The content of this article is not part of official Warcraft lore, but has nevertheless become part of the World of Warcraft culture or community.
What is a Gnoll?
A Gnoll (Family: Gnollidae) is a vaguely humanoid creature that resembles a furball. Although they are classified as Humanoids, they are NOT intelligent. If you ever ask a Gnoll to open a package for you, it will (likely) either:
- Attack you on sight.
- Eat the package.
- Attempt to smash it in pieces with a blunt weapon.
- Die from overexercising its brain.
They have, though, made out that if you grab four sticks and staff them into the ground and put a hide over it, you will not get wet when standing under it in rain. Despite this, they have yet to find out how it works.
List of what Gnolls are NOT
- They are NOT Intelligent.
- They are NOT edible.
- They are NOT friendly teddy bears disuised as fur-covered morons.
- They are NOT Fashionable. Gnolls have a BAD sense of cloth.
- They are NOT willing to give up a day's feed because the feed is running away. Any attempt to do so is futile and will result in death!
- They are NOT Furbolgs, some randomly transformed elf, bears, nightsabers, tigers, raptors, penguins, Tuskarr, chuck norris, your new alt, or anything that vaguely resembles the previously mentioned.
- They can NOT Read, write, inscript, decipher, or anything that requires more intellectual requirements than picking up the book.
Gnoll Physics
The Gnoll's body is composed of bones, flesh, ewwy green goo and muscles. These each serve their own purpose. This is why gnolls sometimes go into spasms: Their body simply refuses to work together. The green goo exists purely for making adventurerers vomit, and it does its job quite well. The legs are just so short that the gnoll does not act as a tunnel drill when smashed by a mace. Its head is reasonably fit for an ugly cap with feathers on. No one knows why. Gnolls can not corpse-run as their souls simply refuse to leave their body out of stupidity. It takes the average gnoll three days to realize it is dead.
Culture
The gnolls are extremely violent. However, their violence usually revolves around 2 things: Random prey and random other gnolls.
They are in fact lorded over by a great leader who is given the title "Hogger" when they are elected.
Tribe specifics
The gnoll tribes are very different. The Shadowhide Gnolls in Redridge Mountains have made out that the best solution to a rather strong, evil mage commanding you around is to simply obey. This tends to keep you alive longer. The Mosshides in the Wetlands have found that the best way to entertain yourself is to call the whole tribe when a non-gnoll comes by and meaninglessly amass him/her. When Non-gnolls are in short stock (Which happens quite often. People HATE that place) They tend to do this against Gnolls instead. The Palemanes in Mulgore have found it fun to annoy Tauren. Recording all the differencies on Gnoll tribes would take forever, so I'll just move along...
List of questions that Gnolls have a chance of answering
- Where is mah food?
- How do you cast a Lightning Ballzorz?
- Is it wise to jump off a cliff? (Note that the Gnoll Interpretion of "Wise" is "Not instantly lethal, but most likely in the next 20 seconds).
- Would you like to smash my head with a mace?
- Why do we eat humans?
No more. More soon from the extremely silly Compendium of Gnoll Facts!