bugbears

Bugbears are goblins who acquire Cannibal Sickness.

by Eron12 with Hero Forge

Beznak Bristlebranch, Dwarf Deep Ranger

"Given that goblins tend to bury their dead somewhat respectfully, goblins don't seem to be willing to eat the flesh of their own dead, at least if'n they aren't starving to death. But goblins have no moral quandaries eating the flesh of dwarves, elves, orcs, or humans.
If a goblin in a battle feels emboldened enough to toss boasts, he will promise to eat you later.

I have personally seen the gnawed upon bones of dwarves, humans and orcs in old goblin camps with my own eyes and by the Nine it is revolting.
But it does makes a dwarf wonder. If the goblins have no problem eating mortal flesh, why is Scarterra not overrun with bugbears?
First off, goblins usually lose direct fights with dwarves, humans, orcs, and elves.
Second off, goblins may be okay with murder and cannibalism but they are not cannibals or murderers at their core. At their core. goblins are thieves.
Assuming a uncannily lucky pack of goblins manages to take down a pack of rangers, they are not doing this to eat the rangers or out of simple malice. They want the livestock or the loot of caravan that the rangers were guarding.
After they have taken all the loot, if they have time permitting, they will grab the corpses of the men guarding the loot. The thing is, most adult goblins weight about two stones. A dead dwarf, even stripped of all possessions probably weighs well over seven stone.
It's difficult to haul away dwarf bodies quickly, same goes if they bushwhack some humans or orcs. Remember the goblins are also carrying a bunch of stolen loot. Also note that the goblins are guerilla fighters favoring hit-and-run tactics, heavy emphasis on the run.
Victorious goblins need to flee the site of their crime before their enemies know they are there and retaliate, so they don't take more spoils than they can carry at good pace, and this often means leaving the bodies of fallen foes behind.
Assuming the goblins do bring a bit of 'two legged goat meat' to the dinner table after a successful raid, it's a good bet they are going to share their food with the whole tribe. If every goblin only gets a tiny piece of two legged goat, it probably won't be enough to turn anyone into a bugbear."

"Our good ranger is correct, mostly.
Goblins may try to eat the flesh of their enemies but they rarely succeed. Rarely does not mean never.
A goblin tribe that is very strong and very cunning might actually be able to catch enough manflesh consistently that one could eventually create an entire clan of bug bears. There were at least three such tribes bending the knee to the nine times cursed orc-mule, Mordock the Destroyer.
Goblins may live in clans superficially similar to dwarf clans, but they do not have the same sense of clan duty or kinship that we have. They rarely share all their loot or their food equally.
Most goblin kings take the dragon's share of the loot their underlings bring in and they have first right of refusal on all food. If a goblin king decides he likes manflesh a lot, he probably won't share it with his subjects. In which case you end up with a bug bear chieftain ruling a clan of ordinary goblins.
This is a very common occurrance actually. Most documented cases of bug bears involve a single bugbear a much larger troupe of ordinary goblins. If the leader is cunning, the clan as a whole might prosper and it might gather enough manflesh that his lieutenants can also become bugbears, but this is rare.
Most bugbear-led goblin tribes gutter out quickly. A bugbear chieftain's reach more than often than not exceeds his grasp and his unholy hunger pushes him to drive the tribe into taking unwise risks causing the tribe to suffer great losses. Elsetimes, the chieftain's unholy hunger drives him to eat his own kin. Sometimes the unfortunate goblins have to deal with disastrous losses followed by their chieftain eating the flesh of these fallen goblins.
Once this happens, the remaining goblins will usually either try to knife their chieftain or they will try to desert the clan and flee though there are isolated accounts of degenerate lone Bugbears literally eating their whole clans down to the last man, woman, and child.
Harren Greystone, royal historian of Meckelorn"

Transmission & Vectors

Bugbears are goblins who develop an addiction to mortal flesh. Like a human ogre, a goblin bugbear can pass his curse onto his or her offspring.
If a bugbear becomes a goblin king (or queen) of a clan, he is probably going to take several mates and have lots of children.
Ordinary goblin women often die in childbirth giving birth to bugbear children. Bugbear women have little problem giving birth to bugbear children. Female bugbears have a shorter pregnancy gestations and a quicker recovery time than normal goblin pregnancies.

by me with Midjourney

-Onk, goblin wise woman

"Sometimes, sometimes, one bugbear can lead a clan to greatness. But more than sometimes, more than sometimes, several bug bears will lead a clan to ruin.
Not all goblin babies survive to their name day. Bugbear kings often have many children but they rarely watch their babies carefully. Understand?

Second and third generation bugbears that survive their infancy mature very fast and grow very large, presuming they are well-fed and get at least a little bit of mortal flesh.
Most adult goblins are a little taller than three feet in the rare instances they stand up straight. First generation bugbears routinely reach heights of six feet and occasionally make it to seven feet tall, often weighing four to five times the mass of an ordinary goblin. Second and subsequent generation bugbears can routinely reach heights of eight feet tall and can weigh six or seven times the mass of an ordinary goblin. That seems to be the maximum size, even for a bug bear from a very long line of bugbears.

Symptoms

by Eron12 with Hero Forge

-Daana of Meraland, Defender of the Hearth

"Bugbears don't breath ice like wendigo and they don't grow claws and teeth like wendigo. They rarely develop enhanced senses like ojangers and skopen. They do not read heart's or develop camoflage powers like ollums.
Bugbears simply grow large. They are even less likely than human ogres to develop strange exotic powers.
But their size is enough. Despite their size, they retain the nimbleness and agility of a tiny goblin. They may look like lumbering oaths, but they do not fight like lumbering oaths. They are very fast runners and have excellent reflexes in combat.

They are almost impossibly light on their feet and barely make a sound when they move. They also retain a smaller goblin's instinct for stealth. If a bug bear does develop a so called 'exotic power', the bugbear in question is probably a contortionist. Many bugbears can squeeze through passages you wouldn't expect a creature that large to be able to pass through.
I've seen it, it's disgusting.
Bugbears have a weakness in that they are not very hardy. Is a bugbear tougher and more resilient than an ordinary goblin? Yes very much so. Is a bugbear as tough as other cannibal mutants of similar size? No, not at all.
The same pliant bones that make bug bears so nimble and flexible means that bug bears are prone to getting broken bones and bugbears rarely have the accelerated healing factors of other cannibal mutants.
Goblins are a cowardly lot, and bugbears for all their size are still goblins. Bugbears are fairly hard to hit, but if you get a solid blow on one, they will probably try to flee. But remember, like any goblin, bugbears love to fight dirty."

Treatment

-Beslyfle the gnome, matron of Fumaya's Tenders

"Mother Mera commands us to try to show mercy bring cannibals back into the fold if they show genuine remorse and desire redemption. I do not believe a bugbear has ever sought redemption and I do not believe one ever will.
Most goblins, whether they admit it or not, want to be bugbears. All goblins have a persecution complex, perhaps not unjustified. goblins relish the opportunity to turn the tables on their tormentors and what better way to do so than than eat their flesh and in the process become strong?

In theory, Purification magic can temporarily suppress an bugbear's unholy appetite but to cure Cannibal Sickness an afflicted needs to have genuine remorse, be subjected to Purification ●●●●●, and then go on a lengthy and dangerous quest while resisting the urge to eat mortal flesh the whole time.  According to the stories, ogres and other cannibals have been cured of their conditions minutes or seconds before their deaths after dying in a poetic and noble sacrifice but this has never happened with a bugbear.

Affected Groups

"Bugbears, like regular goblins, have been around since ancient times.
That raises the question, what about the so-called new goblins? No, you don't get to cut me off, the new goblins are real. I've seen jumping goblins with my own two eyes. I cannot personally attest the other new goblins, but I suspect they are real as well.
I've seen bugbears and I've seen jumping goblins, but I've never seen a jumping bugbear. I hope I never do. Jumping goblins are rare, so jumping bug bears would be rarer still, iff'n they exist at all. More so, jumping goblins, compared to common goblins are even more cowardly and they are even better thieves.
Jumping goblins will steal anything that isn't nailed down, then jump away with whatever they just nabbed. Since the jumping goblins don't kill a lot of mortals, they cannot eat a lot of mortal flesh, even if they wanted to."
-Dulgrom, dwarf ranger

"The filthy amphibious invaders known as the 'frog goblins' are a pestilence that must be wiped out, but I do not believe they feast on mortal flesh, at least not often.
They don't seem to eat the flesh of Scaraquans, because they don't need to. Like most filthy scavengers they are opportunistic and prefer to eat things that don't bite back. Their sticky fingers are good at snatching fish and water fowl. Any area that has frog goblins passing through will notice a sharp decline in the wild fish populations.
Of course they also like to raid our grain silos and poach our livestock at every opportunity. Vermin..."
Cherith, mermaid centurion

Prevention

The best way to not get Cannibal Sickness is to not engage in cannibalism. The same goes for bug bear transformation. A goblin that doesn't eat mortal flesh will never turn into an bugbear. The more mortal flesh a goblin eats, the more likely his or her transformation is, especially if they are eating the flesh of other goblins.
Most goblins if they are lucky enough to live long enough to die of old age, probably tasted mortal flesh at least once, but even the strongest and most cunning goblins seldom eat enough mortal flesh to trigger a transformation into a bug bear.
When a goblin cannibal begins growing in size but has not at full bugbear size, he or she is very vulnerable.
Ordinary goblins fear the budding bugbear and are likely to plot against them. If the tribe in question is led by a bugbear, then the bugbear chief likely fears being replaced and will put down a younger bugbear at the slightest sign of disloyalty.
This, among other factors, keeps the total bugbear population down.

History

"During the Second Age when most goblins were enslaved, even the cruelest and most sadistic slave masters didn't want to feed their slaves mortal flesh.
There was a practical reason too. No one wanted to see goblins grow larger, stronger and more aggressive. Though there are unconfirmed rumors of bugbear slaves bred for combat in the arena. I'm not even sure the ancient Disterrians would have done that.
Many Second Age goblins fled bondage and some tribes of free goblins managed to eke out a living in the remote wild areas of Scarterra. The ancient elf kingdoms might have tolerated free goblin tribes dwelling near their borders if they weren't doing any significant damage, but the mere rumor of a bugbear in a free goblin tribe was enough to inspire an organized response from elven knights.
Just as the number of skopen and jormangers swelled during the Second Unmaking, it is believed that the number of bugbears also increased substantially.
Supposedly the goblin known as "the Great One" was not a bugbear and actually led his people on crusades against bugbears. Goblin storytellers claim that most bugbears became Infernalists and the Great One heroically led his untainted brethren against these race traitors.
Whether or not the Great One really existed, more accurate historical accounts suggest that during the Second Unmaking, untainted goblins and bugbears did not cooperate very often. There were mostly tribes of all goblins or small bands of all bugbears but rarely integrated groups.
Embarassingly enough, at the dawn of the Third Age, bugbears largely disappeared very quickly while it was many centuries before our ancestors were able to purge the skopen from the face of Scarterra.
Bugbears have resurged in numbers in modern times while skopen remain a blight on our distant history."
-Saelihn Craroris, grey elf historian

Cultural Reception

by me with Midjourney

"It's a waste to kill a human and eat him. Take a human alive, make him do a bunch of funny stuff THEN eat him once your toy is too broken to play with.
Bugbears? Just a story, never seen one. They not real. I've eaten HUNDREDS of humans and I ain't grow none."
-Kleekz, goblin warrior

Any warrior who regularly fights goblins has at least heard of bugbears.
Goblins are widely viewed as annoying but not especially threatening. Bugbears, whether they are leading ordinary goblins or acting on their own, are viewed as a serious threat and thus are worthy of a serious response.
While there is little evidence to support this, confirmation bias helps push that the narrative that bugbears love to steal and eat children, even more than other cannibals which of course means feudal lords and barbarian tribal leaders will reward any warrior who slays a bugbear greatly.
Bugbears are strong and goblins value strength. But goblins also value being left alone. Goblins themselves are not sure whether they should support bugbears or avoid them but if a bugbear is already in the clan, in most cases the ordinary goblins have two choices, they can serve their new bugbear leader, or they can die.

Type

Supernatural

Parent

Cannibal Sickness

Origin

Mutated

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired & Congenital

Rarity

Rare

Affected Species

• goblins