I have just got the monster manual (which is great by the way) but I am curious about why werebears are good. When a player becomes a lycanthrope they can either accept the curse which actually changes their alignment to that of the type of lycanthrope they have become or reject it which means they become out of control during the full moon. So... in otherwords the werebear curse tries to turn you good.
This is intresting and im wondering if fluff from earlier editions have provided more of an explanation.
Kendren wrote:
They were good aligned in AD&D.
Kendren wrote:
i pritty much figured that Beorn was the reason. I was more looking for the explanation. Ill see if I can get hold of pdfs of those things. If there is no explanation to be found I can probably make one up.
I never figured werebears came from the Hobbit. I was pretty sure they were just from various scandinavian mythis, some warriors would go Berserk and change into a Bear.
It's just a trope based on Beorn, and the weretiger being Neutral is similar. Partially they wanted to have were-creatures that weren't all evil and the werebear based on Beorn of Tolkein was a "natural" fit for such a role. I suspect the weretiger being neutral is based on some Asian folklore of a shapeshifting tiger of some kind.
Remove alignment, make them whatever you want
But yeah, they're based on Beorn
Grazel wrote:
Sleeping half the year and eating berries and salmon doesn't get you hated like raiding towns and eating babies in the werewolf pack.
Werebear hugs don't always involve claws. Thus, they are good.
Who's a good widdle werebear . . . yes, you are!
Yeah, I kinda associate 'em with Nordic berserker myths myself. You can go berserk and still be good, right? Noonday traffic brings out the worst in me 
.
I use lycanthropy in my home campaign only as a cursed affliction. The werewolf is definitely evil. The person afflicted may or may not be evil while in human form, but he has no control over the wolf form. The person afflicted generally wants to seek a cure once he is aware of his affliction, or tie himself up in chains in a locked room while the moon is full. Eventually the wolf may come to dominate the human person causing him to give in to the evil. Once this happens the wolf control the human form too, at can be an interesting villain.
Look out for the werebear stare!
FFSAA wrote:
For what it's worth, it doesn't "cost" you anything to have evil werebears if you want them to be evil. In the Ravenloft setting, for example, all werebeasts (well, except wereravens, but that's another story...), including werebears, are drawn by their curse to evil. They can resist this impulse, but over time nearly all succumb to their bestial selves in the worst sense (i.e. man-eating, bloodthirsty, etc.). In Van Richten's Guide to Werebeasts, I believe that Ravenloft werebears tend towards Neutral Evil.
But, yes, as many said above, werebears are basically Beorn from The Hobbit. They first emerged in Chainmail, before D&D, as the "other" lycanthrope (along with werewolves). Lycanthropes in Chainmail were either Neutral or Chaotic (i.e. evil), which basically meant that werewolves always fought on the side of Chaos, but that werebears could be found both among the armies of Law and those of Chaos.
The reason is obvious, the bears got better PR and Marketing people. That's why you see more teddy-bears than teddy-wolves.
Also lycanthropes are were-wolves, the general term is therianthrope.
I totally am cool with werebears being good. I just want to know if there is any official in universe explanation in the D&D canon. I get that they are meant to be Beorn from the hobbit but thats an out of universe justifacation. If there is no in universe explanation then I will just make one up if it becomes relevent in my games.
They are good because tradition.
Azzy1974 wrote:
Werebears are good because evil would be wrong.
My deep thoughts for the day.
The Monster Manual notes (page 7) that the alignment given is the default but to feel free to depart from if you wanna. Good green dragon okay, evil storm giant, alight. The 3.5 MM says the alignment listing was the one most likely. The 2e MM says that exceptions are uncommon but may be encountered.
I remember how we handled dragons in our 3.5 homebrew in fact. There was a 'Purple Dragon' (similar to the one found in the Cormyr setting) that was actually an ancient black dragon whose scales had turned purplish with age. He was the namesake and patron of the Royal Order of the Purple Dragon. He was named Dalagh Surr (where surr was an honorific bestowed upon ancient dragons, and corrupted by human knights as sir). Anyway, as the story went, he was a chaotic good black dragon.
Alignment: fiddle, faddle .
rampant wrote:
Kendren wrote:
As stated, they are good aligned because of Beorn from JRR Tolkien's the Hobbit. We all know that influence that Tolkien had on Gygax.
Kendren wrote:
lycantherope comes from the greek lycos, meaning wolf and anthropos meaning man, literally wolf man.D&D should have listed them under "weres" or were-beasts. Therianthrope, "wild beast men" is correct, but not in common ussage.
Bears in northern European mythology were regarded with respect and worship, legendary tales of shapeshifter bears are ussually of them being good, the Brown Bear of Norway has a prince turned into a bear and later changed back to human form by the princess. Beowulf is thought to be derived from the word "bee-wolf" meaning "bear" Many saints tamed bears in legends, and the bear was used as a symbol of christianities victories over paganism. The title, Baron, is derived from the word bjorn, meaning bear
No doubt Tolkien pulled this lore for the character Beorn from northern european folklore, it is an old english word for bear, later used to mean freeman, warrior or nobleman, and is related to the scandinavian word bjorn.
while werebears are not based upon widespread legends, the association of bears as a symbol of men, particularly noblemen and freemen, ie Beorn, meaning freeman or nobleman, the title Baron, deriving from the word for bear, creates the thinking of Bear-man in a positive light, it would make sense that a werebear would be good aligned,
Beorn, from Tolkien is the only widely known werebear, so I would wager that was what D&D based the werebear's alignment on. That and I think they wanted to represent the allignment spectrum amd have weres of different allignments while still preserving the lore of werewolfs being evil. While they may have based the werebear entirely on Tolkien's minor character, I think the lore and etymology that tolkien used for the character will give some understanding of why werebears are good.
That's why they're good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WereBear
"The WereBears were a series of teddy bears released in 1983 in the United Kingdom."
Why don't we have stats for Terror Teds?
Checking the 2nd ed AD&D Monster Manual... nope! No real explanation given, they're just good.
Werebears are closest to forest-dwelling classes like rangers, druids, and wildlife-oriented priests. They rarely enter villages and never enter cities except in dire emergencies or to help other good-aligned people, especially those threatened by evil lycanthropes. Werebears hate wererats and werewolves.
I recall reading somewhere all lycantrhopes alignments are based on how western society views the animals. Bears are, primarily because of the teddy bear, seen as cuddly, pondersome, and gentle. Wolves on the other hand are seen as bloodthirsty, malicious, and cruel. Oddly how the animals are in real life is sort of the opposite. And given wolves complex society they should really be lawful evil, wereboars should be chaotic evil.
Illithidbix wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
I found the image at least.
MechaPilot wrote:
FallingIcicle wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
Kendren wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
This is not getting better.
h347h50 wrote:
Personally I prefer all 'were-creatures' to be unaligned, or any alignment the DM wants them to be.
But yeah, Tolkien introduced the 20th century fantasy crowd to a good werebear.
I don't think the movies get to him until part 2 or 3. (I've only seen part one.) For all I know, he's cut completely.
Tolkien really did inspire D&D. (Can't call 'em hobbits, though. I think TSR got sued over that in the 70's or early 80's.) Tolkien and little cheap plastic 'dinosaurs'. Oh, and medieval Europe. And Anglo-Celtic-Norse mythology...Gygaxian D&D was quite northern European centric, and misogynistic. That's changed a lot, thankfully.
They kept Beorn and he's in the second movie.
And to make Elfcrusher feel better I was going to firebomb Peter Jackson if he left Beorn out of the movies as I've never forgiven him for leaving out Tom Bombadil from LOTR. Beorn (and the other beornings aka werebears) and Tom were the 2 most memorable characters for me from the books (Hobbit and LOTR) despite their short and not entirely main-plot neccessary appearances.
Grazel wrote:
Grazel wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Grazel wrote:
I don't know if I'd call Beorn "good." He helps the good guys, yes, but even Gandalf wasn't sure what his reaction would be when they arrived at his house. Chaotic Neutral wouldn't be a bad fit for Beorn either.
Rastapopoulos wrote:
There is also a werebear in the Belgariad books.
So werebears is answered.
Why are weretigers neutral?
Orethalion wrote:
Novacat wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Novacat wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Novacat wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Rastapopoulos wrote:
1eejit wrote:
Grazel wrote:
Why are weretigers Neutral? No good reason for that, actually. In Asian folklore, especially of India and southeast Asia, men who turn into tigers are generally wicked sorcerers, and tigers who can turn into men often do so because they were man-eaters, and eventually by eating enough manflesh they gained the power to appear as men. In any event, they are always man-eating, cruel and dangerous monsters. You need to beware when hunting tigers killing livestock, because one of the hunters with you may actually be the tiger you are hunting, and he might just kill you at night and leave your bloodied, flayed corpse hung up in a tree to be discovered in the morning.
I'd say Neutral Evil, rather than Neutral.
They are good in 5e for the same reason almost everything has been done in 5e...Tradition. No innovation, or creativity required and it doesnt make grognards cry.
Grazel wrote: