I once ran a campaign, where a hag was sought out by the party for a magic sword that was capable of cutting off one of the final bosses powers (the ability to fly and use magic would be severed if they drew blood with the weapon) but the hag demanded one thing in exchange. "There is a boy, he is hiding in the woods, beyond my reach. He has stolen two items from me, a dagger, and an amulet. Bring me the items, and I will give you the weapon you seek" They found the young dwarf, terrified, covered in mud and sweat, speaking gibberish. They told him to hand over his dagger, and amulet. The boy screamed indecipherably at them, waving his hands. They eventually opted to kill him when he stabbed the firbolg druid. They took the amulet and the dagger to the hag, and she presented the weapon. In addition, she gave them the necklace, claiming it was needed to be worn by the one who would use the sword in order for the effect to work. They believed her. Some weeks later, the party arrived in the throne room of the depressed king of the hill dwarves. They needed the guidance of his men through into giant territory, as well as one of his artefacts to aid in slaying the end boss. He initially didn't seem to care, gave them all that they asked. But in an instant his tone shifted, and he demanded they find his son. A young man who had gone missing just over a month ago, who was deaf, unable to hear or speak properly. He went on explaining the situation, until the man who took the amulet and sword, knelt before him to accept the quest. That's when the king saw the amulet he had crafted special for his son, to be worn always. To wrap up, they had to convince the king really hard not to behead them, and, because of path they chose in the conversation, wound up forgoing that artefact, and the escort. The king marched what army he had ready at that moment to the forest of the hag, and the party never learned what happened next. It was one of my first times running a story heavy campaign, and my first time using hags.
JG R Consider a Hag with Cranium Rats as spies and messengers. Heck, have a Swarm of them as her 2iC, who shape themselves (the dark) into a vaguely humanoid shape on the ground when talking to others telepathically.
Hags. A favorite villain. I use these monsters in my own way, and always define them by the scheme or their vehicle. I'd like to go into greater detail, but I fear my players will see what I have planned. What I can say is this: Sea Hag - I've already used one, and I used one based on my "Out of the Box Encounter" - "A Cry for Help". The Sea Hag, re-skinned into a fresh water version called a Swamp Hag, had a Will-o-Wisp as her closest minion. She carried a shepherd's crook as her staff, with a lantern dangling from it. The Will-o-Wisp disguised itself as the lamp light. If she got off her Death Glare, and it worked, the Will-o-Wisp could then use it's Life Drain. Very nasty. Were it not for some very heroic moves and epic rolls by the player characters, she would have escaped. She even bargained for her life with a player character I was sure would go for it. Then he surprised me and executed her while she was at his mercy. When she died, swarms of black beetles broke through the ground (1999 Mummy movie style) and eat her bones clean in seconds), then her bones sank into the soft mud like a sinking ship. I do not follow the "rule of three". I find it contrived and really just more anti-Wiccan sentiment from which the tradition is derived. Covens could be larger, just so long as the number is odd. Furthermore, inter-coven politics can still lead to power struggles within so that a cunning player character may see his or her own opportunities. I currently use a coven called "The Sorority of Pain", and it's already begun it's machinations. Imagine this, if you will. Kobolds, lead by their own Scale Sorcerer and his Dragonshield bodyguards, attack a Halfling village. The party help to drive them off. At the close of the battle, and as the villagers lick their wounds, a Halfling girl walks forward in tears and says that the "Little lizard people took Ma and Pa," and produces a rough map drawn on a piece of skin that she says they dropped. The players head off in the direction of said map. In the course of attacking this fortified and trapped warren, two player characters interests die. One player rolls a new PC, and I invite him over to start it solo so as to better insert him next game. When he arrives in the Halfling town, the little girl who had the map (Daisy) has been taken in by the village Elders the Barnswallow family. When he goes to this hut, Daisy answers the door. Long story short, she is always suspicious and stares at the new PC constantly. I have made a custom background for my world which this player took, and it means he's a "witch hunter" (not specifically witches or Hags, but all actively magical types - he gains a bonus to Insight rolls to spot those he feels might be lying about spell use). Sure enough, he notices Daisy has bright blue eyes - odd for a Halfling. Still, he ignores it, and even arranges that his horse will be sold upon his death and the funds go to young Daisy. He and the other new PC meet up, and after some research, decide to follow the last group to the same warren. Dungeoncrawl ensues, many battles and lots of tricks, traps, and secrets. The PCs turn the tables on the Kobolds and find a secret passage that allows them to try and stop the sacrifice of who they believe will be "Ma" and "Pa". The Kobolds are involved in their ritual to contact Null, Dracolich sibling of Bahamut and Tiamat, God of Death. Battle ensues. This time the PCs are not facing mere Koblds, but the traps of Inventors, a few Dragonshields, and a powerful Scale Sorcerer (who's also an Urd - winged Kobold). Enemies defeated, the heroes go to the back of the room where sacrificial victims are held in barrels. There they find Ma. They find Pa. And they find Daisy. My players say "No, Mike. Daisy is back in the village" I say "Is she.....?" Three of them automatically cry out. One being my daughter. "We left the Halfings to be burned alive!! Damn it. Damn it." One being the PC who SAW Daisy and her blue eyes! Curses toward me are cried out, and they realize....a Hag has been in the village all this time, and they LEFT the Halflings with her. Not only the Halflings, but the village Elders. The old married couple had a doddering old Halfling grandma who had a heart of gold, but wasn't that sharp - and this Hag has her (Violet) and the Elder (Rhombus - as in the shape) at her mercy. I ended the session there. What they didn't realize was that I have been dropping Hag hints the entire campaign so far. And the Hags had just used the Kobolds as a distraction to cause misery. Not only that, but they used the players to remove a rival power, caused two PC deaths, two NPC deaths, burned down two Halfling homes, and now have the stage set for the next little round. Damn, I love Hags. And they're only ONE plot line I have running right now....out of three. >:)
While I do agree with you on the ages-old tropish nature of the "rule of three" regarding hags, I might suggest (as opposed to just sticking to odd numbers) that you check into some rudimentary research around Numerology. Whether you (personally) give any credibility to it or not, references to it in regards to the number of members in ANY group (coven or cult or whatever) seem to carry just a few drops more credibility in-game (at least to most Players)... Just a thought for "dramatic license". :o)
gnarth d'arkanen I'll be clear on one thing: My decision was based purely on story and nothing else. In my world of Thöll, many things are not the typical Tolkienesque/Mythological standard, regardless of the Rule of Three or any other preconception. Those decisions were made to support other political or magical "realities " within this setting. This is my third such campaign in this setting, and it's worked out so far. :)
Oh man this video is perfect timing. Last session, my party fought a pair of Gelatinous Cubes in an old woman's basement. She lead them there by guilting them, telling them there were 'ghosts' in her basement, (floating items because of the cube) and she thinks it's her husband who died in war. We ended literally right after they killed the cube because one of my players had to leave. I was already planning on her gifting the party a magic heirloom, passed down in her husband's family. I'm thinking about turning the woman into a hag, and making the magic item part of a 'deal.' Edit: Maybe it's cursed, or comes with a pact or a request, like you said. I'm doing an undead themed campaign, and a wand of turn undead would fit right in with the lore of the Dead Wars from 75 years before the current setting, with maybe some request that the party's warlock be the one that use the wand, for reasons which I won't disclose because my party watches your videos sometimes :P
I used a sea hag as a patron of a nearby seafaring goblin tribe. The twist is that the party was the goblin tribe. They loved to interact with her as she saw them as murderous pets. She had her own goals, but ultimately had to give way to the black dragon, Agamemnon. I know... everyone hates evil campaigns, but it really was one of the best campaign expieriences ever. I think DMing an evil party shows you new ways to find motivations for evil NPCs and the sea hag had to more than just evil to be an interesting NPC. She shaped much of the parties actions as they wanted to appease her by kidnapping gnomes and presenting her with shiney schmeckles. They loved her eben if they were only tools to further her own ambitions.
I just talked to my players and before I made the adventure. Always make sure your group is on board with what you want to do before you invest too much into an idea, only to be disappointed when no one wants to play. Plus my core group is my wife, brother, best friend and a few dependable rotating players.
Zack Ruhnke half my favorite campaigns are evil campaigns. I notice most of me and most of my friends games devolve into some sort of netural position. So... hard... to... play... good.
While I never ran a straight evil campaign I did run an "anti-hero" game, Daywalker (like Blade), Drow Vampire, Pact Warlock (spellcaster via demonic pact), Half-Elven Ranger/Sorceror who was an arena slave to the Drow for 10 years before escaping and then staying in the city killing at random using shapeshifting magic for 20 more years (bad ending version of a PC from a previous campaign). It was a high level campaign, obviously, and ended in the fall of a Drow city 10 times the size of Menzobarranzan.
Y'know whats crazy? I've been playing tabletop (D&D, Pathfinder, many other games) since 1985. I've been a DM/GM since 1988. I have *never* played, or run, a game with a hag in it. Never in 33 years of gaming. WTF... this vid makes me realize that I've been missing out. I need to remedy this, post-haste!
In my next session I'll have my group discover a distraught woman on the road. She'll claim that soldiers attacked her home and stole her baby. If the PCs go after the soldiers they'll find 2 extremely arrogant Paladins carrying a baby. These blue-blooded Paladins would rather kick mud onto my "vagrant" PCs (who all have outlander, urchin and generally pleb types of backgrounds LOL!) than answer their questions, but are otherwise lawful good and belong to an established order. If my PCs return the baby to the woman, presumably after failing at diplomacy with the Paladins and getting into a fight, she will unhinge her jaw and swallow the baby whole as she drops her disguise and vanishes.
Great horror plot. In AD&D3e Ravenloft: Van Richten Guide to Hags. Hags live the first 45 years of the life as normal humans that can't birth children . Then over a weeks time turn into monsters. Annis are fighters, and greens are rogues or wizards in life keep their class levels. A female bandit lock in a towns dungeon for years turns into and annis hag and eats the other prisoners.
Bacon another twist is the woman thanking the adventurers and walks into the woods. When the heroes get to the next town the villagers ask the party if they have seen the paladins who went out to rescue the baby from being eaten by a hag with the most distraught of the villagers being the mother who’s appearance is the very same form the hag used to trick the heroes.
@@krispalermo8133 Gives a Innsmouth type vibe. Especially if they don't necessarily know what they are. It could be interesting if a player first started to adventure because they (or their partner) can't conceive. They're searching for a solution. Through the adventure they find out the horrifying truth. They *feel* totally normal (i.e. - not evil), but they're told they will become evil. Now they have the dilemma of do they just wait for the change, or hope they don't turn? Is there any 'cure' that will allow them to become or remain human? Should they turn themselves in to authorities (or kill themselves, if you're running a darker game) before their minds start to change and they become a danger to others?
@@--enyo-- Good questions, but when it comes down to it. a.) What type of story setting is the game being played in ? b.) Does the concept make go Role playing drama ? i.) Every starting PC gets to randomly draw a index card with a secret backstory. ii.) During campaign, the every PC gets another random draw plot changing card. x.) PC alone finds a bag of coins, with a coat of arms on it. Do they turn it in or get caught with the bag and arrested for being a thief. xx.) An Imp finds you make good sport for corruption. " Ran a campaign where the PC paladin was a war orphan raise by a traveling merchant that turn out to be the Baator Devil Pit Fiend that cause the wars to begin with. But the Pit Fiend gave it's life saving P. from the Abyss Demons and died on the first level of the Baator the Nine Hells. So P. went on a Quest to gain three wishes from a efreeti fire genie to bring the P.F. back to life. A debt is a debt, a favor requires a favor in return. It is a Lawful Honor thing to do. c.) How much pre'agree gore and foul language will be allow in game ? i.) Hag just kills the PC and throws the head away, " about as graphic I will be around grade school age children. " ii.) Hag gouge out the PC eye and breaks the PC neck leaving them cripple & screaming for help at -4hp." If you over do it, the Player will think the DM is really making death threats at them, or cause them to have nightmares after wards." * this has happen with New Players at my game store before. d.) when it comes to PC alignment. My pass group also play VtM, .. so .. Our characters are mostly bad people who sometimes do good deeds. Or we are Very Good friends with everyone in our home town or barony but are rat bastards to everyone else in the game of politics and war.
One of my characters asked hag wheter she would be able and willing to help him with ackquiring back his father's castle and title. She agreed, but wanted him to bring one child to her in return. He's going to do that, and I simply love that. Poor child will become new hag and new hag is going to wreak havoc around that castle :P.
I feel a god example of a hag is Rumpelstiltskin, either from the classic tale or from the rather popular Once Upon a Time show. One scene I love from that is when he magically steals the tongue from someone, a nice way to reflavor a silence spell or curse a haughty fighter. In terms of a monster that I’d like to see, aboleths. You don’t see a lot about em and they’re the mental counter to a kraken. Too, I’ve just been reading a lot of Lovecraft recently and I’m using parts of “The Thing on the Doorstep” as inspiration for an aboleth my players are fixing to face.
i really like your kypw series. there are many monster series outthere, but you do the best job in how to use them in your game and give unique ideas instead just offering background informations. hope there will be a lot more of it, many monsters waiting to show up in kypw and i cant wait to hear what you have to say about them
Here's a way I used hags in a new way if you are for some reason interested. We start this with three hags in a coven, they are powerful and ancient and at the brink of surrounding entire kingdoms in their misery and suffering. They were at this point immortal because of the sheer amount of souls they had devoured and the magical power that had given it (Magic flows in living things in my setting). That's when a group of ancient heroes sealed away them in a pocket dimension and left them to rot away for all eternity. The adventurers took everything from the hags, but perhaps the real change was what they gave. Allthough the hags were unaware, the heroes had given them a soul each, and they were at the very least capable of basic feelings of affection for a select few individuals. Thousands of years go by before the pocket dimension cracks a slight bit, and they have a link to converse and use their magic in the real world again. They meet a young girl who has just gotten expelled from a wizarding academy and she agrees to sign a contract with them. Formally the hags want to use this girl as a means of spreading fear and misery, but actually they have found themselves caring for the girl, perhaps even loving her as a daughter. And that's how my warlock got herself some ancient evil sugar mommies.
I once used Hag procreation to spice up my game by introducing Meirin the Twiceborn. She was kidnapped from her parents and born again as a hag child, but her heritage (complex backstory) would not allow her to become Evil. So she became a beautiful plot device
@@sofiaterresguiraud1971 From what I remember Meirin was a human girl born under the 1st sun (5 sentient suns taking turns with the planet, a big plot point) , which fixed her alignment permanently in Chaotic Good She was eaten by a hag and reborn like usual, but the influence of the 1st sun Sol Vita overrode all but the physical changes. So now she's a chaotic Good Hag Ranger who uses a set of stolen tools (including a sheet of rat skin that poisons surfaces you rub it on) to perform acts of heroism and bravery and adventure (as one does)
My players who are novice players for the most part think they are rescuing a teenage girl from a coven of hags that have enslaved her. However, she will soon become a hag herself. If she engages in battle or is threatened, some of her dormant abilities will manifest but not fully under her control. This can function as a clue to the players. I think this will be fun for all of us.
(Long read, may contain typos, sorry in advance, writing from my phone while being at work.) I had a group of npc-adventurers approach the players and beg them for help. (At this point the player characters had just reached level 3) The npc told them that their party's wizard was in a magical slumber and nothing they tried could wake him up, so they asked the player characters to find a way. Upon further investigation, the party's bard found out that the wizard had been flirting with a young elven druid who he met while passing through the nearest town 3 days away. The player characters decided to pay that town a visit, just to get lost in the swamps that covered their way. After days of exhaustion and disorientation they stumbled upon a giant lake where they got immediately attacked by 2 giant toads, just to be rescued by the elven druid. After saving them, the players, of course asked the druid who she was and if she was the one who put that spell on the sleeping wizard. The druid told them that she indeed did put the wizard under a spell since he cheated her for the kiss he had promised her as payment for some herbs and that she would lift the spell if the players would agree to help her. Being thankful for the rescue and wanting to help the sleeping wizard (as well as get the bag of holding the npc had promised as reward) the players agreed to listen to her story. Until about ten years ago, she was protecting the nearby town, but then a knight showed up together with his soldiers and a wizard. He chased the druid away and put the town under his rules while the druid who swore an oath to protect the town couldn't fight the knight, who was by law an inhabitant. Bound by her own vows, she had to stand aside. After a while, the knight came to her den in the swamp, forcing himself onto her. He knew about her vow, and that she wouldn't harm him. Of course this led to pregnancy and once the child was born a few months ago, the knight and his men came and stole the poor druids baby, since a swamp was no place for an infant. So the druid begged the player characters to retrieve her child. Having felt the loss of her dearest, she would forsake her vow and leave the swamp for good. The players agreed and decided to break into the knights mansion, and while doing so discovered some arcane seals drawn all around the door- and windowframes. Upon retrieving the baby, the party made their way back to the druid, who thanked them and offered them a brass bowl as a gift. With just a drip of blood and some water, the player characters could now scry on their true love. (Without knowing that their true love would be haunted by nightmares of the person that scryed on them). After the players left, they found themselves exhausted and plagued with nightmares and when they reached the npc adventurer group, the wizard had perished in his sleep. DM info: The druid was a Night Hag who originally terrorized the small town until a knight was dispatched to deal with her. Since the knight could not beat her in combat, his wizard outwitted her, making her swear an oath to never bring any harm to the village again. Furious about being tricked, the hag started to plot her revenge. When she found out about the Knights bastard child with a maid, she saw her chance. While she was bound by the vow, her soon to be hag-daughter wasn't and so in a few years she'd get her revenge. And when the NPC adventurer group declined her plea, she put the wizard (the only one who figured out her plans) under her spell so he couldn't warn other's of her true intentions.
How did I only now find these videos? These are brilliant! Regarding Hag stories, I'm about to use a Night Hag who lives in a hut surrounded by an encampment of Half-Orc bandits. The bandits bring her rare materials that "fell off the bandwagon" and the occasional corpse, she returns the favor with a potion or two, everybody happy. But don't make the mistake to think she cares about anyone; she is basically your average Disney stepmother. She will leave few opportunities unused to fill the minds of the Half-Orcs with lies; making them believe that if she wasn't so kind as to let them stay with her they'd be hunted for the freaks they are. Because the Half-Orcs believe the world is against them, their crimes become more violent over time, to the inevitable point where they commit such gruesome deeds they can no longer have peace with themselves. That is usually when she does the dream thing and drags them to Hell in her soul bag. However, an NPC stole and sold away her heartstone. The NPC, a halfling wild sorcerer whose magic got twisted even further by a lifetime of substance abuse, has developed a planeswalking ability - he can travel between different universes. Through taking the heartstone with him on such a journey he avoided any divination magic the hag performed (and gods know she tried), until he finally returned and sold off the stone. It was soon after that the bandits found and captured him and the hag has had him in animated suspension since; trying as best as she can without her heartstone to divine from his dreams to whom he sold it. However, for a completely unrelated quest, now the party is looking for this npc and they've stumbled upon the Half-Orcs. Next session they'll probably end up meeting the hag and I'm excited as frick. Best case she can convince the party to go looking for the heartstone and hand over the NPC with a horrible curse cast upon him, worst case it'll end in an awesome fight between the party and the hag, while one or multiple party members will have to hold the door to prevent the Half-Orcs from joining the battle. Hype. Is. Real.
KYPW Unicorns. They’re CR 5 celestials with legendary/lair actions and a magic item sticking out from their heads. On that alone, they’re interesting encounters, to say nothing of their place in the world.
A couple years ago I used a night hag to play with my party. Winter was coming and snows were getting deeper making travel on the roads very treacherous. The party noticed wagon tracks that ran off the road, passed the brush and careened partly into a rocky brook. Inside they found a small girl wrapped in blankets sobbing. She feigned distrust as any child should then slowly told them of the fate of the caravan. Her family had been traveling to [where the party was headed] and the horse got spooked. Father tried to control the animal but was unable before they'd ended up in the water. Since then, they camped until their food stuffs ran low and the temperature got very cold. (Her deception roles were top notch!) They all walked and made camp a ways away but one morning they would not wake up and she ran back here frightened several nights ago. They found that she was mostly telling the truth. They found the camp about an hour away with all members of her "family" lying in their sleeping bags dead. A medicine check told the cleric that they died from what appeared to be freezing but their faces were contorted in horror.Our barbarian took to the child immediately and protected her from the suspicions of the other party members. She eventually, albeit playfully, took one of the barbarians long hairs from his ponytail, ultimately creating a voodoo doll of him that caused much woe in the coming weeks. She also became a recurring NPC that the barbarian was all too happy to cut in twain!I've enjoyed using hags and I have enjoyed being a PC interacting with them. Great video and I hope some of this helps other DMs in some way.
I once made a good mysterious hag that lived in a bog. The pcs discovered she was just a vampire that was stuck with being 7 years old forever. She also had an helmed horror as an guardian. They loved her character.
Set up a wonderful encounter where the party went to negotiate with a coven of dune hags to cure a disease that they had all contracted, and that was currently killing one of the fighters. They traded that fighter's knowledge of the forging techniques of dune giants for a smoke that purged the fungus from their lungs. I definitely played up their cruelty and otherness during the encounter. They were constantly finishing each other's thoughts, hid behind the illusion of a rather normal crone, and extracted the memory with a strange iron crown that copied the fighter's memories into a gem.
Had a Hag, ask for a party member to forfeit their name for information. I had a character with a secret identity, decided it was time for the name reveal. Suddenly she’s entering my characters dreams and my DM has me doing her bidding. Had a great time with it too.
I would love to see a KYPW on displacer beasts, I certainly have some ideas of my own on how to use them ...Remember on the previous KYPW video I pointed out that you were suggesting moral dilemmas based on it somehow being immortal to protect someone? There are similar unfortunate implications here. Of course there are also unfortunate implications in the concept of the paladin, but let's not get into that right now. It seems to me like there's a lot of fun to be had here! The annis hag... is a mysterious monster that steals disobedient children, taking them away to places unknown for reasons unknown. The annis hag *is the bogeyman.*
AD&D2e and 3.5e, green hags also had water breathing ability. Did a plot that a hag had three daughters and wanted a Son. So her fourth daughter was polymorph into a boy. AD&D2e Ravenloft: Van Richten Guide to Hags Hags lived as normal humans for the first 45 years of their life before the " change." And many of them have class levels.
Ideas. A bheur hag tormenting a snowy village by keeping the weather too cold to forage or hunt, forcing them to resort to Cannibalism, then cursing them and turning them into monsters (e.g. the until dawn wendigo) causing them all to turn on each other as people keep dying and nobody can figure out why, since there are no nearby wild animals. Or, sea hag controlling a group of Kuo Toa trying to become a god, since Kuo Toa can do that, make her a much stronger variant of a sea hag, and throw in some cleric spells.
Thank you so much for this! I'm running Out of The Abyss, and I turned the hag encounter on the darklake into am encounter with a coven that wanted to acquire an artifact that had just resurfaced (the dawnbringer). Of course, they provided the players magic items to aid them in retrieving the sword, and of course, as soon as the players recovered the sword, they decided to keep it. Now I can have the magic items start... backfiring.
I have a Triton in my group and her background it's about the parents being slayed by a sea hag Minions, now(years after the family murder) the Triton finally knows where Found the hag and this video+volo is supporting me a Lot.
Hag Lore AD&D2e Ravenloft: Van Richten Guide to Hags a.) Hag are born " normal " after their mother has mated with a stander human, humanoid. Hags live as " normal " humans for the first 45 years of lives, but unable to have children. Annis tend to live lives as an adventure class fighter. While Green Hags favor rogues or wizards. Plot an annis hag that lived 25 years of her life as a horse bandit will come into a conflict with a green hag. The green hag doesn't want someone else messing with Her play things, and miss green has daughters growing up in the village.
I currently have a winter-hag NPC who is the foster mother of one of my player's character and also taught her witchcraft. This hag became fond of her ward during the 13 years they spend together... . The players at some point unwittingly called her down on a pack of werewolves, which was pretty much the nuclear option at the time.
a hag asks for an infant to be brought to her. this child is the daughter of a local baron. the hag then returns the child without any issue or further trickery. the baron now owes her a life debt and a few sessions later the hold is facing an uprising as the baron taxes all the citizens to fund searches for wondrous items that the hag uses to fuel up and become a mid-game boss. the baron then hires the party to find and kill whomever wrought this to his land and the ever literal sorcerer who dumped wis and int down to a 6 executes himself when he realizes that they are the root cause.
Awesome video! I think that was your best video yet. Very informative and interesting, with lots of story ideas and twists. P.S. You're an awesome salesman. I don't use minis and stuff anymore but if I had a local group I was playing with and need such things, I would definitely shop at mini market. I love how the ad isn't too intrusive in the video, on point, and over, without feeling like I had to sit through it watch the rest of the video. Most ads just make me want to skip them as soon as I can. Great work. Also, Dan is evil.
I might be getting some new minis after all. We played our first session of Dragons and Dice (what my 3-year-old calls it) but I don't have many female minis. I need some princesses with swords and some friendly goblins because "This goblin is my friend, he's walking with us on the road now."
This video have given me such a good idea for a campaign arch with a frost hag grooming a small army of wendigos and the party seems to get in her way.
You gave me a great idea for PC. A hag who right before her 13th birthday was approached by a devil who told her what she was and so she signed a deal to stop her from aging in exchange for becoming a warlock.
i used a sea hag as lord in a domain that traps ships in a slow moving whirwind of kelp (idea was inspired by a ravenloft sourcebook). there were raiding parties between the ships for supplies, communities of trapped shipcrews in tied together ships, one ship with undead drunken soldiers, another with a wereshark as captain, a aggressive population of underwater folk und sea monsters waiting under the kelp for prey. it was pretty intense, apocalyptic waterworld survival combined with jaws
I love the fey. My favorite race to play is the changeling, and I'll be running a coven of hags against my players in my current campaign that I DM. So, thank you for the hag lore.
I have a campaign on hiatus for the holidays and the last thing I did was get the players to make a deal with a hag (she'll help them escape her swamp, they owe her a favor to be called in at some point in the future). I decided I would figure out where this was going over break. This gave me some great ideas.
I'm planning on making a hag disguise themselves as a beautiful oracle who makes correct predictions because she magically causes the evil prediction to come true. She finds the party and asks to join them so she can slowly kill them and take this magic gem they found.
My favorite time using a hag in my games was not actually a hag, but a half-elf who the party believed to be a hag. She was a pirate captain rumored to be a night hag and the party found themselves aboard a ship she was hunting. I gave her a backstory where in her childhood, she watched her older sister transform into a hag. She learned some blood magic, got revenge by killing the hag that cursed her sister, then she killed her sister. Her abilities are very hag-like in most cases and in some ways she has outdone the run-of-the-mill night hag, like her version of a soul bag or her ability to take her entire ship and crew into the Ethereal Plane.
Our DM decided to bring in a Hag a few months ago. Our party was in a position where we had to turn to the Hag or face REALLY powerful Frost Giants for what we needed. We opted for the Hag. The Hag had us kill a rival hag in exchange for rare items and information that would help us ascend an extremely dangerous mountain. Naturally, the Hag told us partial truths and gave us enough supplies to get up the mountain, but not down, so that we would die from exposure to cold and thin air (think Mt. Everest). She also told us that to get past an area of powerful magic on the mountain we'd have to go through without protective clothing (a total lie but the party fell for it). We survived... but only barely and had to call on a very powerful ally to get us out of trouble. Really a great play by our DM.
I love weird magic, there’s so much flavor text! I’m currently setting a campaign where the BBEG is a hag, and they have these runestones and all sorts of weird magic that does strange things.
In my D&D setting all Hags hold a special vendetta against Dryads since it was the original Dryad, something that they unintentionally created, that got them kicked out of the Feywilds. One Hag that my group recently ran into had managed to track down the original dryad and had been working her magic and schemes into trying to kill her. To do this, she had been manipulating a city and one particular noble house into doing her bidding. She granted the house all sorts of boons but she had them do some pretty terrible stuff. It all worked find until the latest head of that house decided that enough was enough and betrayed her, this cost her dearly as it set back her plans quite a bit and was forced to move away from the city due to a deal she made with the party. Thanks to this video, I now have a few ideas as to what I'll do with her once when she returns to the story
ive only ever seen these used once, and i had alot of fun with them - mostly because stealth and an item the DM forgot about. Three hags were channeling a ritual on an amulet or other small artifact over a small pond. they were standing on the edge, and the pond was maybe 30 feet in diameter, with the amulet more or less centered on it. i, as a draconic sorcerer, had a pretty good dexterity score, so my stealth was pretty decent, and they were focusing on this ritual, not alert to possible threats nearby. so instead of just going in guns blazing with the ranger and monk we had with us, i rolled another stealth check, and threw a bead from my necklace of fireballs, targeting the amulet. i hit it, causing the blast to injure all 3 hags, and destroy their amulet thing. which made them all flip out and attack each other. we let them tear into each other for a few rounds, then just annihilated them. good times, and the DM was laughing so hard i thought he was gonna break a rib
In my Lost mines of phandelver game, Agatha the banshee is actually a Green Hag. She sends adventurers against the nearby necromancer because she wants the owl well.
Player is the daughter of a noble who made his fortune as an adventurer. The man's poor wife died the winter she was born, found frozen and dead in a cave, but a kindly old woman was able to help the mother birth her daughter and then give him to the father after spending a week tracking him down. The girl was a kindly child, if slightly strange, but everyone just chocked it up to her family's circumstances. But now, however, almost a full-grown woman, she's run away from home and no one has seen her since. In reality, that kindly old woman was no kindly old woman, but a Bheur Hag. She had eaten the woman's baby and birthed her own daughter, who she then handed to the "father" out of a sick, twisted desire to see an old enemy's despair (the father and the hag have encountered each other before). If he killed the child, then what remained of his family would be gone. If he did not, then he could have to live with the knowledge that his inaction brought more evil into the world. Such simple revenge, right? Only, the one thing that could get in the way of her plans was the tight friendship between the father's old party, two members of which were still alive. The Cleric and the Warlock. The father knew of the trickery of hags, and so he had them test his newborn daughter for curses. Upon finding out that his child was gone and that the babe in his arms was a hagspawn, the father begged his old friends to help him find a solution. After years of study, bargains and prayers, the group gift the girl a magical amulet. They tell her of her origins and warn her that the amulet will halt her transformation for as long as she wears it, but if she ever takes it off, then she will turn within the next 3 days, and nothing she does will be able to stop it. The amulet works and the transformation is stopped, but the natural magic she would gain as a hag is not prevented. Instead, it goes wild, unable to be contained within this human body it not suited to it's use. Now, after years of guilt and shame, she has run away from all that she knew, hoping to prevent shame from falling on her family and make up for all the harm she believes she will one day bring about. All the while never knowing... That mother is always watching...
I usually have my Hags be the one to offer aid when the party is down on their luck. In disguise of course, she offers a couple of magical items which will help in their current quest. All the items she offers are of course cursed and allows her to keep taps on the party and torment them throughout their travels. When they go to confront the hag, she will know that they're coming and will be prepared.
During one game, our party had dealt with some hags very early on, and much later we found out that they were one of several covens working under an all powerful lich. No of us saw it coming, and it was awesome!
"There's no way he'll shift my bulk, I watch you cry and have a sulk!" -Gruntilda, Banjo-Kazooie DDO's recent Ravenloft quest had quite a few Night hags; one, in particular, had to be defeated in a human form, and then in a hag form, and then she ran off and had to be fought again on a nearby hill- along with her patron, a Satyr, and a small army of miniboss-level earth elementals! Going into more detail would be a minor spoiler, so I'll stop there.
I introduced the party together with a Green hag, Grandma, and her family of feral druidic gnomes (Ma, Pa, Son). These gnomes could only transform into wolves, so at first, the party see wolves, then BAM! gnomes when HP drops to zero. The ranger back himself up into the den of the Hag, who flanked him and ended up ripping out his throat with her claws. Sadly, he died, but I think that death bonded the rest of the party together. They were looking for this twisted family because, at first, they assumed they were after bandits who kidnapped a stable master's wife. The husband raved about wolves with glowing green eyes busting in his door instead. The evidence didn't suggest as suck to the local authority, so the village chalked it up to trauma. When the party cleared the den, they realized that the Hag and the gnomes were cannibals, potentially eating local missing childen and villagers.
Great monster video. I think it is a comprehensive, well-structured, and descriptive bio. Keep the helpful monster description videos coming! I like to hear other DM ideas and suggestions for creating and playing certain monsters. It helps a lot.
These are awesome! I’m doing a Kobold arc in my campaign, and they’re being led by an ice dragon (homebrew) and would love a KYPW vid on kobolds. Other great things, though, would be golems
You, sir... Have a like. Kobolds are one of my favorite (and often most infamous) of rotten little beasties for derailing a party's ambitions in any campaign. Love the little scoundrels... I happen to have noticed Cody loves them too... so this promises to be a fun vid'... INDEED... (lolz) In the short term, don't hesitate to compose mass-combats with them and "cleverly downsized" weapons-technologies (probably either stolen from tinker gnomes or possibly through a "filthy alliance")... Go ahead and work with REAL tactics, group intellect (ish) and introduce your parties to the idea of a group's accomplishments being worth A LOT MORE than just the sum of its parts... Kobolds die pretty easily (if you don't beef 'em up too much) so it's a good intro' to mass combat for those uninitiated... It's even a fine lesson on the "advantage of numbers" for the more seasoned "veterans" of the game... As for Golems... I like to think of them (cheapest and quickest) kind of as if they were "clock-work soldiers"... You can probably get away with a LOT WORSE if you like, but I generally (at least in the first couple run-ins for the party) start kind of simple with the "enchanted command list" and go up from there. Most of the "canon" suggests that they're created, so it just kind of "needs" to make sense that they always have a purpose... AND that sort of thinking tends to hold the story together a little better... As far as abilities, just depends on who exactly (as YOU intend) created them... so... a fair amount of "leeway" there. In any case, hope this helps a bit... :o)
I would be most interested in your thoughts on the Lich and what kinds of creatures you think would be paired with one. This is one of my favorite channels. Thanks for all your hard work.
Used hags in a Pirate campaign , She was the contact with the fence for stolen goods in the city a day away. The party contact with her comes about because they have to get certain potion that will Drive away the giant sharks attacking a fishing village down the road. Which the hag had set up with the fish people in order to destroy the fishing village threat. The fence was a member of a Thieves guild who held the hags sisters imprisoned. First Quest was to find her sisters and free them. Second quest destroy the thieves guild completely. Third quest was the pirates as they were Forcing (lol) the hag into a life of crime. So off to deal with the Pirates. Fourth quest depending on the 2nd Quest would find the Party facing the Hag`s coven now restored by the party or Just the hag herself. Granted the party was 3rd level to start. They were not 3rd by the end lol. The party were all Rogues and 1 Cleric The Hag kept trying Find ways to seduce or destroy or kill the Cleric.
I added a damsel in distress scenario only that the damsel was clearly dead and only one of the party members and anyone else knew other that the first two in the party and could see this, the other two got intimate and friendly with the corpse talking to her and sharing stories, and the hag well could not of been happier.
Imagine this: You discover early in the game a coven of Hags are trying to collect various items to increase their power, and are hired by a Wizard to stop them, they meet 2 of the members of the Coven throughout their journey, and have many encounters with them or their minions. They may win sone items, and lose others. In the end, the party delivers the last item they save to the Wizard, only to learn he is the 3rd member, and the Coven has just been making the party suffer this entire time. You now have to stop 2 powerful Hags and a Wizard who you have been working with for a long time. This could be a very interesting challenge for any party.
I remember this campaign I had where I was running corruption rules which had a hag coven as the main villains. I hid their eye they placed on the hilt of a sword they gave to one of their minions specifically so the party would loot it and carry it around everywhere.
I used a coven of green hags in a different way. They had a shared hp/mp pool, they had a hag eye, the hag with the eye would get access to the coven extra spells, and the hag with the eye was the only one that would take damage. In the end one hag ran away, and the party is now in possession of the hag eye. Mwahaha
Love this video! I am writing my first campaign and I was having trouble thinking of ways a small army of undead could be risen and how the party could stop it. Now that I know about Hags, I am thinking that the bad guy could have made a dark deal with a coven of hags to help him reanimate the bodies. Furthermore I like the concept of another coven helping the party in order to control the area, but for a price.
Our Dm resonantly tossed a rather interesting Hag coven at us, unlike normal ones these three were not all in the same place but in 3 locations, one in a deep dark forest infested with orcs, another in a cave that could only be gotten to by swimming through shark infested waters, and the last one was in a frozen ice cave at the top of the tallest mountain around. and yes each member was of the 3 main types -.- and each one had 2 witches acting as guards... was a pain in the ass to take the dang things down for good, because once they got low enough the telephoned away and then we had to fight them all together to stop them from summoning Orcus.
I am in the process of prepping a new campaign and the first villain the party will face will be a Green Hag. Good video with great suggestions that gave me more ideas how the hag can mess with the party.
So my party fought 3 hags last week. TPK. We then wake up in that same town earlier that morning. The hags are groundhog's day-ing us. We ended the last session half way through the 2nd fight with them and we've come to the conclusion that all our planning was pointless as they're aware of the time loop too. We got 1 down but we're about to die again...
I once had a hag that was trapped in a ring of rope that did not let her pass until the 3 knots that were still in the rope were undone. But she could’t undo the knots herself so she offered a wish spell to anyone how would undo the knot. The players never ended up using the hag but I think this is an interesting take on bags so feel free to take this idea and maybe you’ll have more success in using this hag
thank you for this video. I have a PC in my game that is a changeling. her mother is trying to pull her and her two sisters into the hag coven to replace her as heirs. the epic battle is still several sessions from now, but I look forward to it.
Right now, my players are in an island and they have just faced the Kuo-Toa minions of a Dagon-worshipping Hag. Soon they'll have to discover the cultists who have infiltrated the island's city and hopefully face the hags, who'll be an Aboleth's lieutenants. Words cannot express how much I'm loving this mix of aquatic / swampy / foresty / urban mix of encounters!
I'm planning on running a Homebew Hag encounter in Tomb of Annihilation, this was really helpful. I honestly love the idea of a creature that is just rotten and nasty to the core.
I'm using hags to make the party go crazy a bit. In order to stop the crazy the party will have to sneak in a dragons country. Dragons are believed to be extinct along with all deities due to a war a thousand years ago. Hags know they're not and want dragon parts as well as items if they can have their way. A goddess will ascend to help the party then I have more but I won't tell all. So I have a green hag and night hag oddly enough working together in my magically chaotic world. What no one knows yet is the third member of their coven is a dark wizard!! I was gonna make it another green hag but I enjoy your idea on that twist. Honestly hags and dragons were my initial evil entity from plan A. They started encountering hags at level 2!
A story I have made with hags revolves around a coven of two Bheur Hags, and a Demilich, willing to sacrifice anything and everything to gain a new, more powerful body.
Maybe she ask them to gather information for her, as a section of her territory went dark. She ask them to lend her a hand so that she could use their eyes to scout the area and keep an ear to the ground. Basically, she ask them to scout and adds in one of those quarks, the catch being that each party member heres a different discreption. When they come back to report back to the Hag they each loose one of those things. One looses and eye, one a tounge, one an ear, a nose, finger, toe, feet etc. I wouldn't make them lose anything that would actually hurt thier character power (like a hand or foot) though without have a quest available to get a replacement (like the hand from the lady of the lake that Aquaman gets for example).
I hate when players meta game the game play. And the snowflakes just want to try to murder hobo and not try to Roll Play why their characters should win. Sorry about that, just ranting. The kind old woman everyone calls " Granny," can be the characters' patron for 1d6 class levels till they find out She is the monster the whole time.
AD&D2e Ravenloft: Van Richten Guide to Hags. Hags live as normal humans for the first 45 years of their lives before the " change," takes place. And they had class levels. Annis tend to fighters and greens were rogues or wizards. A 12th-level wizard/ green hag can create a wetland " dungeon," with all sorts of polymorph monsters for characters to fight. Or to act as a party's patron.
I love using hags as environmental hazards in D&D. In my homebrew world a hag can achieve a form of apotheosis when she eats her two other coven sisters. I call this hag a shrew. The hag gains additional powers and abilities from this dark ritual allowing her to challenge mid-high level players (11-14).
Well in my current campaign I implemented a "Nemesis" like system with a warlord waging a siege on Neverwinter and the party having to move up the hierarchy of that warlords' army. The hag is pretending to want the lands around the swamp back so she gets her old position back so the party tries to stop the warlord with the hags help. She actually wants the warlords position.
Had a coven of gags lead my players deeper into a swamp by using one of the players markers against them. It helped he kept failing his survival checks to find the right path markers so they went in hook line and sinker. The hags kept going invisible and attacking them with magic and the crocodiles in their lair while the Paladin was getting overwhelmed with evil surrounding him. The rogue ran into their hut and found their eye and started working on destroying it. I used this as a great opportunity to put the rogue as a woman when the rest of the group thought she was a man. It was a great fight, and the outing of the rogue played so well since only 1 other player knew the truth.
I am choosing that a huge threat to my group is that multiple covens are joining together. As they are seeking to unlock even greater powers than just a single coven of 3 grant them, and are trying to rejoin 3 covens of 3.
I love your KYP series, right now I'm about to run my first home brewed campaign, and my idea, is to send the party for a NPC, but he asks help dealing with kobolds, which in reality, they are minions to a hag/Coven that could save the life of the NPC's mother but at cost. I don't know how to scheme it, but your video Gave me a pretty good idea!
In my homebrew world I have an enclave of hags (made up of several covens) that're guardians of many ancient & arcane artifacts within a vast forest. They'll loan out those artifacts, but for a price (and that's where a hard bargain takes on a whole new meaning).
Volo's touches on this, but changing a hag coven's spell selection goes a long way towards flavoring them differently. For example, giving a coven Raise Dead and a bunch of healing makes them more of a part of the story. Maybe villagers that are desperate enough to save a loved one go to these hags for help, despite the villager knowing that the hags are going to want something in return
Hags can be quite surprising. I play in a 2 PC campaign with my brother and a friend, with my brother as the DM. We are both lvl 14, I'm a warlock, other PC is a paladin. We have done quite well with just the 2 of us, trashing CR 15 and 17 creatures with surprising ease sometimes. So this one time when we fought 3 Green Hags and 2 shambling mounds we assumed this would be a cakewalk. But we barely made it out with our lives as the hags were super effective with spells, effectively being a lvl 12 spell caster who can cast 3x every round. Plus having counter spells to shut down my warlock's very limited (but usually very effective) number of spells. The shambling mounds tied us up with grapples and the hags lightning bolted us and counter spelled our spells, turned invisible when they got in trouble and it became quickly apparent we were going to die to a couple of CR 5 monsters. We did make it out barely but had to pull out all the stops and tricks we had. It was a good lesson in humility for our group and taught us a good lesson at underestimating hags....
I once ran a campaign, where a hag was sought out by the party for a magic sword that was capable of cutting off one of the final bosses powers (the ability to fly and use magic would be severed if they drew blood with the weapon) but the hag demanded one thing in exchange.
"There is a boy, he is hiding in the woods, beyond my reach. He has stolen two items from me, a dagger, and an amulet. Bring me the items, and I will give you the weapon you seek"
They found the young dwarf, terrified, covered in mud and sweat, speaking gibberish. They told him to hand over his dagger, and amulet. The boy screamed indecipherably at them, waving his hands. They eventually opted to kill him when he stabbed the firbolg druid. They took the amulet and the dagger to the hag, and she presented the weapon. In addition, she gave them the necklace, claiming it was needed to be worn by the one who would use the sword in order for the effect to work. They believed her.
Some weeks later, the party arrived in the throne room of the depressed king of the hill dwarves. They needed the guidance of his men through into giant territory, as well as one of his artefacts to aid in slaying the end boss. He initially didn't seem to care, gave them all that they asked. But in an instant his tone shifted, and he demanded they find his son. A young man who had gone missing just over a month ago, who was deaf, unable to hear or speak properly. He went on explaining the situation, until the man who took the amulet and sword, knelt before him to accept the quest. That's when the king saw the amulet he had crafted special for his son, to be worn always.
To wrap up, they had to convince the king really hard not to behead them, and, because of path they chose in the conversation, wound up forgoing that artefact, and the escort. The king marched what army he had ready at that moment to the forest of the hag, and the party never learned what happened next.
It was one of my first times running a story heavy campaign, and my first time using hags.
That is brilliant.
They like to bargain? You could say they enjoy HAGgling.
I’ll let myself out
No, stay
Please do
Please don't stay.
Hahahahaha!
Dad? Is that you? 😂👍👍👍
'And today we're taking a deeper dive into hags'
Gigity
gigity gigity crabbity giggity
ThunderPaw Designs take 7715328 damage
goo
I gotta be honest. I misread the title image. "Kill your party with hugs."
Just send a group of bears at your party. Hug them to death.
Well, the annis hag DOES have a hug attack.
Yes! Kill them with kindness!
Now i want to put a cult of hugs in my game
@@Grimalkin- Das Umarmung Kulten :)
the Annis Hag can be a great leader of a cross-city thieves guild that is quite brutal, which could be the origin of the Party's Rogue
I like it, Auntie Cuthroat
JG R Consider a Hag with Cranium Rats as spies and messengers. Heck, have a Swarm of them as her 2iC, who shape themselves (the dark) into a vaguely humanoid shape on the ground when talking to others telepathically.
Of course it can, wy naut?
Oh wow this is 2yrs later, sorry!
@@johail3510 never mind the time, it was a great comment
@@jgr7487 hey thanks!
Hags. A favorite villain. I use these monsters in my own way, and always define them by the scheme or their vehicle. I'd like to go into greater detail, but I fear my players will see what I have planned.
What I can say is this:
Sea Hag - I've already used one, and I used one based on my "Out of the Box Encounter" - "A Cry for Help". The Sea Hag, re-skinned into a fresh water version called a Swamp Hag, had a Will-o-Wisp as her closest minion. She carried a shepherd's crook as her staff, with a lantern dangling from it. The Will-o-Wisp disguised itself as the lamp light. If she got off her Death Glare, and it worked, the Will-o-Wisp could then use it's Life Drain. Very nasty. Were it not for some very heroic moves and epic rolls by the player characters, she would have escaped. She even bargained for her life with a player character I was sure would go for it. Then he surprised me and executed her while she was at his mercy. When she died, swarms of black beetles broke through the ground (1999 Mummy movie style) and eat her bones clean in seconds), then her bones sank into the soft mud like a sinking ship.
I do not follow the "rule of three". I find it contrived and really just more anti-Wiccan sentiment from which the tradition is derived. Covens could be larger, just so long as the number is odd. Furthermore, inter-coven politics can still lead to power struggles within so that a cunning player character may see his or her own opportunities.
I currently use a coven called "The Sorority of Pain", and it's already begun it's machinations. Imagine this, if you will. Kobolds, lead by their own Scale Sorcerer and his Dragonshield bodyguards, attack a Halfling village. The party help to drive them off. At the close of the battle, and as the villagers lick their wounds, a Halfling girl walks forward in tears and says that the "Little lizard people took Ma and Pa," and produces a rough map drawn on a piece of skin that she says they dropped.
The players head off in the direction of said map. In the course of attacking this fortified and trapped warren, two player characters interests die. One player rolls a new PC, and I invite him over to start it solo so as to better insert him next game. When he arrives in the Halfling town, the little girl who had the map (Daisy) has been taken in by the village Elders the Barnswallow family. When he goes to this hut, Daisy answers the door. Long story short, she is always suspicious and stares at the new PC constantly.
I have made a custom background for my world which this player took, and it means he's a "witch hunter" (not specifically witches or Hags, but all actively magical types - he gains a bonus to Insight rolls to spot those he feels might be lying about spell use). Sure enough, he notices Daisy has bright blue eyes - odd for a Halfling. Still, he ignores it, and even arranges that his horse will be sold upon his death and the funds go to young Daisy.
He and the other new PC meet up, and after some research, decide to follow the last group to the same warren.
Dungeoncrawl ensues, many battles and lots of tricks, traps, and secrets. The PCs turn the tables on the Kobolds and find a secret passage that allows them to try and stop the sacrifice of who they believe will be "Ma" and "Pa".
The Kobolds are involved in their ritual to contact Null, Dracolich sibling of Bahamut and Tiamat, God of Death. Battle ensues. This time the PCs are not facing mere Koblds, but the traps of Inventors, a few Dragonshields, and a powerful Scale Sorcerer (who's also an Urd - winged Kobold). Enemies defeated, the heroes go to the back of the room where sacrificial victims are held in barrels. There they find Ma. They find Pa. And they find Daisy.
My players say "No, Mike. Daisy is back in the village"
I say "Is she.....?"
Three of them automatically cry out. One being my daughter. "We left the Halfings to be burned alive!! Damn it. Damn it."
One being the PC who SAW Daisy and her blue eyes! Curses toward me are cried out, and they realize....a Hag has been in the village all this time, and they LEFT the Halflings with her. Not only the Halflings, but the village Elders. The old married couple had a doddering old Halfling grandma who had a heart of gold, but wasn't that sharp - and this Hag has her (Violet) and the Elder (Rhombus - as in the shape) at her mercy.
I ended the session there.
What they didn't realize was that I have been dropping Hag hints the entire campaign so far. And the Hags had just used the Kobolds as a distraction to cause misery. Not only that, but they used the players to remove a rival power, caused two PC deaths, two NPC deaths, burned down two Halfling homes, and now have the stage set for the next little round.
Damn, I love Hags.
And they're only ONE plot line I have running right now....out of three. >:)
Damn. Just damn. *Slow Clap*
This is why I love Hags. Seriously great villains.
While I do agree with you on the ages-old tropish nature of the "rule of three" regarding hags, I might suggest (as opposed to just sticking to odd numbers) that you check into some rudimentary research around Numerology. Whether you (personally) give any credibility to it or not, references to it in regards to the number of members in ANY group (coven or cult or whatever) seem to carry just a few drops more credibility in-game (at least to most Players)... Just a thought for "dramatic license". :o)
Taking20 also cody, you can ask Pruitt about how infuriating a night hag can be
Taking20 Thank you, Cody. That means a lot coming from you.
gnarth d'arkanen I'll be clear on one thing:
My decision was based purely on story and nothing else. In my world of Thöll, many things are not the typical Tolkienesque/Mythological standard, regardless of the Rule of Three or any other preconception.
Those decisions were made to support other political or magical "realities " within this setting.
This is my third such campaign in this setting, and it's worked out so far. :)
Oh man this video is perfect timing.
Last session, my party fought a pair of Gelatinous Cubes in an old woman's basement. She lead them there by guilting them, telling them there were 'ghosts' in her basement, (floating items because of the cube) and she thinks it's her husband who died in war.
We ended literally right after they killed the cube because one of my players had to leave. I was already planning on her gifting the party a magic heirloom, passed down in her husband's family.
I'm thinking about turning the woman into a hag, and making the magic item part of a 'deal.'
Edit: Maybe it's cursed, or comes with a pact or a request, like you said. I'm doing an undead themed campaign, and a wand of turn undead would fit right in with the lore of the Dead Wars from 75 years before the current setting, with maybe some request that the party's warlock be the one that use the wand, for reasons which I won't disclose because my party watches your videos sometimes :P
Thanks for the heart!!
I used a sea hag as a patron of a nearby seafaring goblin tribe. The twist is that the party was the goblin tribe. They loved to interact with her as she saw them as murderous pets.
She had her own goals, but ultimately had to give way to the black dragon, Agamemnon. I know... everyone hates evil campaigns, but it really was one of the best campaign expieriences ever.
I think DMing an evil party shows you new ways to find motivations for evil NPCs and the sea hag had to more than just evil to be an interesting NPC.
She shaped much of the parties actions as they wanted to appease her by kidnapping gnomes and presenting her with shiney schmeckles. They loved her eben if they were only tools to further her own ambitions.
I'm absolutely going to steal this. 100% no doubt.
How did they feel about being able to only play one race???
I just talked to my players and before I made the adventure. Always make sure your group is on board with what you want to do before you invest too much into an idea, only to be disappointed when no one wants to play.
Plus my core group is my wife, brother, best friend and a few dependable rotating players.
Zack Ruhnke half my favorite campaigns are evil campaigns.
I notice most of me and most of my friends games devolve into some sort of netural position. So... hard... to... play... good.
While I never ran a straight evil campaign I did run an "anti-hero" game, Daywalker (like Blade), Drow Vampire, Pact Warlock (spellcaster via demonic pact), Half-Elven Ranger/Sorceror who was an arena slave to the Drow for 10 years before escaping and then staying in the city killing at random using shapeshifting magic for 20 more years (bad ending version of a PC from a previous campaign). It was a high level campaign, obviously, and ended in the fall of a Drow city 10 times the size of Menzobarranzan.
Y'know whats crazy?
I've been playing tabletop (D&D, Pathfinder, many other games) since 1985. I've been a DM/GM since 1988.
I have *never* played, or run, a game with a hag in it. Never in 33 years of gaming.
WTF... this vid makes me realize that I've been missing out.
I need to remedy this, post-haste!
Hope you have rectified this by now.
In my next session I'll have my group discover a distraught woman on the road. She'll claim that soldiers attacked her home and stole her baby. If the PCs go after the soldiers they'll find 2 extremely arrogant Paladins carrying a baby. These blue-blooded Paladins would rather kick mud onto my "vagrant" PCs (who all have outlander, urchin and generally pleb types of backgrounds LOL!) than answer their questions, but are otherwise lawful good and belong to an established order.
If my PCs return the baby to the woman, presumably after failing at diplomacy with the Paladins and getting into a fight, she will unhinge her jaw and swallow the baby whole as she drops her disguise and vanishes.
Great horror plot.
In AD&D3e Ravenloft: Van Richten Guide to Hags.
Hags live the first 45 years of the life as normal humans that can't birth children .
Then over a weeks time turn into monsters.
Annis are fighters, and greens are rogues or wizards in life keep their class levels.
A female bandit lock in a towns dungeon for years turns into and annis hag and eats the other prisoners.
Bacon another twist is the woman thanking the adventurers and walks into the woods. When the heroes get to the next town the villagers ask the party if they have seen the paladins who went out to rescue the baby from being eaten by a hag with the most distraught of the villagers being the mother who’s appearance is the very same form the hag used to trick the heroes.
Did they return the baby to the hag.
@@krispalermo8133 Gives a Innsmouth type vibe. Especially if they don't necessarily know what they are. It could be interesting if a player first started to adventure because they (or their partner) can't conceive. They're searching for a solution. Through the adventure they find out the horrifying truth. They *feel* totally normal (i.e. - not evil), but they're told they will become evil. Now they have the dilemma of do they just wait for the change, or hope they don't turn? Is there any 'cure' that will allow them to become or remain human? Should they turn themselves in to authorities (or kill themselves, if you're running a darker game) before their minds start to change and they become a danger to others?
@@--enyo-- Good questions, but when it comes down to it.
a.) What type of story setting is the game being played in ?
b.) Does the concept make go Role playing drama ?
i.) Every starting PC gets to randomly draw a index card with a secret backstory.
ii.) During campaign, the every PC gets another random draw plot changing card.
x.) PC alone finds a bag of coins, with a coat of arms on it. Do they turn it in or get caught with the bag and arrested for being a thief.
xx.) An Imp finds you make good sport for corruption.
" Ran a campaign where the PC paladin was a war orphan raise by a traveling merchant that turn out to be the Baator Devil Pit Fiend that cause the wars to begin with. But the Pit Fiend gave it's life saving P. from the Abyss Demons and died on the first level of the Baator the Nine Hells. So P. went on a Quest to gain three wishes from a efreeti fire genie to bring the P.F. back to life.
A debt is a debt, a favor requires a favor in return. It is a Lawful Honor thing to do.
c.) How much pre'agree gore and foul language will be allow in game ?
i.) Hag just kills the PC and throws the head away, " about as graphic I will be around grade school age children. "
ii.) Hag gouge out the PC eye and breaks the PC neck leaving them cripple & screaming for help at -4hp." If you over do it, the Player will think the DM is really making death threats at them, or cause them to have nightmares after wards."
* this has happen with New Players at my game store before.
d.) when it comes to PC alignment. My pass group also play VtM, .. so ..
Our characters are mostly bad people who sometimes do good deeds.
Or we are Very Good friends with everyone in our home town or barony but are rat bastards to everyone else in the game of politics and war.
One of my characters asked hag wheter she would be able and willing to help him with ackquiring back his father's castle and title. She agreed, but wanted him to bring one child to her in return. He's going to do that, and I simply love that.
Poor child will become new hag and new hag is going to wreak havoc around that castle :P.
I feel a god example of a hag is Rumpelstiltskin, either from the classic tale or from the rather popular Once Upon a Time show. One scene I love from that is when he magically steals the tongue from someone, a nice way to reflavor a silence spell or curse a haughty fighter.
In terms of a monster that I’d like to see, aboleths. You don’t see a lot about em and they’re the mental counter to a kraken. Too, I’ve just been reading a lot of Lovecraft recently and I’m using parts of “The Thing on the Doorstep” as inspiration for an aboleth my players are fixing to face.
Magic always come with a price... ;-)
You just shaped the hags in my world. I love the Once-Upon-a-Time Rumpelstilzchen, but i had not made this connection.
Isnt he also a warlock?
i really like your kypw series. there are many monster series outthere, but you do the best job in how to use them in your game and give unique ideas instead just offering background informations. hope there will be a lot more of it, many monsters waiting to show up in kypw and i cant wait to hear what you have to say about them
I'm very flattered. Thank you!
Here's a way I used hags in a new way if you are for some reason interested. We start this with three hags in a coven, they are powerful and ancient and at the brink of surrounding entire kingdoms in their misery and suffering. They were at this point immortal because of the sheer amount of souls they had devoured and the magical power that had given it (Magic flows in living things in my setting). That's when a group of ancient heroes sealed away them in a pocket dimension and left them to rot away for all eternity. The adventurers took everything from the hags, but perhaps the real change was what they gave. Allthough the hags were unaware, the heroes had given them a soul each, and they were at the very least capable of basic feelings of affection for a select few individuals.
Thousands of years go by before the pocket dimension cracks a slight bit, and they have a link to converse and use their magic in the real world again. They meet a young girl who has just gotten expelled from a wizarding academy and she agrees to sign a contract with them. Formally the hags want to use this girl as a means of spreading fear and misery, but actually they have found themselves caring for the girl, perhaps even loving her as a daughter.
And that's how my warlock got herself some ancient evil sugar mommies.
That's actually pretty cute!
I once used Hag procreation to spice up my game by introducing Meirin the Twiceborn. She was kidnapped from her parents and born again as a hag child, but her heritage (complex backstory) would not allow her to become Evil. So she became a beautiful plot device
Damn.
Was that your PC? I have a similar idea, but my PC will not have all of the mandatory rituals to fully transform her.
Wow, that sound's cool! Can you tell me more of how she was used in your game?
@@sofiaterresguiraud1971
From what I remember Meirin was a human girl born under the 1st sun (5 sentient suns taking turns with the planet, a big plot point) , which fixed her alignment permanently in Chaotic Good
She was eaten by a hag and reborn like usual, but the influence of the 1st sun Sol Vita overrode all but the physical changes. So now she's a chaotic Good Hag Ranger who uses a set of stolen tools (including a sheet of rat skin that poisons surfaces you rub it on) to perform acts of heroism and bravery and adventure (as one does)
@@alexanderofrhodes9622 That sound's really awesome
My players who are novice players for the most part think they are rescuing a teenage girl from a coven of hags that have enslaved her. However, she will soon become a hag herself. If she engages in battle or is threatened, some of her dormant abilities will manifest but not fully under her control. This can function as a clue to the players. I think this will be fun for all of us.
Gnolls! Do gnolls! I love this series so far, very, very useful.
(Long read, may contain typos, sorry in advance, writing from my phone while being at work.)
I had a group of npc-adventurers approach the players and beg them for help.
(At this point the player characters had just reached level 3)
The npc told them that their party's wizard was in a magical slumber and nothing they tried could wake him up, so they asked the player characters to find a way.
Upon further investigation, the party's bard found out that the wizard had been flirting with a young elven druid who he met while passing through the nearest town 3 days away.
The player characters decided to pay that town a visit, just to get lost in the swamps that covered their way.
After days of exhaustion and disorientation they stumbled upon a giant lake where they got immediately attacked by 2 giant toads, just to be rescued by the elven druid.
After saving them, the players, of course asked the druid who she was and if she was the one who put that spell on the sleeping wizard.
The druid told them that she indeed did put the wizard under a spell since he cheated her for the kiss he had promised her as payment for some herbs and that she would lift the spell if the players would agree to help her.
Being thankful for the rescue and wanting to help the sleeping wizard (as well as get the bag of holding the npc had promised as reward) the players agreed to listen to her story.
Until about ten years ago, she was protecting the nearby town, but then a knight showed up together with his soldiers and a wizard.
He chased the druid away and put the town under his rules while the druid who swore an oath to protect the town couldn't fight the knight, who was by law an inhabitant.
Bound by her own vows, she had to stand aside.
After a while, the knight came to her den in the swamp, forcing himself onto her.
He knew about her vow, and that she wouldn't harm him.
Of course this led to pregnancy and once the child was born a few months ago, the knight and his men came and stole the poor druids baby, since a swamp was no place for an infant.
So the druid begged the player characters to retrieve her child.
Having felt the loss of her dearest, she would forsake her vow and leave the swamp for good.
The players agreed and decided to break into the knights mansion, and while doing so discovered some arcane seals drawn all around the door- and windowframes.
Upon retrieving the baby, the party made their way back to the druid, who thanked them and offered them a brass bowl as a gift.
With just a drip of blood and some water, the player characters could now scry on their true love.
(Without knowing that their true love would be haunted by nightmares of the person that scryed on them).
After the players left, they found themselves exhausted and plagued with nightmares and when they reached the npc adventurer group, the wizard had perished in his sleep.
DM info: The druid was a Night Hag who originally terrorized the small town until a knight was dispatched to deal with her.
Since the knight could not beat her in combat, his wizard outwitted her, making her swear an oath to never bring any harm to the village again.
Furious about being tricked, the hag started to plot her revenge.
When she found out about the Knights bastard child with a maid, she saw her chance.
While she was bound by the vow, her soon to be hag-daughter wasn't and so in a few years she'd get her revenge.
And when the NPC adventurer group declined her plea, she put the wizard (the only one who figured out her plans) under her spell so he couldn't warn other's of her true intentions.
Jesus motherfucking christ... That's what I call a story
Love it
Good job
How did I only now find these videos? These are brilliant!
Regarding Hag stories, I'm about to use a Night Hag who lives in a hut surrounded by an encampment of Half-Orc bandits. The bandits bring her rare materials that "fell off the bandwagon" and the occasional corpse, she returns the favor with a potion or two, everybody happy. But don't make the mistake to think she cares about anyone; she is basically your average Disney stepmother. She will leave few opportunities unused to fill the minds of the Half-Orcs with lies; making them believe that if she wasn't so kind as to let them stay with her they'd be hunted for the freaks they are. Because the Half-Orcs believe the world is against them, their crimes become more violent over time, to the inevitable point where they commit such gruesome deeds they can no longer have peace with themselves. That is usually when she does the dream thing and drags them to Hell in her soul bag.
However, an NPC stole and sold away her heartstone. The NPC, a halfling wild sorcerer whose magic got twisted even further by a lifetime of substance abuse, has developed a planeswalking ability - he can travel between different universes. Through taking the heartstone with him on such a journey he avoided any divination magic the hag performed (and gods know she tried), until he finally returned and sold off the stone. It was soon after that the bandits found and captured him and the hag has had him in animated suspension since; trying as best as she can without her heartstone to divine from his dreams to whom he sold it. However, for a completely unrelated quest, now the party is looking for this npc and they've stumbled upon the Half-Orcs. Next session they'll probably end up meeting the hag and I'm excited as frick. Best case she can convince the party to go looking for the heartstone and hand over the NPC with a horrible curse cast upon him, worst case it'll end in an awesome fight between the party and the hag, while one or multiple party members will have to hold the door to prevent the Half-Orcs from joining the battle. Hype. Is. Real.
KYPW Unicorns. They’re CR 5 celestials with legendary/lair actions and a magic item sticking out from their heads. On that alone, they’re interesting encounters, to say nothing of their place in the world.
A couple years ago I used a night hag to play with my party. Winter was coming and snows were getting deeper making travel on the roads very treacherous. The party noticed wagon tracks that ran off the road, passed the brush and careened partly into a rocky brook. Inside they found a small girl wrapped in blankets sobbing. She feigned distrust as any child should then slowly told them of the fate of the caravan. Her family had been traveling to [where the party was headed] and the horse got spooked. Father tried to control the animal but was unable before they'd ended up in the water. Since then, they camped until their food stuffs ran low and the temperature got very cold. (Her deception roles were top notch!) They all walked and made camp a ways away but one morning they would not wake up and she ran back here frightened several nights ago. They found that she was mostly telling the truth. They found the camp about an hour away with all members of her "family" lying in their sleeping bags dead. A medicine check told the cleric that they died from what appeared to be freezing but their faces were contorted in horror.Our barbarian took to the child immediately and protected her from the suspicions of the other party members. She eventually, albeit playfully, took one of the barbarians long hairs from his ponytail, ultimately creating a voodoo doll of him that caused much woe in the coming weeks. She also became a recurring NPC that the barbarian was all too happy to cut in twain!I've enjoyed using hags and I have enjoyed being a PC interacting with them. Great video and I hope some of this helps other DMs in some way.
I once made a good mysterious hag that lived in a bog.
The pcs discovered she was just a vampire that was stuck with being 7 years old forever. She also had an helmed horror as an guardian.
They loved her character.
Set up a wonderful encounter where the party went to negotiate with a coven of dune hags to cure a disease that they had all contracted, and that was currently killing one of the fighters. They traded that fighter's knowledge of the forging techniques of dune giants for a smoke that purged the fungus from their lungs. I definitely played up their cruelty and otherness during the encounter. They were constantly finishing each other's thoughts, hid behind the illusion of a rather normal crone, and extracted the memory with a strange iron crown that copied the fighter's memories into a gem.
Had a Hag, ask for a party member to forfeit their name for information. I had a character with a secret identity, decided it was time for the name reveal. Suddenly she’s entering my characters dreams and my DM has me doing her bidding. Had a great time with it too.
I'm watching a few videos about hags in Dungeons & Dragons and this is the most inspiring.
I would love to see a KYPW on displacer beasts, I certainly have some ideas of my own on how to use them
...Remember on the previous KYPW video I pointed out that you were suggesting moral dilemmas based on it somehow being immortal to protect someone? There are similar unfortunate implications here. Of course there are also unfortunate implications in the concept of the paladin, but let's not get into that right now.
It seems to me like there's a lot of fun to be had here!
The annis hag... is a mysterious monster that steals disobedient children, taking them away to places unknown for reasons unknown. The annis hag *is the bogeyman.*
Yes of course she is... No idea why I didn't go that route in the video, but you're totally right. Annis Hags are the Boogeyman
I have my adventurers on a river adventure - travelling on a barge. So, I adapted to Sea Hag to be a River Hag who can also breathe under water
AD&D2e and 3.5e, green hags also had water breathing ability.
Did a plot that a hag had three daughters and wanted a Son. So her fourth daughter was polymorph into a boy.
AD&D2e Ravenloft: Van Richten Guide to Hags
Hags lived as normal humans for the first 45 years of their life before the
" change." And many of them have class levels.
Ideas.
A bheur hag tormenting a snowy village by keeping the weather too cold to forage or hunt, forcing them to resort to Cannibalism, then cursing them and turning them into monsters (e.g. the until dawn wendigo) causing them all to turn on each other as people keep dying and nobody can figure out why, since there are no nearby wild animals.
Or, sea hag controlling a group of Kuo Toa trying to become a god, since Kuo Toa can do that, make her a much stronger variant of a sea hag, and throw in some cleric spells.
Would love a KYPW Kobolds. They are a great monster when used in a tactical way. Tucker's Kobolds are a great example
Thank you so much for this! I'm running Out of The Abyss, and I turned the hag encounter on the darklake into am encounter with a coven that wanted to acquire an artifact that had just resurfaced (the dawnbringer). Of course, they provided the players magic items to aid them in retrieving the sword, and of course, as soon as the players recovered the sword, they decided to keep it. Now I can have the magic items start... backfiring.
I have a Triton in my group and her background it's about the parents being slayed by a sea hag Minions, now(years after the family murder) the Triton finally knows where Found the hag and this video+volo is supporting me a Lot.
Hag Lore
AD&D2e Ravenloft: Van Richten Guide to Hags
a.) Hag are born " normal " after their mother has mated with a stander human, humanoid.
Hags live as " normal " humans for the first 45 years of lives, but unable to have children.
Annis tend to live lives as an adventure class fighter.
While Green Hags favor rogues or wizards.
Plot an annis hag that lived 25 years of her life as a horse bandit will come into a conflict with a green hag. The green hag doesn't want someone else messing with Her play things, and miss green has daughters growing up in the village.
Hags are the best. The number of adventures that can be written with them is astonishing.
Wow that was cool. I'm gonna use a hag against my party now, since they're new-ish to DnD they won't expect her >:)
Was thinking the same thing for my group. Mwuhahahaha
I currently have a winter-hag NPC who is the foster mother of one of my player's character and also taught her witchcraft. This hag became fond of her ward during the 13 years they spend together... . The players at some point unwittingly called her down on a pack of werewolves, which was pretty much the nuclear option at the time.
a hag asks for an infant to be brought to her. this child is the daughter of a local baron. the hag then returns the child without any issue or further trickery. the baron now owes her a life debt and a few sessions later the hold is facing an uprising as the baron taxes all the citizens to fund searches for wondrous items that the hag uses to fuel up and become a mid-game boss. the baron then hires the party to find and kill whomever wrought this to his land and the ever literal sorcerer who dumped wis and int down to a 6 executes himself when he realizes that they are the root cause.
Awesome video! I think that was your best video yet. Very informative and interesting, with lots of story ideas and twists.
P.S. You're an awesome salesman. I don't use minis and stuff anymore but if I had a local group I was playing with and need such things, I would definitely shop at mini market. I love how the ad isn't too intrusive in the video, on point, and over, without feeling like I had to sit through it watch the rest of the video. Most ads just make me want to skip them as soon as I can. Great work.
Also, Dan is evil.
+taibhsear71 Dan is certainly evil.
I might be getting some new minis after all. We played our first session of Dragons and Dice (what my 3-year-old calls it) but I don't have many female minis. I need some princesses with swords and some friendly goblins because "This goblin is my friend, he's walking with us on the road now."
This video have given me such a good idea for a campaign arch with a frost hag grooming a small army of wendigos and the party seems to get in her way.
You gave me a great idea for PC. A hag who right before her 13th birthday was approached by a devil who told her what she was and so she signed a deal to stop her from aging in exchange for becoming a warlock.
i used a sea hag as lord in a domain that traps ships in a slow moving whirwind of kelp (idea was inspired by a ravenloft sourcebook). there were raiding parties between the ships for supplies, communities of trapped shipcrews in tied together ships, one ship with undead drunken soldiers, another with a wereshark as captain, a aggressive population of underwater folk und sea monsters waiting under the kelp for prey. it was pretty intense, apocalyptic waterworld survival combined with jaws
Years later and I’m here again. BEST VIDEO EVER!!
I love the fey. My favorite race to play is the changeling, and I'll be running a coven of hags against my players in my current campaign that I DM. So, thank you for the hag lore.
I have a campaign on hiatus for the holidays and the last thing I did was get the players to make a deal with a hag (she'll help them escape her swamp, they owe her a favor to be called in at some point in the future). I decided I would figure out where this was going over break. This gave me some great ideas.
Love this KYPW series! Keep up the good work Cody.
I'm planning on making a hag disguise themselves as a beautiful oracle who makes correct predictions because she magically causes the evil prediction to come true. She finds the party and asks to join them so she can slowly kill them and take this magic gem they found.
My favorite time using a hag in my games was not actually a hag, but a half-elf who the party believed to be a hag. She was a pirate captain rumored to be a night hag and the party found themselves aboard a ship she was hunting. I gave her a backstory where in her childhood, she watched her older sister transform into a hag. She learned some blood magic, got revenge by killing the hag that cursed her sister, then she killed her sister. Her abilities are very hag-like in most cases and in some ways she has outdone the run-of-the-mill night hag, like her version of a soul bag or her ability to take her entire ship and crew into the Ethereal Plane.
Our DM decided to bring in a Hag a few months ago. Our party was in a position where we had to turn to the Hag or face REALLY powerful Frost Giants for what we needed. We opted for the Hag. The Hag had us kill a rival hag in exchange for rare items and information that would help us ascend an extremely dangerous mountain. Naturally, the Hag told us partial truths and gave us enough supplies to get up the mountain, but not down, so that we would die from exposure to cold and thin air (think Mt. Everest). She also told us that to get past an area of powerful magic on the mountain we'd have to go through without protective clothing (a total lie but the party fell for it). We survived... but only barely and had to call on a very powerful ally to get us out of trouble. Really a great play by our DM.
I love weird magic, there’s so much flavor text! I’m currently setting a campaign where the BBEG is a hag, and they have these runestones and all sorts of weird magic that does strange things.
In my D&D setting all Hags hold a special vendetta against Dryads since it was the original Dryad, something that they unintentionally created, that got them kicked out of the Feywilds. One Hag that my group recently ran into had managed to track down the original dryad and had been working her magic and schemes into trying to kill her. To do this, she had been manipulating a city and one particular noble house into doing her bidding. She granted the house all sorts of boons but she had them do some pretty terrible stuff. It all worked find until the latest head of that house decided that enough was enough and betrayed her, this cost her dearly as it set back her plans quite a bit and was forced to move away from the city due to a deal she made with the party.
Thanks to this video, I now have a few ideas as to what I'll do with her once when she returns to the story
ive only ever seen these used once, and i had alot of fun with them - mostly because stealth and an item the DM forgot about. Three hags were channeling a ritual on an amulet or other small artifact over a small pond. they were standing on the edge, and the pond was maybe 30 feet in diameter, with the amulet more or less centered on it. i, as a draconic sorcerer, had a pretty good dexterity score, so my stealth was pretty decent, and they were focusing on this ritual, not alert to possible threats nearby. so instead of just going in guns blazing with the ranger and monk we had with us, i rolled another stealth check, and threw a bead from my necklace of fireballs, targeting the amulet. i hit it, causing the blast to injure all 3 hags, and destroy their amulet thing. which made them all flip out and attack each other. we let them tear into each other for a few rounds, then just annihilated them. good times, and the DM was laughing so hard i thought he was gonna break a rib
The Annis Hag is definitely my favourite hag.
Lots of good advice in this video. I'll have to take some into consideration.
In my Lost mines of phandelver game, Agatha the banshee is actually a Green Hag. She sends adventurers against the nearby necromancer because she wants the owl well.
Kill your party with hags... Hmmm... Just put a coven of night hags at 3-4 level
*1 2-hour fight later*
*WHY!!!*
Yes just was on the receiving end of that a few weeks back.
Did that to my party last week since they left me with little to build off of the week before
First time, still learning
Thinking about running my very first campaign as a Dungeon Master and thinking about making my first villain as a Hag. 😁.
Player is the daughter of a noble who made his fortune as an adventurer. The man's poor wife died the winter she was born, found frozen and dead in a cave, but a kindly old woman was able to help the mother birth her daughter and then give him to the father after spending a week tracking him down. The girl was a kindly child, if slightly strange, but everyone just chocked it up to her family's circumstances. But now, however, almost a full-grown woman, she's run away from home and no one has seen her since.
In reality, that kindly old woman was no kindly old woman, but a Bheur Hag. She had eaten the woman's baby and birthed her own daughter, who she then handed to the "father" out of a sick, twisted desire to see an old enemy's despair (the father and the hag have encountered each other before). If he killed the child, then what remained of his family would be gone. If he did not, then he could have to live with the knowledge that his inaction brought more evil into the world. Such simple revenge, right?
Only, the one thing that could get in the way of her plans was the tight friendship between the father's old party, two members of which were still alive. The Cleric and the Warlock. The father knew of the trickery of hags, and so he had them test his newborn daughter for curses. Upon finding out that his child was gone and that the babe in his arms was a hagspawn, the father begged his old friends to help him find a solution. After years of study, bargains and prayers, the group gift the girl a magical amulet. They tell her of her origins and warn her that the amulet will halt her transformation for as long as she wears it, but if she ever takes it off, then she will turn within the next 3 days, and nothing she does will be able to stop it. The amulet works and the transformation is stopped, but the natural magic she would gain as a hag is not prevented. Instead, it goes wild, unable to be contained within this human body it not suited to it's use. Now, after years of guilt and shame, she has run away from all that she knew, hoping to prevent shame from falling on her family and make up for all the harm she believes she will one day bring about. All the while never knowing...
That mother is always watching...
You know what, my party does deserve to have a great summer
Hags are one of my favorite enemies in D&D, one of the few that really feels like they've got role playing built in, not just combat.
I usually have my Hags be the one to offer aid when the party is down on their luck. In disguise of course, she offers a couple of magical items which will help in their current quest. All the items she offers are of course cursed and allows her to keep taps on the party and torment them throughout their travels. When they go to confront the hag, she will know that they're coming and will be prepared.
During one game, our party had dealt with some hags very early on, and much later we found out that they were one of several covens working under an all powerful lich. No of us saw it coming, and it was awesome!
"There's no way he'll shift my bulk, I watch you cry and have a sulk!"
-Gruntilda, Banjo-Kazooie
DDO's recent Ravenloft quest had quite a few Night hags; one, in particular, had to be defeated in a human form, and then in a hag form, and then she ran off and had to be fought again on a nearby hill- along with her patron, a Satyr, and a small army of miniboss-level earth elementals! Going into more detail would be a minor spoiler, so I'll stop there.
amazing timing , im doing a morning session Right now and they are about to get TPK'd by hags that were meant to be advisors to them.
Do it. xD
I introduced the party together with a Green hag, Grandma, and her family of feral druidic gnomes (Ma, Pa, Son). These gnomes could only transform into wolves, so at first, the party see wolves, then BAM! gnomes when HP drops to zero. The ranger back himself up into the den of the Hag, who flanked him and ended up ripping out his throat with her claws. Sadly, he died, but I think that death bonded the rest of the party together.
They were looking for this twisted family because, at first, they assumed they were after bandits who kidnapped a stable master's wife. The husband raved about wolves with glowing green eyes busting in his door instead. The evidence didn't suggest as suck to the local authority, so the village chalked it up to trauma. When the party cleared the den, they realized that the Hag and the gnomes were cannibals, potentially eating local missing childen and villagers.
Great monster video. I think it is a comprehensive, well-structured, and descriptive bio. Keep the helpful monster description videos coming! I like to hear other DM ideas and suggestions for creating and playing certain monsters. It helps a lot.
These are awesome! I’m doing a Kobold arc in my campaign, and they’re being led by an ice dragon (homebrew) and would love a KYPW vid on kobolds. Other great things, though, would be golems
You, sir... Have a like. Kobolds are one of my favorite (and often most infamous) of rotten little beasties for derailing a party's ambitions in any campaign. Love the little scoundrels... I happen to have noticed Cody loves them too... so this promises to be a fun vid'... INDEED... (lolz)
In the short term, don't hesitate to compose mass-combats with them and "cleverly downsized" weapons-technologies (probably either stolen from tinker gnomes or possibly through a "filthy alliance")... Go ahead and work with REAL tactics, group intellect (ish) and introduce your parties to the idea of a group's accomplishments being worth A LOT MORE than just the sum of its parts... Kobolds die pretty easily (if you don't beef 'em up too much) so it's a good intro' to mass combat for those uninitiated... It's even a fine lesson on the "advantage of numbers" for the more seasoned "veterans" of the game...
As for Golems... I like to think of them (cheapest and quickest) kind of as if they were "clock-work soldiers"... You can probably get away with a LOT WORSE if you like, but I generally (at least in the first couple run-ins for the party) start kind of simple with the "enchanted command list" and go up from there. Most of the "canon" suggests that they're created, so it just kind of "needs" to make sense that they always have a purpose... AND that sort of thinking tends to hold the story together a little better... As far as abilities, just depends on who exactly (as YOU intend) created them... so... a fair amount of "leeway" there.
In any case, hope this helps a bit... :o)
John Ferrara check out tucker's kobolds and killer kobolds for some cool kobold ideas.
michael riggs much appreciated!
I would be most interested in your thoughts on the Lich and what kinds of creatures you think would be paired with one. This is one of my favorite channels. Thanks for all your hard work.
Used hags in a Pirate campaign , She was the contact with the fence for stolen goods in the city a day away.
The party contact with her comes about because they have to get certain potion that will Drive away the giant sharks attacking a fishing village down the road.
Which the hag had set up with the fish people in order to destroy the fishing village threat.
The fence was a member of a Thieves guild who held the hags sisters imprisoned.
First Quest was to find her sisters and free them.
Second quest destroy the thieves guild completely.
Third quest was the pirates as they were Forcing (lol) the hag into a life of crime. So off to deal with the Pirates.
Fourth quest depending on the 2nd Quest would find the Party facing the Hag`s coven now restored by the party or Just the hag herself.
Granted the party was 3rd level to start. They were not 3rd by the end lol.
The party were all Rogues and 1 Cleric The Hag kept trying Find ways to seduce or destroy or kill the Cleric.
I added a damsel in distress scenario only that the damsel was clearly dead and only one of the party members and anyone else knew other that the first two in the party and could see this, the other two got intimate and friendly with the corpse talking to her and sharing stories, and the hag well could not of been happier.
Imagine this:
You discover early in the game a coven of Hags are trying to collect various items to increase their power, and are hired by a Wizard to stop them, they meet 2 of the members of the Coven throughout their journey, and have many encounters with them or their minions. They may win sone items, and lose others. In the end, the party delivers the last item they save to the Wizard, only to learn he is the 3rd member, and the Coven has just been making the party suffer this entire time. You now have to stop 2 powerful Hags and a Wizard who you have been working with for a long time. This could be a very interesting challenge for any party.
Coming back to this as I plan to run a hag coven encounter soon.
I remember this campaign I had where I was running corruption rules which had a hag coven as the main villains. I hid their eye they placed on the hilt of a sword they gave to one of their minions specifically so the party would loot it and carry it around everywhere.
I used a coven of green hags in a different way. They had a shared hp/mp pool, they had a hag eye, the hag with the eye would get access to the coven extra spells, and the hag with the eye was the only one that would take damage. In the end one hag ran away, and the party is now in possession of the hag eye. Mwahaha
Truly the scariest creatures in the land, old people.
Love this video! I am writing my first campaign and I was having trouble thinking of ways a small army of undead could be risen and how the party could stop it. Now that I know about Hags, I am thinking that the bad guy could have made a dark deal with a coven of hags to help him reanimate the bodies. Furthermore I like the concept of another coven helping the party in order to control the area, but for a price.
Our Dm resonantly tossed a rather interesting Hag coven at us, unlike normal ones these three were not all in the same place but in 3 locations, one in a deep dark forest infested with orcs, another in a cave that could only be gotten to by swimming through shark infested waters, and the last one was in a frozen ice cave at the top of the tallest mountain around. and yes each member was of the 3 main types -.- and each one had 2 witches acting as guards... was a pain in the ass to take the dang things down for good, because once they got low enough the telephoned away and then we had to fight them all together to stop them from summoning Orcus.
I’ve watched this video legit 10 times. I love how you make the hag so fuckin interesting! Love it G!
I am in the process of prepping a new campaign and the first villain the party will face will be a Green Hag. Good video with great suggestions that gave me more ideas how the hag can mess with the party.
One of my favorite monsters ! Especially in a coven don't forget they might form a coven but they don't necessarily like eachother.
I have a side quest to cure lycanthropy in the party with a coven of green hags coming up for my groups. This was timely and super helpful thanks!
So my party fought 3 hags last week. TPK.
We then wake up in that same town earlier that morning. The hags are groundhog's day-ing us.
We ended the last session half way through the 2nd fight with them and we've come to the conclusion that all our planning was pointless as they're aware of the time loop too. We got 1 down but we're about to die again...
I once had a hag that was trapped in a ring of rope that did not let her pass until the 3 knots that were still in the rope were undone. But she could’t undo the knots herself so she offered a wish spell to anyone how would undo the knot. The players never ended up using the hag but I think this is an interesting take on bags so feel free to take this idea and maybe you’ll have more success in using this hag
thank you for this video. I have a PC in my game that is a changeling. her mother is trying to pull her and her two sisters into the hag coven to replace her as heirs. the epic battle is still several sessions from now, but I look forward to it.
Right now, my players are in an island and they have just faced the Kuo-Toa minions of a Dagon-worshipping Hag. Soon they'll have to discover the cultists who have infiltrated the island's city and hopefully face the hags, who'll be an Aboleth's lieutenants.
Words cannot express how much I'm loving this mix of aquatic / swampy / foresty / urban mix of encounters!
I'm planning on running a Homebew Hag encounter in Tomb of Annihilation, this was really helpful. I honestly love the idea of a creature that is just rotten and nasty to the core.
I'm using hags to make the party go crazy a bit. In order to stop the crazy the party will have to sneak in a dragons country. Dragons are believed to be extinct along with all deities due to a war a thousand years ago. Hags know they're not and want dragon parts as well as items if they can have their way. A goddess will ascend to help the party then I have more but I won't tell all. So I have a green hag and night hag oddly enough working together in my magically chaotic world. What no one knows yet is the third member of their coven is a dark wizard!! I was gonna make it another green hag but I enjoy your idea on that twist. Honestly hags and dragons were my initial evil entity from plan A. They started encountering hags at level 2!
A story I have made with hags revolves around a coven of two Bheur Hags, and a Demilich, willing to sacrifice anything and everything to gain a new, more powerful body.
This is an amazing series!!
Thanks! Glad you dig it!
Maybe she ask them to gather information for her, as a section of her territory went dark. She ask them to lend her a hand so that she could use their eyes to scout the area and keep an ear to the ground. Basically, she ask them to scout and adds in one of those quarks, the catch being that each party member heres a different discreption. When they come back to report back to the Hag they each loose one of those things. One looses and eye, one a tounge, one an ear, a nose, finger, toe, feet etc. I wouldn't make them lose anything that would actually hurt thier character power (like a hand or foot) though without have a quest available to get a replacement (like the hand from the lady of the lake that Aquaman gets for example).
This one has ti be my favorite out of the KYPW!! I'll be watching this a few times as I make a homebrew!
Decided, this will be the first boss of my first Dnd game.
I hate when players meta game the game play. And the snowflakes just want to try to murder hobo and not try to Roll Play why their characters should win.
Sorry about that, just ranting.
The kind old woman everyone calls " Granny," can be the characters' patron for 1d6 class levels till they find out She is the monster the whole time.
Running a hag lair this weekend and this is gold. Rock on, man.
AD&D2e Ravenloft: Van Richten Guide to Hags.
Hags live as normal humans for the first 45 years of their lives before the
" change," takes place. And they had class levels.
Annis tend to fighters and greens were rogues or wizards.
A 12th-level wizard/ green hag can create a wetland " dungeon," with all sorts of polymorph monsters for characters to fight. Or to act as a party's patron.
I love using hags as environmental hazards in D&D. In my homebrew world a hag can achieve a form of apotheosis when she eats her two other coven sisters. I call this hag a shrew. The hag gains additional powers and abilities from this dark ritual allowing her to challenge mid-high level players (11-14).
Well in my current campaign I implemented a "Nemesis" like system with a warlord waging a siege on Neverwinter and the party having to move up the hierarchy of that warlords' army. The hag is pretending to want the lands around the swamp back so she gets her old position back so the party tries to stop the warlord with the hags help. She actually wants the warlords position.
Had a coven of gags lead my players deeper into a swamp by using one of the players markers against them. It helped he kept failing his survival checks to find the right path markers so they went in hook line and sinker. The hags kept going invisible and attacking them with magic and the crocodiles in their lair while the Paladin was getting overwhelmed with evil surrounding him. The rogue ran into their hut and found their eye and started working on destroying it. I used this as a great opportunity to put the rogue as a woman when the rest of the group thought she was a man. It was a great fight, and the outing of the rogue played so well since only 1 other player knew the truth.
I am choosing that a huge threat to my group is that multiple covens are joining together. As they are seeking to unlock even greater powers than just a single coven of 3 grant them, and are trying to rejoin 3 covens of 3.
I love your KYP series, right now I'm about to run my first home brewed campaign, and my idea, is to send the party for a NPC, but he asks help dealing with kobolds, which in reality, they are minions to a hag/Coven that could save the life of the NPC's mother but at cost.
I don't know how to scheme it, but your video Gave me a pretty good idea!
In my homebrew world I have an enclave of hags (made up of several covens) that're guardians of many ancient & arcane artifacts within a vast forest. They'll loan out those artifacts, but for a price (and that's where a hard bargain takes on a whole new meaning).
Volo's touches on this, but changing a hag coven's spell selection goes a long way towards flavoring them differently. For example, giving a coven Raise Dead and a bunch of healing makes them more of a part of the story. Maybe villagers that are desperate enough to save a loved one go to these hags for help, despite the villager knowing that the hags are going to want something in return
I DM'ed a campaign and one of the storylines was a hag coven who set up a shop like the one in Stephen Kings "Needful Things".
This video solves a huge problem for a campaign I'm writing. Thank you!
Hags can be quite surprising. I play in a 2 PC campaign with my brother and a friend, with my brother as the DM. We are both lvl 14, I'm a warlock, other PC is a paladin. We have done quite well with just the 2 of us, trashing CR 15 and 17 creatures with surprising ease sometimes. So this one time when we fought 3 Green Hags and 2 shambling mounds we assumed this would be a cakewalk. But we barely made it out with our lives as the hags were super effective with spells, effectively being a lvl 12 spell caster who can cast 3x every round. Plus having counter spells to shut down my warlock's very limited (but usually very effective) number of spells. The shambling mounds tied us up with grapples and the hags lightning bolted us and counter spelled our spells, turned invisible when they got in trouble and it became quickly apparent we were going to die to a couple of CR 5 monsters. We did make it out barely but had to pull out all the stops and tricks we had. It was a good lesson in humility for our group and taught us a good lesson at underestimating hags....