Editing Gnolls (section)

=== Social Identity ===
Tribal Gnolls are an extremely tightly knit people. For all their readiness to overlook race in making acquaintances,<ref name=":1" /> Gnolls ultimately like to be among, and work with, Gnolls. They don’t enjoy mixing and working with other races all that much.<ref name=":46" />

Tribes like the [[Silverfang Tribe|Silverfangs]], who came to Liscor by their own choice,<ref name=":39" /> can be seen as somewhat of an exception. Tribes in the wild are more reclusive, and some tribes deep in the Gnoll heartlands may be actively hostile towards foreigners.<ref name=":44" /> But even the Silverfang Gnolls stick to their own part of Liscor, settling in sort of a ‘Gnoll ghetto’ instead of integrating themselves into Drake society,<ref name=":24" /> and unofficially govern themselves despite living under Drake law.<ref name=":6" />

It’s a recurring undercurrent in their portrayal that non-Gnolls are rarely allowed to penetrate their society to any measurable depth. For example, the concept of sharing a secret with literally every Gnoll under the sun while at the same time telling literally no one else makes perfect sense to a Gnoll.<ref name=":14" /> There seems to be no active malice or racism in this, nor any unhealthy amount of patriotism, as might for example be in Drakes shunning foreigners. It’s just that Gnolls have very close ties to one another; particularly within a tribe, but to some extent even across tribes.<ref name=":25" /> And that means that there is a fundamental gap between a Gnoll and a non-Gnoll, one that goes well beyond merely “they look different from us”. An outsider cannot begin to understand the way Gnolls feel connected to one another - and even if they did, they still could not connect the same way.

This gap is seldomly bridged even when it comes to close friends and allies of other races. For example, Ryoka Griffin received warm (if initially wary) hospitality from the Stone Spears tribe,<ref name=":9" /> and amazed them with her stories; and she was declared a “friend to all Gnolls” by the Silverfang tribe of Liscor.<ref name=":56">[[Chapter 4.09]]</ref> Yet, when Ryoka returned from her errand, the Stone Spears tribe would have been perfectly happy to let her walk past without meeting again. It took Ryoka’s active calling out for a hiding Gnoll to reveal herself.<ref name=":51" /> And while Krshia will honor her word and make all sorts of preferential treatment available to Ryoka and her close associates,<ref name=":5" /> and even speak of her in front of the gathering of tribes, the Gnoll did not extend an invitation to Ryoka to join the gathering and meet other tribes. If the author’s intent was to not have Ryoka there, it would have been easy to have her simply refuse to attend, based on her antisocial personality. But it never came to that. Even when Ryoka outright asked for friendship as the only payment to even the score between them, Krshia never considered the possibility of inviting her.<ref name=":56" />

Krshia later did invite Erin to visit the Gnoll lands.<ref name=":59">[[Chapter 6.03]]</ref> Not to participate in the gathering, though - she would have to remain on the outside of that.<ref name=":59" /> It is the first instance in the source text of a Gnoll showing this level of openness to an outsider, even if Humans aren't banned from visiting per se.<ref name=":59" /> However, in light of [[Hawk|Hawk's]] experiences,<ref name=":44" /> it was perhaps wise of Krshia to offer to be Erin's guide.

Love is perhaps the only force in the universe capable of letting a Gnoll grow truly close to a member of another species, as there are canon examples of Gnolls with intact tribal affiliations marrying Drakes.<ref name=":6" /> However, as these examples are only mentioned in passing, it is unclear what degree of acceptance the non-Gnoll receives from their spouse’s peers. And as [[Drassi]] tells it, such pairings often come with significant expectations of conformity to Gnoll social norms. Whenever she dated a Gnoll, he would invariably start talking about the importance of his tribe, and the commitments expected of her.<ref name=":54" />

There is an opposite face on the coin of this social inward focus, however. As much as it stunts their ties to other races, it strengthens the ties among Gnolls themselves. Apart from the Antinium, there is perhaps no other species in Innworld that coordinates and operates together as naturally, effectively, and at the same massive scale as the Gnolls do.

The kinship that tribal Gnolls feel towards each other is incredibly strong, to the point where murder is a foreign concept to them.<ref name=":25" /> Gnolls will disagree with each other, perhaps get in a fight, perhaps even kill each other if they meet on the field of battle on opposing sides. But they would never secretly plot another Gnoll’s death through underhanded means. That would be a direct violation of everything it means to be a Gnoll. The only counterexample seen so far is [[Bearclaw|a wanted criminal of the worst sort]], and not affiliated with any tribe.

Gnolls also tend heavily towards nepotism in their social networking.<ref name=":4" /> When Krshia sources goods for Erin and friends, or refers them to other traders, she involves exclusively Silverfang tribe Gnolls.<ref name=":5" /> Only if none are on hand that fit the bill, the selection expands to Gnolls from other tribes, or tribe-less City Gnolls. And only if there are none among those who can do the job or provide the goods, only ''then'' are other sources even considered.

Core values among Gnolls are adaptation and personal growth,<ref name=":55" /> as well as self-sufficiency.<ref name=":57">[https://wanderinginn.com/2018/10/19/glossary/ Glossary]</ref> Another core value is teamwork.<ref name=":57" /> This looks like a contradiction at first, but makes perfect sense to a Gnoll. The self-sufficiency and personal growth comes in at the individual level; the teamwork is for the tribe, and the species. A Gnoll strives to be the best they can be at their chosen path of life, both in order to gain standing (see Merit, Worth, Leadership further below), and in order to be strong for each other, and for all of Gnollkind.

During the first Antinium War, the Gnolls reacted faster to the new threat than anyone else,<ref name=":47" /> despite being ostensibly splintered into countless individual tribes with no central government. They assembled twenty thousand elites from across many hundreds of tribes before the invaders even set foot in their territory, promptly wiped out an Antinium force four times their number in a single day, and finished raising a regular army six figures strong a mere week later.<ref name=":47" /> And where the Drakes failed to mount an effective defense of their lands, the Gnolls succeeded.<ref name=":47" /> This illustrates how each individual Gnoll, and each individual tribe, will set aside their personal business and grievances at the drop of a hat to honor the bonds of kinship to their species as a whole - and with what surprising speed and efficiency the Gnolls can organize themselves at any scale.

Gnolls can also make declarations of intent ''as a species''. An individual tribe may go to war or make peace as they wish; but when Gnolls as a whole declare war, then literally every tribe will be acting in unison.<ref name=":18" /> No matter where they live, no matter their individual relationship with the offending party, no matter their own agenda or standing among the tribes. And such a war does not end until every tribe agrees that it should end.<ref name=":18" /> The Raskghar are currently the target of such a war,<ref name=":18" /> and the Selphids<ref name=":6" /> and Drakes<ref name=":18" /> have been one at some point in the past. Wistram is currently the target of a species-wide boycott.<ref name=":22" /> And every Gnoll abides by it - even those who might privately disagree, if there are any. A species-wide declaration is the highest, most serious response the Gnolls have, and the duty to uphold it supersedes personal interest.

Cooperation among Gnolls is not the same as cooperation among [[Drakes]], who steer their society through bureaucracy<ref name=":53" /> and military protocol.<ref name=":52" /> It is not the same as cooperation among [[Antinium]] workers, who lack the concept of individuality and are mere extensions of their Queen’s hive mind.<ref>[[Chapter 5.39]]</ref> It is not the same as cooperation among [[Goblins]], who have learned to copy each other on instinct to produce spontaneous, dynamically emerging feats of coordination.<ref>[[Chapter 5.53]]</ref> Cooperation among Gnolls is the result of every single, individual, self-sufficient Gnoll wordlessly and voluntarily dedicating themselves to their people, through their personal senses of duty and pride, and through their unspoken bonds of kinship. They certainly don’t always agree with each other about which is the best path forwards...<ref name=":6" /> but you can be sure that every Gnoll contributes in their own way, even if (to an outside observer) they seemingly only go about their daily lives. The only reason that the [[Silverfang Tribe|Silverfang tribe]] is even in Liscor in the first place, for example, is because they hope to address one of the major problems currently holding Gnolls back as a species.<ref name=":6" />

Only few Gnolls fall out of this pattern of loyal commitment to their tribes and their species, and don’t conform to the typical inward focused social behavior. Those who do generally leave their tribes and become City Gnolls (see below), forever regarded as outsiders by those they leave behind.<ref name=":9" /> Some even strike out on their own and travel the world, picking whatever occupation suits their fancy - perhaps even that of a pirate captain.<ref>[[Chapter 6.23 D]]</ref> But these cases are even less common than City Gnolls, making them a rare sight abroad.