Gnoll warrior

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A gnoll warrior, G, is a monster that appears in SLASH'EM, SlashTHEM and Hack'EM as part of the gnome monster class. The gnoll warrior, 9, also appeaars in SpliceHack as part of the gnoll monster class.

A gnoll warrior is an omnivorous humanoid gnoll that can hide themselves, see invisible, possesses infravision, and will seek out gold, gems and various other items to pick up - they are large in SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM, and medium in SpliceHack and Hack'EM. A tame gnoll warrior may turn traitor.

A gnoll warrior has two weapon attacks. In Hack'EM, gnoll warriors possess poison resistance.

A gnoll warrior corpse is poisonous to eat.

Generation

Gnoll warriors are only randomly generated in Gehennom, though they can also appear on other levels that generate G at level creation if the difficulty is appropriate. They are always created hostile, and are not a valid form for normal polymorph. A gnoll can grow up into a gnoll warrior, and a gnoll warrior can grow up into a gnoll chieftain.

A gnoll warrior has a chance of being generated with each of the following items:[1]

Origin

The gnoll is a creature that appears in various types of fantasy media, and is generally portrayed as a human-hyena hybrid or a form of humanoid hyena. The term originates from 1912 short story collection The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany, with one short story titled "How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art upon the Gnoles".

The gnoll of Dungeons & Dragons is introduced in the first boxed set of the game, and gnolls are described in Book 2: Monsters and Treasure as a "cross between Gnomes and Trolls (...perhaps, Lord Sunsany did not really make it all that clear)". These early gnolls were stated to be similar to hobgoblins with +2 morale, while a gnoll king and his bodyguard fought similar to trolls without regenerative power. This may serve as the basis for gnolls being part of the gnome monster class in SLASH'EM and other derived variants.

The 1st Monster Manual for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and all subsequent material describe gnolls as aggressive desert-dwelling nomads that resemble humanoid hyenas, and actively raid and plunder other settlements; it also introduces Yeenoghu, the demon god of gnolls who many of them serve and worship. This early Monster Manual additionally describes a "leader-type" of gnoll that is presumably the basis for the gnoll warrior, with one present for every 20 gnolls in a band - this gnoll leader attacks as a monster with three hit dice, and always has the maximum of 16 hit points (compared to 2-16 for regular gnolls)

Encyclopedia entry

SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM do not have an encyclopedia entry for the gnoll warrior.

SpliceHack

These bipedal hyenas serve Yeenoghu, and are almost unmatched
in combat.

Hack'EM

We are born and we die.
No one cares, no one remembers,
and it doesn't matter.
This is why we laugh.
[ The Gnoll Credo, by J. Stanton ]

References