Gnolls and the Gnoll-Plague

    Gnolls are not, as most common folk suspect, mutated and demonic hyena-people. No indeed. Neither is Yeenoghu, lord and progenitor of the gnolls, a gnoll. Everything the common folk know about gnolls is outlined in monster manuals and guides penned by Volos and such and so forth. But it is nearly all wrong.

    You cannot be a gnoll in the same way that you can be an orc, or a slime, or a human. That is because gnollhood is actually a disease. Wait, no, hold on. We need to back up further than that.

    Yeenoghu is not a gnoll. In fact, Yeenoghu was originally nothing but the spat-out-excrement of a long dead demon lord of filth and disease. This viral intelligence, split off from its host, schemed for a corporeal form, traversing microscopically across the lands of Ragnarok to find a suitable host. The blood-spattered fields of the Death Dells were ruled in those early days by a titanic, demonic hyaenodon. This hyaenodon was the perfect host- large, powerful, commanding a layer of Ragnarok, but not established or intelligent enough to resist the virus's attack. When the virus ravaged this poor creature, snapping its bones and contorting its flesh and filling its belly with hunger, it conceived a hybrid creature. Yeenoghu, lord of the Gnoll-Plague and the Death Dells. How Yeenoghu got its flail is a story for another time.

    The malevolent virus is the source of gnollhood. As it bonded with the hyaenodon, it learned the form of the hyena, of the baboon, of the felines of the wastes and the strange dwellers of the jungle. Thinking these creatures supreme, the only ones worthy of corruption, the virus forgot the defenses of the other forms, made itself weak. That's why the Gnoll-Plague is most common in hyenas and their ilk, the virus made itself strong against their immune systems.

    Technically speaking, Gnoll-Plague induces bone-warping and mutation, makes the afflicted more intelligent, but makes them always incredibly hungry and thirsty. Gnolls are scavengers because they have to be- they have to eat everything they can, even carrion, to keep themselves even remotely sane from moment to moment. If an afflicted is struck with a lesser strain, or has limited immunity, their hunger is less all-consuming, and their ability to think (more) clearly makes them a natural shoe-in for chieftain. All gnoll behavior is attributable to their intense hunger, so that's how you roleplay a gnoll. Their voice is half-laughter (from hyena roots), all rasp (from a perpetually-parched throat). They speak in strange and incoherent riddles, made mad by their own hunger, leaping to eat anything in sight with no attachment for their own safety.

    Yeenoghu sees all the plague-bearers. They are its children, they carry its viral code into the world to propagate. Gnolls do not worship this, they look inside themselves to it and smile with yellowed teeth, and that is enough. 

WAYS TO USE GNOLLS

The default assumption is that the Kin have a resistance to Gnoll-Plague... what if this stopped being the case? What if an immunocompromised person caught it? What does a humanoid gnoll look like?

Even if the Kin are immune, animal companions are. Imagine the loyal mastiff companion warping in a terrible instant into a flesh-eating creature... do you keep it or kill it? What if it threatened to eat you in your sleep?

The number of possibilities that could arise from "new strain of gnoll" are endless, especially if the players don't know about this lore. What if the plague could be conveyed through the air? Lease it onto a pack of wild dogs and level a village overnight. What if there were gnolls who were all psychically connected? What if a pack were all hunger-free and lucid, waiting to be plaguebearers? What if there was a strain that made them friendly, unwilling to spread their disease but unable to describe it?

This also makes it possible for the PCs to kill Yeenoghu without having to reqwrite new lore. If the plague can hop, it can just find a new host. What if a PC killed the hyaenodon and the plague hopped to it? That would mean it knows a human body's immune system... a new generation of Gnoll-Plague-wracked humans could lead to mass confusion, especially before anyone knows what's going on.

Of course, you could run a standard game where none of the virology comes into play and have this information chugging below the surface, too. It's fun to know what your players don't, especially when it looks like something from a book but isn't.

If you have any other cool things to do with the Gnoll-Plague, put them in the comments, I'd love to hear your devious ideas, or if you have any questions. Until then, happy gaming.