Beyond the edge of their enemies' torchlight, the gnolls' tittering growls and snickering vocalizations disrupt the stillness. Occasionally, the light of reflective eyes dances in the darkness, but it is never enough to give a clear idea of the gnolls' number or plan of attack.
The gnolls of the North are the saving grace of the orc, since it is them that taught them the way of the predator. "Eat like a predator, not prey," were the maxim the gnolls taught to the orcs. Many of the orcs did not know how to hunt, much less scout game. They had to learn this from the gnolls.
Culture
Like the hyenas that hunt with them, these pack humanoids use misdirection, fear, and coordinated attacks to wear down their prey. With a cackling and irksome confidence, they murder at a leisurely pace, one spear strike at a time, ripping flesh and drawing blood until their enemy is too weak to resist their final onslaught.
Creatures primarily of the burning desert and arid plain, gnolls know that survival relies on the pack. The matriarch of the pack enforces simple rules of gnoll cohesion. The struggle is not from within the pack, but outside of it. That which is weaker than the gnoll is food. Rest ensures sufficient strength for the hunt. Bite off only what you can chew, saving the rest for the survival of the pack—but always claim your share. Raise whelps to be strong, and discard the weak. Any creature that is not part of the pack is nothing more than moving meat. Even when a gnoll pack serves a powerful master from outside the pack, it does so with only its own survival in mind, and it quickly abandons that master if continued service would be suicidal. Other races might look down on the gnolls as selfish, lazy, and ultimately destructive, but gnolls merely cackle at such judgments. For gnolls, survival is the only morality, and eating one's enemies is the ultimate display of power.
It was once believed that gnolls were a scourge of savannas and deserts alone, but while most gnolls prefer the regions favored by hyenas, they live and hunt in nearly every climate. Because gnolls' survival and pack cohesion rely on the hunt, if a pack becomes too large, it splinters. The weaker group is pushed beyond the borders of its former pack's hunting territory, often into regions with different ecologies and prey. While gnolls are numerous in arid climates, smaller and more desperate packs roam highlands, lowlands, forests, taigas, and even the Darklands (Underdark).
Gnolls are strictly carnivorous, even to the point of resorting to cannibalism in times of great need, during religious rituals, or to show their dominance after defeating a rival. The majority of their meat, however, comes from the hunt. Nearly any kind of meat can provide sustenance, but they have a strong preference for the flesh of sentient creatures. This preference is both practical (as sentient creatures are a great threat to the pack's stability and survival) and bound up with the common gnoll superstition that consuming a creature allows one to absorb its power.
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