Chieftess Venomclaw of the Wicked Song:Healthy Adult Alpha Female Gnoll
Gnolls are savage scavengers and predators well adapted to the low light conditions of the darklands. Gnolls have higher than average endurance and agility for humanoids their size, and are impervious to most diseases and infections. Even supernatural curses and conditions are less likely to take when they target a gnoll.
As a young alpha female, you stand about 5'10, and likely have another 5-6 inches to grow. Your retractable claws can rend even the toughest skins and leathers, and your powerful jaw muscles can crunch through thin layers of metal (although doing so would likely break your teeth). Male gnolls you invite to join your pack will quickly come to see you as sister, friend, living goddess, and perfectly hideous sex symbol. You are presently uninterested in reproduction, and as an alpha female, can only be driven into heat by the extended presence of a gnollish girlchild.
Your fur is naturally soft and bright grey, but like most gnolls it is presently a matted reddish-brown due to your habit of rolling around in mud and gore and your aversion to bathing. Like most of your kind you suffer from a lack of modesty and an excess of fur that allows you to generally conduct your business naked, but as the leader of a pack, you might wear jewelry, piercings, or a small amount of clothing to flaunt your status.
Skills:
-Master arachnid trainer
-Great speaker of Gnollish (The native language of the gnolls. A Beast language with some Goblin influence)
-Accomplished rider
-Accomplished horn player
-Talented speaker of Savage Undercommon (The native language of the Kobolds, heavily influenced by Draconian and the Beast Languages)
-Talented polearm user
-Talented fish/amphibian trainer
-Skilled tracker
-Skilled reptile trainer
-Competent mammal trainer
-Novice speaker of Civilized Undercommon (A derivation of the goblin language used as a common tongue by the mighty underground kingdoms)
-Not speaker of Elfish (Surface Language spoken by elves and fey beings. Drow of the noble and merchant classes tend to learn this as a second language, and most reputable wizards of any race can read and write in it)
-Not speaker of Druidic (Universal Language tied to and required by the magic of druidism. Also spoken by learned practitioners of other magics, and taught as a second language in some tribes of fey or savage people)
Inventory:
Silver tipped wood pike
Copper warhorn
Spider Silk Toga [Dyed Black]
Elf leather loincloth
Silk Anklet [Studded with Troll Knucklebones and Copper]
Map and Deed to Blackpool Shaft
Coinpurse
-4.75 Opal Chips (A flat cross-section of opal roughly 1 inch by 3 inches. Used as currency by gnolls and kobolds)
-100 Assorted Silver (Most civilized peoples trade in fairly standardized silver coins. Your current supply is a mix, mostly of goblin and dwarven currency.
Most merechants treat all silver equally, but government agencies, and busniess that contract with them, may require a specific local silver coin.)
-Small Chitin Key to Blackpool Shaft
-Invoice declaring the Camp Decay Stables as indebted 60 silver to the holder
Pets and Allies:
-Slowdeath the Titanic Mule Scorpion (A lethal arachnid the size of a large horse. Amphibious. Highly intelligent. Trained as a mount and personal pet. Facial Scars, Missing a Mouth Part.)
-Sir and Lady Carrion, the Frogsharks (Cow sized hybrid monsters with the body of a bullfrog and the jaws and face of a shark. Amphibious. Trained to fight on their own, or as a mount for a small male gnoll)
-x3 Kitten Sized Spiderlings (What could they grow into?)
-Writhewomb the Adolescent Sphinx (Horse sized lion with female humanoid head, torso, and arms. Naturally skilled in unarmed combat, and understands the basics of druidism.)
-Sir Dugweed, Sir Crawlskull, and Lady Mawslab Adolescent Shaggy Trolls (Average sized humanoids with great strength, lethal claws, and an impressive healing factor. Dumb as rocks, but can be trained to use weapons and simple speech. One is female, two are male.)
-x4 Sir Shank, Lady Shank, Sir Flank, and Lady Flank the Saurian Kangaroos (Bipedal reptiles with reasonably scary teeth and claws, and a deadly kick. Strong and well balanced enough to serve as mounts for all but the largest in your pack. Two are male, two are female.)
-Sir Knuckle, Lady Knuckle, Sir Liver, and Lady Liver the Dartsharks (Half-sized frogsharks with bright colored and poisonous skin.)
-Zit the Gnollish Druid (Your Alpha Male. A perfectly hideous physical specimen who claims to practice Kobold magic)
-Gorgtooth the Gnollish Goon (Your Gift Brother. The largest and heaviest gnoll in the pack. Fights along his three pet ants in full steel gear)
-Echo the Halfbreed Hunter (A sweet young lady with silent flight and amazing powers of perception)
-Cra-Crawler the Mystic (A strange beta-female even younger than you. Owns a frightening pet that she claims tells her the future)
-Glowshine the Pusher (A beta female with the skill set to make, market, and sell drugs. Scrawny, but owns a mean steel axe)
-'Cucumber' the Assling Good for Nothing (Body of a donkey, head and torso of a halfling, self proclaimed manhood of a Clydesdale. Can speak most subterranian languages, as well as surface common.)
-15 Assorted Gnollish Males (They vary in size and build between 'Smallish Halfling' and 'Well Built Dwarf'. Armed with Rock, Wood, and Bone weapons. Most possess basic combat and survival skills)
-Bone-Saw-Saw (Concussed)
-Bloodcoat (Gimpy leg)
-6 Members of 'Mandible Squadron' (Goblins and Gnollblins under Gorgtooth's command. The wield bronze swords, leather slings, leather armor, bronze helmets, and bronze chain shirts.)
You and Glowshine spend the better part of thirty minutes trying to convince Iago to allow the pack to keep the druid for awhile longer, but the goblin refuses to budge. The law requires that captive casters be held at the proper facilities while inside the city walls, and he is personally not comfortable with keeping it on his property outside of town. He does offer to hold the elf at Silentkiss' lab without purchasing it, in anticipation of his mistress helping you preform an interrogation when she returns. Obviously the cash advance will be withheld until you commit to selling, however.
Once you have dealt with the druid situation, you tell Iago that you would like to stay at the manor of House Brontosaur. The Goblin gives an understanding nod, and leaves you and present members of your pack alone in the meeting room while he goes to make the arrangements. While you wait, you ask Glowshine about the price of gold in Dwarven Territory, and the beta female tells you that a gold coin can usually purchase two and a half to three silver. You then turn your focus towards the issue of settling down, and inform the others that you would prefer to set up shot in Blackpool Shaft. Glowshine suggests either hiring or purchasing at least a mason to help install a brick oven, and a midwife/healer to help deal with the rough pregnancies before leaving.
Next you turn your attention to the route that the pack would travel to reach its new home, and to your dismay, if you wish to complete the journey before your females reach the final crippling month of pregnancy there is no avoiding a trip into the likely chaotic Mandible Tunnels, which runs roughly parallel to the dwarven frontier and contains entrances to several small connecting tunnels, most of which are guarded by one or more Gnoll Packs that you would have to negotiate with. The quickest possible route would see you cut through the brutally dry Redstalks to return to the Crosses, hike through Kobold country until you reach The Mandible Tunnels, and cross into the dwarven frontier at Mastiff Nest, (assuming whomever controls your old den allows your pack passage). The safest route would be to head down Saurian Pass until it intersects the Mandible Tunnels at a point you suspect will be below the main areas of conflict, and from there hike up and cross into Dwarf Country at Rusty Screw Village, picking up your other gift brother along the way. The fast route would take the pack about three weeks to complete assuming no complications, while the safe route would take five weeks if the Gremlins at Rusty Screw Village can provide a tram-ride, and seven weeks otherwise.
As you worry about this, Echo pipes in with a suggestion of her own. Assuming you agree to sell the Druid, you could likely hire somebody to either smuggle or escort the pack through the heart of dwarf territory using the stout people's roads or rails. This service would obviously not come cheap, and you would be putting the life of your pack in the hands of whoever you hire, but you might be able to make the journey in as little as a week.
...
Eventually Iago returns with an escort of armed goblins lead by a banner depicting what Gnolls and Kobolds call a Saurian Titan, which you are pretty sure is called a Brontosaur in most civilized languages. You are lead once more through the city, and after ten minutes arrive at the 'manor' which appears to be a bunch of separate buildings stacked neatly on top of one another in a vaugely pyramidesque fashion. Glowshine explains that the bottom layer houses common soldiers and slaves, the second floor is home to low ranking goblins who have earned the right to bear the family name, and everything above that contains the various courts and quarters of important family members and their. Goblins are an all male race and few even possess the drive to reproduce, so Glowshine explains that the important Goblin families repopulate through adoption and promotion - almost everybody who lives in an upper layer will have been directly recruited from the floor below.
The escort leads you to the second-highest layer of the manor, and into a delightfully foul smelling hall made from brimstone blocks. Sitting on a gem-studded and silver coated throne is a nasty looking bugbear, a particularly aggressive and large goblin created specificly to hold leadership roles. This particular specimen is covered heart-meltingly ugly warts and welts, and possess a seductively unsightly engorged tooth on his lower jaw that juts out over his upper lip. He introduces himself as Lord Hyena Brontosaur in perfect gnollish, and explains that the seeders made him using the best bits of many mighty gnolls, which is why House Brontosaur has chosen him to to rule the Mandible Tunnels from Mastiff Nest.
He serves you and your underlings a raw raptor carcass, several days old. Rotten carrion is a rare treat for pack-dwelling gnolls, as somebody will inevitably eat anything killed before it has time to properly ripen. Your host has a few small bites to show that he is willing to eat what most goblins consider disgusting, before backing off; A goblin's metabolism is partially supernatural, and as such they rarely eat or drink. While you and the rest of the gnolls gorge yourselves on and roll around in the corpse, Lord Hyena makes conversation by asking about your former and his future home. He seems quite knowledgeable about the affairs of Mandible Tunnels, as well as the nuances of gnollish culture. By the end of dinner, your host has charmed you to the point where you allow yourself to sit on his lap to receive grooming, and don't protest when he instructs his servants to show the others to their rooms. Once you are alone he gets down to business.
"I think it is quite clear that our fortunes rise and fall together, no? We need to trust each other. I'd like to propose a little arrangement to ensure our working relationship is more than just mercenary."He pulls your toga up and runs a gold plated comb down your back, evenly spreading dino-gore about your fur.
"I would like your blessing to have your current Alpha Male seized and brought to a seeder for processing. He is a druid, correct? The goblins we make from him could one day serve as the on-site seeders at Mastiff Nest, and would be allowed to hold the Brontosaur name. This would assure that your pack is forever connected to both your ancestral home and my ancient family."He grins, snaps his fingers, and three impressive looking gnolls enter the room.
"Of course, I would not ask such a hefty sacrifice without offering something in return. I've been collecting and training the most valuable gnolls on the local slave market for years now, to use as bargaining chips or weapons against the packs I would need to subdue in order to rule the Mandible Tunnels. Give me your druid, and I will give you one of my three most impressive males to replace him as your alpha."Hyena then runs down the lineup for you.
The oddly named Jackson wears grey wizard's robes on his medium-sized gnollish body. Your host explains that Jackson was born a human with natural talent for the blackest wizardry, and when the end of his lifespan neared, he swapped bodies with a male gnoll so as to obtain superior gnollish magic resistance by preforming a ritual that drained his vast human fortune. What Jackson wasn't prepared to gain from the switch, however, was gnollish instincts and reproductive. Unwilling to live without a sex-drive or brave the darklands in search of a proper pack, Jackson wound up offering himself to Hyena as a slave on the condition he be given access to the enslaved alpha females the bugbear keeps on his mining claim a day outside of town.
Next is Diamondloins, a lanky gnoll about your age and height who happens to be one of the most desirable possible members of a Gnollish Pack: A hermaphrodite. Gnolls with both sets of equipment are valued as peacekeepers for their ability to serve as a satisfactory mate to any or every member of their pack. Hyena explains that Diamondloins is especially blessed, as they were nursed at an alpha's teat until adulthood, and as such produces powerful Alpha Gnoll milk and the hormones required to draw in males to a pack. To make things better still, Diamondloins requires no girlchild to go into heat, as its male physiology reacts to its own alpha female pheromones, keeping it fertile at all times. This same interplay makes it submissive to other alpha females, but other males submissive to it. Diamondloins is trained to use a crossbow, survive in the wilderness, and lead gnolls, a skillet that would allow you to take much of the danger out of splitting up the pack.
Last is a monstrous thirteen foot tall male, the sort that likely nursed in captivity off several alphas for several decades, clad in full steel plate and wielding a massive lance. You can't help but zone out, dreaming of the glorious pain and mutilation you could endure by mating with a gnoll that large, and wind up missing most of Hyena's speech about him. What you do catch is that his name is simply 'Titan' and that he is some sort of dinosaur riding paladin.
Although you are sure the pack would quickly get over losing Zit, you can think of at least a couple good reasons to keep him. You would have to find a new purpose for Writhewomb, or a new teacher, if you were to accept Hyena's bargin. Druidic Magic is easier to cast and less risky than Jackson's wizardry, which while likely more flexible, may require expensive spell components. Lastly, none of the Gnolls presented to you can quite match your current Alpha in terms of raw endearing ugliness.
"You can take your time and consider the offer my dear. If you'd like to give your current mate a proper sendoff, I can send for a girlchild from the mines. I'm also game to hear any counter proposals you might have. Sleep on it. Either way, tomorrow I'd like to give you a ride in my carriage up to the market and buy you some common males to expand your pack, and then the arms market. I doubt I can afford to put your entire pack in bronze the way prices stand now, but I should at least be able to supply leather armor and some sort of metal weaponry for everyone."
Author
Topic: (SG) Gnoll Chieftess (Read 12118 times)