Type: Gnoll tribe / war-legend
Known for: Necromancy, death-rites, and bone-craft
High Shaman: Vorlak Bonecaller, a necromancer of rare power
Their mark: Bone armor and skeletal motifs; pale, ghost-hued eyes
In the war: Raised the fallen and cast fear across the battlefield
The curse: Haunted by the restless dead they once raised

The Bonechewers are a tribe steeped in death-magic and macabre ritual. They regard the afterlife not with fear but as a source of power and counsel, and their name comes from the practice of chewing the bones of the fallen to take in their strength and commune with their spirits.

In the Gnoll Wars

The Bonechewers were Angash's magical backbone. Their necromancers raised fallen warriors to fight again, turning a battlefield into a force that replenished itself, while their shamans cast fear and paralysis to break enemy resolve and clear the way for the other tribes.

Notable Figures

• High Shaman Vorlak Bonecaller: The tribe's spiritual and tactical leader, master of death and the undead.

• Morgra Deathweaver: A necromancer specializing in curses and hexes that gut enemy morale.

• Tharn Bonecrusher: A warrior-shaman who fights with bone weapons steeped in dark magic.

Bonechewers wear bone armor and skeletal ornament, their fur running black or deep brown to melt into shadow, their eyes a pale, almost ghostly hue.

Combat Style

They fight through necromancy first, summoning undead and laying curses to weaken a foe before closing with bone weapons charged with necrotic power.

Culture

The tribe is ruled by a cadre of shamans and necromancers. Its life turns on death-rites, ancestor worship, and the conviction that the spirits of the dead can be bound to serve the living. They prize cunning, wisdom, and mastery over the forces of death.

The Bonechewers rose from shadowed forests and old burial grounds, where they first learned to commune with the dead. They hold that their ancestors were the first to master the dark arts.

Traditions

• Necromantic Initiation: A young gnoll must summon and control a minor spirit to prove their aptitude.

• Bonecrafting: Weapons, armor, and tools are wrought from bone, each piece thought to carry the spirit of its origin.

• Ancestor Worship: Regular rites honor the dead and seek their guidance.

Beliefs

They believe true power lies in mastering death, that balance between the living and the dead must be kept, and that death is not an end but a transformation in an unbroken cycle.

When the war ended, the dead the Bonechewers had raised turned on them. Spirits they once commanded now haunt the tribe, fouling their necromancy and unraveling the very art that made them formidable. The balance they revered was broken, and they have never fully restored it.

• Gravediggers in the borderlands leave a single unbroken bone at a fresh grave, a peace-offering said to keep a Bonechewer from disturbing it.

• The tribe will not raise a warrior who died screaming, for such spirits are believed to come back seeking the one who called them.