Wildlife of the Architect Paradise Island writ by Architect Scribe, Hammond.

Brosnian Death Bear/ Ursine Architect

No greater predator ever did walk the sandy shores of the Architect Island and even to this day, some scholars argue as to whether the great bearded beasts were named after Pierce Brosnan or the Primeval Architect named after the great beasts. No matter the origin, these bears serve as a natural example of architect beliefs manifest in powerful glory.

Male Brosnian Death Bears have bodies packed densely with muscle, so much so that they have been recorded pulling trees more than twice their size out of the ground by their roots. These ursine architects spend much of their life gathering food and building materials so that they can begin construction on burrows for their future mate, the size of this burrow will be the primary factor by which a female selects their mate as a large burrow indicates just how much the female can be expected to grow and by inference how much the male is capable of providing, both in terms of food quantity but in offspring as well. Female Brosnian Death Bears are said to be gargantuan in size at around 9 feet tall, they have been described as “the great furred land whale” due to the extensive growth they undergo after taking a mate and mothering children, though females tend to pack extra fat well before they reach maturity.
The Brosnian Death Bear’s mating season occurs in two annual phases, a selection phase once during the spring and a competitive phase once during the fall. During the spring, male architect bears will begin to construct their burrows and build up large spaces for their mate to grow into. There is immense competition for natural landmarks which could serve as burrows such as caverns so that less work will be used in the actual construction and fortification of there burrows and more can be devoted to the sabotage of rival males. A male whose burrow has been sabotaged has almost no possibility of finding a mate; the sign of a destroyed burrow suggests that while a mate could provide food and shelter, they’d be unable to protect the female or her young. All those men that arise from the spring with intact burrows must then maintain and protect that burrow until the fall season, it is during this time that future fathers-in-law begin to scout possible mates to their daughters. If they find the burrow to be up to their standards then some fathers might go so far as to aid in the defense of the fiancé’s burrow or make an attack towards a rival’s burrow. During this time, those that failed during the spring season will sometimes offer to guard and maintain the burrows of eligible males. Biologists hypothesize that they do this in order to mingle their scent with that of a successful alpha male in order to make themselves more favorable to females during next spring’s selection.
The fall mating season is typically the most aggressive period of the Brosnian Death Bear’s life and where the Brosnian Death Bear gets its ominous name from. Once the harvest time begins, eligible bachelors will leave their burrows and begin to forage and hunt in order to create a massive stockpile of food for both the female and the male to eat before hibernation. Their burrows will be defended by beta males in exchange for a portion of food During this period, the bears utilize their powerful noses to hunt down prey and forage the largest fruits available no matter the location or how dangerous this may be, leading to many accounts of the architect bears roaming into villages and carrying away large pots of food and even larger women. Traditionally, offering a jar of honey to the bear will cause it to leave the village satisfied without any thievery or ransacking, this has caused honey to take on a sort of cultural meaning among architects, for instance, presenting a love interest with a jar of honey is seen as a direct confession of your romantic intent and is a favorite among youths. At the same time, presenting a good friend with a jar of honey with three honey dippers is meant to be seen as an assurance, “Your family will not starve in your absence, for my food is theirs.”
Once each burrow has been filled with food for storage, female bears will arrive in a burrow and begin a massive feast with the male which is usually followed by vigorous mating before the two go into hibernation. A burrow with a hibernating female bear will no longer need protection from the male as the immense size and unending hunger of the female bear creates a titanic monster of gluttony and rage, in fact, the rest of the male’s life will be spent satisfying his wife’s hunger so that she remains in her burrow to protect their cubs instead of roaming out and abandoning them to find her own food. Most female bears will simply remain in their burrows for the rest of their life, acting as beds for their husband and children when the sun goes down, raising their young until puberty, and ushering their sons off to hunt with their father when he comes of age. Meanwhile, the daughters are usually considered rivals once they grow older and are cast out. Those males that could not gain mates will often neglect to hibernate, instead choosing to begin construction on another burrow in order to best younger generations the next spring. It should be noted that due to the tropical climate, hibernation as a method to conserve energy in the cold of winter is not needed, instead the architect bears seem to use the energy they stockpiled during the winter in order to sustain the hunger of their cubs in the womb. Males will always awake 2 to 3 weeks before the female so that they can immediately begin hunting to satiate her hunger upon waking; the following mating seasons will be wholly irrelevant to these males with them maintaining a routine of hunting and foraging for his family and training his younger offspring to forage for themselves when out of their homes.
These bears were thought to have originated from the southern continent during a possible ice age who migrated to the land mass that would become the paradise island of /ag/. When the world began to grow warmer, the bears maintained their great size due to the abundance of resources found on /ag/, instead adapting new methods of utilizing their fat as opposed to reducing it. It was said that the Primeval Architect, Pierce Brosnan, was the first man to ever tame a Death Bear, legends tell of a beast known by the name of Goldeneye whom the ancient architect took as a pet after wrestling it into submission. Brosnan and Goldeneye were said to not only be pet and master but best friends as well, with both helping the other in their times of need. Goldeneye provided the village with trees in order to craft the homes of the native population while Brosnan and his men defended Goldeneye’s burrow from other male rivals.
Another historical figure who was famed for his interaction with the ursine architects was that of the Untamed, Biscuit Oliva (who happened to be named after his mother’s favored food as was architect tradition at the time). Oliva was said to have the strength of twelve men and could eat enough for twenty, this came to the distaste of other architects who saw this as a display of gluttony. One day, a man called out to Oliva that should he continue eating as much as he did, he would become as fat as, “a maiden in her autumn dress” and he’d be carried off into the night by a Death Bear. This insult refers to a practice during the harvest where young women would wear shorter and tighter clothing in order to emphasize the size of their stomachs and the curves of their bodies to other village men. Enraged by the slight, Oliva challenged every man in the village to slam their fists against his flesh and mocked them saying that should they find a sand grain of fat among the beach of muscle that was his body, that he’d fast for twenty days and nights and offer up half his meals to their families. Six men shattered their arms in an attempt to knock Oliva down, which subsequently resulted in Oliva’s next great feat, doing the work of six men for nearly eight weeks. Oliva’s greatest feat was his victory over a rouge female death bear, having fought the raging monster bare fisted for nearly two days before he managed to shatter its jaw and strangle it with its own tongue. From the body, Oliva crafted a thick leather chest piece, a gauntlet made from the claws, and massive cape fit to be worn by a giant. Oliva and his descendants are known as the Bear Handed for their tendency to fight and hunt without the use of conventional melee weapons and the artifacts left behind by him have been preserved to the modern day.
Post industrialization, many efforts have been made by the native architects to create conservation zones for the native animal life of the architect islands. The large amount of food necessary for the Death Bear has caused increasing difficulty and many architects have decided to introduce the Death Bear to other environments in order to help repopulate their numbers. A good number of these architects neglect to inform the nations of this plot to repopulate the Death Bear in their lands, leading to more than one humble village being ransacked by the bears for food during the fall. Despite the seeming risk, the Death Bear is highly valued in many nations for its impeccable sense of smell, which can be used to find plant life affected by underground chuubanite cores. Death Bears also make terrifying war beasts and many nations that have adopted and accepted architects into their society are granted the right to keep one as a sign of status and power.