Harrowhaunt Fryghtmare Gallery and Lore (Patreon)

Every month BattleYak Miniatures will release a new Battle Pack, featuring 3D printable miniature files! The March Battle Pack is the Harrowhaunt Fryghymares, a horde of living scarecrows animated by dark magic! This pack includes modular weapons, tons of customization options, elite characters, and more!

Become a Patron now and gain access to the Harrowhaunt Fryghtmares here!

Enjoy this gallery of the Harrowhaunt Fryghymares miniatures and a glimpse into the story behind the faction!

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Stick for a body!
Head full of straw!
Give me a scarecrow,
Rah rah rah!

-Ritual Chant of the Harrowhaunt Coven

They gather on the outskirts of civilization, in hinterlands and frontiers at the very edge of maps. The inhabitants of remote farmsteads and hamlets see the unnatural haze in the setting sun, the clouds of crows gathering on the horizon, and they know that a terrible fate is about to befall them. Whatever meager defense they muster or desperate hole they hide in makes no difference. The clattering hordes of makeshift monsters comes sweeping out of the dark, sustained by unspeakable dark magicks and an unnatural hatred for all living things, taking a cruel pleasure in knowing the torments about to befall their victims. Sometimes, a few ragged and traumatized survivors are allowed to live, to flee, to spread the tale of the Harrowhaunt Fryghtmares, for what sustains them even more than death and pain is fear.

The Harrowhaunt are creatures of dark magic, and their most frequent manifestation takes the form of animated scarecrows, creatures of wooden limbs and sackcloth bodies, lashed together with rope and iron nails in crude humanoid forms. While these animate scarecrows move and act as a horde of individual entities, fighting and hunting as a band of mortal bandits might, they are in truth nothing but puppets animated by a singular enigmatic force that is alive and aware in its own terrible way. Infused into these crude vessels, this dark force can now fulfill its twisted desire to spread terror and death amongst mortals.

The most common kind are known as Fryghteners, man-sized fiends that wield broken farm tools and other implements in battle. Not content to protect corn from crows, the Fryghteners rickety makeshift bodies are made horribly durable by the dark energies coursing through them. Even if smashed apart, their broken forms will remain mobile, wooden limbs scrabbling and scratching, sackcloth and rope guts squirming like snakes to try and pull themselves and continue the fight.

The Harrowhaunt are frequently accompanied in their raids by great flocks of large black crows, the creatures screeching and cawing constantly, circling overhead or descending to perch upon the monstrous moving scarecrows. These creatures are not the least bit disturbed by the Harrowhaunt as they carry out their slaughters, and they feast well on the corpses of the slain. Survivors of Harrowhaunt raids frequently babble about the unnatural birds, claiming to have seen specimens with too many eyes, wriggling snake-tails, or even impossibly large giants soaring about in the darkness overhead.

Towering over the lesser Fryghteners are the terrifying Fryghtmare Harvesters. Titans of scrap wood and sackcloth, Harvesters act like horrific champions and commanders, their very presence seeming to galvanize the efforts of the hordes of smaller fiends. The dark energy that animates the Harrowhaunt billows off the Harvesters in visible clouds of roiling shadow, and grows thicker the more terror and suffering they inflict. Sometimes, the ramshackle bodies of the Harvesters cannot contain it and fly apart, with new limbs of pure darkness manifesting to replace their lost makeshift ones.

The dark power that animates the Harrowhaunt lends them a terrible effectiveness that belies their crude makeshift forms. A rusty sickle or broken pitchfork might be harmful enough in their own right, but in the clutching hands of the Harrowhaunt, they become even deadlier. A rusted blade that should by all rights shatter on a steel breastplate will instead cleave through it as if it were cloth, while a cudgel of nailed-together wood can rupture metal shields and stove in iron helms. Dark energy crackles almost imperceptibly on the edge of every farmer's scythe and broken shovel, turning even the most innocuous of implements into deadly weapons when cloaked in the power of the Harrowhaunt.

Some have spied more than crows flitting about in the dark night skies during a raid by the Harrowhaunt. Acting as something like overseers for the clattering hordes are the witches of the Harrowhaunt Coven. Blessed with abilities that allow them to influence the dark magic that animates the Harrowhaunt, these Hexcackle Fryghtwitches steer the animate puppets like a sheepdog guiding their flock. They are conduits for the dark power that brings life to the Fryghtmares, intimately familiar with its true nature and desires, though what reward they hope to achieve for their wicked service is a secret known only to them.

The origins of the Harrowhaunt and the true nature of the power that drives them are a much speculated upon mystery. On the edge of civilization, those born with unusual talents for sorcery are sometimes regarded with suspicion and paranoia, persecuted with sometimes deadly results. Life is harsh, and its trials drive some to embrace paths to darker power in an effort to gain power and agency over their fates. These lost and tormented souls stray from the cold and uncaring light of gray and grinding days and seek solace in the welcoming darkness, gathering in secret places and calling upon ancient powers. Sometimes they stir up things that should be left in the darkness, and seek to treat and bargain with old and inhuman things that have unknowable desires of their own...

The stuff of dire legend and darkest nightmare, the Harrowhaunt Fryghtmares are all too real, and they are coming...

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