Harrowbind

Harrowbinds are rare, formed when a dying farmer pours his final oath of hatred into a hastily sewn effigy and a gutted crowbone charm. Those who die with a wound and a promise sometimes leave behind a tethered malice that latches onto straw and stitch, animating a construct that obsessively enacts its maker's last resentments. Small farming communities tell of a single night when a Harrowbind rose and stalked a band of rustlers until dawn, leaving their cart wheels shredded and their throats pecked by the same crows that once circled the maker's field. Scholars who study folk magic call these constructs 'harrowbinds'; the reclusive antiquarian Hest Vell of Winderholt kept a ledger of three confirmed encounters and claims the binds can be bargained with only by performing the maker's final, unfulfilled ritual. The Order of Fieldwardens, a guild of rural protectors, maintains that a Harrowbind will relentlessly guard whatever patch of ground it was first set upon and will attack anything that alters or steals from that soil. Few attempt to destroy them in summer — the locals whisper that cutting down a Harrowbind without undoing its vow can curse a whole season's yield.

A Harrowbind stands roughly human height, assembled from a crooked post frame padded with compacted straw. Its head is a lopsided sack of faded burlap, crudely stitched with twine: one button eye missing, the other a dull coal-black pebble; the mouth is a jagged seam, often stained the color of iron. Its limbs are wrapped in patchwork cloth and rushes, the elbows and knees bound by rusted wire and leather thongs. An old tobacco tin and a bent plow shard hang from its belt; loose straw spills from splits in its fabric. Weathered seams, visible hay tendrils, and mends with mismatched thread should show age and many field repairs. Scale: about as tall as a lean human (roughly 5'6" to 6') and broad-shouldered; include a wilted cornfield, a fence post, or a broken wagon wheel in the background to show environment and size.