Talk:Owlbear

WoW creatures

The World of Warcraft creatures may have been inspired by the Owlbear, but they are not Owlbears and do not belong on this page. This article is strictly about the d20 monster. --Valwen 04:27, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• If the creatures are referred to as "owlbears" in WoW, then they certainly belong in the "other media" section. There's no sense in having separate articles for "Owlbear (D&D)" & "Owlbear (WoW)."--Robbstrd 01:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Valwen, I appreciate your edits, but they are way too close to a copyright violation. The descriptions you added read just like they came out of the book with only a little rewriting. That's a potential WP:C problem. FrozenPurpleCube 16:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Owlbears appeared first in nethack

The origin of the owbear is in the dungeon game nethack (http://www.nethack.org/ - first version in 1987).

This game has a lot of creatures that were adopted by newer games like Dungeons & Dragons or EverQuest etc.

• Short history

(see http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2266805):
NetHack evolved from Hack, which added character classes, pets and shops to the basic features of the original Rogue game. The first version of NetHack (1.3d) was released on 28 July 1987, and the current version (3.4.3) on 9 December 2003.

• nethack's Monster Manual (inside the game)

Name owlbear  
Difficulty 7  
Base level 5  
Base experience 97  
Speed 12  
Base AC 5  
Base MR 0  
Alignment 0  
Frequency Rare  
Genocidable Yes  
ATTACKS Claw: 1d6; Bearhug: 2d8  
Weight 1700  
Nutritional value 700  
Size large  
Resistances None  
Resistances conveyed by eating None  
An owlbear has an animal body with a humanoid shape. It is a carnivore.  

• sourcecode

monst.c

    MON("owlbear", S_YETI,
	LVL(5, 12, 5, 0, 0), (G_GENO|3),
	A(ATTK(AT_CLAW, AD_PHYS, 1, 6), ATTK(AT_CLAW, AD_PHYS, 1, 6),
	  ATTK(AT_HUGS, AD_PHYS, 2, 8), NO_ATTK, NO_ATTK, NO_ATTK),
	SIZ(1700, 700, 0, MS_ROAR, MZ_LARGE), 0, 0,
	M1_ANIMAL|M1_HUMANOID|M1_CARNIVORE,
	M2_HOSTILE|M2_STRONG|M2_NASTY, M3_INFRAVISIBLE, CLR_BROWN),

regards hein.bloed -> gmail.com

Owlbears appeared in the earliest edition of Monster Manual, which was published in 1977. --Muchness 16:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Creative Origins

There is no owlbear depicted on the cover of any edition of B2: Keep on the Borderlands, as can be seen here. I am deleting that statement.

Since there is not yet a citation about the "toy" origin, I'm also modifying the phrasing of that claim until it can be corroborated.

--Larry 20:49, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Many years later, wanted to point out this, called 'B2: Little Keep on the Borderlands', perhaps the source of the incorrect information. --98.19.156.232 (talk) 04:25, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

If it helps, I dimly recall GG talking about using a bag of assorted plastic critters as monsters in an early game and the number of D&D classics that sprang out of that bag once he had made up stats for them. I think this was in a column in Dragon, but I have no idea what issue. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 10:27, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

No longer Start-class article

I don't think this article is a Start-class article any longer. It has a lot more information now, more sources (non-WotC/TSR ones too) and covers the owlbear in a lot of media. Cortador (talk) 10:26, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

The Wikiproject banner above has the b-class assessment built into it, if you want to see how it stacks up. It's possible that it's up to C-class, but I don't think it's up to B-class. I'm not sure where you can request a reassessment, maybe here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Fictional characters/Assessment#Requesting an assessment? Thanks for all your work on this article! 24.1.246.28 (talk) 15:47, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I have trouble finding the criteria for a C-Class artcile; could you provide a link?Cortador (talk) 19:33, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, i'm not exactly sure what the c-class critera are. :( 24.1.246.28 (talk) 01:23, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind, found it myself: The article has to fulfil B-class criteria 1 to 4 and NOT fulfil one or both of 5 and 6. I actually think it's ready for B class or at least C class. Request has been written here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fictional_characters/Assessment#Requesting_an_assessment

Not sure if that's the right place, though. Cortador (talk) 10:00, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

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Monotremes

2nd edition AD&D talks about owlbear ecology and mentions that Owlbears lay eggs, which suggests that they would be Monotremes. Would a link to the Monotremes page be appropriate? 118.211.117.239 (talk) 12:52, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure if we can properly classify owlbears as mammals though, as they are part bird and part bear. BOZ (talk) 13:19, 19 August 2022 (UTC)