The list of misfortunes that can befall the inhabitants of a village includes plague, war, and taxes. The worst misfortune, however, entails the appearance of a ghostly hellhound known simply as The Beast. Many bad things can be said about this creature, but they all come down to two things: blood and pain.

Journal Bestiary entry

Received by reading Berengar's notes on the Beast.

"The hellhound, referred to also as the Beast, is a creature of the underworld, a specter that assumes the form of a terrifying hound and tirelessly stalks its victims once it finds their trail. Peasants believe that the hellhound embodies the vengeance of the gods, who send the Beast to punish humans for their wickedness."

Location

• Outskirts

Sightings

• Beginning of Chapter I, during the cutscene.
• Leaving the crypt after discovering the poisoned girl inside.
• Leaving Odo's house after completing The Secret Garden.
• West of Haren Brogg's house, as you go up the hill with the bridge on the right.
• Odo also claims to have seen it staring in the windows of Abigail's house.
• On the road from the crossroads near the crypt going towards Abigail's house.
• Sometimes appears at night when going to the cave south of the abandoned houses.

Source

• Berengar's notes on the Beast

Combat tactics

Killing the Hellhound with one easy blow (Aard skill does not have to be upgraded to include Stun):

The game jumps to midnight so you need to get into the cutscene past the cave at 22:00-23:00 so that your magic is still working at that point. To do so take following steps:

• Enter abandoned house and clear all the bandits, take what you want but do NOT go into the floor.
• Go outside again, head south from there, where you will find a place of power (ignore for now) and then the cave with Abigail (who is not talking much at this point).
• Enter and meditate there until 23:00.
• Head back out of the cave, Pass the ritual stones (pickup the sign) and then do magic ritual at the place of power so your Aard is doubled.
• THEN go into the house once more, enter the cave through the floor, kill the enemies, there is some loot in the boxes (both!).
• Pass Abigail, save the game just before going outside the cave.
• Exit the cave, click through cutscene, then encounter the Hellhound.
• Draw weapon first (important!) and THEN use Aard sign, knocking down (not necessarily stunning) the beast, allowing you to kill him.

Alternative preparation without having maximized Aard sign:

• Use the quiet time with Abigail in the cave to brew the potions you think you might need.
• Note that the battle with the Hellhound takes place at midnight, so if you want to prepare in the cave you should meditate until an hour before 12 before taking any potions.
• You can run to the spot between the house and that little building beside it. That area is small enough to rest in without being attacked while your Vitality is restored.
• If you take the "Stun" hero ability on your Aard there is a chance to stun the beast and kill him in one blow. Make sure that you have your weapon drawn before you use the Aard sign.
• You can quicksave within the first few seconds of the fight, using this with Aard's stun ability you can easily quicksave and load until the Beast is stunned to perform a Coups de grâce.
• Specter Oil works very well to defeat the Beast and the barghests. Abigail sells it.
• If you kill the barghests, the Beast simply summons more of them, so that is a fight you can not win. But when you kill the Beast, the barghests extinguish like blown-out candles. So concentrate all your attention on the Beast.
• The Beast has the innate ability to cause pain to Geralt, even if Geralt is attacking it and the Beast does not have time to attack. Unless you are immune to pain status effects, you will be hit with this effect during the fight.
• If you have already finished with all of the Outskirts quests including the two Trophy bosses and used all your Bronze Talents, then the Beast is pretty much a joke to deal with.The only hard part in that fight is to keep Abigail alive, and hope you don't get stun by the Beast too early in the fight. If you have done all the quests and have applied the "Specter Oil", then you don't even need potions for the most part (plus Abigail will heal you). DO NOT use potions at the start of the fight, as the Beast and the barghests will swarm in on Abigail and kill her rather quickly. Immediately run to Abigail side and start using Group Style to clear the barghests off of her (Aard work too).
• Focus on the Beast, but keep an eye on Abigail and kill anything that going for her. Don't let her lose too much health, as the villagers will come and attack Abigail when the fight with the Beast ended. Use Group Style and Aard to keep enemies off of her, just like the Beast fight.

Fight while wasted

• For this tactic you need the Buzz talent unlocked, it will render the Hellhounds greatest weapon i.e. Pain useless, however it only works when Geralt is drunk.
• First apply Specter Oil to your sword. Next drink a Swallow before leaving the cave (make sure it's before midnight on the clock) or at the very beginning of the fight. Quickly kill all the Barghest so it's just The Beast left. Then drink some Really Strong Booze to get Geralt drunk and use Fast Style to kill The Beast. If it summons some more Barghest swap to Group Style. It shouldn't take more than 2-3 full combos before it's dead.
• The best Booze for the job is in fact the White Gull. If it is made from Ghoul blood and Celandine it will have the Nigredo effect added to it, which will give your Damage a further boost.
• Don't bother using Strong Style, due to Intoxication The Beast will be able to dodge it now, however Fast and Group will work perfectly fine.
• If you also have the Heavyweight talent unlocked, fear not, there is almost no chance the Hellhound will last long enough for the intoxication effect to wear off even with only 50% duration.
• You can also keep a bottle of Wives' Tears in your inventory for when the angry mob comes to kill you, although even while drunk they are a joke.

If you are playing Hard Mode and are still having problems there are a few things you can do to make the fight even more easy:

• Drink a Thunderbolt, to make it you will need 2 portions of Phosphorus, as it's the only source of Vermilion in Chapter I, which Abigail sells. Since Buzz will already lower your ability to Dodge and Parry the pros will greatly outweigh the cons. When combined with Buzz, Nigredo and Specter Oil together it will give you around 600% damage boost.
  • You can boost the damage even further by forging a Meteorite sword. It is possible to forge a Three Red Meteorite sword which will give a 40% damage boost (the highest of all Meteorite swords), but only if you fought the Frightener in the prologue. Otherwise you will have to settle for a Two Red, one Blue Meteorite sword, which will only give 20% and ironically cost more, as while forging the sword is slightly cheaper you will have to buy the Blue meteorite ore from Haren Brogg, while all 3 Red meteorite ores are freebies.
• Make use of Secondary substances. While it's difficult to make any potion with a secondary substance in Chapter I, there are a few exceptions, like the aforementioned Nigredo White Gull. It is possible to make a Rubedo Swallow. To do that you will need Sewant mushrooms, you can find a single patch in the Southern Cave (which is in fact the cave you will be in right before the fight). Also Hellebore petals, which you can find growing all around the Outskirts. And finally 2 portions of Lunar shards which Abigail sells. For Albedo you can create an Albedo Tawny Owl. For that you need White myrtle petals or Echinops rootstock and 2 portions of Berbercane fruit and/or Drowner brain tissue.
• If you intend to use everything then proceed as follows: Make sure it's before midnight, then apply Specter Oil to your sword, first drink the Albedo Tawny Owl to lower the toxicity of the remaining potions, next drink Thunderbolt and Rubedo Swallow, leave the cave, kill all the Barghest, once the Hellhound is alone drink the Nigredo White Gull and use Fast Style to kill it. With all these boosts put together it can go down with just 1 full combo even on Hard Mode.
• Since you will have Tawny Owl effect applied too, you can combine this with the above Aard method for a hybrid tactic.
• Note: It is also possible to gain Pain immunity by using the Altered Metabolism talent, however for that Geralt would have to be at least level 17, which while not impossible would take a lot of effort to accomplish.

Trivia

• The hellhound is a supernatural canine creature featured in different mythologies and foklore of all around the world. Examples of hellhound are the barghests from Northern England folklore and the Cŵn Annwn of Irish Mythology, known as the hounds of the Wild Hunt.

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