Out of all the potential companions you can add to your party in Baldur's Gate 3, a young Owlbear cub is a strange but powerful creature you can get within the story's first Act. However, this cross between a bear and an owl attacks you with its mother before you can recruit it. Those looking to form a friendship with this strong and iconic monster from Dungeons & Dragons have to earn its trust.
To the northeast of the Blighted Village, your party can discover an area called the Owlbear Nest, a spot in the southern parts of the Emerald Grove in Baldur's Gate 3. A small cutscene will play when you enter the nest, leading to an interaction between you and a fully grown Owlbear. Whether your character chooses to fight the beast or not, the mother of the cub in this nest ends up dead, either to you or a group of goblins.
Choosing to fight and kill the mother Owlbear allows you to collect a special item on its corpse and extra loot that your companion Gale might find interesting in the caves beyond the nest.
How To Recruit The Owlbear Cub in Baldur's Gate 3
Once the mother Owlbear dies in Baldur's Gate 3, take a long rest or two before going to the NPC Krolla in the Goblin Camp, where the cub can be bought with Gold or won through games of Chicken-Chasing. Krolla is a goblin, so make sure your connection to those in the Goblin Camp is good to prevent the raiders from attacking your party on sight. Befriending their leader, Minthara, would help a lot to accomplish this.
The easiest way to recruit the owlbear cub is to give Krolla 500 Gold, but spending such a large amount of money on the creature could prevent you from buying other important items and services. Classes with high Charisma scores, like the Bard or Baldur's Gate 3, might be able to Intimidate or Persuade Krolla to influence the price.
Winning a game of Chicken-Chase also builds a connection to the cub, especially when your character succeeds in an Animal Handling check. It costs 30 Gold to enter the game, but defeating Krolla here and speaking to her again opens a dialogue option about enlisting the baby creature. You then get the Owlbear Cub in your party by taking a long rest, where the new companion will follow your scent back to your camp in Baldur's Gate 3.
