Free DnD 5e Creature: Ancestral Bear Spirit (CR11)

Welcome to our blog where we offer you free DnD 5e gaming advice and free content for any homebrew games. Today we offer you a force of nature, the Ancestral Bear Spirit, a new creature inspired by North American native symbolism. The Ancestral Bear Spirit, a setting agnostic creature that can be used in any of your homebrew games to protect nature from being defiled.

When playing DnD 5e games, often we will hear stories about heroes and villains, but rarely are the neutral or natural forces a focus. It is often easy for GMs to ignore those neutral forces, thinking they don’t offer much to the story due to their indifference to the conflicts and politics of the outside world.

On the contrary, their indifference is what makes them interesting players. The great magical landscapes of the fey are an obstacle to both your party and their foes. Making the conflict happen on land that is dominated by neutral nature spirits can be an interesting dynamic for your game to force both the party and the antagonists to respect nature throughout their conflict at the risk of making a new enemy. For this dynamic to work, you must make sure both parties understand that these spirits of nature wield great power to protect themselves and their sacred home from the outside world. Applying this can force players to make interesting decisions and allow GMs to use a plethora of new obstacles and threats that are linked to this third major force, that is nature itself.

Enjoy the creature and the new perspective!

Marc Bouchard, Lead Game Designer and Writer
Cult Adventures 

Free DnD 5e creature homebrew

Ancestral Bear Spirit (CR 11) – The Strength of Nature

Description: Ancestral spirits are incorporeal fey beings that inhabit the wilderness. These spirits can manifest themselves taking upon the appearance of a giant beast when nature or its inhabitants are in danger. They are also known to protect tribes that live in harmony with nature. While their physical form can be vanquished, these incorporeal spirits can never really be destroyed as they take their roots in nature itself. Ancestral bear spirits are known to symbolize strength, courage and resilience, often earning the title of “grandfather” by the tribes honouring them, for their guidance and protection. When they manifest, they take the appearance of a huge bear, possessing immense strength and various druidic abilities. Tribes under the protection of an Ancestral Bear Spirit have the tradition to plant enormous trees in their villages and nearby areas; these trees are believed to be gateways for the bear spirits.

Tactical advice: Ancestral Bear Spirits are mighty melee combatants. Their excellent strength score allows them to hit their attacks reliably and do substantial damage to their prey. They are also surprisingly mobile for their size, using their swimming and climbing speed to bypass most obstacles with ease. While the Ancestral Bear Spirits are powerful combatants, they can also use a limited array of druidic spells to make them more versatile. They can interact with beasts in various ways and can use their excellent constitution score to maintain concentration on spells it casts. If in danger, it has the ability to retreat quickly with the Tree Stride spell and heal itself out of combat with the Goodberry and Aura of Vitality spells. If there are no trees big enough nearby, it can use the Enlarge/Reduce spell to reduce its size and escape with Tree Stride.

The Bestial Nature trait allows any character that uses the Speak with Animals spell to understand the Ancestral Bear Spirit even if it does not speak the sylvan language and will enable the usage of the beast sense ability on it if the bear spirit is willing. It could also be located by the Detect Animals and Plants spell if the bear spirit allows itself to be found. Any other beneficial effect that affects beasts specifically may also be granted to the Ancestral Bear Spirit will always refuse to be targeted by beast-specific spells with negative effects.

While Beastial Nature allows spells that target beasts to target the Ancestral Bear Spirit, it is important to understand that it is a fey-type creature and not a beast and will be affected normally by any spell that interacts with the fey creature type.

We hope that you’ll enjoy and find value in what we put out. We’re also really wanting your feedback so please engage and help us get the right stuff out there so we can all truly champion DnD and provide a memorable experience for our parties. 

Please consider supporting us further by checking out our Shop! 

Join Us by signing up to our Newsletter. Or, reach out by sending us a Message.

We can also be found on Social Media on Facebook and Instagram. There are no lack of ways to check out or recent projects or share your feedback.  

With appreciation, the Cult Adventures team.