Dungeons and Dragons Lore : Bugbear

hello everybody welcome to the mighty glue stick you are speaking with AJ and today we're going to be covering the bug bear the bug bear is one of the goblin OIG's and send a goblin series and it's one of my favorites for sure they are in the first edition version of the game and in the modern folklore bug beers in the D&D world they are a creation that stems from the Hobgoblin race so goblins and bug beers both bread from Hobgoblin stock and it's in fact goblins that are a subset of hobgoblins not the other way around bug bears are bred to be essentially commandos shock troops very stealthy but deadly murderous very large and strong survivalists and they used much affected by hobgoblins to soften up forces or to infiltrate into an area and even kill specific targets in that they are much larger and they are only the only goblin oyd that has got body fur and they've got longer claws and fangs than other goblins and they are called bug bears because of their appearance and that they they have longer claws and things and they sort of walk with a hobbled hunched over stooped sort of posture but they are usually in excess of seven feet tall they can range up to seven foot six and they can weigh up to four hundred pounds so they're extremely large compared to other goblins and they know it they also have a very prodigious appetite and they eat almost exclusively meat and so they're fairly obsessed with hunting all the time and hunting forms the large part of their culture such as it is they are survivalists first and foremost and want basically make use of any shelter they can find if they need it but otherwise they're equally at home sleeping out in the wilds and used to making the Rochette their own shelter wherever they find it they're the big worlds of the of the goblin kind and they're extremely Hardy not only that but they're also naturally extremely stealthy left to their own devices or when they're on the hunt they make almost no noise when they're moving around and much like the other goblins they have things in common with other goblin kind but things that they also do exceed from there well much like every other goblin they have a dark vision out to sixty feet however they have much larger ears and their eyes are such that they are not bothered by sunlight unlike other goblin oits it doesn't bother them at all they they work equally well in bright sunlight or pitch darkness and their senses are extremely sharp the sense of hearing is also extremely sharp and that you can tell by looking at various depictions of the bugbears that their ears have a prominence in what they consider to be attractive in their culture so they find bug beers with large noses and ears to be fairly attractive their noses are fairly distinctive too they are described as bare like but it's mainly because they're wide and flat and usually a bit moist but one of the interesting things about bug beers is that their nose is much like other dominant sort of goblins tend to range around a blueish sort of a pigment this is a kind of like a silverback gorilla the more large dominant and mature a Hobgoblin male is the more blue his nose will be they also have a tinder have a bluish tinge to their tongue and the gums inside their mouth their eyes are a greenish white with red pupils typically their pelts range from all kinds of Browns and all the sort of colors that Bears have and they can even have theirs there's been reports of some bug bears in remote locations which have blue fur but in earlier editions of the game such as there's a supplement for the Underdark there's chameleon bug beers there's also reptilian bug beers as well so they tend to vary quite a bit in the are their appearance and they have over the years the original depiction of bug beers and the game were they didn't have a lot of fur on their faces and things like that but over time they've gotten sort of more furry and they've gotten more flat top to their head and their ears have become far more prominent their eyes have become smaller and if they have a variant amount of fangs either sort of a jutting lower jewel Fang or more evenly distributed fangs throughout their mouths but they different got longer nastier teeth and other goblin kind and much longer claws which are black their belt underneath effort usually is sort of a yellowish tone and that can it go all the way to a sort of a brick orange coloured but they you can have pitch-black bugbears or black and white sort of Panda patent bug beers if you want they don't tend to have patterns and therefore like nulls and things do and I don't have any sort of tiger stripes or anything like that but yeah they do have a sort of a shaggy rangy appearance and can look quite a Chewbacca like a little bit wookie if you if you will so they're they are very much at home in the wild and in dungeon environments they tend to be much larger than other goblins and they take over other goblin societies they take a position of dominance and goblin kind whenever they feel like it but left to their own devices they will form up into squads like small hunting clans that they they feel comfortable with each individual in that in that group and they take strength and numbers because unlike other goblin kind because of their size and their predominant hunting for meat all the time they tend to run into they compete for resources that other giant humanoids like Giants in Athens and things like that fight for so in Cyclops and things like that so they not only have to deal with the small humanoids they have to deal with the large humanoids as well and because strength and numbers works they tend to naturally form gangs and this also allows them to cohabitate quite well in urban environments or to make forays into em in environments where they have to deal with the fact that humans and elves and things like that typically cohabitate and large groups that work very cohesively together bugbears individually are usually quite stupid but this is mainly a cultural thing biologically they are very capable of learning and don't be surprised if you run across a very intelligent bugbear and it's quite possible to play a player character bugbear that is just as capable of human they tend to be robes or perhaps barbarians left to their own devices but with a complete training and a careful hand and a very firm praising from birth to avoid them or animal tendencies they can learn magic and they can lead to be Rangers any sort of fighter they can be gladiators and they can find ways of getting gainful employment avoiding their their base nature the base nature is murderous they are murderers they gain pleasure from killing hunting and things like that so they can Liveris and they survive primarily by hunting and will eat anything that they kill including sentient beings and goblin oits so any intruder in their area is considered a valuable source of food and sport so they will hunt anyone who comes in uninvited into the area if they feel so inclined they really bother to negotiate with anyone if they're hunting you they have no interest in conversing with you but they are cruel and have a fondness for glittery and shiny objects weapons and armor they like to purloin things from their prey so they will hunt down people just because they have a nice sword or polearm or some such thing they do favor large weapons and those that are more religiously inclined or favored Morningstar's because that is the the chosen weapon of the bug beard gods they ship so the Pantheon is led by crew ghek and there's also grand coule and cigarette and the they've become our Chon's of Bane so that become lesser deities since the reordering of the gods but Haruki still lives in Archon and group Greg Greco and ski Garrett I think they still live in the abyss as far as I know yeah Oh crew geek has a key used to have a Caden cave in pandemonium but now he lives an arch I'm with Archer on with Bane and essentially most of goblin society particularly Hobgoblin society is oriented around them taking their place in the armies of Archer on and perhaps even the armies of Hades Hades or the nine hells so for them that's their afterlife they don't they don't have any aspirations to go into a celestial realm that's where Wicca racers go they go to work somewhere that they can fight and kill and murder for their gods hurry jack is fond of taking the heads of his victims and so a bugbears Bugbee is like to make sport decorations of heads and they favor drinking out of prepared vessels of skills things like that almost exclusively they're not very keen on smelting and blacksmithing and things like that themselves they're just basically too lazy much like most other carnivores they like to lie around and range around when the well feared if they like to rest and basically do nothing they will make sport out of torturing and killing things but other than that they they really just converse quietly amongst themselves so they the spoken language is the cobalt sorry the the Goblin tunnels google it and it's there's not very many examples of it written down anywhere it's a foul sounding mix of grunts nails gestures and such that usually sounds quite unintelligent because for goblin oits Kurt and to the point speech is considered to be straightforward anything that is has a an element of a gist or a trick is seen as rude so barking orders and saying something very directly like this chair sit in it is that's polite by goblin society's standards and the same goes with bug beers they don't like anybody who seeks flower Lior eloquently because it's there's all sorts of room for trickery and subterfuge in there and they don't like it so it's actually best to talk to cobblers very directly because they will speak to you that way themselves and they're not being rude when they're doing that they're just speaking directly and and it's basically using open language so to speak so yeah if they got very good hearing and they're very strong the traits of bugbears that you need to watch out for is they they prefer to ambush and they are very good at making sneak attacks if they have surprise on you when they attack you they will get bonus to the damage that they do to you so yeah so that's basically it doesn't extra seven points or 2d6 damage from the attack also they are so prodigiously strong and put so much of their body into each blow that they make that they have a attribute called brute strength so a melee weapon that they will does an extra dice of damage and extra die of damage so if they use a one D 8 weapon it now becomes a 2 D 8 weapon and if they've gotten a surprise attack on you it's to d8 + 2 D 6 so it can quickly mount up to being a devastating whack that could clean take your head off in one blow in fact that's what they aim to do they don't mess around in combat they will overwhelm you with this size they will gang up on you and they will beat you to death if they have orders to take somebody hostage which they will basically blunted bludgeon you to death bludgeon you into submission using non-lethal blows but they concentrate all of their attacks on targets and they use their size and strength to their advantage they will throw victims they will shoulder barge them they will trip them up and smash them when they down they'll use early every duty tactic they can think of they'll throw sand in your eyes they will duck behind objects to get out of way of ranged attackers or magic users they'll draw melee fighters in to cover and then basically go one on one and try and beat them down or they will gang up on that person and smash them to pieces so they are quite clever and strategic fighters they don't run blindly into combat they prefer not to they prefer to fight from cover they prefer to fight in an environment where they've got the advantage of their sharp senses so anywhere where it's either blinding light or obscuring darkness is preferred and despite their size they are quite stealthy and can make their way around quite well also unlike other goblin kind if you look at the various entries the sort of tougher bug beers have got another Dreiser which there allows them to resist basically fallen prey to effects which would dampen their will or or subvert it so that's quite a useful trait I'll just turn to the page of the monster menu another neglected to have it open as I was talking since I know these guys so well yeah so they do fight for forces of evil and they do respect leaders and things who can provide them with whatever they need because although they do love hunting they also love getting things served up to them on a silver platter they like being the dominant goblin kind they like being larger and strong with another everything else and yeah what's a good reason so are these guys yeah but given the opportunity they will Lord of over goblin kind and particularly when they take over the chieftain position I mean if they ever bug be it shows up amongst the tribe of goblins they they're essentially this chief is just going to make himself scarce for a few weeks until the bug beard has run through all of their resources food has become scarce he's gotten sick and tired of the goblins screeching at him killed a few of them and moved on so they basically just wander in and take over when they need to or feel feel that they they want to I think so page 33 quite went straight past it yeah so they the strongest gotten tab bug their bosses the Chiefs of their own little murder bands because I don't have big tribes has a trait called the heart of runic and it has advantage on all saving throws against being charmed frightened paralyzed poisoned stunned or put to sleep so essentially their metabolism is such that they just they'll just power straight through it they they're very single-minded and it's very hard to negotiate with them they have a purpose so yeah that's what they like to do they will in any sort of way panorama that they need because they are food they don't tend to get very cold they can survive in most environments so they don't wear a lot of stuff to sort of keep themselves warm but they will strap on plates and leather and things like that and they favor spikes and things like that like you use in hand-to-hand combat they like combat and like going toe-to-toe with things and they'll fight just for the sheer reason of fighting they'll a friendly jostle amongst a few bug beers that know each other well would look fairly deadly to outsiders and they will inflict fairly significant wounds on each other otherwise you know it's not worth it they're not fighting for their to the full potential because they're also sizing each other up because the push comes to shove and it's a it's a crisis situation and gamers scarce they will turn on each other because their hunger cannot be denied they must maintain their strength that that is the one trait that they have above all other goblins so yeah they also like throwing javelins and as I say using morning stars but they will throw rocks if they need to yet they're fond to the survival by raiding and hunting and they do like essentially murdering human settlers who are on the outskirts of human society but they'll take advantage of either any other humanoid that they can see as weaker than themselves so any opportunity to inflict maximum damage they will also they're extremely cruel and use terror quite a lot and quite effectively so for them they'll wound severely wound a member of the party like we're talking chopper hand off or something that's that's not going to heal up with a short rest and then that will cause the the entire party to slow down or start healing back to civilization to to repair that person and it will essentially lead them straight into some sort of ambush or or something like that where they can take it good and find urgent that will take a leak at a time if they need to and slowly munch their way through an adventuring group or they will take the children of a farmstead or homestead and used the tortured cries of children to lure out the male defenders of the that settlement and kill them and then move in to kill everyone else in their livestock so that's fairly typical hunting behaviour for them it makes no difference to them what's whether whether somebody is intelligent or not they just meet to a to a bugbear that's the base nature but they can be trained out of that and they can live in society so there are great contradictions and you never really know what you're going to run into if you encounter a lone bug beer whether they're just going to outright kill you or they're going to talk to you first never can tell good bit is to talk to them in common if they understand you then they may have had encounters with others where they've learned common and may have curbed their nature someone but you never know they mature quickly the birth rate is relatively low compared to other goblin oit's for whatever reason it may just be that they they don't tend to live very long.they they mature they're basically adults by the age of eleven and I can live for up to 75 years but they will typically die somewhere around their 20s or a 40-year old bug beer is doing pari pretty well in this probably fairly dominant in that area but they pick up freely severe injuries and things and they don't have a lot of healing arts so they get prodigious scars and figures physical disfigurement says they go through life so it'll be fairly typical to see them with quite vicious looking claw wounds and things like that when they've taken on cave beers and giant sloths and reptiles and lizard folk and all manner of adventurers so that we then had ears hacked and a half with broadswords or head daggers sank into a knee and be walking around with quite a hobble or strapped it to get stretch it up someone and if they've lost a limb they will have replaced it with some sort of weapon a spike or something like that on the end of a stub so yeah but otherwise here they do maintain their weapons but they'll grab the next nearest available thing they don't have sentiment per se so nothing's really if they find a bit of weapon they'll throw away whatever they have they'll just drop it on the spot and grim the bitter one and they'd like to maintain a fairly light and mobile lifestyle so the idea of hunkering down in a lair is not appealing to them so that's why they don't generally rule it over all goblin tribes because they don't like hanging out for any length of time in one place it's it's instinctual for them they're large predators they need to maintain a large area that they hunt so they are constantly on the prowl and they're fairly unpredictable in that regard they don't have any larger society where they observe any sort of cohesive ceremonial nature or anything like that if any groups of them get together and one of them's more religious than the other they may make up ceremonies to harue geek on the spot and enforce them viciously so they can have all sorts of weird things that they do but yeah generally speaking bugbears a good to encounter particularly if you encounter them as a group in a city environment or something like that where they are they've been hired as muscle and they do that particularly well so they make really good bounces and things later because there's no arguing with them there's no swaying them you can't convince them to get out of the way they'll have a job to do they know that they've got a steady meal promised to them they've got access to weapons and things like that they've got shelter when they need it but they can pick up and leave whenever they want to that is the nature of a bug beer thanks for listening everybody I'll be back with the next one in this series would be hop goblins yeah I'm quite enjoying it and I'll have another video for you again quite soon horse trough [Music]

Channel: AJ Pickett

Views: 113,832

Keywords: AJ Pickett, The Mighty Gluestick, TMG, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, RPG's, D&D 5E, Role Playing Game, Dungeon Mastery, Tabletop, Goblin, Goblinoids, Bane, Bugbear, Hobgoblin, Archeron, Monster, Ecology, Ghukliak, Hruggek, Grankhul, Skiggaret

Id: -GGjJ1hdPmM

Length: 23min 35sec (1415 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 25 2016