These original gnoles however have little resemblance to later Gnolls apart from the name. They were aggressive creatures living in desolate forests. They had a fondness for collecting gems, especially emeralds. Once settled, they made the area dangerous for humans, using trees as lookout posts. They were known for capturing and torturing anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. Margaret St. Clair's 1951 story "The Man Who Sold Ropes To Gnoles" describes them as Jerusalem artichokes with tentacles.
Gnolls were first introduced in Original Dungeons & Dragons in 1973, inspired by Dunsany's Gnoles. Here they are described as a cross between a gnome and a troll (thus the name Gnoll) making the early Gnoll both Our Gnomes Are Weirder and All Trolls Are Different. What a half-Gnome half-Troll creature would look like isn't described, and this early version of the Gnoll seems to have been something of a joke character. It wasn’t until Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in 1977 that they were reimagined into their better-known hyena-man form. In Dungeons & Dragons, Gnolls are described as tribal scavengers who inhabit abandoned locations. They're sadistic slavers and man-eaters who eat other sapient races including other Gnolls, and have a tribal-inspired religion worshiping their creator, the demon Yeenoghu. As new editions of Dungeons & Dragons came, the Gnolls became more evil, now being more an extension of Yeenoghu's evil than a fully sentient race.
Other media, taking inspiration from earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons, take a more nuanced approach. In Pathfinder, Gnolls (renamed to Kholo after the OGL debacle) are still religious, warlike raiders who live short and violent lives, but they put a lot of importance on pack life, never fighting amongst each other. They take slaves mainly because they're lazy. In Warcraft III, Gnolls live in a strength-based society that could be a big player in the world of Azeroth if only they'd stop warring with each other.
A common theme is cannibalism, with Gnolls eating their dead, whether that be because meat is meat or because it's a cultural tradition. Sometimes, they're not hyena people and instead dog people in general (even though hyenas aren't canines).
Examples:
- The first mention of gnolls comes from Lord Dunsany’s Book Of Wonder in 1912 in the form of Gnoles, peculiar and aggressive creatures inhabiting houses deep within desolate woods, distant from human society. They weren't physically described in this story.
- The Discworld features a gnoll in Jingo, a variant of troll that collects trash and has plants growing over it. Since the book's main plot is the Discworld version of Who Shot JFK?, it's also a pun on "grassy knoll".
- This was expanding on the original concept of Gnolls in the Discworld. These early Gnolls in a form of Early-Installment Weirdness, were used as an analogue for Orcs, a Chaotic Evil race living in the mountains with a homicidal hatred for humanity and a yen for inventive torture. Scroll forward by maybe forty Discworld novels to the time of Going Postal, and coachmen who usually have to go heavily armed and escorted through those mountains are professing bafflement as to where all the Gnolls have vanished to. Possibly as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the early Gnolls being retooled. note At the same time, it is noted that the Gnolls have moved in to Ankh-Morpork, where a beaten and bedraggled remnant are taking up the very lowest position on the food chain, scavenging for what they can get, and doing the jobs thought to be so dirty and disgusting that nobody else wants them.
- The Dark Profit Saga: Gnolls are only about three-four feet tall and canine, they're speculated to have been made from gnomes by the God of Evil. Kobolds are a particularly short clan of gnoll. There's also a foxlike clan.
- Margaret St. Clair's short story "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" gave Dunsany's Gnoles a physical description. The gnoles look like "Jerusalem artichokes", have small red eyes faceted like gemstones, no ears and tentacles for arms which they use to wrap up their victims. They kidnap, torture, fatten up (in their cellars), kill and eat human beings.
- Mogworld: Gnolls in the book are large, monstrous creatures that work directly with the Adventurer's Guild as hired muscle. The main character Jim is scared of them and is confused how his traveling companions don't share his view on the matter. Jim mentions that in his childhood, whenever he and his family saw one, they had no choice but climb to the top of a tree and wait for them to finish biting the heads off their horses.
- The Saint of Steel : in the World of the White Rat, gnoles are a recent arrival, with a complicated caste system that determines everything from job to pronoun usage, a notably different way of communicating while speaking human languages, and a occasional annoyance with how humans can't smell.
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Original Dungeons & Dragons. The original version of the game had gnolls as a cross between a gnome and a troll.
- Basic Dungeons & Dragons: From Original D&D, this changed to a creature appearing as a human/hyena hybrid, but still mentions a rumour of them being a combination of a gnome and troll. In The Orcs of Thar, they are subdivided into three subgroups each starting with the Latin name "canis erectus", and given their own personal province.
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition turned the gnolls from a gnome-troll hybrid into hyena-men that worship a demon lord.
- Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition makes gnolls into demonspawn produced when hyenas eat corpses corrupted by demons. They no longer have any redeeming qualities.
- Pathfinder gnolls diverged significantly from the D&D source material, the writers of The Mwangi Expanse sourcebook introducing them as a playable ancestry with four heritages influenced by African folklore and the different hyena species, along with dropping the typical Always Chaotic Evil treatment. Also changing the name to "Kholo" after the OGL debacle.
- Gnolls in Dungeon Crawl are doglike humanoids whose distinguishing feature is being an extreme Jack of All Stats: they develop all skills equally and are literally unable to specialize. They exist as both an enemy and a playable race.
- EverQuest: Gnolls are a common canine-like creature found in various parts of Norrath. Notable clans include the Sabertooth Clan of Blackburrow in Qeynos Hills, the Splitpaw Clan in South Karana, and the Icepaw Gnolls in the Icy Fingers of Velious. Everyone who has ever set foot inside North Qeynos is well familiar with Fippy Darkpaw always foolishly trying to storm the gates, only to be immediately slain by the guards.
- EverQuest II: Gnolls are a common enemy found throughout Norrath. The Sabertooth clan of Blackburrow in Antonica has many smaller packs such as the Dankfur, Cavemaw, Timberclaws, and Darkpaws. The Underpaw Clan have taken over the Splitpaw Clan within their own lair in Thundering Steppes. The Anaz Mal and Blackfang are tribes that live in the Sinking Sands. The Icepaw gnolls live not far from the Tower of Frozen Shadow in the Great Divide. The Quaketail gnolls joined together with other underground races created by Brell Serilis to sack the Dwarven city of Kaladim, and have lived there ever since.
- Final Fantasy
- In Final Fantasy XI Gnoles are wolf men who get stronger at night.
- In Final Fantasy XIV, the gnolls of Lakeland were once elves unsatisfied with merely ruling over Lakeland when they once had all of Norvandt as their domain. They willingly allowed the Shadowkeeper to transform them into feral, werewolf-like creatures in service to her to take back what they thought was rightfully theirs. The gnolls continue to prowl Lakeland even a century after the Shadowkeeper's defeat, attacking any passerby who stumbles across their territory.
- Heroes of Might and Magic
- Heroes of Might and Magic III features hyena-like Gnolls and Gnoll Marauders in the Fortress faction.
- Might and Magic: Heroes VII features hyena-like Gnolls and Gnoll Hunters in the Stronghold faction.
- Vindictus has gnolls as the very first enemies that a new adventurer encounters in the Perilous Ruins. They are led by the powerful Gnoll Chieftain, who wields a ginormous hammer.
- Warcraft III features gnolls as a neutral hostile race of mace-wielding hyena-men, described as having the potential to become a powerful force if they'd stop squabbling all the time.
- In the D&D-based webcomic By the Book Savannah Gnolls are based on hyenas, most visible in the form of Yeshka, the gun nut and tracker. Though, Mountain Gnolls are more like wolves, three of whom, who have significant magic and muscle both, are major villains to one of the groups.
