A bit of thanks to , who helped me work out the name of the al'Gharib deity in a forum post earlier.  This isn't specifically what I needed the name for, but it's related, so I might as well give credit where credit is due.

Anyway, this is something I've been working on for about a week or so now.  Trying to squeeze it in between schoolwork and my sister dumping her kids on us constantly.  But today, I finally got a break, this being the first day in months that my sister's kids haven't been here and I also haven't had homework to do.  I like how it game out.

As with my other entries, this is taking a common monster in the D&D game and creating a version of it for Gaea.  I wanted one that took in elements of real world hyenas (on which gnolls are based in appearance) and work on that.  To that end, I created a race that suffer from a lot of misconceptions and negative stereotypes that have no basis in reality.  But I didn't want to go full "We're totally misunderstood and peaceful."  I wanted them to reflect the kind of real aggressiveness and brutality that hyenas can and do show in the real world.  There are some elements that I wanted to include that I ended up not being able to because there was no conceivable way outsiders would be able to learn of them based on how they live and lair, but I got most of what I wanted across.

I put a mild warning on this, since it delves a little bit into *gasp* sexual things and might also be considered ideologically sensitive (which is the most milk-toast and bullshit warning I can imagine, but whatever).  Anyone who's read any of my other entries about this should not find any surprise in the candid way I discuss the subjects, though.  It's kind of become a schtick of mine.

On a side note, Faruq is an actual character that appeared in a campaign I ran with a friend.  The story of the gnoll being found after a slaughter and raised by humans was actually a major part of the player's arc in that campaign.  My friend had taken on a job to locate the gnoll den so it could be cleaned out, but then was so horrified by the slaughter that when he found a surviving infant, he took it in and raised it.  It was such an unexpected turn, and it left enough of an impact on me that I've decided to make that a cannon event in the Gaea setting.

Statistically, gnolls in Gaea are unchanged from standard D&D or pathfinder.  They also still have a favored class of ranger.  Although they have no clerics and instead have druids for spiritual leaders.  I imagine them having a druid variant that doesn't have shapeshifting powers, though.  The only varients I've found are the Nature Fang www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-… and the Survivor www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-… but I'm not sure if I entirely like those variants.  I might come up with my own druid variant for gnolls in the future.  Maybe.

Hey, it could happen!