Quick Stats:

• Ability Score Adjustment: +1 Stamina, +1 Intuition, -1 Reason
• Class Level Limits: See Racial Level Limits
• Multi-Class Options: Druid + any one non-priest, or Thief + any one non-rogue
• Height (M/F): 80 in / 84 in +1d12
• Weight (M/F): 160 lbs / 180 lbs +4d10
• Aging:
  • Starting: 7 +1d4 years
  • Adult / Middle/Old/Venerable: 8 / 17 / 23 / 35
  • Maximum: 35 +1d20 years
• Languages:
  • Bonus Languages: Gnoll
  • Recommended Languages: Chuklian, Daraktan, Troll, Bugbear, Jogishk
• Movement: 12
• Special Abilities:
  • Gnolls gain hit dice by class and receive 2 bonus hit points at 1st level.
  • Gnolls are large creatures and can carry 50% more than a human of similar strength.
  • Gnolls, regardless of class, can use flindbars as weapons, and gain the flindbar as a free weapon proficiency. When wielding a flindbar, any successful hit requires an opponent to save vs. wands. A failed save means the opponent’s weapon is entangled and ripped from the opponent’s grasp.
  • Gnolls prize food above fear and receive a +2 bonus to their morale scores, including saves vs. magical fear effects.
• Special Restrictions:
  • Gnolls take damage as Large creatures.

Background: Gnolls are a race of hulking, humanoids that resemble hyenas in more than mere appearance; they show a striking affinity with the scavenging animals, to the point of keeping them as pets, and reflect many of the lesser creatures’ behaviors. They stand about 7½ feet tall. The skin of a gnoll is greenish gray that gets darker near its muzzle. They have short manes of reddish gray to dull yellow hair.

Gnoll females are larger than the males, and their society is matriarchal. The strongest gnolls rule their sisters, using fear and intimidation to best advantage. Gnoll males fight as well as the females, though they rarely get to use the best armor and weapons available to the band.

Gnolls are capable hunters, but are far happier to scavenge or steal a kill than to go out and track down prey. This laziness impels them to acquire slaves of whatever type is available, whom they force to dig warrens, gather supplies and water, and even hunt for their gnoll masters.

Gnolls are obligate carnivores, unable to digest plant matter, and view all creatures as meat. Even a dead or fallen comrade is a fresh meal for a gnoll, who might honor a distinguished tribe member with a brief prayer, or thoroughly cook one that has died of a wasting disease, but otherwise view a dead gnoll as little different from any other creature. The more “civilized” gnolls do not eat their prisoners, but instead keep them as slaves, either to defend or improve their lair or to trade with other tribes or slaver bands.

During combat, gnolls use a strange mixture of pack tactics and individual standoffs. If a gnoll feels that it is winning, it attempts to take down a weaker being rather than aiding its fellows. If the gnolls are struggling, they gang up on a powerful leader and try to take that creature down, in the hopes of forcing its allies to flee.

If any type of gnoll is likely to become an adventurer, it is the flind. As they are already looked upon as heroes by their gnoll cousins, some flinds reject their evil natures to become heroes in the larger world. Flinds appear similar to gnolls, though they are shorter, broader, and more muscular than regular gnolls. Flinds are looked upon with awe by gnolls, revered as leaders and heroes by the hyena-like humanoids. Flind adventurers believe themselves to be very special. All of the reverence heaped upon them by the gnolls throughout their lives gives them a sense of worth not displayed often in humanoid cultures. They exhibit the same bestial urges as their gnoll cousins, but they can control them with less difficulty.