RPG Menagerie: Bugbear

Some monsters are people. It's why dungeon delvers are called "murder hobos", it's the "murder" part. The prototypical "evil folk" is the Orc, of course, followed closely by its diminutive cousin, the Goblin, but there are plenty of others, especially in D&D. Today we look at one of the less utilized, but physically relatively powerful, "goblinoid" cultures...

Monster: Bugbear
Game/Product: AD&D/Monster Manual

Writing: Gary Gygax. Art: David C. Sutherland III
Origin: Big hairy goblins, or something more? According to the 4th Ed. Monster Manual, many scholars believed that bugbears and goblins were both bred by the hobgoblins as slave races, with bugbears serving as elite soldiers. In the real world, the Bugbear is a boogeyman figure out of folklore, its name deriving either from Middle English "bugge" (frightening thing), Old Welsh "bwg" (evil spirit), or Old Scots "bogill" (goblin). Throw "bear" on the end and you've got a hirsute creature lurking in the woods to scare children with. The folklore was immortalized in the 16th-century story "The Buggbears", and in a more modern context, in D&D. The word migrated through the English language to mean a pet peeve.
Fear Level: Relatively low, like more goblinoid cultures. They're built to be mooks, hordes to quickly dispatch so you can get to the Big Bad. Of course, when you find a nest of goblins and think you've got it in hand, the appearance of a Bugbear "hero" could give you pause.
Danger Level: This is the kind of creature you level up to when Kobolds and Goblins don't do it for you anymore.
Famous examples: I love the Bugbear's face in the original book and was stoked to see it retained for the Pool of Radiance computer game, back in my C64 days.

Notable individuals in the Forgotten Realms include Bolgus and Bulkar, who acted as guards at the entrance of a Xanathar Guild level on the Arcane Chambers level of Undermountain; and Grol, leader of the Cragmaw tribe. The Bugbears have their own gods, who no doubt look like them as well.
I wonder if: Anyone's bugbear is the Bugbears.