The City of Smoke
Connects to: 15.28, 25.17, 21.29, 29.14.47, 31.27, 38.28, 39.32 40.06, 43.27.01, 44.03, 50.29, 50.30, 51.17 and the City of Shuttered Windows.
Known as the Burning City to the people of Jahur.
Traditionally, there has been no authority over the gnoll clans but the Mother. She dwells in the City of Smoke (or the City of Shit according to the men of Shuttered), so called because of the dried cow dung that always burns there. Many gnollish disputes have been settled there by the wisdom of past Mothers. The Mothers are indeed wise for when one dies, her successor consumes her heart raw, and gains a portion of her soul, memories and wisdom.
However the current Mother, the so-call Great Mother, is a gnoll of a different color. As the last Mother lay dying, matriarchs of all of the gnoll clans gathered in the City of Smoke to pay their respects and choose her successor (traditionally done by gathering the matriarchs in a closed hut wherein the dung of a cow poisoned by bleeding berries (25.17) is burned until the matriarchs who have not yet passed out can come to an agreement). This time, followers of the gnoll now called the Great Mother burst into the sod hut there the matriarchs had gathered and subdued almost all but three, who managed to escape, with nets and magics. There, at the urgings of their leader, the throat of the ailing Mother was slit and her heart was forced down the throat of one of the captured matriarchs. When the terrified gnoll had finished her feeding her own throat was slit and her own heart was fed to the next matriarch.
This gruesome ritual continued, each matriarch being proclaimed Mother and killed in turn, until the Great Mother emerged from the hut, dripping in gore and resplendent in power. Entwined with her own soul were not only the dying wisps of the soul of the previous Mother but the vibrant ones of all of the matriarchs (save three) of all the gnoll clans. One can almost see the souls roiling within her and the ghostly images of writhing arms and snapping jaws surround the Great Mother in a terrible halo. Gnolls are unable to withstand her and all who come into her presence grovel before her, even those of other species find her voice, which howls in a hundred tones at once, impossible to ignore and difficult to disobey.
When the blood on her fur had not yet dried, the Great Mother set about uniting the gnoll clans. She would not squat in the City of Smoke and wait for them to come to her for her wisdom, she would rule. Within a scant few months she forged the gnoll clans into at least a semblance of a nation and sent her armies howling south into the lands of the Twelve Nations. Thanks to a well-timed alliance with the orcs of Grumluda, the cataphracts of the Golden Realm were crushed in a field of blood and fire and much loot was won (29.14.47).
These days much tribute and many slaves are brought from the south into the City of Smoke. The Great Mother, in wisdom or madness, seeks to turn it into a true city and the slaves work without rest to raise a city of stone and wood far greater than the old collection of stinking gnollish huts. The Great Mother has marked where the walls of the city are to be built with the impaled bodied of gnolls who displeased her and they are indeed extensive. Already some foreign merchants gather within the marketplaces that the Great Mother has marked out, for her tyranny has made the Burning Lands far safer for travelers than it has been for generations and trade between the City of Shuttered Windows and the Twelve Nations is booming.
These days all gnolls live in fear of the Great Mother and her three outland advisers who include an exile from Thing (50.29) and the priest who claims to worship the lost God-Tarrasque of Bergolast and who is always wreathed in magical light so bright that he cannot be looked upon. Some young gnolls, such as those who live in the Broken Spear (40.06), fear to return from their wanderings and others whisper in secret of the three matriarchs who escaped the Great Mother and yet plan her overthrow.
Urged on, they say, by the whisperings of the bright priest, the Great Mother has commanded the gnolls to seek in the ruins for Bergolast for objects of great power that she claims will allow the gnolls to establish an unbreakable imperium over the Twelve Nations, instead of the occasional tribute payments that the Great Mother is able to currently obtain.
Connections:
- The Great Mother seeks the heart of one of the painted elephants (43.27.01), but such a heart must be eaten whole to have an effect, which may prove difficult.
- The gnolls raid the dwarves of the western Burning Lands (31.27), but even the Great Mother has let them off with token tribute payments as she judges conquering or exterminating them would not be worth her while.
Subhexes:
- 51.29.01 (The Skull of the Defiler): this is a great lost artifact of the gnolls.
- 51.29.02 (The Howling College): the greatest center of the fine art of gnollish singing in these lands.
Connections:
- The gnolls receive salt from the Fallsalt Mines (44.03), but the supply has recently been cut off.
- Some gnollish exiles now live in Abbalah-doon (15.28).
- The Scent Barrier makes it difficult for gnolls to travel west into the Singing Wastes (21.29), which helps keep the human city of Jahur safe.
- The Great Mother’s third non-human adviser is a gormandizing jackalwere (51.17) named Voon. He keeps her informed of events around Sosaria in exchange for his favorite delicacy, dwarf pie.
- After the gnollish victory over the Golden Realm, a sacred lion statue of a lion was carted back to the Burning Lands, but the Great Mother seems to fear it and refuses to allow it to be displayed in her city (50.30).
Hooks:
- What does the Great Mother hope to find in Bergolast? Is that thing really there or has she been misled by her advisers?
The Skull of the Defiler
Hex 51.29.01
Connects to: 29.14.09, the Grey Mountains and the City of Shuttered Windows.
Soon after the fall of Bergolast, when the gnolls first came to the Burning Lands, the tribes were ruled in a different manner. Rather than the matriarchs of the current era, the gnolls had a Grand Chieftain whose supremacy was decided by mortal combat. The Grand Chieftain who led them out of their old homelands and into the fiery waste was a monstrously powerful specimen known to history only as the Defiler. At the time, almost all the gnolls thought it madness to move into the wasteland, but none of them dared faced the Defiler in a duel, so they were forced to follow him.
The Defiler was a master of the devouring art, that foul ritual by which a gnoll may consume the hearts of beasts to gain their power. It is said that in his youth, he swallowed at least one heart from every creature known to the gnolls. However, the turning point came after he made a journey to the Grey Mountains, disappeared for several months, and returned with strange blood upon his lips. After that time, none could face him in battle, and he quickly rose to the rank of Great Chieftain.
After the Defiler died, his skull was bleached by the desert winds and kept as a totem of his tribe. So large is the skull that any normal-sized human or gnoll can fit it over their head to wear as a helmet. While the Skull is worn, the bearer gains monumental strength and takes on a terrifying countenance that causes all but the bravest to flee from him in fear. At the same time, the wearer looking through the skull’s eyes will see the world in a different light, as though bathed in blood. Enemies glow brightly, while things unimportant to combat fade into darkness. And sometimes, it is whispered, the wearer will see other things through the Skull’s eyes - visions of the past, the future, and of the present that never was. The downside to wielding the Skull is that it puts a great strain on the wearer’s body. Overuse can lead to exhaustion or even death.
The Skull was used as a weapon by the gnolls during the Gnawbone Wars against the City of Shuttered Windows. An entire army from the Duchy of Thring was routed by a glance from the Skull, as were the defenders on the walls of the Shuttered City. However, at the crucial moment, the one who wore the Skull overexerted himself and collapsed. While the other gnoll chieftains bickered over who would take up the Skull next, the Waterworks of the Shuttered City (29.14.09) were opened to drown the entire gnollish army on the shores of the Keening Sea.
The whereabouts of the Skull of the Defiler is currently unknown. Some say it was washed into the sea and is now lost in sunken reefs, or was found by the wailing drow-ghosts. Others claim that it was captured by the Doge’s men and locked in a vault in the depths of the Undercity. Still others report it was picked up by an adventurer and later lost on the fringes of the Kingswood.
Hooks:
- Where did the gnolls come from before they were in the Burning Lands? Why did the Defiler lead them there, and hy did they remain after his death?
- What creature did the Defiler find in the Grey Mountains that gave him such power?
- How did the gnolls change from a dueling-chieftains hierarchy to the current one with the matriarchs?
- Where’s the Skull now?
