Unlike the other humanoid higher races, gnolls possess no grand ambition, no civilisation to preserve, and no vision for the world beyond slaughter and consumption. They are driven by the eternal Ravenous Hunger, a demonic compulsion inherited from their creator: Yeenoghu, the Beast of Butchery. The first gnolls were born in the aftermath of one of the countless battles of the Blood War, when the conflict between demon and devil spilled from the Abyss and touched the Prime Material Plane. As Yeenoghu stalked across the ruined battlefield, the ground was slick with ichor and strewn with the twisted remains of fiends. Behind him came great packs of hyenas, drawn by the stench of carrion and the promise of an endless feast.
Those hyenas gorged themselves upon corpses saturated with abyssal and infernal power. Cursed by Yeenoghu’s mere presence, they devoured until their bodies swelled grotesquely, bloated with fiendish energies and stolen flesh. At last, they burst. From their ruptured bodies came new horrors. The most common of these were gnolls and leucrotta, though other malformed servants of the Ravenous Hunger are said to have crawled from that first profane birthing. Whatever shape they took, all were bound by the same primal urges: to kill, to feed, and to spread the hunger further. Like a plague of locusts, the first gnoll packs spread from that tainted battlefield, falling upon the peoples of the world as a living scourge. Though they will eat almost anything, gnolls favour the flesh of thinking beings above all others, for such meat best satisfies the abyssal craving that burns within them.
Where gnoll packs roam, hyenas are never far behind. Drawn by the scent of blood, offal, and carrion, great packs of them trail the horde across the wilds, feeding on whatever scraps the gnolls leave behind. The gnolls do not treat these beasts as pets, nor even as allies, but as lesser reflections of their own hunger. They tolerate them because they are useful scavengers, living alarms, and, when the need arises, future vessels for the Ravenous Hunger. After battle, these hyenas share in the feast, tearing at corpses beside the gnolls and growing bold on the flesh of the slain. Those that gorge too deeply upon the dead of thinking races may be chosen for darker rites, their bodies prepared for transformation into new gnolls, leucrotta, or other servants of Yeenoghu. The hunger never truly leaves the gnolls. At best, it can be drowned for a time beneath excess. After a great slaughter, a gnoll pack may gorge itself until its warriors can barely move, collapsing among the bones and ruin of their victims in a state of bloated, twitching stupor. This is the closest thing gnolls know to peace: not satisfaction, but a brief and brutish silence while the Ravenous Hunger sinks beneath the weight of meat.
Yet this respite never lasts. As the feast is digested and the hunger rises once more, the pack begins to stir. First come the snarls and snapping jaws. Then the violence within the pack. Finally, the horde moves on, seeking fresh prey before its own members turn upon one another. Those gnolls who fail to sate the hunger are not released from it. Instead, they wither. Their flesh shrinks against their bones, their hides split, and their bodies become gaunt, skeletal parodies of life. These creatures, known as witherlings, trail in the wake of the horde like walking famine. Too wasted to fight as they once did, yet too hateful and hungry to die, they shamble after their kin, gnawing bones, scraps, carrion, and the fallen alike.
Witherlings are despised by living gnolls, who see them as weakness made flesh, but they are rarely driven away. Their presence is an omen of the pack’s hunger and a reminder of what awaits any gnoll denied the feast. In battle, they surge forward with brittle claws and snapping jaws, eager to tear some final mouthful from the living. From time to time, Yeenoghu brings forth mighty gnoll champions known as flinds. These brutal warleaders gather vast packs beneath them and drive them into destructive rampages, leaving only bones, ash, and gnawed ruin in their wake. Some gnolls are also gifted with foul ritual knowledge, allowing them to recreate the abyssal transformation that first birthed their kind. Through these rites, hyenas engorged on the flesh of the slain may be twisted into new servants of the Ravenous Hunger.
Where gnolls gather, famine, terror, and massacre follow. They do not conquer to rule, nor raid to enrich themselves. They come only to kill, to feast, and to ensure that the hunger is never sated.