So been getting into Pathfinder 2e, so figured I'd make a character for it. In this case, an aasimar / nephilim gnoll, born in the city of Nantambu in the Mwangi Expanse. Basically the setting's fantasy version of Africa, with the city housing the continent's most prestigious magical school along with having a culture of community, charity, and generally welcoming newcomers as if they were part of the family to the point that businesses and homes will have spare chairs or even entire tables set aside for charity and visitors.

So being raised in such an environment rubbed off on him, making him a total cuddlebug and always wanting to help those that need it. He was born when his parents were having trouble getting kids, so the striped "Sweetbreath Gnoll" of his father and the spotted "Great Gnoll" of his mother prayed to the goddess of love, beauty, and artwork, Shelyn. The gnoll section of the sourcebook states she's the patron god of gnoll storytellers and lorekeepers.

As a result of answering that prayer, the child they made was not just a hybrid of the two gnoll subspecies, having his mother's massive Great Gnoll size and colors, but his father's stripes and naturally sweet scent, but also some celestial heritage to him, having a halo made of shimmering rainbow light that rotates like a color wheel or an RGB gamer setup as a result of Shelyn, The Rainbow Songbird's influence. Even his wings look white at first glance, but if the feathers catch the light just right, they shimmer with a rainbow of colors like a prism catching a sunbeam as the white is split into a colorful aura.

Additionally, due to his deity's influence towards artwork and beauty, he was drawn to the calling of being a bard, continuing his father's legacy as a lorekeeper or storyteller, but also having a bit of his mother's witch knowledge in the form of a plush toy hyena familiar. In game terms he took the level 1 species feat of getting a hyena familiar, but is otherwise 100% bard class. His upbringing of charity also led him to branch out into both a barber and a doctor, letting him compensate for the bard's lack of healing magic for his team.

He has a bunch of scars on his right palm and wrist from using the Right Hand Blood, which lets his blood from the right side heal and fight disease, while the left side is toxic, a feat based on superstitions of hyenas doing the same.

As for his mane, there's a group of dwarves in Mwangi that dye their hair to look like the sky during an important part of their lives who he helped on a, thankfully uneventful, pilgrimage, and so they chose him to have the honor of going through the ceremony and turning his mane like the night's sky when his celestial nature first fully manifested, the magic dye incorporating his stripes as the meteor shower of that night.

I love what Pathfinder did with gnolls, instead of doubling down extra-hard like D&D did, with their "gnolls are evil demon spawn, end of discussion" lore. Pathfinder gnolls are basically just people, capable of good or ill, with their own culture and all instead of slavering beasts of endless hunger and murder. Though that's not to say Izz doesn't have one hell of an appetite as that gut shows...


Drawn by  Snozzy and the little human is my friend  TigerInAScarf