The Howling College
Connects to: 15.28, 32.32 and 50.26.
One thing that may surprise travellers to the City of Smoke is that despite their savage appearance and violent tendencies, the gnolls are in fact possessed of a rich culture of oral literature and song. One of the oldest buildings in the City of Smoke is the kharghaha (an untranslatable word that essentially means ‘Building for the Teaching of Musical Stories in the City of Smoke’). To outsiders it is known as the Howling College. The building was abandoned and left in disrepair for many years, but has recently been refurbished by order of the Great Mother.
Gnolls have only one word for ‘poem’ ‘story’ and ‘song’. All their music is narrative and all their oral narratives are musical. Those few gnolls who have taken up writing find it very difficult unless they add notations for musical inflection. The three classical genres that are taught at the Howling College are called Lowings, Whoopings and Gigglings, corresponding to the three forms of vocalization common to gnolls and hyenas. Lowings are tragic sagas, which always begin with a frank statement of how the hero will die at the end. Whoopings are heroic sagas, often used to inspire warriors on the eve of battle, which usually end on a note of climactic triumph. Strangely enough, a Whooping and a Lowing may well tell the same story in different fashions. The last genre is the Gigglings, a comedic genre, often bawdy or farcical but containing a serious satirical purpose at their core. Several well-known Gigglings have been banned by the Great Mother, but all know that these stories were around long before she was born and will be told again after she is dead.
The reason that the Great Mother is wary of certain Gigglings is that they can kill. Gnolls who have been trained in the kharghaha or who have heard the old songs around the dungfires know that satire can cut to the bone.
This is done with the aid of a pointing bone, a length of sharpened bone cut from an appropriate animal, wrapped in feathers or hair and soaked in blood. A gnollish bard bent on murder will then point this bone at their victim and cry out with a giggling that lays bare the target’s greatest flaws. If the giggling rings true then a great curse will be laid that can result in death or worse…
Connections:
- The farthest campus of the Howling College is located at the Fire Fang (32.32).
- The western gnolls of Abbalah-doon have their own musical traditions (15.28).
- The gnolls of the Howling College collect whistling reeds to be heard by lizardmen (50.26).
- Viceroy Orhan used a gnoll of the college to sing souls into his vat-born wives.
Hooks:
- Why was the kharghaha abandoned in the first place?
- Tell me about a famous gnollish song-tale. Is it a Lowing, a Whooping or a Giggling?
- What is “an appropriate animal?”
- “Or worse”? What could be worse than having a bard laughing you to death?