School of the Bear

The School of the Bear was a school of witchers headquartered in Haern Caduch keep in Amell, reportedly in the Slopes.
== History ==
The School of the Bear was founded by the first group of witchers that split off from the Order of Witchers. The witcher Arnaghad had attacked fellow witcher Rhys, nearly killing him. Anticipating that the other witchers would seek to punish him for this, he arrived at the Order's keep with a posse of brothers. After a battle between them and the Order in which the Order subsequently won, Arnaghad and his witchers, including Ivar Evil-Eye, retreated and left the Order. They settled in the Amell Mountains and established contact with the dwarves and gnomes in the region.
Some time after the founding of the school, Ivar wished to dispose of Grandmaster Arnaghad as he knew the witcher wouldn't support trying to take out the Wild Hunt that Ivar saw in his visions, as the grandmaster believed witchers should only be paid to kill monsters. While Ivar and his group almost killed Arnaghad, they ultimately failed to take over and were forced to leave the school. While most of this group went off to found the School of the Viper led by Ivar, another group within this schism led by Iwan split off before the Vipers were founded, eventually creating the School of the Manticore.
At the peak of their power, the Bears often traveled to Skellige, both due to its amount of monsters and the islanders' mindsets being akin to their own. Although the events that led to the establishing of the school happened centuries ago, some of the older witchers from the other schools would refer to them as kinslaying Bears.
The School ceased to function after the Bears failed in a contract to destroy a cabal of vampires. The frustrations of the people in the war-torn provinces around them boiled over into riots. Eventually many of the surrounding villages banded together to destroy the school, as they would rather share the mountains with the monsters than the witchers. The Bear witchers had little to no brotherly bonds with each other and no true loyalty to their school. They decided to part ways with each other and the school, rather than die protecting the keep from the coming humans. Though their keep has been left in disrepair and has been buried by time and the elements, it is believed that some long-time members may have come back to re-occupy it as witchers are necessary again.
== Training ==
Students must pass the trial of the mountain. This requires venturing to the peak of Mount Gorgon to retrieve a special runestone as proof of ascent. It was an especially brutal challenge as many boys freeze to death long before they find the summit.
== Characteristics ==
Witchers of the Bear School, unlike the Wolves or Griffins, tend to be loners and do not forge strong bonds with their brethren, and so them meeting on the Path can even lead to bloodshed. This is because of the philosophy of the school's founder, who believed that witchers should focus only on the job aspect of their profession. He thought that any code or knightly virtues were just inflated nonsense to feed the ego, and thus favored autonomy above all else. This autonomy extended even to the school itself.
Haern Caduch was a difficult place to live. Due to the cold and snow of the mountains the boys had to huddle up close to the hearthfires or sleep beneath many furs. If they didn't they would suffer frostbite or hypothermia. Besides that there was also the never-ending removal of snow from the fortress courtyard. This environment has given the Bear witchers extraordinary endurance even compared to their bretheren from other schools.
They wear heavier armor, favoring defense over agility. Along with the Cat School, they are the only known witcher schools to use crossbows in their hunt. The school may have used shields once. This seems to have been abandoned however after a witcher lost his shield, along with his entire arm.
Category:Witcher Schools
Category:Organizations