Monster Deep Dive: Owlbears

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Hello adventurers. The podcast words role
players and game masters have level up.

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You're a game We are your dunk
master's. I'm I'm Joe McCall and so

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we're going to continue our little elementary
school style book report series today. I

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stopped calling these actual deep dies because
we like to have a little more.

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I like a little I like a
little more like I'm picturing like the kid

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from up kind of like with his
lither is like shuffling his papers. And

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you know, I did my report, which are studying for a merit badge.

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I would say we weighed, we
wade into these topics. I wouldn't

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say we deep die. We waded, and yeah, we shallow shuffle in.

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There's a lot of do you have
for us this week, Jason,

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I was gonna try to work the
word roar into a response, but yeah,

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I got nothing. So I'm just
going to let's say today we're doing

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another icon of D and D monsters. This is one that is almost popular

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enough to be in general pop culture, but within geeked them and definitely within

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within D and D players, this
is one of the most iconic monsters.

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You have their own rodeo, you
do, but today's all about owl bears.

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So it featured in the movie.
Well, we're gonna get to that.

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Sorry, that's that's one alert,
So we are going to get to

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that. So I was trying to
think of, like if we were to

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kind of like put tears and levels
to like icon icon ability of monsters,

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and like I would kind of put
this in categories of like general pop culture,

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where like if you ask my mother, like what this thing looked like,

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she could probably describe it. No, not an owl bear, oh

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right, all right, but like
you know, a dragon. Yeah,

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all of our mouths can describe a
dragon. Everyone knows what a dragon looks

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like. Yeah, but my mother
could probably describe what a mimic looks like.

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My wouldn't be able to you know
that. That's like that's your next

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tier down. So I think Albert's
are the next tier down from that to

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where like anybody who's even like dabbled
in D and D or even most general

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fantasy can probably tell you what an
Albert looks like. So they they're pretty

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they're pretty iconic to where like,
you know, general pop culture wouldn't really

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know what those words mean. So
I think this is this is a really

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cool one to get into. I
think they're They're an important part of early

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lower level campaigns and one of the
first monsters ever designed by Guyex. So

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let's get into Albert are and let
let's for deep dive. We're just gonna

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call this cool facts about Albert.
First one, these are monstrosities. They

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are not beasts. They're not aliens. They're not an extra planner, they're

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not humanoid. Really, they're not
really anything else. They are monstrosities.

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The term monstrosity is used to compass
any kind of monster that is just a

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monster. And this has important implications
that we are going to get to later

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with its typing. But like you
know, a beast like you cannot have

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an Albert companion if you are a
ranger unless your DM is super super super

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super super cool actually awesome by the
way, and your and your various abilities

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that work on beasts are not gonna
like an Albert is not going to listen

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to you talking to it the way
a regular bear would. Right. Yeah,

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they're not owls, they're not bears. These are they're they're biliteral definition

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of their monsters. Yeah, and
that's going to get us to our next

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two points here. They are from
unknown origins, so canonically no one's really

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certain where albars come from. There's
some stories in certain modules that a wizard

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may have tried to create some sort
of some sort of like fusion spell on

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an owl and a bear, that
there is a lich named Fesslar who at

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one point claimed clans responsibility for creating
the first al bears, but he was

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not very trustworthy, and that is
unconfirmed. Huh untrustworthy lich. Yeah,

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right, we're certain l say that
they predate recorded history and may go back

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to the dawn of time. And
while meanwhile there's fairies that will claim that

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they have more of a fay wild
origin and migrated into material playing through fake

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crossings. That so and and they're
all plausible. I don't think we're using

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real world biology. I don't think
they happened naturally. So we're gonna go

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with definitely bread Well, honey,
when an owl and a bear love each

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other very much, yea, what
is what is the equivalent? What is

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the equivalent here of an owl bear? Like? Because there's something that's like,

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wait, that small little thing and
that that big giant thing, like

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you can you can put those together
and make something certain dog MutS stinard.

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Yeah yeah great, Yeah you're you're
you're like corky husky. Yeah that's truscky.

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Yeah, hilarious dogs, super a
super super stubborn, the two worst

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breeds, but so also going along
with the with the monstrosity bit. They

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are straight up mean. They are. These things are nasty. They get

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belligerent. Is the word yea that
I feel like best describes them. Well

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there, I've been described as bloodren
before they are. They're pure agro,

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super aggressive and all too happy to
kill anyone who comes near their cave,

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doubly so if their cubs or companion
are nearby. So they're kind of designed

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to be difficult encounters for low level
parties. So they are CR three,

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so not too difficult to defeat a
levels two and three. But you know

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a couple of bad Diye rolls is
a down or even a dead player.

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You know, they they hunt alone, so if you catch them out in

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the wild, they're probably by themselves
and a low level party can surround it

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and use very basic tactics to take
it down. But if you go hunting

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for them and find them in their
cave, their companion is probably with them.

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And their cub is there, and
they're going to instantly attack if you're

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anywhere near their cub. And then
so a cr three. They're not super

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terrible, but cobol pressed Home of
Beasts Volume three includes stats for a dire

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owl. Bear them up at Okay, I was gonna ask, can you

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pump these babies up? And then
there's at least that one out there,

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and then you know, there's all
kinds of waste the Tome of Beasts,

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I have to they're all good ones. And the way to pump them up

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is make them hunting packs. They
hunt alone, but they can travel in

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packs. And we're going to get
to their family make up a little bit

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later, but they could be traveling
with their companion or even other you know,

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others from their family. Well,
so let's get into the family.

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So they are there, fighters and
lovers. They they do mate for life,

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kind of like penguins. After a
mate passes, they will not seek

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another mate. Once a cub decides
to leave the cave. They can travel

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pretty far, so their caves can
be pretty spaced out among your world.

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They will hunt separately, but will
spend a lot of time with their family

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and if anything threatens the family at
all, they will fly into a very

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very violent rate. See our previous
point. They're mean, yeah, despite

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all of that, smarter than you
think. So after they're hunting, they'll

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drive the carcass back to feed,
but they will purposely leave a carcass near

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the cave entrance and even decorate the
interior of the cave with bones. Oh

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and what's happening is they're leaving the
carcass out and so the smell of the

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rotting carcass will attract other hunters and
scavengers and then they will then ambush them.

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Nice. Yeah, so in your
game, pretty intelligent then as far

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as our predators go, Yeah,
yeah they are. Their intelligence is a

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three. So, like you know, they're not to understand languages or anything,

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but they are smart enough to know
how to hunt using some sort of

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like animal instinct level tactic. Right, it's not pure you know violence,

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although once a time the fight eight
is pure violence. Will get into that

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later too, as far as,
like, you know, leaving the carcass

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out. If you need a way
to have a cave in your wilderness instantly

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be recognizable as an Albert cave without
you know, having a big sign that

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says Albert is inside, having the
carcass out, having the eggs, having

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tracks are all ways that you can
start start dropping clues so that players who

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even fail their their's FIBAL checks can
have some sort of clue what's going on.

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So in the development of them,
they were designed out there a knockoff

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toy. Can you know about the
other background on this, Yeah, the

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like half a dozen of the most
iconic D and D monsters come from like

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a cheap bag of like weird you
know, like whatever, like like like

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like Chinese little plastic miniatures the Gygax
found and then designed creatures around them.

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The rust monster has its origins in
that. The I think the like the

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Zorn like I think that the three
the three sided critter I think is is

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in that. But certainly, you
know, some of your more iconic D

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and D monster, like the weirder
ones that kind of come out of left

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field, Yeah, are from most
Yeah, found a bag of cheap knockoff

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toys that you'll find like twenty five
cent machines and they were labeled as dinosaurs.

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Yeah, but there were right,
Yeah, but they were actually knockoff

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Godzilla Kaiju. Oh nice. Yeah, So you get these like you know,

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Walmart brands, you know, uh, you know, wish dot com

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level poorly melted, poorly put together, a badly painted, wrong color everything

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bad Godzilla toys, and he just
kind of repurposed them. Those are the

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dollar just to be clear, Oh
for Godzilla that's already so has such a

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cheesy history. Yeah, perfectly.
Yeah, I wanted to be campy as

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campy as can be. So so
my god, No, God's a little

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ultraman type of stuff. And yeah, the the Albert and you mentioned a

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couple of others, but he found
it while he was working on the early

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versions of what would be a first
edition. So once now that we have

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a design for the character, a
design for the monster, and they're trying

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to make a fate within his you
know, the wilderness of the early D

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and D settings, he envisioned them
as being like the roaming wandering monster.

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And this goes back to you know, to old storytelling and eventually into some

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early video game RPGs where like,
you know, random encounter has happened in

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the overworld all the time, so
you're Albert would be like the de facto

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wandering monster for random encounters, and
actually having random encounter charts in the books.

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It was a perfect way to get
them feeling like they could be anywhere.

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They are not particularly sneaky, but
they are silent when they're hunting,

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so like you know, they're they're
huge, but then and they're not trying

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to hide. But like but a
players who are who are caught lacking could

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catch up, could find themselves with
an Albert on their hands. And like

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this was like in the in the
early games, like when you know the

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the ideas of advanced dming weren't really
there yet. We didn't have books like

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how to write a venture modules that
don't suck. We didn't have books like

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the Lazy DM Guide. There would
be some like you know, some boring

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sessions with a lot of overworld travel
at twenty three miles a day and with

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a lot of callback episodes here,
and like having just the wandering roaming monster

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was the way to break it up
right now in a well crafted campaign.

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In my personal opinion, this might
be a lukewarm take. I think that's

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the worst part of the game,
but a lot's changed in fifty years.

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I offended it's good, but it
was. It was a simple, but

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not easy simple to kill, but
not always easy to kill. Yeah,

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and it was just perfect for those
the lower parties. Yeah, it's a

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big bag of hit points that just
you lay a little attrition on the party

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before they, you know, get
to the big bad guy at the end.

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Yep. And again like you know, a couple of bad roles and

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a couple of good roles from the
DM. These things can really dishdd a

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lot of dammit clock claub byte yep, yep, have multi tax against us.

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I guess a level two or three
party like it's in that bear hug

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and it's all exactly Actually that was
postly part of the lovers and fighters that

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they love the hug. Hello Adventurers, just stepping in here to remind you

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Now let's get back to the show.

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And and so this is why we're
started going before. So at a low

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intelligence I think it's only intelligence three. So it's it's not like a language

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language. But they do communicate with
each other with a complex system of screeches.

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So even among other AWL bears,
especially with their with their family screeches

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body language, they have a particular
screech for finding a mate and then with

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that mate they would communicate with like
grunts, nuzzles and grumbles and like there's

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a way to really like No,
it's it's not pure instinct with them,

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they are communicating with each other.
I'm not probably on the same level that

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like bees are communicating with each other
with with with dances and things like that.

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But it's enough to say, honey, I'm going hunting. I'll be

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back in a while. Yeah,
it's at least enough to know, Okay,

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you protect the egg, I'm gonna
go hunt. And you know,

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they can at least communicate like that. In d and the official material,

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there's we only see the basic Awl
bear, and I mentioned in Toma Beest

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three there is the dire Awlbear.
But as far as official stat blocks go,

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that's all we have. It's super
common for dms to make up their

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own variants of it at least,
but these are most usually paint jobs that

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are just like putting a fresh coat
of paint on an un existing albar.

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But there are some third party material
that will give us like an Arctic version

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of an albar, a winged owlbear. These are actually from very early Dungeon

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Dragon magazines to find the the Arctic
and the winged owl bears. And there's

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a couple of other like third party
creators out there that'll make like scaled up

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higher CR versions. There's a couple
I can see on D and D Beyond

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from like icewind Dale Snowy Albar.
But I mean just looking at it as

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the same ac, same hit point, so I think it's so these are

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in the the module books. Yeah, okay, I was look at the

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Monster Manual and uh and and Month
of Multiverse. Yeah yeah I did.

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I did not go into the campaign
books. You know, Portal has a

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reduced threat albar Excellent. Infernal Machine
Rebuild has a skeletal albear, and it

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also has a headed nice pretty cool
we call that we call the owls bears

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anyway. So, but there are
but in other games. So so the

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idea of the Albert has gone beyond
D and D and the most interesting ones

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that I saw on in in these
articles came from Pathfinder. Pathfinder gave us

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a an Albert that was designed to
survive underground, one that is designed to

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survive in the chaotic dimension. There's
a variant that was developed by Orcs to

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be used as a siege weapon,
called the siege albar O. I love

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that. I'm terrified. I almost
don't want to look it up, but

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I'm going to. And there's a
slime owl bear that formed a symbiotic relationship

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with a green slime monster and it
gives it a sticky defense layer. It's

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a venom albear. It's just slimy. Oh okay, so it's got like

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a sticky too. So say,
anytime I hear symbiot and slimy shortly,

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oh that's venom work or carnage.
I guess sure. I didn't look up

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specific stats on this one. And
of course Pathfinder is going to be a

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little bit different than than the D
and D stats I'm used to, but

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this could give it something like the
adhesive property that the mimics would have,

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making them that much harder. I
looked them up in the in the Keith

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of mom books will have links to
the article below as well. As far

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as their tactics go, they have
super high strength and constitution. They do.

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They have a twenty strength so against
the even a level three or two

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party going against something with a plus
five strength is going to hit hard.

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Good constitution, so they'll have high
high hit points and making them make concieves

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will be not very successful. They
do have very low decks and intelligence,

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so you can hit them that way. They're not sneaky, but they do

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have very high perception. I think
it's a plus seven or so on a

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basic stat block, so they're a
little harder to sneak up on if they're

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not hibernating. If they're hibernating,
then obviously you'll have a lot more advantage

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in there. But if you catch
them all they're awake, they'll probably sense

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that you're coming up on them.
They're highly reactive and will act purely on

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instinct, so it won't prioritize any
particular target, just whoever it clocks first,

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either the closest one to it,
or whoever feel like you can do

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a group cell check, whoever's got
the lowest you can you can handle this

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however you want, but whichever one
notices first it is going after that target

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and will continue to pound on that
target until your the target is dead or

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unconscious and we can get into that
in a second, or something else hits

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it in the versus attention away,
Yeah, getting its face now. You

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like, if you do it properly, you can kind of kind of sub

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in somebody who hasn't gotten beaten down
yet to take hits for a few turns

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to as you wear it down.
Yeah, so like you send in your

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barbarian to get to you know,
take the reduced damage for a while,

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and when it gets be too much, someone else hit it with an arrow

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and then just be just be careful
of getting this attention on you from too

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close. They do have a speed
of forty, so it's going to be

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faster than most PCs except maybe your
monk and maybe you're high level barbarian.

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Yeah, that's all those things that
tell you not to try to outrun a

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bear in real life. Yep,
you know by the games, do not

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try to outrun an out bear yep. Yeah yeah, if you climb it,

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it'll just knock it down with that
twenty strength. So right, if

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you encounter in its den, it
will fight to the death, both both

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yours or its own. But if
you catch it in the wild, if

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you get it down to a low
enough HP somewhere in the twenty to twenty

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five range, I will try to
retreat. They are instinctual enough to go

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back to their cave. But if
they're in their cave, they're already on

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their home turf. They will fight
to the death. And if it downs

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a PC and is not hit before
it's next turn, I will then collect

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the body of the down player in
its beak and take dash actions towards back

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towards its cave. Oh nice,
potentially bringing it back for dinner like that.

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Yeah, so this is a great
opportunity for rescue side quest. Yeah,

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you're one player down and I have
to go into an albert nest.

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Come on, this is awesome.
Well, and that's that's also the thing

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that the desperate farmer can come running
up to you as you're walking down the

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street and you know, tell you
they need help with Yeah, yeah,

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great, great side quest starter.
Yeah. These are just like really cool

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big bosses for your low level parties
and really cool for fodder for your mid

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level parties. Yep, just ways
of just ways of depleting their hit points

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and resources on their way to the
bigger fight. So the last section I

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have here is just pop culture,
which we can we kind of touched on

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before. I put these in the
higher side of recognizability for those who at

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least familiar with fantasy and just general
geek them. I wouldn't expect my mother

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to recognize it by name, but
if I start to draw one, she

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could probably figure it out. But
they're popular enough to have a lot of

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third party merchandise. I've seen shirts, pins, I think I have a

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plushy. You do I have that
plushy? I don't get I don't have

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that one, but I do have. I've got some. I got some

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how some Albert stuff lying around.
But they got a huge boost of popularity

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with last year's D and D movie, and this is something that we wanted

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to come back to. So I'm
just gonna read it exactly from my notes

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because I can't say anything better than
this, a huge boosts in Albert's popularity

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from the two thousand and three D
and D move the twenty twenty three D

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and D movie. Apparently I can
say it better than this by putting the

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correct hear when the Druid would regularly
wild shape into one despite being a monstrosity,

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and wild shape can only turn you
into beasts. But that's another podcast.

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Yeah, one of the handful of
liberties that was taken in that movie.

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She does a wild shape into a
lot of different beasts, but she

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turns to an Albert as her as
her big bad form, but she doesn't

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cast any single spell throughout the movie. So like this could be potentially the

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DM saying, Okay, you can
turn to Antar. Yeah, he jokes

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on you. She wasn't wild shaping, She's aware Albre Nope. So these

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things are fun. And I'm also
going to leave a link to a module

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that I've run before called Albert would
by a creator by a DM. By

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a Dungeon creator that I've mentioned on
the show before is DM Dave. He

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00:20:55.599 --> 00:20:57.799
does have free versions of this,
but the paid version will have more levels

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available. His instagram was also great, fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, one

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of my favorite creators, and I
will happily and for free keep mentioning his

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stuff. Better than for free,
I support my Patreon, I actually pay

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for it. So that's that's my
little little minibook report on on Albert's Thank

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you. Any questions, I don't
know if I can answer them, But

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do you have any No, you
actually really went into I mean you went

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in depth here with the origin of
it and everything. I think for me,

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there is one thing that I want
to say, which is like kind

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of kind of a little bit of
a trope through kind of the history of

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00:21:33.559 --> 00:21:37.119
D and D and love tropes and
maybe gosh, there might have been some

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of this stuff in that that would
la the order of the stick comic that

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I love. But the idea that
like you could get eggs from an owlbear

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nest, hatch them and then somehow
raise pet albars or team albars or something

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like that, Like, I feel
like we should just dispense with that idea,

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and that if you if you take
an egg from an awlbear and net

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and you try to hatch it,
what you're going to get is something that

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is going to want to eat your
face. For its entire life, no

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matter how nice to it you are. Yeah, but you know, the

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the challenge of you know, one
of those kinds of quests that you can

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00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:18.599
get is you know, Wizard with
esoteric you know agenda says to you,

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00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:22.799
I need an owl bear egg,
Go get me one. Yeah, you

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00:22:22.839 --> 00:22:26.079
know, and the challenge is not
just you know, fight off, you

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00:22:26.119 --> 00:22:29.839
know, like can you get the
egg without having to fight the Albera?

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Can you distract and lead the Albert
away from there? And then you know

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00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:34.839
how big is an albar egg?
What does it look like? Do you

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00:22:34.880 --> 00:22:38.000
have to keep it warm? What's
the challenge of getting it intact back to

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00:22:38.039 --> 00:22:44.079
the Wizard? And that's kind of
a that's like the idea that these huge

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00:22:44.119 --> 00:22:48.519
monstrous creatures lay eggs is you know, sort of a little bit of an

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00:22:48.640 --> 00:22:52.680
interesting thing that you can well make
a little bit of adventure fodder from as

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00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:57.039
well. So I got so many
comments on that bolt super for off the

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00:22:57.079 --> 00:23:02.240
air, But yeah, Albert eggs
are are usually very valuable and highly sought

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00:23:02.279 --> 00:23:04.599
after, So that's yeah, they
using them as a fetch quest and not

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00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:08.319
just a rescue mission is also a
good one. Or is a wandering monster?

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00:23:08.440 --> 00:23:14.440
Yeah, and in the Balder's Gate
game, there is an Albert cub

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that you can befriend. And I
haven't found any other articles confirming this.

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00:23:19.960 --> 00:23:26.440
I'm just going by what my experience
in Balder's Kate three that Albert cubs in

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particular can be kindibalistic. So yeah, the idea that they lay a clutch

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00:23:32.559 --> 00:23:36.480
of like a dozen eggs, but
the Albert that emerges is the one that

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00:23:36.839 --> 00:23:41.920
like eats all its you know,
brothers and sisters. Oh so, mild

335
00:23:41.960 --> 00:23:45.839
spoilers, very mild spoilers or Balderskate
three. I would say skip ahead thirty

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00:23:45.839 --> 00:23:48.720
seconds if you haven't gotten this far
yet. There's a scene of the Albert

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00:23:48.839 --> 00:23:52.200
cub starts eating the carcass of its
mother. Oh okay, sure, there

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00:23:52.279 --> 00:23:56.119
we go, strong and spoilers are
done. Yeah, unsentimental is what you're

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00:23:56.160 --> 00:24:00.319
saying. Yes, yeah, okay, so I mean, I mean that

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00:24:00.319 --> 00:24:03.400
could be it, but yeah,
there is there is some some cannibalism.

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Anything else. They had nothing,
So I got most of these from two

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00:24:10.319 --> 00:24:17.640
different articles from CBR dot com.
I'll have links to those resources, and

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of course the monsters know dot com
and I'll have a link to the d

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00:24:19.960 --> 00:24:23.599
M D of owl Bear would as
well. I think that's gonna wrap it

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up for today, Thanks Jason.
So thanks for listening to my little book

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00:24:27.160 --> 00:24:30.119
before. Guys. I worked really
hard on it for like an hour last

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00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:36.440
night. Cool. So if you
have a favorite encounter with an owl bear

348
00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:40.359
or any monster that we should also
cover, let us know Hello Adventures Podcast

349
00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:42.880
at you month dot com or just
let us know at Hello Adventurers podcast dot

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00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:48.279
com slash voice which which monsters?
Would your mom know that? What's your

351
00:24:48.279 --> 00:24:51.799
mom's favorite months? Ye, I'm
asking for a lot of reasons. Tell

352
00:24:51.839 --> 00:24:53.839
me your tell me your grandma's favorite
dn D monster. But I think it's

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00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:56.400
gonna wrap it up today. That's
that's it's Albert's and they they're they're,

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00:24:56.440 --> 00:25:00.359
They're one of my favorites there.
They're nice and iconic. Never a bad

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00:25:00.359 --> 00:25:03.759
time when you see one unless they
catch you. But let's wrap it up,

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00:25:03.799 --> 00:25:06.319
guys, Thank you so much for
listening to Hello Adventurers. We're your

357
00:25:06.359 --> 00:25:10.079
host Jason Portiso, Jimmy Crocker and
Joe McCall, producer, editor and engineer

358
00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:12.680
Jason Portiso. Music by Nick Sprayer, artwork by Kris and Broderick. You

359
00:25:12.759 --> 00:25:17.920
can me chat to us with any
feedback or suggestions by emailing Hello Adventurers podcast

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00:25:17.960 --> 00:25:30.480
at gmail dot com. Hello Adventures
is a JTP audio production. Goodbye Adventures