Overview
Contract: Strange Beast is a witcher contract on Hindarsfjall in the Skellige Isles, given in the village of Larvik. It is recommended from level 16. Skelligers usually handle their own monsters, but something has ambushed a group of warriors on the road, and the village elder Thorleif wants a witcher. The culprit is Hagubman, a nekker warrior clever enough to lead a pack of nekkers into a proper ambush.
Getting the contract
There are three ways in: the notice on Larvik’s notice board, talking to Thorleif directly, or inspecting the ambush site on the road. If you start in Larvik, haggle. This contract pays unusually well, and you can push the price to around 650 crowns, which makes it one of the best-paying contracts in the base game. Thorleif then sends you to Sverre and the other survivors, who can only tell you that whatever hit them was smart enough to set a trap.
The investigation
- The ambush site is on the road, about halfway between Larvik and Lofoten. Look for a cart at the roadside and several bodies.
- Examine the body by the cart, then the cart handle. What looks like blood is actually red clay.
- Examine the body on the other side of the road. Geralt realizes that something intelligent is leading nekkers in the area.
- Follow the tracks in the bushes beside that body into the woods to a nearby cave.
- Inside, clear the toxic gas clouds with Aard, or with Igni if you want them to explode. One or two nekkers will try to stop you on the way.
Fighting Hagubman
At the nest, drop down and kill the first nekkers to draw out the pack leader. Hagubman burrows away now and then, and each time he does, three or four more nekkers come at you, so kill him quickly rather than fighting the endless pack. Use ogroid oil, keep your back to the rocks so the pack cannot surround you, and throw a Northern Wind bomb when they bunch up. Dodge sideways when he lunges. Even if you knock him down with Aard and finish him, he can still burrow for another round at low health. Full tactics are on our Nekker Warrior page.
Rewards
Hagubman drops the nekker warrior trophy and the sword Devine. Take his head back to Thorleif in Larvik (if you started at the ambush site, read the notice board first) for 390 crowns by default, more if you haggled, plus 250 XP. With the XP for the ambush clue, the total is 275 XP.
While you are on Hindarsfjall, In Wolf’s Clothing is another monster problem worth tackling on the island.
