Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast

This article is part of a series! Click here to see the other entries.

Hyenas are real-world animals, and have been in the game since at least AD&D 1st Edition. Here they are present in both books, though the MV only has them in its animal appendix.

The Lore

Real-world hyenas are large carnivores who hunt in packs. They live in the same areas as lions, and compete with them for prey. Their behavior is quite sophisticated and their biology fascinating, but their looks and laugh-like barks have given them a bad reputation among humans.

This reputation also exists in the implied 4e setting, and paints hyenas as filthy, cowardly, gluttonous and all-around bad news. You won’t see any nobles using hyenas in their heraldry!

While natural hyenas are pretty much identical to their real-world counterparts, there’s a variety native to the Abyss that’s favored by Yeenoghu and a lot more deserving of their foul reputation. The demon lord likes sending these Cacklefiends to serve his favored gnoll servants in the world. Gnolls are also known to tame mundane hyenas.

The Numbers

We have two different stat blocks here. Both have trained Perception, low-light vision, and run at speed 8, all of which are pretty standard dog-monster traits.

Hyena (MM)

Mundane hyenas are Medium Natural Beasts and Level 2 Skirmishers with 37 HP. They fight with bites and have a passive Pack Attack trait that gives them a +1d6 damage bonus when two other allies are adjacent to their target. This is a little worse than the gnoll version, which adds a flat +5 damage.

Their other passive trait is Harrier: if a hyena is adjacent to an enemy, that enemy grants combat advantage to everyone, but only against melee attacks.

These traits mean a pack of hyenas will try to gang up on a single target at a time.

Cacklefiend Hyena (MM)

Cacklefiends are Large Elemental Beasts, though the argument could be made that they should be Magical Beasts instead: they have Int 6 and understand both Abyssal and Common. Anyway, they’re Level 7 Brutes with 96 HP.

Cacklefiends have the same Pack Attack and Harrier traits of a mundane hyena, and their bite deals ongoing acid damage (save ends). Their blood is also acidic: when they’re first bloodied, it spurts in a Close Burst 1 and automatically deals both immediate and ongoing acid damage (save ends).

Their cackle also has some supernatural power behind it. Fiendish Cackle (Close Burst 3 vs. Will; recharge 5-6) is a fear power that inflicts a -2 attack penalty that lasts for a turn on those it hits.

War Hyena (MV)

A mundane hyena trained for war by gnolls, and likely deployed in huge packs. This is a Level 8 Minion Soldier with a decent bite attack, the Harrier trait and a Savage Response reaction power that allows it to attack any adjacent enemy that makes an attack that doesn’t include the war hyena as a target.

Sample Encounters

The MM has one sample encounter: Level 4, 2 gnoll huntmasters and 4 hyenas.

Cacklefiends and War Hyenas are appropriate as spice for almost any gnoll encounter with little tweaking, since gnolls cluster around level 7 and 8 as well. The given encounter is about the limit of what you can do with mundane hyenas as gnoll pets, unless you level them up. They’re probably more appropriate to use on their own as wildlife.