Monster Review - The Flind [Volo's Guide to Monsters, 153]

Flind
Taking the enviable position of ruling over Gnoll warbands is the Flind - a super-Gnoll of greatly enhanced Gnollness. This is all part of Volo's beefing up of the humanoid riff-raff enemies, giving you a boss monster for any campaigns in which Gnolls are a persistent enemy, and the Flind has been structured to work best in this role.

Weirdly, the Flind actually has a pretty distinguished pedigree in Monster Manuals past existing in almost every edition of the game. Like many weird creatures created by ham-fistedly bashing a fist into a keyboard and statting up the result, the 'Flinds' biggest obstacle is an awful name: it sounds like a skin-cream, or an insult form the 1920s, or the inedible organ of a parrot. It certainly does not connote Gnoll aristocracy, but here we are. Let's find our Flind...

Art

I feel a trifle guilty because I moved over this image whenever I flicked through Volo's - perhaps the neighbouring Girallon's gynecomastia made me leap over to the plebian Gnolls on the next page.

There's a lot of characterful details in this depiction:the silver-white mane and tied moustaches give our friend the Flind an obvious status and preeminence, and the grisly trophies and blood-stained armour fit perfectly with the idea of a chosen champion of Yeenoghu, wading through gore and carrion in leading their war-band. The eyes are quite horrifyingly predatory, and the Flind's picture really captures what should be scary about Gnolls: the universal taboo of cannibalism and the idea of a bestial horror suddenly getting up and imitating humanity with none of the pretensions to morality - hunger made organised. There's something almost licentious in the Flind's leering facial expression.

Purpose and Tactics

The Flind is the final boss of a low-level campaign arc to cast out invading Gnolls - he'll have been hinted at in previous moments in terms of awe and terror. He possibly has a secondary role as a supporting monster in a high-level encounter.

As every Gnoll and Gnoll-adjacent creature has Rampage ( and you could easily mod it on to anything you like), the leading ability for the Flind it his Aura of Blood Thirst, which enables even 1/4 CR Gnolls to beef up their action economy with extra Bite attacks. These attacks are weak, especially comparatively for the beefier Gnolls in Volo's, but should nicely boost their damage output. To take advantage of this your Flind should move in an honour guard of Gnolls (the ten feet range is very limiting). Whilst aiding and abetting his smorgasbord of Gnolls, he has a series of disruptive abilities with his Flail, all of which have reach. This enables him to stay behind a line of boosted Gnolls still striking at the front line, causing them to become paralysed whilst surrounded or turn their blade against each other. Your Flind can also target several different saves where appropriate, and drop the Flail of Pain late in the combat when simple damage is required to end his foes. Bear in mind that the Flind can drop each of its special attacks, so I would spread the paralysis and madness around before caving someone's head in.

To take the best advantage of the Flind, a tight combat in cramped conditions is ideal: a tense dungeon corridor or mountain pass or fortress battlements will keep the Flind able to disrupt dangerously whilst boosting his subordinates. It should also prevent the Flind and his Gnoll soldiers from relying on their comparatively weaker ranged attacks Should player-characters start to fall, Rampage will trigger and make the fight turn quickly. In a gruelling, action economy focused combat a stalemate could quickly become a rout.

In a high-level combat, a Flind could be a good monster to add to a combat against Demons - he's a sturdy melee fighter whose reach and variety of disruptive moves mean the party cannot simply ignore him.

FluffThere's some interesting stuff here: the Flind not only leads by virtue of strength but recieves prophetic visions: it can give knowledge to a Gnoll warband beyond what is possible. I personally love the idea of the barbaric Flind trying to make sense of visions that are fundamentally confusing, misleading or horrifying (Does Yeenoghu care much for clarity?).Or, the visions being used to evade and strike where the enemy is weakest, confounding the normal military response.

Plot Hooks

Batuhan the Gore-Bringer has lead his war-band through the very heart of the Kingdom of Altanasarai, but in a puzzling, maddening way. His band strikes at seemingly meaningless targets, evades rich market towns to cross mountain ranges, heading ever south. Noone knows where Batuhan's visions are leading him, or why......

Dhzambul and his war-band have come to the very frontier of civilization, and it is know that he is maddened by visions: he rolls on the ground, frothing, tormented by images of burning cities and armies on the march, of gnolls lying slaughtered by the thousand by the hands of prey-races, of abominations wandering desolate plains, of a burning sky - he can make no sense among it, and none of the yipping curs in his war-band can either. Dhzambul demands that the soft prey races send on the their shamans to make sense of his dreams, of he will plunder, slaughter and devours until he finds one.

Khongordzol rots in prison, his war-band defeated. The only bones he can chew are the dusty remnants of ancient prisoners, and his manacles have made his splendid fur matted and receding. In the darkness of the oubliette, though, Yeenoghu still blesses him with visions and portents...

VerdictA solid, dependable boss-monster which fits its theme and have some interesting abilities - and one suited to the role of champion.