What happens to crops that aren't harvested?

[Aeolius]

You HAVE to throw a hag in there... the Corn Dolly :
"...in traditional pagan European culture it was believed that the spirit of the corn... lived amongst the crop, and that the harvest made it effectively homeless... Among the customs attached to the last sheaf of the harvest were hollow shapes fashioned from the last sheaf of wheat or other cereal crops. The corn spirit would then spend the winter in this home until the "corn dolly" was ploughed into the first furrow of the new season."
The poor homeless Corn Dolly will be quite upset that the ritual was disturbed.

Or, if you're going for a more natural approach: Corn Smut
Envision a fungus overtaking the corn and spreading to those creatures that ate the crop. Using either yellow musk creepers or russet mold as a basis, imagine the state of the wildlife near that crop!

 

[haakon1]

I asked my sister -- a PhD in botany who studied the genetics of corn, among other things -- what would happen if a grain field was unharvested -- what would it be like in the spring? This was for the "Standing Stones" adventure.

She said some of it would of course be old, dried eaten stalks from the previous year, others would have gone to seed and naturally grown new green corn plants sprouting up. And there'd be a lot of weeds. She said basically, think of an overgrown untamed meadow, but with an unusually large amount of corn growing, and lots of oddly straight, partially overgrown paths (where the farmer and draft animal had walked between strips). I'm thinking decent cover across strips, but not straight down a path.

But that's for like harvest to April timeframe, not a short time like you're thinking. <shrug>

 

[Aeolius]

From personal experience, if one runs through a field where neglected corn has dried on the stalk and the stalks were later cut close to the ground, it is like running through a field of knives (My neighbor grows corn on a 3-acre plot next to my house and will often neglect the corn if the season was too wet/dry, as he uses the corn to feed his hogs).

 

[Aeolius]

Friday night, the players will be stopping by a nearby farm where an attack recently took place. They will find the farmers dead and the place overrun by ghouls.

So, the farmer planted his cornfield over an unmarked cemetery, the corn that grew was strangely tainted, and the ghouls moved in for some veggies?

(I did something similar with turnips and vegetarian vampires, who had learned the secret of squeezing blood from a turnip)

 

[Umbran]

You HAVE to throw a hag in there...

Cue creation of the Gnomish Hag Thrower...

the Corn Dolly :
"...in traditional pagan European culture it was believed that the spirit of the corn... lived amongst the crop, and that the harvest made it effectively homeless... Among the customs attached to the last sheaf of the harvest were hollow shapes fashioned from the last sheaf of wheat or other cereal crops. The corn spirit would then spend the winter in this home until the "corn dolly" was ploughed into the first furrow of the new season."
The poor homeless Corn Dolly will be quite upset that the ritual was disturbed.

Would sound less to me like a hag, and more like an animated scarecrow or straw golem.

 

[nedjer]

None of this at all like how I remember Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

[Umbran]

None of this at all like how I remember Laura Ingalls Wilder

What? Nellie Olson was kind of a hag...

 

[Aeolius]

Would sound less to me like a hag, and more like an animated scarecrow or straw golem.

Also from wiki:
"In Scotland and Ireland, the first farmer to finish the grain harvest made a corn dolly, representing the Cailleach, from the last sheaf of the crop. The figure would then be tossed into the field of a neighbor who had not yet finished bringing in their grain. The last farmer to finish had the responsibility to take in and care for the corn dolly for the next year, with the implication they'd have to feed and house the hag all winter. Competition was fierce to avoid having to take in the Old Woman."

 

[David Howery]

um... corn? Are we talking new world maize corn-on-the-cob type plants here? That's the problem with the word 'corn', it means different things around the world. Any 'pagan European spirit of the corn/ corn dolly' stuff wouldn't be referring to maize, but to wheat/barley/oats instead. I suppose there's nothing wrong with having maize in your D&D world, if you want. I'm not an expert, but along with the unharvested corn/wheat/whatever, might there be untended vegetable plots too, along with a few cows/pigs? I think European farms were 'jack of all trades' types ones back then, instead of 'all one crop' types...

 

[Umbran]

um... corn? Are we talking new world maize corn-on-the-cob type plants here? That's the problem with the word 'corn', it means different things around the world. Any 'pagan European spirit of the corn/ corn dolly' stuff wouldn't be referring to maize, but to wheat/barley/oats instead.

It matters exactly what grain is being used? All it needs to be is tall and grassy...

Even then, what you say is not as true as you might think. Maize came to Europe in the 1500s, when I know my own European ancestors were still jumping over bonfires on Midsummer's Eve. Heck, my father was jumping over bonfires on Midsummer's Eve! Some of the rituals and traditions that Aeolius is referring to were still being performed in Europe in the 1900s. That makes for a few hundred years for traditions specific to maize to develop.