What are the Gnolls eating?

[LightlyFrosted]

Just to sate some curiosity - the gnolls of Haven have held the mines for some time now.  Do they have some sort of compact with the people of Haven?  I can't imagine much would be growing down in the mines, and even if there were some natural prey species, the gnolls would probably nosh them down pretty quickly in a controlled environment.  If the gnolls are actively hunting down and eating villagers, the situation in Haven is much more dire than anyone's really giving it credit for.

If the people of Haven are trading the gnolls food for iron, it does make the whole 'Hi, I'm the king of Haven, would you be so good as to kill these gnolls for me' a bit morally dubious.  Doable, but dubious.  If they DON'T have some sort of arrangement, I can imagine any gnolls trying to sneak out through Haven being caught, drawn, and quartered.

Is there another exit from the mines of Haven?  If so, then they may be bringing in their own food from outside, and instead of just going down and killing them all, a siege could be set up.

This is more for curiosity than anything else, but depending on the answer , it may say something fairly significant about the character of the gnolls, and the  arguments people could make for descending and systematically killing them.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Oh, I'd love to descend and systematically slaughter every last one of 'em. Pyyran lives in Haven City, and has fought the gnolls since before they ever set foot in the mines.

I imagine the gnolls live the same way the ogres did; raiding the town and the outlying areas whenever possible. They'll lose some dogmen, aye, but that's an acceptable sacrifice to feed the rest.

[jrizz]

I think Pyyran has been feeding them

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Their own dead, maybe.

[Dorganath]

Well you guys understand that the cave entrance would not in reality dump out right into downtown Haven.  If you look at the map of Mistone, you can see that Haven and the mines actually have some distance between them.

So with that, they can surely go in and out without strolling through the town to gather food and such.

[Pseudonym]

I think there are underwater streams (from memory?) - maybe they are full of fish? Maybe there are rats, or some other kind of food source galore down there? Maybe we, the heroes of layonara, are yet to discover the rest of the cave network down there by which more gnolls come into to replenish their number? Maybe they have a deal with the mercenaries in the Silkwood nearby for provisioning?

I always imagine there to be more caves, more gnolls, more exits, more space between the cave entrance and the town, all kinds of things down there that are just out of my peripheral vision that explain how the status quo exists.

Edit: Dorg type fast, Pseudo type slow.

[lonnarin]

Grovel and Nonac also drop off big bear packs of bandit corpses too.  We kind of like the idea of such savage beasts so close to Haven, and offer them tribute so they don't kill us for hunting their topside kin.

[Drizzlin]

It can also depend on how deep the caves go. There are plants, fungi, and other vegitation in the underdark and even deep caverns. You can't let the limits of the game limit the imagination of how vast the world really is.

[Script Wrecked]

Just to sate some curiosity - the gnolls of Haven have held the mines for some time now.  Do they have some sort of compact with the people of Haven?  I can't imagine much would be growing down in the mines, and even if there were some natural prey species, the gnolls would probably nosh them down pretty quickly in a controlled environment.  If the gnolls are actively hunting down and eating villagers, the situation in Haven is much more dire than anyone's really giving it credit for.

If the people of Haven are trading the gnolls food for iron, it does make the whole 'Hi, I'm the king of Haven, would you be so good as to kill these gnolls for me' a bit morally dubious...

Actually, the people of Haven do have a compact with the gnolls. The Havenites regularly send the gnolls those far-too-numerous too-good-for-regular-jobs menace-to-society always-interfering adventuring types to dispose of, under some flimsy pretext (they're such suckers for "can you help us", or "we promise you lots of gold"), and the gnolls have a regular food supply.

It's called living in harmony with your neighbor.

[LightlyFrosted]

Well, the mines of Haven aren't technically a natural formation.   It's possible that fungi may have grown in over the years, but it's an open mineshaft, not a cave.

[Eorendil]

Some of it at least.. the mining may have broken into some natural underground structures too.  Who knows..