DonaldRumsfeldsTofu
First Post
Perhaps we should try to catalogue the mythological and literary inspirations for all of the Monster Manual monsters.
Are Gnolls Derived From Any Real Mythology?
- Thread starter Excalatus
- Start date
demiurge1138
Inventor of Super-Toast
I actually did a lengthy thread about the origins of a bunch of D&D monsters last fall. And here's the link:
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=63674
Demiurge out.
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=63674
Demiurge out.
Gez
First Post
See also the discussion here:
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=172310
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=172310
DonaldRumsfeldsTofu
First Post
Well, you guys beat me to everything. There's no measurement of how much ass you two kick.
Religion/politics, profanity, insulting other members.
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.
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.
This thread is 17 years old. Good find, though!
And having read the post in more detail, don’t post again in this thread, please. Insulting people, religion, profanity, the list goes on. You crammed a lot into one post.
{Edit -- and adding in "the uselessness of this forum", this clearly isn't a post in good faith. I don't think this is the community for you.}
Last edited:
Dire Bare
Legend
A bit unnecessarily condescending. And not fully accurate.
While sometimes words can be traced back to different ancient languages, that doesn't mean the fantasy creatures we know today are based off those words alone. Gnoll and orc are good examples of that. Tolkien didn't invent the word "orc", but he definitely invented orcs. D&D gnolls share a similar sounding name to creatures mentioned in Dunsany's work, but gnolls are a unique creation of early D&D.
Most creatures of real-world myth, like trolls and kobolds, don't have static forms like our favorite D&D creatures being statted up in the Monster Manual. What exactly a "troll" was changed with the story, and the storyteller, even within the same culture and time period. Things got a little more "locked down" when folklorists started putting oral myths down in written form, the Brothers Grimm being a good example of that. But even then, mythology is not an exact science.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Oh, god, my eyes! Could you maybe use a different font color?After having checked several internet sites about real world mytholgy I would have to say, as far as I know gnolls aren't from any earthly mytholgy, but humanoids with animal heads where/are common in many of the worlds mythologies, most well known of these are the minotaur from greek mythology.
I belive, as was mentioned by filby, that the gnoll is a creation of Dave or Gary, If I remember correctly, the gnolls where originally a gnome/troll crossbreed.
However I belive that the term gnoll has become so common in different fantasy games, because, much like the Orc, Goblin and Kobold has come to represent a savage race of evil that is common to use. And besides, it's good with variety.
On a different not, in my campaign setting, gnolls are usually CN rather than CE, only raiding and pillaging when food is scarce.
EDIT: Nevermind, they probably can’t hear me back there in 2004.
jgsugden
Legend
Great. By mocking his font color choice, you scared @Krishnath away retroactive to 2005. Nice job.
Dire Bare
Legend
It's possible things got munched in a forum transfer . . . . .
But yeah, that hurt my eyes too . . . .
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