Transcendent Pig
This most unusual creature -- if he is a creature -- is, in both nature and provenance, one of the most enigmatic in the entire field of errantry.
The first references to him on Earth occur in a rare few Chinese documents of the late Shang dynasty, where he is referred to as 卓越的豬 (the word "transcendent" can also be rendered as "remarkable"). Each description would be accurate in its own way, as the Pig's existence seems to freely -- indeed, effortlessly -- transcend the normal limitations of timespace. He wanders in and out of linear time like someone who has no particular need to pay attention to it. His conversation sometimes indicates that the Pig's view of the universe is similar in some respects to that of beings skilled at colocation: he often describes things happening at a great distance, or at other times -- past or future -- as if they're happening to him right then. He is therefore an invaluable source of advice...if you can get him to give you any. The Pig does not usually give away advice for free: he charges the wizard in question what it's worth.
The Manual -- and, as far as that goes, the Powers that Be -- are notably silent on the Transcendent Pig's origins. This may have to do with privacy issues, or (in the Powers' case) some faint sense of embarrassment, since apparently none of Them can remember having created the Pig. (This is the source of the uncertainty surrounding the word "creature" as applied to him). He seems -- so the Manual says -- to have always been here, or been around, right back to the universe's birth-time some billions of years ago.
As might be expected of any being with such a peculiar, extensive, and clouded history, the Pig goes by many names and bears a host of epithets. He has been called "the Insoluble Enigma", ...
But his name is a point on which there's some disagreement. Though wizards who meet him are frequently introduced to him as "Chao", it's not certain whether this is his personal name, or just another epithet: "chao" sometimes also transliterated as "zhu" or "chu") is simply a Chinese word for "pig".
There are a few references to the Pig in Earthly mythology, including one in which he is accused of having devoured Erlang Shen (二郎神) -- a being who may have been a minor god or demigod, since he is described in some versions of the story as a nephew of the Jade Emperor of Heaven. Devouring anyone without good reason -- or, for that matter, devouring anyone for any reason at all -- seems rather out of character for the Pig. Taken together with the description of Ehrlang's devourer -- "huge and hideous, with a black face" -- it seems likely that the Pig has been confused with some other little-understood being...possibly one of the demons which are scattered all over the landscape of Chinese myth.