Encyclopaedia Argollica

Gnolls

At first glance, the Gnoll Jungle seems like an abandoned wilderness. It is an endless patchwork of dense scrubland, rocky hills and dark woods, occasionally interspersed by twisting streams. Animal life is abundant, from groups of deer grazing on the undergrowth to lonely lynxes prowling in the shadow of stone outcroppings. But underneath it all, signs of a formerly dense habitation are still clear. Overgrown castle ruins stand alone, crumbling due to the many years of neglect, and here and there the remains of clay walls peek out amidst the vegetation. A few of these are clearly still maintained, being ringed by huts of wood or hide and with lights shining from the inside. The Jungle is anything but uninhabited.

Gnolls were made for trapping. They are short and lithe, making it easy for them to hide among the greenery of forests. Their famous ability to consume anything organic is a great boon as well: they are able to survive, and even thrive in all but the most marginal of environments. Not long after they awoke in this area, amidst the ruins of the formerly great human empire of Atal, their numbers started growing quickly as they established their dens in the overgrown land. These features already make them formidable hunters, but this is without taking into account their most famous trait.

Even the most parochial monster will have heard tales of the gemstones the gnolls use as eyes. This is no tall tale: in place of eyes they do have various precious stones, cut in a rough circle, a feature they possess from birth. I can assure you, dear reader, that contrary to what you may have heard, they cannot be used to predict the future, they will not lead you to hidden treasure and the eyeglasses that can be made from them are of no better quality than those made from their naturally-occurring cousins.

What is the benefit of this unique feature then? Quite simply, gnolls are the only species on Argoll that can remove their eyes without losing their ability to see through them, all without causing them any harm. A gnoll can leave her eyes in any location, walk away, and continue perceiving that place as if she were there, regardless of the distance she travels, giving them unparalleled abilities in the laying of traps and ambushes.

Over time, the gnolls have developed a large catalogue of devious tricks, both for war and for the trapping of animals for food. Spike pits, falling logs, spontaneously combusting jars, bladed snares and many more are part of their repertoire. Traversing the Jungle without a guide is a very dangerous gamble indeed, since, along with all the other challenges of traversing such a large forest, one would have to be mindful of such traps at every opportunity.

The Gnoll Jungle, however, is anything but wild. From the start, the gnolls lived off of hunting and gathering, and throughout the centuries they have moulded the forest to support their lifestyle. Trees were seeded to encourage new forest to grow on remnants of human farmland, rivers and canals were liberated from their old dykes to create marshland, the ruins of towns were set on fire to fertilise the ground for future growth. They burnt down the forest undergrowth in select places, so prey could be more easily hunted there, and they made sure that the plants that spread the farthest were those bushes and trees that provided the fruits and nuts they particularly enjoyed. The Gnoll Jungle is the result of many centuries of hard work on their part to engineer the environment. The fact that the area prominently bears their name is therefore more than fitting.

This soon led to a problem however. Since gnolls could eat anything organic, and they now found themselves in the possession of a strongly fertile region that only produced more and more food, gnoll populations boomed. Soon the Jungle, even in its slowly changing form, could no longer support their population. With most other populations this would have led to war as various groups started competing over the limited resources, but not with the gnolls. Each gnoll clan's den is a masterpiece of defense: located in an old Atalian castle, a cave system, an earthen compound or even in magically grown trees, they are ringed by an extensive system of traps and warning systems that only the gnolls of the clan know how to traverse safely. Wars between the gnolls would just lead to slaughter on such a scale that no one saw much to gain from it.

Instead of war, food issues are instead solved by clans splitting up when the strain on local resources becomes too heavy. One half of the clan will then leave the confines of the Jungle to search for a new home. Thanks to their adaptability, colonies of gnolls have been established throughout all the adjacent lands. These new dens still keep close contact with those in the Jungle itself and it is as if a large spider web of relationships stretches out of the Jungle in all directions.

As well as their peculiar eyes, another feature that is common knowledge about gnolls is their love of laughter. Anyone who travels with gnolls will have to put up with many puns, dirty riddles, witticisms and cheesy punchlines. Although present in most aspects of their daily life, the best example of this cultural trait is gnollish comedic theatre.

Each clan supports its own theatre group, made up of gnolls who focus entirely on the art of acting. However, aside from the acting itself, the plays are a community effort. The scripts, written on bark with the old human script, can be written by anyone, and the actors will usually be happy to accept anything except the worst efforts. This is helped by the fact that there is a large, commonly known assortment of stock characters, jokes and plots that such amateur playwrights can resort to. This does not mean their plays should be regarded as mere compilations of tropes. I have had the privilege of watching many performances when travelling and they often manage to be both witty and poignant, even if insightful wordplay is accompanied by scatological humour.

Gnollish theatre is performed in the open air, with the audience sitting on the grass, but this does not mean it lacks material sophistication. Often the community, and especially its artisans will be busy on-and-off making props and costumes. The actual performance is not a quiet affair. As most of the clan turns out to watch, they bring food and drink with them, talking amongst themselves and frequently shouting their commentary to the actors on stage. The actors in turn take it in stride, often responding or introducing moments of improvisation to please the crowd.

Although the primary aim of these plays is entertainment and community-building, they also serve a religious purpose. As can be expected given their lifestyle, gnoll religion is deeply animistic. The animals they prey on and the plants they eat are all personified as archetypical spirits, bearing the name of the creatures in question, like Hare, Bear or Hazel. These spirits are considered to rule over their mundane brethren. In exchange for taking their food from the creatures these spirits guard, the gnolls do what they can to appease them. There are dances and songs in their honour and images crafted in their likeness. But most importantly, at every play, a special bench is reserved for these spirits and food and drink laid out for them. The actors will invariably invite them to watch and say a word of thanks to them, before beginning the play. Therefore, these plays are just as much gifts to the spirits of nature as they are for the gnolls themselves.

This has caused some to hypothesise that gnoll theatre evolved for religious purposes, but I do not find it likely. Gnollish humour is present in all aspects of their lives, including those far away from religion, though they certainly have no problem laughing with the gods either. Moreover, the performances do not contain any of the overt ritual elements, which are present in other gnoll ceremonies, such as sacrifices or the singing of hymns. The only religious element to them is the invitation to the gods to come watch the show, but even this is usually a simple request by one of the actors, without much fanfare. Because of this, it seems to me more that gnollish theatre grew out of their own desire to create stories to laugh at, and because the gnolls value laughter so much, they assumed the spirits around them would too.