What is the best way to portray gnolls?

as an all-female race with pseudophallus vaginas which they use to rape other races to breed

It doesn't retract bernie, it just, well... opens up a little more.

It's really fuckin' awkward.

As the insane shock troops of a slavemongering desert culture of humans who have been granted the """"gift"""" of gnollhood by the grace of their demon-god.

Played otherwise, gnolls are just shitty furry-bait.

while fearsome warriors and potent shamans, perhaps the most important role Gnolls serve in the various Beast-Men civilizations is as Smiths, for Gnolls are among the most talented in the art of crafting metal among any mortal race, rivaling even the Dwarves or High Elves in this area

based on a real world belief in Africa that Witches(who often transform themselves into Hyenas) often act as smiths in their civilian lives

Females do indeed mount both males and other female to display dominance.

And it doesn't retract, it just...reconfigures. The thing is just not very conducive to it's purpose, to the point firstborns are almost guaranteed to die during labor trying to get through it

As lewdly as possible

I actually really like 5e's way of stripping them almost entirely of any civilization or society. The whole "hate clothes, only wear armor stolen from other creatures, don't care about anything except satiating an insane hunger" thing actually is a really cool angle.

>liking edge: the race
you're entitled to your opinions even if I disagree with them
I prefer 4e's approach

>I actually really like 5e's way of stripping them almost entirely of any civilization or society. The whole "hate clothes, only wear armor stolen from other creatures, don't care about anything except satiating an insane hunger" thing actually is a really cool angle.
nah that's retarded

Agree with this so much. 4e's gnolls were great.

I've also tried to put together gnolls as a more Stygian-styled "dark empire in he badlands", who are useful to the other nations because they have extensive black market goods, and as a warrior-slave caste ruled over by expies of the Hutaakans as necromantic magocrats.

Gnolls done right; the fucking hyenas from The Lion King

I like to base them on African wild dogs rather than hyenas. Mostly the same except with a desire to gruesomely draw out kills and not even a hint of pseudopenis

Africans who enslave their own and sell them to humans.

This is why when I run a setting like this I brew in the best of each edition'edition's fluff where I can, personally I don't see why they are mutually exclusive, different tribal cultures etc.

>gnoll slave wat do?

Generally nice people, who can be absolute savages at the drop of a pin.

A council of matriarchs that each take a branch of tribal life and oversee everyone assigned to them. One in charge of hunting wild beasts, one in charge of fighting intelligent races, one in charge of looting and scrounging materials for their armor, etc.

Basically change up their society just enough so they aren't just futa orcs with fur.

I don't have gnoll but I do have shark people that mostly fill the role with a savage islander theme to them, it was a nautical campaign

So an exiled people who've been forced to adopt an unnatural way of life after a group of scavengers seized power.

Now trapped in a realm of bones where the scavengers don't rule, without any light that's not ominously green (and likely toxic) their only hope being a scavenger who seeks power by allying himself with the exiles?

Ahh Sahuagin, a pretty neat race. Though why D&D keeps commissioning art of them looking like fish instead of the sharks they are clearly described as I will never know.

Someone knows their hyena facts.

As a people. A savage and bestial people, yes, but a people nonetheless. For myself and my world, I use a combination of PFs take on gnolls, the Digger comic, Rabari and Kazakh culture, and spotted hyena behavior. The female is bigger and stronger, fully in charge of the tribe. Men are weaker and subservient, but this doesn't mean they aren't strong ass warriors. The men are lower ranked, but able to participate in any activity besides governance. The women are generally higher ranked in any activity, able to participate all activities, and often having great honors.

Socially, they are eerily human, but with gender displays reversed. Men still pursue women, but the types women like tend to be softies and non dominant individuals. They like the "betas" if you're into that terminology.

They mine and are excellent smiths, enjoying the fruits of precious metals, gems, and such. They are also excellent textile creators, weaving intricate patterns and colors into their garments and home furnishings. The food is meat heavy, and spiced heavily. Its Kazakh cuisine

Religion wise, their pantheon is called the Hundred Gods, though it's actually a mere 27 with numerous primal spirits and various almost gods padding out the number. The evil gods falls on three main ones: the Nameless, the Glutton Yeenoghu, and the Lustful Lamashtu.

The only problem is that most every other race upon the world didn't know about the more decent form of their folk due to the punishment system of the civilized gnolls. All the evil cultists, murderers, outlaws, slavers, raiders, and generally nasty folk were exiled to live on the edge between notEurope and the gnoll lands.

Everyone in this thread is dicks
Big sweaty hairy barbed dicks

Jackal like gnolls? Mite be cul

Fun fact; in Basic D&D, there were a race of jackal-like humanoids called the Hutaakans, and gnolls were believed to have been created as an attempt to replicate them. Also, the two races are believed to have interbred to create the Lupins, a race of wolf-people.

>he two races are believed to have interbred to create ...a race of wolf-people
Wat the shit dnd. Your biology and genealogy suck ass so much

Sitting around a war room table in full dress uniform smoking and arguing about whether the nation should send the bulk of their Hellcats and Avenger torpedo bombers to Juneau or to Midway Island

>Big sweaty hairy barbed dicks

:D

Oh, it gets worse; originally, lupins were just "canid people", so the subraces consisted of:
* Two kinds of Wolf People
* Two kinds of Fox People
* Generic Dog People
* Doberman People
* Maremma People
* Mastiff People
* Pitbull People
* Shar-Pei People
* Great Dane People
* Basset Hound People
* Beagle People
* Bloodhound Peole
* Chow-Chow People
* Golden Retriever People
* Spanish Gun-Dog People (I think, not sure what "Ispan Pistoleros" are based on)
* Hiking Dog People of some kind
* Three kinds of Sheep Dog People
* Bulldog People
* Schnauzer People
* Malamute People
* Dalmatian People

And even more I can't be bothered to name.

And no, I'm not making ANY of this shit up!

1d4chan.org/wiki/Lupin

Haha
What the shit

The 2000 character limit is dumb.

The gnolls are masters of Truenaming magic. It features heavily in their myths and culture. The first male god was exiled and became the Nameless after causing the first gnoll death. Since then the worst punishment a gnoll can receive is to have his name eaten and become nameless, an unperson. Each gnoll has two names, their truename which is used among family and for important rituals, and their pseudonym, which is used among society and those they do not trust.

They are also steeped deeply in occult magics, with ancestor worship via mediums and spiritualists common Hyenas are associated with spirits and death. Psychic powers are not unheard of, with many being powerful diviners Hyenas are said to possess a third eye which can be removed from the skull and will give oracular visions..

Gnoll domesticated species includes a couple species of antelope (addax and eland), Indricotheres (or as they call them Boz heyvan), and several types of drakes and dragonlets kept as pets and alternative food sources (like chickens).

Recent contact and trade has begun with notEurope, where the intricate and colorful rugs and clothing of the gnolls is considered a must have for any well-to-do noble.

Oh man I almost forgot looks. There exist roughly 6 types of gnoll coloration, each of the forms of hyaenidae, painted dogs, and
mixed. In shape they tend to be lean but strong, digitigrade, often with pot bellies, long arms, and stand straight with the illusion of a hunched back do to long neck held at an angle.

Early D&D was rife with silly and stupid ideas about biology. In some ways it still is.

I'll have you know that gnolls only sweat from their hands and feet, and their dicks are nice and smooth, disregarding the small ring of barbs at the base of the glans.

Also, jackal themed gnolls could be interesting as another ethnicity to play with.

No, they don't. You've let the futa fans program you with false information.

>>However, female hyenas are still females and behave as such - female-female mounting is rare, and the females are incapable of actually mating. If a hyena pup indulges in sex play, involving mounting other pups, that hyena is almost invariably a male.

Weren't early D&D gnolls half-gnome half-troll?

Way, way back, yeah. That was retconned at some point, but I don't know when. I think Gnolls as Gnome/Trolls was before the actual D&D name was applied - I actually don't know that much about D&D's long list of names and iterations. I can hardly keep Basic & Advanced and 1e and 2e separate.

Regardless, they were based on doyleandmacdonald.com/d_nuth.htm

Personally I see them as That Guy
Take the shitiest things players do and add them as the gnolls traits...
Though explaining why the Gnolls sleep with body pillows would be awkward.

Literally only the first version, and that was frankly stupid. They were retconned into hyena headed people in the next version and have basically stayed that way since.

I like to fluff them as essentially magically-bred child soldiers. Any who aren't being magically or otherwise dominated turn to either mercenary work or outright banditry. and there are rumors of a particularly savvy one with a missing eye and a fondness for cigars trying to create a nation where soldiers will always be useful... an Exterior Shelter, if you will...

I prefer the unapologetic evil kind. There's already enough monster races that have gotten the sympathetic treatment

...

On Athas, I'd have Gnolls as the mutant offspring of a defiler and a nature spirit who got too close to the pristine tower.

Altered by the experience, they gave rise to a race who worship defilers and the natural forces of the world equally.

So their shamans are often paraelemental clerics.

Kurosawa gnolls is the only answer.

It was a while ago, maybe a year now, Veeky Forums answered this question.

Gnolls are natural philosophers, but without the intelligence to come to lasting conclusions. They're also natural weaves and rope makers, this being their primary export.

That was a shitty thread

>no pseudopenis

Cute.

....I am making her as a character for something.

So, gnolls from Digger.

Stronger than humans physically, but with -4 to intellect.

Because they will never amount to anything and will never build or invent anything of note other than torture and new ways to fuck up their slaves like the shitty thieves they are.

Huns/mongols.

...

Nice.

but those are basically the Reavers from Serenity because Keith Baker is unoriginal

I actually do the females leading males part.

I myself also made them one of more common races in my campain and they are allies with lizardfolk and kobolds, as other two can hunt in areas gnoll's can't

Lastly because I roll npc stats I make up warbands of similar strength gnolls, with weaker ones having better tactics and using deception, and coming in huge groups (Mostly males lead by a single female or two), ones in the middle that are smaller and are more of a hit and run style, with mix of males and females and the warbands of the strong are filled with these huge gnolls that also have other worthy warriors in there mists, such as fixed warforged that think they are gnolls and giant hyenas for mounts. These warbands have huge gnoll females in them and I even made so there bosses are size of ogres, but scarier and smarter, some of them being clerics, some eldrich knights and one was a ranger that had a bow size of two grown men.

What is this

Also it's kind of useful because big bad can control anyone related to dragons and they are most abundant non-scaly race in my campaign, so I will get to use them there.

(Human never entered the region I am running in, all dwarfs were turned into zombies, all orcs have been killed by elfs, all elfs have been hunt down by lizardfolk , halflings never existed and all gnones...Well kobolds are better in that role anyway

How often do you think this happens with gnolls, Veeky Forums?

Probably only when they are super drunk, because with noses like that their sense of smell will be twenty times as good as ours. They'd know male from female from across the room, just by the scent. And all this assumes that the DM has set up "realistic" gnolls with the female pseudopenis, which would be a magical realm thing to begin with.

I think I might be the only one here who agrees that demonic blight is the most interesting form of gnoll.

I run my gnolls as a way to have WFRP beastmen in my game. Minotaurs and a few other races are in there, too, just with their own take on how to be fucking terrible.

Setting writes most of the hordes as being what happens when druids get power-crazy and decide to cull humanity. This is why the Saneric Jihad happened, explains the lack of druidic orders in Talasir, gave the Holy Order of Saner Kipah dominance in the region and why you build a wall between you and the more fertile lands to the west.

My fetish.

Giant snake women or shamans?

>Probably only when they're super drunk

So about as often as it happens with humans. Stay out of Gnoll Thailand.

Cynocephali

Per their Ecology, Gnolls are a species Patron to a Demon Lord who is all-around lazy, that have actual ranger class features related to a totem being they hunt per tribe with flinds making up the upper echelons of their society, noted for being mostly female next to the Gnoll lord who runs that shti and his highly respected, scavening for Carrion, and also having a tradition of Adopting-Non gnolls as replacements for Gnolls slaughtered by the agressor in question.

It's a pretty good read.

>that head lift
would fucking worship

...

>What is the best way to portray gnolls?
I'd say something like polaroid, quick and fast.

I mean good luck getting them to sit still for you to paint them...

...

Hyenas are matriarcals though, so why shouldn't Gnolls be too? If they evolved from hyenas they have to keep their hierarchy too. so males get raped by females, and males are smaller than females, and males are weaker than females. Every Gnoll pack is lead by a female one. If she dies the whole pack retreats.

Eberron has them forsaking demon worship and becoming a staunchly anti-demon group, as well as working as some of the better scouts and guides in the world.

There was a 3.5 book called Races of the Wild that had a splinter group of gnolls that worshipped the god of nature, and who were neutral.

>Hyenas are matriarcals though, so why shouldn't Gnolls be too
I understand the idea but the reasoning still pisses me off.

Gnolls are Matriarchal though and are based on Spotted hyenas.

Read their ecology and flind ecology man, it's really neat.

But why? I always thought of them as matriarchal ever since my first GM told me "Gnolls. They are hyena-people", I mean its what it's meant to be. At least that's how its been for me.

Its rare to see the group go "Fuck, get the female one!". It is a cool and realistic way of portraying female power.

For an "upcoming" game (read: game I've been mulling over for at least two years now), gnolls are being played in two parts:

1. The "original" gnolls are basically the dark, more primitive reflection(?) of elves. It's based a bit on the 4e (blasphemy I know) article on them. Where elves (especially wood elves) are these great "protectors of nature" and basically hippy trippy bullshit, gnolls are the "darker" side of nature. Where elves are commonly vegetarian because killing creatures is bad, gnolls are hunters and largely eat meat and bones. They're not psychotic, they don't just kill for the fuck of it, but killing is a part of nature. They're an animist people, largely focusing on spirit worship (so making decent shamans or druids). Where elves are standoff-ish, gnolls are quite direct. Where elves favor agility and silence, gnolls are all about resilience and the hunt. Very 'strong rule, weak are dinner' type. Where you would deal with Elves in a forest, Gnolls control the veldt/plains. Well, controllED, really because...

2. The tortured. Basically in the world history there's a huge world war. The 'evil' faction made a bargain with gnolls, using them as shock troops. Only they slowly tortured, bribed, enchanted, corrupted them into the gibbering mad things that you normally think of with gnolls. Eating sentient species and the like. "Regular" gnolls refer to these by some appropriately "fallen" title. Dead ones, mad ones, I dunno, haven't fully fleshed it out. Their strongest chieftain was made into a demigod, which is why Yeenoghu is still a thing.

I played a gnoll druid in 4e for awhile. It was a blast.

Their original god that created them was a nature god but he didn't give them enough attention or something and Yeenoghu was like" omg these guys look like me, I love it!" and tempted them over to his worship.

...

Elaborate

Their jaws cause concussion damage.

(Pic is a hyena getting out of an elephant carcass' belly)

Gorellik, and it's more that he had little to offer in general.
He was a god of savagery, hunting, hyeanodons, and were-hyeanodons.

He's better treated as an animal lord, like the cat lord.

Source?

...

Source is google it you faggot

Creatures do not always follow the social habits of their predecessors. Especially for intelligent creatures it would be up to not only biology but circumstance, culture, history, religion, etc. Bonobos and chimps split from the same ancestor yet the former is matriarchal and the latter patriarchal, despite being barely any different physiologically. Humans have done everything under the sun despite all being identical. Gnolls would not and should not be bound by the social habits of actual hyenas. There is also the tendency of them worshipping a demon prince; having a real, male deity telling them how to live would probably affect their social structure far more than anything else.

Personally I'd go with a variety; multiple cultures gives the impression of intelligent, authentic races better than monocultures imo

>It is a cool and realistic way of portraying female power.
Ironically this is achieved by making females males in every way but the genitals, and even then there's psuedopenis shenanigans

>There is also the tendency of them worshipping a demon prince; having a real, male deity telling them how to live would probably affect their social structure far more than anything else.
Not true though, we have had Female goddesses all through history and has never changed anyone. Virgin Mary is an example. We never became matriarchal due to a female goddess.

And god, spoken with male pronouns, is above her. Then there's the adam and eve story detailing the male/female power dynamic further.

We have a bunch of religions with female deities, but exceedingly few with female chief/supreme gods. Further, we've never had religions with gods that walk next to you and have personally steered the course of society.

As mad frothing rage-filled murderbeasts, not whatever the fuck all this furfag sexual matriarch fantasy shit is

the most boring post in the thread, and the worst type of race you could ever make
>THEY ARE JUST MURDERHOBOS
Just use bandits buddy, or a serial killer organization, you don't need to waste gnolls like that.

You miss the point if you just make them people. They have to be inhuman inside and out. Besides there's a million other races with overlapping niches to fuck with. One going full monster mode will hardly hurt much though they won't be much fun to world build for