Gnolls

Basic Information

Alternative name(s) Origin Lifespan 40 years Diet Carnivores Subspecies

Physical description

Height up to 5 feet Distinctive features Patterend, usually tawny fur, big ears.

Cultural

Organisations Languages Gnoll Locations

Out-of-character information

Image source

Gnolls are a common species found all across Arethil.

"Waste not, want not," is perhaps the idiom that most resonates with Gnolls as they are keen scavengers and rarely put anything to waste. They will eat almost anything, from raw meat to carrion, skin and bones included. Sourced from animals and even other sapient species.[1] Their weapons can be rudimentary, often created by themselves, but they will often scavenge battlefields for equipment.

Gnolls and Orcs appear to be natural enemies, as often in places where they cohabitate, there will be strife, battle and raids for food and territory. [2] [3]

Most Gnolls appear to resemble biped 'canines' with patterned tawny fur. However, there are various different types of gnolls. The types appear to be a mix of regional genetic and cultural distinctions, as interbreeding between them is not uncommon.
Most other folks of arethil find that there is very little to distinguish between male and female gnolls, especially behaviorally. Gnolls themselves have no trouble distinguishing eachother.

The great spotted gnolls are the spitting image of what one imagines when Gnolls are brought up. They are the greatest in size of the strains and can be the most vicious and competitive. They are exceptional hunters and warriors. These gnolls rarely have more than two cubs per litter and can be found across all of Arethil in either individual packs or large tribes consisting of multiple matriarchal clans.
Their ears are big and round, their face is bulky and their pose is semi-hunched. Their fur is sandy brown with a dark stripe down their back with darkened limbs and spots all across the rest of their fur.

The Great striped gnolls are the second most common strain of gnolls, but they are the smallest of all the greats. They often have grey fur with black stripes and a tall mohawk or mane. Their ears are pointed and wide-set. Territorial conflict with great striped gnolls is far rarer, thus they are less often antagonised by other sapient species.

Great brown gnolls tend to live in small familial clans or large tribes. Despite being most prone to scavenge, they can be quite courageous warriors that often compete with other gnoll tribes for land and territory. Their extremely long fur, as the name states, is dark brown and lightly striped. Their ears are pointy and their face is dark in colour with a mane of dense hair. They tend to be the most hunched of all the gnolls.

Lesser striped gnolls are not thought of as gnolls, often mistaken for dogmen or wolf people instead. This comes to their benefit as they might have otherwise been very misunderstood. The lesser striped gnolls are jovial, easygoing and not interested in combat. They prefer to live in nomadic pair bonds as travelling entertainers.
Lesser striped gnolls are on average smaller than a human, they have sandy grey fur with scarce stripes and a black mask. Their ears are pointed and they sport a large mohawk or long manes. [4] Their diet does not include bones.

The black gnolls are noble strains of gnolls whose lineage is carefully recorded by the Anaphite. Their posture is upright and their fur is dark with light, golden spotting or stripes, seemingly resembling stars in a night sky. They are extremely rare and they appear on the apex of various larger and more advanced gnoll societies.

Most gnoll tribes can be described as living in a copper or bronze age. Most advanced equipment in need of complex metallurgy tends to be scavenged.
Their society is very tribal-oriented and surprisingly interconnected with much trade, migrants and cultural exchange.
Tribes are either small familial groups or larger tribes led by matriarchs. Their gestation period is short, about four months and they can give birth to a litter of one up to four cubs, depending on their genetic heritage.
As they tend to be very territorially competitive, often needing to expand their lands due to growing members, they often come in conflict with other races. This conflict is what often gives a bad reputation to gnolls.
If, however, one is on good terms with them, they make exceptional albeit rough company. The customary guest-accepting tradition is to serve them food and for the guest to eagerly eat it. If they do not, the gnolls take offence.
As gnolls can be quite witty and perceptive, they often serve offensive food like bone knuckles or fur clumps on a platter so they can feign offence if they dislike the opposing non-gnoll party.

Gnolls tend to spend their free time singing and acting out plays, similar to orcs they often share borders with. While orcs prefer epic tales of battles and heroes, gnolls prefer humour, jokes and witty tales of trickster gods.

First to be served was a stuffed gazelle surrounded by a pool of thick sauce. The animal was seemingly taking a bath in the sauce and looked almost lifelike. Its roasted skin was painted in dyes so all its stripes were as when it was alive. The rim of the plate was decked out in its skin and in the thick sauce floated wrinkled berries of the mountains...

...One by one, the main course was brought in. Sauced bones with olives. Most of the squabbling between the matrons died out by that point. Further down the ranks, they were served with a millet filler along with the leftover bones.
What a delicacy.

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While it may often not seem so by outside observers, gnolls can be quite the gourmets. Though they often embellish their own food to be attractive in flavour and appearance, it can come across as quite unappetising to non-gnolls. [5]

Iterulon gnolls, also known as the Blacklands gnolls trace their culture way back into prehistory in the fertile plains of Amol-Kalit. The noble line that served that kingdom survived the fall, societal collapse and the subsequent scattering of the many gnolls across all of Arethil. While the ancient Blacklands gnolls no longer exist, the noble line of that kingdom gathered much of the gnoll-kin all across Arethil in the year 269. Migrating back to the ancient homeland of this great civilisation, they arrived on the western side of the Seret mountains in the year 270.
The modern Blacklands gnolls are kin which come from as far away as Eretejva tundra and the Spine, following their Pharaoh, Princess Amun'Dzeer.
The main site of the Iterulon gnolls is a massive 'campsite' along the river Hesheb, which slowly splits into smaller rivers and further into smaller streams before it evaporates into the western salt plains just north of the Forbidden City.[6]
Their houses are large glorified tents that home matriarchs with their families. Single males live in bachelor homes.
Iterulon gnolls live in relative harmony with local human villages, offering to protect the feeble farmers in exchange for grain, beer and crops. While some villages, like the one in the Red Viper confluence, willingly sided with the gnolls under contract, others were conquered by the gnollish warbands.

As many gnoll tribes are vastly unrelated in kinship or faith, some are more savage, cultured and or ruthless than others; the ruling class of Iterulon has at times trouble keeping the various matriarchs in line. Especially when skittish human subjects are thrown into the mix. The Iterulon gnolls are not beyond using and appropriating religion or historic myth to quell dissent until all subjects see themselves as one people.

They are believed to have originated from the Aberresai savannah but have spread all the way east to the Wilds and west past the desert. They form small colonies and spread quickly. Gnolls are quite adaptable and resourceful, so they are content to live in many different conditions as long as there is sufficient food and space.

The largest concentrations of gnolls are within the Spine and Aberresai savannah, where most territorial disputes are recorded.

Gnolls often compensate or complement their meagre weapons and armour with their natural born gifts.
Their bite can be quite devastating, capable of crushing bones, at least in the case of the greater gnolls.
Their keen senses, especially smell are exceptional. Even their sense of taste is beyond anything other sapient species could imagine.

They don't seem to be magically inclined, though shamanism and natural or necromantic/blood magic would be a likely possibility given their cultural inclinations.