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Harrowhaunt Fryghtmares II: Harvest Night Gallery and Lore
🕑 Added 2022-10-02 15:01:02 +0000 UTCEvery month Battle Yak Miniatures will release a new Battle Pack, featuring 3D printable miniature files! The October Battle Pack is a second wave release for the Harrowhaunt Fryghtmares, nightmarish shambling scarecrows animated by dark magic!
Become a Patron now and gain access to the Harrowhaunt Fryghtmare II: Harvest Night release!
Enjoy this gallery of Harrowhaunt Fryghtmares II: Harvest Night miniatures and a glimpse into the lore behind the faction!
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"Stickerin' flight, we'llum bury the knight,
Witherin' hum, we'llum bury yern mum,
Hesterin' east, we'llum bury the priest,
Yutherin' hoo, we'llum bury yeh too!"
-The Mad Ballad of Jack O'Shade
The shrieking of crows, the moaning of winds, the blood-haze of the setting sun... these are the signs of their coming. The clattering of wood, the rustling of sackcloth, pitiless cackles that echo in mortal minds are the heralds of their arrival. Fields underfoot rustle and heave with unnatural growth, spewing up vermin and hideous, rotting pumpkins with cruel, twisted faces that laugh and curse and fortell doom. As the fear of their intended victims smothers all hope and reason, the ramshackle hordes of the Harrowhaunt Fryghtmares begin their assault. For the time of the harvest has come.
The Harrowhaunt Fryghtmares are creatures born of magicks fueled by mortal fear. This dark sorcery permates every part of the Harrowhaunt's construct legions, animating scarecrow-creatures of wood and straw and tattered sackcloth, with black magic sparking from every nail and dripping from every stick-limb. While these animating magicks are woven by mortal spellcasters, the true source of this power is a malign and enigmatic force, a terrible intelligence that revels in the opportunity to inhabit the crude vessels of the Harrowhaunt and reap a harvest of terror and death.
The constructs of the Harrowhaunt take on all manner of fiendish shapes and designs. The Tatterwracks are so suffused with dark magic that they defy gravity, floating overhead and trailing their rags and ropes beneath them like dangling tendrils. Tatterwracks remain silent until they have drifted above some unsuspecting target, bursting into insane cackling laughter as they descended, their prey ensnared in their trailing ropes and ripe for the kill.
The repulsive Oogiemen are creatures formed in the image of a common childhood story monster, a haunter of dreams and stealer of children. The magic of the Harrowhaunt brings such nightmares to hideous life, animating the stitched-together sackcloth bodies of these lumpish horrors. Their bloated forms ripple and squirm as they lumber into combat, and if their sackcloth flesh is damaged they split open and disgorge huge swarming masses of cockroaches, spiders, and centipedes, all made monstrously large and hungry for the soft flesh of the living. If the foe is not drowned in this tide of swarming, biting vermin, they are cut apart for the hooked hands of the Oogiemen, or battered down by their swinging limbs.
The mortals whose spellcraft brings the fryghtmare constructs to life are known as the Hexcackle Coven. They often flit above in the dark night skies astride broomsticks during attacks by the Harrowhaunt, steering and guiding their constructs with their magic like dark puppeteers. 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.
Over time, some members of the Hexcackle Coven develop a fondness for a particular construct amongst their hordes of servants. Perhaps it has been lovingly crafted in form, and performed exceptionally well, reaping a heavy toll in terror and death. Such constructs over time absorb more and more dark power magic, until the power within them comes to life, causing the construct to develop its own twisted, independent personality. Though bound to serve the Harrowhaunt, and glad of it, these creations have minds of their own, with all manner of sadistic mannerisms and quirks. In time they become dark legends among the remote hamlets and townships that frequently suffer the attentions of the Harrowhaunt, characters to haunt the nightmares of mortals and fill their waking hours with dread.
One of these living constructs is known as Jack O'Shade, a clattering scarecrowish construct with a talent for wielding flintlock pistols in his many limbs and a propensity for bursting into song, his harsh voice ringing across the battlefield with barely comprehensible but undeniably ghoulish lyrics. His cruelty in battle knows no bounds, and with unerring aim he disables his prey from afar, leaving them alive but unable to defend themselves as the other Harrowhaunt constructs close in to torment the unlucky soul further. Only when the maximum amount of terror and suffering has been extracted will Jack fire one final bullet, before moving on to target some other hapless soul.
Occasionally, some determined effort will be made to root out the Harrowhaunt and their Hexcackle Coven mistresses, with great armies being raised and sent out into the dark countryside, razing and witch-hunting with ruthless determination. In such cases, the Coven call upon the dark source of their magical power, tapping into a primal darkness beyond the understanding of mortals. Such rituals will call forth the most pure expression of the Harrowhaunt's dark power, the terrifying Screecher.
Like some giant humanoid crow, the Screecher is a creature of magic and fear made flesh, projecting an aura of terror that will cause even the most stalwart soul to quiver like a frightened child. Even if the foe should stand their ground, the creature's physical strength is monumental, capable of ripping a man in two with a single swipe of its talons or breaking bones with a beat of its terrible wings. Worse still, the creature's flesh and blood is like darkness itself, healing almost instantly from the most grievous of wounds, regenerating and renewing itself as long as there is fear in the heart of its victims. When the cry of the Screecher sounds in the dead of night, all who hear it know that an avatar of fear walks the mortal world, and the sun will not rise until it has feasted on its fill of terror and death.
The magic of the Harrowhaunt, like all magic, is rooted in the power of the Vril, the secret fire that forms all things. But the dark nature of this particular magic flows from a realm beyond the mortal world of Jerra, where the fire of the Vril has yet to stabilize into more sane and solid forms, from a primal place less bound by the constraints of reality and reason, where dreams and nightmares can take on a life of their own. It is from this shadowy realm that the Coven draws their sorceries, and within this dark dimension, malign intelligences look upon the world of Jerra and plot terrible designs. The constructs of the Harrowhaunt are but a stepping stone for dark forces to manifest fully in the mortal plane.
Nightmares made real, the Harrowhaunt Fryghtmares are here! They are fear itself, and you should be very, very afraid indeed...
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Comments
Renfield286
I love the aesthetics of this army.
Battle Yak
Thanks, I think this is my best set yet. And I really like your unit idea! It's certainly possible to build them with the modular bits. They should all be compatible with the Harrowhaunt Fryghteners from the original release as well.
Stephan Schany
Happy Halloween! You have really outdone yourself! :D I especially love the Tatterwracks and Jack O' Shade. Between them, you have given me the idea - and kitbash parts! - for a third unit: Highway Haunters! Jack's head and guns, Tatterwrack torso, and the pumpkin patch and old fences as flight stands. They would hang lower than the Tatterwracks - lurking behind cover! Gotta find a musket for the two-handed pose. The Screecher and Oogiemen are great, too :)
