Dungeon 154 - Night of the Straw Men

[Rechan]

Though I never can figure out why scarecrows always have pumpkin heads in game stats. I've never seen a scarecrow with a pumpkin head in RL; they usually have sacks for heads.

 

[ivocaliban]

Excellent stuff! One of the best things I've seen from Dungeon since it went paperless.

 

[trollwad]

Ive hated paperless dungeon. THis is a decent adventure.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I must admit, when I first read the title, I thought it would be about an Internet flame war.

Sadly, so did I.

This makes me wonder if there aren't more internet memes that could be exploited for D&D adventure ideas. I'll have to give this some serious consideration.

 

[Chimera]

Though I never can figure out why scarecrows always have pumpkin heads in game stats. I've never seen a scarecrow with a pumpkin head in RL; they usually have sacks for heads.

Hijack;

One of the best encounters I ever ran used pumpkin headed scarecrows. It was based on an episode of Fraggle Rock (of all things) where a group of scare-crow like beings (NOT pumpkin headed) lured Mochie and Red into a cornfield with their song, where they would stand, transfixed.

In my version, the pumpkinheads charmed you into the Vampiric Cornfield...

The reason it went so well was because the Ranger's player really got into being charmed by the "Punkinheads!!!" and enthusiastically played out wanting to stay in the corn.

 

[Demmero]

Also, love the "whisper your sins into the straw doll and toss it in". That's some awesome bit of ritual right there.

Agreed. Wish I could take credit for it....

The idea for the holiday itself first appeared in a D&D Mystara product (I'm guessing Gaz 1, The Grand Duchy of Karameikos by Aaron Allston; I know it also appeared in one or more of the Poor Wizard's Almanac books as well). My contribution was 'the bigger the sin, the bigger your straw man' slant.

 

[DM_Jeff]

The first adventure of the last 3.5e Dungeon was released today. It's a Side Trek for 1st level characers called "Night of the Straw Men"

Hey, thanks for the heads up!

-DM Jeff

 

[Rechan]

Agreed. Wish I could take credit for it....

The idea for the holiday itself first appeared in a D&D Mystara product (I'm guessing Gaz 1, The Grand Duchy of Karameikos by Aaron Allston; I know it also appeared in one or more of the Poor Wizard's Almanac books as well). My contribution was 'the bigger the sin, the bigger your straw man' slant.

What really makes my juices flow is the idea of someone using thamutaurgy to link to all the little straw dolls, so they can listen to all the sins.

Very useful when you want to know the real dirt.

 

[JohnBiles]

Though I never can figure out why scarecrows always have pumpkin heads in game stats. I've never seen a scarecrow with a pumpkin head in RL; they usually have sacks for heads.

Could be the influence of Jack Pumpkinhead from the Oz novels.