Monster Monday: Honey Badger and Dire Honey Badger

In celebration of my 50th blogpost, today's Monster Monday is the honey badger, the fierce predator that just takes what it wants.  Honey badgers, also known as ratels, are quite distinct from actual badgers, and they deserve to be statted up separately.  They are known for their resistance to poison that lets them fight and eat cobras and bees, the loose skin on their neck that lets them keep attacking whoever tries to grab them, and the fact that when they attack they go straight for the nuts.

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I am also including the Dire Honey Badger, also known as al-girta, a fierce, man-eating honey badger the size of a black bear.  Al-girta is the name for the honey badger in southern Iraq, where they made headlines in 2007 thanks to a rash of reported attacks in Basra by mysterious man-eating monsters that turned out to be regular, not-man-eating honey badgers.  The locals blamed occupying British forces for the animal attacks, leading to my favourite quote from the Iraq War: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."

And of course, I've made it so that you can have a honey badger/al-girta as an animal companion.

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