Here’s another PC race for my 13th Age Parsantium game at #UKT5. Can’t have a Parsantium adventuring party without gnolls 😉 Feedback and suggestions welcome!
GNOLL
+2 Con OR +2 Dex
POWER OF THE PACK (Racial Power)
Once per battle, when you roll a natural even hit with a melee attack against an opponent engaged with one or more of your allies, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage per level.
Champion Feat: you can use Power of the Pack twice in a battle, once battle per day.
Not all gnolls are demon-worshipping fiends like the feral packs who roam the Great Grass Sea to the east of Parsantium. Many of the desert-dwelling gnolls of Khemit and Aqhran have long made a living from their favourite activity – violence and killing – by working as sellswords. When Aqhrani traders first came to Parsantium, some brought gnoll bodyguards with them, and a minority of Parsantium’s population has been made up of gnolls ever since. More recently, a number of gnoll mercenaries in Kalgroth Ironheart’s army defected to the side of the crusaders led by Corandias the Stubborn, and stayed on in the city as part of the Parsantine army once the fighting was over. In recent years their numbers have been swelled by more barbarians arriving from the steppes.
Like the half-orcs, gnolls are part of the city’s underclass, but while the former strive to become respectable, gnolls stay true to their savage heritage, finding employment as hired enforcers, bodyguards, bouncers and thugs, often getting mixed up in crime. Parsantium’s gnolls are neutral or neutral evil, rather than chaotic evil in alignment, and have almost always abandoned worship of Okkidor in favour of Martek or the Sampuran battle god Indra.
Some gnolls have thrown their lot in with the Boss of All Bosses; others with the Basileus, the Caliph or even the sinister Mummy who plots to bring glory to the long-buried kingdom of Khemit. Those who stay most true to their bloodthirsty roots may serve the Gnoll Khan who haunts the Silk Road.
Parsantium: City at the Crossroads 
sinister Mummy who plots to bring glory to the long-buried kingdom of Khemit?
This reminds me of a geography question I had about the Parasantium-verse. If I understand the matter in the module correctly, if Parasantium is Byzantium, the Rome-equivalent is to the north and west and Russia-equivalent is to the north and east. “China” is due east, and “India” is south and east.
Then you have Khemit and you also have the Caliphate south and west across the sea. I’m not seeing where Khemit is…is it “south and east” between Parasantium and the Heaven mountains on this side of the mountain range?
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Hi Paul, Khemit is almost directly south. Here’s a link to the new world map Symatt drew for me.
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Aha. I was toying making a map of the world, and was trying to resolve the dichotomy in my head. I kept adding a bunch of “Turkey” mentally to the east of the city. Thank you! This makes more sense!
I probably will still do a idiosyncratic personal map of Parasantium’s world (or my version of it) but now I have a clearer picture of what’s going on in the creator’s mind. I do like the city, a lot, and I am going to use it in my own games…so I want the world around it (for a start, putting mountains to the east of the Griffin Water a la the Caucasus, for example)
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Glad the map has helped and very pleased you like the city. Please do keep me posted on your game and share your map 😉
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You want to be careful with those gnolls. Even the non-evil ones have some unpleasant eating habits. Other inhabitants of Parsantium seem to get squeamish near them, occasionally.
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