Dancing with Bugbears
Dancing with Bugbears
By Rosie Goodalls
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My studies and life among the captivating bugbears of Butcherblock Mountains.
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After months of talk and study, I have decided to go where my heart has been pulling. I am leaving for Butcherblock from Thundering Steppes, tomorrow! My calling is amongst the misunderstood bugbears. I will bring a knowledge of these poor creatures to all of Norrath!
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Some believe that a halfling woman, such as myself, must be mad, choosing to study such intimidating beings. And be it in a foreign and treacherous land, then she's doubly mad! I silence them with my rebuttal, "If I do not do it, who will?"
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I landed at the Butcherblock docks, and had soon secured a dwarven guide and several helpers to aid my trip to the bugbear camp. They were a burly lot, and looked a bit rough around the edges, but they certainly knew the fastest paths and the safest routes. Plat well spent, no doubt! We traversed north through the lush Highlands with little trouble, and made camp for the night a bit off from the bugbears.
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The next morning, the dwarves and I shared a meal and resumed our trek to the bugbear camp.
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We weren't but a griffin's leap from the camp when a large bugbear came running at us from the side! It was a male, wearing crude skins and jagged metal bits as armor. He wielded a club with nails embedded in its surface.
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The dwarves fought back, in their fear and ignorance. This only brought others to the fight! I tried to calm the lot, to stop the dwarves, but they must not have heard me what with all the screaming. I can not blame these abused creatures! Here we were coming to their homes appearing as an army might.
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They had long been the slaves of other Underfoot races, and our merry band of scientists must have looked to them like any other, coming in to enslave them, again.
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I was blessed that they had noticed my pacifist nature, and my respect for their well being. I mourned for my guides, who knew no better than to meet aggression in kind, but I am here as proof that it is not the only answer.
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I established my own camp very near to theirs, and have even been allowed to watch them from afar. I know they are watching me, too. Studying my moves and behavior, no doubt, as I am theirs. They are too protective and inquisitive not to!
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How such a majestic race came to be thought of as a disgrace or purely as muscle and fodder for mining and construction initiatives is beyond me!
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As I have been living near the bugbear clan and studying them, they have grown increasingly inquisitive and welcoming of my presence. Several have approached me, and have been grateful for the meals that I have shared with them!
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Language is a bit of a challenge, but with patience and an open mind, I find that we communicate quite well. The desires of a child are easy to discern even before they can speak. The situation is similar, and at some points has triggered my maternal instincts.
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During my studies, I have made a great deal of headway with the clan, and have even been approached by some of the more curious ones, even nicknamed several!
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Pookie is demure. Light in tint, he takes extra care to muss his hair with mud. He enjoys watching me and has even started to imitate my writing with his finger. Nibbles is a darker brown. He enjoys stalking creatures, and is rather protective of his kills.
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Cuddles is an enamored member of the clan.He even gives me kisses. Or that is to say, his version. I have never witnessed the bugbear show affection amongst themselves, but he licks my face, and smacks his lips. It is quite sweet!
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Jumjum is a fighter, and has been witnessed instigating more than one amongst his own clan. I wonder if he is trying to prove his worth for battle.
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Silverback named for the distinctive patch of silver hair on his back, though it is often covered by his leather smock.
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I was fortunate to witness a prize being presented to the clan leader, today! A hunting party passed by my camp grunting and barking at one another. Their volume indicated that they were excited by something. It had alarmed me at first, but their body language told me it was a joyous occasion. They walked proud, and were hitting each other playfully.
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Once within their camp, they gathered in front of the leader, and many ornate armor pieces were thrown on the ground at his feet. He made a great whoop!
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Jumjum then produced several very hairy looking orbs from a bundled object he carried. I could not make out the objects from my distance sadly, but it brought the entire tribe to grunting, and hitting the ground! What an adventure to see such joy and pride exuded from these graceful creatures!
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I must admit that I am confused by the other Faydwer folk. Earlier, some startled me as I was strolling back from studying Pookie. They called to me while waving their arms and motioning me to come hither.
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'Thank Tunare, we got here in time!"
‘What is the matter?" I asked.
They appeared to be dumbstruck. "You are in grave danger, dear lady."
One even warned, 'That one's a man killer!"
"I am in no such danger." I assured them. "I only fear being crushed by their love!"
And with that, I walked back to my camp, to continue my mission. My published work will disprove misconceptions and myths about the bugbear, including the myth that they are violent.
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The clan has been very busy the last few days. The gatherers have been collecting fresh game, and roots while the crafters have been making new skins into banners and clothes. They must be getting ready for a ceremony or a celebration of some kind!
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The best news is that Cuddles has come to my tent. I think he wishes me to join in the party! He is wearing some of the new skins upon his head and is accompanied by one of the tribe shaman. They are waiting with me now, but have made motions and grunts to each other to indicate I am to follow.
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Perhaps they wish to make me a part of the tribe or to extend some other pleasantry upon me! No doubt, my next entry shall be full of merriment and awe. I am excited to share all that would have occurred, and all that I have learned on this night!
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(There are no further entries. This page, like many of the following pages, is smeared with crusty mud and blood left by thick fingerprints.)
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A Supplementary Chronicle of the Society's Lore Archive Filed in Response to the Circulating Pamphlet: "Dancing with Bugbears," authored by one Rosie Goodalls, Halfling
On the Matter of the Butcherblock Bugbears: A Corrective Account
Being the field notes, observations, and final assessment of a Society expedition dispatched to the Butcherblock Mountains for the express purpose of verifying the claims set forth in the aforementioned document.
It came to the attention of the Society's archive in the season following the pamphlet's wide distribution across the docks of both Qeynos and Freeport that a certain halfling naturalist by the name of Rosie Goodalls had published, to considerable readership, a document asserting the gentle, misunderstood, and very nearly affectionate nature of the bugbear clans inhabiting the Butcherblock Mountains of Faydwer. The pamphlet was written with evident warmth, considerable optimism, and a quality of hopeful enthusiasm that, in a better world, might have been charming. It circulated among the curious, the naive, the academically inclined, and those travelers who, lacking any prior experience of the Butcherblock, might be persuaded to approach the creatures with open hands and full confidence in the transformative power of shared meals.
The Society read the pamphlet with grave interest. It noted, as any careful reader must, that the document ends abruptly. The final written entry speaks of the author's excitement at being invited to join the tribe in some manner of ceremony. The pages that follow are described, by whatever scribe recovered and reproduced this document, as smeared with crusty mud and the thick fingerprints of creatures larger than a halfling.
No further entries exist.
The Society dispatched three members to Butcherblock to investigate.
The ExpeditionOur agents departed from the docks of Butcherblock on a morning of cold grey fog, provisioned for a fortnight and carrying, among other supplies, a copy of the Goodalls pamphlet, annotated in the margins with the Lorekeeper's questions. They secured no dwarven guides, having read carefully the relevant passage in which dwarven guides were noted to have met a swift and violent end. Instead, they proceeded on foot through the Highlands, keeping to the elevated ridgelines and moving with the practiced silence that the Society requires of those who walk in its name.
They observed the bugbear encampment from a distance of no less than forty yards for the better part of three days. They did not approach. They did not offer food. They made no sounds that might indicate the presence of a friendly party with pacifist intentions and a published theory about maternal instincts.
What follows is drawn from their combined field notes.
Observations, Condensed
The bugbears of Butcherblock are large, territorial, and organized in a manner that rewards careful study. They post sentinels. They rotate those sentinels at intervals that suggest some form of coordinated command structure. They do not, our agents noted, behave as creatures who are merely protecting themselves from the inherited trauma of prior enslavement, though the Society does not discount that such a history exists and carries weight. They behave as creatures who are, quite simply, hunting.
On the second day of observation, a lone merchant's assistant, separated from a larger party and clearly unfamiliar with the terrain, wandered to within fifty yards of the camp's eastern boundary. The bugbears were aware of him before he was aware of them. Three sentinels moved with considerable speed and coordination to encircle his position. The merchant's assistant did not return to the dock that evening. Our agents did not intervene, being under strict orders to observe only. They did record the incident in full.
On the third day, our agents located a site that, by the evidence of certain scattered and partially preserved materials, appeared to have once served as a small researcher's camp. A broken writing board was recovered. A shattered clay inkpot. Several pages of notes, legible only in fragments, in a hand that appeared small and careful. The pages referenced a bugbear the author had named "Pookie." The pages referenced the author's confidence that the clan had grown "increasingly welcoming." The pages referenced an upcoming ceremony.
The pages did not reference any ceremony that ended well.
Our agents departed the Butcherblock on the morning of the fourth day and returned to the Society's hall with their notes, the recovered fragments, and a concise recommendation.
The Society's Assessment
The Norrath Secret Society holds no quarrel with optimism as a philosophy. The pursuit of understanding, the willingness to approach what others fear, the belief that Norrath's creatures deserve study rather than reflexive contempt: these are not values we dismiss. They are, in many respects, values we share.
What we do not share is the conviction that good intentions constitute adequate armor.
Rosie Goodalls was, by all evidence available to us, a person of genuine curiosity and considerable courage. Her work among the bugbear clan was undertaken with sincerity and recorded with care. The Society preserves her notes alongside this account, in the spirit of completeness, and because any scholar of Norrath deserves the dignity of having her work remembered even when its conclusions proved, in the end, incorrect.
The bugbears of the Butcherblock Mountains are hostile. They are dangerous. They are capable of patience and coordination that the unwary traveler may mistake for tolerance. They will, under the right circumstances, appear to accept the presence of an outsider in their territory, particularly one who offers food and makes no aggressive movements, for a period of time that inspires false confidence.
This is not friendship. The Society does not know with certainty what it is. But we know with certainty what it is not.
Members traveling through the Butcherblock Highlands are advised to maintain distance from all known bugbear encampments, to avoid the presentation of food or other offerings, to avoid assigning names to individual bugbears, and to take no comfort from the absence of immediate aggression.
The Goodalls pamphlet is to be treated as a cautionary document, not a field guide. It has been added to the archive accordingly, shelved under the heading: Well-Intentioned Errors of the Age of Destiny.
May she rest in the light of whatever god she kept.
The mud on those final pages was quite thick.
Seek. Discover. Endure.
Mordven Nocturnis, Lorekeeper of the Veil Norrath Secret Society, Antonia Bayle
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