Moon Bear
Unique to the upper continent of the Three Sisters, moon bears are white-furred bears roughly the same size as black bears, standing around six feet tall when on their hind legs and weighing in at around five hundred pounds. They are sacred to the People of the Bear in the northeast corner of the same continent and treated with awe by the People of the Wolf to the west of them. Though occasionally hunted, hunts are never undertaken lightly against these creatures, and any hunt must be carried out ritually lest a horrific fate befall the hunters.
Like black bears, moon bears often eat opportunistically, foraging for grasses, berries, and insects. They'll happily eat fish or small mammals and even carrion when given the opportunity, and are notorious for braving beehives to raid them for their honey. Their white fur makes hunting difficult, even at night, and the way the full moon reveals them is how they got their name. There is one exception, however.
The Aurora Borealis is a natural phenomenon that occurs often enough in Kytheria, and when it lights up the sky, moon bears go on the hunt. Though it doesn't normally transfix animals who view it, something about the moon bear's presence nearby causes animals and people to become riveted by the aurora, allowing the moon bear to swiftly take down prey it normally wouldn't bother with. Reindeer are the most common, though people are chosen often enough, and one of the more common forms of sacrifice in the far north is letting a human go during a night of activity where bears will find it. The People of the Bear refer to the aurora as 'taivas ansa' or 'sky trap', for this reason and will only gaze upon it from the safety of their homes. The same inexplicable effect that mesmerizes animals only when moon bears are near them during the aurora also drives the normally placid animals into a frenzy.
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