#bear school

[geraltgwynbleidd]

Witcher studying...

Geralt of Rivia, the Wolf School.

+ bonus Voren of Dilligen, the Bear School

[inexplicifics]

I have this idea that Kiyan and other particularly high strung Cats find the Bears really soothing. Maybe on a really bad day they can sit up in the rafters of the Bear common room and just soak in the calm without a lot of extra stimulation. The Bears are content to just ignore the cousin in the ceiling, so long as there isn't any stabbing.

I think some of the Cats may have discovered that weighted blankets - or, to be more precise, Bears - work marvelously for calming overstimulation.

The Bears are a little baffled by having Cats show up in their common room and flop down on the hearth rug, but it's no hardship to sprawl out and doze for a while on top of a slowly relaxing Cat.

Kind of nice really. Smells like happiness. Smells good.

[lycheedr3ams]

Witcher!könig

an idea came to me today: witcher!könig

more below the cut

if you're not familiar with the world of the witcher, click here to learn about the game and world. but in short, it's a dark fantasy set in medieval times where monsters, sorceresses, and witchers exist. witchers are monster hunters. witchers train from childhood to fight monsters, and undergo genetic mutations once they have passed all the trials. because of this genetic mutation, they're seen as freaks. remind you of anyone? (konig is not a freak, but many people in-game think he is)

there are a few different witcher schools (think of them as factions, they're not actual schools), and each school's pupils tend to have similar characteristics that define that school. witcher!könig is definitely from the school of the bear. I decided this not only because they do their training in harsh mountain regions, but also because of this quote i found from the wiki:

Witchers of the Bear School, unlike the Wolves or Griffins, tend to be loners and do not forge strong bonds with their brethren, and so them meeting on the Path can even lead to bloodshed. This is because of the philosophy of the school's founder, who believed that witchers should focus only on the job aspect of their profession. He thought that any code or knightly virtues were just inflated nonsense to feed the ego, and thus favored autonomy above all else.

I think this suits könig so much. i can just see him being this gruff, quiet loner witcher. i think he'd prefer to camp outside or live in the countryside eventually rather than in the major cities. also, witchers cannot reproduce but tend to be very horny, so i can also see him sleeping around A LOT lmao. overall, witchers are absolute fucking badasses, but they're spurned by most of society because of their more-than-humanness from the genetic mutations, along with religious propaganda that preaches against them

would you guys be interested in possibly a witcher!königxfem!reader? I'm undecided on if the reader should be a sorceress, or a village girl that witcher!könig meets, maybe does a contract for her, and falls in love with her obviously

variations of bear school armor on Geralt

....

i was going to say that witcher!könig had been cursed with lycanthropy and had to hide this from other witchers, but then i did some research on the lore and apparently, witchers cannot become werewolves. so scratch that lol

[boredguitarfish]

Comic study featuring my recent Witcher trpg pc.

[squiddviscous]

Finished The Red!

Finally finished my telling of the events covered in the Bear School Scavenger Hunt, which was supposed to be a Gerd/Torgeir the Red meet-cute for the Save a Witcher fandom bingo at least two years ago but got a little out of hand and became about 37k words of self-indulgent melancholy instead, should anybody wish to read that!

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[mod-bars]

yaaaaay! i finally finish my funko boi! 🥰🥰

[countbars-mainblog]

‘kay, i did THIS XD

[proheromidoriyashouto]

headcannon that the Bear School actually has the most female Witchers of the all it's just that their mutagens are aimed to make their trainees Big and Strong and Masculine so it gets real hard to tell based on just appearance what an adult Bear's gender is so Bears adopt a 'don't worry about it' attitude toward gender unless otherwise specified.

the only exception is when a femme leaning/femme inclined Bear finds a kid. this activates the Mama Bear Instinct. the mages did not take into account the Mama Bear Instinct within the mutagens and how it would effect AFAB-trainees, and so can do nothing when a femme/parentally inclined Witcher shows up at the Bear Keep with a child acquired through perhaps dubious means due to a sincere desire to nurture and protect a small Cub.

the Bear School does not get Child Surprises. they inflict Mother Surprises onto unsuspecting orphans or wayward runaways throughout the continent. temples of Melitele have learned not to let Bears in because they have absconded with their youngest acolytes before and trying to get them back is to Literally Fight A Mother Bear For Her Cub and that just results in so much blood shed. at least the child is among the most fiercely protected on the continent.

Bears do not instinctually want to steal away children. they are still people in full control of their faculties. but the urge to protect a defenseless, whimpering little thing that hides behind them when faced by a monster is very real, tapping into their mutagenic beastly hindbrain such that there can be no other course.

you are a Mother now, your Cub is your Everything, and you are Death to whatever comes between you.

so Bears unfortunately do have a reputation, more so than other Witchers, of being child stealers. nevermind that the children are almost always orphans; infant bastards sacrificed to the Ladies of the Wood, starving striplings abandoned at crossroads by dirt poor parents with other mouths to feed, hollow-eyed shadows with rumbling bellies standing by market stalls loaded with food they will never have.

Bears can barely stand each other enough to hold their school together. they were the first to leave the Order of Witchers because they didn’t care to follow along with the rest. they simply don't care what humans think of them or how other Witchers feel about the Bear School. 

Mother Bears raise Cubs. that's just a fact every one, Bear or not, has to live with after the emergence of their School.

during winter in the Bear Keep, the masc/male Bears mostly Hiberate the cold season away. starting at the autumn harvests, they stock up on food for the others as duty demands and do whatever chores need doing and then crawl into their beds all at once by some unspoken signal and fall asleep until spring, unless disturbed (say by human raiders). Mothers don’t need them, don’t hold expectations, and don’t appreciate disruption of their routines.

regardless, there are not many hibernating Bears in residence. the Bear School has one of the highest rates of desertion of all the Schools. theirs are some of the most brutal trials, nearly unchanged since the inception of Witchers, so loyalty is not exactly one of their strong suits.

when its time for the trials, most Mothers try and drive their Cubs away instead. they have not given their time and affection to this little human in the hopes of putting them through mutations that will most likely kill them regardless. some Cubs do chose to attempt the trials against their Mother's advice, and those who do so and live find the limit of their mutagenic-maternal affection.

Cubs who refuse the Trials do not trigger the violent response to re-introduction of a post-Trials Cub to their Mother. they get to lead strange-but-human lives as a Bear's Child long after they are fully grown.

when Haern Caduch is sacked, the Bears just leave. there is no grand battle to defend their school.

Mother Bears den up with their Cubs wherever they wind up and the Path becomes an after thought which is why its assumed most of them died.

the remaining Bears take to the Path for lack of options to witchers and are steadily snuffed out until only a handful remain.