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GNOLL

ANCESTRY

UNCOMMON

GNOLL

HUMANOID

Hit Points 8

Size Medium; Speed 25 feet

Ability Boosts Strength, Intelligence, Free; Ability Flaw Wisdom

Languages Common, Gnoll

Additional Languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if it’s positive). Choose from Draconic, Elven, Iruxi, Necril, Orcish, Sylvan, and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent in your region).

Senses Low-Light Vision

Bite Your sharp teeth and powerful jaws are fearsome weapons. You have a jaws unarmed attack that deals 1d6 piercing damage. Your jaws are in the brawling group.

Powerfully-built humanoids that resemble hyenas, gnolls are cunning warriors and hunters. Their frightening visage and efficient tactics have given them an ill-starred reputation.

In lands to the east, such as Katapesh, gnolls have earned themselves well-deserved reputations as brutal slavers and demon-worshippers. Even in the Mwangi Expanse, many outsiders believe that gnolls are witches, cannibals, and worse. The truth is more complex.

Mwangi gnolls, known to themselves as “kholo,” are eminently practical and pragmatic hunters and raiders. To gnolls, honor is just another word for pointless risk. Any loss of a gnoll affects not just the individual, but their packmates and kin as well. Wasting time on anything but victory, whether it’s mercy or cruelty, is seen as little shy of immoral. Gnolls see effectiveness as a cardinal virtue and believe that the best fight is one that never gives the opponent a chance to strike back. Mwangi gnolls are masters of ambushes, tactical feints, and psychological warfare—none of which endears them to their neighbors.

Equally misunderstood is the gnoll practice of ancestor worship and endocannibalism. Gnolls consume their dead as a sign of reverence, holding a grand feast and transforming the bones of the fallen into art or weapons. Gnolls extend this honor to respected foes, hoping to bring their enemy’s cunning or strength into the clan. While it’s a sign of admiration, not everyone sees it that way.

You Might...

  • Always try to work smarter, not harder.
  • Be very physically demonstrative—often hugging, punching, or licking your friends.
  • Keep a bone from a favorite relative to ask for advice.

Others Probably...

  • Are intimidated by your size, teeth, and eerie laugh.
  • Assume that you are dishonorable or worse.
  • Respect the brutal efficiency of your hunting style.

Physical Description

Gnolls are large, hyena-like humanoids with short muzzles, sharp teeth, and large and expressive round ears. Their bodies are covered in shaggy fur, rougher on the back and softer and lighter on the stomach and throat, usually in an off-white, tan, or brown shade—spots and stripes are both common. Gnolls typically stand between six and seven feet tall. Women are usually about a head taller than men, and correspondingly stronger. Gnolls are considered adults at fifteen, and live about 60 years on average, though some can reach a hundred or more in good health.

Society

Kholo generally live in clans of 10 to 20 interrelated family groups, containing between 100 to 200 gnolls. They are ruled by a council of female gnolls, typically selected from the oldest members of each family. This council of elders selects one of their number as a Chief Elder, who is essentially the first among equals and sets the agenda. The council is advised by the clan’s bonekeeper and storyteller, as well as one or more younger gnolls who lead hunting and raiding packs.

Bonekeepers focus on tending to the wishes of gnoll ancestors and gods— they take their name from the ancestral bones that festoon their clothing and homes. Storytellers serve as teachers and sages, and are expected to have an encyclopedic knowledge of clan history, regional lore, and anything else relevant to the clan. They usually speak several languages.

Kholo women typically work as hunters, warriors, and leaders, while men become artisans, caretakers, and gatherers. However, adherence to gender roles varies from clan to clan. Members of either gender can become bonekeepers or storytellers, and these positions often routes to authority for male gnolls.

Alignment and Religion

Mwangi gnolls have an unsentimental, matter-of-fact approach to life, and prioritize results over methods. They are usually loyal and generous to their people and ruthless toward outsiders—gnolls are typically chaotic neutral but can skew good or evil depending on who they view as “their people.”

Gnolls appeal to their ancestors on a day-to-day basis, invoking their kin to bless cubs, ward off disease, or grant luck on hunts. Gnolls call upon the gods on special occasions or in times of great crisis. Most kholo give homage to Calistria and Shelyn as the Elder and Younger Sisters, twin goddesses of power and beauty. Nethys, the Brother, is the patron of bonekeepers, and Lamashtu, while a popular deity in other gnoll societies, is propitiated as the Old Mother, a goddess called upon only as a very last resort, and otherwise begged to stay away.

Names

Newborn kholo are given a root name, typically that of a bone, plant, or animal (though never Hyena, as this is considered narcissistic and arrogant). As a gnoll reaches certain milestones in life, they add descriptors to their name. Root names are often passed down through families, while descriptors are chosen to fit the gnoll’s personality, usually in raucous ceremonies.

Sample Names

Baobab, Jackal, Onyx Elephant in Shadows, Red Thorn, Unbent Iron Reed, White Acacia, Wistful Tooth, Woodpecker

Gnoll Adventurers

Some gnolls leave their clans to work as mercenaries and adventurers, learning new skills, earning wealth, and gaining allies that will one day benefit their people. Other adventuring gnolls are without clans, left orphaned by some disaster or exiled, fairly or not, for some crime. All gnolls are strongly pack-minded and tend to adopt their friends as honorary gnolls and packmates.

Gnolls usually hail from the animal whisperer, entertainer, herbalist, hunter, nomad, scout, and warrior backgrounds. The ranger is the archetypal gnoll class, a cunning warrior of the wilderness, but gnolls also make excellent barbarians and fighters, and their love of clever tricks make them outstanding rogues. Bonekeepers are usually witches, treating ancestral spirits more like squabbling colleagues than objects of worship, while storytellers are typically bards.

Gnoll Enclaves

Kholo mostly live in semi-nomadic clans in the plains south of the Mwangi Jungle, moving between a handful of permanent camps near watering holes or good hunting grounds. Gnoll clans hold impromptu festivals when their routes intersect, and gatherings of two dozen clans or more happen every few years. While clan leaders discuss matters of war and politics at such gatherings, most prefer to trade, celebrate, or mingle while the elders chatter.

TABLE 1: GNOLL HERITAGES
Exclusive Heritages Description
ant gnollLOTME You’re a sharp-featured, big-eared gnoll about three feet tall.
great gnollLOTME You’re a large, powerful gnoll, with tawny fur and brown spots on your hide.
sweetbreath gnollLOTME You’re a striped, pale-furred gnoll with oddly pleasant breath, which you can use to entrance your prey.
witch gnollLOTME You’re a shaggy, dark-furred gnoll capable of making some truly uncanny sounds.
Versatile Heritages Description
ArdandeRE Your elemental heritage is reflected in the oils and fragrances of plants, in tree resin that fossilizes into amber, or in the gentle smell of a flower.
ReflectionDA You were created as a duplicate of another creature, intentionally or accidentally, though you might not know of your origins.
TalosRE Your physical features reflect the influence a zuhra or other metal elemental has had over your bloodline.
draconic scionBAD You possess the power of dragons, whether you descended from dragons, learned from dragons, were transformed by exposure to draconic energy, or reincarnated from a past life as a dragon.
TABLE 2: GNOLL ANCESTRY FEATS
Level 1 Gnoll Feats Prerequisites Benefits
CrunchLOTME — Your jaws can crush bone and bite through armor.
Gnoll LoreLOTME — You paid attention to your senior hunters to learn their tricks.
Gnoll Weapon FamiliarityLOTME — You were taught to be a hunter and a raider.
Hyena FamiliarLOTME — Hyenas serve gnolls as pets, trackers, and in your case, vessels for spirits.
rLet’s Try That AgainSG-04 — You feel a sense of deja vu when you’ve made a mistake, almost as if you weren’t so careless in a past life and could certainly do better if given another chance.
rLike a RoachSG-04 — Living with the bare necessities isn’t terribly hard for someone who has defied death, and like a cockroach, you always know how to survive.
Pack HunterLOTME — You were taught how to hunt as part of a pack.
Sensitive NoseLOTME — Your large black nose isn’t just for show.
rWeight of ExperienceSG-04 — The experience you’ve accumulated over multiple lifetimes envelops you like a weighted blanket, providing comfort and bestowing confidence under pressure.
rWisdom From Another LifeSG-04 — You absorbed a wide variety of facts before you died, and your soul still remembers slivers of this precious knowledge.
Level 5 Gnoll Feats Prerequisites Benefits
rAnimal Soul SiblingsSG-04 — Your eyes have been opened to the spiritual essence suffusing the world.
Distant CackleLOTME witch gnoll heritage It takes a very brave person to enter the laughter-haunted forest where you dwell.
rEmpathy IncarnateSG-04 — Reincarnation has given you a compassionate perspective and enabled you to relate to almost everyone you speak with, putting them at ease and quickly generating trust.
rFey InfluenceLOIL — You have been exposed to powerful fey magic.
Gnoll Weapon PracticalityLOTME Gnoll Weapon Familiarity Whenever you critically hit using flails, khopeshes, mambeles, spears, and war flails, you apply the weapon’s critical specialization effect.
rI’Ve Had Many JobsSG-04 — Finding and excelling at odd jobs is child’s play to one who has worked many occupations during many lives.
Pack StalkerLOTME expert in Stealth, Pack Hunter Ambushes are an honored gnoll tradition.
rReincarnated RidiculerSG-04 — You’ve practiced the art of taunting an enemy, ensuring they know death will only make you stronger.
Right-Hand BloodLOTME — It’s said that the flesh of the right side of a hyena can heal diseases, but that of the left side is poisonous.
rSleep of the RebornSG-04 — Philosophers compare the cycle of life, death, and rebirth to sleeping, dreaming, and waking.
Level 9 Gnoll Feats Prerequisites Benefits
Breath Like HoneyLOTME sweetbreath gnoll heritage You smell of honey and savory things.
rDrain EmotionLOIL Fey Influence You touch an adjacent creature and attempt to draw out its excess emotion.
rFey AscensionLOIL Fey Influence The fey influence on your form and features grows even more powerful and notable.
Grandmother’s WisdomLOTME — You carry the bones of your ancestors with you, and you can ask them for counsel.
Laughing GnollLOTME master in Intimidation A gnoll’s sinister giggle is a sound of warning and threat.
rLingering EchoesSG-04 — Not everyone is reincarnated, and you feel a strong connection with the spiritual echoes of those who didn’t receive the same opportunity as you.
rPlant Soul SiblingsSG-04 Animal Soul Siblings You’re now able to connect with the spirits present in the greenery of the natural world.
rRapid RetrainingSG-04 — Some feel trapped by their choices and have a tough time reinventing themselves.
rYou Seem Somewhat FamiliarSG-04 — You fought hundreds of foes in your various past lives, and now and then, something about a new opponent tugs at your memory, almost as if you defeated their grandparent long ago.
Level 13 Gnoll Feats Prerequisites Benefits
Ancestor’s RageLOTME — You transform into an enormous otherworldly hyena.
rCannibalize MagicLOIL Fey Influence The fey magic inside of you is a vital part of your body, and you can steal other sources of magic to replenish yours.
rClinging to LifeSG-04 — This life still holds much for you, and you aren’t ready to fall back into the River of Souls just yet.
rEldritch CalmLOIL Fey Influence Your fey heritage has altered your mindset to more resemble the uncanny perspective of the fey.
rGlamourLOIL Fey Influence You unlock a new level of fey power and can manipulate the perceptions of others using a font of First World magic.
Gnoll Weapon ExpertiseLOTME Gnoll Weapon Practicality Whenever you gain a class feature that grants you expert or greater proficiency in a given weapon or weapons, you also gain that proficiency in flails, khopeshes, mambeles, spears, and war flails.
rI Sense MalevolenceSG-04 — Your time in theRiver of Souls has given you deep insight into the machinations of those who refuse to move on.
rLinguistic RevivalSG-04 — You achieved fluency in different languages with each reincarnation, and your brain remembers much of the grammar, idioms, and obscenities that you spouted in old lives.
rPain Is TemporarySG-04 — Sangpotshi practitioners know that suffering is a fleeting sensation that ultimately strengthens the soul and prepares it for a new reincarnation.
rStone Soul SiblingsSG-04 Plant Soul Siblings Your connection with nature’s spirits has progressed to the point where you can even have casual conversation with pebbles and boulders.
rUnbreakable ResolveSG-04 — The experience of coming back after death has granted you a strong sense of resolve; devilish words, slick spells, and conniving trickery can’t easily catch you off guard.
Level 17 Gnoll Feats Prerequisites Benefits
rBoneyard AcquaintanceSG-04 — Before your soul returned to the Material Plane, you interacted with a host of other souls on their way to the Boneyard.
rFey TranscendenceLOIL Fey Influence You become a powerful fey creature, gaining strengths tied to the First World but also some of the weakness against which all fey must contend.
rIndomitable SpiritSG-04 — Your soul has accumulated countless particles of quintessence over myriad deaths and rebirths, and for one moment, this raw material from the Great Beyond envelops you and your comrades.
rRelease the LightSG-04 — Many people report seeing a bright light before their death.
rSee You in HellSG-04 — You aren’t sure if you’ll be reincarnated again, so you might as well take this foe with you.
rThis Time, Bring the BodySG-04 — Death sends a soul into the River of Souls.