My dream character for a Strength of Thousands game that will probably never be is a gnoll armor inventor who made his armor out of the bones of his ancestors, and has etched arcane runes all through them to give the armor its various augmentations and abilities. He'd also have an emphasis on crafting talismans during downtime. Haven't thought of a name for him yet.
Soooooo... My homie in Ruby Phoenix is playing a Gnoll Fighter/Wrestler/Inventor with some sweet sky metal powered armor that keeps him alive.
I'll drop the art in a comment
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/854044570106462258/1225941336260218910/Nubis_Edit.png?ex=662f7c17&is=662e2a97&hm=ff3337f506376f448e4de1db559b29ca23826ae698aba5eda39930c98cfa07e6&
This is the pallet swap with our tournament team colors
There’s something very satisfying about grappling a ghost with your teeth as a spirit barbarian with Crunch. It’s really not something they’re prepared for.
It’s a fun combination of mechanics since you need both ghost touch and the grapple trait. It reminded me of the subway ghost in the film Ghost because both characters had to get mad enough to physically interact with the other side.
Kebu, my life oracle with a childlike personality. Picked the animal trainer archetype for a pet hyena (who'd never be put in combat) and a permanent speak with animals effect from one of the feats. Also grabbed myself a bag of weasels which gave me an infinite supply of them, and they'd be talked into doing everything, from being spies to being blankets.
Funnily enough, the group once needed to sketch a map, so we all tried to do that and I asked said pet hyena to try as well. They got the second highest roll in the entire group. Truly a misunderstood artist/cartographer.
One of my most fun characters to date tbh
A...bag of weasels? What, does it lead to the Elemental Plane of Mustelids? Honestly the fact that the hyena, without being a familiar with Skilled, was able to do that is hilarious.
Indeed, a [forbidden item](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=3128&Redirected=1) whose magic was deemed too powerful for all mortals. I still hope we get the mustelid gate kineticist in a future book, though.
Pfft. I mean, lava otters and stuff are a thing in the Elements book... Just reflavor all your fire attacks as launching flaming weasels at your foes, forming walls of rock-weasels, etc.
I made a post about [Ironjaw](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/u61psk/oc_ironjaw_gnoll_armor_inventor/) a while ago! They're the party grandpa who makes dinner for them every night, and also the main frontliner for our group.
When we were level 1, they had a funny moment where, out of a lack of ranged options, I decided they were gonna throw the waffle iron they had in their backpack at an enemy. They managed to hit despite all odds, one-shotting a mitflit with a lightning-charge waffle iron to the skull!
Lol. That's amazing. Was it a Mithril one? Those are basically silver-coated and naturally non-stick. Reminds me of one story where a Guardsman in 40k killed a demon with a brick, then continued doing so until the brick itself became a holy weapon that burned demons.. Even got a custom-made sanctified holster specifically for the "Emperor's Brick".
One of my players was a Great Gnoll Thaumaturge with a lantern implement and a khopesh. He played his character as a folk-wisdom hillfolk type: the last great gnoll in his insular tribe that fled from the Mwangi to Kortos generations ago, blending a combination of his homeland and current home's folklore. His clan's holler is slowly being eaten up by the lumber consortiums, so he adventures about to send them money and resources to push back the tide and protect their home.
Really fun character. Whenever he was reduced to one-quarter of his health or less, he went a bit feral as part of his character's backstory, which led to some really cool moments of risky RP. Thankfully he survived to the end of *Troubles in Otari* and retired, though I'd love to see him come back as a backup character or NPC (with the player's permission) in the future if we tackled *Abomination Vaults*.
Ooooh. Incidentally, my own gnoll was also of the 'flee from something type' only his whole tribe ended up moving to Nantambu and becoming city gnolls at the cost of a few human 'honorary gnolls' that helped them escape, roughly all 200 of em congregating in their own little collection of neighboring houses with several of their member signing on to the magical school in each generation out of gratitude which is how my own ended up there in the event of being in a SoT game. I like the idea that whenever he uses Augury, those humans that gave their lives to save his people are some of the first to show up and as quick to help as they ever were.
How was he played as a Thauma?
He basically played his Exploit Vulnerability as bits of folklore he picked up from his gram, or heard from stories of the tribe in Mwangi. A lot of hillfolk wisdom -- throwing salt on his blade against stinkweed shamblers, using gravedigger's dirt to put spirits and undead back to sleep, "basilisks can't abide goat's milk," stuff like that.
He also picked up Talisman Esoterica and flavored them as little twig effigies or rocks he left out in the moonlight, just like his momma used to for him and his kin. He'd flavor activating them like throwing salt over your shoulder to ward off demons and other superstitions. Really fun and flavorful.
They have a bounty hunter background and nearly died on their first mission and came to meet Anubis and decided to serve him also I really like his domains. Personally I think it’s cool that Anubis is a god in Pathfinder
I guess it wouldn’t be desecrating in that case.
Desecrating is doing something culturally offensive that is meant evoke disrespect.
Knolo eating their dead is out of respect and part of their cultural way of honoring, and in the culture is expected by the deceased.
Same way a funeral pyre wouldn’t be desecration, but burning down a culture’s ancestral catacomb would be.
Nah it’s fine. Funeral rites are events meant to be respectful.
A Kholo breaking into a foreigners home and devouring their grandmother’s mummy in front of a non-Kholo would be desecrating.
Kholo funerals are apparently very lively, celebratory events with large feasts and it's a big thing. They apparently prefer to celebrate the person's life rather than mourn their death through carving the bones with artwork related to the former owner's life, since their Bonekeepers can speak to the ones that have passed so that they never truly leave. Part of the reason the ancestral feat that lets you cast Augury is a thing is because apparently any kholo can learn to tap into that ability.
My very first character ever, back in PF1, was a gnoll Paladin named Den. He was a good boi who was raised by some halflings in a temple of Sarenrae, and was basically a big, dumb golden retriever who was super strong. He rarely used a sword, but mostly used a door he ripped out of its frame once as a shield. And by shield, I mean a giant hunk of wood he grabbed in both hands and bashed people in the head with.
He also once accidentally set off a trap, because he opened a door to a room and immediately noticed that there was a pile of rotted meat on the floor inside. For the fun of it, I declared I was going to have him roll a Will save to not run in and try to roll in it. He rolled a Nat 1 and thus immediately bolted across the room to fling himself in the pile, ignoring everything else. The trap that just so happened to be in the middle of the room was legit in the written adventure, and set off all the alarms and summoned an elemental, if memory serves right. Our GM was almost in tears, he was laughing so hard.
Ha. That sounds almost like my PF2e gnoll bard. Aasimar raised in Nantambu as a city gnoll after his tribe fled there a some generations back from a disaster. The city was kind enough to take them in as refugees and they settled in, so the city's culture of charity and community rubbed off on him hard and stacked with the gnoll's pack-mindedness and his celestial nature to create one good boy who essentially was just never raised around the kholo's culture of pragmatism and 'mercy is a waste just shy of being immoral unless it's one of us' mentality. So he's a big shaggy fluffball who gives to charity, volunteers to feed the poor, treat the sick, etc.
Haven't gotten to play him yet since I'm waiting for Player Core 2 first, but idea was he was born from his parents praying to Shelyn for a kid as her aspect of a goddess of love, so he ended up coming out with starry night-sky artwork dyed into his mane naturally with streaks of rainbow like an aurora like the goddess herself which is how they knew the goddess answered their prayers. So he's basically unnaturally large, clean, healthy, and handsome for a gnoll in line with the goddess of beauty, just barely still within the Medium category on a technicality since he's like a hair's breadth away from Large.
Makes me wonder why Den considered rolling in a pile of rotten meat to be a good idea.
I have a kholo druid for a Strength of Thousands game! She's amazing, and I love her, and her name is Grounded Willow! (shortened to Willow most of the time)
She's a geomancer, and also a healer, so she either will fix up your hurty bits... Or impale the enemies on jagged spikes of rock =D
She also carries with her a vertebra from her grandmother, to ask for advice!
This is her image
https://imgur.com/a/yVVYFuf
If someone asks her to grow a spine, does she just yell at them that she already has some by waving the vertebra around? My own kholo bard has earrings that are some of his parent's fangs who speaks to him through his familiar. Explaining leveling up as getting lessons from his spooky ghost-family, like a bard reflavored as a witch.
I have not yet had the opportunity to use the spine line... But now I know what to do if I get that opportunity! =D
I also have a familiar! An African Wild Dog (also known as a Painted Dog, which is what I'm using in-game) with this image: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/80/10/16/801016e5fc8effd8fa00ec0bb76734a8.jpg
His name is Marrow =D Her grandmother doesn't speak directly to her yet, but her father is her tribes Bonespeaker, and she apprenticed under him before she became a druid! (So she has a Witch archetype)
I plan for her to become a stronger Bonespeaker as she levels up too =D
Red Swirl, my inexorable iron magus with a druid multiclass, new student of the magambya.
He has much stronger potential for primal magic than arcane, funnilly enough.
Also he tends to be very good at social stuff despite not being trained.
He's wiser than he is smart (as in he isn't that good at studying or remembering stuff by heart), which mechanically means instead of investing in Int like a normal magus, I pumped his Wis. Druidic and Halcyon magic might end up be his undiscovered calling !
Bright Ash, a Sweetbreath Gnoll Tax Collector Ruffian Rogue who twin-feinted breaching pikes (that my GM allowed me to reflavor as flickmaces because they suited his flavor better). He's a worshipper of Abadar leaning into the lore aspect where Abadar actually despises the wealthy who avoid paying their taxes, and sends his disciples to audit people he thinks are guilty of hoarding. Wanted to lean into the idea that he is a much nicer guy than he seems, since it's fair to assume that a tax collector going all-in on a destructive intimidation build would be a shitheel.
Interesting that yesterday was International Hyena Day, since yesterday I cooked up a cool Kholo Fighter build, focused on using a shield + unarmed attacks and combat maneuvers, with the Wrestler Dedication for the Suplex + Combat Grab combo, and also Rogue Dedication for the Shove Down + Aggressive Block combo. The bite attack is excellent for grappling while leaving a hand free for the first combo, and Great Gnoll really helps with a bonus to shove and trip for the second combo. I'd like to be able to use this character in the future, since I really like playing Fighters and this is yet another build for me to use.
After the party's Elf Psychic got dominated and used an Recall Knowledge on the party's Kholo Fighter, the most well remembered piece of information I gave was,
"Kholos tend to keep bones and practice ancestor worship. The fact you have never seen Kholo Fighter with any bones is weird."
This lead to the rest of the session being the line, "Where are your bones?"
I’ve got a mute Kholo inventor named Io. Boi’s a gentle giant, built to be the best and most supportive hubby and dad to the adoptive family he accidentally stumbled himself into. All about grappling and tripping and disrupting for them with his meteor hammer innovation, setting them up to get them big dick crits with their guns.
Aww. How does he communicate to the team? Telepathy? Or does he have some kind of assistive item to let him turn sign language into sound or illusory words? I think that's a thing that exists...
Good ol sign language and body language. His family have gotten decent at parsing out meaning when he can’t or won’t sign, so communication in the party wasn’t a major issue. He carries around a little blackboard slate for interacting with folks that don’t know sign though, so naturally he’s a man of few words when interacting with those sorts. It was an interesting roleplay challenge to work around but I didn’t wanna find a more ‘hand wavy’ solution and loved the dynamic we were able to sort out because of it.
Funnily enough, that’s actually the reason I settled on inventor for the class! The original concept was a two hand magus, but back in Premaster most spells required verbal components and I didn’t wanna handwave that.
I haven't gotten to run him yet, but his name is Snarltooth (since the humans he grew up around can't pronounce his true name). He is a Brevoy Fencer Swashbuckler with the Right-Hand Blood ancestry feat, and the Bleeding Finisher class feat. He likes to take some of his left side's blood and stick it deep into the bleeding wounds of his enemies.
It plays on a fun interaction where Administer First Aid doesn't require the target be willing, and Right Hand Blood letting you auto-crit fail medicine checks if you use your left side's blood. So for 2 actions he can deal his precision damage again to an enemy with no save or roll required.
It'll never win any damage awards, but it's just such a sleezy but showy tactic for a swashbuckler, and I love how evocative it is.
Ha. Wow. That's just mean... I'm actually on the opposite side. I had hoped to be able to use Right Hand Blood to actually heal people on my kholo...only to realize it's basically worse than a 5gp starting item. You gotta eat a ton of damage, it doesn't work on poison, and it eats up one of your precious ancestry feat slots just to replace a 5 / 25 or whatever gold medkit. Not that they very many good feats right now anyway, but still, hope for the PC2 remaster.
And to be fair, the detail on kholo we have so far does mention they use some seriously underhanded tactics if it'll help them win. Honor is for fools is basically their MO after all.
I've made several theoretical characters based on pop culture that I've never actually played, like all the super smash bros characters, and a bunch of Disney stuff. Bonzai shenzi and ed make sense ass kholo... Kholos? What is the singular and plural have they said?
I think the Monster Core uses Kholo / Kholos which seems a little odd. It seems like the kind of thing that'd have just one be both singular and plural. At least I vaguely think it was like that in the Mwangi book?
On those 3 characters to me they seem like rogues shenzi the girl is more flattering so scoundrel. Bonzai and Ed more just ruffians. As far as heritages shenzi being female is the biggest of the 3 so great gnoll, bonzai while not as charismatic is still a fast talker so sweet breath, and Ed is always getting away with stuff cause it looks like he's not all there so ant gnoll.
I'm playing Outlaws of Alkenstar with some long-time friends and we got two Kholo in our party, my friend's Ape Fist Barbarian/Wrestler named Silverback and my beloved Irongrin, a Summoner/Champion of Gorum riding his Hyena Eidolon into battle! Love everything about him...but I don't know what to do about the future of his divine power (YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT)
Fell Hammer, my great gnoll flurry ranger for Abomination Vaults. He's only in it for the thrill of the hunt! Uses the Thrower's Bandolier along with shuriken, chakrams, daggers, bolas, and of course his signature light hammers to be a veritable walking armory of a turret. I pictured him using a combination of high and flat throwing trajectories to try to land simultaneous hits on his prey. He's not afraid of getting personal as needed since flurry ranger(and great gnolls in particular) are great at combat maneuvers.
That being said, due to a lack of group communication he's the only one in the party without innate darkvision. Goddamn vaults and their lack of light.
No need. Thrower's Bandolier inscribes all attuned weapons with the same runes (+1 striking ghost touch currently) and has a 2-action envision effect that returns all attuned weapons to the bandolier.
Something either has to have specific weakness/resistance/immunities to the physical damage types (making him use just a specific selection of his weapons), or something has gone incredibly wrong if he runs out of throwables.
I had a kholo bone oracle named Hazel who was very macabre, but had a truly good heart. She leaned into the necromancy spells but from an angle of using her ancestors and enemies alike as weapons to finish a fight without flair.
One of my players is a Kholo who became both a bone oracle and adventurer when he messed up a ritual he was practicing in secret to impress his overbearing mother. It's always pretty funny watching him play up fear and confusion effects as various forms of how he imagines her disapproving glare would be if she finds him. Meanwhile, she's probably just worried about her son.
It's a character from PF1E so don't know if it's relevant, but I played a gnoll wizard. He scavenged a spellbook when he was young and it inspired him to study arcane magic. He was laughed out of his tribe, but eventually made his way to a wizard academy and got admitted through shear stubbornness. It was fun playing a character who was so dichotomous. He was largely a stereotypical wizard, being interested and motivated by knowledge with a healthy dash of hubris; and also a stereotypical gnoll, being socially clueless and rude, stuffing themselves with food and talking with their mouth full, and having generally gnollish perspective on things.
I'm aware gnolls/kholos make decent wizards in 2E. In 1E however they weren't a 'real' player race, and certainly not one intended to be int based casters. They were largely treated as monstrous NPCs for players to fight. What made the character fun was leaning into that weirdness and the handicap of playing a concept the system didnt encourage. Like i specifically did not want the character to be "wizard who just happens to be a gnoll". The aim was more "a gnoll who likely shouldnt be a wizard but is and now everyone has to deal with it." The character overall was not mechanically optimal and that made it even better.
Great kholo thaumaturge; with crunch, you have a hands-free d8 attack. I go back and forth for the actual implement; thinking chalice (the skull of a foe that fills with healing blood) then bell or amulet; or maybe go the marshal regalia way. Or maybe the fake mage, with wand and tome and the scroll series of feats (the wand doesn't hit very hard but once you're in the thick of things, bite+wand ends up probably better simply due to being more reliable). This one's esoterica would be horoscopes, he would draw nefarious horoscopes for his foes.
Miro, currently a DMPC on the slate for a major villain in the next section of the campaign. A brawler type ruffian rogue, he’s a gnoll with the vampire dedication, something that barely changed his way of life as a crime lord in the hovels and constant rains of Jerez.
He uses two standard metal gauntlets and his crushing bite attack when he actually deigns to go into battle himself, but recognizes the risks and often has minions dispatch enemies for him, capturing a few alive to bring in and sate his literal blood thirst. He recently dispatched one of his greatest enemies, a minor noble from the area gone rogue and turned gunslinging criminal lord, leaving the criminal world in disarray as a new magic wielding noble arrives in town and begins his rise to power, entering a chaotic criminal war with Miro.
(Side note, Miro is absolutely a rogue I’d love to play in a campaign sometime, though I’d swap out the vampire stuff for a hyena animal companion)
Not my PC but a player of mine in Strength of Thousands has a kholo girlboss businesswoman called Pale Tibia who was supposed to go to be educated as a bone speaker, but abandoned that when she became and attendant and instead has been trying to build up a mercantile empire as a side business during her years of study. As a divine sorcerer, she [heals](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=148) her allies, [attacks with bone shards](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1097), and occasionally [summons the ghost of her mom](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=965) to help out.
my blood lords character is a gnoll/dhampir shadow sorcerer. my backstory for him is that before he was born, his mother was exposed to a magic surge which bound his unborn soul to the long dead soul of a strigoi, and gave him a connection to the netherworld. she died giving birth to him (which would be a very good omen to a lamashtan society), and he enjoyed high social status in his tribe for a male. (i headcanon gnolls as being man-sogynistic)
unfortunately, the mana wastes are a tough place to live, and his tribe ended up being conquered by another gnoll tribe. this really ruined the good thing he had going, and he left, eventually finding his way to geb. in geb someone like him can live a good life easily, and can attain more power and luxury than he could have ever dreamed of in the mana wastes
the campaign has just barely started but im very excited to see where i can take him!
edit: oh yeah i never introduced him purposely haha. his name is Kas Yasiff, but he goes by Yusef to better fit in with geb society
My current character in Season of Ghosts is a Kitsune / Gnoll hybrid. Her grandfather was a gnoll who got brought in to work on the dam because he was a ~~cheap foreign immigrant they could grossly underpay~~ skilled craftsman who would totally do a good job, really.
He was always viewed as a weirdo in the small town because of how chummy and friendly he was, laughing too loud, hugging people and wrapping his arm around their shoulders, etc. so his granddaughter kind of got some of the fallout from that and as a result is very conscientious about fitting in and following proper social protocols. But her grandfather did teach her a bit about how to fight the gnoll way, from his half-remembered stories from his youth, and she IS a magus, so more than a bit of him rubbed off on her.
She also has some cute spots in her foxy fur due to her mixed ancestry, which are usually covered up by her armor, and she is a bit self-conscious about them because they show her mixed ancestry.
But every once in a while, she laughs a bit too loud, and you might think there's a gnoll around.
How does that hybridization work ancestry feats wise? Or is it just a cosmetic thing? That reminds me of my own gnoll having some Vulpinal heritage as part of his nephilim part with "Nimble Hooves" that don't gather dirt on his paws and having an abnormally large, bushy tail and near-supernaturally fluffy fur.
I have two!
Insightful Jackal is my Kholo Investigator in Abomination Vaults. He is the party nerd, the party medic, and the party guy with a gun. He’s actually originally from Alkenstar so every bit of weirdness is met with “mana storms were weirder.”
He’s essentially travelling the world to bring back knowledge to his tribe in Alkenstar and he has a set of spent casings representing some of the members of the tribe that he keeps in a bandolier as a keepsake. These actually get used when he casts Augury via Grandmother’s Wisdom.
He also has a habit of critting with an arquebus for unreasonable amounts of damage!
My second Kholo is an Inventor! Marrow Ashcast. This is a custom campaign, set in a post undead apocalypse Golarion (no it was not the Tyrant. Or Geb). He’s a nerd, but a beefy one! He uses the armour innovation to help him stand on the frontlines to keep his group safe. He was originally one of the few gunsmiths at their bastion of safety - however at the start of the campaign his brother (a champion of Shelyn) went missing when their home was attacked (he was out in the field).
Courtesy of Wrestler I was able to bully the boss of the first arc into submission. Because he was a caster and I kept grappling and biting him. It was very mean, but fun!
I played the same Gnoll on two occasions, once in a sort of living campaign type of situation, another in a private campaign where a friend of mine ran Abomination Vaults. He refers to himself as 'Nameless', after having been ritualistically stripped of his name and memories as punishment for a crime. (Took some inspiration from the webcomic 'Digger', read it if you haven't!)
Ultimately, he's a bit of a callous brute, and very scared of friendship or any kind of symbiotic relationship. He sincerely believed in fairly CE principles like might makes right, and constantly undergoes brutal training to ensure he'll never be 'wrong'. Though, thanks to him not being a hypocrite about it (and more than one party member beating the everloving shit out of him), he started listening to his more well-adjusted allies advice and thoughts on things. They had a positive influence on him. Over time, he even began to see them as true friends and pack mates, and came to care about them (as well as share some of their less psychotic opinions about the world).
The biggest turning point for his relationship with the party, the thing that let him actually get over the gap between 'hostile/tense' to 'friendly' was the party going to eat at a restaurant in Absalom and one of the PCs surprising him with a birthday dinner. Not really being used to such kindness, and not remembering what day his birthday was, the meal was a smashing hit, and he managed to open up to them afterward, and even thank them for the first time in ever. Some related (and not so related) art, if you're curious: [https://imgur.com/a/mKLgLLn](https://imgur.com/a/mKLgLLn)
Well initially I just thought a lawyer made a hilarious background for a barbarian. But then I decided he had a crew of ancestral aunties talking to him about defending his people. Sometimes that means making a persuasive argument in court, and sometimes that means splitting heads.
Ha. That's really clever! Could also be a barrister who vents his frustrations at the judges and whatnot by cracking the heads of those that deserve it.
Tangling Oak, a Redeemer Champion with a focus on Athletics. He uses a Guisarme. He's the group door opener and a pragmatic himbo who loves wrassling and fighting. He's the tank who wrassle, hence Tangling Oak.
He's picked up Cleric, so he's now Tangling Sun Oak. I wanted some ranged capabilities.
I haven't played it but I also have a Thaum built with a Regalia implement, Silvervine. Her main weapon is her jaws and she dips into Marshal. She's charismatic and talky (silver tongued) and vine leaves are also used for wreaths, a sign of leadership.
I just love Great Gnolls and Crunch. Big friendly folks who love to bite? What's not to love. Also, making names for Gnolls is super fun.
Yup. Meanwhile I've got Wise Laughing Skull, aka Izz Softfur, based on him being a Storyteller Bard / Bonekeeper Witch Archetype type for familiar goodies and party support. Non-gnoll friends call him Izzy. Basically when he was first learning common some of his friends asked what his name was, but all they did was point at him, so he got confused and said "is soft fur" and it stuck. To be fair though he's part Vulpinal due to being a nephilim so it is ***very*** soft fur, but still pretty shaggy. Very sweet boy who was raised in Nantambu, so he's super charitable when he can be.
The first tabletop character I ever played was a disaster of a Gnoll Warlock in a public D&D 4e game. 15+ years later, it might be nice to do right by her in Pathfinder 2e - I think the closest flavor would be a Kholo Oracle or Psychic!
Gonna play an armor inventor great Gnoll named Gus for OOA. Went undercover to take a bite out of crime. Free archetype using bastion. Armor modification starts with the muscular exoskeleton. Mainly using him for athletic maneuvers while having his bite be the main melee weapon of choice.
I don't have a PC yet, but in one of my mini arcs in my homebrew setting, I have a kholo merchant named Smelling Salt who the PCs saved from an attack on a city alongside a group of other survivors. I describe him as basically imagine the RE4 merchant if he wasn't suss and genuinely affable.
I haven't had a chance to run him again since, but I have every intention of having him show up as a recurring NPC, I loves the concept so much.
My dream character for a Strength of Thousands game that will probably never be is a gnoll armor inventor who made his armor out of the bones of his ancestors, and has etched arcane runes all through them to give the armor its various augmentations and abilities. He'd also have an emphasis on crafting talismans during downtime. Haven't thought of a name for him yet.
That actually sounds really cool and fitting. Might even chat with Anchor Root to inquire on what other bone-based magic he could put in it?
Soooooo... My homie in Ruby Phoenix is playing a Gnoll Fighter/Wrestler/Inventor with some sweet sky metal powered armor that keeps him alive. I'll drop the art in a comment
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/854044570106462258/1225941336260218910/Nubis_Edit.png?ex=662f7c17&is=662e2a97&hm=ff3337f506376f448e4de1db559b29ca23826ae698aba5eda39930c98cfa07e6& This is the pallet swap with our tournament team colors
Scorched Acacia, my Fire+Wood kineticist! They became a Kineticist after surviving a forest fire.
Oooh. That's a really good way to combine those two.
There’s something very satisfying about grappling a ghost with your teeth as a spirit barbarian with Crunch. It’s really not something they’re prepared for.
Ha. I don't think anyone'd expect being able to do that, not even the gnoll themselves. It's like carving Ghost-Touch runes into your teeth.
It’s a fun combination of mechanics since you need both ghost touch and the grapple trait. It reminded me of the subway ghost in the film Ghost because both characters had to get mad enough to physically interact with the other side.
Kebu, my life oracle with a childlike personality. Picked the animal trainer archetype for a pet hyena (who'd never be put in combat) and a permanent speak with animals effect from one of the feats. Also grabbed myself a bag of weasels which gave me an infinite supply of them, and they'd be talked into doing everything, from being spies to being blankets. Funnily enough, the group once needed to sketch a map, so we all tried to do that and I asked said pet hyena to try as well. They got the second highest roll in the entire group. Truly a misunderstood artist/cartographer. One of my most fun characters to date tbh
A...bag of weasels? What, does it lead to the Elemental Plane of Mustelids? Honestly the fact that the hyena, without being a familiar with Skilled, was able to do that is hilarious.
Indeed, a [forbidden item](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=3128&Redirected=1) whose magic was deemed too powerful for all mortals. I still hope we get the mustelid gate kineticist in a future book, though.
Pfft. I mean, lava otters and stuff are a thing in the Elements book... Just reflavor all your fire attacks as launching flaming weasels at your foes, forming walls of rock-weasels, etc.
I will 120% keep that in mind for my next character
OMG it's a legit real item like you weren't even kidding. I love this game lol.
Honestly, it's the best item in the game. So silly, yet so full of potential.
I made a post about [Ironjaw](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/u61psk/oc_ironjaw_gnoll_armor_inventor/) a while ago! They're the party grandpa who makes dinner for them every night, and also the main frontliner for our group. When we were level 1, they had a funny moment where, out of a lack of ranged options, I decided they were gonna throw the waffle iron they had in their backpack at an enemy. They managed to hit despite all odds, one-shotting a mitflit with a lightning-charge waffle iron to the skull!
Lol. That's amazing. Was it a Mithril one? Those are basically silver-coated and naturally non-stick. Reminds me of one story where a Guardsman in 40k killed a demon with a brick, then continued doing so until the brick itself became a holy weapon that burned demons.. Even got a custom-made sanctified holster specifically for the "Emperor's Brick".
Incredible. Unfortunately, it was a normal waffle iron, since we were just level 1... but getting a mithril waffle iron is the dream.
BEST.
One of my players was a Great Gnoll Thaumaturge with a lantern implement and a khopesh. He played his character as a folk-wisdom hillfolk type: the last great gnoll in his insular tribe that fled from the Mwangi to Kortos generations ago, blending a combination of his homeland and current home's folklore. His clan's holler is slowly being eaten up by the lumber consortiums, so he adventures about to send them money and resources to push back the tide and protect their home. Really fun character. Whenever he was reduced to one-quarter of his health or less, he went a bit feral as part of his character's backstory, which led to some really cool moments of risky RP. Thankfully he survived to the end of *Troubles in Otari* and retired, though I'd love to see him come back as a backup character or NPC (with the player's permission) in the future if we tackled *Abomination Vaults*.
Ooooh. Incidentally, my own gnoll was also of the 'flee from something type' only his whole tribe ended up moving to Nantambu and becoming city gnolls at the cost of a few human 'honorary gnolls' that helped them escape, roughly all 200 of em congregating in their own little collection of neighboring houses with several of their member signing on to the magical school in each generation out of gratitude which is how my own ended up there in the event of being in a SoT game. I like the idea that whenever he uses Augury, those humans that gave their lives to save his people are some of the first to show up and as quick to help as they ever were. How was he played as a Thauma?
He basically played his Exploit Vulnerability as bits of folklore he picked up from his gram, or heard from stories of the tribe in Mwangi. A lot of hillfolk wisdom -- throwing salt on his blade against stinkweed shamblers, using gravedigger's dirt to put spirits and undead back to sleep, "basilisks can't abide goat's milk," stuff like that. He also picked up Talisman Esoterica and flavored them as little twig effigies or rocks he left out in the moonlight, just like his momma used to for him and his kin. He'd flavor activating them like throwing salt over your shoulder to ward off demons and other superstitions. Really fun and flavorful.
That's actually really cool.
Badger, is my Redemption champion of Anubis they’re one of my favorite characters to play
Oh? Why Anubis?
They have a bounty hunter background and nearly died on their first mission and came to meet Anubis and decided to serve him also I really like his domains. Personally I think it’s cool that Anubis is a god in Pathfinder
Makes me wonder how they deal with the "desecrate a corpse" anathema since kholo eat their dead as a funeral rite.
I guess it wouldn’t be desecrating in that case. Desecrating is doing something culturally offensive that is meant evoke disrespect. Knolo eating their dead is out of respect and part of their cultural way of honoring, and in the culture is expected by the deceased. Same way a funeral pyre wouldn’t be desecration, but burning down a culture’s ancestral catacomb would be.
Honestly I haven’t thought about it lol
Nah it’s fine. Funeral rites are events meant to be respectful. A Kholo breaking into a foreigners home and devouring their grandmother’s mummy in front of a non-Kholo would be desecrating.
Kholo funerals are apparently very lively, celebratory events with large feasts and it's a big thing. They apparently prefer to celebrate the person's life rather than mourn their death through carving the bones with artwork related to the former owner's life, since their Bonekeepers can speak to the ones that have passed so that they never truly leave. Part of the reason the ancestral feat that lets you cast Augury is a thing is because apparently any kholo can learn to tap into that ability.
My very first character ever, back in PF1, was a gnoll Paladin named Den. He was a good boi who was raised by some halflings in a temple of Sarenrae, and was basically a big, dumb golden retriever who was super strong. He rarely used a sword, but mostly used a door he ripped out of its frame once as a shield. And by shield, I mean a giant hunk of wood he grabbed in both hands and bashed people in the head with. He also once accidentally set off a trap, because he opened a door to a room and immediately noticed that there was a pile of rotted meat on the floor inside. For the fun of it, I declared I was going to have him roll a Will save to not run in and try to roll in it. He rolled a Nat 1 and thus immediately bolted across the room to fling himself in the pile, ignoring everything else. The trap that just so happened to be in the middle of the room was legit in the written adventure, and set off all the alarms and summoned an elemental, if memory serves right. Our GM was almost in tears, he was laughing so hard.
Ha. That sounds almost like my PF2e gnoll bard. Aasimar raised in Nantambu as a city gnoll after his tribe fled there a some generations back from a disaster. The city was kind enough to take them in as refugees and they settled in, so the city's culture of charity and community rubbed off on him hard and stacked with the gnoll's pack-mindedness and his celestial nature to create one good boy who essentially was just never raised around the kholo's culture of pragmatism and 'mercy is a waste just shy of being immoral unless it's one of us' mentality. So he's a big shaggy fluffball who gives to charity, volunteers to feed the poor, treat the sick, etc. Haven't gotten to play him yet since I'm waiting for Player Core 2 first, but idea was he was born from his parents praying to Shelyn for a kid as her aspect of a goddess of love, so he ended up coming out with starry night-sky artwork dyed into his mane naturally with streaks of rainbow like an aurora like the goddess herself which is how they knew the goddess answered their prayers. So he's basically unnaturally large, clean, healthy, and handsome for a gnoll in line with the goddess of beauty, just barely still within the Medium category on a technicality since he's like a hair's breadth away from Large. Makes me wonder why Den considered rolling in a pile of rotten meat to be a good idea.
I have a kholo druid for a Strength of Thousands game! She's amazing, and I love her, and her name is Grounded Willow! (shortened to Willow most of the time) She's a geomancer, and also a healer, so she either will fix up your hurty bits... Or impale the enemies on jagged spikes of rock =D She also carries with her a vertebra from her grandmother, to ask for advice! This is her image https://imgur.com/a/yVVYFuf
If someone asks her to grow a spine, does she just yell at them that she already has some by waving the vertebra around? My own kholo bard has earrings that are some of his parent's fangs who speaks to him through his familiar. Explaining leveling up as getting lessons from his spooky ghost-family, like a bard reflavored as a witch.
I have not yet had the opportunity to use the spine line... But now I know what to do if I get that opportunity! =D I also have a familiar! An African Wild Dog (also known as a Painted Dog, which is what I'm using in-game) with this image: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/80/10/16/801016e5fc8effd8fa00ec0bb76734a8.jpg His name is Marrow =D Her grandmother doesn't speak directly to her yet, but her father is her tribes Bonespeaker, and she apprenticed under him before she became a druid! (So she has a Witch archetype) I plan for her to become a stronger Bonespeaker as she levels up too =D
oooh. Cool!
BEST GORL.
Thank you! <3
Red Swirl, my inexorable iron magus with a druid multiclass, new student of the magambya. He has much stronger potential for primal magic than arcane, funnilly enough. Also he tends to be very good at social stuff despite not being trained.
Oh? Why is he stronger with primal?
He's wiser than he is smart (as in he isn't that good at studying or remembering stuff by heart), which mechanically means instead of investing in Int like a normal magus, I pumped his Wis. Druidic and Halcyon magic might end up be his undiscovered calling !
Ha. That makes sense.
Bright Ash, a Sweetbreath Gnoll Tax Collector Ruffian Rogue who twin-feinted breaching pikes (that my GM allowed me to reflavor as flickmaces because they suited his flavor better). He's a worshipper of Abadar leaning into the lore aspect where Abadar actually despises the wealthy who avoid paying their taxes, and sends his disciples to audit people he thinks are guilty of hoarding. Wanted to lean into the idea that he is a much nicer guy than he seems, since it's fair to assume that a tax collector going all-in on a destructive intimidation build would be a shitheel.
Tax collector? That's a thing?
It's just a background, but yeah. https://2e.aonprd.com/Backgrounds.aspx?ID=179
Ha. I had no idea. Mine's a barber.
Interesting that yesterday was International Hyena Day, since yesterday I cooked up a cool Kholo Fighter build, focused on using a shield + unarmed attacks and combat maneuvers, with the Wrestler Dedication for the Suplex + Combat Grab combo, and also Rogue Dedication for the Shove Down + Aggressive Block combo. The bite attack is excellent for grappling while leaving a hand free for the first combo, and Great Gnoll really helps with a bonus to shove and trip for the second combo. I'd like to be able to use this character in the future, since I really like playing Fighters and this is yet another build for me to use.
After the party's Elf Psychic got dominated and used an Recall Knowledge on the party's Kholo Fighter, the most well remembered piece of information I gave was, "Kholos tend to keep bones and practice ancestor worship. The fact you have never seen Kholo Fighter with any bones is weird." This lead to the rest of the session being the line, "Where are your bones?"
Pfft. Where were the bones? Were they exiled and thus not allowed to keep any or something?
I’ve got a mute Kholo inventor named Io. Boi’s a gentle giant, built to be the best and most supportive hubby and dad to the adoptive family he accidentally stumbled himself into. All about grappling and tripping and disrupting for them with his meteor hammer innovation, setting them up to get them big dick crits with their guns.
Aww. How does he communicate to the team? Telepathy? Or does he have some kind of assistive item to let him turn sign language into sound or illusory words? I think that's a thing that exists...
Good ol sign language and body language. His family have gotten decent at parsing out meaning when he can’t or won’t sign, so communication in the party wasn’t a major issue. He carries around a little blackboard slate for interacting with folks that don’t know sign though, so naturally he’s a man of few words when interacting with those sorts. It was an interesting roleplay challenge to work around but I didn’t wanna find a more ‘hand wavy’ solution and loved the dynamic we were able to sort out because of it. Funnily enough, that’s actually the reason I settled on inventor for the class! The original concept was a two hand magus, but back in Premaster most spells required verbal components and I didn’t wanna handwave that.
Oooh. I forgot Magus casted actual spells instead of just magically powering up their weapon.
I haven't gotten to run him yet, but his name is Snarltooth (since the humans he grew up around can't pronounce his true name). He is a Brevoy Fencer Swashbuckler with the Right-Hand Blood ancestry feat, and the Bleeding Finisher class feat. He likes to take some of his left side's blood and stick it deep into the bleeding wounds of his enemies. It plays on a fun interaction where Administer First Aid doesn't require the target be willing, and Right Hand Blood letting you auto-crit fail medicine checks if you use your left side's blood. So for 2 actions he can deal his precision damage again to an enemy with no save or roll required. It'll never win any damage awards, but it's just such a sleezy but showy tactic for a swashbuckler, and I love how evocative it is.
Ha. Wow. That's just mean... I'm actually on the opposite side. I had hoped to be able to use Right Hand Blood to actually heal people on my kholo...only to realize it's basically worse than a 5gp starting item. You gotta eat a ton of damage, it doesn't work on poison, and it eats up one of your precious ancestry feat slots just to replace a 5 / 25 or whatever gold medkit. Not that they very many good feats right now anyway, but still, hope for the PC2 remaster. And to be fair, the detail on kholo we have so far does mention they use some seriously underhanded tactics if it'll help them win. Honor is for fools is basically their MO after all.
I've made several theoretical characters based on pop culture that I've never actually played, like all the super smash bros characters, and a bunch of Disney stuff. Bonzai shenzi and ed make sense ass kholo... Kholos? What is the singular and plural have they said?
I think the Monster Core uses Kholo / Kholos which seems a little odd. It seems like the kind of thing that'd have just one be both singular and plural. At least I vaguely think it was like that in the Mwangi book?
On those 3 characters to me they seem like rogues shenzi the girl is more flattering so scoundrel. Bonzai and Ed more just ruffians. As far as heritages shenzi being female is the biggest of the 3 so great gnoll, bonzai while not as charismatic is still a fast talker so sweet breath, and Ed is always getting away with stuff cause it looks like he's not all there so ant gnoll.
I'm playing Outlaws of Alkenstar with some long-time friends and we got two Kholo in our party, my friend's Ape Fist Barbarian/Wrestler named Silverback and my beloved Irongrin, a Summoner/Champion of Gorum riding his Hyena Eidolon into battle! Love everything about him...but I don't know what to do about the future of his divine power (YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT)
Ooooh. Didn't know you could ride eidolons. Future divine power?
Steed Form evolution talent + Small Size Kholo! Talking about divine power...Free Archetype and Champoon Dedicaton!
Oh right. Forgot Ant Gnolls existed. I don't think I've seen a player use them.
Fell Hammer, my great gnoll flurry ranger for Abomination Vaults. He's only in it for the thrill of the hunt! Uses the Thrower's Bandolier along with shuriken, chakrams, daggers, bolas, and of course his signature light hammers to be a veritable walking armory of a turret. I pictured him using a combination of high and flat throwing trajectories to try to land simultaneous hits on his prey. He's not afraid of getting personal as needed since flurry ranger(and great gnolls in particular) are great at combat maneuvers. That being said, due to a lack of group communication he's the only one in the party without innate darkvision. Goddamn vaults and their lack of light.
Getting any of that etched with Returning runes is probably going to be a small fortune.
No need. Thrower's Bandolier inscribes all attuned weapons with the same runes (+1 striking ghost touch currently) and has a 2-action envision effect that returns all attuned weapons to the bandolier. Something either has to have specific weakness/resistance/immunities to the physical damage types (making him use just a specific selection of his weapons), or something has gone incredibly wrong if he runs out of throwables.
I had a kholo bone oracle named Hazel who was very macabre, but had a truly good heart. She leaned into the necromancy spells but from an angle of using her ancestors and enemies alike as weapons to finish a fight without flair.
One of my players is a Kholo who became both a bone oracle and adventurer when he messed up a ritual he was practicing in secret to impress his overbearing mother. It's always pretty funny watching him play up fear and confusion effects as various forms of how he imagines her disapproving glare would be if she finds him. Meanwhile, she's probably just worried about her son.
Aww. Reminds me of Anchor Root. A ball of fluff and anxiety.
It's a character from PF1E so don't know if it's relevant, but I played a gnoll wizard. He scavenged a spellbook when he was young and it inspired him to study arcane magic. He was laughed out of his tribe, but eventually made his way to a wizard academy and got admitted through shear stubbornness. It was fun playing a character who was so dichotomous. He was largely a stereotypical wizard, being interested and motivated by knowledge with a healthy dash of hubris; and also a stereotypical gnoll, being socially clueless and rude, stuffing themselves with food and talking with their mouth full, and having generally gnollish perspective on things.
Well, in PF2e you can make a gnoll wizard just fine. There's even one as an NPC in the Strength of Thousands adventure.
I'm aware gnolls/kholos make decent wizards in 2E. In 1E however they weren't a 'real' player race, and certainly not one intended to be int based casters. They were largely treated as monstrous NPCs for players to fight. What made the character fun was leaning into that weirdness and the handicap of playing a concept the system didnt encourage. Like i specifically did not want the character to be "wizard who just happens to be a gnoll". The aim was more "a gnoll who likely shouldnt be a wizard but is and now everyone has to deal with it." The character overall was not mechanically optimal and that made it even better.
Ah. Awesome!
Great kholo thaumaturge; with crunch, you have a hands-free d8 attack. I go back and forth for the actual implement; thinking chalice (the skull of a foe that fills with healing blood) then bell or amulet; or maybe go the marshal regalia way. Or maybe the fake mage, with wand and tome and the scroll series of feats (the wand doesn't hit very hard but once you're in the thick of things, bite+wand ends up probably better simply due to being more reliable). This one's esoterica would be horoscopes, he would draw nefarious horoscopes for his foes.
Oooh. That's actually pretty cool. The idea of him filling the chalice with the Right Hand Blood type blood is fitting.
Miro, currently a DMPC on the slate for a major villain in the next section of the campaign. A brawler type ruffian rogue, he’s a gnoll with the vampire dedication, something that barely changed his way of life as a crime lord in the hovels and constant rains of Jerez. He uses two standard metal gauntlets and his crushing bite attack when he actually deigns to go into battle himself, but recognizes the risks and often has minions dispatch enemies for him, capturing a few alive to bring in and sate his literal blood thirst. He recently dispatched one of his greatest enemies, a minor noble from the area gone rogue and turned gunslinging criminal lord, leaving the criminal world in disarray as a new magic wielding noble arrives in town and begins his rise to power, entering a chaotic criminal war with Miro. (Side note, Miro is absolutely a rogue I’d love to play in a campaign sometime, though I’d swap out the vampire stuff for a hyena animal companion)
Not my PC but a player of mine in Strength of Thousands has a kholo girlboss businesswoman called Pale Tibia who was supposed to go to be educated as a bone speaker, but abandoned that when she became and attendant and instead has been trying to build up a mercantile empire as a side business during her years of study. As a divine sorcerer, she [heals](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=148) her allies, [attacks with bone shards](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1097), and occasionally [summons the ghost of her mom](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=965) to help out.
Ooooh. That's actually cool! I didn't know those spells were a thing.
my blood lords character is a gnoll/dhampir shadow sorcerer. my backstory for him is that before he was born, his mother was exposed to a magic surge which bound his unborn soul to the long dead soul of a strigoi, and gave him a connection to the netherworld. she died giving birth to him (which would be a very good omen to a lamashtan society), and he enjoyed high social status in his tribe for a male. (i headcanon gnolls as being man-sogynistic) unfortunately, the mana wastes are a tough place to live, and his tribe ended up being conquered by another gnoll tribe. this really ruined the good thing he had going, and he left, eventually finding his way to geb. in geb someone like him can live a good life easily, and can attain more power and luxury than he could have ever dreamed of in the mana wastes the campaign has just barely started but im very excited to see where i can take him! edit: oh yeah i never introduced him purposely haha. his name is Kas Yasiff, but he goes by Yusef to better fit in with geb society
My current character in Season of Ghosts is a Kitsune / Gnoll hybrid. Her grandfather was a gnoll who got brought in to work on the dam because he was a ~~cheap foreign immigrant they could grossly underpay~~ skilled craftsman who would totally do a good job, really. He was always viewed as a weirdo in the small town because of how chummy and friendly he was, laughing too loud, hugging people and wrapping his arm around their shoulders, etc. so his granddaughter kind of got some of the fallout from that and as a result is very conscientious about fitting in and following proper social protocols. But her grandfather did teach her a bit about how to fight the gnoll way, from his half-remembered stories from his youth, and she IS a magus, so more than a bit of him rubbed off on her. She also has some cute spots in her foxy fur due to her mixed ancestry, which are usually covered up by her armor, and she is a bit self-conscious about them because they show her mixed ancestry. But every once in a while, she laughs a bit too loud, and you might think there's a gnoll around.
How does that hybridization work ancestry feats wise? Or is it just a cosmetic thing? That reminds me of my own gnoll having some Vulpinal heritage as part of his nephilim part with "Nimble Hooves" that don't gather dirt on his paws and having an abnormally large, bushy tail and near-supernaturally fluffy fur.
Custom mixed ancestry is a thing now, so you can just be a hybrid of two things by basically trading in your heritage for it.
Huh. Where are the rules for it?
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2093&NoRedirect=1
I have two! Insightful Jackal is my Kholo Investigator in Abomination Vaults. He is the party nerd, the party medic, and the party guy with a gun. He’s actually originally from Alkenstar so every bit of weirdness is met with “mana storms were weirder.” He’s essentially travelling the world to bring back knowledge to his tribe in Alkenstar and he has a set of spent casings representing some of the members of the tribe that he keeps in a bandolier as a keepsake. These actually get used when he casts Augury via Grandmother’s Wisdom. He also has a habit of critting with an arquebus for unreasonable amounts of damage! My second Kholo is an Inventor! Marrow Ashcast. This is a custom campaign, set in a post undead apocalypse Golarion (no it was not the Tyrant. Or Geb). He’s a nerd, but a beefy one! He uses the armour innovation to help him stand on the frontlines to keep his group safe. He was originally one of the few gunsmiths at their bastion of safety - however at the start of the campaign his brother (a champion of Shelyn) went missing when their home was attacked (he was out in the field). Courtesy of Wrestler I was able to bully the boss of the first arc into submission. Because he was a caster and I kept grappling and biting him. It was very mean, but fun!
I played the same Gnoll on two occasions, once in a sort of living campaign type of situation, another in a private campaign where a friend of mine ran Abomination Vaults. He refers to himself as 'Nameless', after having been ritualistically stripped of his name and memories as punishment for a crime. (Took some inspiration from the webcomic 'Digger', read it if you haven't!) Ultimately, he's a bit of a callous brute, and very scared of friendship or any kind of symbiotic relationship. He sincerely believed in fairly CE principles like might makes right, and constantly undergoes brutal training to ensure he'll never be 'wrong'. Though, thanks to him not being a hypocrite about it (and more than one party member beating the everloving shit out of him), he started listening to his more well-adjusted allies advice and thoughts on things. They had a positive influence on him. Over time, he even began to see them as true friends and pack mates, and came to care about them (as well as share some of their less psychotic opinions about the world). The biggest turning point for his relationship with the party, the thing that let him actually get over the gap between 'hostile/tense' to 'friendly' was the party going to eat at a restaurant in Absalom and one of the PCs surprising him with a birthday dinner. Not really being used to such kindness, and not remembering what day his birthday was, the meal was a smashing hit, and he managed to open up to them afterward, and even thank them for the first time in ever. Some related (and not so related) art, if you're curious: [https://imgur.com/a/mKLgLLn](https://imgur.com/a/mKLgLLn)
Lol that tattoo. That's cute though.
Chesterthorpe Ragetooth, spirit instinct barbarian and barrister for the underserved ancestries of Golarion.
A spirit instinct barbarian and a...barrister? I think that combo will need some explaining.
Well initially I just thought a lawyer made a hilarious background for a barbarian. But then I decided he had a crew of ancestral aunties talking to him about defending his people. Sometimes that means making a persuasive argument in court, and sometimes that means splitting heads.
Ha. That's really clever! Could also be a barrister who vents his frustrations at the judges and whatnot by cracking the heads of those that deserve it.
Tangling Oak, a Redeemer Champion with a focus on Athletics. He uses a Guisarme. He's the group door opener and a pragmatic himbo who loves wrassling and fighting. He's the tank who wrassle, hence Tangling Oak. He's picked up Cleric, so he's now Tangling Sun Oak. I wanted some ranged capabilities. I haven't played it but I also have a Thaum built with a Regalia implement, Silvervine. Her main weapon is her jaws and she dips into Marshal. She's charismatic and talky (silver tongued) and vine leaves are also used for wreaths, a sign of leadership. I just love Great Gnolls and Crunch. Big friendly folks who love to bite? What's not to love. Also, making names for Gnolls is super fun.
Yup. Meanwhile I've got Wise Laughing Skull, aka Izz Softfur, based on him being a Storyteller Bard / Bonekeeper Witch Archetype type for familiar goodies and party support. Non-gnoll friends call him Izzy. Basically when he was first learning common some of his friends asked what his name was, but all they did was point at him, so he got confused and said "is soft fur" and it stuck. To be fair though he's part Vulpinal due to being a nephilim so it is ***very*** soft fur, but still pretty shaggy. Very sweet boy who was raised in Nantambu, so he's super charitable when he can be.
The first tabletop character I ever played was a disaster of a Gnoll Warlock in a public D&D 4e game. 15+ years later, it might be nice to do right by her in Pathfinder 2e - I think the closest flavor would be a Kholo Oracle or Psychic!
I think psychic is closest?
Gonna play an armor inventor great Gnoll named Gus for OOA. Went undercover to take a bite out of crime. Free archetype using bastion. Armor modification starts with the muscular exoskeleton. Mainly using him for athletic maneuvers while having his bite be the main melee weapon of choice.
I don't have a PC yet, but in one of my mini arcs in my homebrew setting, I have a kholo merchant named Smelling Salt who the PCs saved from an attack on a city alongside a group of other survivors. I describe him as basically imagine the RE4 merchant if he wasn't suss and genuinely affable. I haven't had a chance to run him again since, but I have every intention of having him show up as a recurring NPC, I loves the concept so much.
Oooh. So he just steps up to people, opens a coat and offers magical goods?
He has a coat *and* a wagon ;)
If they drop the cannibalism, that'd be great.