Sea Hag

(from 5th Edition Monster Manual - 2014):

Sea hags live in dismal and polluted underwater lairs, surrounded by merrow and other aquatic monsters.

Beauty drives a sea hag to fits of anger. When confronted with something beautiful, the hag might simply attack it or deface it. If something beautiful gives hope, a sea hag wants it to cause despair. If it inspires courage, the sea hag wants it to cause fear.

Ugly Inside and Out. Sea hags are by far the ugliest of all hags, with slimy scales covering their pallid skin. A sea hag’s hair resembles seaweed and covers her emaciated body, and her glassy eyes seem as lifeless as a doll’s. Although a sea hag can hide her true form under a veil of illusion, the hag is cursed to forever appear ugly. Her illusory form appears haggard at best.

(from 5th Edition Volo's Guide to Monsters - 2016):

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.

Sea Hags:

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.

A powerful sea hag might have the following additional lair actions:

 • The hag fills up to four 10-foot cubes of water with ink. The inky areas are heavily obscured for 1 minute, although a steady, strong underwater current disperses the ink on initiative count 10. The hag ignores the obscuring effect of the ink. 

• The hag chooses one humanoid within the lair and instantly creates a simulacrum of that creature (as if created with the simulacrum spell). This hideous simulacrum is formed out of seaweed, slime, half-eaten fish, and other garbage, but still generally resembles the creature it is jmitating. This simulacrum obeys the hag's commands and is destroyed on initiative count 20 on the next round.

(from 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual - 1993):

These, the most wretched of all hags, inhabit thickly vegetated shallows in warm seas and, very rarely, overgrown lakes. Warts, bony protrusions, and patches of slimy green scales dot their sickly yellow skin. Their eyes are always red with deep, black pupils. Long, seaweed-like hair hangs limply from their heads, covering their withered bodies.

Sea hags hate beauty, attempting to destroy it wherever it is encountered. Sea hags can change self at will, and often use this ability to draw their victims within 30 feet before revealing themselves. The true appearance of a sea hag is so ghastly that anyone viewing one of these hags grows weak from fright unless a successful saving throw vs. spell is rolled. Beings that fail their saving throw lose ½ of their Strength for 1d6 turns. Worse still, sea hags can cast a deadly glance up to three times a day. This look affects one creature of the sea hag’s choosing within 30 feet. To negate the effects of this glance, the victim must successfully save vs. poison. If the saving throw is failed, the victim either dies immediately from fright (25% chance) or falls stricken and is paralyzed for three days (75% chance). Few who survive the glance live to tell of it, for sea hags quickly devour their helpless victims.

Sea hags always use their deadly glance as their primary form of attack; they will melee, but only if they have the advantage of numbers. Unlike other hags, sea hags use daggers in combat, receiving a +3 bonus to their attack roll and a +6 damage bonus, due to their ogre-like Strength.

Sea hags speak their own language as well as common and the languages of annis, and sea elves, and live for 800 years.

GREATER SEA HAGS:

One of the most dreaded denizens of the deep, greater sea hags are fortunately rare. They are thought by some to have descended from twisted servitor creations of Olhydra, princess of evil water creatures and ruler over the Plane of Elemental Water (which in turn argues that lesser sea hags, and perhaps all other hags, are merely degenerate descendants of greater sea hags).

They appear as wrinkled, withered old crones with seaweed-green hair that covers their green-scaled bodies, iron-like claws, and fiery red eyes. Some can’t be distinguished from lesser sea hags, but others are noticeably larger and more charismatic.

Combat: Though they lack the death gaze power of their lesser kin, greater sea hags can work a powerful charm three times a day by making eye contact with an intelligent creature. Those so charmed remain in this state until the hag is killed or the charm is magically dispelled; victims do not get additional saves as time passes. 

Greater sea hags are themselves immune to all charm, suggestion, and other mind-influencing magics or psionics.

A greater sea hag can cast change self so as to resemble any sea creature, usually choosing one as beautiful as she is ugly, such as a mermaid or nereid. This disguise is often used to deceive seafarers into following a dangerous course — onto rocks, reefs, or other hazards — and causing their vessels to be wrecked. The hag then seizes any sunken treasure and devours the drowned seamen at will. 

The true appearance of a greater sea hag is so ghastly that anyone viewing it must make a saving throw vs. spell or lose half his or her Strength for 1d6 turns.

Greater sea hags are most greatly feared, however, for their magic use. They possess the spellcasting abilities of mages equal in level to their own Hit Dice. The following spells are ones typically used by greater sea hags, although they may know any spells of appropriate level listed in the Player’s Handbook. DMs interested in underwater spellcasting may wish to consult the appropriate chapter in DMGR9, Of Ships and the Sea.

1st level: audible glamer, dancing lights, enlarge, expeditious retreat*, magic missile, phantasmal force, protection from good, shield, shocking grasp, sleep, taunt, tears of the crocodile**, ventriloquism.

2nd level: blindness, blur, darkness 15’ radius, detect good, ESP, invisibility, know alignment, levitate, locate object, mirror image, ray of enfeeblement, shatter, stinking cloud, web.

3rd level: blink, clairaudience, clairvoyance, dispel magic, haste, hold person, lightning bolt, monster summoning I, protection from normal missiles, slow, spectral force, suggestion, tongues.

4th level: charm monster, confusion, curse, dimension door, emotion, enervation, Evard’s black tentacles, improved invisibility, minor globe of invulnerability, monster summoning II, phantasmal killer, plant growth, polymorph other, polymorph self, shout, wizard eye.

* spell from Player’s Option: Spells & Magic.

A rare few greater sea hags are psionic wild talents. Such individuals always have unpredictable powers, not the abilities exhibited by a being who has developed personal psionic abilities in the usual manner.

If they must battle an opponent directly (something they tend to avoid), greater sea hags use daggers or short swords. When making any physical attack, their great strength (18/00) allows them a +3 bonus to the attack roll and a +6 damage bonus.

Habitat/Society: Greater sea hags usually lair in undersea caves filled with the spoils they have salvaged from sunken vessels; sometimes they claim captain’s cabins of those ships if the chambers are lavish enough. Much of their time is spent grinding salt through the use of magical rock-crushing devices; greater sea hags derive essential sustenance from sea salt. When not grinding salt or hunting prey, greater sea hags seek to enrich their treasure hoards, often with the help of charmed helpers or evil aquatic creatures. They take pride in knowing their undersea surroundings well and can often spot concealed or magically disguised intruders or newly-arrived items by the change in familiar seafloor topography. On the other hand, greater sea hags won’t hesitate to boldly strike forth into new territories, making long forays into strange seas. The waters of the Fire River, flowing out into the Sea of Fallen Stars, seem to attract greater sea hags. In general, they favor regions having “interesting” sea bottoms, such as reefs, underwater crags and rifts, and ship graveyards adorned with lots of wrecks.

Ecology: Greater sea hags are thankfully rare and seldom reproduce, being jealous and suspicious of all other life. They sometimes dwell with their lesser kin but never seem to take part in coveys. They can live for as long as a thousand years and speak the tongues of sea elves, their own language, and annis (the hag languages). Danger and strong foes seem to attract them, and they serve as the ultimate predator of human-sized or smaller opponents. Most sharks avoid sea hags, having learned the bite of their fell magic.