Review: Tales of the Scarecrow

Spoilers below; be warned.

This is a short review of the Tales of the Scarecrow PDF published by LOTFP; it's a short, horror-themed location that can be dropped into your old school fantasy campaign.  Corn fields and scarecrows are fantastic for horror settings; they're mundane and commonplace in the rural world, but have appeared in enough horror movies that players will quickly tap into the creepy vibe once they realize they've crossed over from the normal to the horrible.

It's a short book - 10 pages - black and white, and describes a strange farm with surrounding cornfields, some tragic inhabitants, and a few unusual magic items.  (You can get a copy here:  Tales of the Scarecrow).

The secret of the locale is that this isolated farm is the lair of a vast, subterranean monster; victims are allowed to enter the farmhouse, but leaving is another matter.  As a monster encounter, the locale seems vaguely reminiscent of the monster movie Tremors.  There are a number of ways trapped characters can escape, although all of them are perplexing and/or unpleasant.  Muhaha.

Any regular reader here knows I love the horror genre and like to see more D&D and fantasy games dipping into the space; this is a puzzling little horror encounter that would occupy a night's play and could be interjected into any campaign.  Unlike some other books by this author, such as Death Love Doom, it doesn't cross any lines with gore or mature themes and could be applicable to a wider range of campaigns and styles if you want to dip your toes into adding a horror encounter to your D&D style.  If you're a LOTFP cultist, this one has good examples of "weird" magic items that will please the players while keeping them guessing.  Tales of the Scarecrow should provide a perplexing good time for any players that drop in for a visit.