Koyama

Koyama is a boar covered in white fur. At its first appearance it was a tiny piglet with rounded eyes and a pair of stubby tusks. Eleven years afterward it had grown to a size exceeding that of an ordinary person.

Not much of Koyama's temperament is recorded beyond a general air of unease and discomfort, evident as it was handed from one captor to another after being taken from its parent. Despite that rough start, it later grew fond of the Kouzuki retainers and even aided Oden during a procession.

Forty-one years ago a trio of men stole the piglet, hoping to claim a platinum coin in the Flower Capital, a reward the yakuza boss Kurokoma had placed on white boar young the previous year. The thieves paused at a teahouse and showed it off to a waitress named Tsurujo, a boast overheard by the thug Kin'emon, who waylaid them afterward and made off with the animal. Reaching the capital, Kin'emon presented his prize to a boy called Denjiro, who cautioned him that the creature's parent, the dreaded Mountain God, relentlessly hunts down anyone who takes its offspring.

The two soon heard the Mountain God's rampage, and Oden appeared demanding the piglet. As Koyama wailed for its parent, one of the original kidnappers arrived to report that the beast had devoured his companions and Tsuru, enraging Kin'emon into dropping the animal and charging off to confront the beast himself. Once Kin'emon was beaten, Oden raised the piglet aloft to draw the parent's gaze, then cut the great boar in two. In the years that followed, both the young boar and its parent grew friendly with Oden and the retainers, who bestowed names upon them. Eleven years past the incident, a palanquin was lashed to Koyama's back so it could carry Oden through a procession in the capital.