The Honorable Hodags (Rift Guild)  

The Hodag is a folkloric animal of Wisconsin. Its history is focused mainly around the city of Rhinelander which is in the northern area of Wisconsin; which is where it is said to have been discovered.

In 1893, Eugene Shepard (a local land surveyor, prankster, and a timber cruiser) instigated a lot of newspaper reports on the discovery of a Hodag. It had "the head of a frog, the grinning face of a giant elephant, thick short legs set off by huge claws, the back of a dinosaur, and a long tail with spears at the end". He took the time to round up a group of local people to capture the animal. It was reported by this group that they needed dynamite to kill the creature.

The remains of the charred beast were photographed and released to the press at that time. It had the fiercest, strangest, most frightening monster ever to set razor sharp claws on the earth. It only became extinct when its main source of food became rare in Northern Wisconsin. It's appetite? White Bulldogs.

Then in 1896 Shepard claims he captures a live Hodag. He and several bear wrestlers used a long pole with which they fixed chloroform to the end of, shoved it deep into the Hodags cave. Doing this they were able to overpower the creature and capture it alive. When this was done he took the Hodag on the road with him. Displaying it at the first Oneida County Fair. Hundreds then thousands of people showed up to catch even just a glimpse of the creature.

Using a small shack at his house he connected wires to it. Using the wires Shepard was able to use the dim lighting to cover his movements as he made the Hodag move. Viewers became skittish seeing such a creature alive would often run out of the house. The story became so well known that soon it surpassed the local papers and ended up going statewide and eventually it went national. Since the story gained so much attention a group of scientists from Washington D.C sent out people from the Smithsonian Institution so they may inspect the historic discovery. This made Shepard finally admit the entire thing had been a hoax.


Edited, Jan 3rd 2014 12:51am by Pyrgus