Yeenoghu Entry = AWESOME.

I liked it...but it is missing something...possibly it is the name dropping (people & places) in previous DoI articles....or maybe the detail...

also I am having a psionics issue with Demons in 4e...i.e. I can't get past the elemental part...I know it isn't that much different from how they formed in the past...but the elemental part sticks images of rocks and water and air into my head....

not a gnoll...or a minotaur...or even a skeleton for Orcus.
 

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I'd answer this question myself, except I haven't been able to read the article in question. I haven't been paying much attention to the online Dragon/Dungeon because the updates have been extremely sporadic/late and the substance usually hasn't perked my interest enough to wrangle with Gleemax.

However... I really like Rob Schwalb's work, and it's a fiend article, so I'm willing to cover my ears and my head and take a peek to see if there's anything I can either shanghai or take inspiration from.

And I would look myself as I said, but Gleemax won't let me view anything. Keeps saying I need to log in -and of course it lists me as logged in already- and when I try to do just that, it has an unspecified error.

So to those of you who have read it, how much of the flavor text is at odds with Yeenoghu's history and flavor from 1e/2e/3e? Does the article present his Abyssal layer as the same layer detailed in the Fiendish Codex I 3e (complete with the rotting, whispering carcass of the obyrith lord Bechard)? Or is it too filled with the default 4e assumed setting tropes to be used at ease with anything besides the 4e cosmology?
 

Shem,

I'll take a closer look later tonight, but the 4eisms I spotted with my 2e Monstrous Myth and On Hallowed Ground supplements were basically limited to his origin story.

In the document, you have Yeenoghu as an agent of the primordials who slew Gorellik and usurped his people. This isn't a WHOLE lot different then him slowly siphoning off his people in 2e, though they've dropped that whole "Giantish Gods" angle entirely (thankfully). It also mentioned that gnolls were the reason the "core setting" human empire fell, complete with a nice little tale about a human king who went against Yeenoghu only to be drawn into the Abyss with him in the end.

The realm seems to be the same basic set up, though it doesn't go into a whole lot of detail. It mentions 3 cities, his mobile opression palace, the desert, the woods, the mountains, the savannah, the sea...it is, like I said, scant on details. No specific mention of any obyrith or anything, but there still seems to be room for it.

Since I'm using it for a PS game, I think it works fine; if you wanted to ignore the 4e assumptions, its easy to do, and if you wanted the obyrith to be there, it seems like it could easily be. Its obviously 4thified, but not awkwardly so.
 

Kamikaze Midget said:
Seriously. They give me, here, all that I need to run a pretty awesome series of adventures starring everyone's favorite flind.

Cool artwork, good critters, lots of substantial NPC's....

And with the racial rules in the MM for the gnoll, I'm going to have a fun time with the various factions and deceptions therein.

Very cool. I hope the rest of the entries keep pace. :)
Let me disagree on a lot of things:

Artwork - While the final piece by Brian Hagan was awesome, the other pieces by Jason Engle fell awfully short of the mark. The artwork lacked weight (specially the opening piece, which was supposed to be the big bad himself). The article hsould've used the Brian Hagan piece (the "cover" for this issue) as the opening piece, and used Engle's piece smewhere within the text.

Stat errors - Yeenoghu lists an ability in his Bloodied entry, but its nowhere to be found in his stat block. His Aspect has a similarly-named ability, though.

Unnatural flow of text - The article should read in a way where one topic leads to the next, so you'd get Yeenoghu's backstory, his stats, his layer and the crocotta. Then we'd get his top underlings (overlings? :D ), the albino gnoll and the Aspect, and finally we'd get the female gnoll leader. We'd then close the article with Yeenoggu's history in D&D. This way you go from Epic all the way down to late Heroic.

Bad layout - That black bar on top of the pages is a real printer-killer! And the picture of the albino gnoll is nowhere near the exarch's entry (not even on a facing page).
 

Spenser said:
I like the 4e gnolls mechanically, as occasional adversaries. But the excerpt implies that Yeenoghu wants his gnolls to take over the entire world.
Which may just be a pipe dream. ;)

E) Though they do flip out and kill people, gnolls are *not* mammals...

F) When a gnoll kills you and eats your heart, it might gain some small fraction of your powers and knowledge. It also grows an inch or two.
While the "aliens" take is nice, I prefer this:

A "gnoll" is just a hyena that has consumed a mortal's soul. Once it has feasted on the very essence of humanity (or demi-humanity, as it were), their innate cunning is magnified, and they can walk and use tools like man. They are only a step above beasts, though.

This is why you will have gnolls that raid and take captives; they drag them back to their camps so the hyena can eat their souls, repopulating the gnoll band.

I) Gnolls are bio-mechanical masters. They are experts at performing limb grafts, creating war machines out of body parts, etc. Manticores and other "head of X, body of Y, tail of Z" type monsters were created long ago by powerful gnoll mystics.
Now that is frickin' cool.

Personally, I think giving Gnolls some serious Demonic/Undead overtones is nice, given that their big daddy gnoll had the King of Ghouls under his thumb. I can see a split in the Gnoll society "Do you follow demon-warlocks, or necromancers?"

This is partially honed by the fact that ghouls are ravenous cannibals, similar to how gnolls act in life. In fact you might say that a gnoll that isn't burned to ash is likely to return as a ghoul.
 




Klaus said:
Stat errors - Yeenoghu lists an ability in his Bloodied entry, but its nowhere to be found in his stat block. His Aspect has a similarly-named ability, though.

Just an old man gripe here.

"Yeah, 3rd ed was too hard to design monsters for." (people could use the basic math to check our totals and call us on it.)

"4th ed will be easier to design for." (No master advancement suckers!)

And yet lack of editing and proof reading continues to showcase the "strength" of the monster stat blocks in-house.

Poor WoTC...

Hopefully when that gets named the article will be updated appropriately. It's one of the benefits of electronic files. You know, like how all the 3.5 material was updated with the existing errata? Just like that!
 

Spenser said:
I like the 4e gnolls mechanically, as occasional adversaries. But the excerpt implies that Yeenoghu wants his gnolls to take over the entire world. Is anyone planning on building a campaign around this?

Gnolls are really savage and bestial and all that, but I think that they need more "oomph" to be a empire-shattering threat, and not just the flunkies of someone else. Hobgoblins are scary, mind flayers are scary, the necromancer zombie invasion is scary, but gnolls... eh. They feel kind of like amped up orcs. I feel like they need a little more.

For the campaign I'm designing for 4E gnolls feature extremely prominantly as main antagonists. This article about Yeenogu just cemented their place in my world. You're right, the beasital gnolls do seem lacking on their own, so what I decided to do is combine gnoll and goblin society into one.

Hobgoblins are the warrior class, gnolls are the cultist/clergy with gnolls also being scouts, though normal goblins are probably best for that role. By merging the two societies I have the lawful bent of the hobgoblins pushed by the fanatical kill em all mentality of Yeenogu and his gnolls. So I can have my hobgoblin phalanx ubernazis of evil with demon cultists intent on destroying the nations of the PC races. By merging the two together I gained lore for the goblin's love of worgs and other large canines, and a mortal mirror to my favourite demon the Barghest.

Barghests for those who don't remember are wolf demons that can assume wolf form, goblin form, or a hybrid form. The Barghest exemplifies the immortal union of the two peoples, goblin cunning with gnoll power and savagery. The gnolls being the theocrats have the power and rule in the sense that they direct what must be done. The hobgoblins deal with the mechanics, all for the glory of their baron of butchery.

As a nice side effect by merging the societies I have origin stories for Barghests, bugbears and flinds. Flinds and bugbears are bred, mixings of hobgoblin and gnoll blood. So everything fits in a nice little package.

Lets me create a different flavour to the 'savage' races other than orcs smash, hobgoblins also smash, gnolls smash and bite, etc. The gnolls and goblins are the machine of destruction, the Orcs are warmongerers that battle everyone in the world for sport then let them rebuild only to crush them again (like big game hunting almost. Kinda like Vikings). Gives me a nice flavour to each of my races while linking them to things I personally enjoy tremendously (Barghests).
 

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