[Encounter] Black Pig of the Family

Hey everyone!

A while back we told people we'd be releasing regular encounters. Well, those writing assignments ended up turning into Boss Docs, but we still have a few encounters we drafted up that we figured we'd release anyway despite the  change in direction. So here's another one of them.

An encounter featuring an abyssal boar for characters of 5th to 7th level.

Encounter Setup

In this encounter, a local family has been noticing strange things about the juvenile pig they purchased from a man on the road. When the characters investigate, they’ll discover the pig is a rapidly growing abyssal boar.

The party can be introduced to this encounter through a message on a local bounty board or through an NPC familiar with the party. Regardless of the encounter’s hook, the characters learn that a young couple on the outskirts of the village are becoming increasingly suspicious of a pig that they purchased from a man some weeks ago. The pig has been displaying aggressive behaviour, its tusks are growing strangely, and it smells strongly of brimstone.

The couple can lead the party to a stall in their barn where the “pig” waits. It has been separated from the other animals and the walls of its stall are marked with abrasions from its tusks. If the characters ask the couple about the man who sold them the pig, they can remember little about him, only that he had long black hair and told them that he was leaving the country for new adventures and thus had to sell off his stock. Characters can make any number of checks while examining the beast to determine its fiendish origins, including but not limited to:

• A DC 13 Wisdom (Religion) check to notice subtle demonic markings on its skin.
• A DC 16 Intelligence (Arcana) check to identify the smell of brimstone as typically fiendish.
• A DC 13 Wisdom (Nature) check to note its general inconsistency with any other Material Plane species.
• A DC 10 Wisdom (Insight) check to note the suspicious circumstances of a strange pig and a disappearing salesperson.

Resolution

What happens once the party identifies the pig as fiendish (or specifically as an abyssal boar, depending on how successful their investigation was), what happens next is up to them. If they attempt to slaughter the boar, it fights back, though as it is a juvenile, its hit points are reduced to 90. The mystery of the disappearing man who sold the couple the pig is left to GM discretion, should the party be interested.