Scarecrows in Dungeons and Dragons 5e are an interesting take on constructs. Almost all other constructs are neutral, or unaligned, but the scarecrow is an exception being a malevolent machine with the sole purpose for their creation to cause fear.
Most scarecrows follow the same mostly humanoid form; four limbs and a torso stuff with dried grass, with a sackcloth head. But today we imagine what it would look like if the creator had a malign license to create, diving deeper to fashion scarecrows with a variety of shapes and powers to suit their new forms.
What makes the Scarecrow interesting?
Their ability to cause fear, their natural ability to hide in plain sight, the monster's construct nature.
When sitting down to write, I knew what archetypes I wanted my upgraded scarecrow monsters to fill: a caster that could attack from range, an avian and a beast to track, and an abomination that could horrify. Looking for stat blocks to use was more fun than I thought it would be, and after turning through the pages of the Monster Manual I settled on these four creatures for inspiration:
•Nothic
•Sabertooth tiger
•Remorhaz
•Peryton
In this post we look at the nothic, creating a monster that learns the fears of its foes to use against them.
Don’t Nothic til you try it
A humanoid one-eyed aberration, the nothic is a monster that on its own would cause most players to shiver in fear. It has one central eye located above a gaping, fang filled mouth. This eye gives the nothic the ability to stare into the soul of a creature to discover its deepest, darkest secrets; and what is more secret than the things that people fear most? By combining the powers of the nothic and scarecrow we make a feature that fits our new monster perfectly.
Our new scarecrow looks like your average hay stuffed construct, but has a hidden secret. When this construct is ready to show its true nature; a large tear appears, typically on the monsters head, revealing a large yellow, fist-sized eyeball. This eye has an elliptical pupil which dilates hungrily when the target of its fear effect is within range.
Frightful Insight
The Weird Insight of the Nothic allows the monster to gain information from the target. This is a great way to open up roleplaying scenarios with your player characters, revealing secrets about them or NPCs but this ability has no effect in combat.
So as we upgrade the feature we add the power to cause the frightened condition if the baleful eye learns the targets greatest fear. This frightful insight gives the baleful eye a bonus to damage against the frightened creature, making its attacks hit harder. This damage is psychic, representing damage to the frightened creatures psyche.
The baleful eye is made to attack at range with its Rotting Gaze, so how do we guarantee barbarians and fighters keep their distance? By punishing them for entering melee. We do this by adding an aura of fear that expands 15 feet around the construct as long as the eye is open. This aura applies the frightened condition with no chance to save.
This aura is a strong ability, so we create the caveat that creatures who can not be charmed are immune to this effect and the eye must remain uncovered for the aura to persist. Doing this will allow for crafty players to invent strategies that exploit this weakness and navigate around it.
The baleful eye keeps the original Rotting Gaze ability of the base monster. This gives the eye a ranged attack that the original scarecrow lacks and utilizes the frightened condition by giving disadvantage to the save.
Running the Baleful Eye in combat.
The baleful eye is similar to the monster that inspired it, enduring as a sentry in a long forgotten field or forest, always remaining watchful. It will venture from its post if commanded to, either to attack a specified target or on an recon intelligence to gain useful info for its creator to use as blackmail.
This monster would pair well with a creature interested in using the fears of a community against them. A night hag or fey creature for example.
Ways to Improve the Baleful Eye
• Add spells to the monster. Any illusion or enchantment spell would fit the baleful eye. Silent Image, Invisibility, or Enemies Abound help add to the creepiness this monster represents.
• Give the monster a personality. An evil monster that taunts the PCs with their fears, mocking them and cajoling them in combat. Mechanically this could be represented by a Charisma Challenge, giving disadvantage to the PC if the eye knows it fear.
• Place objects in the encounter that allow creative players to take advantage of the baleful eye's weakness. This doesn't make the monster more powerful, but it might empower your players to think outside of the box, making the encounter itself more interesting.
Celebrating the Spooky Season
This is my attempt at giving my favorite Dungeons and Dragons construct a fun twist for the Halloween season. Later this week I'll be posting 3 more ways to upgrade scarecrows, adding onto existing monsters changing them to fit into a spooky holiday game.
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