323: A Non-Binary Scarecrow

## Summary

A lone scarecrow on a pole appears in front of the inn, and a letter pinned to its chest is a bold attempt to intimidate "Ex-King Batthwack", signed by someone called Juliette Rusher who describes this land as their "future realm". The party have no time at all to digest the meaning of this because the building is suddenly beset by a shambling swarm of animated scarecrows. Everyone (including Sin) leaps into action and much straw is spilled, but the hordes of enemies just keep coming!

## Synopsis

Batthwack draws his sword and heads straight to the door. *"Who's here? Who's here?"* cries Sheemie and they all rush to the windows to try and discern anything at all out there in the howling storm. Mo spots the outline of a very tall, stationary figure about 20 feet from the front door. With uncharacteristic optimism, Will suggests they could be friendly. Rosco doubts that and casts *Mind Sliver*, but the spell fails because whatever this thing is, it doesn't seem to have a mind.

Will nonchalantly says that Batthwack should go out to talk to whatever-it-is, but Raphina takes the initiative and heads out, dexterously twisting her pigtail out of Will's grasp as he desperately tries to hold her back. Batthwack and Captain Clockface back Raphina up and head out into the driving rain while the others watch from the safety of the inn. Raphina addresses the figure jovially as they approach. Batthwack protectively moves up close behind her and Clockface draws the knife he carries in his hidden hip sheath.

Once they get close enough, it becomes apparent that this silent figure is actually a scarecrow mounted on a tall pole. Pinned to it's chest with a knife is a letter: *"To Ex-King Batthwack."* They grab it and Batthwack hacks down the pole, picking up the scarecrow and trudging back to the inn with it held over their heads like an umbrella. Back inside, Rosco goes through the scarecrow's pockets and is disappointed to find no loot at all.

While Raphina opens up the letter, Rosco peers out the window to see if whoever left it there is still hanging around outside. The note, written in a flourishing scrawl, seems to have survived the rain thanks to a specially coated envelope. Raphina reads it aloud to everyone:

> *"You dare enter my future realm, pretender king? Zantras has no use for you anymore, you weak would-be hero."*
>
>

The letter is signed *"Juliette Rusher."* There's an awkward silence; even Will is unsure what to say. Sin asks what this is all about and Will is just telling him to mind his own business when Rosco calls over frantically, *"We got company! We got company outside of the window! They're here!"* Multiple animated scarecrows are slowly coming into view out of the storm.

Sin runs upstairs to collect his bow (and arrows). Will glances towards the scarecrow they brought inside and without waiting to find out if it's going to come to life, immediately hurls it out the door. When he goes to close the door again though, suddenly a scarecrow is right in front of his face, tugging at the door from outside. At that moment, Sin bursts out of his room, sliding down the bannister as he nocks an arrow. He fires three shots at the scarecrow behind Will, hitting Will in the shoulder with one of them, and killing the scarecrow with another.

   Raphina shows Sin how it's done, effortlessly firing her light crossbow through the doorway and exploding two scarecrows with one shot. Mo runs straight out the door and kills another one, and Will irritatedly examines the arrow lodged in his shoulder while firing three *Eldritch Blasts* and killing three more scarecrows. He moves out the door one way and Rosco goes the other, buddy cop style, casting *Faerie Fire* and lighting up a group of enemies with lavender-coloured light. Batthwack swaps his longsword for the flail and runs outside, smashing one scarecrow and satisfyingly sending another spinning head over heels. The dragonborn smiles a terrifying smile; it seems he enjoyed that.

Sheemie sensibly jumps behind the bar as a swarm of scarecrows shuffle out of the gloom and attack, swiping and slashing with serrated claws on the ends of their arms. Batthwack's *Aura of Courage* calms Mo and Rosco's nerves and Will isn't frightened anyway; he's seen way worse than a few sacks of straw. Mo keeps stabbing away, Sin keeps firing arrows (unnecessarily close to Will it has to be said) while Raphina casts *Call Lightning*, setting some scarecrows ablaze when it strikes them. Will takes off using his *Boots of Flying* and shouts over to Batthwack to remind him to do the same. Now safely out of reach he confidently fires off twinned *Eldritch Blasts* zapping 6 more scarecrows on the periphery of the swarm. Rosco wields his *Shillelagh*d quarterstaff two-handed, bonking a scarecrow squarely on the head as Batthwack also takes off to join Will in the air. He swings the flail from height, destroying one scarecrow, but the second swing throws him off balance and he's brought down to the ground again with a thud.

A huge mass of scarecrows come into view from around the sides of the building. They pile onto Sin and Batthwack, clawing away savagely at the defenceless, prone dragonborn. Sin drops his bow and draws two scimitars, slicing away at the enemies, and Mo slips over in the mud. Raphina calls out to Batthwack and casts *Beacon of Hope*, looking around for anyone else who may need healing. Suddenly, a bright orange light and a gout of flame blazes up into the air from behind the inn, along with the sound of a scared, sickly whinny.

## Quotes

* Adam: *"I'm already establishing a canon where Rosco has heard tales of Slender Man, and really they're stories about Will."* Rosco: *"It's about a man in a suit who comes out of nowhere and makes people feel bad!"*
* Adam (in Rosco's voice, when selecting the colour of his *Faerie Fire* spell): *"Let's say... violet! Which is kind of like the lavender of colours."*
* Eric: *"You smack your quarterstaff into this thing's head. I picture him doing a top-down swing for some reason. I like Rosco doing that. Over his head, like he's splitting a thing of wood."* Adam: *"Bonk!"* Eric: *"Yeah. It crushes down in and the scarecrow collapses in front of you."* Rosco: *"Bonk is the lavender of sounds!"*

## Trivia

* The episode title is a quote from KT/Will. When a single scarecrow appears outside following the spooky "they're here" message on the dice, Sin wonders if they're about to get attacked. Will says (and perhaps he's trying to convince himself), *"Why do you think we're gonna get attacked? Just because there's a scarecrow outside?"* *"Well, where's the 'they'?"* says Sin. Will responds, *"I don't know. It's a non-binary scarecrow, okay? What's your problem dude?"*
* This week's episode description describes the Pork Fried Dice wiki as: dextrous.

## Recap Song

*Main article: The Music of Pork Fried Dice*
This episode featured KT doing a recap to the tune of *In The Air Tonight* by Phil Collins:

*[Chorus]*

A four-year-old says "They're coming" to the inn tonight

Rosco's burps cut through the room just like a paring knife, oh Lord

We can hear the churning stomach of our friend to night, we're floored, we're floored

*[Verse 1]*

Well, the DM hinted someone's coming

And we got a little tense

We looked out the windows, sure, my friend

But the storm outside was immense

So Fred Greenman and Raphina play Hide-and-Seek

With the sisters two

Things seem all right 'til Yarjerit spies

A message inside his stew

*[Chorus]*

Now we can read 'They're coming' in the stew tonight, how weird

Will says Batthwack's behind it, the soup message is totally engineered

Who is coming? Is there danger? This is just not right, I fear

Where do these messages come from? Who is making the words appear, appear?

*[Verse 2]*

Do you remember?

Remember Batthwack went outside?

How could we ever forget?

The storm was raging, he rolled a three, saw nothing and he got so wet

But Raphina has games on the mind again

And Rosco she tries to entice

You're not losing your mind, so now let's go find

Sin Chalmers and his *Liar's Dice*

*[Drum Solo]*

<Rhythmic dice throws!>

<Burp, burp>

"Ding, dang!"

"Billow!"

*[Chorus]*

Now it's no longer "coming," no, no, no, it's "they're here", oh dear

Maybe next time we should roll more than a three for Perception, that's clear

Raphina got hit by a child with a balled-up napkin, on the ear

Batthwack's so cool cuz he's just chilling with a beer, a beer

Rosco smiled when he came downstairs and Mo and Sin cheered, when they cheered

Where was Zol Berdia headed? Oh, back to Carnivar, I mean Carniv-eer

All this is nice but do you recall those really creepy words? "They're here," "they're here"

*[Outro]*

Adam: "Yeah I do, I got plenty of burps!"

## Gallery

*Main article: The Art of Pork Fried Dice*

## References

1. ↑ Rosco and Will try to have another game of *Podcast* at this point, a game in which the players add improvised dialogue to a conversation they can see, but not hear. Rosco previously played this with Batthwack in episode 300: Clearly Not, Based on This 2-Hour Conversation
2. ↑ Batthwack/Alex gets déjà vu looking at the scarecrow. The party briefly encountered inanimate scarecrows at the Abbey of Saint Markovia in Barovia (see episode 69: Hale and Stewish), but more notably, animated ones, while in Berez during the fight with Baba Lysaga. See episode 104: I'm Gonna S.O.S. Her Ass Outta Here.
3. ↑ On the subject of Rosco replacing his strength ability with his spell-casting ability when using his *Shillelagh*d quarterstaff, Adam refers to the fact that the ability in question has already been revealed. In a blink-and-miss-it moment back in episode 280: Intestines Gloobing Everywhere (which was spotted by PFD Discord user @steampunkoctopus), Adam specifically mentions using *Dexterity* instead of Strength after casting *Shillelagh*, thus revealing Rosco's spell-casting ability to be Dexterity. In a follow-up post on Discord, Adam confirmed that this was indeed correct. You can read it all here (in the #spoiler-zone). Several listeners conducted a very thorough investigation, during which Adam did divulge some more (though not all) of Rosco's secrets in the PFD Discord #spoiler-zone. You can read the whole thread here, if you don't want to wait for it to be revealed in the podcast!