Looks like an Owlbear, but its a Bú!
I like Owlbears; it's probably my most used monster straight from the book. I love that, without having powers, they are big and terrible, and make players fear camping out at night in the woods. I rule that they can be easily stunned by flashing lights, as their pupils are so used to the dark.
I've heard the tale of Gary Gygax making up the monster around a cheap toy he found on some shop:
Yesterday, researching some myths, I heard about a creature from a spanish region neighbour to mine: The Bú (maybe coming from the first syllabe of Búho? Thats how you say Owl in spanish)
This page has some good lore about it (in Spanish). It is believed that it has it's origins on an ancient god, maybe even older than our celt/iberian/celtiberian past. I'll translate some of the descriptions:
"A hunchbacked person of bloated face and open feet"
"A bird of great size and terrifying aspect, of the likes of the owl and the barn owl"
"Gargantuan owl of enormous red eyes"
"Dark and sinister bird"
My favorite: "A big and black owl's body, great silent wings, plate-sized red eyes, a menacing beak and claws as big as traps for wolves"
It was said that on this villages the monster used to appear on the night sky, searching for kids playing on the streets after sunset. Mothers and Grandmothers called upon the Bú to scare the children when they didn't want to sleep:
Duérmete mi niño,
Que ya viene el Bú.
Que se lleva a los niños.
Así como tú.
A castillian lullaby that translates to "Sleep my children, for here comes the Bú, that takes the children just like you" (perfect rhyme even in english!). But there are enough mountains and other landmarks dedicated to that monster to incite me to believe that, for the locals, it was a little more than a mere kid's tale.
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