Time for my gruesome little buddies. This one has some gore and viscera mentions. Approach however is safe for you.
Gnolls
Cruel - Ravenous - Playful
Theme: Visceral horror. Gore. Foes that want to hurt you for fun and consume you.
The world is full of monsters that will devour you. Only Gnolls take such sadistic glee in the pain they inflict. Gnolls are carnivores possessing a near endless hunger, and unlike most intelligent species- they are willing to count anyone amongst their prey. They are a mockery of us, a dark reflection. The things that repulse us, that we reject and call taboo- fills them with ecstasy. They feel joy from hunting you down and filling you with fear. Pleasure from the torture that comes after. And finally, true contentment as they begin to eat you alive.
God, I love Gnolls. In the same way you can tell I love Kobolds by how I bully them- you can see my affection for Gnolls with how much I frontload their villainy. There's a lot of genre of horror in this book, and these are our slasher villains. Gnolls are Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I think a lot of people will look at what I've written and immediately go "oh, I don't like this and that this is true about them", that you have something so abhorrent. But consider this me throwing down the gauntlet towards your table. These things are true, these horrors are real... Now tell me why.
Questions
- The settlement is filled with many heritages and cultures. What common ground is found amongst the things they consider taboo? What is allowed that people wouldn't expect?
- You've had to flee from those stronger before, you escaped but lost a part of yourself. What was it?
- There is both fear and fascination with Gnolls, a wonder of how could something become so warped and horrible. What is your belief?
- What is the favored prey of Gnolls? What meat do they covet more than any other?
Question one is gonna set up something true about the settlement while letting the GM know a contract they wanna see in the Gnolls. Two gives a player a chance to set up some past trauma that can be evoked when Gnolls pursue them. Three is a myth question, letting a player throw out a belief- but not a truth. Finally, we give gnolls something to covet- a primary target. This can let players plan around this and even use bait to lure a gnoll into their own trap.
Moves
- Alert your prey that they are being hunted without revealing yourself.
- Tear a chunk of flesh out of your prey.
- Bind your target
- Finish off a wounded ally or foe (Heal 1 tick if the kill is successful)
- Rip off a limb (3 doom)
A fun set of verbs, nothing too flashy. Most of this will get covered in tactics. I do rather like the idea of gnolls descending on allies as well as enemies. It's fun.
Tactics
You will usually face gnolls when they are stalking or attacking. When a Gnoll is stalking, they are trying to inflict as much fear and damage as possible. This can be a really great time to use mental stressors as harm. Giving someone "Paranoid" or "Terrified" before they get into combat is ideal. You want to weaken them before closing in. Have fun with it- under the right conditions, someone can die of fright in this game. Keep upping the tension and putting the Gnoll between the target and safety/companions. Thinking of it as a target is also helpful, have each gnoll that is stalking focus in on a particular person. So long as they manage to get them, whether through capture or death, is a win. At that point the Gnoll will retreat if need be. Otherwise, a gnoll will want to risk it all to get its prey.
When it's time to attack, gnolls are vicious. Ravenous comes into play here and they like to get close and rip out chunks of their foes, it's demoralizing to watch something chew a part of you while you fight. This doesn't mean you need to use Ravenous as an excuse to go after every downed character and finish them off. Playful and Cruel will lead them to keeping their targets alive and suffering. The go-to move is to remove a limb and start devouring that. In combat, it's worth noting that Gnolls have a healing move in that they can finish someone off to heal, including other Gnolls- cannibalizing their clocks and taking the remaining ticks. For this reason it's a good idea to track Gnolls as separate clocks rather than a group clock representing a few of them.
Giving players psychic damage is a lot of fun. It also let's anyone with a particular paladin ability just no-sell it. Again, the tactics make me very excited to play- I think you can do some genuinely terrifying/horrifying gameplay. But I also know some people are gonna read this and just... reroll what foe they are gonna use. Which is fine- but there needs to be representation for slasher sickos too.