In the Forgotten Realms country of Dambrath, where the Crinti (half-human/half-drow) are some Gnoll tribes that have adapted and work as mercenaries for the Crinti. In the old Mystara setting was a cave system in one region where Gnolls and Elves worked and sometimes even lived together for mutual survival and defence. Just to show what existed in the past.
The older gnoll lore actually makes this whole thing a curious cautionary tale. To be brief, gnolls are the creations of a hunter god called Gorelik, but because he didn't give them any kind of history or shared identity, Yeenoghu (who maybe once was a gnoll or just thought they were neat) was able to gradually yet quickly seduce them with dark power. Then he killed and consumed Gorelik, giving him the power to create new gnolls, and from there, he went on his famous gnoll-making killing spree. Even so, gnolls are still mortal creatures, and there's solid evidence that the connection can be cut and that something of Gorelik might still be alive. But if the gnolls are gonna get out and stay out, it's clear they need someone or something to keep them on the straight and narrow.
If I play a Gnoll, I’d build a “Way of Mercy” monk with the “Sage” background. The idea is to create a Voodoo Witchdoctor in Theros as a Champion of Athreos, God of Passage. The Gnoll’s goal is to guard the Underworld Crossing and ensure that the Returned never escape.
Just got your channel reccomended. Really liking the videos on player races! I've also been a bit disappointed with Gnolls' position in 5e. If you take reccomendations; Sahuagin next? I always thought the sheer ammount of lore they had in previous editions made it kind of a waste to not have them as a player race, especially since similarily millitaristic and evil races like Githyanki and Hobgoblins are open for playing.
In my world of Elaris, I changed the source of Gnolls to a trickster deity from a pantheon I have for a culture based on a mixture of African and Aztec mythos. The Fangs of Yeenoghu that can create gnolls from hyenas eating their kills was changed to the Laugh of Xolotli, who can release a laugh infused with divine essence to forcefully transform hyenas into gnolls that way through a disease known as Gnoll Chuckles. They are expert hunters and often overhunt areas due to a hatred of other animals due to Xolotli's war and killing of Itzel, the god of animals. The gnolls are often less-so mindless killers and more-so cunning hunters and warriors, using trickery and illusions to succeed. Due to this higher intelligence, some do split off from their people, gaining more morals (Often moving from Evil to neutral) and becoming less inherently destructive and problematic in civilized cultures (typically moving from Chaotic to neutral, or in exceptional individuals all the way to lawful). Still tainted by Xolotli's influence, these gnolls are still very rarely good-aligned, and because of what their people have done, few others trust these gnolls until they prove themselves above and beyond others. PC Gnolls in Elaris (For 5e at least) are +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Cha; They gain a Frenzy ability that works like Baby's First Barbarian Rage, and whenever they bloody a creature (Condition from 4e just meaning they reduce it to 1/2 HP or less) with a melee attack, they can make a Bite attack against is as a reaction, as well as having darkvision. I do have a house rule that takes away the negative penalties for all races and weakens one of their racial traits, in this case weakening the frenzy to only add damage and not grant any form of damage resistance but my table tends to prefer the negative ability scores as it shapes the race a bit more and allows them to have a slightly stronger racial feature to make the race matter more. I have yet to have anyone play a Gnoll PC yet in Elaris though that may be because I primarily run games in a different continent than where gnolls are super common, though they can be found on this continent as well.
It's rather remarkable that they put a block on playable gnolls, given how SHORT the previous lore made their justification, and how easy it would be to implement again. It would be the same justification behind tieflings being able to be playable with all possible alignments: The presumption that demonic blood and influence has diminishing returns. IE: Gnolls born from consuming tainted carrion -- demonic gnolls -- would continue to be the near-mindless killing machines. But then when the demonic gnolls reproduce, their offspring -- the naturally born gnolls -- only inherit a fraction of the blood lust. And so on and so forth until, centuries later, we have gnolls that are no more prone to evil than the average tiefling and from whom a playable character can be gleaned.
I know they have problems but I would really love to play a natural born wereleopard. One third party shop made therianthropy a class. I really would love to them as a race.
I play a Gnoll Rogue/Warlock (Pact of the Fiend, of course) in a Homebrew setting and he’s one of my favorite characters in 30+ years of playing. He’s loyal to Yeenoghu and can usually out-evil the BBEG as the epitome of the murder hobo. I added insatiable hunger, contagious disease and hideous laughter to make him more fun.
Excellent, I love the gnolls and think they have a lot of potential limited by the lore same with gargoyles and displacer beasts. Speaking of displacer beasts ( which are my favorite DND monster) could you make an anthropomorphic character option for them , curious to see what you would come up with
This is a super cool idea for gnolls, though personally I'd probably make the nervous cackle ability either a reaction or bonus action, and limit it to Proficiency Bonus times per long rest. Seems a bit much for it to be on at all times.
The idea to give gnolls the fiend type is cool. I do like some humanoids that unredeemable evil monsters. Sometimes you want enemies that don't deserve nuance, that are "kill them on sight". That doesn't mean they can't have lore or variety. In my setting, gnolls are a demonic plague, they're what happens when a hyena eats a soul. As soon as they become a gnoll, their goal is to summon/worship demons and eat. When a demon is present, animals within a few miles have a chance to become pregnant will hyena with pups, which eat their way out. Gnolls don't inherently have bloodlust or are unintelligent, they simply prioritize killing and spreading demons. For this reason I'm not interested in demonpuppy PCs.
"Cause for some reason, whenever you're a beast of some kind you always form a tribe or a clan." Savage beasts being the ones who form tribes is definitely coincidental on WOTC's part... Definitely.
Either he is called Shadow Villadious Zero, GothDum IronBane, Monkilador the Nightmare Bringer, or Zod Illkilmord. Whatever you call him, he is the Demon Lord of Villainy, Wickedness, and Destruction. He is the Arch Bringer of Chaos, and the Ruler of the Centralized Multiverse Faction The Void Empire. He can change is size and form at will. His True Form is that of just a cloud of Pure Darkness. From which, he can display Deep Crimson Eyes, and also extend long dark shadowy clawed hands. His usual appearance is that of a Humanoid person, with hair of Buzzsaws and donning 4 Hats stacked atop his head like a towering Crown. He is one of the 9 Wielders of the Staves of the Multiverses, and he, of course, wields the staff of Villainy, Wickedness, and Destruction. His arch enemy is Illuminar Solaristar, but he is usually called Luminar Solaris. He is known as the High Warrior of Light, and also the Chief General of the Armies of the United Universes.
Love the idea! I would personally add the ability to get temp hit points from a successful bite, much like the lizardfolk racial ability Hungry Jaws. Kinda matches their scavenging and aggressive nature
If you know anything about real hyenas, you'd know that they're a matriarchal species. In fact, their social structure is more similar to how drow are often portrayed. As such, I regard most gnolls as female, especially Yeenoghu.
Back in the day, I treated gnolls as males and flinds as females of the same species. The flinds were organized, disciplined, and usually worked as mercenaries; the gnolls roamed around in squabbling bachelor-bands, raiding and stealing and causing trouble, save for the few weeks each year when the flinds were in season and would let a male get anywhere near them.
Whilst I like the player character options (+the lore options, better than WOTC gives most monstrous races) I think needing a reaction for the saving throw might be a bit too strong, since it simply eats up an essential part of the action economy Maybe have this be a limited times per day thing, or add that once someone succeeds the save they become immune to it or something?
I feel like you do need some mindless xp fodder to throw at your players every once in awhile. It used to be all the monstrous races were like this (In D&D history at least, not getting into actual mythology). But goblinoids, orcs, kobolds, minotaurs, drow, and many others have been humanized and given complexity. And I think that's overall a really good thing, as it lets more stories be told. It also makes a lot of conflicts more morally interesting if you have complex ideologies on both sides. That said, sometimes the players can get bogged down or disheartened from all the difficult moral decisions and just want to hack things apart. Animals and magical beasts can definitely play that role, but they only provide specific types of threats and you might want a little more variety. There are some intelligent things that are just plain evil that are done pretty well in the game, like mind flayers and fiends, but those tend to be targeted towards higher level players, and come along with a bunch of setting/theme implications that you may not want to explore. Especially at low levels, or if it's a low-magic sort of setting, it can be nice to have humanoid enemies that the players can attack without worrying about the morals of it. And yeah, it doesn't have to be gnolls, but I really like gnolls as they are, and think their current lore tells a better story than the old lore of orcs and goblinoids and how they're just savages.
I'm less amused by the push to humanize everything in DnD. Not totally against it but this video is a great example of how this stuff is getting ridiculous. What's next playable Pit Fiends? Gnolls are freaking demons...
1. The Nervous cackle is overpowered at an at-will ability. With a 10 foot range, its very to cheese it if you stand behind another character correctly, the target can be forced to eat the disadvantage or take an attack of opportunity. 2. The fiend creature type doesn't make sense for a player character. For one, gnolls are humanoids. In DnD, fiends are ontologically alignment bound. The PHB literally says that a devil that somehow changed its alignment lawful evil would cease to be a devil. (Page 122, I'm paraphrasing)
In the Forgotten Realms country of Dambrath, where the Crinti (half-human/half-drow) are some Gnoll tribes that have adapted and work as mercenaries for the Crinti.
In the old Mystara setting was a cave system in one region where Gnolls and Elves worked and sometimes even lived together for mutual survival and defence.
Just to show what existed in the past.
I was excited to see gnolls in Volo's... until I read the lore. They did them so dirty.
The older gnoll lore actually makes this whole thing a curious cautionary tale. To be brief, gnolls are the creations of a hunter god called Gorelik, but because he didn't give them any kind of history or shared identity, Yeenoghu (who maybe once was a gnoll or just thought they were neat) was able to gradually yet quickly seduce them with dark power. Then he killed and consumed Gorelik, giving him the power to create new gnolls, and from there, he went on his famous gnoll-making killing spree. Even so, gnolls are still mortal creatures, and there's solid evidence that the connection can be cut and that something of Gorelik might still be alive. But if the gnolls are gonna get out and stay out, it's clear they need someone or something to keep them on the straight and narrow.
The problem with Gnolls in DnD is they are clearly based of Hyena's and they chickened out on going all in on the Hyena lore.
Gnolls have always felt like one of the biggest races missing in 5e, glad to see that gap fixed so well!
Gnolls should get some free tasha’s hideous laughter they rule
If I play a Gnoll, I’d build a “Way of Mercy” monk with the “Sage” background.
The idea is to create a Voodoo Witchdoctor in Theros as a Champion of Athreos, God of Passage. The Gnoll’s goal is to guard the Underworld Crossing and ensure that the Returned never escape.
Just got your channel reccomended. Really liking the videos on player races! I've also been a bit disappointed with Gnolls' position in 5e. If you take reccomendations; Sahuagin next?
I always thought the sheer ammount of lore they had in previous editions made it kind of a waste to not have them as a player race, especially since similarily millitaristic and evil races like Githyanki and Hobgoblins are open for playing.
Did not stop me to make a Gnoll Character as a playable Character for a Hero Party.
Gnolls are one of my favs! Glad to see the vid back up! Great content per usual!
So would you say the first posted vid is gnoll-n-void? Dad pun for the day. I'll be here all week. Love the content keep up the great work!
In my world of Elaris, I changed the source of Gnolls to a trickster deity from a pantheon I have for a culture based on a mixture of African and Aztec mythos. The Fangs of Yeenoghu that can create gnolls from hyenas eating their kills was changed to the Laugh of Xolotli, who can release a laugh infused with divine essence to forcefully transform hyenas into gnolls that way through a disease known as Gnoll Chuckles. They are expert hunters and often overhunt areas due to a hatred of other animals due to Xolotli's war and killing of Itzel, the god of animals.
The gnolls are often less-so mindless killers and more-so cunning hunters and warriors, using trickery and illusions to succeed. Due to this higher intelligence, some do split off from their people, gaining more morals (Often moving from Evil to neutral) and becoming less inherently destructive and problematic in civilized cultures (typically moving from Chaotic to neutral, or in exceptional individuals all the way to lawful). Still tainted by Xolotli's influence, these gnolls are still very rarely good-aligned, and because of what their people have done, few others trust these gnolls until they prove themselves above and beyond others.
PC Gnolls in Elaris (For 5e at least) are +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Cha; They gain a Frenzy ability that works like Baby's First Barbarian Rage, and whenever they bloody a creature (Condition from 4e just meaning they reduce it to 1/2 HP or less) with a melee attack, they can make a Bite attack against is as a reaction, as well as having darkvision. I do have a house rule that takes away the negative penalties for all races and weakens one of their racial traits, in this case weakening the frenzy to only add damage and not grant any form of damage resistance but my table tends to prefer the negative ability scores as it shapes the race a bit more and allows them to have a slightly stronger racial feature to make the race matter more.
I have yet to have anyone play a Gnoll PC yet in Elaris though that may be because I primarily run games in a different continent than where gnolls are super common, though they can be found on this continent as well.
I was so disappointed with 5e's lore for Gnolls. Like, THEY HAVE EBERON. Let Gnolls be a playable race! At least before we head off to 5.5e.
It's rather remarkable that they put a block on playable gnolls, given how SHORT the previous lore made their justification, and how easy it would be to implement again.
It would be the same justification behind tieflings being able to be playable with all possible alignments: The presumption that demonic blood and influence has diminishing returns. IE: Gnolls born from consuming tainted carrion -- demonic gnolls -- would continue to be the near-mindless killing machines. But then when the demonic gnolls reproduce, their offspring -- the naturally born gnolls -- only inherit a fraction of the blood lust. And so on and so forth until, centuries later, we have gnolls that are no more prone to evil than the average tiefling and from whom a playable character can be gleaned.
I like this idea we can have enemies (demonic gnolls) and playeble inteligent race of hyena-humans (natural borns)
I know they have problems but I would really love to play a natural born wereleopard. One third party shop made therianthropy a class. I really would love to them as a race.
I play a Gnoll Rogue/Warlock (Pact of the Fiend, of course) in a Homebrew setting and he’s one of my favorite characters in 30+ years of playing.
He’s loyal to Yeenoghu and can usually out-evil the BBEG as the epitome of the murder hobo. I added insatiable hunger, contagious disease and hideous laughter to make him more fun.
Excellent, I love the gnolls and think they have a lot of potential limited by the lore same with gargoyles and displacer beasts. Speaking of displacer beasts ( which are my favorite DND monster) could you make an anthropomorphic character option for them , curious to see what you would come up with
This is a super cool idea for gnolls, though personally I'd probably make the nervous cackle ability either a reaction or bonus action, and limit it to Proficiency Bonus times per long rest. Seems a bit much for it to be on at all times.
Upvote for Eberron shout.
Love the videos made Dungeoneer's Pack, his races rock!
The idea to give gnolls the fiend type is cool.
I do like some humanoids that unredeemable evil monsters. Sometimes you want enemies that don't deserve nuance, that are "kill them on sight". That doesn't mean they can't have lore or variety.
In my setting, gnolls are a demonic plague, they're what happens when a hyena eats a soul. As soon as they become a gnoll, their goal is to summon/worship demons and eat. When a demon is present, animals within a few miles have a chance to become pregnant will hyena with pups, which eat their way out.
Gnolls don't inherently have bloodlust or are unintelligent, they simply prioritize killing and spreading demons. For this reason I'm not interested in demonpuppy PCs.
I love gnolls and therefore I also LOVE this video.
I shall watch your career with great interest.
"Cause for some reason, whenever you're a beast of some kind you always form a tribe or a clan."
Savage beasts being the ones who form tribes is definitely coincidental on WOTC's part... Definitely.
Either he is called Shadow Villadious Zero, GothDum IronBane, Monkilador the Nightmare Bringer, or Zod Illkilmord.
Whatever you call him, he is the Demon Lord of Villainy, Wickedness, and Destruction. He is the Arch Bringer of Chaos, and the Ruler of the Centralized Multiverse Faction The Void Empire.
He can change is size and form at will. His True Form is that of just a cloud of Pure Darkness. From which, he can display Deep Crimson Eyes, and also extend long dark shadowy clawed hands.
His usual appearance is that of a Humanoid person, with hair of Buzzsaws and donning 4 Hats stacked atop his head like a towering Crown.
He is one of the 9 Wielders of the Staves of the Multiverses, and he, of course, wields the staff of Villainy, Wickedness, and Destruction.
His arch enemy is Illuminar Solaristar, but he is usually called Luminar Solaris. He is known as the High Warrior of Light, and also the Chief General of the Armies of the United Universes.
Love the idea! I would personally add the ability to get temp hit points from a successful bite, much like the lizardfolk racial ability Hungry Jaws. Kinda matches their scavenging and aggressive nature
Now thats a good thumbnail
If you know anything about real hyenas, you'd know that they're a matriarchal species.
In fact, their social structure is more similar to how drow are often portrayed.
As such, I regard most gnolls as female, especially Yeenoghu.
Gaslight,gatekeep, gnollboss.
Back in the day, I treated gnolls as males and flinds as females of the same species. The flinds were organized, disciplined, and usually worked as mercenaries; the gnolls roamed around in squabbling bachelor-bands, raiding and stealing and causing trouble, save for the few weeks each year when the flinds were in season and would let a male get anywhere near them.
@@sharondornhoff7563 Females hyenas are more aggressive, the girls should be the roaming destroyers if anything
Whilst I like the player character options (+the lore options, better than WOTC gives most monstrous races) I think needing a reaction for the saving throw might be a bit too strong, since it simply eats up an essential part of the action economy
Maybe have this be a limited times per day thing, or add that once someone succeeds the save they become immune to it or something?
I feel like you do need some mindless xp fodder to throw at your players every once in awhile. It used to be all the monstrous races were like this (In D&D history at least, not getting into actual mythology). But goblinoids, orcs, kobolds, minotaurs, drow, and many others have been humanized and given complexity. And I think that's overall a really good thing, as it lets more stories be told. It also makes a lot of conflicts more morally interesting if you have complex ideologies on both sides. That said, sometimes the players can get bogged down or disheartened from all the difficult moral decisions and just want to hack things apart. Animals and magical beasts can definitely play that role, but they only provide specific types of threats and you might want a little more variety. There are some intelligent things that are just plain evil that are done pretty well in the game, like mind flayers and fiends, but those tend to be targeted towards higher level players, and come along with a bunch of setting/theme implications that you may not want to explore.
Especially at low levels, or if it's a low-magic sort of setting, it can be nice to have humanoid enemies that the players can attack without worrying about the morals of it.
And yeah, it doesn't have to be gnolls, but I really like gnolls as they are, and think their current lore tells a better story than the old lore of orcs and goblinoids and how they're just savages.
I'm less amused by the push to humanize everything in DnD. Not totally against it but this video is a great example of how this stuff is getting ridiculous. What's next playable Pit Fiends? Gnolls are freaking demons...
Those traits seem pretty strong. Maybe too strong. Love the flavor though.
I prefer the old plantigrade gnolls in 1e and 2e, since they resemble the cynocephalic humanoids of Medieval lore.
I think gnolls are just gross, but since Gary Gygax didn't even have much of an idea for them, I'm excluding them entirely.
1. The Nervous cackle is overpowered at an at-will ability. With a 10 foot range, its very to cheese it if you stand behind another character correctly, the target can be forced to eat the disadvantage or take an attack of opportunity.
2. The fiend creature type doesn't make sense for a player character. For one, gnolls are humanoids. In DnD, fiends are ontologically alignment bound. The PHB literally says that a devil that somehow changed its alignment lawful evil would cease to be a devil. (Page 122, I'm paraphrasing)
It's even worse than that, nervous cackle removes reactions from everyone in 10' radius for free, as long you are not silenced I guess.