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Jeivar
2018-09-28, 12:43 PM
I've been asking myself this question ever since finding out about this particular beastie.

There's no mythology about a bear/owl hybrid, and the whole idea is just... odd. If it was a bear with wings, that would be of note, but instead it's just a really aggressive bear with a beak.

Can someone explain to me why this thing even exists?

Brookshw
2018-09-28, 12:46 PM
I've been asking myself this question ever since finding out about this particular beastie.

There's no mythology about a bear/owl hybrid, and the whole idea is just... odd. If it was a bear with wings, that would be of note, but instead it's just a really aggressive bear with a beak.

Can someone explain to me why this thing even exists?

Because Gygax bought a bag of cheap toys to use in his game, one kinda looked like an owl/bear, so he created owlbears.

Zyzzyva
2018-09-28, 12:49 PM
Because Gygax bought a bag of cheap toys to use in his game, one kinda looked like an owl/bear, so he created owlbears.

Same bag that the rust monster came from (http://diterlizzi.com/essay/owlbears-rust-monsters-and-bulettes-oh-my/)!

Thrudd
2018-09-28, 12:51 PM
It was based on a weird plastic toy from a cheap pack of "prehistoric creatures" that they used to represent monsters when Gygax and friends were inventing D&D. Same with a number of other original D&D monsters, like the Bulette. Not all of D&D is about existing myths and fantasy stories, a good chunk of it is original creations or so loosely inspired by other things that it might as well be original. It is probably helpful to think of D&D as its own unique fantasy setting (or series of related settings) rather than something that is meant to emulate other settings/stories or mythology.

Nifft
2018-09-28, 02:34 PM
It is probably helpful to think of D&D as its own unique fantasy setting (or series of related settings) rather than something that is meant to emulate other settings/stories or mythology.

D&D respects mythology in the same manner that English respects foreign vocabulary.

Slipperychicken
2018-09-28, 03:41 PM
Same bag that the rust monster came from (http://diterlizzi.com/essay/owlbears-rust-monsters-and-bulettes-oh-my/)!

WotC really ought to put this explanation in the next Monster Manual they print. It'd be good for a few laughs, and help quiet the minds of any fans wondering which specific combination of drugs and mythology resulted in these monsters.

Draken
2018-09-28, 09:06 PM
Same bag that the rust monster came from (http://diterlizzi.com/essay/owlbears-rust-monsters-and-bulettes-oh-my/)!

I had those when I was a kid.

Specifically, I had the rust monster, the bulette, the feathered pteranodon and the two red thingies on the sides.

PrismCat21
2018-09-28, 11:12 PM
Why not Owlbears?!?
They have the right to exist. Leave them cute, cuddle, scary critters be. :)

GunDragon
2018-09-29, 11:53 AM
I always thought Owlbears originated in World of Warcraft and then D&D adapted them to their game. But I guess it was the other way around.

I thought of a weird backstory for such a creature: Long ago before the time of man, there was a great owl spirit and a great bear spirit. Their "children" the bears and the owls were being hunted and killed by the elves and other predators in the forest, and were losing their position in the food chain. So the bear spirit and the owl spirit combined themselves into one super being, creating the first owlbear. The owlbear and its newly-formed children were filled with rage and slaughtered a bunch of elves and other creatures of the forest.

An elven druid witnessed this massacre and declared the owlbear an aberration of nature, because it was disturbing the balance and natural order of things. So she teamed up with the other druids of the forest and banished the owlbears far away into another plane of existence, such as the Feywild or the Far Realm. The owlbears can be summoned by evil or chaotic druids now, but normal owls and bears remain on the Material Plane just fine.

The Glyphstone
2018-09-29, 12:57 PM
Owlbears exist specifically because no one ever stopped long enough to ask 'why owlbears?'.

Yuki Akuma
2018-09-29, 01:03 PM
I always thought Owlbears originated in World of Warcraft and then D&D adapted them to their game. But I guess it was the other way around.

You're aware D&D is older than WoW by like two decades, right..?

The Glyphstone
2018-09-29, 01:04 PM
You're aware D&D is older than WoW by like two decades, right..?

Those time travelers, man...

Malphegor
2018-09-29, 02:09 PM
/goes up to the podium/

/shuffles notes/

A wizard made it. (probably)

/drops microphone, leaves/

M Placeholder
2018-09-29, 02:15 PM
/goes up to the podium/

/shuffles notes/

A wizard made it. (probably)

/drops microphone, leaves/

Why is it always the Wizards that get the blame? Why not Clerics, Druids or Shamans?

GunDragon
2018-09-29, 02:23 PM
You're aware D&D is older than WoW by like two decades, right..?

Yes, I'm aware of that. I played WoW when it first came out (and Warcraft 3 before that). There were owlbears in both games. I didn't start playing D&D until years later.
Even so, I have never ever seen anyone actually use owlbears in any of the D&D games I have played in, and I have played a lot in the past 10 years.

GunDragon
2018-09-29, 02:24 PM
Why is it always the Wizards that get the blame? Why not Clerics, Druids or Shamans?

Wizards tend to be more curious and tend to experiment with magic more? Idk

Yora
2018-09-29, 02:24 PM
When I used D&D for my campaigns, I had owlbears simply be a type of feathered dinosaur.

The skulls of protoceratops fossils made ancient people think of a bird, so they assumed it had feathers, which led to the invention of gryphons. (And these fossils are really quite common in the region where the greeks believed gryphons to live.)

And now we know that some dinosaurs did have feathers. Owlbears aren't that unbelievable. They just are neither owls nor bears. But all awesome.

Black Jester
2018-09-29, 05:17 PM
/goes up to the podium/

/shuffles notes/

A wizard made it. (probably)

/drops microphone, leaves/

That's the 'turtles all the way down' answer. The question then becomes "Why did the wizard do it?"

A few possible answers:

The bears were cursed with owl-dom.
Monster Trainer Tournament Breeding Program.
owls represent bad luck, bears stand for economic decline - it is all symbolism, man
"I will have my own gryphon, but with ursines and nocturnal birds."
"All I wanted was a flying teddy bear - where did it all get wrong?"
The owls were cursed with bear-butts.
bears are physically impressive, but have relatively bad eyesight and aren't exactly silent death on four legs - by transmogrification with an owl, we can compensate their greatest weaknessesto create the ultimate super predator!

The Glyphstone
2018-09-29, 05:19 PM
That's the 'turtles all the way down' answer. The question then becomes "Why did the wizard do it?"

A few possible answers:

The bears were cursed with owl-dom.
Monster Trainer Tournament Breeding Program.
owls represent bad luck, bears stand for economic decline - it is all symbolism, man
"I will have my own gryphon, but with ursines and nocturnal birds."
"All I wanted was a flying teddy bear - where did it all get wrong?"
The owls were cursed with bear-butts.
bears are physically impressive, but have relatively bad eyesight and aren't exactly silent death on four legs - by transmogrification with an owl, we can compensate their greatest weaknessesto create the ultimate super predator!



Extensive quantities of alcohol

hamishspence
2018-09-29, 05:24 PM
Extensive quantities of alcohol


That was the explanation given in Craig Charles's Red Dwarf book The Log, for future genetic engineers making creatures like the chimpanzebra, the grizzly gerbil, and the cricket bat (which had only been created to get a cheap laugh out of the name).

Concrete
2018-09-29, 05:40 PM
I kinda like it. If you saw it, it'd first be a huge hulking kinda scary bear.

And then you see the owl face, and it gets kinda funny.

But then you realize that an owl that size would be terrifying without being half bear.

And then you hear it hoot, and it gets silly again.

And then it tears your barbarian in half.

It's kinda the perfect weird wizard amalgamation monster.

Thrudd
2018-09-29, 05:51 PM
I kinda like it. If you saw it, it'd first be a huge hulking kinda scary bear.

And then you see the owl face, and it gets kinda funny.

But then you realize that an owl that size would be terrifying without being half bear.

And then you hear it hoot, and it gets silly again.

And then it tears your barbarian in half.

It's kinda the perfect weird wizard amalgamation monster.
And you follow it around and pick through the human-sized regurgitated owl pellets that have gold and magic items mingled with the hair and bones.

The Glyphstone
2018-09-29, 06:51 PM
And you follow it around and pick through the human-sized regurgitated owl pellets that have gold and magic items mingled with the hair and bones.

Now that's a question that needs answering - does an owlbear poop like a bear, or regurgitate pellets like an owl?

Nifft
2018-09-29, 07:04 PM
Now that's a question that needs answering - does an owlbear poop like a bear, or regurgitate pellets like an owl?

Neither -- the owlbear compresses refuse & excrement into solid diamonds, which it stores inside its body, and the diamonds grow in size and number over the owlbear's life as it increases in CR.

Haldir
2018-09-29, 07:42 PM
I actually think Owlbears are completely and totally legit if you don't consider them to be "mammalian" like a bear, but instead a dinosaur descendant. Think about it like a feathered theropod who evolved to hunt and run and dig with four legs like a bear rather than evolving for flight like most theropods did.

this actually lead me to design a "true owlbear" with more lizardlike/komodo dragonlike features for a module I will be publishing shortly.

Deophaun
2018-09-29, 09:11 PM
That's the 'turtles all the way down' answer. The question then becomes "Why did the wizard do it?"
No, the 'turtles all the way down' answer is "A wizard made the wizard do it."

Luccan
2018-09-29, 09:22 PM
No, the 'turtles all the way down' answer is "A wizard made the wizard do it."

"Behind every great wizard stands yet another great wizard... and a pile of the corpses of every fighter that kept the fool alive."


It was based on a weird plastic toy from a cheap pack of "prehistoric creatures" that they used to represent monsters when Gygax and friends were inventing D&D. Same with a number of other original D&D monsters, like the Bulette. Not all of D&D is about existing myths and fantasy stories, a good chunk of it is original creations or so loosely inspired by other things that it might as well be original. It is probably helpful to think of D&D as its own unique fantasy setting (or series of related settings) rather than something that is meant to emulate other settings/stories or mythology.

Incidentally, I only recently found out it's supposed to be pronounced "Boo-lay" because French was really popular at the time and they wanted to make fun of its popularity. But I still refuse to pronounce it that way.

Thrudd
2018-09-29, 11:24 PM
Incidentally, I only recently found out it's supposed to be pronounced "Boo-lay" because French was really popular at the time and they wanted to make fun of its popularity. But I still refuse to pronounce it that way.

It's not pronounced like that, it would be "Boo-let" if you were doing it in French- it's spelled like a feminine noun. Though presumably, like other animal names, you could have a masculine and feminine form. The masculine form would be spelled "bulet" and pronounced as you said. So "la bulette" would be a female of the species - maybe "les bulets" aren't dangerous and/or nobody sees them too much, so the manual doesn't mention them *lol*

Celestia
2018-09-30, 12:07 AM
bears are physically impressive, but have relatively bad eyesight and aren't exactly silent death on four legs - by transmogrification with an owl, we can compensate their greatest weaknessesto create the ultimate super predator!

Those are both false. Bears have eyesight comparable to us and, in fact, have far superior night vision. This is a myth born in a similar fashion to the idea that bats can't see. Because bears have such an amazing sense of smell, people just assumed that their vision must suck, as if real life operated on some sort of balanced scale.

Bears are also surprisingly sneaky for their size and have been known to stalk hunters from as close as 100 yards away undetected. Think about that next time you go hiking: a bear could be within charging distance of you, and you may not even know it. One minute you're minding your business, and the next minute your internal organs have become distressingly external.

Bears are fricken' scary, man. The only saving grace is that they often choose to ignore us.

The Glyphstone
2018-09-30, 12:10 AM
I was doing research for a story once, and came across an anecdotal report of a ranger tracking a bear that was following the scent trail of a potential mate. At one point, the female actually had doubled back and essentially walked right by the male, who saw her then went back to following the scent trail. It wasn't that his eyes were bad, he was just wired to trust his sense of smell so completely that it took priority.

Rockphed
2018-09-30, 12:47 AM
I was doing research for a story once, and came across an anecdotal report of a ranger tracking a bear that was following the scent trail of a potential mate. At one point, the female actually had doubled back and essentially walked right by the male, who saw her then went back to following the scent trail. It wasn't that his eyes were bad, he was just wired to trust his sense of smell so completely that it took priority.

"Darn it Grizelda! Stop trying to skip the chase part of our dates!"

Black Jester
2018-09-30, 03:30 AM
Those are both false. Bears have eyesight comparable to us and, in fact, have far superior night vision. This is a myth born in a similar fashion to the idea that bats can't see. Because bears have such an amazing sense of smell, people just assumed that their vision must suck, as if real life operated on some sort of balanced scale.

Bears are also surprisingly sneaky for their size and have been known to stalk hunters from as close as 100 yards away undetected. Think about that next time you go hiking: a bear could be within charging distance of you, and you may not even know it. One minute you're minding your business, and the next minute your internal organs have become distressingly external.

Bears are fricken' scary, man. The only saving grace is that they often choose to ignore us.

Well, I stand corrected.
I have thew priviledge of not needing to know too much about bears, considering that the largest predatory animal around here are a horsehead seals...

Anonymouswizard
2018-09-30, 04:12 AM
I always thought owlbears were the result of a wizard getting annoyed at Bugbears just being big goblins. Plus that rust monsters were created by a wizard annoyed at fighters claiming they were the only reason casters survived.

The search for the wizard who invented the duck-billed platapus has still not been successful.

Rockphed
2018-09-30, 05:26 AM
I always thought owlbears were the result of a wizard getting annoyed at Bugbears just being big goblins. Plus that rust monsters were created by a wizard annoyed at fighters claiming they were the only reason casters survived.

The search for the wizard who invented the duck-billed platapus has still not been successful.

I'm fairly certain that was Mustrum Ridcully trying to communicate with an aboriginal Forexian.

napoleon_in_rag
2018-09-30, 07:38 AM
The owl woke up with a splitting headache. "How much did I drink last night?" he said as tried to blink away the spots in front of his eyes. He couldn't remember anything after his third fermented mouse blood.

A grumbling snore caused him to rotate his head 180 degrees. What the owl thought was a warm blanket was actually the arm of a very large grizzly bear.

"9 Hells!" thought the owl as he carefully extricated himself from the bear's embrace. A sudden snort caused the owl to freeze but, after a minute, the contented, baritone snores resumed.

As the owl crept out the front door into the blinding, morning light, he thought "I hope nothing bad comes of this."

NorthernPhoenix
2018-09-30, 09:01 AM
We generally joke/half-joke(it's often canon) that most weird combi creatures are indeed the product of one or more "crack-wizard", who routinely produce these things throughout the world just to see if they can. The owlbear is merely one such creature.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-09-30, 09:08 AM
We generally joke/half-joke(it's often canon) that most weird combi creatures are indeed the product of one or more "crack-wizard", who routinely produce these things throughout the world just to see if they can. The owlbear is merely one such creature.

That's the canon explanation for a large number of the animal hybrid races (and monsters) in my setting. Many of the monsters are one-offs or only made in small batches. It's mostly one civilization of magical genetic engineering high elves doing it, they believe in making specialized races for each kind of task.

Keltest
2018-09-30, 09:18 AM
That's the 'turtles all the way down' answer. The question then becomes "Why did the wizard do it?"

A few possible answers:

The bears were cursed with owl-dom.
Monster Trainer Tournament Breeding Program.
owls represent bad luck, bears stand for economic decline - it is all symbolism, man
"I will have my own gryphon, but with ursines and nocturnal birds."
"All I wanted was a flying teddy bear - where did it all get wrong?"
The owls were cursed with bear-butts.
bears are physically impressive, but have relatively bad eyesight and aren't exactly silent death on four legs - by transmogrification with an owl, we can compensate their greatest weaknessesto create the ultimate super predator!


Youre making a faulty assumption: that wizards need a reason to do anything. If youre a wizard, your actions are not constrained by petty concepts like "logic" and "reason" and "good sense".

Nifft
2018-09-30, 12:04 PM
We generally joke/half-joke(it's often canon) that most weird combi creatures are indeed the product of one or more "crack-wizard", who routinely produce these things throughout the world just to see if they can. The owlbear is merely one such creature.


That's the canon explanation for a large number of the animal hybrid races (and monsters) in my setting. Many of the monsters are one-offs or only made in small batches. It's mostly one civilization of magical genetic engineering high elves doing it, they believe in making specialized races for each kind of task.

Hmm.

Maybe the high-level Wizard and Daelkyr have contests, like we do here in the forum, to create new monsters which fit some criteria.

The contest winner gets some trivial prize, and the planet gets a new horror.

Iron Chef: Kitchen of Abominations.

BWR
2018-09-30, 12:28 PM
I'm pretty sure the most common 'rationale' behind these monsters is some variant of "I wonder what would happen if..." or "can X be done?"

The Jack
2018-09-30, 01:37 PM
Owlbears make sense to me.

Two familiar animals (it'd seem more rediculous if we went for 'exotic' animals. I don't think 'CraneTiger would've worked so well, even if it sounds really cool). Owls are pretty much available on every continent, and bears have considerable range. Bears are scary, owls are symbolically tied to death. It's a monster that can be dropped into any setting; it's hardly weirder than griffins and hypogriffs.

An Owl face, with those big eyes and beak, blown up to bear proportion, would be absolutely terrifying. No other bird really gets that effect. At the same time, I think going for insects or sealife to -weird it up- would be cliche and wouldn't work so well.


Phonetically it sounds great, and has some precedent in language; awlpike, o'l something, allspice, a bunch of english village names...

hamishspence
2018-09-30, 01:42 PM
An Owl face, with those big eyes and beak, blown up to bear proportion, would be absolutely terrifying. No other bird really gets that effect. At the same time, I think going for insects or sealife to -weird it up- would be cliche and wouldn't work so well.

Somebody did manage to make a penguinbear look scary rather than just comical:


http://th05.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2010/109/3/c/Pengoon_by_arvalis.jpg

though I'd agree it works better with owls.

Mendicant
2018-09-30, 03:52 PM
I had those when I was a kid.

Specifically, I had the rust monster, the bulette, the feathered pteranodon and the two red thingies on the sides.

These are exactly the ones I had. I think they were hand-me-downs or gotten in a big box at a garage sale, because I have no memory of getting that bag or the other monsters.

SunderedWorldDM
2018-09-30, 08:47 PM
Hmm.

Maybe the high-level Wizard and Daelkyr have contests, like we do here in the forum, to create new monsters which fit some criteria.

The contest winner gets some trivial prize, and the planet gets a new horror.

Iron Chef: Kitchen of Abominations.

Ooh! Ooh! I wanna try.

I got it, guys. Let's combine a crab with a snake with a spider and make it specifically created to live under the beds and in the closets of small children.

Deophaun
2018-09-30, 09:19 PM
I got it, guys. Let's combine a crab with a snake with a spider and make it specifically created to live under the beds and in the closets of small children.
The kaorti have a good head start on you.
https://image.ibb.co/k3jtGz/Ryukanyr.png

The Glyphstone
2018-09-30, 09:38 PM
That's more like a lamprey-scorpion-chimera.

John Campbell
2018-09-30, 11:14 PM
I always thought Owlbears originated in World of Warcraft and then D&D adapted them to their game. But I guess it was the other way around.

Kids these days...

D&D had owlbears years before the first Warcraft game was even a twinkle in Blizzard's eye.

There was a Dragon article years back where they went, "So, a wizard did it. What else can a wizard do?" Sadly, it didn't give an actual spell or other mechanism for creating owlbears, but it did stat a bunch of other hybrid creatures, including the suggested starting point for a wizard who wants to work their way up to the dangerous things like owlbears and armadillephants: the dreaded duckbunny.

NorthernPhoenix
2018-09-30, 11:14 PM
Also, while crack-wizards throughout the world produce these things as weird one-offs daily, it takes a truly high quality arch-cocaine-wizard to produce several hundred at once all capable of breeding true, so as to ensure a self-sustaining menace for millennia to come.

SuperFerret
2018-10-01, 07:16 PM
Owlbears are just bears that are also wereowls.

RedMage125
2018-10-02, 10:02 AM
D&D respects mythology in the same manner that English respects foreign vocabulary.

English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-10-02, 10:06 AM
English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

And is very proud of that fact. "As pure as a crib-house [prostitute]" is one phrase I've heard (lightly edited).

Psyren
2018-10-02, 10:07 AM
This thread is fascinating and I'm glad it exists. Now I know the humble origins of my wonderful Moonkin!

And it's amazing the impact D&D has had. We ended up with these very monsters showing up in JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Secret of Mana, which means that a Japanese video game based its monsters on an American TTRPG who based its monsters on a set of random-ass Chinese toys. What a time to be alive.



Incidentally, I only recently found out it's supposed to be pronounced "Boo-lay" because French was really popular at the time and they wanted to make fun of its popularity. But I still refuse to pronounce it that way.

As someone who speaks French, if the guy who made the bullette intended it to be pronounced "boo-lay" he spelled it completely wrong to achieve that objective. It would actually have to be spelled "bullet."

Deophaun
2018-10-02, 10:51 AM
As someone who speaks French, if the guy who made the bullette intended it to be pronounced "boo-lay" he spelled it completely wrong to achieve that objective. It would actually have to be spelled "bullet."
The intent was not to get French speakers to pronounce it that way, but to get pretentious English speakers to pronounce it that way. In that sense, it succeeded.

Psyren
2018-10-02, 10:53 AM
The intent was not to get French speakers to pronounce it that way, but to get pretentious English speakers to pronounce it that way. In that sense, it succeeded.

Ha! I can't deny that :smallbiggrin:

Luccan
2018-10-02, 11:04 AM
The intent was not to get French speakers to pronounce it that way, but to get pretentious English speakers to pronounce it that way. In that sense, it succeeded.

Yeah to clarify, I found this out because one of the old TSR guys said it on a panel, not because I'm taking terrible French lessons. I've always said it (and will continue to say it) like the English "bullet".

hamishspence
2018-10-02, 11:31 AM
I've always said it (and will continue to say it) like the English "bullet".

Given the number of "ette" words out there (brunette, corvette, kitchenette, etc) I tend to pronounce the ending of the word the same way as in those those.

Anonymouswizard
2018-10-02, 11:37 AM
Given the number of "ette" words out there (brunette, corvette, kitchenette, etc) I tend to pronounce the ending of the word the same way as in those those.

Same here, buh-let instead of buh-lit.

The Glyphstone
2018-10-02, 11:47 AM
Now I'm picturing a snooty upper-class fantasy chef, whose signature dish is a Crème Bullette.

Lord Torath
2018-10-02, 11:51 AM
I always pronounced it "byoo-LETTE" (having taken a couple years of French before encountering the 1E MM)

Willie the Duck
2018-10-02, 11:53 AM
And it's amazing the impact D&D has had. We ended up with these very monsters showing up in JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Secret of Mana, which means that a Japanese video game based its monsters on an American TTRPG who based its monsters on a set of random-ass Chinese toys. What a time to be alive.

It should be pointed out that Final Fantasy 1 is a straight up loving homage to AD&D 1e, so much so that the 'white mage' only uses staffs and hammers and the 'wizard' monster is depicted as a mind flayer.

And it is, isn't it?

PhoenixPhyre
2018-10-02, 02:10 PM
It should be pointed out that Final Fantasy 1 is a straight up loving homage to AD&D 1e, so much so that the 'white mage' only uses staffs and hammers and the 'wizard' monster is depicted as a mind flayer.

And it is, isn't it?

One man's "Loving homage" is another man's "serial-numbers sorta-filed-off unauthorized copy" :smallbiggrin:.

Nifft
2018-10-02, 02:11 PM
One man's "Loving homage" is another man's "serial-numbers sorta-filed-off unauthorized copy" :smallbiggrin:.

Isn't profiting off someone's vivisection the highest form of love?

Anonymouswizard
2018-10-02, 05:02 PM
One man's "Loving homage" is another man's "serial-numbers sorta-filed-off unauthorized copy" :smallbiggrin:.

I'm going with 'loving homage' with my current work and hoping that Greg Stolze doesn't realise it means 'utter ripoff' :smallwink:

In all seriousness, having played a bit of FF1 there's just enough differences that with a few sprite changes you could probably get away with 'inspired by' rather than 'we had the monster manual on the desk when making enemies'.

RedMage125
2018-10-03, 10:00 AM
Isn't profiting off someone's vivisection the highest form of love?

I believe the expression you are looking for is "Plagiarism is the Sincerest Form of Flattery"

Celestia
2018-10-03, 11:08 AM
I believe the expression you are looking for is "Plagiarism is the Sincerest Form of Flattery"
Yeah, I'm sure Nifft knew that and was making a comedic deconstruction.

Nifft
2018-10-03, 11:14 AM
I believe the expression you are looking for is "Plagiarism is the Sincerest Form of Flattery"


Yeah, I'm sure Nifft knew that and was making a comedic deconstruction.

Indeed. What I did was praise plagiarism without plagiarizing.

Lvl 2 Expert
2018-10-03, 11:32 AM
Same bag that the rust monster came from (http://diterlizzi.com/essay/owlbears-rust-monsters-and-bulettes-oh-my/)!

I have a toy Gygax played with! In fact, I have I think two versions of that pterosaur.

The second set shown on that page contains the same pterosaur plus 3 (or 4? Not sure about the sauropod) more creatures in my collection.

I really need to start throwing away more old crap...

(Or save it long enough for someone to write another hit game based on the ones I have.)

hotflungwok
2018-10-03, 12:22 PM
Because the owlbear was one of the only survivors of the great 'lets combine things with bears to get something even nastier' experiment, performed by a wizard known today only as 'The Mad Misanthrope'.

The lionbear and tigerbear killed each other in a spectacular fight.

The oysterbear was 90% mouth, and could grab and eat fish twice as big as itself, but unfortunately wasn't able to breath under water and drowned.

The mosquitobear looked like a slowly flying dust bunny and was swatted out of the air by the catbear.

The catbear got the zoomies the first night, and after destroying a chest of drawers, 3 tables, 7 doors, and a 4 poster bed, ran face first into the castle's outer wall and died on impact.

The pufferfishbear could inflate itself to well over 100' in diameter, which was only discovered after the orcabear swallowed it. The ensuing explosion caused a tidal wave that killed the newly hatched crabbear, turtlebear, and frogbear.

When he combined two bears, he got a Grizzly Bear, and when he combined three bears he got a Brown Bear. These also survived and now live in parts of North America.

The list goes on but it only gets sillier.

Lvl 2 Expert
2018-10-03, 01:07 PM
When he combined two bears, he got a Grizzly Bear,

I heard he originally made a dire bear, an awful bear and a grizzly bear.

Frozen_Feet
2018-10-03, 02:36 PM
In Finnish, it is common to name new or foreign things with compound words formed out of familiar words.

For example, Finnish word for vulture is "korppikotka", literally "raven eagle".

Owlbear clearly follows a similar naming convention. It is neither an owl nor a bear, but it had a mix of traits somewhat like those two things, so that's the name they squeezed out of the first badly traumatized adventurer to have seen one.

Willie the Duck
2018-10-03, 03:14 PM
Because the owlbear was one of the only survivors of the great 'lets combine things with bears to get something even nastier' experiment, performed by a wizard known today only as 'The Mad Misanthrope'.
...
The list goes on but it only gets sillier.

Don't forget the one he combined with his already existing cat-hare hybrid, the Care.

redwizard007
2018-10-04, 07:40 PM
Don't forget the one he combined with his already existing cat-hare hybrid, the Care.

You go too far, sir! Too far, I say.

Deophaun
2018-10-04, 08:57 PM
Don't forget the one he combined with his already existing cat-hare hybrid, the Care.
If we hasn't trying to go for the pun and used a rabbit instead, he could have gotten a spaceship out it.

RedWarlock
2018-10-04, 09:12 PM
Don't forget the one he combined with his already existing cat-hare hybrid, the Care.

And then you combine that with an actual bear again, and get an entirely different kind of horror. With rainbow belly beams. *shudder*

Celestia
2018-10-04, 11:15 PM
If we hasn't trying to go for the pun and used a rabbit instead, he could have gotten a spaceship out it.
Is that an obscure Tenchi Muyo! reference?

Liquor Box
2018-10-05, 05:40 AM
Is an owlbear more powerful than an ordinary bear of the same size?

It seems to me that the bear should be more powerful.

hymer
2018-10-05, 06:00 AM
Is an owlbear more powerful than an ordinary bear of the same size?
In 5e, the owlbear is CR 3, while the biggest bears (polar and cave) are CR 2.
In 3.5, the owlbear is CR 4, which is the same as brown bears and polar bears.
In 2e, the owlbear is 420 XP, the same as a brown bear (though owlbear stats are slightly different; more damage from the beak than the bear's jaws, owlbear hugs are more powerful, and owlbears have 1 point better AC. The bear has 3hp more on average, however, and fights on when at negative hp until -10). Polar bears are 1400 XP.
In the Rules Cyclopedia, the Owl Bear is 175 XP, which makes them the same as grizzlies. Their stats are very similar, although the owlbear does have better AC, and the grizzly deals slightly more damage with its bite.

Willie the Duck
2018-10-05, 07:05 AM
And then you combine that with an actual bear again, and get an entirely different kind of horror. With rainbow belly beams. *shudder*
"'lets combine things with bears to get something even nastier' "
"Don't forget the one he combined with his already existing cat-hare hybrid, the Care."

So he combined a bear with a "care" in my example. Creating the CareBear.
That was my joke.
What did you think my joke was, if you were trying to combo off it to make a CareBear ref?



If we hasn't trying to go for the pun and used a rabbit instead, he could have gotten a spaceship out it.

Is that an obscure Tenchi Muyo! reference?

I believe it was, but it could be more arcane if we want it to be. If cat+hare=care, then cat+rabbit =cat (recursive, and you could have just started with just plain cat, but the logic works), and catbear = Binturong. And there's a lovely webcomic about the Spaceship Binturong (http://www.webcomicpolice.com/2014/02/flight-of-binturong.html). There, now we have a joke requiring four wild leaps of logic to work! :smalltongue:


Is an owlbear more powerful than an ordinary bear of the same size?
It seems to me that the bear should be more powerful.
Why specifically? I mean, real world owls are scary dangerous sunnofabitcheslight little birds, but clearly the owlbear has massed up to resemble a grizzly. Usually, the old joke is it should be exactly the same level of danger as a bear(taking an animal with two sharp claws and a sharp mouth and turning it into...an animal with two sharp claws and a sharp mouth), so why did the wizard do it? What is your reasoning on them ought to be less powerful?

Personification
2018-10-05, 12:57 PM
English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

May I sig this?

Nifft
2018-10-05, 01:04 PM
May I sig this?

Just be aware that it's a paraphrase of something from the 1990s:


The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

Cite: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll

Personification
2018-10-05, 05:29 PM
Just be aware that it's a paraphrase of something from the 1990s:

Cite: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll

This just makes it even more apt based on the discussion.:smalltongue:

RedWarlock
2018-10-05, 06:00 PM
"'lets combine things with bears to get something even nastier' "
"Don't forget the one he combined with his already existing cat-hare hybrid, the Care."

So he combined a bear with a "care" in my example. Creating the CareBear.
That was my joke.
What did you think my joke was, if you were trying to combo off it to make a CareBear ref?



I don’t know, I blame the same bad pun sense that took me years to figure out Diagon Alley. Plus blood-sugar depletion, sleep deprivation, etc.

Deophaun
2018-10-05, 09:08 PM
Is that an obscure Tenchi Muyo! reference?
No......


Tenchi Muyo! is obscure? Does that make me some kind of otaku grognard? Bah. Anime was great before Toonami screwed it up!

Willie the Duck
2018-10-05, 09:14 PM
I don’t know, I blame the same bad pun sense that took me years to figure out Diagon Alley. Plus blood-sugar depletion, sleep deprivation, etc.

No harm, no foul. Just perplexed me ("wait, so what did he think I was doing?" :smalltongue:).

Liquor Box
2018-10-05, 10:57 PM
Why specifically? I mean, real world owls are scary dangerous sunnofabitcheslight little birds, but clearly the owlbear has massed up to resemble a grizzly. Usually, the old joke is it should be exactly the same level of danger as a bear(taking an animal with two sharp claws and a sharp mouth and turning it into...an animal with two sharp claws and a sharp mouth), so why did the wizard do it? What is your reasoning on them ought to be less powerful?

Animals tend to be well adapted to do what they do.

Owls are adapted to be very good at ambush hunting from flight at night. They are "scary dangerous" in the context of their size, but that relies on them being able to attack an unknowing prey from above - they are not dangerous without those advantages. Their most dangerous weapon is their talons, but those talons would be difficult to engage without the advantage of flight/surprise, and it is difficult for me to imagine how an owlbear would engage its talons (which would be on its rear legs) without those advantages. While the beak appears dangerous (and is to prey grasped in the talons) I don't think it is ever used to attack prey that have not first been captured by the talons. I have no doubt that a grounded owl would be outmatched by a similar sized predator (say a ferret) - actually it wouldn't surprise me if owls are sometimes hunted by cats.

Bears are adapted to engage prey/rivals front on, grappling and seeking to overpower them. When bears fight powerful rivals (other bears, walrus, moose or bison) they tend to engage them with their paws first seeking to control their movements. To this end they have very powerful forelimbs, which are extremely flexible at the shoulder (allowing much greater range of movement than, say, big cats) which allows them a great degree of leverage when wrestling. Bears are well adapted for front on fighting, and large bears are more than match than any other land creature within their size range (smaller bears face some competition from big cats).

Because bears are well adapted for front on fighting, and owls are well adapted for a different thing (ambush from flight), I struggle to see any advantage a bear would gain from compromising its features with that of an owl. Any compromise would weaken the bear's ability to fight because it would detract from adaptations that the bears has to allow it to do just that.

I don't know how an owlbear would differ physiologically from a bear. But visually, we can see that the bear's forelimbs resemble wings, which suggests that they would be less flexible than the limbs of an ordinary bear. We can also see that the owlbear has a beak, which is not as well adapted for controlling struggling prey, and more adapted for slashing at prey that have been subdued by talons.

I think the joke in OotS (below) is more accurate than the old joke you refer to:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0322.html

Mystral
2018-10-06, 01:46 AM
I've been asking myself this question ever since finding out about this particular beastie.

There's no mythology about a bear/owl hybrid, and the whole idea is just... odd. If it was a bear with wings, that would be of note, but instead it's just a really aggressive bear with a beak.

Can someone explain to me why this thing even exists?

The Owlbear harkens from an early time of D&D development where new monsters were mostly created by mashing two random animals together.

From the same time come things like the duck bunny, the five-legged wheel lion, the spiderhorse, the Al'Miraj (unicorn bunny), the thought eater (thin platypus) and the flumph.

The Glyphstone
2018-10-06, 01:51 AM
The Roving Mauler (5-legged wheel lion) is actually a reference to the Goetic spirit Buer, for all that the end result looks like a Starfish+Lion mashup.

hamishspence
2018-10-06, 02:53 AM
From the same time come things like the duck bunny, the five-legged wheel lion, the spiderhorse, the Al'Miraj (unicorn bunny), the thought eater (thin platypus) and the flumph.
The Roving Mauler (5-legged wheel lion) is actually a reference to the Goetic spirit Buer, for all that the end result looks like a Starfish+Lion mashup.



The Al'Miraj at least, predates D&D considerably too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-mi'raj

Yora
2018-10-06, 06:02 AM
The wheel lion also has some historic precedent.

Jay R
2018-10-07, 01:06 PM
See, when a mommy bear and a daddy owl love each other very, very much, ....

Ettina
2018-10-08, 06:38 AM
WotC really ought to put this explanation in the next Monster Manual they print. It'd be good for a few laughs, and help quiet the minds of any fans wondering which specific combination of drugs and mythology resulted in these monsters.

To be fair, it just kicks the question over to "WTF were those toymakers smoking?"

oudeis
2018-10-10, 04:17 PM
I just go with the interpretation that 'owlbear' isn't a literal description so much as a name that got hung on the beast by the first party to encounter one and survive. The 'bear' part of the name is due to the huge, shaggy-looking outline it presents when it fluffs out its plumage in confrontational situations. It's a massive, ground dwelling bird of prey that regained or re-evolved prehensile forelimbs, either through natural or magical means, typically in excess of 2.5 meters (8 feet) tall and weighing on average 150 kilos (330 pounds). Tales of its aggressiveness are somewhat exaggerated. While it will attack unrelentingly if it is hungry or threatened, if given a safe distance it is no more dangerous than any other predator.

Telwar
2018-10-10, 09:38 PM
All I know is that next time I run a relevant game, like say 13th Age, I'm going to make me some bearodactyls (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/ptero).

JNAProductions
2018-10-10, 11:10 PM
All I know is that next time I run a relevant game, like say 13th Age, I'm going to make me some bearodactyls (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/ptero).

Swearing warning, for the link. It's funny, but includes content not appropriate for this forum.

Misereor
2018-10-11, 05:43 AM
It was based on a weird plastic toy from a cheap pack of "prehistoric creatures" that they used to represent monsters when Gygax and friends were inventing D&D. Same with a number of other original D&D monsters, like the Bulette. Not all of D&D is about existing myths and fantasy stories, a good chunk of it is original creations or so loosely inspired by other things that it might as well be original. It is probably helpful to think of D&D as its own unique fantasy setting (or series of related settings) rather than something that is meant to emulate other settings/stories or mythology.

Probably for the same reason our GM in one AD&D oneshot sandbox adventure introduced the young, adult and ancient Pepsi (25, 50, and 150 centilitres respectively).

Eldan
2018-10-11, 05:49 AM
There was an article I once read online, where they hired a dozen or so fantasy artists and told them to make a bear-owl hybrid, and go wild. The results were amazing and weird, but seems to be offline now, sadly.

tomandtish
2018-10-11, 07:28 PM
Extensive quantities of alcohol



The owl woke up with a splitting headache. "How much did I drink last night?" he said as tried to blink away the spots in front of his eyes. He couldn't remember anything after his third fermented mouse blood.

A grumbling snore caused him to rotate his head 180 degrees. What the owl thought was a warm blanket was actually the arm of a very large grizzly bear.

"9 Hells!" thought the owl as he carefully extricated himself from the owl's embrace. A sudden snort caused the owl to freeze but, after a minute, the contented, baritone snores resumed.

As the owl crept out the front door into the blinding, morning light, he thought "I hope nothing bad comes of this."

Certainly better than the other way around.....


We generally joke/half-joke(it's often canon) that most weird combi creatures are indeed the product of one or more "crack-wizard", who routinely produce these things throughout the world just to see if they can. The owlbear is merely one such creature.


BATS

"I’ll tell you – let me know how I do. You made these bats stronger – more intelligent – and carnivorous!"
"No! – omnivorous!"
"But why would you do that?"
"Because I’m a scientist. That’s what we do."


I heard he originally made a dire bear, an awful bear and a grizzly bear.

And a silly old bear, who was the scariest of all (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhztqoAusu4)......

Tyrrell
2018-10-12, 10:14 AM
I had those when I was a kid.Me too, and now I can guess your age within a few years.

Berenger
2018-10-12, 12:48 PM
To be fair, it just kicks the question over to "WTF were those toymakers smoking?"

Plastic fumes, among other things?

FathomsDeep
2018-10-13, 12:47 AM
Had to chime in on the owlbear thread. Playing D&D back in the early '80s, I avoided using the owlbear for encounters. It just seemed ugly and nonsensical to me at the time. Decades later, playing NWO, an owlbear mount was introduced, and I absolutely fell in love, both with the interpretation, and with the very concept. Owlbear is best bear.

I later played WoW and encountered the Moonkin. I'm unsure of the connection, but a dev who played a lot of D&D seems a likelihood.

johnbragg
2018-10-13, 07:57 PM
Yes, I'm aware of that. I played WoW when it first came out (and Warcraft 3 before that). There were owlbears in both games. I didn't start playing D&D until years later.
Even so, I have never ever seen anyone actually use owlbears in any of the D&D games I have played in, and I have played a lot in the past 10 years.

In 3rd edition, it was trivially easy to slap a Half-Fiendish template on the humble owlbear, creating a flying greater owlbear with a bunch of other bonuses thrown in (AC +1, DR 5, DR 10 vs a bunch of elements, spell abilities.)

johnbragg
2018-10-13, 08:01 PM
To be fair, it just kicks the question over to "WTF were those toymakers smoking?"

Probably chainsmoking packs of "whogivesadamn". Kids'll play with anything.

Can't find a good Martin Short Toy Executive clip. Maybe it was a different first-generation SNL guy?

Joe the Rat
2018-10-13, 11:12 PM
Late to the Bulette discussion (as usual), but how you say it determines which jokes you make.

Fancy-way, you can have the dread monster of northern climes, the Woolly Bulette.
Otherway, you can refer to immature bulettes as "Small Caliber".

johnbragg
2018-10-14, 08:15 AM
Late to the Bulette discussion (as usual), but how you say it determines which jokes you make.

Fancy-way, you can have the dread monster of northern climes, the Woolly Bulette.
Otherway, you can refer to immature bulettes as "Small Caliber".

Huh. I had always pronounced it as if they were the cheerleading squad for the Bulls, the Bull-ettes.

Personification
2018-10-14, 09:58 AM
English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

This is a bit off topic by now, but I never got a yes/no on if I could sig this.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-10-14, 10:33 AM
This is a bit off topic by now, but I never got a yes/no on if I could sig this.

That's not an original statement as it's a quote from James Nicoll: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll

halfeye
2018-10-14, 11:46 AM
That's not an original statement as it's a quote from James Nicoll: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll

Thus it is currently in copyright, and you need permission from the original author before you can use it.

JNAProductions
2018-10-14, 11:48 AM
Thus it is currently in copyright, and you need permission from the original author before you can use it.

Then wouldn't that wiki site be illegally hosting it?

I think you need his permission to PROFIT from it. So unless you're making a mint off your GitP signature, you're probably okay.

halfeye
2018-10-14, 11:56 AM
Then wouldn't that wiki site be illegally hosting it?

I think you need his permission to PROFIT from it. So unless you're making a mint off your GitP signature, you're probably okay.

They could have permission.

If you're not profiting, it's not worth suing you. Technically, you need permission, IANAL, it's probably a lot more complicated. There's also the thing of quoting small parts of a greater whole, but if you only know the quote, then I think you need permission, there's also the issue of the TOS of the site hosting the quote, if they claim copyright on things posted there, it may be they get to repost for free. Copyright is a mess, and getting messier.

Nifft
2018-10-14, 12:20 PM
Thus it is currently in copyright, and you need permission from the original author before you can use it.

Nah, a quote that small is easily within the scope of Fair Use.

Additionally, there's no basis for suing as long as you (a) attribute the source, and (b) don't profit from the work -- the original quote was on USENET, and USENET isn't a work for sale[citation needed], so there's no loss of income which could be stipulated as the basis for a C&D filing.


The reason we ask permission to quote is pure civility & politeness, not some fear of legal repercussions.

Personification
2018-10-14, 01:07 PM
That's not an original statement as it's a quote from James Nicoll: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Nicoll
True, but I specifically want to sig the paraphrased form, therefore I wanted the paraphraser's permission to do so.

Maelynn
2018-10-14, 01:13 PM
The intent was not to get French speakers to pronounce it that way, but to get pretentious English speakers to pronounce it that way. In that sense, it succeeded.

If only they succeeded to that degree on the pronunciation of melee ('muh-lay'. emphasis on the second syllable, since it comes from French mêlee). I've heard it mutilated to 'melly' or mee-leey' so often and it still makes my spleen twitch in agony...

Personification
2018-10-14, 01:36 PM
If only they succeeded to that degree on the pronunciation of melee ('muh-lay'. emphasis on the second syllable, since it comes from French mêlee). I've heard it mutilated to 'melly' or mee-leey' so often and it still makes my spleen twitch in agony...

I always thought it was may-lay, with emphasis on both syllables:smallredface:.

Keltest
2018-10-14, 09:41 PM
I always thought it was may-lay, with emphasis on both syllables:smallredface:.

That's how ive pronounced it too.

hymer
2018-10-15, 04:30 AM
it still makes my spleen twitch in agony...
May I suggest you consult a doctor? :smallsmile:

The word was nicked by English in the mid 17th century. How the French pronounce it (or spell it, for that matter) these days is pretty irrelevant to what would be the proper pronunciation in English, then or now.

Jay R
2018-10-16, 11:19 AM
To be fair, it just kicks the question over to "WTF were those toymakers smoking?"

They were thinking, "If we make these, people will buy them." Toymakers aren't interested in realism, except when it impinges on that crucial fact.


I always thought it was may-lay, with emphasis on both syllables:smallredface:.

Correct. It is a spondee, not a trochee or an iamb.