Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia says about the Owlbear:
“An owlbear (also owl bear) is a fictional creature originally created for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. An owlbear is depicted as a cross between a bear and an owl, which “hugs” like a bear and attacks with its beak. Inspired by a plastic toy made in Hong Kong, Gary Gygax created the owlbear and introduced the creature to the game in the 1975 Greyhawk supplement; the creature has since appeared in every subsequent edition of the game. Owlbears, or similar beasts, also appear in several other fantasy role-playing games, video games and other media.”
Interesting! But how did the 1st edition D&D Owlbear look like? Something like this:
Well.. like most drawings of 1st edition monsters it seems pretty funny nowadays (1st edition Beholder anyone?). So which D&D edition did you grow up with? What is your most favourite depiction of this challenge rating 3 monster?
I for myself am most familiar with the 3rd edition D&D rulebooks so this is what comes to my mind when talking about Owlbears:
Isnt this a terrifying sight? Look at the pose! As if he is screeching: “Come at me, bro!” The most recent rulebook, the Monster Manual of 5e of Dungeons and Dragons is depicting the Owlbear like this:
To me it looks as if the Owlbear has changed from a monster to an animal in terms of its appearance. The most recent rules classify it as a “large monstrocity”:
So when I looked for a 3D model of the Owlbear I tried to find something that is close to the recent 5e depictions of this large monstrocity. And I found one that I really liked. When picking a colour scheme I wanted to bridge the gap between the 3e fur and feathers color and the 5e purple style of fur.
The designer of this model calls himself GloomyKid and you can find his designs on cults3d.com. I had to scale this model up to 120% to put it in scale with other 28/32mm miniatures I produce for both my shop and my D&D group.
And while I researched for the perfect miniature, I found the second best miniature: A baby Owlbear! Modelled by the already very much loved Dutchmogul from Illgottengames. Its both so cute and ugly at the same time. Lets call it CUGLY! <3
I tried to keep it in the same colour scheme as its monstrous mommy and it came out pretty nice.
And – as always – if you dont have a 3D printer or you dont want to go through the hustle of scaling, optimizing, supporting and post-processing, you can find those miniatures in my webshop, available for all customers located in Germany: Owlbear, Baby Owlbear
Happy gaming! 🙂
