Dusk

When Dusk was born, her black fur marked her as unique among the tribe. Taking this as an omen, the tribe's shaman took her tentatively under her wing, pending her survival through the testing of the other pups. Despite a larger than normal array of challenges from the other children, she consistently came out on top, but much to everyone's surprise she left her challengers alive. Some took this as a weakness, while others, including the Matriarch, saw it as a show of strength.

When she came of age, the shaman watched over her as she undertook a vision quest, which would initiate her into their mystical traditions. In the vision however, rather than forming a bond with one of the spirits, she saw a spirit of the wolf leap into her, and when she returned to the physical world, she found she had become the wolf from her vision, though with a thought she was able to return to her own form.

This unusual capability frightened both the shaman and Matriarch, and Dusk was swiftly exiled from the tribe. Embracing her new ability, she spent a couple years living off the forest, honing her abilities to hunt, as well as expanding her shapeshifting repertoire. No creature could stand against her, but somehow it left her feeling hollow.

Drawing upon her teacher's lessons, she took herself on another vision quest, looking for what she was missing. First she saw a lone wolf, looking only half-fed. The image of the wolf then faded, to be replaced by a pack of wolves, all strong and healthy. Turning, they ran through the trees, and Dusk found herself among their number. Suddenly the trees fell away, and before her was a man-den, what they called a town. She hesitated a moment, and the rest of the pack stopped, turning to look at her. Without speaking, they told her that this was their den, and it could be hers, if she joined their pack. The pack then split into two groups to allow a large black panther to approach. It was twice, no, four times her size, and she sensed a ferocity she could only dream of.

"Little hunter," it said in her mind, with a voice like that of all the predators in the world, "your talents are wasted here. Greater quarry awaits you, and a new pack. Go to the land of the man-creatures. Find the hunters among them. They are stronger than you realize, and will lead you to new hunting grounds worthy of your claws."

With the words echoing in her mind, Dusk set out to find the nearest human settlement. Once she spotted it, she remained in hiding for a full day, observing how the occasional traveller entered and left. Once she was satisfied she knew how it worked, the next day at noon she approached the town gates, arms at her side and head held high.

The gate guards were confused at first as to why a single gnoll would approach, and thinking it could be a distraction, sounded an alarm. As she waited as patient as if she were stalking a skittish doe, the guards scanned the entire area and found no sign of any others, which made the unthreatening way she had approached even stranger. They tried firing a couple arrows as warning shots, but she did not move an inch. Finally, unsure what to make of her, they surrounded her and led her to the constabulatory's jail, putting her into a cell until someone higher up could figure out what to do with her.

Finally, the sherriff came down to visit their unusual prisoner. When he let her know he was the one in charge, she couldn't help but let a bit of her surprise leak through her stoic demeanor that they would let males rule over them, but she suppressed it and did her best to explain why she was here - the spirits had guided her here and told her to hunt alongside them, and given a chance, she could prove her worth.

That came not more than a day or two later, when a minor noble's daughter was kidnapped and taken into the woods. Dusk overheard the discussion between the sheriff and the noble, and offered her services to tracking him down. Not seeing how it could make things any worse, he agreed and she went after him with an elf "watcher" to make sure she didn't try to betray them. When she confronted the criminal, he tried to run, but Dusk took wolf form and tracked him through the forest while the elf led the daughter back to town. After a long chase she found much more exhilerating than tracking plain animals, she finally cornered him and with a pounce knocked him out. Once he was unconscious, she brought him back to town, and earned herself a temporary place.

Dusk can be traced back to a gaming group I played with at my local game store, back in the 4E days. Druid had come out and I really liked how it actually would let you build something similar to a feral druid from World of Warcraft. That wasn't the only reason however, despite being a big fan of kitty druids, as the playstyle itself of pouncing about and tactically tossing in spells in-between I found quite fun. I settled on a gnoll for her base race, though I can't recall what inspired that at the moment, who would turn into a wolf, rather than a cat, and played her for a bit in that campaign, before it ended up falling apart. 4E was then ultimately forgotton by most, with the release of 5E, but then I found a play-by-post 4E game, and decided to revive her for that, even getting some proper art of her look. In personality, I pictured her a lot like Dinobot from Beast Wars, but leaning into the pack dynamics brought up in the 4E gnoll articles. That fell through though, and the biggest problem since is that no other game system has really captured what I enjoyed about 4E druids as of yet. The shapeshifting is typically limited, so you can't freely bounce back and forth between beast and humanoid, and you're seemingly expected to -replace- your beast form, rather than upgrade it, as you level. this conflicts with my idea of her always preferring her wolf form for combat, and being able to freely use it, while still taking other forms when necessary. Even the 5.5E moon druid, while closer, doesn't appear to be quite there yet. 5E also tried really hard to make Gnoll PCs no longer a thing, which doesn't help either in the D&D sphere.