Gnoll Stronghold is one of the areas from the World Map. |
Gnoll Stronghold is an optional area.
No matter from which direction the map is entered, players begin at the east edge of the map. This was fixed in BG:EE. A single bridge spans the river and is the only path deeper into the stronghold area.
The left side of the bridge is guarded by two ogrillons – Gnarl and Hairtooth. They demand 200 to allow party to cross. If you give in to their demand, they will attack you anyway (Hairtooth will drop the gold that you paid). By bargaining with them the toll can be reduced to 100 and they will actually leave the area, which results in a 250 XP gain. However, killing them grants you 350 XP and their loot, including the unique Gauntlets of Dexterity, which are permanently lost if you bargain with them.
The stronghold itself is home to respawning groups of gnolls. The timer for their respawn is quite short, so you may have to both fight your way in and out. The gnolls have driven whole tree sections (pilings) of appropriate lengths into the ground to make crude but effective stair steps down into the prisoner pits. Dynaheir is at 2470, 1400, at the bottom of one of the prison pits. Since she was kept in harsh conditions during her imprisonment, she is below her maximum HP when found.
Below the stronghold, there are three caves which can be entered.
- Tome Cave – 800, 2380: Group of Xvarts and a container with:
- Tome of Leadership and Influence, which gives the user a permanent raise of +1 to Charisma
- Potion of Healing x3
- Larloch's Minor Drain scroll
- Magic Missile scroll
- 95gp
- Carrion Crawler Cave - 580, 2080: Group of Xvarts and a Carrion Crawler, which can inflict the Held Status Effect with its melee attack.
- Xvart Cave - 120, 3320: Large group of Xvarts
The player can post characters in areas they want kept clear; nothing will spawn in their field of vision.
Enemies[]
- Non-respawning: Carrion Crawler, Gnolls, Gnoll Chieftain, Gnoll Veteran, Xvarts
- Respawning: Gnolls, Gnoll Elite, Gnoll Slashers, Gnoll Veterans, Xvarts
Transitions[]
- It's a four hour journey to Bear River to the North.
- It's a twenty-four hour journey to Dryad Falls to the East.
Bugs[]
- After a rest at the eastern end of the bridge, it is possible that party members wake up in the closed-off area shortly north of it, meaning they are stuck there and cannot move together with the party anymore; leaving the map to the east does not work either in this case. Other than preventing this by resting in another place or loading a savegame from before the rest, which may result in new hostile encounters, a solution to this is, with enabled cheat keys, to select the affected character, point with the mouse to the desired position, and use the key combination
CTRL+J
(Windows) or⌘+J
(macOS) – which will "teleport" the character to the chosen destination.