Bugbear Species in The World Within Walls | World Anvil
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Bugbear

Bugbears feature in the nightmare tales of many races — great, hairy beasts that creep through the shadows as quiet as cats. If you walk alone in the woods, a bugbear will reach out of the bushes and strangle you. If you stray too far from the house at night, bugbears will scoop you up to devour you in their den. If a bugbear cuts off your head, your soul stays trapped inside, and the bugbears use your head to magically command all whom you once knew.   Lurid tales such as these have flowered from the seeds of truth. Bugbears do rely on stealth and strength to attack, preferring to operate at night. They do take the heads of enemy leaders, but they are no more likely to eat people indiscriminately than humans are. Bugbears aren’t likely to attack lone travelers or wandering children unless they clearly have something to gain by doing so. From the viewpoint of the rest of the world, their aggression and savagery are thankfully offset by their rarity and lethargy.  

Shiftless, Savage Layabouts

When they’re not in battle, bugbears spend much of their time resting or dozing. They don’t engage in crafting or agriculture to any great extent, or otherwise produce anything of value. They bully weaker creatures into doing their bidding, so they can take it easy. When a superior force tries to intimidate bugbears into service, they will try to escape rather than perform the work or confront the foe. Even when subsumed into a goblinoid host and drawn into war, bugbears must often be roused from naps and bribed to get them to do their duties.   This indolence offers no clue to how vicious the creatures are. Bugbears are capable of bouts of incredible ferocity, using their muscular bodies to exact swift and ruthless violence. At their core, bugbears are ambush predators accustomed to long periods of inactivity broken by short bursts of murderous energy. Ferocious though they may be, bugbears aren’t built for extended periods of exertion.  

Gang Mentality

Since bugbears aren’t a particularly fecund race, their overall population is small and spread over a wide area. Bugbears live in family groups that operate much like gangs. The individuals in a group typically number fewer than a dozen, consisting of siblings and their mates as well as a handful of offspring and an elder or two. A gang lives in and around a small enclosure, often a natural cave or an old bear den, and it might have supplementary dens elsewhere in its territory that it uses temporarily when it goes on long forays for food.   In good times, a bugbear gang is tight-knit, and its members cooperate well when hunting or bullying other creatures. But when the fortunes of a gang turn sour, the individuals become selfish, and might sabotage one another to remove opposition or exile weaker or unpopular members to keep the rest of the gang strong. Fortunately for the race as a whole, even young and elderly bugbears have the ability to survive alone in the wild, and the cast-off members of a gang might eventually catch on with a different group.   Left to their own devices, bugbears have little more impact on the world than wolf packs. They subsist by crafting simple tools and hunting and gathering food, and gangs sometimes come together peacefully to exchange members and goods between them.  

Bugbear

Ability Score Increase +2 Str, +1 Dex
Size Medium
Speed 30

  Age Bugbears reach adulthood at age 16 and live up to 80 years.   Alignment Bugbears endure a harsh existence that demands each of them to remain self-sufficient, even at the expense of their fellows. They tend to be chaotic evil.   Size Bugbears are between 6 and 8 feet tall and weigh between 250 and 350 pounds.   Darkvision You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.   Long-Limbed When you make a melee attack on your turn, your reach for it is 5 feet greater than normal.   Powerful Build You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.   Sneaky You are proficient in the Stealth skill.   Surprise Attack If you surprise a creature and hit it with an attack on your first turn in combat, the attack deals an extra 2d6 damage to it. You can use this trait only once per combat.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.


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