Bugbears

Bugbears are the largest of the goblinoid morphemes. They are rangy and powerful, as strong as an orc although less heavily built, and typically hairier across the body than other goblinoids. While some live underground, they tend to favour forst environments which suit their ambush-based fighting style. They rarely form into groups larger than bands of ten or twenty individuals, since they breed slowly and require a substantial hunting range to support their numbers. A very small number of bubear villages do exist, cultivating livestock to allow larger numbers, but Bugbears are not naturally inclined to such directed labour due to the function of ther metabolisms, which are geared to allow bursts of very rapid activity, but not extended labour.

Bugbears and Identity

Bugbears have a strong sense of biologically-determined gender, as females tend to be significantly larger and stronger than males, perhaps as a result of lone females having to defend themselves and their offspring. Socially, however, females have no different role from any male, until they first give birth. Mothers are revered within bugbear bands as the custodians of the band’s legacy, and believed to be touched by the gods. Sex is a casual activity between bandmates, and sometimes acts as an icebreaker between strangers, and like goblins, few bugbears directly link it to reproduction. This means that lone bugbear mothers are their offsprings’ only recognised parents, while those born into a band are children of the band entire, and they are thought to be begat upon the mother by a divine action.