The Diversity of Species: a Comparative Cultural Study of the Sapient Races of Aedeva

This series of volumes by a prominent scholar has become one of the most influential documents about Aedevan sentient species.

Purpose

This book is an impressively comprehensive study on the numerous cultures and subcultures of Aedeva. It is particularly notable for its inclusion of many species that were previously perceived as monstrous, barbaric, and devoid of culture (such as Gnolls and Goblins).

Document Structure

Publication Status

Copies of this book can be found in any respectable library, whether personal or public.

Historical Details

History

The Diversity of Species: a Comparative Cultural Study of the Sapient Races of Aedeva is the most comprehensive and well known record of Aedeva's many and varied peoples. It was completed in 3802 by the author and has inspired numerous studies into cultures that were virtually unknown prior to the document's publication.

Public Reaction

This book was highly controversial within many academic communities at the time of its publishing. The idea that there were cultures even among creatures such as Goblins and Gnolls was largely believed to be impossible.
In spite of this opposition, however, the book quickly gained popularity as an adventurer's guide due to its extensive breadth and depth, and its inclusion of the more monstrous species and races that adventurers tend to encounter. Its philosophical value has only begun to take root among the world's scholars in recent years, however. In fact, it was regarded with disdain by most philosophers until the book was officially accepted into the Vebedevian library in 3808.

Read the Document

The Diversity of Species: a Comparative Cultural Study of the Sapient Races of Aedeva

Gnolls, Survivors and Scavengers

"...Gnolls are one of the more prolific beastial races of Aedeva, making their homes primarily in central Alastia and scattered throughout the interior of the Grauffenbach Wastes. They typically have a fearsome reputation among the "civilized" peoples of Aedeva as brutal barbarians and carnivorous scavengers, known to the rest of the world mainly through tales of them killing and eating other sapient species in violent raids. As one might expect, the humanoid races of Aedeva tend to treat gnolls with fear and contempt; the most common beliefs as to their origins are that they may have demonic blood in their heritage, or that they are lycanthropes somehow permanently transfigured into their beastial forms.
The truth, as is often the case, is much more complicated. While gnolls do tend not to have any compunctions against eating the dead of other sapient species or even their own, they are far from mindless monsters. The gnoll clans of Alastia and the Grauffenbach live primarily in complex, largely matriarchal hunter-scavenger societies, though the more established clans have sometimes taken up sedentary lifestyles and engaged in agriculture and metal toolmaking; clans often band together into larger tribes for safety and community, with large decentralized gnoll states forming from multiple tribes, usually led by councils of elders appointed by the members of each clan. They typically follow a complex animistic faith that varies in the details between tribes, and their culture places great value on the acts of artistic crafting, storytelling and song. The gnolls have also been known to frequently trade and ally with nearby orcs and goblins, with whom they tend to share the most cultural similarities. While gnolls do tend to be insular with regards to most other species, this is largely a response to elven colonialism in Alastia and wary hostility from Cireth in the Grauffenbach, where the vicious cycle of their fearsome reputations leads to continued fear from humanoid species and an impasse on improved relations. They can, however, be quite personable once one gets to know them.

Close

Type

Manuscript, Historical

Medium

Paper

Authoring Date

3802

Authors

• Korrina Sophus, Anthropologist-Errant