to offset the tribute sacrifices should they notice the swell of power.
The Gnoll empire is a bit of a misnomer. The Empire is the Suricat Empire, a loose affiliation of the meerkat-like Suris states and cities. The reason for the confusion is that while the Suri deal with the day to day paper work and politics of the empire the real ruler is the Bone White Emperor. This is a Gnoll only role in society and their entire society runs along these lines. The Gnolls in society live in two manners. One manner live in the wilds and feast upon small Suri villages as is their right. The other are slavers who run the economy nearly completely, selling Suri slaves and bringing in other slaves from nearby nations. The odd things is that Suri are school taught to bring up their price.
Most would say this is an outlandish manner of government and most would be right...until you learn WHY the Suri are so subservant. Legends tell of a time when the Suri were strong, fast, and large as the Gnolls. This all ended when the Gnolls cut off the limbs of the Suri till they became as small as they are now. The Suri still show the scars on their body from this time and they remember what happens when they try to fight. The Bone White Throne stays empty only to be filled when the Suri attempt to fight again.
An "evil" god would need to go against everything they hold good and holy.
In the case of established gnoll religion, she'd be a prude pacifist vegan.
I would fuck a gnoll.
>Chaotic Neutral
Huh? I thought gnolls were evil.
They've been leaning towards evil in all editions, and in 5e they're literally demonspawn and can't ever be not-evil.
But that's one-dimensional and boring, innit?
Well, but it has been defined that being 'evil' doesn't mean 'always evil'.
Like Orcs are evil, but you can find a neutral Orc.
I'm not familiar with 5e through. They are now pure evil?
To most men and elves, as a general rule, the lords of Chaos are the great enemy, while the lords of Law stand as the good guys.
To gnolls it's the opposite.
To Gnolls, Chaos represents not mutation and destruction, but rather freedom and joy. To them Law is not peace and stability, but instead choking conformity and restrictions. This great enemy deity will represent this.
So gnolls are okay with cannibalism and torture but oppose slavery?
Cannibalism and torture are just something that happens. Slavery is only them bossing the weaker ones around - and happens regularly among many chaotic societies even in the standard D&D.
Neither issue really touches the matters of Law and Chaos, at least not the way gnolls see it.
On the other hand, a lot of human nations reckon Chaos equals precisely all that wicked shit, which would easily result in all manner of misconceptions and grant gnolls a somewhat undeserved reputation as rapacious demon-worshipping raiders.
Grandfather and Grandmother prowl the young earth, but where does the young earth come from?
I also feel like you need to establish pleasure as a central idea pretty quickly. Why is pleasure the thing all Gnolls should strive for?
So in a gnoll society someone strong can boss those weaker?
Female gnolls rule by raw strength and force of arms. Male gnolls rule by dark sorceries and subtle intimidation. The ones with more of these will be higher up in the pecking order.
'Twas ever thus.
And could an outsider who kicks the ass of the previous leader have a gnoll minions?
I remember that in a previous thread, it was brought up that Gnolls become more aggressive at night, with some succumbing to a permanent feral state that required intervention from Ghost-Face assassins to destroy them and their shame.
How would that work in a setting where the nights are nearly-endless? I'd imagine most Gnolls would succumb to the darkness and become a ravaging horde that uses the brief daylight to scavenge together weapons for the next dive into darkness. Those that resisted might form nomadic packs that flee from their monstrous kin and the civilized races alike, making pacts with whatever demons, devils, or spirits exist in the region to secure their sanity and safe passage.
Certainly, although if it's a male barbarian or a female sorceress, they might get some strange looks and possibly misgendering.
Well depends how you look at it. Maybe Gnolls consider after death, spirit is off wherever, the body is just meat, or that by consuming it they are returning the lost strength of the member to the group. Torture is harder to justify but reasons can be provided.
Well look at it this way - he's stronger than you, so when you're lazing about he expects you to catch his grub, sure... what happens the next day you go into a fight and you end up hiding behind him, as he's cutting down Orcs or whatever?
There's a reason lots of cultures had a strong dominating the weak mindset.
Cool. Time to annex a gnoll tribe.
>Female gnolls rule by raw strength and force of arms
They also control breeding. You do good, you get to breed, maybe. You don't, death or just life of never getting any...
Which when your life consists of sleeping, hunting and eating, mating is a pretty much worthy goal, it's not like the male can contribute to the arts or something.
Hey, if you feed them they'll likely happily do whatever you want...
The real challenge will be, like most hunting animals anthro-fied, be teaching them the concept of property. No you can't eat that cow, it belongs to the farmer. No, you can't just take that dagger, it belongs to the Blacksmith, etc.
They might only have the concept of "group" property... three guys share the same bow/spear, one taking it for the day shift, the other the night shift, etc.
But wouldn't the male gnoll sorcerer go "if you don't breed, I cast wicked magics?"
That actually sounds like the plot of a Gnollish myth. A sorcerer enslaves his Pack's females to his whims, and a wandering Gnoll is able to withstand their magics and defeat them, proving that magic is a fickle thing, especially when compared to personal strength.
But if powerful sorcery is seen as a desirable trait, then a dark witch doctor would get laid anyway, wouldn't he?
Are half-gnolls canon?
True, true. If he arrived to a new tribe and started working his mojo to become a power behind the throne as it were, that might be more fitting in theme.
It's been established that gnolls respect strength and value pleasure. A human can prove themselves in the eyes of a pack. Logically this will result in having to participate in a raw, animalistic, drug-fueled sex orgy.
Half-gnolls ensue.
Lewd.
They are my enslavers in the setting, sometimes they do gladiator-like tournaments and then they feast of the dead slaves after being entertained by the matches. They attack in standard gnoll tactics but their objective is to capture and not kill, until they have enough for a great feast and orgy. They are no empire though, as this type of living only works due to their overall low population number or abundance of animal food. I haven't gone that deep on it because the players don't seem to care.
Those gnolls should be enslaved.
Them eating fallen gladiators is a pretty neat twist!
Logical conclusion is what it is.
Why would you want to?
Obligatory
Obligatory 2
Yep. 5e gnolls take fluff from 4e, in which they were hyenas corrupted by the demonic essence of Yeenoghu, and lose all of the aspect about retaining hyena souls and thus being able to turn their back on their demonic origins. s5e gnolls are, really, little more than zombies; they're essentially a kind of low-level fiend that lives on the material plane, avatars of Yeenoghu's insatiable hunger.
They're literally so evil that telepathically contacting one has a risk of driving you insane and turning you into a rabid, cannibalistic worshipper of Yeenoghu, at least in the fluff. So, in a way, they're more like the movie version of a zombie apocalypse than the gnolls of editions past.
I'm one of that small minority who vehemently detests this change in lore and sticks to the 4e version, if you can't tell.
I don't really have any idea. I was kind of thinking that the gnolls might handwave that in their mythos, or acknowledge the existence of other gods in making the Young World, but not worship them, because those gods have no investment in the gnolls. Does that make sense?
As for the pleasure thing... I don't have a good in-universe explanation for it. In traditional D&D lore, gnolls are basically described as being inherently lazy, for no particular reason. A hedonistic streak was my kneejerk idea for explaining this.
Basically, gnolls as a people lived the hunter-gatherer's lifestyle for some time. That's not an easy life. Pleasure was something you're lucky to get. So, they seized upon the idea of pleasure - or, rather, access to pleasure - as a sign of status. If you can afford to lounge around, then you're important enough that you don't have to struggle for food, sort of thing.
This is something I've struggled with to explain. The core idea probably remains; gnolls just don't like working physically all that much, and if you don't have to work, you need something to fill that time.
...
>I'm one of that small minority who vehemently detests this change in lore
Frankly, I'm almost insulted by the modern D&D playerbase if folks such as you and me really are in the minority.
In any D&D edition of the past? No, not since the orc/gnoll hybrids from Dragon #44 back in the 70s. Would I happily add half-gnoll PC stats in any setting that uses the 4e gnoll fluff or to my "Gnoll Empire" fluff? Definitely.
Building on from my last post due to lack of space... gnolls are basically hedonists. Their dominant philosophy is that the purpose of life is to enjoy yourself. The most important thing in life should be to have time enough to indulge in what makes you happy.
Work is basically defined as something you might *have* to do, but which you don't *enjoy* doing. It's not so much that physical labor is "evil" in gnollish eyes as so much being forced to do it no matter your feelings.
A gnoll might happily tend to a garden because it finds sincere pleasure in working that way, for whatever reason. But being forced to labor from sundown to sunup (you don't want to be working through the hot savannah day if you see in the dark) reaping wheat? Now that's work.
>No, not since the orc/gnoll hybrids from Dragon #44 back in the 70s
There's also the Bastards & Bloodlines book, if you count it.
Personally, I don't, because that version basically makes them even-suckier versions of the half-orcs. I'd rather make half-gnolls be at least as viable as half-orcs & half-elves, but then, I've never bought into the "half-xes in D&D should be twisted and unnatural abominations" meme unless that's supposed to be the races point - half-illithids and whatever.
Are gnolls African or Middle-Easterns?
What would non-hideous half-gnolls look like, anyway?
Could be both. Two entirely different nations, each then further separated to countless tribes and cultures.
anime style hyena girls I guess?
Well, this character here is canonically a half-gnoll, and it's certainly not as fugly as yours, so... I basically presume something like this, personally. I'm open to discussion on the matter.
For pseudopenis.
or even a mix of both
their lower castes can be inspired by African culture with their weapons and attitudes and their higher castes can be like Arabian merchants and such
Now seriously, I would like to have my own race of minions. Like Overlord.
pic related
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>tfw no gnoll gf
...
I remember this gnoll and I also remember that the artist drew very explicit nudes of her, which I have fapped to on several accounts until I grew bored of his webcomic and didn't care about the characters, anymore.
What was author name?
Fun fact; in the ancient days of Mystara, the Lupins - basically a goodly-aligned race of wolf-folk, culturally divided between faux-French swashbucklers, werewolf-hunting Amerindian ripoffs who ride giant wolves, and nomadic tribes - were reputed to be descendants of human/gnoll interbreeding. So, really, it's not that implausible to say humans and gnolls can get along, in or out of bed.
You can count me in that group who loathe the new gnolls. 4es changes to lore and game play made sense, and played on aspects of previous editions lore. 5e just shits all over it, throwing out so much and simplifying what's left into bland shit.
I made mine Kazakh and other such related groups. Semi-nomadic cultures with central towns, highly focused on animal husbandry, textiles, and hunting. However, most humans are only aware of the evil gnoll culture since it sits between the neutral to good gnolls and the human lands. So I get to have my decent gnolls, and my demon worshipping raiders and bandits too.
Just go here