School of the Bear

The **School of the Bear** was a school of witchers headquartered at Haern Caduch keep in the Amell mountains, reportedly in the Slopes. It was founded in the year 971 by Arnaghad. The **School of the Bear** was founded by the first group of witchers that split off from the Order of Witchers.

### Scism occurs and the School of the Rhino is founded (1000 AR)

A scism occured over what the school should focus on. At that time there were two groups, those who preferred only defense and those who preferred attack and defense. The latter would later abandon the school and march south, later founding what would become the School of Rhino.

### The School of the Fox proposes a training initiative with the other Witcher schools (1301)

A witcher from the School of the Fox arrives asking for an exchange of mentors to strengthen the Schools' curriculum and produce stronger Witchers for the future. This messenger was not as warmly received, only through the backing of the Bear Witchers Razan of Cintra, and his subordinates Sustor of Redania and Jag Laittatrson did the message receive backing by the school who only sent the Master Witcher Cormac for the training initiative, though **Razan**, **Sustor** and **Jag** would make the trip to **Burov Mylne** at times to help as well. **Cormac** would decide to integrate officially into the Fpx school later that year.

### The Witcher Reformation Act (1305)

The Fox School Grandmaster **Adalwulf of Aedirn** is lead to **Hearn Caduch** by **Razan of Cintra** to enter talks with the Bear Grandmaster who signs off on the Witcher Refomation Act as well as help the school barter with their affiliated lands for the same deal of amnesty for Witcher crimes in return for reformation.

### Razan of Cintra visits the Fox School of Burov Mylne (1305)

Razan of Cintra along with his adepts Sustor and Jag make the journey south to visit the home of the **School of the Fox**, the fortress of Burov Mylne at the behest of his best friend Adalwulf of Aedirn as a guest instructor, teaching the trainers and trainees in some of the Bear School techniques and equipment as part of an inter-school exchange program. He swaps stories with his old friend and regales the youngsters and other Witchers with tales of his time down the Path.

### The School receives a missive from banks and law firms (1306)

Due to the actions of Fox School Grandmaster **Adalwulf of Aedirn**, The Bear School Grandmaster receives a missive from the School of the Fox reporting that various banks would now have personal accounts for all witchers of the school and law firms about being put on retainer for all members of the school. A note stated that suspected rogue witchers or schools would be investigated by a appointed group of neutral witchers and a report given to the signers of the Reformation Act to vote on whether to exclude the witcher or school from future funding.

## Differences to other Witcher Schools

Unlike other schools of witchers, the Bears did not bury their comrades. Instead, they had a huge mural where they put the names of their fallen witchers.

### Trial of the Stone Wall

The final trial for a prospective Bear witcher, which consisted of three parts.

#### First Test

**The Prospect** was told to acquire the ingredients for a potion called "Full Moon" the potion ingredients consisted of a bottle of Dwarven Spirit, a sprig of Wolf's Bane and bottle of Dark Essence. This test was designed to force the trainee into using brute force/intimidation to acquire Dwarven Spirit from merchants or store owners seeing as how no currency would be given upon start of the trial, secondly the ingredient known as Wolf's Bane would be also acquired by delving into hazardous caves and scouting the tunnels for the particular herb. This would also test the Witcher's ability to escape narrow paths and traverse rough ground, this helped more than realized as Witchers would traverse hostile monster lairs. The final ingredient needed would be Dark Essence, the Witcher would need to scour elven ruins to find and eliminate Nightwraiths for the ingredient. The first test would push the limits of the Witcher, showing the trainees that their profession and life wouldn't be so cut and dry.

#### Second Test

After acquiring the ingredients, **The Prospect** brewed the ingrediants together to create the elixir known as Full Moon. When brewed and consumed, Full Moon gave t**The Prospect** a higher tolerance to damage. It also gave **The Prospect** increased health and physically improved the strength and mass of the **The Prospect**, after being consumed. **The Prospect** would unexpectedly fistfight a bear. This challenge was more symbolic than necessary, it showed that the school of the bear favored symbolic training and brute force rather than etiquette challenges and puzzles like the other Witcher schools. **The Prospect** would fight the bear unarmed and with no protection whatsoever, other than the potion that they had consumed. After defeating the bear, **The Prospect** would be given back their gear and would have to take on a contract to finally cement their place amongst the cat eyed monster hunters.

#### Final Test

For the final test, **The Prospect** would need to find a moderately challenging monster contract to cement their place in the Witcher guild. Upon completion of the previous test, another Witcher would pass **The Prospect** a list of optional targets to hunt and slay. This would set **The Prospect** on a path to becoming fully fledged Witcher, the monster list would contain two difficult monsters that needed to be slain, also **The Prospect** would need to take a trophy from the monster corpse to pass the trial. The first monster was a Wyvern, Wyverns are great flying reptiles with snake like necks and long tails that end in a venomous trident. Swooping down from the sky, they easily snatch their prey and carry it off to their nest. And they do not much care if it is a sheep or a man. The other monster would be the water hag, like the drowners and swamp bints with whom they often share hunting grounds, well near shallow streams, rivers, and wetlands. Though bulky, they are excellent swimmers. They can even swim through thick mud with astonishing agility, surfacing beside their victims to attack them with their sickle-shaped claws. After eliminating one of these and recovering the trophy, **The Prospect** would bring it back to the Bear School and be automatically promoted to a Witcher. Being given a new silver sword and the appropriate bear armor, the newly promoted Witcher would go on the path and bring their monster hunting experience to The Continent.

## Trivia

* The Trial of the Stone Wall is inspired by this post in The Witcher Amino.

## Notes

* This article for the **School of the Bear** is meant as an expansion for the creative works of the Witcher Fanon as such unless directly stated by a credible source connected to any of the canon sources (Sapkowski, CD Projekt Red, or Talsorian) all expansions in this article should not be counted as canon but thought of as fan made fanon.
* If you want to do a character of the Bear School, take into account the lore present in this article and add it in the list. It doesn't matter the writer tag.