Halloween Edition I
The Ryejack
Preussans mix Harvest and Hallows, the latter starting the last week of October. Trick-or-treating is celebrated in many of the cities and larger rural communities, the three days surrounding the weekend of that week.
While they do have the traditional commercial Halloweening spooks and decor, those who live in the more isolated rural communities will tell that this is the time of year ryejacks born in late spring begin to mature and warn against them.
Ryejacks are a type of spectral hound that pop up most notably around late autumn. Given that the main source of grain grown in Preussan lands is the hardy rye, it is obvious to see that the occasional patch of wild rye growing away from any main crop in the middle of the darkwood forests could be seen as strange, especially those with equally-hardy forest vines twining their way through them. While such phenomena can be shrugged off by modern day, stories of ryejacks have still persevered through the ages. They still say that when the wind blows around these patches, you can hear a cackling bark.
According to myth, the ryejack lives in these odd little patches of wild rye, partially reclaimed by the forests they root in. Pups are born of the earth and stone, hiding in the thick stalks of their birthplace unless disturbed. They are not much for malicious harm at this age, more or less tricksters that pop up on intruders and laugh. Which does not sound entirely frightening until one considers these pups have no head. Tall and wispy, colored a putrid green-brown, they are a sight to behold. Even if they are more or less about rustling the rye and laughing at people at this age.
Any attempts to remove the animals from their home and replant them anywhere result in more gruesome tricks, heads of their kidnappers removed while the pup rematerializes back in their home patch. After doing so, they hide for a time before starting up their old tricks again.
Adult ryejacks are much more malevolent instead of playfully so. They have a head … sort of. A ghastly thing still detached of the body, they are made of twined rye stalks with blazing white eyes and remain on the ground. The bodies are taller and more filled out, standing about as high as an average man’s chest, though still with an elegant wisp and a darker coloration of green and brown. While intruders are distracted by the massive body, the head sharks through the rye patch before grabbing ankles and dragging off the hapless victims to be brained and devoured.
Those lucky enough to get away are chased, as the body is no longer tied to its patch. The only two ways to get away from a ryejack are to spray saltwater from your mouth at it, at which it will recoil and run back, or get over a body of moving water, as ryejacks cannot cross such things as streams, creeks, and rivers.
There are ways farmers use to prevent ryejacks rooting near their crops, in order to keep them from hiding in the middle of fields; although they don’t expand to foreign rye, stumbling on one can be bad. The most common means to prevent rooting is having a priest come out to sprinkle saltwater on a field. Due to their aversion to salt, ryejacks will keep away.