Gnolls - Scourge of the Living

Gnolls are one of the worst creatures ever encountered by civilised peoples, whether by humble tribespeople or by centuries old city peoples. They plunder and cannibalise any creature they can conquer, never staying in one place long enough to build up a culture of their own. Each Gnoll lives only to tear down civilisation and eat the carcasses of the dead, and give their ancestors, the hyenas, an even worse reputation than they already have. Like the latter, they are spread out across Africa, the Middle East, and parts of India. There they are regularly met in combat with many different forces, and surprisingly, have made an error of attacking Yuan-Ti assets. This has worked out for the best concerning other creatures, as both look to dominate them, and a war of attrition between these two groups weaken them both.
As a species, the Gnolls are very old. A cabal of African Witchdoctors, Middle Eastern Warlocks, and Dayan (Indian Witches), carried out a ritual to summon a deity to Earth millennia ago to purge the world of any being that would oppose them. In doing so they summoned Yeenoghu, a primal demon lord of chaos. He carved a path from eastern Africa, up through the Middle East, and well into India destroying countless lives, and bringing down, at least in part, a number of civilisations. Where-ever he walked this path hyenas moved in to feast on the dead. As Yeenoghu killed, a part of his power was left in his kills, and caused the flesh of the hyenas to infect these creatures with a modicum of his power. This caused the hyenas to warp into the first Gnolls, who soon started to worship Yeenoghu, and breed true from then on. In summoning him, the triad of evil mages caused their own destruction when the Yuan-Ti learned what was happening, and believing it was their destiny to rule the world, met the cabal in open combat, or assassinated the remainder. Unfortunately Gnolls remained behind, and are a blight to this day in these regions.
Gnolls are led by the strongest, and most vicious of their kind, and make nothing of their own. When they target victims of their raids, they will lift what they need, converting & altering items to their own needs. They prefer to target small groups of humanoids knowing anything larger and/or behind thick walls are to hard & determined for their own war parties to overcome. War parties are general made up of loosely related individuals, or groups of such individuals.
Sometimes, a Gnoll war party will fall upon themselves, generally when in lean times, and rip each other apart, due to their bloodlust, and constant need to feast on warm flesh & blood. This helps to keep them in check, and since they have no chance of making allies (after all, they view almost others as only a source of food), they are in turn hunted down and killed by others where possible. This further keeps the packs in check to an extent. The only allies they seem to have is cultists, insane groups of humanoids corrupted to the worship of Yeenoghu, and as cannibalistic as the Gnolls.