A question about Bugbears and their kin

[Thomas Jones]

Reading the recent Bestiary # 4 entry on Wikkawaks got me thinking. Given that bugbears and their kin spend most of their time alone and push their children out on their own after only a few years, how does bugbear culture get passed on? They have their own language,traditions,religion and skills
(such as brewing Bramble-Sick Brandy). While that might not match the elves in terms of sophistication, it is still a fairly complex culture that would not seem possible given their solitary life cycle (which might work for regular bears, but not a sapient race)

[MMCJawa]

I figure they have borrowed most of their culture from their neighbors and the other goblinoid races. A lot of their serial killer esq behavior might be instinctual, and if they are solitary they might not really have a lot of culture they need to pass on.

[Louis Lyons]

It is an interesting thing: Bugbears are essentially a race of sadistic psychopathic serial killers bound by their love of cruelty and carnage and their extreme anti-social behavior, outdoing orcs in their savagery. It is a fair question as to how they maintain any semblance of what we could define as a "culture."

Here is how I imagine it: Younger Bugbears essentially apprentice themselves to older, more experienced Bugbears who teach them more advanced hunting techniques, how to brew spirits, etc. These apprenticeships last anywhere from several months to a few years.

Younger bugbears try to obtain these apprenticeships by attempting to "impress" the older bugbears, such as by trying to sneak up and stalk them or leaving them gifts of food, strong alcohol, or tied up sentient beings for them to torture and kill. If the older bugbear is feeling the urge, the younger bugbear may be able to obtain an apprenticeship by exchanging sexual favors (although that is a very risky proposition when it comes to bugbears, especially when the elder bugbear tires of the younger).

If the elder bugbear is not impressed by the younger bugbear, the younger bugbear will probably end up being a corpse buried under a bunch of pine needles on the forest floor, with their ears and fingers added to the elder's necklace. However, if the elder bugbear is sufficiently impressed, she will take the younger bugbear under her wing and teach him the "old ways" of the bugbears, such as how to be silent as a mouse while creeping about on creaky floorboards, how to brew proper wines using the stomach of an eviscerated elf, and how to engage in proper ritual scarification to denote the stories of their hunts.

Due to their violent and tempestuous natures, even the most cordial bugbear apprenticeships can end violently. The best apprenticeships end with one or both of the bugbears silently taking leave of one another in the darkest of night before they end up murdering each other...which is probably the closest that bugbears can come to genuine affection for each other.

[Thomas Jones]

That was AWESOME, thanx

Louis Lyons wrote:

It is an interesting thing: Bugbears are essentially a race of sadistic psychopathic serial killers bound by their love of cruelty and carnage and their extreme anti-social behavior, outdoing orcs in their savagery. It is a fair question as to how they maintain any semblance of what we could define as a "culture."

Here is how I imagine it: Younger Bugbears essentially apprentice themselves to older, more experienced Bugbears who teach them more advanced hunting techniques, how to brew spirits, etc. These apprenticeships last anywhere from several months to a few years.

Younger bugbears try to obtain these apprenticeships by attempting to "impress" the older bugbears, such as by trying to sneak up and stalk them or leaving them gifts of food, strong alcohol, or tied up sentient beings for them to torture and kill. If the older bugbear is feeling the urge, the younger bugbear may be able to obtain an apprenticeship by exchanging sexual favors (although that is a very risky proposition when it comes to bugbears, especially when the elder bugbear tires of the younger).

If the elder bugbear is not impressed by the younger bugbear, the younger bugbear will probably end up being a corpse buried under a bunch of pine needles on the forest floor, with their ears and fingers added to the elder's necklace. However, if the elder bugbear is sufficiently impressed, she will take the younger bugbear under her wing and teach him the "old ways" of the bugbears, such as how to be silent as a mouse while creeping about on creaky floorboards, how to brew proper wines using the stomach of an eviscerated elf, and how to engage in proper ritual scarification to denote the stories of their hunts.

Due to their violent and tempestuous natures, even the most cordial bugbear apprenticeships can end violently. The best apprenticeships end with one or both of the bugbears silently taking leave of one another in the darkest of night before they end up murdering each other...which is probably the closest that bugbears...