Kurro had always had a gift for the arcane which he had taught himself, but he knew that he needed to push deeper into the youniverse if he was to continue his path towards his goal. The night he came of age he knew he must leave his clan, and so he wandered into the wilderness, never to return. He spent several weeks in solitude as he traveled towards civilisation, spending his time exploring his own mind and his own body.

However, once he reached the human cities he quickly realised that he was out of his element. Gnolls were viewed as savages to be purged, and Kurro would quicker find a sword lodged in his chest than hold a conversation with anyone remotely affiliated with higher society. And so he was forced into the underworld in order to survive. Friends were hard to find when he had no appreciable skills, and so he sold himself to a corrupt official, committing himself into indentured servitude to fight the arena for a period of five months.

Despite its reputation, arena fights were rarely to the death. People come to see famous names and epic rivalries; death is simply bad for business. Combatants are expected to yield when they are injured or have been disarmed; this ends the fight. Any combatant that continues to attack an opponent after they have yielded forfeits their match fee, and if injured or slain, is required to pay out the contract of his opponents owner, and may be charged with a capital felony depending on circumstance. Overall, the system is successful in preventing waste.

However, the battles are live with real weapons, and there are no rules against using excess force. Until a combatant yields, there are no rules imposed upon combatants. This means that upon occasion, battles end in severe injury or death. Such events are a special treat for the audience, and are the talk of the town for weeks upon end.

Kurro became an enigma as soon as he took his first step onto the famed gravel turf. As physically imposing as he was, he wielded no weapon. The gnoll did not deign to rely on tools of the youniverse. Such tools are by their nature, unreliable. Arrows can miss, bows can snap, Swords can be dropped. The only thing which Kurro could control was his own body and mind; thus, he wielded his own flesh, and the arcane.

Similarly, Kurro wore no armour. Practically, he found that sheathing himself muted his ability to wield his body and channel the arcane. More significantly, he also despised the idea of clothing himself with the youniverse. And so he wore nothing but a small loincloth; for no other reason than not doing so made his interactions with others untenable.

In his first fight, Kurro faced Larash; the famous orc veteran that had ruled the arena for years. Larash stood only half a foot shorter than the gnoll, and his chest and arms spread much wider. Armoured in mail and wielding his trademark battleaxe, it was the most challenging of match-ups for the unseeded Kurro to make his debut. But the gnoll had insisted on it.

Less than a minute after he entered the arena, he stood over the orks dead body. Larash's armour had served him well against his opponent's spears and swords; but it had cooked him alive when it conducted the gnoll's raw energy.

That day, he made a statement that was heard accross nations; there was a legend being born in the arena, and fame and fortune would surely befall anyone who could fell the giant gnoll. Combatants traveled to the arena like moths to flames, each one falling before his heavy paws. One on one, two on one, three on one, it didn't matter.

And each time as Kurro stepped out onto the arena, he emerged bigger than the week before. His teenage body was still growing, and in typical gnoll fashion, it was growing fast. By the sixth week, he stood four inches taller than when he begun, and his frame was quickly filling out into full maturity. The foremost discussion the masses had among themselves was just when the gnoll would stop growing; and exactly how tall would he stand when that happened?