Badger

A badger is a stout, two-foot-long burrower in shaggy fur that looks silver-gray from afar but up close shows hairs banded in brown, white, black, and gray. A pale stripe one to two inches wide runs from its nose between the eyes and down the back, and black patches mark each cheek, the badges that give it its name. Its short, powerful legs end in digging claws that cut through stony soil. It waddles clumsily but moves fast when needed, which explains its good AC, and it rears on its hind legs to sniff the wind. Its senses of smell, hearing, and sight are keen, and it smells a bit like human sweat.

Away from home a badger usually runs and hides. Disturbed in its den or trapped, it fights with startling ferocity no matter how big the enemy, lunging to bite and claw. It snarls and drools as it snaps and slashes, aiming for the throat, or the belly if the throat is out of reach, and any bare face or arms. Most fight until killed.

Expert diggers, badgers favor soft forest floors and farmland but also live in hills and mountains. A den opens as a round hole one to two feet across ringed by spoil, slopes four to six feet down, and ends in a chamber 4 to 10 feet wide depending on family size. The floor is strewn with old meal scraps and grass bedding; when it gets too foul, the family simply digs a new home nearby.

Though unsocial, they are devoted to mates and young. Most encounters are with a single badger or a pair, and any extras are their offspring. A family attacks any intruder near its den, other badgers included. Males hunt by night while females tend the young; childless pairs hunt together. Prey is dragged home and eaten whole, bones and all. Badgers stay home when not hunting, hibernate most of the winter in cold lands, and keep no treasure.

They eat rodents, squirrels, gophers, and similar small animals. Their greasy, tough meat and nasty temper make them poor prey, though a hungry wolf or fox may scratch at a den. Pelts become coats, gloves, and mufflers and fetch 10-30 gp for good quality, and the hair makes brushes.

In remote forests lives a very rare breed about four feet long, twice the common size. It hits harder and is more aggressive but is otherwise identical, and its pelt is worth more.