Steal this beast: The Monstrous Pig of Landsdown.

The Myth.

It was many years ago that the Farmer Simkins got the fright of his life. His once prize sow was fat with a litter, after two barren years. He had been sharpening the ax to take the meat from her since she was past her best, but when she started showing signs of being in the motherly way, she was spared, at least for a while. Simkins the Younger was happy with this, as he had grown attached to the old sow, ostracised as he was from the other young folk of the village he had few other options when it came to making friends. He never looked quite right, and talked when no one was there to listen to him, and this kind of behavior was sure to lose you friends when all the other children were of an age when fitting in was all that mattered.

So Simkins the Younger had looked after the pregnant animal, named it Charlotte for reasons known only to himself and was there that fateful night when the first head breached its mother. The elder Simkins had come running at the almighty squeals, and thought to hide his son from the horror of what sounded to be a very messy birth indeed. By the time he got himself into the barn though, the deed was done, and Charlotte had not survived the birth. What he saw, covered in blood and slime, resting in the arms of his beaming son was enough to make him spill his supper onto the straw. It appeared as if some dark force had taken over Charlotte, and warped whatever was in her womb. It still had all the parts that made it recognisble as a piglet , but they were all wrong, and there was too many of them for just one creature.

It had two full sets of legs, one where you’d expect, but the second coming from out its back, as if it had two bellies. There was even an extra set in the rear, coming off from the side, like an extra pig was trapped inside but had kicked its way out backwards. Its chest seemed split in two, with the head looking the same, almost as if it couldn’t decide if it needed two of them so had settled on the monstrous visage somewhere in between. He went to take the abomination from his son and kill it there and then, and to this day claims that is just what he did, taking it around the back, and burning its body before the sun had even risen.

Plenty of folk will tell you that he didn’t though, and that his son convinced him to spare the beast’s life. The story goes that Simkins the Younger vanished with his pet soon after, and ill luck befell the old farm ever since. They say he had made deal with a Dark One, bringing something unnatural into this world that would be his Familiar, working his bidding and the wishes of their dark masters on this plane. For two decades all manner of animals were taken from around the village, sometimes blood was found along with what little pieces remained, but not always. Simkins the Darker was always blamed; him and his Daemon spawned hog. This last winter people have even reported seeing the monster in the flesh and a bounty has been put on either of them, preferably dead.

The Truth.

The pig was born the way it was, and Simkins the Younger was indeed an outcast, but his father was true to his word when he claimed to have done away with the remarkably still breathing piglet. The Younger was heartbroken, and vowed to see his pet returned to him. He turned down a dark path that night, and sought out any information he could get his hands on about dark arts that would enable him to return a creature back from its final resting place.

He was never successful in this desire, but his experiments were not without some small successes, molding flesh in the image of the piglet that was taken from him. He found a place to hide away from the villagers, camouflaged by the other planar beings whose help he had sought. They furnished him with Dark Majiks that allowed him to warp flesh, bone, and sinew, and after many years he finally created his masterpiece. Now fully grown, the son of Charlotte has been unleashed on Landsdown and is taking lives in revenge for the slights that Simkins the Darker has allowed to fester for far too long.