Hags
Made with Hero Forge
(from 5th Edition Monster Manual - 2014 - [credits])
Hags represent all that is evil and cruel. Though they resemble withered crones, there is nothing mortal about these monstrous creatures, whose forms reflect only the wickedness in their hearts.
Faces of Evil. Ancient beings with origins in the Feywild, hags are cankers on the mortal world. Their withered faces are framed by long, frayed hair, horrid moles and warts dot their blotchy skin, and their long, skinny fingers are tipped by claws that can slice open flesh with a touch. Their simple clothes are always tattered and filthy.
All hags possess magical powers, and some have an affinity for spellcasting. They can alter their forms or curse their foes, and their arrogance inspires them to view their magic as a challenge to the magic of the gods, whom they blaspheme at every opportunity.
Hags name themselves in darkly whimsical ways, claiming monikers such as Black Morwen, Peggy Pigknuckle, Grandmother Titchwillow, Nanna Shug, Rotten Ethel, or Auntie Wormtooth.
Monstrous Motherhood. Hags propagate by snatching and devouring human infants. After stealing a baby from its cradle or its mother's womb, the hag consumes the poor child. A week later, the hag gives birth to a daughter who looks human until her thirteenth birthday, whereupon the child transforms into the spitting image of her hag mother.
Hags sometimes raise the daughters they spawn, creating covens. A hag might also return the child to its grieving parents, only to watch from the shadows as the child grows up to become a horror.
Dark Bargains. Arrogant to a fault, hags believe themselves to be the most cunning of creatures, and they treat all others as inferior. Even so, a hag is open to dealing with mortals as long as those mortals show the proper respect and deference. Over their long lives, hags accumulate much knowledge of local lore, dark creatures, and magic, which they are pleased to sell.
Hags enjoy watching mortals bring about their own downfa ll, and a bargain with a hag is always dangerous. The terms of such bargains typically involve demands to compromise principles or give up something dearespecially if the thing lost diminishes or negates the knowledge gained through the bargain.
A Foul Nature. Hags love the macabre and festoon their garb with dead things and accentuate their appearance with bones, bits of flesh, and filth. They nurture blemishes and pick at wounds to produce weeping, s uppurating flesh. Attractive creatures evoke disgust in a hag, which might "help" such creatures by disfiguring or transforming them.
This embrace of the disturbing and unpleasant extends to all aspects of a hag's life. A hag might fly in .a magical giant's skull, landing it on a tree shaped to resemble an enormous headless body. Another might travel with a menagerie of monsters and slaves kept in cages, and disguised by illusions to lure unwary creatures close. Hags sharpen their teeth on millstones and spin cloth from the intestines of their victims, reacting with glee to the horror their actions invoke.
Dark Sorority. Hags maintain contact with each other and share knowledge. Through such contacts, it is likely that any given hag knows of every other hag in existence. Hags don't like each other, but they abide by an ageless code of conduct. Hags announce their presence before crossing into another hag's territory, bring gifts when entering another hag's dwelling, and break no oaths given to other hags- as long as the oath is n't given with the fingers crossed.
Some humanoids make the mistake of thinking that the hags' rules of conduct apply to all creatures. When confronted by such an individual, a hag might find it amusing to string the fool along for a while before teaching it a permanent lesson.
Dark Lairs. Hags dwell in dark and twisted woods, bleak moors, storm-lashed seacoasts, and gloomy swamps. In time, the landscape around a hag's lair reflects the creature's noxiousness, such that the land itself can attack and kill trespassers. Trees twisted by darkness attack passersby, while vines snake through the undergrowth to snare and drag off creatures one at a time. Foul stinking fogs turn the air to poison, and conceal pools of quicksand and sinkholes that consume unwary wanderers.
HAG COVENS:
When hags must work together, they form covens, in spite of their selfish natures. A coven is made up of hags of any type, all of whom are equals within the group. However, each of the hags continues to desire more personal power.
A coven consists of three hags so that any arguments between two hags can be settled by the third. If more than three hags ever come together, as might happen if two covens come into conflict, the result is usually chaos.
Shared Spellcasting. While all three members of a hag coven are within 30 feet of one another, they can each cast the following spells from the wizard's spell list but must share the spell slots among themselves:
1st level (4 slots): identify, ray of sickness
2nd level (3 slots): hold person, locate object
3rd level (3 slots): bestow curse, counterspell, lightning bolt
4th level (3 slots): phantasmal killer, polymorph
5th level (2 slots): contact other plane, scrying
6th level (1 slot): eye bite
Hag Eye. A hag coven can craft a magic item called a hag eye, which is made from a real eye coated in varnish and often fitted to a pendant or other wearable item. The hag eye is usually entrusted to a minion for safekeeping and transport. A hag in the coven can take an action to see what the hag eye sees if the hag eye is on the same plane of existence. A hag eye has AC 10, 1 hit point, and darkvision with a radius of 60 feet. If it is destroyed, each coven member takes 3d10 psychic damage and is blinded for 24 hours.
A hag coven can have only one hag eye at a time, and creating a new one requires all three members of the coven to perform a ritual. The ritual takes 1 hour, and the hags can't perform it while blinded. During the ritual, if the hags take any action other than performing the ritual, they must start over.
(from Volo's Guide to Monsters - 2016 - [credits])
Hags are crones who represent corruption of ideals and goals, and they delight in seeing the innocent and good brought low. They are inhuman monsters, their forms twisted by evil. Shapechangers and blasphemers, they ally with other hags to form magical covens with extra powers. They collect and remember secret knowledge that is better lost and forgotten. Desperate mortals come to them looking for advice, only to have their requests fulfilled in ways that bring great suffering to themselves and their loved ones.
Ugly, Unpredictable, and Old:
Hags are mysterious, unfathomable, and dangerous, especially from the viewpoint of mortals. One day a hag might be stealing and eating children that wander into the woods, on another day she might be making lewd jokes to adventurers asking her for advice, and the next she might be uprooting saplings to make a fence around her home for impaling intruders. It is nearly impossible to predict how a hag will act from day to day, sometimes moment to moment, which is why folk with any wisdom at all give hags a wide berth.
Hags perceive ugliness as beauty, and vice versa. They revel in having a hideous appearance and sometimes go out of their way "improve" upon it by picking at sores, wearing skins and bones as decoration, and rubbing refuse and dirt into their hair and clothing.
Because both the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court appreciate and revere true beauty among the fey, hags are almost never found in either place. The Summer Queen and the Queen of Air and Darkness recognize that hags have valuable knowledge and impressive magic, but they can't abide the stain on the beauty of their surroundings, so most hags are excluded from both courts. The rare few accepted as courtiers are either so influential that their entry can't be refused, or young and humble enough to be willing to use magic to put on a prettier appearance. Other hags aren't upset by their exclusion; they like to be left alone to their own schemes, not constrained by a fey queen's whims, and to be able to talk out of both sides of their mouths.
Hags are virtually immortal, with a life span greater than that of even dragons and elves. The oldest, wisest, and most powerful hags are called "grandmothers" by other hags. Some grandmothers are nearly as powerful as some of the archfey.
Hags of lower but still respectable status are called "aunties." An auntie gains her status from being very old, a member of a powerful coven, directly serving a grandmother, or having many offspring (whether adopted or birthed).
Master Manipulators. Hags delight in corrupting others. They do so not by imposing their will or being outwardly violent, but by making sinister bargains with those who seek their aid. This desire to orchestrate the downfall of others is why so many hags make their homes near humanoid settlements, which gives them a ready supply of creatures to tantalize and torment.
Folk with nowhere else to turn are some of a hag's best customers. A farmer with a philandering spouse might seek out the local hag for a potion to make the spouse faithful again. The mayor with a demented father might ask the hag for something that makes him lucid again. A merchant whose child is deathly ill might go to the hag for a cure. The common element in these situations is that the mortals approach the hag for help; despite knowing that she is evil and dangerous, they are desperate enough to risk making a bargain with her, or foolish enough to think they can persuade her to be helpful without getting something in return.
Hags make bargains differently from how devils operate. A devil might approach a mortal to make a deal because it wants the individual to become tainted with evil, so that when the victim dies its soul goes to the Nine Hells. Hags are usually content to wait and conduct their own business, allowing mortals to come to them when the perceived need is great enough. Instead of being interested in a mortal's soul, a hag wants to bring the mortal low during its life as compensation for fulfilling her end of the bargain. Devils barter with the soul as the commodity; hags barter because they enjoy making people miserable. Night hags, as fey turned fiends, use aspects of both methods-corrupting a mortal' s dreams until the creature commits enough evil acts that she can claim its soul.
As much as she enjoys offering and enforcing her bargains, a hag rarely goes out looking for people to make deals with because she knows that someone coming to her puts her in a position of power. The visitor likely had to approach the hag in secret for fear of causing an uproar in town, and is probably eager to return home before being missed, which adds time pressure to the process and tips the balance more in the hag's favor. All these factors contribute to the hag's being able to set her terms for the bargain, presenting an offer that appears reasonable, and perhaps seems to have a tempting loophole or two that the mortal could exploit.
Hags understand mortal desires and vices, and know how to manipulate people by preying on those qualities. A hag's bargain might bring success and prosperity for a time, but eventually have a drawback or side effect that makes the mortal resent the agreement and seek to get out of it. The philandering spouse now happy to stay home might grow slothful, the mayor's father might turn violent after regaining his senses, and the merchant's child might relapse if not treated again every few months. Even when a bargain turns sour for a mortal and other people in town hear about or see the person's misfortune, the hag will eventually attract new customers. Other people will come to believe that they can outsmart the hag, or that their need is simple and can't be perverted, or that the earlier victims got too greedy when they were proposing a deal. Even if only one or two people make deals with a hag every year, over time many unfortunates can come under her sway-and she remembers the exact terms of every one of those bargains.
Making a Deal out of Desire. Although it could be argued that there's no good time to make a bargain with a hag, mortals are more likely to get away in good shape if they offer up something a hag needs or wants. In such a case, the hag might even start the bidding. A hag that faces a serious threat from enemies will not hesitate to use promises or bribes to defuse the situation. For instance, most treasures in a hag's lair are useless without her knowledge of how to identify and handle them, so she might offer to provide such information in return for her life. If an item later backfires on the one who uses it, or turns out to be cursed in some way, that's just another lesson in why never to never threaten or trust a hag.
Hags are curious about other creatures of power. They enjoy receiving news and gossip about other hags and influential creatures such as dragons, demons, genies, and certain mortals. Offering a hag accurate information of this sort as part of a bargain earns a small measure of her respect, and might make her more receptive to the idea of a "fair" deal.
When a hag bargains with other creatures of the Feywild, rather than mortals, she approaches the situation with a more respectful attitude. She realizes that the creatures of her native realm are more powerful than common humanoids and therefore more dangerous when disappointed or angered by a deal gone bad. Fey are also long-lived and thus have more time to retaliate against the hag, whereas most humanoids die within a few short decades. These considerations don't mean that hags are automatically pleasant in dealings with other fey, just that they aren't as blatant or demanding in the bargains they offer; hags know exactly how much they can get away with, and they like pushing the limits of what others will tolerate.
Bargainer Beware. When a hag is generous with her help or requires only a simple task as payment, that's no guarantee that the deal will turn out as expected for both parties. By offering a proposal that seems, or actually is, fair, chances are that the hag is pursuing a hidden agenda. She still wants to set events into motion that benefit her or bring about the downfall of another, but she does so in an indirect way that has no obvious connection to her. A bargain as simple as a villager agreeing to deliver a mysterious letter at a crossroads at noon on a certain day could be the key to ruining the mortal's life. The hag's reasons might not become apparent for years or even decades, or won't be meaningful except under specific circumstances, such as an auspicious birth or a climactic encounter with a dangerous villain. Even when she's offering a deal that seems to have no downside, a hag is always secretive about her motivations, the reasons for the payments she requires, or how these things benefit her.
A hag that spends a long time in close proximity to a human settlement often depletes the community of good-hearted folk as they succumb to her evil and selfish plans. The mood of the town becomes unwelcoming, grim, moody, or outright hostile toward newcomers and travelers. Even after a hag has done her worst in such a place, she maintains leverage over her victims by holding out the prospect that someday she will undo the curses that she has lain on them. For that reason, the local leaders won't allow any outsiders to act against her (which includes sabotaging adventurers who might decide to confront her).
ROLEPLAYING A HAG:
Even when a hag acts indifferently or friendly toward adventurers, inside she is still a twisted fey creature, and she doesn't give two coppers about what anyone else thinks or wants. She might casually comment about how easily a visitor would fit in her cauldron or make a blunt sexual comment about a guest. When a mortal visits a hag, the experience should be nerve-wracking, uncomfortable, and risky; at any point the hag might lose her temper and decide to pull out someone's fingernails with her iron teeth.
Hags look upon younger creatures from the perspective of a cantankerous grandparent who no longer cares what anyone thinks-set in her ways, free to speak her mind, and not afraid to bring down punishment if pushed too far. Hags enjoy meddling with other people's lives, like busybodies with cruel intentions. Any time a hag agrees to help someone, the bargain includes a price to be paid, plus a hidden plan by which she sets the mortal up to fail, or a way that she gains leverage (whether over the deal-maker or someone else).
When a hag is presented with an unusual spell, a rare magic item, or a person who has a strange magical gift, she will sniff it, shake it, listen to it, taste it, murmur odd statements to herself, and mentally place a value on the merchandise. Hags aren't subtle about showing their intent at such times, and one might snatch away the offering so she can examine it more closely, even if this makes it obvious she is interested. If she doesn't have anything dse like it, or can think of a use for it, or if having it means a rival can't get her hands on it, she'll value the offering highly. A visitor who offers a desirable item as a bribe or a gift is more likely to get a fair deal from the hag, or at least likely to suffer less when the true price of the deal is revealed.
If a hag's life is threatened, she will pretend to be weak and helpless if she thinks it will spare her life or buy her time to retaliate or escape. She'll use dangerous treasures as bribes, not telling about their curses or side effects. She will lie and deceive and try to turn her enemies against each other, playing up their guilt and fear and jealousy to tear them apart from the inside. She is older, smarter, and more shrewd than any mortal who dares to threaten her.
Hags prefer to cajole and bargain rather than confront someone with actual violence; they reserve their aggressive outbursts for situations where they are overwhelmingly more powerful than their opponents (such as when attacking children) or have an unfair advantage (such as when their enemy is asleep). Although a hag can always resort to attacking with her claws, if it comes to that then something has gone very wrong with her plans.
HAG NAMES:
Hags have whimsical names, often with a dark twist. A hag gives her newborn daughter a name that the girl keeps during her childhood, but upon gaining her full hag powers the daughter chooses her own name, which might or might not relate to her birth name. Some hags use different names in different guises, but still prefer their original name as their favorite. Hags always have a title followed by a first name, or a first name followed by a last name.
WEIRD MAGIC:
Over the course of a seemingly endless lifetime, a hag typically discovers or creates several unusual ways to use magic. The weird magic that hags can call upon comes in a number of forms and with various means of activation. Even those who have read scholarly books about hag lore can't predict what a particular hag might have up her sleeve.
A grandmother or some other hag of great age and renown might know unique rituals that can temporarily or permanently alter or transform a creature, bring back the dead for a limited time, rewrite memories, or siphon emotions. At the other end of the spectrum, even a hag without lofty status is likely to have strange, single-use items that don't emulate common spells or even follow the normal rules of magic. For inspiration in devising the effects of such weird items, see "Charms" in chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master's Guide.
If you want a hag to use a weird object of this sort in a combat situation, provide her with an item that produces a CR-appropriate spell effect when the hag manipulates or activates it. The effect might be a benefit to herself or an attack against her enemies. For example, a green hag (CR 3) might smash an ornate hand mirror, producing a cloud of glass shards that damages creatures like cloud of daggers (a 2nd-level spell). She might instead uncork a bottle of wasps that surround her and stitch up her wounds with their stingers, healing her as cure wounds (cast as a 2nd-level spell). Or she could take a mummified toad from her pocket and throw it into her cauldron, which immediately spews out inky blackness equivalent to darkness (a 2nd-level spell).
A hag carefully shepherds her use of weird magic because the items in her repertoire are often impossible to duplicate or replace. To reflect this fact, a hag should be able to use weird magic only once or twice per encounter in her lair, or only once per encounter if she is elsewhere. A ha,g who is expecting a fight might be better prepared and able (or willing) to use weird magic one additional time per encounter.
If a hag is faced with mortal peril, all thoughts of conserving her resources vanish-she will use any weird magic at her disposal if it helps her stay alive. After all, a hag that's not dead has a virtually limitless lifetime to replace what was spent. No matter how hard it was to acquire that jar of death slugs, or that book on how to invoke the razor wind, or the runestone containing the three syllables for crystallizing blood, it is better to use such things than to risk death by not doing so.
MOUNTS AND VEHICLES:
Many stories tell of hags using strange, enchanted creatures and objects for travel, and most of those stories are accurate.
Instead of the usual horse or pony, a hag might ride astride a giant pig, a goat, or a cow. It's not unknown for a hag to use a sentient creature as a mount, perhaps as the result of a bargain that creature struck with her. A hag that wants to humiliate a mortal hero might require that hero to serve as her mount for a year as part of fulfilling her bargain. The giant raven that carries a hag aloft could be in actuality one of the hag's victims transformed because that individual tried to go back on its deal with her.
Some hags prefer nonliving conveyances from time to time, and their imagination in this regard knows no bounds. A hag might happily animate and "spruce up" any sort of object she can tailor for the purpose, such as a clay statue, a huge woven basket, a cauldron, a butter churn, a giant bird's nest, a mortar and pestle, or a tombstone.
Usually only the hag that obtained or created them can use her mounts and vehicles. They obey only her commands, and their magic responds only to her will. If a hag allows any other creature to use one of them as part of a bargain, she must be expecting an immense return on her investment.
TYPES OF HAGS:
Each of the five common types of hags prefers a particular environment. It is possible to find a hag in unusual terrain, perhaps if she is traveling or is part of a coven along with two local hags. Grandmothers and aunties are more likely than other hags to take up permanent residence in unfriendly terrain, since their long-range plans sometimes require spending decades or years in a certain area before returning home.
Annis hags live in mountains or hills. The terrain is easy for them to navigate because they are the most physically capable hags. Even with her hunched posture, an annis hag is as tall as an ogre. Her skin is bruise-blue or black and her claws are like rusty blades. Annis hags love tormenting the weak and fearful, and seeing others feel fear.
Bheur hags live in wintry lands, favoring snow-covered mountain peaks. They are gaunt, have blue-white skin, white hair, and are known for their gray wooden staffs that give them access to extraordinary ice magic. Bheur hags love seeing mortals freeze to death and have little if any room in their hearts for kin and community.
Green hags inhabit dismal forests, swamps, and moors. A green hag's body, whether broad, narrow, fat, or thin, is topped with a tangled mane of hair. A green hag thrives on creating despair and tragedy in the lives of her victims, using her skill with illusion magic to help in this goal. Destroying the hopes of others brings her unbridled joy.
Night hags have left behind the world of the fey to roam the Lower Planes. They have dark blue or purple-black skin with white or light-colored eyes and thin, curving horns. A night hag is as least as tall as a human, and most are stout or have a medium build rather than being thin or emaciated. Night hags enjoy corrupting the dreams of good people, compromising the ideals of their victims to get them to eventually perform evil acts. Then, when a victim dies, the hag can harvest its soul and bring it to Hades.
Sea hags live underwater or on the shore, favoring bleak and despoiled places. They have pale skin like that of a fish, covered in scales, with glassy dead eyes and hair like lank seaweed. Sea hags are emaciated, but one might be tall or short, frail or large-boned. A sea hag hates beauty in any form and seeks to attack, deface, or corrupt it so it has the opposite effect on its viewers. One is more likely to defile the inspiring statue in a town square, making it into a symbol of fear and sorrow, than to destroy it outright.
Solitary but Social.
Hags are selfish by nature, and each one cherishes her independence from the rest of the world as well as from other hags. At the same time, every hag recognizes that she and her sisters are kindred souls, like the members of a dark sorority or sisterhood.
Even though hags don't like each other, they share knowledge and trade secrets, helping them to keep abreast of worldly events and possible dangers. Even a hag living in a remote, isolated location is aware of goings-on that involve her neighboring hags, whether through magical communication, personal visits, or mundane messengers such as birds. In most cases, these relationships with her sisters, though devoid of emotion, are the closest a hag comes to having friends.
When a hag is attacked or killed, other hags are likely to hear about it. If the victim was friendly with other hags, those responsible for her death might find themselves the target of retaliation. If the victim died while owing favors to another hag, that hag sees her killers as now responsible for the dead hag's debts. If the victim was unpopular or if other hags were indebted to her (and thus are happy to see her go), her killers might receive relatively cordial treatment from those other hags instead.
Every hag has a particular status relative to others of her kind and to hags of all sorts, based on age, abilities, influence, alliances, and experience, and is aware of her place (though not necessarily satisfied with it). The few grandmothers sit at the top of the hierarchy, a larger number of aunties are beneath that, and all other hags vie for prominence in a chaotic pecking order that no mortal can truly figure out. A hag that is known to associate with an auntie has a higher status than a similarly powerful hag without such a connection, and a young hag born of a grandmother begins her existence already benefiting from a greater measure of respect and status.
HAG METAMORPHOSIS:
Ifs commonly believed that five kinds of hags exist in the world (and beyond it). What's not so widely known is that some hags can change from one kind to another during their lives.
A hag that lives long enough or has the necessary re· sources can alter her basic nature, leaving behind her old physiology and adopting that of a hag appropriate to the environment of her current home. She might accomplish this transformation through force of will over Hme, or faster with the help of a ritual or assistance from her coven. The reasons for making such a change are as varied as the personalities and goals of hags.
HAG COVENS:
To a hag, the thought of sharing her home with other creatures-even other hags-is disgusting. She has nothing but dislike or disdain for anyone other than herself, and she loves being alone (except for the company of minions and other creatures under her sway). That's the ordinary state of affairs. But when a group of hags have a common goal or they seek greater power to combat a formidable threat, they suppress their basic nature and come together to do their work. The result is a coven.
Being part of a coven gives each individual hag more magic and spellcasting ability, and to her these benefits offset the inconvenience and bickering that goes with living and working with other hags. If a member of a coven is killed and the surviving members intend to keep the group from dissolving, they immediately attempt to recruit a replacement. This process involves each prospective member committing cruel acts with the aim of impressing the remaining coven members. Adventurers who slay only one member of a coven might deal a blow to it in the short term, but later on the surrounding region is wracked with plaguest curses, and other disasters as the applicants attempt to outdo one another.
An unusually gifted mortal sorcerer, warlock, or wizard of a deeply evil nature might be invited to join a coven or allowed to compete for a vacancy. This arrangement is potentially a dangerous proposition for the mortal, but a pair of hags might agree to it if their needs are served. For instance, a human member of a coven makes an ideal spy and infiltrator in and around a humanoid settlement.
Welcome to the Family. Hags make more hags by snatching and devouring human infants, birthing daughters who turn into hags on entering the thirteenth year of their lives. Fortunately for humanity and the rest of the world, such an occurrence is rare.
Rarer still, but not unheard of, is for a hag to repeat this process twice or more in short succession, giving her multiple offspring of about the same age. She might do this to form a coven with two of her daughters, or to create a coven made up entirely of her offspring. Some hags cite ancient lore that suggests that if a hag consumes twins or triplets, her offspring might have additional, unusual abilities; similarly, devouring the seventh-born child of a seventh-born is said to be a way to pass on rare magic to the hag's daughter.
THE RULE OF THREE:
They say that things come in threes. Good things. Bad things. Strange things. Hags and purveyors of witchcraft embrace the Rule of Three, as it is called: a coven has three members, they believe that good or evil magic returns upon its source threefold, and the casting of many spells requires the same words chanted three times. Long ago, planar travelers came to recognize that many of the realms and layers of the multiverse are configured in multiples of three. It is possible that plane-traveling hags learned of this planar-based superstition and adapted it to their own uses, although some among the oldest hags claim to have invented the concept or at least named it.
ALTERNATIVE COVEN SPELLS:
Some covens gather for a specific purpose, such as to defeat a champion of good, to serve as oracles for the delivery of baleful prophecies, or to corrupt a pristine wilderness. In such a case, because the coven strives to bend its magic to a more directed purpose, the members have different spells available for use with their Shared Spellcasting trait, usually focusing on a theme related to that purpose. Three examples of themed hag coven spell lists are given below.
Death. For a coven whose members are obsessed with death and the ability to manipulate it, an appropriate spell list would be: 1st level (4 slots): false life, inflict wounds
2nd level (3 slots): gentle repose, ray of enfeeblement
3rd level (3 slots): animate dead, revivify, speak with dead
4th level (3 slots): blight, death ward
5th level (2 slots): contagion, raise dead
6th level (l slot): circle of death
Nature. Hags might seek to exert control over their environment and the creatures in it by mastering the following group of spells:
1st level (4 slots): entangle, speak with animals
2nd level (3 slots): flaming sphere, moonbeam, spike growth
3rd level (3 slots): call lightning, plant growth
4th level (3 slots): dominate beast, grasping vine
5th level (2 slots): insect plague, tree stride
6th level (1 slot): wall of thorns
Prophecy. The power to affect the future or perceive things out of the norm could make these spells attractive to a coven:
1st level (4 slots): bane, bless
2nd level (3 slots): augury, detect thoughts
3rd level (3 slots): clairvoyance, dispel magic, nondetection
4th level (3 slots): arcane eye, locate creature
5th level (2 slots): geas, legend lore
6th level (1 slot): true seeing
HAG LAIRS:
No matter what form it takes, a hag's home is a manifestation of her basic nature. It is ugly, eerie, or unnerving in some way, often incorporating some aspect of decay, such as a dead tree, a ruined tower, or a menacing cave entrance that resembles a skull.
Whether naturally or by manufactured means, the lair is well defended from intrusion. It might be reachable only by a steep mountain path, or it might be surrounded by a fence the hag builds out of posts capped with magically warded skulls. Often, a lair reflects the outlook of its primary inhabitant- a murderous hag's home might be crafted to look like a coffin or a mausoleum, and that of a gluttonous one might look like a tavern or a gingerbread house. Because such places are convenient for them, sea hags often establish their lairs inside the hulls of wrecked or abandoned ships.
Best of Both Worlds. Many hags settle in places where the barriers between the mortal world and the Feywild are thin, making it easy for them to interact and bargain with creatures of both realms. Other popular choices are a place where the ambient energy augments certain kinds of magic, a site related to death such as a burial ground, and within a ring of fallen standing stones that still resonate with ancient power. In order to facilitate bargaining with mortals, the home must be near enough to a populated area that it attracts occasional visitors, but not so close that a community would see the hag's presence as a threat and try to def eat her or drive her off.
Treasure, Treasure Everywhere. A hag's home is cluttered with mundane items, caged creatures, oddities, objects that hint of a magical purpose, preserved specimens, scraps of lore, and curiosities that have a supernatural origin but aren't inherently magical.
Exit Strategy. A hag always has an escape plan, in case ambitious do-gooders try to turn her home into her final resting place. If she is outmatched, or wants to vacate her lair quickly for some other reason, she uses a mix of her innate spellcasting, rare magic, guile, and the assistance of minions to get away. Most hags have three plans prepared: one for general threats and two others for specific likely scenarios, such as "They've set the house on fire" or "A necromancer with undead are attacking."
If a hag is forced to resort to such measures, she immediately begins to plot her retaliation against those that caused her to flee. Like a vampire or a demon, a hag has a long life over which to exact her vengeance, and no dish of revenge is sweeter than one served cold and to the next three generations of her enemy's family.
HAG LAIR ACTIONS:
If a hag is a grandmother, she gains a set of lair actions appropriate to her nature, knowledge; and history. A coven that includes a grandmother can use her lair actions as well, but the grandmother's will prevails-if one of the coven attempts this sort of action and the grandmother disapproves, nothing happens. A powerful auntie (or her coven) might also have access to lair actions like these, but only at certain times of the year or when the influence of the Feywild is strong. The following lair actions are options for grandmothers and powerful aunties. Grandmothers usually have three to five lair actions, aunties usually only one (if they have any at all). Unless otherwise noted, any lair action that requires a creature to make a saving throw uses the save DC of the hag's most powerful ability.
Lair Actions. On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the hag can take a lair action to cause one of the following effects, but can't use the same effect two rounds in a row:
• Until initiative count 20 on the next round, the hag can pass through solid walls, doors, ceilings, and floors as if the surfaces weren't there.
• The hag targets any number of doors and windows that she can see, causing each one to either open or close as she wishes. Closed doors can be magically locked (requiring a successful DC 20 Strength check to force open) until she chooses to make them unlocked, or until she uses this lair action again to open them.
REGIONAL EFFECTS:
The region within 1 mile of a grandmother hag's lair is warped by the creature's fell magic, which creates one or more of the following effects:
• Birds, rodents, snakes, spiders, or toads (or some other creatures appropriate to the hag) are found in great profusion.
• Beasts that have an Intelligence score of 2 or lower are charmed by the hag and directed to be aggressive toward intruders in the area.
• Strange carved figurines, twig fetishes, or rag dolls magically appear in trees.
MINIONS AND PETS:
Although they are solitary by nature, hags sometimes feel the need for companionship. Usually one scratches this itch by acquiring servants she can insult and slap around as she wishes. Such a creature might be charmed into compliance, or under a spell that stops its heart if it disobeys, or too afraid of nonmagical punishment for failure to do what she says. Most hags have some kind of slave or minion creature living with or near them as a defense against attackers, even if it's just a common animal.
Hags particularly delight in using mortals bound to their service as minions. A paladin might have no qualms about putting a hag coven to the sword, but her conviction falters if she must first fight through a crowd of innocent farmers that the hag has compelled to defend her. Ordinary folk are also useful as minions because they can serve the hag as her eyes and ears in a nearby settlement, either operating secretly or actively trying to persuade other townsfolk to pay her a visit.
The weird magic at a hag's disposal means that she might have almost any type of creature helping or serving her-fey, giant, undead, and so on. Even a creature much more powerful than she might be under her command, working off the debt of a bargain for itself or someone else. Favors beget favors, and under duress a hag might speak a magic word to call upon a blood debt from a dragon, a noble, or another hag, making her able to wield magical, political, or physical power in a way she can't do by herself.
Like the land near a hag's lair, over time her minions are altered by her presence, becoming twisted versions of their former selves (in a dark fey sort of way), but still recognizable as what they once were. She might alter them with magic, making them tireless, resistant to fire, able to transform into a flock of crows, or able to teleport through shadows-whatever the hag thinks best defends or serves her.
Random Hag Minions:
To determine the minions and helpers in a hag's retinue, roll once on the following tables or choose from the possibilities.
The Servants table includes faithful, trusted helpers that a hag uses to protect herself and her home. These creatures are either naturally wicked or warped by the hag to better serve her. In either case, a hag is confident that her servants will obey her orders without question.
The Brutes table gives examples of the muscle a hag might employ, mercenaries that serve the hag only so long as it benefits them. These creatures run errands and take care of roughing up enemies or patrolling areas that the hag considers beneath her personal attention. Hags prefer to employ clever, cruel creatures rather than dumb oafs.
SERVANTS:
d8 Servant(s):
1 = 1d4 flameskulls 2 ld2 flesh golems
3 = 1d2 helmed horrors
4 = 1 rug of smothering
5 = ld6 scarecrows
6 = 2d4 shadow mastiffs
7 = 2d4 swarms of insects or swarms of rats
8 = 1d6 yeth hounds
BRUTES:
d12 Servant(s):
1 = 2d6 + 2 bugbears
2 = 1d6 + 2 doppelgangers
3 = ld6+ 2 ettercaps
4 = 2d6 + 2 gargoyles
5 = 2d4 + 2 jackalweres
6 = 2d6 + 4 kenku
7 = 2d6 + 2 meenlocks
8 = 1d4 oni
9 = 2d6 + 2 quicklings
10 = 2d4 + 2 redcaps
11 = 1d6 + 4 wererats
12 = ld4 + 2 werewolves
TREASURE:
Much of a hag's treasure is strewn among all the clutter in her lair, making it difficult for intruders to quickly identify all the items that have use or value. But the hag knows what, and where, everything is.
Every hag is infallible when it comes to keeping track of her treasures and other possessions. Her organization and labeling, if such a system exists, is designed to foil thieves and serve as a final, vexing puzzle for anyone who tries to make use of an item without her consent.
A hag's treasure - like a gift from a fey being - should be doubted and even feared rather than simply being scooped up and carted away. Treasure-seekers are likely to fare better if they consider a hag's booty to be trapped, exercising caution rather than giving in to greed or curiosity. Manipulating a container or other item without knowing what's inside or what it does (or without knowing the proper password or technique) is likely to be very dangerous. At best, whatever was held in a container merely escapes or dissipates. At worst, just about anything can happen, none of it good.
One-of-a-Kind Objects. Above and beyond the items of obvious value a hag has accumulated, she also has a few bizarre and unique items in her collection. The Hag Objects table provides a way to quickly add such weird items to a hag's home.
Hag Objects (D10):
1 = The eye of a cleric, preserved in a liquid-filled jar. When an undead creature comes within 100 feet of the jar, the eye darts about as if it is looking around in a panic. It otherwise remains motionless.
2 = The leathery, preserved head of a dwarf. Anyone who holds its 5-foot-long beard can see through its eyes.
3 = A perfectly smooth, round stone the size of a human's fist. ~f placed on the ground, it roUs 20 feet per round toward the nearest source of fresh water.
4 = A sickly crow with clipped wings. The only sound it can make is to roar like a lion.
5 = A seemingly empty, sealed jar. If opened, the person standing closest to the jar suddenly recalls 1d6 happy memories from the life of a long dead elf lord.
6 = A seemingly mundane gold piece. Anyone who touches it gains the unshakable belief that this is the very first gold coin minted by humanity.
7 = A black bo~:·3 feet on each side. Anyo~e who opens it finds a set of three wooden, articulated figures that are modeled after three members of the adventuring party. If the figures are stood on the ground, they act out insulting parodies of their duplicates' recent actions.
8 = An oval-shaped disc made of an unknown metal. If it is tossed in the air, it flies in circles around the tosser for a minute, tiny lights winking on its surface, before settling to the ground nearby.
9 = A thick, dusty tome, every page filled with tiny, barely legible writing. Careful study of the book reveals it to be a written transcript of every conversation that took place over the course of a year, three years ago, in a nearby viliage.
10 = A small painting that depicts a placid field. Just after midnight each day, the painting changes to depict the following day's weather.
