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Thinking about it, I've been wondering if a gnoll, raised by humans/elves/dorfs/etc would turn out exactly the same as its brethren as they seem sentient enough to possess tribesman mentality. So if say a travelling mage found a gnoll child and adopted it, how would things turn out?
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>>50724053
If Gnolls are evil based purely on their Fiendish blood, then by that logic every tiefling with Fiendish blood must be evil.

Gnolls are just Hyena/Fiend Tieflings.
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>>50724053
Yes anon, we will solve the nature/nurture debate on a fucking image board.
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>>50724086
You'd be right except one is half-fiend the other was created by fiends.
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>>50724111
Gnolls were created by Fiends sure, but they're still just Half-blooded Fiendish creatures. If they were Full Fiends then sure, but that's not true.

There is little difference between Gnolls and Tieflings.

If Fiendish blood causes Gnolls to always be Evil, then it will cause Tieflings to always be evil.
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>>50724053
One of the good things D&D 4E gave us.
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>>50724141
So, would say, it be possible for a Gnoll to possess a alignment of Lawful/Neutral Good?
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>>50724170
Anything a Tiefling can do, a Gnoll can do.

Gnoll's are just furry tieflings.
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Short reply: Depends on the Setting (tm)

Long reply: Eberron has an excuse for almost anything to be any alignment, since only celestials, fiends, and abberations have set alignments. If a red dragon can be lawful good, a Gnoll can be good.

Forgotten Realms: No. They're abominations born from the Abyss and exist only top eat, kill, and destroy until nothing is left. They have no other purpose.

Greyhawk: Maybe? They're gigantic dicks, but it's possible, I guess.

Points of Light: Stop. No. Don't play this setting.

All other settings, I'm not sure.
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>>50724183
So we could get a Lawful Good gnoll paladin, who was raised in church and is extremely pious or something like that? Sounds cool to me.
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>>50724053
No, gnolls are physically incapable of thinking of doing anything other than pillaging and destroying. They were made by evil gods to do evil deeds, and the evil gods still keep a tight reign on them.
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>>50724215
>Points of Light: Stop. No. Don't play this setting.

"Points of Light" isn't a setting. Nentir Vale is a setting designed by the "Points of Light" philosophy and used as an example of it, but Points of Light itself is just 4e's advice for how to design a setting that works well with its rules.
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>>50724299

In Faerun, yes.
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>>50724389
Yes, but calling it "Points of Light" sounds better than calling it "Nentir Vale", much as how "The Forgotten Realms" sounds better than "Abeir-Toril", or "Dragonlance" sounds better than "Krynn", or "Dark Sun" sounds better than "Athas".
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>>50724053
> inherently evil
> savages

I don't understand. Are you trying to put forward a hypothesis that there's a difference between the two?
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>>50726390
Not that guy but sure.

Civilised and industrial societies innately comes with evils all of their own.

What is a "Savage"?

It's mostly just a derogatory term for less technologically advanced peoples.

For one thing, civilised societies often promote a sense of superiority that leads to mistreatment of less advanced groups out of hubris; whether this is warranted or not is quite subjective; plenty of people flee from civilisation because they do not find it beneficial or easy to live in.
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>>50726390
romans please leave
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>>50724053
This question applies to any and all humanoid Monster species.
It's irrelevant: You're eliminating dangerous monsters And any other solution to the problem is outside your grasp.
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>>50726472
No.
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>>50724053

It really depends on setting, like most stuff of course.

My opinion on the matter, is that unless there are beings that are -truly- made of evil incarnated such as some outsiders, all races have varying degrees of good/evil axys.
In my setting, gnolls are by society and basic instinct 'evil', due their laziness plus propension for violence, and a liking for meat.
This could be corrected with a proper upbringing. Rarely a gnoll in this way will become good, but a lot of them would more likely be neutral. You can be a lazy and strong person without being actively a dick after all.
A good-aligned gnoll, probably is one that has grown in a society with a lot of attention and care, without making him grow bitter and maybe finding him an outlet with some hobby for his more beastly instincts.
So, it would make it so that it would even possible to find a gnoll paladin of Kord, which would get the advantage of both get a comfy stay in towns after helping the townfolks, and get to release his rage in protecting the weak and sports.
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>>50724053
He didnt watch the last episode of planet earth
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>>50724053
In pre-5e lore? They'd turn out pretty normal - perhaps with some temper issues, gnolls are usually portrayed as being a bit aggressive by nature, but if we can domesticate spotted hyenas in the real world, I can't see why a gnoll couldn't be a productive member of society.

Unless you wanted to use 5e's abysmal "they're demons that look like hyena-men" fluff, and why the hell would you?

On a hopefully semi-relevant topic.. I've actually been trying to engineer 5e stats for playable gnolls (and, by extension, flinds & half-gnolls) from 4e's fluff. Would this be a thread for getting critique on them?
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>>50727013
honestly, fuck 5e.
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bump
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Actually, talking of gnolls and homebrew and setting, I'm trying to iron out some details about gnolls for a setting I'm worldbuilding for; would this be a relevant thread to talk about that?
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>>50727535

Might as well. Go ahead.
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>>50724053
Ah, the Murder-Hobo's Burden.
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>>50727038
>>50727013
>fuck 5e for making the monsters be actual monsters instead of poor misunderstood beasties
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>>50727013
>>50727038

Fuck you, 5e Gnolls are great, focused and evocative, you know exactly their place and what to use them for.
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Would a Good Aligned female Gnoll be all Tsundere to a guy she liked? Would she be all "Idiot, I didn't buy this because you like it, I just bought it so you don't get too weak to fight!"
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>>50727775
If you figure that gnolls are matriarchal in your setting - D&D traditionally portrays them as patriarchal, for some reason. Then yes, probably.

Have the most tasteful fem-gnoll in my private collection; all the others are either naked or wearing "chainmail bikini" type outfits.
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>>50727535
>>50727557

Alright. Long story short about the setting is that it used to be an Eberron-esque industrialized high magic world, and then it blew itself to hell, RIFTS style, in a magical world-war between humans, elves and dwarves.

Basic idea I'm sitting on for gnolls is to take my original subraces (Butcher's Brood, Hyena's Soul, and completely fanon "Bouda" - mystic gnoll subrace) and have each subrace actually be a seperate gender. This has been done in D&D before (male/female bariaur got very different abilities in Planescape, for example) and I figured it references the real world spotted hyena pack.

Idea I'm currently sitting on for their origins is that they used to be ordinary hyenas, but during "the Black Dawn", the big world-shattering apocalyptic event, they were scavenging from a slaughter-field and all the raw magic, the dead zombies they ate and the demon blood they drank, it mutated them into a more humanoid form.

They're not evil, but they have basically had to establish a society from scratch, so they've fallen back on old instincts and their newfound affinity for necromancy.

They're strongly pack-orientated, though "tribes" of several packs coming together are beginning to be a thing, and the tradition of bartering/stealing new packmembers from other packs to refresh the lineage is fairly strong. Mostly nomadic, but they're starting to form permanently settled communities.

Nocturnal by nature because, y'know, hyenas hunt by night as the day is generally too hot to do anything.

Cannibals of the "meat is meat" variety. Don't go deliberately hunting sapients, but if they kill you, they'll eat you.

Necromancy is a highly respected magic amongst them. Skeleton laborers form the basis of their working caste; gnolls can and will work hard, but are happy to defer work to others if they can. Witherlings are deeply honored as gnolls giving their all for the safety of the pack.
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>>50727882
Matriarchal and matrilinear. Females are the bigger, stronger, more aggressive sex, females are sexual aggressors in courtship, females are the primary warriors. Males are not exactly oppressed, but their culture does have fairly strong perceptions of what a proper gender role is.

Cultural viewpoint is very much "for the good of the pack". Gnolls value their own lives highly - a gnoll that is overpowered will surrender or flee instead of fighting to the death - but for the safety of the pack, they'll do anything.

This also means that "tall poppies", gnolls going against the grain, tend to be extremely driven and with a sort of inferiority complex; they know that this isn't their "best role", so they're determined to prove they can still be vital to the pack in the path they've chosen.

Have an aggressive streak; gnolls talk aggressively, posture a lot, and are big on roughhousing, but there's no real malice to it. It's just how they establish themselves.


This is roughly all I got, beyond some details that aren't really relevant (like, gnoll women like to put on a bit of weight, because in a savannah, it takes a lot of skill to have the food needed to grow thick). Thoughts? Critiques?
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So, I mentioned above that I want to homebrew some balanced gnoll stats for 5e, and I could really use help with that. Figured I might as well share what I produced and see how it turns out.

Before anyone asks; no, the Bouda isn't a canon "type" of gnoll, but I figured a sorcerous offshoot to the gnoll species made sense, especially given Pathfinder gave them their own Witch racial archetype called "the Bouda".

Also, quick question; would a feat to let the Bouda become a shapeshifter who can assume the form of a hyena be overpowered?
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>>50728163
Gnoll
Ability Score Modifier: +2 Constitution
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Vision: Darkvision
Filth-Eater's Gullet: A gnoll has Resistance to Poison and Advantage on Constitution checks against Poison and Disease.
Ripping Jaws: A gnoll can choose to Bite as an Unarmed Strike, which causes the attack to inflict d4 Piercing damage. Gnoll monks can use their Martial Arts unarmed damage dice when making a bite attack.
Rampage: When a gnoll reduces a creature to 0 hit points on its turn with a melee attack, it can spend a bonus action to move up to half its speed and make a bite attack.
Ghostly Whispers: A gnoll can imitate the voice of any creature it has heard speaking, so long as it speaks the same language as that creature.
Subrace: Choose between the Butcher’s Brood, Hyena’s Soul or Bouda subraces to determine the rest of your racial traits.

Butcher’s Brood Gnoll
Ability Score Increase: +1 Strength
Blood Frenzy: Once per turn, a Butcher’s Brood Gnoll which has taken damage from an enemy attack can use its Reaction to deliver a bite attack to an enemy in reach.

Hyena’s Soul Gnoll
Ability Score Increase: +1 Wisdom
Far-Roamer: A Hyena’s Soul Gnoll increases its base movement speed to 35 feet.
Bred to Hunt: A Hyena’s Soul Gnoll has Proficiency in Wisdom (Perception) and Wisdom (Survival).

Bouda
Ability Score Modifier: +1 Charisma
Graveyard Prowler: A bouda has Resistance to Necrotic Damage.
Black Magician: A bouda can cast Chill Touch with this trait. At 3rd level, it can cast Arms of Hadar as a 1st level spell with this trait once per long rest. At 5th level, it can cast Enthrall as a 2nd level spell with this trait once per long rest. Charisma is the spellcasting ability score for all spells cast with this trait.
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>>50728163
Flind
Ability Score Modifier: +1 Strength, +1 Constitution, +1 Dexterity
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Vision: Darkvision
Filth-Eater's Gullet: A flind has Resistance to Poison and Advantage on Constitution checks against Disease.
Ripping Jaws: A flind can choose to Bite as an Unarmed Strike. Doing so causes its attack to inflict 1d4 Piercing damage as a basis.
Rampage: When a flind reduces a creature to 0 hit points on its turn with a melee attack, it can take a bonus action to move up to half its speed and make a bite attack.
Powerful Build: A flind is treated as being one size larger for determining its carrying, pushing and pulling capacities.
Bred For War: A flind has proficiency with two martial weapons of its choice.
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>>50728163
Half-Gnoll
Ability Score Modifier: +2 Intelligence, +1 Wisdom
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Vision: Darkvision
Filth-Eater's Gullet: A half-gnoll has Resistance to Poison and Advantage on Constitution checks against Disease.
Ripping Jaws: A half-gnoll can choose to Bite as an Unarmed Strike. Doing so causes its attack to inflict 1d4 Piercing damage as a basis.
Rampage: When a half-gnoll reduces a creature to 0 hit points on its turn with a melee attack, it can take a bonus action to move up to half its speed and make a bite attack.
Runt's Survival: A half-gnoll gains Proficiency in one skill of its choice.
Keep Up: A half-gnoll can add its Proficiency to Constitution checks made to resist Exhaustion.
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>>50724053
Gnolls are inherently evil, but they could be raised against their evil tendencies. With a lot of time and patience a gnoll could be raised to be somewhat normal, but he would still be rather brash, mean, and dominating because his gnollish tendencies would still be pretty strong. But gnolls aren't above being somewhat civilized.

If left to their own devices, a gnoll would be evil without a doubt, but you could raise one not to be evil. In some settings, gnolls will work with other species if it benefits them, emphasis on 'some settings'

In 5e terms, gnolls are just savage beasts that give blood to the blood god because they're entire existence revolves around murder.
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>>50728966
>>50727765
>>50727596

In Forgotten Realms. Which is objectively the shittiest setting anyway.
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>>50729064
Redeemed monsters are shit.

Also, even good settings have irredeemable douchebags.
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>>50729064
I don't use Forgotten Realms and I love 5e Gnolls.
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>>50729084
>Redeemed monsters are shit.

Thanks for your opinion.

>Also, even good settings have irredeemable douchebags.

Sure, but this is about Gnolls. And it's only in Forgotten Realms specifically that they're demonic monsters.

>>50729086
And you're allowed to. But I don't. I really don't like them. We finally get fluff for Gnolls... And it's super lazy and takes the role Orcs usually take in fantasy setting. Marauding hordes that exist just to destroy.

I mean, seriously? We couldn't get anything better than 'kill kill kill lol did you expect anything interesting'? Also, Goblins are always evil, but orcs aren't? And three different varieties of sociopathic reptiles, woo! Giants and Mind Flayers were the only good parts of that book. And all the new monsters.
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>>50724053
I mean, it depends on the setting, but by default, gnolls are literally the spawn of a demon god of slaughter who slaughters so much that hyenas explode into slaughter-monsters because slaughter.
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>>50726088
At least in my experience, it is referred to as PoLand, or Nerath. And actually, it ended up getting an almost comical level of development into a massive sprawling setting with a decidedly sword and sorcery feel to it. An absolutely fucking massive setting, with much of the world painted in suggestions and vagueries or a few sentences at most.

Here's one brave man's attempt to catalog it all.
>http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=15210
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>>50724141

>Gnolls were created by Fiends sure, but they're still just Half-blooded Fiendish creatures. If they were Full Fiends then sure, but that's not true.

Yeah, but the other half is fucking hyenas. Not that hyenas are evil or anything, they're just critters, but their inherent less-than-friendly nature probably makes it all but impossible for one to turn out an upstanding citizen of the realm.
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>>50729423
>but their inherent less-than-friendly nature
The Large Spotted Hyena is a very social animal. I wouldn't say they're any less friendly than lions or tigers.

They do hunt down lion cubs and such, but that's because lions are their primary competition for food and land.
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>>50729762

Oh they're social all right, but they're dangerous animals that will gladly eat anything that isn't them that they can take down.

Gnolls tend to have a similar mindset.
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>>50729875
Right, doesn't make them unfriendly though. My point was that passing that judgement on an animal that works on pure instinct is a little unfair.

I'm sure hyenas are friendly with those in their pack (clowder maybe since they are feline).
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>>50729762
>I wouldn't say they're any less friendly than lions or tigers.

Yeah, and domesticated cats, big and small, can still be mischievous little assholes, who will scratch you for petting them wrong.
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Honestly, anything with the mental capacity to make moral judgements will be able to be both good and bad. And anything that isn't capable of making such judgements can be neither good nor evil.

The whole "always good" or "always evil" thing D&D does is retarded.
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>>50730301
This
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>>50724053
The modern concept of the gnoll comes from d&d where they are literal demon spawn.

You're of course free to make a variation for your own private setting but the whole demon spawn thing is all that separates them from being a generic beast-race.
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>>50730301
>The whole "always good" or "always evil" thing D&D does is retarded.
It makes sense in the context of outsiders at least.
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>>50730301
But good and evil are objective forces in D&D, not abstract philosophical constructs. It only seems retarded when people try to be oh-so-clever about it by analyzing it using real world notions of morality and ethics as if they still apply.
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>>50727882
>>50727950
>>50728163
So, does anyone have any commentary on these posts of mine? I want to use gnolls as a Dark But Not Evil matriarchal society in my setting, but I'm kind of struggling over the mechanics.
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>>50732107
Them being objective forces doesn't make it any less stupid that morality is so clear-cut. Declaring every single member of a species evil because of a factor that they can't control is stupid because it takes away all the nuance. There's no room for communication, understanding, or character or setting development. See a gnoll? Kill it. See a baby gnoll, incapable of understanding even basic concepts? Kill it.

A moralistic system where the right thing to do when facing a baby gnoll, or kobold, or goblin is to kill it immediately, and this is an absolute good thing to do, is shallow.
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>>50732625
Ya, and magic breaks the laws of thermodynamics! And elves and dragons don't exist either! Wow anon, we're so smart, aren't we?
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Imagine a Gnoll Paladin.
It'd be like a fuzzy Angry Marine: Armored as much as it can be, while screaming at people for worshiping evil gods.

Or hell, even just minor stuff that's not lawful and/or good.
>HEY!
>Stop littering or I'll see if Smite Evil works on your filthy ass!
>PICK IT UP!
>And don't let me catch you smoking so close to the Magi College again! That shit's liable to explode as is. Doesn't need you helping it along, dumbass.
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>>50732741

I can't properly articulate why those rules are fine and the moralistic system is stupid, but you're being deliberately obtuse. Those two things are not on the same level.

"Magic exists" and "There's an entire species of sapient beings who are utterly, irrevocably evil by nature, even the newborn babies, and killing them is the right thing to do because nothing you do can ever encourage them to be good because the Monster Manual lists them as Evil," are two different statements. One makes the world more interesting, one doesn't.
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>>50732027
I dunno. Fallen Angels have been a thing since Satan.
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>>50724053
I personally despise "Always Evil" shit so i'd make it so.
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>>50732842
10/10 concept
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>>50732006
>being a generic beast-race.
I remember from a thread earlier this week where some dude fluffed gnolls as originally just hyena beast people until Yeenoghu or some other demon killed that hyena god and ate it. The gnolls got their shit together and killed said demon and ate it as well changing their characteristics based on what part they ate. They weren't evil but the ones who ate the muscles became more violent and so on. It created a clear caste system and gave them reason to be evil without them automatically being so.
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>>50733034
>The gnolls got their shit together and killed said demon and ate it

For some reason this bit made me laugh, but then I realized how fitting it is for gnolls.
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My favorite thing to do with the demon blood shenanigans was just to make them always hungry. Always. Not capable of eating their own bodyweight or anything, not a hyperfast metabolism (though a bit faster than the norm), but they could literally eat until their stomach explodes and not notice or care until they started dying. Ten seconds after a ten-course meal at which other diners had to be bodily carried away, they'd be asking if anyone was going to finish that. Obesity is an impossibility, due to the grip of demonic hunger on their souls.

The pack structure is what keeps them stable and not killing and eating each other for food: Everyone does their part to feed everyone.

I also like to give them double rows of teeth and the occasional weirder mutation.

>>50732842
I like this. Also the mental image of just straight up running in heavy armor because the provided horse is too skittish to have something that predatory near it.
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>>50733075
I mean, they are still hyena people and not just gonna let that good meat rot.
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>>50732842
Toss in using the disease and poison immunity to eat undead and end their blight upon the world. Could also fluff removing curses and the like as eating them.
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>>50733283
>So your stomach... removes curses from anything you eat?
>Yep
>But that hardly useful as anything that gets in your stomach doesn't get ou-
>Don't make this weird, boy. This is only for feeding myself instead of eating half of the market
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>>50733343
I was picturing more of ripping a curse out and then eating it so it doesn't come back.
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So, question: gnolls or orcs, which would you prefer as the iconic "evil-leaning but flexible" monstrous humanoid race? Me, I think I prefer gnolls, simply because orcs have become a little too overdone that way.

Hey, we got Warcraft (honorable warriors & shamans shaking off demonic corruption), Eberron (ancient swamp-dwelling aberration-fighting druids), and Wicked Fantasy (maltheists who slew their creator gods and gave up on their traditional "kill all others" ways because they realized it was stupid), for starters.
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>>50732842
rock on motherfucker
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Is violence itself inherently evil?

Gnolls aren't predisposed to evil, though they have a high potential to be violent, and a low potential to be reasonable.

If one was raised in a Monastery, it would probably be good-hearted, but still aggressive, and more prone to brawling to settle an argument than actual arguing.
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>>50736967
>Is violence itself inherently evil?
I'd say no
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>>50724053
depends on the setting
In setting described in Volo, yes, they are walking tentacles of horrible evil god.
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I really wish we could have some insight on what caused them to make the decision to turn Gnolls into purely evil beings.
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>>50737827
>Look, you bastards, the goal is to get the chieftain's daughter out of the camp before they eat her, not cause a tribal revolution
>They're just fucking evil, get with the fireballing or whatever plan you're going with
>Because demons. Shut up and jam or I'll bring back the kobolds.
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>>50732625
>>50732867
D&D was made for murderhoboing and those objectively evil monsters and their simplicity is/was necessary. I don't see any point in including cosmic evil and good in my campaigns for those reasons (I'm sure there are interesting ways to do it still though) but it's still part of D&D because "it's a monster, ergo I kill it" is still desired in the game for some reason.
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>>50737882
This.
Gygax was a shit DM and so he made a shit morality system to make it easier to DM in his specific style.
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>>50737980
That or Arneson just would not fucking stop trying to diplomacy everything.
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>>50732867
It's variety.
There are plenty of creatures who have different morals that you can interact with however you want, so it's fine if there's a minority that are just always good/evil/whatever.
If you want a relatable enemy, don't make it a fucking demonic hyena. That's retarded.
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>>50729423
>their inherent less-than-friendly nature

They can be pretty friendly actually.

Like obviously not all of them would be, and you certainly wouldn't expect one to act like a pet dog or something, but you'd be surprised.

>>50724053
D&D's forced alignments are retarded to begin with. Somehow werebears are Lawful Good despite bears being loners that are just as vicious as wolves.

Anything that isn't an outright demon, angel, elemental, or what have you really shouldn't have an "Always X" alignment.
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>>50739532
>werebears are Lawful Good

The fuck? 1st and 2nd edition werebears were CG, 5e werebears are listed as NG and there's a caveat that says "though most werebears are of good alignment, some are every bit as evil as other lycanthropes."
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>>50739624
They were listed as Always Lawful Good in 3rd edition.
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>>50727013
To be fair, the only reason it says that in 5E is that it's from the perspective of the Forgotten Realms setting.

You can play non-FR settings with non-evil Gnolls in it using 5E, the game doesn't stop that.
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>>50739639
>in 3rd edition

So there's the problem. I've never played that one, 1, 2 and 5 only.
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>>50727834
Would fug
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>>50739654
I'll even make this easy for the 5E's who are mad gnolls didn't get their own racial block.

Pic related are the regular, pack lord and fang variants of gnoll in the PHB. We notice two distinct trends: A significant STR score and their highest mental stat is WIS in 2/3 of these cases. Even in Volo's Guide, we find that the Flind, Flesh Gnawer, and Hunter have higher WIS, so we can assume the Fangs are an outlier. Similarly, Flesh Gnawers are the only gnoll types who don't have a higher STR than anything else.
Next up we see Rampage and Bite in pretty much every gnoll variant, so we know these are inherent racial qualities. While gnolls with skill bonuses are uncommon, we see Perception, Intimidate and Stealth used, with Perception getting bonuses in two cases (the flind and hunter). We'll rip Keen Senses from the elf PC statblock and put it here to show this common trend. We see gnolls have darvision as well, and as such can stat a PC gnoll in the following way:

>Medium humanoid
>Speed 30 feet
>+2 Str, +1 Wis
>Darkvision
>Keen Senses
>Bite: A gnoll can make a bite attack for 1d4 piercing damage, using STR for the attack and damage rolls. You are proficient with this attack.
>Rampage: When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack on your turn, you can take a bonus action to move up to half your speed and make a bite attack.

As for languages, we can assume PC gnolls start with Common and Gnoll for obvious reasons.
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>>50739830
Now, you might be feeling this is a tad underpowered. I'd recommend a few playtests using a gnoll and a half-orc (its closest PHB cousin) who are otherwise identically built, played out in some fairly basic combat challenges. Personally I see one issue, and that's Rampage not seeing a lot of action.

The easy fix here is to let PC gnolls Rampage on critical hits, getting an extra Bite in there, and allowing the gnoll on a Rampage to forego moving in order to make the Bite part of their regular attack, thus keeping the bonus action for something else if they need it. This would make their most striking mechanic in 5E stand out a tad more while keeping it relatively versatile for melee builds.
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>>50739926
>The easy fix here is to let PC gnolls Rampage on critical hits, getting an extra Bite in there,
Proofreading error: I'm not saying give them two Bite attacks here, just that they get to use their "move+bite" option more often.
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>>50729890
And his point is that its a predatory animal uplifted by fiends. The fact that we can't hold it to the same standards as civilized humans is exactly his point.
Im personally a fan of "new" Gnolls being always CE, but as time passes they gradually diversify into the full spectrum, like orcs and drow.
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>>50739654
Except that gnolls have actually had a tradition of being playable in the Forgotten Realms. In fact, they were one of the new PC races covered in the Unapproachable East sourcebook, which covered Thay, Rashamen and related areas in 3rd edition.
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>>50729174
>And it's super lazy and takes the role Orcs usually take in fantasy setting.
Yeah, because orcs have been so goddamned redeemed and misunderstood and tragic backstory'd they don't work for that anymore. And now that we have a new Always Evil race, we decide that one needs to be redeemed to. Next up: Couldn't a Mind Flayer be a good guy too?
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>>50724053
If we're talking D&D then they're inherently Evil, as is most Evil stuff except members of the player races because that's how D&D works. However that kind of thing bores me so if I were DM I'd let them be Good.

One thing though, they're demon-spawn crossed with hyenas, they may be Good but they're unlikely to be nice or friendly.
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>>50742772
Mind flayers can be good guys if separated for long enough. That's the point, "always evil" or "always X" makes zero fucking sense for any material race when upbringing does have an effect even if basic temperment remains the same. Gnolls will always remain quick to action with simplistic motivations but saying that even when raised completely free of the brutal struggle to survive and taught morality and kindness he'll still turn out CE is stupid. Even a mind flayer can turn good even if he'll be seen as corrupted by the rest of the collective.
Hell, i'm of the opinion that even outsiders can break their alignment, fallen angels have been a thing since forever and the 'evilness' of various beings fluctuates constantly in mythos.
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>>50724053
historically they are savages raised in a hunter/gatherer society
having incorporated medieval settings

having a mage found a gnoll child will have troubles with the gnolls original instinct and the arrogances of a mage will equals to having a furry Igor
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>>50724170
Possible, but unlikely. Chaotic Good would probably be much more common.
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>>50743003
Whats really the difference between chaotic and neutral good. They both want to get the orphans homes, the chaotic dude just says "fuck the popo, we doin this prison break style" and dumps them into rich people's houses and uses orphan's natural charm abilities to keep them there.
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>>50724053
I am a OSR guy, so they are inherently chaotic. Even if one was raised as a family member they would revert to the mean.
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>>50742985
>equals to having a furry Igor
literally my fetish here. I want a Gnoll-beast as my mage's servant!
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>>50724229
I played a LG gnoll fighter, named penitence. She was raised by a favored soul of heronious named mercy. Mercy killed the tribe of her birth to stop their reaving and marauding, but didn't slay the infant penetence, sensing no evil within the pup. Instead she brought the young gnoll up to turn her instincts to hunt and kill upon the wicked. She joined the city watch, helped along by her mothers influence. Mercy never got to see her ward wear the tabard of the elite guard, passing a few months before the honor was bestowed upon her. She served with destinction and honor, only wracking up a few... dozen excessive force complaints.... in her first quarter alone. Still, the streets were safer under her watch despite the insanity that came to plague the capital as an unparalleled crime wave swept over it.
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>>50748936

Post more girl gnolls
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>>50732610
I for one love it and plan to borrow a few ideas for my own post apocalyptic gnoll raiders. It's nice to see someone else that favors a matriarchy for their social structure.
My only critique would be that i don't think the females should be the formost warriors. The strongest for sure but it makes more sense biologically for the males to be the first and most frequent ones thrust into the fray. Easier to replace a sire than a dame after all. If the males were more pressed into battle, trying to gain glory and mating rights, it would weed out the weak without decimating there breeding age females. After all, they're lazy. If they're the top dogs wouldn't they make their underlings do the bulk of the fighting.
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>>50749314
Dont have many that are SFW but I'll post what i got.

Semi related I'd love to play a gnoll with a few kobold friends/minions. The shinanigans when taking down the high and mighty who've looked down on us would be great.
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>>50749314
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>>50724053
All living things are predisposed to violent barbarism.

They must be forced to behave civilly and destroyed if they cannot. The social contract must be maintained no matter the cost.
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>lawful evil city
>The working poor are demonic mutants
>Tieflings are expendable messengers and sweatshop artisans
>Gnolls are waste management professionals and sewage technicians
>the two races hang out together on street corners and shoot the breeze in Abyssal
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>>50749601
Wups, that's male. Chest loopy things looked like tits in the thumbnail.

Which brings up a gripe for me. Why are tits always the shorthand for "this creature is female", regardless of any biological basis for having mammerys? I mean lizard tits, bird tits, snake tits, fish tits... i could go on but you get the idea. I get making the critters pleasing to look at, males are generally powerful and imposing but the females are far to frequently "sexy-ed up" and just look like humans with X inhuman traits hot glued on.
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>>50749626
fite me you pessimistic ponce
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>>50749769
We're literally the only species with that trait.

Theory states this happened with becoming bipedal.
Basically, genitals being less visible/prominent being bipedal, so other signs of gender and maturity become important.
This is easily conflated with other signals, eg mammaries do become enlarged during pregnancy/feeding/etc, ergo feedback loop in selective breeding.
Also, dat-ass is inherently important in the bipedal transition.
Then bigger brains but thinner bipedal stance also fucks with live birth, so there was childbirth death selection towards wider hips.

Convergent evolution would then support the same in other mammals becoming bipedal.

Non-mammals would probably develop weirder stuff. Assume a feedback loop in selective breeding of some other traits.

Also, that pic is from a failed comic idea which never got off the ground but I really really wish it did
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>>50751607
So you're a draw fag?
>>
Some things just can't Fucking be demesticated. You can breed habits and Pavlovian responses, but really sometimes you just can't take the nature out of something.
I mean, let's look at people who train bears and tigers and shit. Sure, you can act in charge in front of a crowd, but we have all seen that moment when a tiger says fuck it and becomes a tiger.

Also because these threads are almost always a cry of "iI wanna play this really short sighted character things because it'll be funny, so I'm trying to justify!", let me five you some advice: one shots only. You get really tired of the shtick after a while and alot of the characters can make a seemingly decent party turn into a Fucking joke with "our rabid gnoll wizard" being lolrandom
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>>50751682
No. It was a resident draw fag from a long while back. He was tinkering with the idea of pairing a tsundere werewolf mercenary woman with naive enthusiastic mage student. Of course I fucking saved the concept art.
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>>50749359

It'd set up an interesting tension. Because the foremost trait a matriarch is going to look for in a male is that they submit to the rule of a matriarch. So the ideal Gnoll male is going to be a bit of a contradiction in terms: Strong, violent, aggressive with outsiders and meek and submissive with the matriarchs. Gnoll males will probably wind up talking about their own Madonna/whore dichotomy.

>>50749626
>>50751518

Hobbes was closer to being right than you were you proto-commie Franco-Italian bastard.
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>>50751727
Good on you mate! I think his drawings are quite good. Shame it didn't fly.
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>>50751727
That'd be Guoh. Near as I can tell, he keeps to Tumblr these days and draws a lot of sorta-fantasy monster girl pinups.

https://guoh-art.tumblr.com/
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>>50752180
>That'd be Guoh.
Oh I know it was.

Guoh is instantly recognizable from the torso+thighs on any of the females he draws (aka 99% of his shit)
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>>50751607
There's also the possibility that in a fantasy world where the gods make the races, there is a divine/akashic/morphogenic template that makes it such that humanoids get breasts unless they are full reptiles.

>>50751892
Whats hilarious is that spotted hyenas males actually are exactly that way. The males that get to mate are the submissive, but go getting, nice guys and not the aggressive dicks. There are three things that are involved in hyena courtship: foreleg grooming, scent pawing, and bowing. A clean arm is a sexy arm, hyenas paw at the ground to deposit scent for the females to smell, and they cross one foreleg over the other like a gentleman bowing.
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>>50748936
>Double flail
And here I thought I'd seen it all
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>>50751607
yeah all than and we anthropomorphize the shit out of everything on top of that. i get it but it still bugs me. id rather they explored the backstory/evolution of the race and fleshed out reasons for why/what the secondary sex characteristics are, even if we the readers/players never hear more about it than a few sentences in the race bio. but i get that thats work and can edge that border of magical relming. its much easier and more visually appealing to give um dat ass and some gazongas and call it a day. just seems lazy and wrecks any sense of immersion.

>>50751892
you see i like that. it adds depth. now males dont necessarily have to turn into meak little fuck boys around a big bitch in fact that makes no sense. she'd want the strongest male she could still dominate with athoraty or physically. at least in my mind. so you'd still see gnolls being gnolls even with the ladys around. theyd just be putting on a show, strutting their stuff because their in front of the rest of the tribe. but strutting when your on the bottom gets your ass kicked. i could see a simple series of casual "rituals" showing dominence and submossion, issuing a challenge for rank, receptiveness to mate and what have you. a while back there was a great program on nova i think. all about the spotted hyena. really in depth stuff that i feel can be cherry picked for bits and pieces that mighta stuck around in gnolls after they were corrupted/uplifted by the demons or however it happens in your setting. if you haven't already id recommend checking it out, their social structure is much more complex than we realized 10 years ago and a pretty good place to start for ideas. though you might wanna stay away from the whole junk licking as a sign of submission, that screams magical relm even if you're just making the discovery channel walk on it's hind legs.
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>>50752433
thats a flind bar. a much more brutal and less graceful three section staff

this is a tripple flail.
now you've seen it all.
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>>50752460
I've seen those before. At least the swingy bits are all pointed away from the wielder.

The flind bar has spikes everywhere, no way to not swing it at yourself without gripping it at a pointy end
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>>50726472
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbI-fDzUJXI
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>>50726937
>A good-aligned gnoll, probably is one that has grown in a society with a lot of attention and care, without making him grow bitter and maybe finding him an outlet with some hobby for his more beastly instincts.

This reminds me of a modern fantasy setting I did once. A lot of the beast people there found release for their aggression in stuff like contact sports and the like, where they could enjoy some adrenaline but with strict rules. The star of the Totally Not Canada I Swear country's olympic hockey team was a tiger beastman that was also a big celebrity.
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>>50752269
>>50752436

I was trying to avoid referencing spotted hyenas directly. Because once they're invoked it's kind of hard not to mention the erect pseudo-penis in the room. But yeah, they were what I was thinking of.
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>>50752691
>/d/
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>>50752269
So, sort of this?
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>>50724053
>falling for the noble savage fallacy meme
You can take the hyena out of the savanna, but you can't take the savanna out of the hyena. Kill them all, let their Chaotic Evil god sort them out.
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>>50752691
that's a great way to put it. comes up every time it seems. good source material ruined by weird genitals.
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>>50752882
He's not even a god. He's JUST a demon prince.
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>>50752850

Slightly less of a fuckboy appearance for the males, but yeah. Basically male Gnolls have to get really good at moderating their behavior because if they're too aggressive with the female Gnolls they'll wind up hanging by their ankles trying to cough their balls back up out of their lungs.

>>50752882

You could say the same thing about Humans really.

>>50752638

They might have their own version of not-Judo. A martial art that feels a lot like fighting, but with a ruleset designed to minimize permanent injuries.
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>>50730301
>>50732027
"Always" in D&D context means >90% of the population, not all of them
Additionally just because someone is evil doesn't mean they have to do ONLY evil
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>>50739532
>and you certainly wouldn't expect one to act like a pet dog

There's enough socialized hyenas to prove that statement wrong. They can be tamed pretty easily.
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>>50752691
I suppose you could try using one of the other three species of Hyenas instead of the Spotted ones. Brown Hyenas are probably the best replacement.
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Question; do folks think that part of the reason why gnolls get less attention than orcs do is because they have more obvious "magical realm" potential that can be justified by tapping into real-life spotted hyena facts (matriarchy, femdom, musclegirls, smaller/cuter/daintier males, futa, gender bender) than orcs do?

If so, isn't that kind of hypocritical, given orcs have long been obliquely acknowledged as rapists and are pretty much the go-to "big, buff, gangbanger" of D&D monstrous humanoids in sexual settings?
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>>50758480
>why gnolls get less attention than orcs do

Because furries. That's all.

There's no Orc conventions where people dress up in orc-themed BDSM leather outfits then awkwardly stand about in a normie hotel lobby, have a Baby-Orc meetup that leaves shit filled diapers around holy shit the twitter archive on that incident is hilarious , unironically RP in awkward close contact to normies in expensive yet still shitty and uncanny full body costumes, ruin a fundraiser at a public park by having sex on the hood of somebody's car in partial costume actually happened , or have a history of their fetish porn getting spammed on random forums and boards until it's banned. Nor is there a number of normie TV shows that have an "orc" episode showing the Orc fandom as a bunch of perverts just to be sure that fact is drilled into the collective unconscious.

Orcs don't have baggage.

Inject about 10CC's of weapons grade autism into something popular and often spammed, like the 'brown elves' meme, and you might get another on par. But Orcs just don't have the starting fanbase to have baggage in the first place.
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>>50724053
here. have a not thumbnail, ya dummy
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>>50759901
God, it's like the 80s. If you were gay, you either kept quiet and suffered for being alone or flaunted it in an offensive way and been ostracized for it. Now people who like Nimh and hate yiff have to suffer in silence.

As someone who likes anthropomorphic stuff like Mystery Dungeon and Redwall, it's been really fucking awkward to bring up the topics without getting called a furry (unless, of course, I'm with very close friends.) Practically half my gaming group are closet furries, and they stay the fuck away from the furry group at community college.
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>>50763789
Have you tried not being an autistic pervert?

i mean, liking Nimh isn't a problem unless you're autistic about it. Even perverts can be functioning members of society if they know to keep that shit behind closed doors. It's really the autism that is the bigger problem.
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>>50763789
can I say that it goes both ways? I enjoy a good bit of heresy, but I keep it to myself. No matter how well mannered I might be about my personal preferences I still hesitate to even mention them when it's relevant because I'll just get labelled a furry and get thrown into the "insult and ignore" pile.
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>>50727834
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>>50763789
This is nothing like the 80s. You are not going to get hate crimed because you like beating off to the Rescue Rangers.

Maybe bringing up the topic is awkward because it's not something people really care hearing about and doesn't have any real relevance to the things that people usually discuss in normal conversations. As long as you don't go around in a Three Wolf Moon t-shirt telling people all about your secret fetishes at the slightest prompting, you should do just fine.

Good call in staying away from the irl furry group, though. That sounds like its about as healthy as a ball pit at a brony convention.
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Is it a stupid idea to dust off Gorellik and try to give him a larger role in gnoll religion, if nothing else to create a scenario PCs can take advantage of (evil Yeeonghu worshipers vs. less evil Gorellik worshippers, get them to fight each other and weaken them both or something)?

>>50763789
How can you get ostracized for goddamn Redwall?
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>>50749769
>Why are tits always the shorthand for "this creature is female", regardless of any biological basis for having mammerys? I mean lizard tits, bird tits, snake tits, fish tits... i could go on but you get the idea. I get making the critters pleasing to look at, males are generally powerful and imposing but the females are far to frequently "sexy-ed up" and just look like humans with X inhuman traits hot glued on.
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>>50742882
>makes zero fucking sense

Listen you stupid fucking nigger, Dragons and Magic exist in these settings. You can cast a spell called 'wish' that bends the fabric of reality. It doesn't have to make sense, there can and should be something evil for people to bash about for fun because that's all these settings exist for. People to have a good romp.
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>>50749769
Well, think about it - how else are you going to distinctly make a female of another race obviously female - just from looking at them - without relying on having to teach whoever's looking something about their biology?

You could say wide hips, but that's not necessarily something exclusive to females, or always common. You could just do size, but even that's variable. Even things like facial hair or having long hair isn't necessarily exclusive to females (the former really only for dwarves, but if a race can't grow facial hair at all it doesn't really help).

I get the argument you're making here, I really do - it's weird when there's a super bestial or inhuman race, but the females are just humans with vague traits similar to their male counterparts. But there's not much else you can really do to make them physically distinct at a glance. You could create a new system for telling the genders apart, but then you'd have to educate the players on it, and that just becomes bookwork when slapping a pair of tits on will generally do the job.
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>>50764375
>How can you get ostracized for goddamn Redwall?
You can't, unless you're a creepy obsessive weirdo about it. Which >>50763789 almost certainly is.

It's like the difference between someone who likes star trek and someone who is obsessed with it and probably has actual honest to god autism. It's one thing to have a weird hobby, it's another thing to make it into a fucking lifestyle while simultaneously lacking the social awareness needed to know how fucking weird that is. It's one thing to have a hobby, it's one thing to have a kink, it's when you make it into your whole lifestyle that you cross the line.
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>>50749769
It's a good shorthand.
Plus, most media is prone towards appealing to a male audience first and foremost, so making all females somewhat attractive by human standards can add sex appeal. And it might not even be deliberate, since the creators themselves are statistically likely to be male. If you have heterosexual human males designing the physique of a humanoid species with an intended audience also primarily consisting of heterosexual human males, chances are high they're going to go for something that's appealing to heterosexual human males. And that means a banging pair of tits, biological believability be damned.
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>>50724053
I think the answer really depends on how you have gnolls work in your setting (are they just monsters, or are they of demonic descent), what you actually want to do with the gnolls (can they be PCs, or are they just mooks to fight), and possibly most importantly but not often considered, are you willing for what you decide to be true everywhere - could a human be raised among gnolls/orcs/goblins etc turn out exactly the same as its brethren? Do you want dwarves or elves to work alongside 'evil' races, or would you rather things just be set in stone?
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>>50764619
As i see yours, and must respectfully disagree. For a large number of species on this planet sex is not apparent "at a glance." To an outsider, and that's perfectly fine. Fine or subtle differences between the sexes can be easily overlooked unless one is familiar with them. So you wright up a few paragraphs of racial bios and present them during character gen. If they ignore it or forget, it creates situations in game for role playing.
Now for new players or a more casual setting fine use tits as shorthand. But while exploring someones hand crafted setting nothing quite jerks me out of the world someone worked so hard on like lazy slapped on snake tits style shorthand.

>>50764875
That's exactly my issue with it. It's lazy and seems like the wrighter/artest forgot to fap before working on the project. I get the main stream reason for wanting to tug at our sex drive to sell books and minis. But joe shmoe running at the gaming store ain't selling me shit and frankly it's distracting.
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>>50765807
I don't really have a refutation to your argument beyond that we interact differently with most animals on the planet than humans would do with various fantastical species, and needing a shorthand is a bit more necessary for a player in an RPG than it would be for a biological researcher, especially if for whatever reason you are interacting with a race that has not been opened up to the players and they may not be fully aware of.
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>>50729174

Hey fuck you the Yaun-ti fluff about them wanting to consume and replace the gods they worship was cool as shit.

I agree the other reptiles were garbage but that's because they just cribbed of the Yaun-ti's 'no emotions' schtick.
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>>50765860
Hence FOIG
Find
Out
In
Game

There's a myriad of things the player knows that the character doesn't and vice versa via knowlage rolls and what have you. Closing that gap by having the character explore the world to learn more can be a fun and rewarding experience. Denying the players that opportunity by making everything about a race obvious at a gance is something i try to avoid. Sprinkle shit stereotypes and miss information like it is irl Can, in the right hands and with the right group, lead to a lot of memorable fun.

That said, if every race in the game is some special snowflake with a 50 page racial/social/religious bio which the dm hoards until they learn the hard way... then one has clearly taken what I'm saying to far. But a light sprinkling of not knowing and exploration can help emerse even noobs and casuals who just wanna roll dice and kick ass.
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>>50766198
I can't really deny any of that, or say that it's wrong.

I guess the only question left is, should the thing that you're trying to encourage the players explore be gender, instead of other elements of the setting or the races therein? Sometimes it's better to leave some of the basics easy to understand, so you can focus more time on cultural aspects of a race, or interesting social organization.
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>>50766457
a very good point sir, one i hadn't fully considered.

i think i best to have that be one of many details available for them to pick up on or just ignore. so you cant tell the difference between male and female (race X) big fucking deal. it's not like you're gonna get your ass kicked for calling one by the wrong pronoun, they are likely used to it if the gender diffrences are hard to spot, at most getting mildly anoyed/offended or having a laugh at their expence. details like that are like seasoned salt, tasty but only a right fool would make a meal out of it alone. it can also make a nice little curiosity hook to get them to explore said race a little more, find out those interesting social/cultural tidbits you wrote. if they care... if not then they just brush off the bar "maid's" brief shittieness after getting "her" ass smacked and look for their next objective.

i guess my most major point it that realism and attention to detail are still important even in settings with crazy magic bullshit, perhaps even more so because of the need to have some kind of grounding for all the magical insanity.

all that said we've strayed from the topic of gnolls pretty hard. not that this hasn't been enjoyable and thought provoking. i find that i do my best work in these sorts of... i hesitate to use the word argument... exploration of differing opinions is more how i see them. steel sharpens steel after all.
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>>50763789
>Practically half my gaming group are closet furries
Disregard concerns, run Ironclaw 2e. It's probably easier to find a group for FATAL.
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>>50766198
Find Out in Game
FOG

Makes for a much more fun acronym
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>not just putting hot 'yena tits on the Gnolls for fun
Shake my head, family.
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>>50766813
Well it's good to test how your ideas and theories actually hold compared to other people's opinions. You might not have fully convinced me, but you've given me a bit to think about.

>>50766908
>put hot 'yena tits on the Gnolls for fun
>players scream magical realm and start beating you with the coasters they declined to use
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>>50748936
>six boobies

fucking disgusting
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>>50766952
sage truth anon. making someone think is better than getting them to swallow my opinions in my mind. being made to think i enjoy even more. so thanks for that.

also love that pic, baby in the hat for later... slain.

>>50766883
true but then in most acronyms you either capitalize all the articals or none of them. ehh, fuck grammer, FOG rolls of the tongue better.
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Do gnolls use flails because they're stupid enough to think flails are actually a good weapon?
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>>50736967
Is raping inherently evil?
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>>50768525
I kinda think so. On its most basic level, it's an attempt to propagate your genes through violence, if anything beyond immediate pleasure.

At least violence as a wide category can be justified based on a number of scenarios, but rape is almost universally abhorred. I think the only situation I know of where rape was (sort of) encouraged was with Spartans - when husbands married wives, the husbands were encouraged to take their wives by force, and the wives were in turn supposed to do everything they could to resist their husband, including force (which was more legitimate than it sounds, since Spartan women were encouraged to keep physically fit). So while theoretically consensual, it was essentially rape to ensure only the strong had babies.
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>>50742882
>free of the brutal struggle to survive and taught morality
They quite literally constantly crave to consume people. It's an automatic, built in thing. They are literally unable to not eat people. Their very existence stems from being intentionally created to eat people. The goal set by their very core, racial instincts, morality, companionship, all of it is skewed to eat people.

If eating people is 100% entirely the purpose you exist, and your only free will is "how do i best eat more people" you can't be RAISED to learn differently.

Maybe over generations gnolls could be crafted/bred to be less inclined to eat people, but since being a gnoll is literally because a demon said so, nope. Eat people.
>>
>inherently evil
>objective morality
I wish this meme would fucking die.
>>
>>50768525
>Is raping inherently evil?
Pretty much, yeah.

Like, you can come up with a bunch of corner-case bullshit like that Dominic Deegan comic or whatever, but the fact that you have to reach so hard to justify it kinda speaks for itself, ya know?
>>
>>50768525
Generally, unless it's to save a dying species or whatever. Even then, it's neutral at best.

>>50768708
Dominic Deegan? When did they put in good-guy rape?
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>>50724053
Yeenoghu imparts to the minds of his followers an unquenchable, supernatural hunger, both for violence and for the flesh of intelligent creatures. A gnoll feels a constant, gnawing demand for blood and destruction that abates only when it kills and eats intelligent creatures. Other prey might provide temporary sustenance, but it does nothing to quell Yeenoghu's hunger.
>>
>>50749534
>that pic
>hurr durr they fursecute us
fuck off and kill yourself you fucking furfag.
>>
>>50768857
Extremely rude.
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>>50768877
You kill yourself too.
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You know originally I really didn't like the whole Gnoll matriarch thing, but now I've warmed up to it.
>Gnoll tribes are ruled by Alpha females
>Gnoll females are defensive warriors, more expendable males used as raiding fighters
>Gnoll females show affection to male Gnolls, but only in private
>Gnoll males do dances to impress females and get mates

Alternate method of doing Gnolls here. Also innately evil races are pretty lame.
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>>50724053
It depends. Are they like fiends where they're evil by definition (AKA they wouldn't be gnolls if they weren't evil), or are they like sapient beings where they actively make the choice to be evil the vast majority of the time?
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>>50768923
and don't forget their pseudopenis
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>>50768923
But how do we insert the unique female genitalia into the setting without it being too magical realm?
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>>50768948
>>50768949

I'm just going to leave that out. It's pretty lame.
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>>50768960
>pseudopenis
>lame
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>>50751892
>>50749359
YUATJA
U
A
T
J
A
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>>50768965

Futa is a shit fetish.
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>>50768960
it's only lame because you can use that third leg as a crutch
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>>50752460
>TRIPLE FLAIL

Bitch that is a scourge
>>
>>50768972
? But its nothing like a penis

not that there is something wrong in docking
>>
>>50765807
>For a large number of species on this planet sex is not apparent "at a glance

No but it is at a sniff

Humans have shit sense of smell compares to just about everything else

Chemical.and not visual cues are how a lot of animals tell each other apart
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>>50724159
They don't mention ANYTHING about the matriarchy society? It's like Drow, but it's real. hyena females bully the males. Even the youngest smallest female is higher in the hierarchy than any male.
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>>50769008
I wish humans didnt have so shitty sense of smell

>all that poon you missed as a retarded teen
>>
>>50768480
Flails ( at least sensible single headed ones) are good weapons. If you're mounted.

Not so much on foot

Anyway pretty sure the gnoll/flail thing came from forgotten realms and yneeough using a scourge of chains
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>>50769015
Gnolls have NEVER been matriarchal. Despite the obvious resemblence to spotted hyenas, they've been outright describe as a bog-standard "brutal males are in charge and womenfolk are submissive" evil tribal patriarchy since their first appearance in AD&D. Even in Pathfinder, despite worshipping Lamashtu, they're described as patriarchal, with the hierarchy roughly going alpha male - priestess of Lamashtu - male warriors - fertile females - infertile females.
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>>50769017
Is it your fault for having a shit sense of smell, or women's fault for being so fucking obtuse that the only sign they give that they're down to pound is a chemical signal you weren't designed to interpret with great clarity?

Like we do somewhat. Ovulating women will look/smell more attractive. But not to the extent of other animals
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>>50769035
So what I'm getting is gnolls were shitty in FR and that tradition has carried on
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>>50769048
Gnolls as hyena-people predates FR, sunshine. Gnolls morphed into hyenas about the time when Mystara, aka "The Known World", and Greyhawk were the big names in canon D&D settings.
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>>50769252
I said gnolls being shit, not gnolls being hyenas.
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GNOLLS ARE CUTE

CUTE
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>>50768949
If you ever feel the need to go into detail about a fantasy race's genitals in your tabletop campaigns you should seriously consider suicide.
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>>50768525
sauce?
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>>50724053

Since they're based on hyenas, would female gnolls have giant pseudococks and constantly feel the need to subjugate every male they see as higher in the social ladder of their group?

And if yes, how do you expect that to work in ANY society that's not a gnoll one
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>>50771667
>would females have giant pseudococks and constantly feel the need to subjugate every male they see as higher in the social ladder of their group?
Modern-"feminismn".jpg
>>
>>50770662
http://pictures.hentai-foundry.com/d/Doomsatan666/416847/Doomsatan666-416847-Dynaheir_Witch.png
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>>50771956
>tfw it's better than I could have hoped for
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>>50748936

>She was raised by a favored soul of heronious named mercy.
>Mercy killed the tribe of her birth to stop their reaving and marauding, but didn't slay the infant penetence, sensing no evil within the pup


>Gnoll lives matter!
>Hands up don't cast!

We all know that's just a bunch of propaganda pushed by Clerics of Yeenoghu designed to spread confusion and misinformation!

Good and evil, unlike the real world, are actual forces that can be measured like any other force such as heat and pressure in the world of D&D. It isn't nearly as subjective and can result in very real changes in the world, such as a Cleric losing their power by becoming good or evil, a weapon hurting something despite DR, or a place becoming hallowed or unhallowed ground.

Some races in D&D are born inherently evil such as gnolls, orcs, and hags, and while there are exceptions to their species they are far and few in between, meaning a gnoll aligned with an aura of good would be extremely rare, especially at birth.

Kind of like how a human born inherently good or evil isn't all that common or how a hag isn't typically born anything outside of evil from the get go. For the most part humans are born neutral and grow into their alignment. Gnolls and other 'evil' races almost always start out evil from birth and have to learn to be anything but evil. (Neutral or good. We aren't taking into account law or chaos here.)
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>>50729875
Well, tieflings are part human then, and we kill far more animals than hyenas do, so I supposed we're less than friendly. Situation unchanged.
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>>50736967
>Gnolls aren't predisposed to evil

Yes they are. There's a reason why neutral, much less good gnolls are a big deal in Dungeons and Dragons and usually there isn't a single person willing to believe them right off the bat.

Gnolls are typically evil assholes from the moment they are born.
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>>50724053
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>>50770118
Damn, gnolls would fit in shadowrun extremely well.
Alas, the closest you can get is SURGE, which is both mechanically retarded and a sure-fire way to get kicked from a group.
>>
>>50773142
I homebrewed gnolls into my Shadowrun game as a meta-variant of Orks. Mostly because one of my players was a furry but still.
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>>50773142

At worst you could just have a gang that leans towards body sculpting a Gnoll look and generally act like them or something if you really didn't want to touch SURGE.
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>>50772607
>>50772607
I get that d&d has definite and measurable alignment and the MM says "always evil". But Christ almighty i wish people would stop treating these books as holy writ. Penned by the prophet gigax, immutable and eternal. It's frusterating to take something and set it outside its usual box only to have someone start quoting chapter and verse as to why that could never happen in a made up world with WAY weirder stuff than a good aligned gnoll.

I know I'm over generalizing but "bible" thumping in any form annoys the shit out of me.

But to address what you've said about alignment directly, I reject the premise that beings in any dnd world are denied free agency and the ability to chose their own path in life because good, evil, chaos and law can be measured. I do not believe that sentient beings are born with any of those things within them, to the point that regardless of the outside forces in their lives they can never overcome it. Granted i don't include many outsiders in this as some are literally alignment made manifest, which i don't care for as a concept but that's not my main point.

As for subjectivity of morality within d&d. You replace the subtlety and complexity of real life with the dm as supreme judge of what is good, evil, chaotic or lawful within HIS/HER game world. Which as long as the dm isn't a soapboxer or an alignment trap setting asspie isn't the worst thing ever. But i find even good dms and groups can still derail a session quibbling over a moral point that doesn't fit neatly into D&Ds simplistic "absolute and measureable" morality box. So while it is part of the game mechanics and shouldn't be removed entirely, i feel it is a weak and often controversial part of d&d/PF that kills the fun by oversimplification of something as complex as morality/ethics.

Granted i would agree that most gnolls are dicks but i argue that it is a combination of nature and nurture. Not something inborn, regardless of backstory fluff.
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>>50772708
Have you tried not being a meme-forcing faggot?
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>>50774686
> I reject the premise that beings in any dnd world are denied free agency and the ability to chose their own path in life because good, evil, chaos and law can be measured. I do not believe that sentient beings are born with any of those things within them, to the point that regardless of the outside forces in their lives they can never overcome it.
That's actually what being a humanoid type is supposed to be about, at least in 3.pf. They are the unique sapients that are capable of going in anyway they want. Yes Alignment can be measured and is an objective force, but your souls alignment is merely a reflection of all the actions you have taken. No humanoid should be completely and utterly evil no matter what, that is reserved completely for Outsiders who hail from the realms composed of evil (and even then their are still demons who can become good and angels that fall) and less so for creatures more monstrous than humanoids. Your actions dictate your alignment, not a racial hivemind, or genetic memory or any of that bullshit. Your culture and the demands of your gods are what make your race evil, but a creature separated from them, who has the humanoid type, should be capable of becoming something else. And they do quite often in older D&D editions.

5es lore is a clusterfuck of retardedness.

>>50769035
Hey, Gygax was fairly boring in the unique culture category, it's pretty evident throughout the first monster manuals. Drow are different because someone more adventurous with creating strange cultures made a race.
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>>50768525
Very much so. It's pretty much an offence to everything intimate and fun of consensual sex. If your setting has any sort of deity or deities that give a fuck about people doing the hanky panky in a safe and consensual manner, they'd be pissed as all fuck about rape.
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>>50774686

I never said it was a ultimate absolute that all Gnolls are evil, but so many of them are fucked up that regardless of whether or not they were born with it or learned how to be evil is almost irrelevant. Their species is prone to becoming evil and the majority of their culture revolves around being evil. Even a gnoll born and raised in a 'civilized' city would be susceptible to the temptations of their evil nature just because the city can be a pretty cut throat and unforgiving place in of itself. And while they aren't made of evil, hence no evil subtype, they are almost absolutely tempted at some point or another in their lives to do so.

>It's frusterating to take something and set it outside its usual box only to have someone start quoting chapter and verse as to why that could never happen in a made up world with WAY weirder stuff than a good aligned gnoll.

And those weirder stuff are supposed to be much more uncommon than a good aligned gnoll depending on what it is.

I guess a decent analogy would be like seeing a native Japanese man in Japan who was born a black man. Oh, and you were born in japan, never saw a man like this before, and this is like 20 years ago. Sure it has probably happened in the past, but it's extremely rare, and in a world where (let's assume) paranormal shit actually happens, the type of shit you'd be running into weirder than a good aligned gnoll would be even weirder than running into a black man born in Japan with no actual japanese blood in them for us.

It's a stupid comparison, but the closest thing I can think of at the moment. A good aligned Gnoll would be something Gnomes and Dwarfs who saw it would be talking about that kind of thing until they were old and grey.
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>>50775062

I bet you're into the whole 'Lawful Good aligned demon' too
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>>50775483
Yes, but they're incredibly unique outliers and also tend to stop being demons and become something else. Not exactly angels, but not demons. And it usually results from a powerful outside influence, like a god (Desna did this to a succubus in a PF AP, you can redeem her fully, but the first time she has sex before full redemption results in her falling back to demon state).

And when I say incredibly unique outlier I mean one in a billion has the potential for becoming neutral. Not even actually being neutral, just the potential for it if all the conditions line up.
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>>50775436
True you didn't and i apologize for implying that you did. By the same token i admitted a LG gnoll is a fluke. Left to their own kind and their own culture/religion 99.99% of gnolls will likely be evil to some degree or another. What i disagree with is the notion that the propensity for "evil" is part of their nature, in their DNA if you will. Predatory instincts, desire to dominate, the urge to breed, to preserve the self. All these things are felt by humans as well and it doesn't make them any more evil than a gnoll. It's the actions taken by each and every individual with free will that determines whether good, evil, chaos or law hold sway over their souls.

Its like the parable of the two wolves warring in every mans heart.
One white who represents honesty, honor, selflessness, kindness and in general, good.
The other black who stands for selfishness, sadisum, greed, dubiousness and in general, evil.
In the parable it is asked, "which wolf will win? Who will control the heart of a man."
To which is answered, "the one you feed."
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>>50769025
It could still be decent on foot, if the chain wasn't absurdly long. It would be a bit unwieldy, but if you had a shield it wouldn't be much worse than using an axe or mace, especially if it wasn't a round ball on a chain but more like pic related - not too much heavier than the haft itself.

Honestly the big problem I have with flails is that we can't even be sure they really existed anymore, at least in a one-handed form. Two-handed flails existed as actual farming tools and are much better documented.
>>
After browsing through and reading all the "objectively evil murderhobo vs my gnoll is a LG paladin" discussion, why not both?

Here's a brief summary of Gnoll fluff that could be used that should remain mostly compatible with 5e fluff while still allowing good guy Gnoll player characters.

Like the established lore, Gnolls are fiendish offspring of Yeenoghu, and like Teiflings aren't inherently evil even though their nature is shaped by their patron demon.

A "normal" gnoll is very much like the hyena beast men fluff that people throw around, matriarchal pack animals who are clever, gruff, yet loyal to their clan mates.

These types are few and far between as most Gnoll packs have turned to the worship of Yeenoghu, which includes profane blood drinking sacrifices which soul bonds the participant tribes to their patron deity, corrupting them wholly and completely. This is how a "sentient being with free will" becomes incapable of being anything other than evil, because deep down, each gnoll has becomes a demi-avatar of Yeenoghu. This is where the insatiable hunger for violence, feeding, and raiding come from, an abstract yet pounding voice at the depths of their being.

There is no redemption for these gnolls, even the pups if stolen away will at most grow to be cagey neutral entities (their pups, however could grow up to be virtuous). For the large majority of gnolls, indiscriminate slaughter is the only right course of action, most tribes have been caught up in the blood cult since time immaterial.

But if a player wishes to have a Gnoll character, then their character traces its lineage to the shamanistic non-yeenoghu tribes or a distant descendant of a gnoll reared from birth in "civilized" society. However, even the most peaceful and civil gnoll will always feel the pull of their dark creator.

If a player wants to play a redeemed Yeenoghu-cult gnoll, tell them too bad.

tl;dr most Gnolls are like chaos worshipers, corruption is a one way street
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>>50769035
I thought Pathfinder had all the shit about female priestesses and Lamashtu
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>>50748936
I've been kicking around an idea for a gnoll who was kicked out of his tribe at a young age, and raised by half-orc mercenaries as one of their warrior band. So he did learn some goodness and civilization, at least more than he would learn from a gnoll tribe, but he's still more neutral than good, rougher than he would be raised among civilized folk, and wasn't raised that way from birth.

I kind of want to make him a straight fighter, but I worry that would get boring. Might make him a cleric instead for a nature god.
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>>50776740
They do. But, they still claim that gnolls there are patriarchal; Lamashtu priestesses can earn superior rank to males, but non-priestesses are worth nothing unless they're fertile, in which case they're only slightly inferior to their menfolk. Sterile females get sacrificed to Lamashtu, as they are clearly inferior.
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>>50776687
Other than the "one way ticket to hell" aspect i think this is how it should be. Now taking a devout blood drinking cleric of the butcher and trying to make him renounce his patron and live a life counter to everything he's known and believed in to this point... well there are "impossible" DCs on skill rolls for a reason. You can't change what doesn't want to be changed, to me that's were the difficulty in redeeming such a being should primaraly come from for gnolls in general. Now my specific example would have the added difficulty of having the butchers voice in his head and having surrendered some if not all of his free will. Which may well make that specific gnoll unredeemable shy of magic bs like that one spell that sticks a soul in a dimond for a year and it comes out LG no matter what it was before.

And i know I'm quibbling over semantics so take my words with a grain of salt. I really like the core of your idea, i just shy away from the absolutes you used and am attempting to make my thoughts clear.
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>>50777172
I don't like absolutes either, but it's one which I think is allowable since it makes cultist gnolls irredeemable, thus acceptable as cannon fodder.

Since there is no hope at redemption, there is no fault at culling them. But, really that aspect isn't a hill I'd choose to die on, ultimately it's just something I thought up so that there is the creative space to have both slaughter gnolls and interesting hyena beastmen.
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>>50776687
I like most of this - only thing I'd do is try to fluff out the other variations of gnolls not corrupted by Yeenoghu worship, perhaps sticking with older gods, shamanistic traditions, or falling into worship of orc or hobgoblin gods or the like.

I do like how you've treated descent from Yeenoghu more like tieflings especially, with the actual deities they chose to worship deciding their alignment. And if someone preferred pre 5e lore, all they'd have to do is add in Gorellik in there - the story is still essentially the same.
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>>50776918
Sounds like an interesting idea. I'd really flesh him/her out, that'll help you not be bored once the "not evil gnoll" shiny wears off.
So some tjings to consider.
Why was he kicked out?
What was life like before that?
Did he have anyone special he left behind?
How did he meet said orks?
How did they treat him?
How did people he met along the way treat him and how did that effect his outlook?
How did he find religion? If he did at all.

Just know as much about him as you can before game one and be ready to adapt as need be to fit the group. People IRL change their behavior around others, a dynamic character should be able to do the same and still remain themselves, even if they stray from the original draft.

>>50777261
Fair to say and i respect that. I dislike the "racially cannon fodder" thing that seems so prevalent in dnd but i get why it exists. I just think there are much more interesting ways to create conflict. Nor do i find fault with in game killing even though with years of work you might, just might have been able to make that (ememy X) see the light and be a good person. Ain't nobody got time to redeem every goblin, bugbear and gnoll you meet. Sometimes you just gotta kill um cause there's more at stake than just one life.
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>>50777508
It's hard to say, since I honestly don't think I'll ever get a chance to play him. Gnoll PCs give the wrong impression.

Still, I think before he was kicked out he was a younger hunter, or perhaps helping older gnolls hunt. He was fairly low on the totem pole, and was eventually kicked out because he was weak and a waste of resources during lean years. Do gnolls even have a concept of family or friends? I dunno.

He was more rescued by the half-orcs and orcs than simply meeting them - they saved him from dying on his own, and thought he was big enough to at least make decent cannon fodder. But he survived and slowly became one of their comrades, and taught him about their gods, as well as the rough civilized ways that are that of mercenaries. Probably wasn't treated well because fucking scary gnolls, but his comrades liked him well enough, so he'd probably just get used to scaring people.
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>>50778961
Sounds pretty solid. I'd draw him up and save the idea till you find a dm who's willing to give it a shot.
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>>50768618
Goddamn the Spartans were based.
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>>50768525
Define Evil first
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>>50781346
Nothing is holding his cigar in his fucking mouth and it's really bothering the shit out of me.
>he's opening his mouth as the picture got taken, he just snapped it the instant before gravity took effect
Fuck you no that makes no sense.
Ahhggg
>Mfw
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>>50781346
>>50782659
And the only goddamn colors in the whole piece is yellow, green, brown and fucking black. It's like staring into a toilet bowl at a dive bar.
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>>50724141
>There is little difference between Gnolls and Tieflings.
Aside from origin and physiology I suppose.
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>>50726470
>whether this is warranted or not is quite subjective
Only to evil savages.
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>>50773142
>>50773261
>>50773282
But SURGE opens up plenty of opportunities for things to explore.

Granted, it also brings a lot of "fun" though, like being forced to sit in the van as the "in case shit goes down" team every mission.

I still wanna pull out my ex-combat medic SURGE Gnoll for a game one day.
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>>50782659
It would be awesome if it was impaled on a fang, but it isn't. I feel your pain.
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>>50782659
>>50782700
Shh shh shh... it's ok anon. The cigar bugs the shit outta me to. I keep pics like that around as exercises in letting shit go.

Also the idea of gnolls in 'nam sounds fucking awesome to me.
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>>50782870
Ex- combat medic SURGE gnoll
You know what, I'll take my chances with DocWaggon.
Don't want to wake up with my savior licking my blood off his hands and wonder if he helped himself to some of those "vestigial" organ bits whole i was out.
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>>50783392
>You know what, I'll take my chances with DocWaggon.
Considering that looking up the character sheet again he has a vodka dispenser on his gun that's probably a good idea.

> Don't want to wake up with my savior licking my blood off his hands and wonder if he helped himself to some of those "vestigial" organ bits whole i was out.
That's assuming you are given the good fortune of being unconscious. Also, it's more likely the sudden invasion of your body will be posted as a sim recording titled "Extreme Drunk Surgeries VI: Accidental Appendectomy"
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>>50783512
Anon I'm in stiches. That is the best use of a gun mod slot and a sim rig i have ever seen. My hat is off to you and i hope you feel like sharing stories about this guy. He sounds like a riot.
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>>50783577
I literally got to play him once, with a group that didn't know Shadowrun very well (and no fantasy racism at all so he just kinda was around in public no problem), and that game ended very fast. All he managed to do was drink, fuck around with the occasional bullet wound, sperg out about his favorite Trids, and constantly get accidental headshots. That game was mostly about me failing to do a voice and hurting my throat actually.

I wanna get in a proper game with him sometime because there's all sorts of angles to fuck with here.
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>>50783350
>>50783350
Thank you for calming me down.
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>>50783656
I wish you luck anon. Be sure to come back to another gnoll thread for story time if can. Gnoll stories are best stories.

>>50783712
It's what i do.
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>>50783350
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>>50784724
African wild dog but i still love it.
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>>50724096
We will. In DnD, a Gnoll is inherently evil.
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>>50785272
Depends on the edition. They weren't all evil in 3.5
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>>50724053
If people are okay with fucking ORCS being neutral or even good then you can get away with any race being redeemable.
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>>50783350
That picture's actually an old Rifts character of mine that a friend drew for me. He was fun.
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Don't know don't care

monstrous races are kill on sight
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>>50785968
Look, dude #AllMonstersMatter
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>>50785312
Or in the Known World (that's, what, 1e? Whichever edition the Orcs of Thar was written for). Or in AD&D 2e. Or in 4e. Or, really, until 5e came out.
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>>50785968
>>50787492
Here's a question: have you ever had conflict in a party between players who want to kill all monsters, and players who want to be pacifists, or at least save some for various reasons?
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>>50785899
What are the odds of that huh? Got any good stories?
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>>50788508
Known World was BECMI.
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>>50790486
I've had a conflict between myself and a Lawful Stupid paladin who wanted to slaughter some baby orcs.
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>>50788508
Did you read Orcs of Thar? Because it explicitly states that monster races are all evil. Specifically, it reveals that evil people get reincarnated as monster races as a form of punishment. Orcs of Thar made them playable, it didn't make them non-evil.
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>>50758480
Why would gnolls get more attention than orcs? The sentiment here is that not-evil gnolls are just orcs but furry, absolutely nothing special.
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>>50758480
Gnolls get less attention than orcs because orcs were in Lord of the Rings and thus are in tons of fantasy literature and games. You're not being persecuted for your fetish.
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>>50766198
>Find
>Out
>In
>Game

That's
Incredibly
Cumbersome

If your fantasy race has men and women, making them specifically not have male and female traits is just adding an unnecessary step to every social interaction. Most monsters do not have a male and female version with breasts and pecs, but if you expect to treat the other race as just a person without additional baggage every single time then you make it easy. You don't add a bunch of convoluted traits that need to be worked around.
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>>50792593
There was the time he grabbed a particle beam cannon that was normally carried by small mecha and power armor soldiers and used it to shoot a bandit. I rolled a crit which caused it to do like, 300 mega-damage, vaporizing the bandit, the bandit behind him, the vehicle behind HIM, and most of the house behind that. Probably the best moment I had in that game, really.
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>>50790486
Quite a few times and I've been on both sides of the argument.

In a naussica and the valley of the wind setting i was playing the only CN in a party full of LG. All worshiped the sun god of war heronious (or however you spell his name). On a side quest we were after spider eater eggs, those giant parasitic wasps that paralyze critters with a sting and lay eggs inside them. Anywho, we find some, kill the adults and go into the nest to find several deer, other bugs and an ork all strung up alien style. I wanted to just put the ork out of his misery and get the eggs, he was the only one who hadn't hatched yet. The others insisted we save him and see if he was evil (no pally). As the one with the smallest hands and highest heal check i get to remove the eggs. So I'm elbow deep in this orks chest pulling these eggs out and they are fuckin stuck in there, so im having to twist them loose and yank. After 5-6 i roll a one and just kali-ma this poor guy, ripping out his still beating heart. Almost got my ass kicked by holly rollers before i mannaged to convince them it was an accident. Good times.

Another time in a pf game in golarion's green belt we were pretty much doing the kingmaker AP before it ever came out, but from the riverlands side. Point is going into wild lands and bringing civilization with sword and fire. We found a group of orks and half orks on a scouting run. The group wanted to just clear them out of their little fort. My LN monk opposed this idea saying we should at least make contact first, see if there hostile. Bla bla monsters = evil/kill them before they try to kill us arguments. We argue back and forth for a while, mostly over the "always evil" bit. Finally I've had enough. My monk slams his hands down on the table and shouted something to the effect of "you really think everything monsterous is evil?" And revealed he was a werewolf by transforming. "Then strike me down. I won't defend myself" and just stood there.
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>>50793039
I never said they would lack all secondary sex characteristics, just that they would be different from humans. Someone unfamiliar with the species may not know the difference but obviously it can be learned. As a dm the first time said race is encountered confusion and "extra steps" as you call them will take place. Afterwards once they know the difference you just call them male or female in the description. If said race has plumes on the head for males then say "yes, you can see the plumes it is clearly male" if there are questions later. You're making it out like the players would have to perform a full medical physical to know what sex things are. Or take a phonebooks worth of notes on each race when it really isn't that big a deal. Scribble down "males larger", "females brightly colored" in your notes and move on. It's just detail to add a richness and depth to the world from the beings that live there onward.

if worldbuilding is just jacking off on a page in your mind then fine. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that point.


>>50793063
I just saw a gnoll yelling "say hello to my little friend!" Before everything went white for a few seconds.
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>>50758480
Orcs are more popular, gnolls barely exist outside of DnD, and everywhere they go they're always mooks. It's as simple as that.

Personally, I don't want them to get more attention - it could be fun to work with them and make them some complex race, but it could also be fun to surprise players who never cracked open a monster manual with sudden hyena-men. One of my joys as an early player was the surprising variety of enemies.
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>>50764511
>there can and should be something evil for people to bash about for fun

How does allowing the possibility for a race to make, on rare occasions, non-evil things prevent that? If 0.01% of gnolls rise above and become neutral or good, there's still 99.99% of the race for PCs to slaughter indiscriminately.
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>>50748936
That's a little similar to the backstory I had for my CN gnoll druid in one of my group's 3.5 campaigns.

Her adoptive father was an elf wizard/cleric who was part of a small group of merc adventurers. They were hired by a town that, every summer, was plagued by this tribe of marauding gnolls. The nearby lord would occasionally send soldiers out to kill the beasts, but had neglected to do so this particular year. So the merc group takes on the job and sets out to slaughter the tribe. Every last one of them.

Elf finds little infant gnoll; thing's probably only a few days old at best. Has a change of heart because, holy shit, he can't kill a helpless little baby, even if they ARE supposed to kill every last one if they're to get paid.

One of the other members of the group is swayed by this, and basically tells him to take the child, and he'll eventually meet back up with the elf and give him his share of the pay for killing the gnolls.

Flash-forward, and he's basically raising the gnoll baby as if she was an elf, but she's not allowed to leave their cottage without a disguise (because anyone that sees her would kill her for being a gnoll).

That... didn't work out so well. Young Shierza basically snuck out one day, found a goblin druid in the woods near their home, and ends up learning her ways. Constantly sneaking out at night to go play with magic, when she's not supposed to make herself known, is a no-no.

Elf dad's not happy about it, especially because she ended up befriending a dire badger and bringing it home, but he allows her to go adventuring because she's getting close to being considered an adult (by gnoll standards), anyway.

She was probably largely considered 'good', but every now and then she'd have these 'What the fuck did you just say' moments, that we attributed to her gnoll instincts. Like the time I suggested throwing a dead cook's body in the soup he was making, in order to hide it. Or her finding monsters 'cute'.
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>>50800292
While i wouldn't usually call gnolls cute i could totally see her holding some nasty little thing like a Rast, overwhelming it with her strength, cuddling it and making baby talk at it while it trys in vain to bite her. In a corner away from this the party looks on in fear, ready for the thing to get away and try to murder them again. Weeks later its muzzled and floating behind her spitting and snarling. "You sure this is vinison? Smells more like bad beef... hum? Oh him? That's slobbers" leans in and stage whispers "cause he drools a lot" followed by a hyena giggle that makes the hair on the back of everyone's neck stand up.

Throwing the dead cook in his own soup.
That's funny as hell.
Reminds me of the other gnoll i played. He wasn't a typical gnoll, being a flind and half vampire to boot. But That was pretty close to his idea of cooking.
Put humanoid in pot of water
Raise to a boil while holding them inside
When the screaming stops, it's ready.

Used the huge caldron as a backpack cause no one would let me have a bag of holding after i put a couple street urchins in our large bag for later. With 4 int, 11 wis and no knowlage arcana or umd i couldn't see him knowing they'd suffocate before he needed more blood. The mostly evil party was quiet appalled when 4-5 dead kids tumbled out of the bag after a brief time in town. After that i wasn't allowed any more bags of holding.
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>>50800768
You'd be surprised how cute actual hyenas at least can be.

https://youtu.be/qIjgIQweeYA?t=3m45s
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>>50800841
That was dope af
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Didn't they establish that whole idea because they got the hunch people are literally just salivating at the idea of making their dominant gnoll furry futawaifu? How many ideas have you seen on this thread that didn't involve blatant fetish pandering?
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>>50803979
Are you ready for

THIS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vocHCD1GRjA

>>50805734
Didn't who establish the whole idea?



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