The Immortal Naturalist's Guide to Cryptic Creatures: Bugaboo

This post is part of the Immortal Naturalist's Guide series. The explanation for that series can be found in this post.

    Despite his great strength, Bugaboo is one of the kindest and most timid creatures I have had the pleasure of meeting. This ten-foot tall creature spends most of his time foraging in the forests of the lower Joinder Valley in my home of the Cephalus Mountains. Bugaboo's fearsome claws and antlers are only ever used for defense, as he is an herbivore and detests violence. Legends of Bugaboo and his hospitality to travelers have long circulated among the kobolds of the Cephalus Mountains, but very few have ever found his lair and had the opportunity to meet Bugaboo in the flesh. When I was able to meet Bugaboo, he invited me into his cave and offered me a cup of tea and some snacks, assuming I was tired and looking for a place to rest up. Taking him up on his offer, he also agreed to tell me a bit about himself. Bugaboo is one of an extremely long-lived species can only ever have one living member at a time. He hatched from an egg that his predecessor laid shortly before his death, emerging from the shell the moment the old one passed. 

    Although he is tough and capable of defending himself, Bugaboo has no magical powers outside of his intelligence and specific knowledge he hatched with. Bugaboo places great value in maintaining a good reputation so that if anyone ever wished him harm, there will be others to help him defend himself. Knowledge of medicine and preservation techniques, as well as how to create and maintain enchanted coolers, has made him useful to many travelers outside of his offers of tea and snacks. Despite all of this, it seems that Bugaboo views himself as quite vulnerable in this world, having anxieties over the chance that someone could hurt him and end the Bugaboo line or harm the seed under his lair.

    Bugaboo and his line are charged with protecting a seed vault older than any known civilization, magically possessing the knowledge of how to maintain what Bugaboo described as the largest collection of seeds on the planet. Bugaboo has no knowledge of who created the seed bank or why, but he knows that much of his collection is made up of plants that are otherwise extinct. Bugaboo believes that his work is important not just because he has a magical imperative to believe so, but because he now recognizes that should some disaster ever befall the world, his job will then become to help distribute the seeds in his vault and help rebuild.