Rift Plate 088 · Red Clay Sprawl
Claymaw Hog
A clay-armored feral hog turns ditches and curb cuts into a straight red wake of tusk, weight, and rage.
- Plate group
- Red Clay Sprawl
- Classification
- Bestial
- Field account
- Recovered
Recovered natural history
Field record
Shopping-cart barricade
The Hog carried our shopping-cart barricade twenty paces before shaking it off. Wet red clay plated its cheeks and shoulders, hardened around old scars. Curb chips and root fiber clung to its tusks. Its mouth was packed with clay.
It left a straight trench through the kudzu. Wallowing drew fresh mud into the scar seams and thickened the armor. We lured it onto sun-buckled blacktop. The plates began breaking away. It kept choosing collision over retreat.
Collision and wallowing
It comes through ditch cover, then takes the straightest lane toward what it sees as the greatest threat. Broken barriers add mass to the charge. Afterward it wants mud to repair the plates. Deny the wallow and the frenzy lasts.
On pavement it turns poorly. In soft clay, one buried forefoot can pivot the whole body violently. Loud metal draws the first charge. Height and sharp lateral movement help control it, as does dry ground.
Read the environment
Signs of its presence
Smooth red wallows fill body-sized hollows in drainage banks.
Tusk furrows carry curb stones far from the road.
Straight trenches through kudzu end at crushed objects.
Survival doctrine
Field precautions
01
Sun-Cracked Plates
Keep it on hot dry pavement. Armor pulls away at the scar seams, where hooked tools can peel off large sections.
02
Committed Line
After the mouth packs for a charge, it cannot abandon the straight path until it reaches soft ground to turn in.
Continue through the folio
088 of 100 recovered plates