Owlbear

An owlbear was a large monstrosity that looked like a cross between an owl and a bear. "Once the wolves and owlbears catch your scent, they'll follow you. If you can't keep ahead of them, they'll eat you. Slowly, if it's an owlbear that catches you. They like cruel sport with their food."

- Florin Falconhand

Description
Owlbears were monstrous beasts with the bodies of bears covered in thick fur and feathers. Their heads were like those of owls, but with a serrated beak.

Behavior
Owlbears hunted from around sunset to sunrise. They hooted or screeched to declare their territory and to flush prey into their hunting grounds. Owlbears also screeched as a way to attract a mate. When an owlbear successfully caught its prey, it tended to partially consume part of it on the spot, before dragging the rest back to its lair to be stored. The scent of flesh that emanated from an owlbear's lair often attracted creatures and therefore, more prey.

Combat
These creatures were incredibly aggressive, going so far as to slay any living creature they saw. This territorial attitude caused many folks who lived with nature to purposefully hunt owlbears before they had a chance to destroy the local wildlife.

Cormanthor
The owlbears of the Starwood area of the Cormanthor forest quickly ate through their food supply of wolves, rabbits, and serpents. Their population began to decrease as food became scarce, although they came across a supply of harvester termites and found that they were edible. They quickly found that they could maintain their own termite colonies by managing their wood supplies, and therefore effectively grew their own food.

As a side effect of this practice, horses were drawn to the scent of the termite shells mixed with owlbear saliva, and the owlbears took to hiding and waiting for horses to arrive, before pushing them into a termite pit and then devouring them. Pyrolisks were also drawn to the scent, but owlbears would abandon a pit if a pyrolisk turned up, rather than risk being incinerated.

Usage
Owlbear leather was a quality crafting material, used in creation of armor and reinforcing weapons.

History
How the owlbear came to be was a long-running argument among scholars. The mostly widely held theory was of course that the first owlbear was the product of a demented mage crossing a bear and a giant owl. However, the oldest elves recalled that owlbears had been around for many millennia and a few fey claimed owlbears had always been found in the Feywild. In fact, owlbears were brought into being by one of the creator races, most likely the aearee.

During the Silver Age of Netheril, Netherese human colonists led by the Terraseer eradicated the 3,000-strong population of owlbears of the Savage Frontier so they could not trouble their caravans, in the so-called Caravan War in. They established the Old Owl Well outpost there and named it for the owlbears.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Under Illefarn • Dungeon #14, "Masqueraider" • Dungeon #28, "The Pipes of Doom" • The Sword of the Dales • The Twilight Tomb • Lost Mine of Phandelver • Princes of the Apocalypse • Storm King's Thunder
 * Comics
 * Neverwinter Tales
 * Video Games
 * Curse of the Azure Bonds • Gateway to the Savage Frontier • Neverwinter • Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms • Baldur's Gate III
 * Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation
 * Gamebooks
 * To Catch a Thief
 * Card Games
 * AD&D Trading Cards
 * Board Games
 * Battle for Faerûn • Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Begins
 * Board Games
 * Battle for Faerûn • Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Begins