The Feud

About a hundred years ago, Burton Wescote and Ann Campbell were engaged to be married.  It was an arranged wedding, valuable to both families.  There was no love lost between the Wecsotes of Mordent and the Campbells of Dementlieu, but the groom, at least, was willing to go through with the marriage.

Ann's family brought here to the manor so the couple could get acquainted before their union, though Ann remained vehemently opposed to the wedding.  The rest of the Campbells stayed at the inn here in Mordenshire.
  Sometime during the night, Ann fled the manor into the bog, but not before killing Michael, one of the Wescote brothers, who apparently tried to prevent her from leaving.  Burton set the dogs after her.  Later, he said that he had trained them to subdue their prey and ordered them to do so when he loosed them.  He and his dogs raced through the night after the fleeing Ann.  The dogs outdistanced Wescote and gained ground on the girl.  She fled into the mists that always seem to rise near the bog, the dogs close at her heels.  Wescote ran after, a few minutes behind.
  Whatever happened out there, no one really knows.
  Wescote returned covered in mud and slime, his face scratched by brambles, and his clothes torn from where he had stumbled on his chase.  They say he was crazy with fear ... or loss.  When questioned, he would say nothing of what had happened in the moors, except that Ann had died in the bogs and that he had had no hand in her death.
  Naturally, neither family believed him -- Michael and Burton Wescote were known to be the closest of brothers, and everyone thought Burton had killed Ann in revenge.  The Campbells thought it likely that Burton had chased Ann into the moors for the express purpose of killing her, but none could prove it.  They moved back to Dementlieu, cursing the name of the Wescotes.  The Wescotes praised Burton for pursuing the murderer to her death.  The two families, who hadn't got along in the best of times, became bitter enemies.
  Then, for some reason or another, the Wescotes began disappearing, singly or in small groups.  Eventually, only a few ragged servants and the last of the Wescotes remained behind at Wescote Manor.  One rumor holds that the Wescotes fled to re-establish their family someplace else, a place they could start afresh.  Another rumor says that the Wescotes were killed by the giant black Moor Hound, a dog said to be the embodiment of the Campbell's curse on the Wescotes.
  Regardless, the people of Mordentshire and the neighboring villages know better that to go out on the moors when the moon is high and the mist rises.  The howls sound as soon as the sun sets, and only a fool would challenge the beast or beasts that make such cries.  A few who have gone out seeking the lair of the creatures have found nothing, as though the monsters vanished during the daytime.  Those who have sought the beasts in the night have been found in the morning at the edge of the moors with their entrails spilled about them.  Needless to say, we pretty much leave the place alone these days.