Are Gnolls Derived From Any Real Mythology?

[Umbran]

Yeah, they’re pretty distantly related to cats though.

And by "distant" we mean that the last common ancestor of hyenas and modern cats was in the Oligocene, 25+ million years ago...

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I low key want to beat about half of you. Krishnath, for the love of all that is sacred, use a font we can read on the white background. Having to highlight your entire message to just SEE IT is a nuissance.

Gnolls were a theoretical concept designed to be the third part of the "evil trifecta" of roughly humanoid sized foes. Goblins and Orcs would serve the other two. They are drawn from the dog headed men of ancient Europe. The Dog headed men weren't evil, though, but the good little faith squad decided that if it didn't look human it had to be evil.

Orcs were not made up by Tolkien, Gygax, or anyone we could cite the name of. The Orceneas of ancient Norse mythology are on of the many examples of classic orcs. However, orcs are derived from even further reaching mythologies, most of which from the slavic, scandanavian, and east european regions, and predominantly originating from proto-germanic clans.

Kobolds were not trolls. Kobolds were their own thing that greatly resembled goblins. The romantic period butchered mythological terminology and made almost every word for a mythical creature interchangeable for around 100 years because christians are naughty word retards who can't respect other cultures, and decided that gryphons were also phoenixes were also dragons were also elves were also orcs, all in the process OF BURNING OUR ANCESTRAL LITERATURE AND STRUCTURES. However, I'm not here to fight the faith. That's not until Sunday.

After seeing the uselessness of this forum, by and large, I had to do my own research. There are publicly available historic and mythological community documents from all around the world. Most of my sources are from German and Scandanavian college resources. You know, the people WHO INVENTED THE THINGS YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

Things I've learnt

1) The Romantic period (1800 to 1850) has something to do with 100 years of "christians" not respecting other cultures and burning ancestral literature and structures (Has this person ever read anything from the Romantic period)?
2) Orcs were not invented by Tolkien, but by "german and scandinavian college resources".

 

[Mrknowitall]

It was all fun and games back in the yonder days.

Thanks for the info, guys. It is mucho appreciated. I really just wanted to know if the term "gnoll" was fair game for publishers and game designers outside of D&D.

What about treant? I've seen that elsewhere as well.

Gnoll for a hyena man is public domain

 

[RealAlHazred]

And by "distant" we mean that the last common ancestor of hyenas and modern cats was in the Oligocene, 25+ million years ago...

Geologically speaking, that's, like, an hour ago, tops...

 

[aco175]

@Mrknowitall welcome to the site. Thanks for your input and hope you stay and look around.

 

[Umbran]

Geologically speaking, that's, like, an hour ago, tops...

Yeah, but walking on legs on land is like, two hours ago.