Grawlf

Commonly called the 'bearfolk,' the grawlfs are a race of highly intelligent bears who range northern Barathorn. They are chiefly brown in color and of immense size, standing as high as three meters, when they rear on their hind quarters. The Grawlfs can also make human utterances, despite their ursine mouths.

The Grawlf achieved renown during the roughly three hundred fifty year period of the Great Kingdom of the Bearfolk in northern Barathorn (1,650 AI to 2,000 AI) in the peninsula named after the Bearfolk.

Grawlfs are sentient bears, that is, bears with intelligence approaching that of humans. They dwell in the wilderness of northern Barathorn and are indistinguishable in appearance from the grizzly population. They were a great united folk during the Middle Ages of Chaos. Today, they form only small family groups. They speak their own language and sometimes have a basic capacity to speak the language of local humanlikes, such as dwarves, elves, or humans. Grawlfs can mate with non-sentient bears and sometimes lead them in forays against prey or intelligent enemies. Despite their remarkable intelligence for animals, Grawlfs behave much like bears in many other ways. They are still primarily creatures of comfort. They have no use for wealth or power, but delight in eating, shows of prowess, mating, and their offspring. Unlike wild bears, Grawlf males have affection for their offspring and form nuclear families with their mate and children. Grawlf males will fight among their own kind for dominance and mating, but prefer to settle their differences without killing their own kind.

Grawlfs speak among their own kind with a special language that consists of growls, barks, yaps, coos, purs, and groans. During the Middle Ages of Chaos, they were able to speak human language and some of their kind, possibly spellcasters, can still do this today. It is a trick of magic as their oral capacity is rather different from a human or humanlike. Grawlfs make expressions with their ursine faces that are described as almost human.

Grawlfs do not like to bear humans or humanlikes as they do not enjoy such encumbrance. A Grawlf could be induced to bear such a creature which she regarded as a special friend or possibly if bribed with food that he knew he could not simply seize by force. Grawlfs have the innate and extraordinary sense of smell common to bears and can be an immense source of knowledge about their woodland home. Grawlfs generally understand that the elves of Barathorn are harmless but that other creatures such as ogres, orcs, and goblins are dangerous. They are guarded toward dwarves and especially humans with whom they sometimes compete for natural resources such as fish, honey, berries, and deer.

See Also

• Uhlak