by Josiah Eberly
The season of Fall has officially begun, the temperature will start to drop, pumpkin spice is showing up everywhere, and at the very end of it all will be Halloween. In honor of its approach, I will be writing about Halloween-themed monsters for both this issue and the next issue, starting with the Scarecrow.
Just like in the real world, farmers in the realms of D&D use Scare-crows to protect their crops from crows and other pesky vermin. However, Scarecrows have been known to leave their post and walk about, due to becoming the host of an evil spirit.
Scarecrows can be made by many different methods, whether through a creature binding a spirit to the straw-stuffed humanoid figure, or ambient magics suffusing the still figure with a pale imitation of life.
To the detriment of many paladins and clerics believing the Scarecrow to be some form of undead, the Scarecrow is a constructed form powered by a soul; undead spells will have no effect upon this creature as it tears into them with rusty metal claws.
The unnatural visage of a Scarecrow even has the power to fill adventurers with an awful terror that will leave them running as far away as possible. One of the most horrifying things about the Scarecrow is that when it stands still, there is no way to visually tell that it is any different from an ordinary scarecrow.
Scarecrows, from the Dungeon Master’s standpoint, have so much creative storytelling potential. They can either look like old farmer’s clothes roughly stuffed full of straw, or it can be a detailed stuffed effigy that to the confusion and horror of the onlookers begins to move about and start attacking those nearest to it.
Scarecrows can also be used to hint at a greater being nearby controlling it as a puppet master. Dungeon Masters can also use a Scarecrow or a similar creature as a reminder that player actions do have consequences.
If an adventurer or a whole group of them tend to err on the side of “kill first, ask questions later,” a group of Scarecrows can be used to attack them, being possessed by the spirits of those who were wrongfully killed by them. The key to defeating a Scarecrow is with fire.