The Beast of Mocjar

Legend has it that a great and wise Père of the Old Church–long before the Greater and Lesser Schisms–sought to bring righteousness and justice to the world, but found himself hampered by the teachings of the Old Church itself. To heal, he believed that he must sometimes kill, and to help he believed that he must sometimes steal. These are not uncommon beliefs, even today, for hypocrisy is not of an age but for all time. But this Père of the Old Church sought to accomplish his goals without the corruption of the soul that he–rightly–believed would result from murder and theft in the name of goodness and kindness and weal.

So it was that he appealed to any power that would answer him for aid. A voice did answer–the Lunar Essance itself, some believe–and offered the Père to grant his wish. His actions would corrupt not his immortal soul, but rather his fallible flesh. His soul would be left pristine, so that when the time came, he could simply shed his sin-laden and corrupted body and ascend. The Père was warned, though, that he could not kill himself nor allow others to do so, as that act would irredeemably corrupt his soul in a way that no bargain could mollify.

Foolishly, the Père of the Old Church agreed.

He soon put his long-held plans into motion, stealing vast wealth from the corrupt and giving it to the poor and murdering evil men for their transgressions. But he found he had underestimated the folly of humankind, for new malefactors arose as soon as he laid the old ones low, and the more he acted against them, the more corrupted his body became. Worse, he was compelled to retaliate against those who would harm him, remembering well that he could not kill himself nor simply surrender to be killed.

Soon the horrible truth became self-evident: the Père had been maneuvered into an impossible situation. Every sin, every impure thought, corrupted his form still more until he could no longer move among the masses without fear of attack. His twisted form was immune to disease and old age, for how could either corrupt flesh that was already sodden with corruption? Without the option of a merciful death at his own hand, the Père was forced to wait for a champion to defeat him in battle and hopefully release his soul from its imprisonment.

High Inquisitor’s Note:
I have read many descriptions of the Beast from the denizens of Mocjar, and they all agree that his visage is too terrible to comprehend, loping along on an odd number of burnt, flayed stumps of flesh like infernal hooves. Those who have suffered his touch never heal from the burns it inflicts, and die screaming in their beds after months of agony. A reliable witness, before their death, said of the Beast that its asymmetry was the most disturbing, as nothing with so little unity of form should be able to move with such speed and purpose.

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