Bugbears

**Bugbears** feature in the nightmare tales of many races­; great, hairy beasts that creep through the shadows as quiet as cats, stealing children and ambushing unwary travellers. They are a humanoid race distantly related goblins and hobgoblins, native to the tundra wilds of Wyldcrown. They are much larger and stronger than either of their distant cousins, and are covered in brown or black fur, instead of green or grey skin.

## Description

Bugbears are born for battle and mayhem. They survive by raiding and hunting, but are just as likely to set ambushes or flee when outmatched. They resemble tall, towering, muscular humanoids*.* Coarse hair covers most of their bodies. Their mouths are full of long, sharp fangs, and their nose is much like that of a bear.

There are many tales of bugbear activity, often exaggerated. Stories tell of how they ambush travellers and lone children on the roads, how they hoard the heads of their enemies to entrap their souls, and how they feast on the flesh of those they kill. Extravagant 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 travellers or wandering chil­dren unless they clearly have something to gain by doing so.

## Culture & Society

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 enslave captured weaker creatures to 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. This offers no clue to how vicious the crea­tures really 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.

Bugbears aren't a particularly common race, their overall population is small and spread over a wide area. They 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 ambushing 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.

## Properties

* ***Ability Score Increase.*** Your Strength score increases by 2 and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
* ***Size.*** Your size is Medium.
* ***Speed.*** Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
* ***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 colour in darkness, only shades of grey.
* ***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. In addition, without squeezing, you can move through and stop in a space large enough for a Small creature.
* ***Surprise Attack.*** If you hit a creature with an attack roll, the creature takes an extra 2d6 damage if it hasn't taken a turn yet in the current combat.