Bobo

Bobo is a small, old circus bear in the campaign Mürekkep ve Çelik ("Ink and Steel"). It once belonged to Roland, a war comrade of Castor and Leonard, and usually stands guard over the carts. Bobo, who seldom left Roland's side, later came running to the group, perhaps sent by Roland's last command.¹²

Spoiler: Roland's fateGösterAçık ettiği: Mürekkep ve Çelik #1 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

Roland and his friend Cassius ambushed a noble who had beaten and assaulted Cassius's sister while she was teaching music to the noble's child. They kept it from their other friends so as not to endanger them. Cassius killed the noble but died himself, and Roland was captured. Roland was executed in the square before the White Library: he was hung on a hook and took about twenty minutes to die, while the witch hunters' captain presented his deed to the crowd as treason against the emperor. His body was left hanging, to remain until only bones were left.³⁴⁵⁶⁷

With Glanfall

In the execution square Bobo clung to the paving stones and refused meat, until Glanfall put his arms round its neck and spoke to it in its own way; then it lowered its head and followed, and Glanfall took on its care. Glanfall says the bear has cried at night ever since Roland died. He grooms it and plays fetch with it for exercise.⁸⁹¹⁰

Bobo had stayed the same size for a long time. Under its fur Glanfall showed Castor elven runes that circle its neck like a collar, which Castor understood had been made after its birth to stop its natural growth. Asked whether the bear would ever die of old age, they answered that it probably would not.¹¹¹²

On the road Bobo spotted the traveller Olman approaching the camp, and before an ambush its nose counted six or seven people hidden around them. In Akşelale it growled and clawed at strangers, so Glanfall had to bring it when it was called for; it helped the scout Gildas follow a scent at a cave, though the tracks had been too well hidden. It waited with Glanfall in the elf Esnarril's shop while the inquiry went on, and the shape-changing book Castor gave Glanfall became its collar.^131415161718

At the Archon

Bobo travelled to the Archon by ship as a paying passenger, kept to the cabin, and was entered in the register on arrival. The experiments and flashes of the school frightened it and it stayed close to its companions. The master Herrenhal kept Bobo and Glanfall for a night; they came back worn, Bobo crying, and Herrenhal remarked that the bear's mind was especially open. Later he was seen seating Bobo in an armchair with precious spellbooks on its lap, some of them chewed.^192021222324

An attempt to enrol Bobo as a student failed when the council held that it could not be admitted because it was not human; Herrenhal said he was now convinced that it is a bear. Fitted with a collar that lets it be followed, it roams the meadows near Herrenhal's tower, gentle with children, though it once bit another apprentice. It was not let into Castor's thesis presentation and watched through an upper window.²⁵²⁶

The master called Green asked specially to take Bobo on a visit to a distant forest for about a week, saying its company would help him learn its inner nature. Glanfall refused to lose the bear, and Castor suggested an enchanted pendant, of a kind described in an adventurer's journal, in which a bear could live and come out with its owner. Bobo came back and was soon at Glanfall's side again.^2728293031

Once the effects holding back its growth were removed, years of delayed growth came out quickly and Bobo grew noticeably, though no lasting way of controlling it had been found; Glanfall, who means to take it to sea, hoped it would not grow too big. Castor introduced it to his own small new companion. Bobo stays with Glanfall or at the tower.³²³³³⁴