#155 The Scarecrow's Pyramid

Age: 40 years

Hidden or Lost?: No

History: Rising up out of the locust-eaten fields of razor straw that once belonged to nearby Kobol Farms is the ominous necrolith known as the Scarecrow’s Pyramid. Made up from stacked bales of insect-infested razor straw and a scaffolding of rotting animal bones, the terrible, unnatural barrow is the result of dark magic and fell happenstance.

When famed archaeologist Jenny Cobal fled the family farm to follow her dreams she left behind her brother Bill and a host of resentments. Bill devoted his life to caring for their ailing parents, and when they passed, he spent his days and nights tending to their small farm. Feeling guilty and hoping to reestablish a connection with her brother, Jenny sent him a peace offering. A simple (yet strangely hypnotic) stone ziggurat that she had discovered deep within an ancient tomb on the other side of the world. Unmoved by the ancient trinket, Bill lobbed it into the fields where the surprisingly fragile artifact shattered to pieces.

With the breaking of the artifact the skies became heavy and gray and a flood of field mice and other small creatures fled the tall razor grass fields. The ziggurat had been the prison of the tyrant warlock Sek’Keth, and when it shattered his soul was released. The evil spirit rushed to inhabit the nearest body finding only a rickety old scarecrow. Furious at the misfortune of his agrarian rebirth, Sek’Keth was nonetheless determined to rebuild his terrible empire. He summoned waves of beetles, centipedes, and other vermin of the dark, bidding them create an army of new scarecrow creatures in his image. Sek’Keth and his thralls were bound to the Cobal fields, and there they built the massive straw pyramid as a seat of power for the undead scarecrow pharaoh.

Within the pyramid’s walls Sek’Keth works to break his bond to the land, but can do nothing without all the shards of the philactory. Luckily Bill had recovered some of the shards of Sek’Keth’s prison and hid them in an effort to contain the awful warlock’s power, and conceal his shame at unleashing the evil tyrant.

Sek’Keth regularly tries to contact his fellow brother and sister gods, launching plots to send his insect swarms and scarecrow minions on destructive rampages. However most smart folks simply avoid the pyramid altogether. Some day someone braver than bitter Bill Cobal may even try to finally destroy it.