Terra Advena - Humans

Cackling, baying, and howling, gnolls are canine-headed humanoids with a storied heritage and a bleak future. One of the oldest species on Advena, the term “gnoll” actually covers a number of related races who, together, once ruled the world. All gnolls stand taller then men, dwarves, and dragonborn, only being matched by the great wookiees of the woodlands. Like the wookiees, gnolls are covered in fur, but where wookiees have a face much like that of an ape, gnolls sport the muzzle, nose, and structure of the largest members of the carnivora order. Hyenas are amongst the most common, though wolves, cats, and even bears are not particularly uncommon. Regardless of the ethnicity, gnolls can and do interbreed. Gnolls are amongst the shortest-lived sentient species, barely living longer than a century on average. Only humans and the birdlike kenku grace the world for a shorter time. Gnolls are omnivores, though most prefer raw meat, and some groups are even fond of allowing it to spoil.

In modern Advena, gnolls have been reduced to a pale shadow of what they once were. Nearly three centuries ago, a plague now known as the Great Ravaging crept up from the southern swamplands. An unusual plague, it rarely killed, instead increasing the savagery and feral nature of those it infected, as well as reducing their self-control and, as a side-effect, lifespan. Highly contagious and with no known cure, it swept through the gnoll populace like wildfire. While in the later stages of the disease, the infected lose most of their body hair, it sometimes takes weeks after infection for this to occur - meaning that it's common for infected individuals to show no signs while still spreading the disease. Within a year, the southernmost gnoll cities were abandoned to their nearly-mindless brethren, and the plague was only just starting. Early attempts by the gnolls to fight their once-kin in pitched battles ended in the growth of the enemy’s numbers, and all was thought lost.

Nearly four years after the plague began, gnoll shamans and alchemists devised a form of antidote, but it was far too late for more than one in four of the race. With their cities occupied by feral once-gnolls, now known as orques, or "lost ones", those that remained fled to the corners of the empire, surviving in small packs that live off the land and rely on being highly mobile to avoid the numerous, and physically superior, orques. Gnoll population has never again reached the numbers it once had, the availability of materials for the Infection antidote being a limiting factor for their expansion. It is for a similar reason that, despite having begun to regain their strength and vigor, gnolls remain in small family-based packs - the materials necessary for the antidote don't lend themselves to farming, and thus require packs to remain constantly on the move, searching for more.

The Imperium

Prior to the Great Ravaging, gnolls ruled one of the mighties empires of Advena, the Imperium of Blood. The exact details are lost to time, but scholars believe that the unchecked advances of the Imperium are actually what led the mighty dragons to give birth to the dragonborn, so as to be better able to match gnoll numbers. While the Imperium rarely came into contact with the dwarves, who avoided the lowlands and plains favored by the gnolls, they clashed many times with the dragonborn and their dragon masters, holding their own through strict conditioning and savage strength. While gnolls appear savage to other species, that bestial rage - and more importantly, taming it - was the key to their empire’s success. Gnoll armies were operated in strictly regimented units where discipline was swift and severe - the commanders channeled gnoll ferocity away from day-to-day activities and towards expansion and their enemies.

Gnoll magical traditions share roots with those practiced by wookiees, but their pack mentality led to differences that fundamentally altered the entire society. Gnoll shamans worked awesomely powerful spells through blood magic, elderly or sick gnolls voluntarily sacrificing themselves to lend power to the casters. Shaman, in turn, used such sacrifices to bless crops and ensure fertility, and more importantly to gnoll societal development, exploring the aether. Outside of Advena, gnoll spiritualists discovered beings of extraordinary power and knowledge, who were willing to share with the beast-men in exchange for sacrifices, fealty, and devotion. Within the Imperium, devotions were a complicated give-and-take of divided loyalties and paid-for obeisance, with gnolls offering to whatever extraplanar spirits were most able to reward them.

Religion

Gnolls of Terra Advena give their spiritual allegiance to entities of power from outside of the world. While such entities have generally been known to exist at some point, many of the rituals and great magics known to have made them manifest upon Advena have been lost since the Great Ravaging, and doubt, never an element of gnoll psychology, has begun to worm insidiously throughout their faiths. In reaction, many gnolls have become even more viciously devoted to their chosen deity, leading to a significant number of blood feuds and wars as packs with opposing spirits settle their disputes with violence rather than words.

Gnoll patron allegiance is generally consistent within packs, primarily because many gnolls find it difficult, if not outright impossible, to spend a significant amount of time amongst other gnolls who venerate a different spirit. They find the ridiculous faiths of non-gnolls to be amusing and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and dismiss the human notion of a pantheon of friend deities as absolute nonsense. Gnolls are well-aware that faith, power, and rulership all go hand in hand, and their beliefs reflect that.

What follows is a listing of some of the more common gnoll patron spirits, though it is by no means an exhaustive list. Gnoll faith is sometimes a fickle thing, shifting as new spirits reveal themselves to be more powerful than old ones.

Balaa, the Bitter Angel

Once the most powerful servant of immortals in some far-away world, Balaa was given an impossible task. Unable to please her masters, the angel snapped and turned against them, slowly picking them off and usurping their power. Before she could finish, the angel was banished into the aether by the greatest magus of her homeworld, her body twisted and blackened in the process.

In the third century of the Imperium, a cadre of gnoll spellcasters exploring the aether stumbled across the pocket of reality in which Balaa had spent uncounted millenia, and found the fallen angel a source of disturbing, yet valuble, insights into the mortal mind. Gnoll followers of Balaa believe that she will provide the faithful with hints as to their destinies, though she leaves it up to the strong to make use of them. Balaa's hatred of divinities has only grown during her time as a patron in gnoll society, and her worshippers are encouraged to watch members of other faiths carefully for weakness.

Terra Advena Gnoll Racial Feats

The gnolls of Terra Advena are distinct, culturally and physically, than those of other realities, and several feats are available to highlight those distinctions.

Blood Ritualist

Prerequisites: Ritual Caster, Wis 13

You have learned the secret arts of gnoll shamans, allowing you to increase the potency of your ritual castings by using blood from a sentient creature.

Benefit: You may use blood as a special component when performing a ritual. Blood drawn from a sentient creature deals damage equal to its bloodied value, and grants a +2 bonus to all skill checks related to the ritual being performed. Alternatively, you may drain a creature compl

Gnoll Spirit Pact

Prerequisites: Gnoll

A powerful otherworldly spirit is your patron, and you sometimes receive guidance from it.

Benefit: You gain the Spirit Whispers power.

Orque-Blooded

Prerequisites: Gnoll

You were exposed to the Ravaging at some point in your life, and while you took the antidote, you've never been quite the same.

Benefit: You gain a +5 bonus to Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate checks against orcs. In addition, you gain the Blood Rage power.