Thought on Court Hag: Have them have multiple victims at once, always playing one against another- that way the ambition is always there, letting their pawns want to dethrone each other. The hag just has to make sure they're not caught double-dealing, but really... "The new duke? Oh, I know some things about him. Things you could use to become the next duke..."
The court hag is such an interesting concept, especially if she is an advisor to a ruler... or maybe, a mentor figure for an inspired adventurer? Perhaps suggesting that they go on numerous quests without end, to constantly feed on the adventurer's personal ambitions.
His hags are remarkably similar to the Warhammer Chaos gods. The most obvious one is the Court Hag. That's literally just Tzeentch. The Gentle Hag is pretty much Slaanesh. Unless we say that's an extreme of what the pillow hag is, in that case the Gentle Hag could be Nurgle. The Fear Hag doesn't seem to have a murder fetish so can't really be said to be a Khorne parallel though...
Damn thats evil i love it. It could also be a neutral or good twist with an academy teacher/advisor making the students reach their full potential with competition! She doesnt need to exploit them so much since the academy allways has more people coming!
Wait if Hags can feed on emotion, what about an Angry Hag that is the leader of a raiding barbarian horde that just feeds off rage and is swole af. I find it both hilarious and terrifying that a buff grandma is leading a band of Conans rampaging through the country
I actually played a warlock who was raised by a hag, I called her baba, She was basically my adopted grandmother and she called me her little meat pie. Thank God I had a DM who is very open minded
@@shhinysilver1720 He didn't say it was her specifically, only that he called her baba(grandma), in DnD Baba Yaga is "mother of all witches", a mage and an archfey. I dont know if his DM would allow him to be raised by her, only some random hag
I created a goblin warlock who had a hag patron but the game didn't materialize and I have been so disappointed ever since. I want her to be a protective and affectionate hag too!
I love this idea so much..! Wonder if ambition hags would actually use their contracts/powers on the other hags to get them to work harder/be better.... ~And same goes for pillow hags making matches for other hags-~ But what about haunt hags? Mafia is /pretty/ scary, so maybe for intimidation tactics, they would have a haunt hag to scare someone into submission, and their influence over them grows the more paranoid the other person gets?
@@pointyhatstudios I'm considering doing something with a court hag too. Gonna need to work on some abilities for her though; only thing coming to mind would be the obvious compulsions and maybe Disguise Self.
On my last session, we had a hag as our Warlock's patron. She fed on pain and suffering, and that was her contract for power - but our Warlock was Good aligned.. so our Warlock was obsessed with punishing the evil, even more severe and obsessive than Paladins lol I'm thankful my DM enjoys subverting tropes and changing things from time to time.
Step 1: Be a Druid Step 2: Cast Summon fey at 8th/9th level Step 3: Get 3 Sea Hags, make them a conven Step 4: Enjoy as the Spooky Water grandmas destroy your enemies
I can imagine a Fear Hag running a Halloween theme park. Haunted houses, roller coasters, you name it. They will have plenty of fear to feed on because people will come over WILLINGLY.
That is a little too perfect. Maybe its a hag that was tired of adventurers ruining their set up, and decided for a more "legal" approach. But if you want a plot, you need to add some kind of drama. Maybe the hag is gathering power to do some real evil. Maybe she is getting a little bit too powerful, and people are starting to die out of fear. Or maybe, she is the good guy, and something evil is lurking in her theme park, and had asked the adventurers for help.
A Haunt Hag and a Gentle Hag could team up and create a fantasy amusement park full of thrill rides, a haunted house, games, shows and delicious food. Rake in wagonloads of gold while getting them tasty emotions.
@@gonzalobarragan8076 "YES, I'm a hag! The hag who hired you lot! There's something *killing* my source of fear, and I have ledgers to complete and ideas to come up with for scaring my VIP returning customers!"
An idea that I don't see often enough with emotivores (like hags) is that when they "feed" on emotions, those emotions are well...consumed in the people who produce them. I think one way to flip the script on hags is to use that variant, so when they come to a town and encounter a bunch of downtrodden but relatively happy people, they immediately assume it is the hag at the edge of the village that is causing it. When in fact the hag is lessening the people's suffering by literally eating their unhappiness. From there the PC's could be left with trying to find a new hag (if they slay the old one) or to take on the much harder path of actually fixing all the things that made the villagers so unhappy in the first place.
..... Twist that up and have a local tyrant paying a Comfort Hag or even a [I just made this up] Rage Hag to keep the people he's conquered content and complacent, unable to muster up the anger to rebel against him.
I love this idea as a spin on the "feeds off emotions" piece. I feel like the conventional kind of hag (feeds off emotions w/o destroying them) and this kind of hag would play off of each other really well. Like a fear-eating hag could remove people's hesitation, leaving them more vulnerable to the manipulations of an ambition-sustaining hag.
Now I'm just picturing an almost Nurgle-esque situation where a Hag's influence puts people in an utterly miserable life situation but due to them feeding on said misery they never seem able to get out of it and in fact may cause a downward spiral as they are kept content with progressively worsening health and livelihood.
I started to think of a "Pun Hag" who feeds off of annoyance and exasperation rather than just misery. She seems like a sweet old grandma at first but then she makes a really bad dad joke and you're like "ughhhhh" and then you see the twinkle in her eye. That would be really fun with your players as well since that kind of thing carries over into real life and your players will feel as annoyed as their characters would be! Also, I really love these videos! Keep it up!
sounds like i am her ULTIMATE NEMESIS... because i love puns. i'd have to hang out with her for a really long time to start getting annoyed. but i love this idea.
A hag in the disguise of a Matchmaker for a town, village, or outskirts of. Empowered by romance and feeds off that love. But she makes no exceptions and will destroy families, marriages, and more if she can deliver on the deal of someone's affections. Building false promises of love and devotion through a lust tonic, a spiked wine, or sweets enchanted by wild fey magic. Whether the love is true or not, suffering or flourishing. The Matchmaker is empowered but always tugs the strings in her favor...
I think one interesting way to use these kinds of hags is to have them be a template you can put on the already existing hags. Since most hags that already exist are typically tied to an environment (ie. Sea Hags), changing the emotion they feed on and giving them new abilities associated with that emotion could be very fascinating. For example, having a Bheur Hag that has a Gentle Hag’s appetite and abilities. It could create an isolated winter resort, where patrons are kept from leaving by harsh winter storms she summons.
You know, i've seen this in DAO. The Sloth Demon there is just the kind of guy to do this, but he does not even need the weather conditions, since people are stuck in his illusion. Being a side quest, it's still one of my personal favourites in the game.
I love the ambition hag. From a different perspective she is helpful, the person in your life that you need to push you past your artificial limits and help you achieve greatness. Always supportive, maneuvering to get you more, your biggest hype man. Is she evil? or your bff? Even if you know her intentions, maybe you go along with it anyway. Love that kind of moral dilemma in a game. So well done. Loving your videos!
Yep, it honestly an intresting dynamic and could have an encounter like this The party go into a rapidily growing city state that has been growing in height and power through cunning diplomacy, trade, and infrastructure projects. This growing height was brought on by a highly ambitious duke supported by a Court Hag, with the party encountering a family member or close friend of the Duke, another Noble. This Noble tells the party about the eventual fall caused by burn out brought by Court Hags, and asks them to help their family member/friend. The party goes and try to do this, as to help the Duke, but turns out the Duke and Court Hag are extremely close friends, with the Duke helping Hag best they can. This could bring an intresting moral dilema, that can be quire fun to explore, digging into fourt intruge, as party chooses to help the fmailt/friend to save the Duke, or side with the Duke and Court Hag, who think the family/firend is trying to depose the Duke.
The Gentle Hag is certainly an interesting take on the concept, flipping the usual "wicked witch" theme of the standard hag for essentially showing how a Fairy Godmother could work in an antagonistic role (without just going for the Shrek style parody route of course). -And I totally didn't arrive at that train of thought just because the fantasy novel I'm working on has a Fairy Godmother as the main villain with a similar MO to your Gentle Hags-
This actually reminds me of a character backstory idea I had for a Pathfinder character The character is a Changeling (in Pathfinder Changelings are the always-female daughters of hags) whose mother was a Green Hag and whose father was a would-be victim of hers who figured out she was a hag and decided he still loved her. Yes, it is a cheesy power of love thing. Yes, they are both very loving parents.
The Court Hag is amazing. Fits perfectly as the secret villain character. Even worst, you going up against the Court Hag literally plays into its own plans, feeding it with your ambition to stop her (or him, who knows?). The feeling when your benefactor, the one who has helped you get more skills and items, is the one you need to stop. Wonderful stuff!
So, according to official lore and folklore, Hags are always women. However, in 3e there was something called a Hagspawn, which is the son of a Hag and a Human man. They were incredibly strong physically, but lacked the magical abilities of their mothers.
a gentle hag could just be a grandma figure, but she feeds you cookies, cakes and biscuits... and if you're not happy, she'll find a new recipe, and a new recipe with crack cocaine in it gran will get you begging for sweet treats, but only gran's cookies make you feel the special warmth and love you need to get through the day
The idea of Hags being identified by there need to feed on emotions is a very interesting take, while further explaining their isolation from other fey. While humanoids can produce emotions over and over again, fey are literal embodiments of strong emotions. A Haunt Hag can feed on the terror of humanoids with repercussion, but spending time around a Meenlock would probably drain the life out of the creature.
@@CountDVB Mind Flayers feel like they're always going for body horror in canon, so them just feeding on energy rather than the physical brain feels like a bit of a half measure.
@@LupineShadowOmega Well that's if they are just feeding on either, in the lore I think it's supposed to be that strong emotion is like a spice for the meal that is the actual brain matter. Though if you wanted to add more body horror without the brain eating, you could make it so that mind flayers like to change their victims in a way to suit whatever particular emotion the Flayer favors.
@@thepopulargirl1784 The flavor bit is fine, that just means that they can discern the tastes of the chemicals in the brain, which seems both horrific and something to savor their meal that a eldritch horror race of monsters would do. Adds flavor to them as antagonists. My problem though, is with the emotional energy bit, because it seems like a half measure in a species of creature that actively eats the brains of sapient beings. As for the changing their victims bit, eh. They're already part mad scientist. Mindflayers specifically run "medical and scientific" experiments on their captives. I don't think you really need to reinforce that in canon. Basically they play really well as the body horror of eldritch monsters that can turn you into an eldritch monster or tear you apart, but also aliens that want to abduct and experiment on people.
imagine: a theme park in the feywild where a coven of hags has designed every ride to feed them. Fear hag running a haunted house, pillow hag running a love predictor or fortune teller of love type-deal, etc.
I can imagine a crafting war raging between a Gentle Hag and a Haunt Hag. One tries to turn entire town into spa, other tries to give it Nightmare Before Christmas vibe. The real villain is a Court Hag that feeds on ambitions of both.
And a Pillow Hag is helplessly trying to get the Gentle and Haunt Hags to stop fighting and realize they actually like each other. Can even be who calls the party for help!
I've been binging on your videos lately and I have to say thank you for inspiring me so much! Your ideas and enthusiasm have pushed me through the threshold of campaign creation
Dude I love the fear hags, it's such a cool idea! The idea of feeding on fear being evil because fear is seen as negative emotion being juxtaposed against the fear hags being probably the least likely to do harm is really interesting. They could even be used as a trial for a character to prove their worth or something of the like and take a good or neutral alignment because they see it as their job to force mortals to face their fears to become stronger. But maybe that's breaking too far from the rules of DnD.
Plot twist: it was never against d&d. The first d&d setting, Mystara, had 3 witches in the region of Norwold to constantly test the PCs and, if they found them whorty, even help them with some advice.
@@MadAtreides1 but witches aren’t/weren’t the same as a hag in 1st Ed. or 2nd Ed. Witches can be any alignment. Hags have to be chaotic evil to be called a hag. This video was very interesting with its ideas though.
Of the 4 hags (happiness, ambition, love, fear) the fear hag is probably the safest to deal with, she will probably just open a "haunted house" on the edge of town that people would actually pay to enter, the other 3 will definitely mess up your life. (Happiness causing apathy, ambition causing burnout or potentially illegal actions, and love forcing you into unhealthy relationships.)
Testing with fear? Got me thinking about that scene from the David Lynch Dune movie. Put your hand in the box.... I will not fear, fear is the mind killer...
I kinda like the idea of a player character that was raised by hag in the Feywild. Perhaps found as an orphaned or lost baby, the hag took you in to feed on your powerful emotions or simply use you as an ingredient of a nasty brew. But with time and proximity it grew fond of the child and raised it as their own. Eventually the coven found out of its existence and therefore the hag conducted a ritual to send the now older kid into another plane. The kid would never their true parent or the coven who would love to destroy them.
In my friends world, Hags are created when a witch/druid is killed (ex: burned at the stake) for perceived wickedness. And due to the peoples belief that the witch is wicked and monsterous, they becomes so as a hag. The hag retains the personality and memories of the witch, but of course become more jaded due to their mistreatment and murder. One of my characters is a Witches Apprentice to a hag coven, mainly the matriarch of the coven.
Imagine a court Hag helping with a relationship, like a villain of a romance story 🤔 then she basically makes a prince to go out with every single princess in a kingdom, but leave them obsessed with him and this would cause the other kingdoms to have no suitors to their princesses other than that prince and once the kings were dead, the prince would become a polimonarch of multiple queens
This channel and D&D shorts have been so useful for ideas and plot hooks in my games, i just love this content I'm definetely using a haunt hag next session, fits so well with the enchanted forest my players are currently on
As a Celtic mythology person and lover of fae folklore, memes be memes. Also as such a person, I am OBSESSED with your homebrew hags! The Gentle Hag in particular is *such* a good example of how the fae, in their whimsical antics, are *incredibly* dangerous to mortals. 14/10. Absolutely incredible. (She also reminds me of how Macha is characterized in Song of the Sea, which is a huge plus.)
Someone who loves hags as much as I do! You're the best! For people who just realized they are awesome, here's some hag strategies: 1) The people the hag wants to suffer aren't the party, or even related to the party. She is even very happy to unambiguously help the party by giving them that magic item they need if they "only deliver this letter to someone in the place you're going anyway". A letter that results in a double murder in the street in broad daylight because of whatever was written there. How many times will the party do her little chores? 2) The people the hag wants to see suffer are the enemies of the party or agents of the BBEG. Another affable hag or coven whose goals actually align with the party, but whose methods may not align at all! After 20 sessions of helping the party, that backstab is going to be really exciting... 3) The hag is seen as a necessary evil by the allies of the party. The oracle hags extract a terrible price from all who go to their swamp hut, but their divinations are never, ever wrong. Easy for the PCs to ignore until their favorite NPC was last seen heading for the swamp to get the answer the PCs need to foil the BBEG's grand plan. Have fun! Hags are AMAZING!
what if the one(s) the Hag wants to suffer are the people running the very same thingy the party's going to stop. Like, what if the Hag wants a cult the heroes are going after to suffer, or even a particularly annoying Lich. Heck, this one's just generally got a thing for really petty reasons for villains to help the protagonists. "He borrowed my mixing bowl 50 years ago and still hasn't given it back! Worse yet, he always pretends not to be home even though I CAN SEE THE LIGHT IN YOUR WINDOWS, CHARLES"
@@oldmankatan7383 definitely, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And there are plenty of reasons, both substantial and petty, that would cause a Hag to want an arbitrary group to suffer. Maybe they stole from the Hag. Maybe they Tresspassed? Maybe they bake really good cookies and the smell is constantly irritating the hag, tempting her to break her diet?
I‘m playing a hexblood in a campaign, that might eventually turn into a hag a century or two down the line and now I kinda wanna have her turn into a pillow hag or a gentle hag… or a version based on thirst for knowledge that makes people go full Doctor Faustus and throw all ethics aside for obscure lore and knowledge
the ambitions hag can and should be found in other areas of society that are fueled by ambitions: Schools & Universities being such places. Imagine an Ambition hag as the headmistress or head guidance counselor of an illustrious school of mages or sciences, feeding off the excess ambitions of the students who go there to push themselves in the arcane and scientific arts. Further fueling their ambitions by pushing them to work on increasingly daunting assignments and goals, or pushing students who would usually know their limits into sliding further and further into ruin as their ambitions to succeed eat them alive as they continuously fail, never learning when to give up. and maybe a coven is struck with a pillow hag getting the students to bonding and bonking and a fear hag as head teacher making incredibly fearsome guidlines required for exams or graduation in general! hell that previously stated bonking could be a feedback loop where students get so enraptured in their romance they neglect schooling until the burden of exams gives them whiplash and they get scared for days, weeks, or even months... or it was all an anxiety hag
@@jemm113 She would be terrifying. A headmistress that is always pushing everyone to be better, but also feeding off of all their ambitions and hardwork...she'd be godlike in power and no one would ever have to know. She doesn't even have to make deals, she makes the rules and everyone just has to follow. And adding the other hags just make this school a horror show and again none of them are even using their hag given abilities, they're just fearsome social engineers and that should be way scarier to a group of adventurers.
@@jemm113 I could see a coven of Ambition Hags being party patrons, always urging adventurers to greater and greater heights. Also as warlock patrons as well.
I like the idea of a genuinely 100% good and sympathetic hag who still feeds on agony but gets it by giving people the happiest, most fulfilling lives that she can then feeding on the grief of the loved ones at their funeral. And by consuming the grief she helps the mourners process the loss and move forward in a positive way while still carrying the memory of the loved one.
Personally, I like the idea of The PC being raised by a hag and the hag developing a parental attachment to the child and have the child gaining some sort of desire for heroics whilst growing up. The Hag parent can be supportive of their child's heroics whilst also taking delight in just watching their kid just ruin and foil all the efforts of other baddies. TLDR sadist granny laughs as her kids/grandkids kick the shit outa BBGs.
*When the heavily injured party approaches the villan and their personal gaurd for a fight* Hagma: "YOU GOT THIS DEARY!" The kid: "Wait, Nana what are you doing here?!? And why are you on top of the tower!?!?" Hagma: "Watching you kick the shit out of that fucker! Also your aunts and uncles are watching theough the hag eye so don't forget to say hello! However that can wait, you have that asshole to beat up with your friends! And I think I got somthing just to help! Kick their shit in dear!" Hagma: *proceeds to heal the party* The party: "...." The kid: "Thabks Nana!" Hagma: "Your welcome kiddo! And after this, don't forget to swing by, Hallow's Eve is coming soon! And you still haven't introduced your friends to the family!" The kid: "Sounds good Nana, and we will!" Party member: "...So that's your Nana?!?!"
I love the idea of a benevolent Haunt Hag. As some others have said in here, they could preside over a rite of passage for a nearby community. They could offer revelation and self-knowledge and the growth of courage through the lens of fear. They’d also likely make excellent tellers/authors of scary stories.
Hey so first off love this. I have always found the concept of a always evil species boring and upsetting on some level, and often changed it in my games. These hag variants are neat and I would be tempted to say a Hag may even have some control over what she feeds on and feeding on it over time turns her into a specific hag type. However something I wanted to share for fun was a Hag I ran in one of my games. She had a not so unique name, Auntie Nevermore. In setting she was a hag who when she found out what her species did to have children chose never to do so, even though she loved kids and families, she swore she would never be a mother, hence her chosen name. In game the players met her when they were solving a murder mystery to help a npc's sister who had been framed for a murder. Auntie Nevermore was present and did do some Hag things, collecting parts of bodies for spells and the like, but she was a red herring, ultimately innocent of the crime, and even aware of some facts that could help point to the real killer if the players did not accuse her. The players managed to spot she was a red herring and that her presence in the region was actually to look for a old hunter of fey and punish him for some wrong doings, she was effectively under a deal to get payback for another fey. Now Auntie Nevermore was a large hag, tall and a bit gaunt, standing a full 12 feet tall but often hunched over with faded blue skin. The player who went to speak with her played a good natured if not the smarted Goliath with blue skin who stood about 8 feet tall. In their talk Auntie Nevermore not only found him to be a good sort she found amusing, but learned the Goliath had no parents and a rough childhood. What came next was one of my fave things. She adopted him. Now Auntie Nevermore was still a Hag and still caused suffering she just tried to aim it at folks who "deserved" it, and often she couldn't tell something she was doing was creepy, but she declared the Goliath to be her nephew, and became a npc who appeared sometimes, paying a visit to her sweet nephew, bringing him strange and questionable gifts. And in one part of the story even helping the party out with knowing about a Hag Coven that was coming for them, using her knowledge to give them both warnings and advice on how to survive it. Auntie Nevermore still stands as one of my favorite times I used a Hag in the game :) and I think more people should play with different ways to use em.
The whole good and evil thing, I feel, should be tossed out the window with fey. These are primal beings that are about as alien as a being of their respective multiverse can be and not be considered an outsider. The mindset of any fey should be a terrifying place for mortals, leaving all who approach them at least vaguely unnerved even as they are captivated. Even supposedly "good" fey should give you that creepy feeling of something not quite right. Uncanny valley, but mentally. It isn't human appearance they mimic but human thought and emotion. And this should be most obvious with hags. Not ugly in the traditional sense but in the emotional. They are all that is twisted and perverse. That inner ugliness making what could have been appealing features horrifying to behold. Thus even if they are trying to help they are doing so from a perspective so foul that their actions will cause harm. And no fey does anything for free. There is always a price. And they may not be upfront about what it is bit rather use word games to hide their intentions and encourage agreement of terms based on double meaning.
I love this take. The fey are all about unnerving extremes of emotion. Mortals have ups and downs, but they always return to neutral. But fey don't do that - they always return to a high level of emotion, or a pattern of behavior that will elicit a specific emotion. I like that uncanny valley concept a lot. They shouldn't feel like mortals - they're almost like embodied concepts.
@@zachsilby4569 That's not the alignment system. The alignment system is a universal constant that is primal within the universe. It is not tied to concepts of mortal societies.
@@yagamifire7861 let me use an example: the Obiryth are chaotic evil for anyone interested, but the Obiryth themselves view their actions simply as a means to terraform the multiverse to better resemble their original home: it's hardly chaotic, and from their own perspective likely not evil if they see other races akin to how humans see insects and viruses. From objective point of view: yes, actions of the Obiryth cause much harm and evil, and destroy the existing order of the multiverse. But the Obiryth themselves would see their actions not as destroying order, but as creating a new order out of what they perceive as alien chaos.
@@matthewbibby8921 In the conversations I have had on the subject, the biggest problem isn't that "people would see Lizardfolk as evil, because they eat people" it is the people who insist that alignment is "objective" Are Lizardfolk objectively evil because they will eat the corpse of a human? No, that is stupid on multiple levels. The least of which is that then raises the question of why humans aren't evil for eating cows. (Oh, it is because cows are animals not people? Well, what about the fact that plenty of races in DnD can talk to cows and explore their feelings and thoughts.) They are evil because they will attack and kill people for their gods or over territory? Again, humanity says hi. To get to the level of objective evil, you would have to be something beyond thought, it would have to be ingrained in your very DNA to do horrific acts for the joy of doing them... like a rabid animal? But, animals aren't evil. The fact that they cannot make a choice is literally called out for why they are unaligned. So, to be innately evil, you have to be evil to the point that you have no choice... at which point why aren't you unaligned? I don't think (most) people want to remove the differences between races, but I do think they want to remove this idea that we can "objectively" judge races based on those differences.
I know you said that the Fear Hag is the least dangerous, but now I'm imagining some Magnus Archive shenanigans with a fear hag at the center who does kill their victims at the end as a climax to the victim's fear.
This gave me the inspiration for a Hag who's entire deal is running off confusion. They mess with victims in subtle ways at first- misplacing keys and stealing grocery lists, but as they tend to hang around, a brain fog starts to envelop the people around them, to the point where people's executive functioning starts to suffer and they begin to lose their ability to keep track of basic tasks. She will set up shop nearby offering a service that supposedly helps the mind- a tea shop, masseuse, or as a therapist in more developed locales, but all serves an end of making people more and more dependent on her to avoid falling into a mental haze.
Hags are easily one of the most top tier monsters in all of D&D, with so much rich lore and potential behind them that anyone who can't see it is a fool. Well done on adding 4 new types to the roster of amazing creatures, and with sheets to boot!
Considering to have my Undead Patron be a powerful Haunt Hag who became a Lich so she can live longer to inspire fear to generations. "Scaring over 4 Billion!" is her true goal as a powerful Hag Patron. As a part of the pact, the Fear caused from Form of Dread is collected within a talisman the Haunt Hag gives to the warlock, allowing her to feed at a distance.
This is the third video of yours that I have watched and I am absolutely blown away at how much material you've given me to surprise players with! This is seriously really good content for brainstorming
Call me old fashioned but i like all hags being evil BUT i did add to my setting their counter parts (or how "hags" were in old folk lore) crones which are nicer hags who just chill outside towns and help out whoever comes to them and punish whoever wrongs them or their town. Usually i keep them as Hexbloods who managed to not succumb and become full hags or some hags who were born... wrong? and didn't become evil like the rest. To hags these are the deformed children who they'd really want to murder. That way i keep my old fashioned hags while having "good hags" as a surprise factor for unsuspecting players. Side note: I do even have wizened ones which are the male counter part, but i am not sure how to flesh them out.... for now.
I have a quirky trio of witch sisters in my campaign, basically a coven except they're hexblood, all with contrasting concepts. One is quiet, contemplative and wise, one is snarky, shy and intelligent, and the third is bubbly, charming and physically strong. (One of my players described her as Pippi Longstocking with adhd). At the end of the day they are basically Good hags. My players LOVE them.
Hear me out, a young dragon that is being "advised" by a court hag. Bolstering him while growing more powerful in process, the dragon not *quite* aware of it. Or a dragon that was raised by a fear hag, and she uses him to scare people. Gaining power for herself, but the dragon is unaware of it, seeing her only as an adoptive mother. Both bolstering their respective dragons and granting themselves life spans to stay with them to continue the process by absorbing all the energy mixed with draconic presence. I don't think I'd use them both in a campaign but either one would be pretty cool to pull off once.
I love the idea of the Gentle hag. Just imagen the party has been travaling for days now when all of a suden the bard gets a smell of the most delisious pie hes ever smelt coming from a neer by cabben. A sweet old lady answers the door and hand waves away anny concern, befor feeding them this delisious pie with a healthy scoop of ive creem. With a clap of her Hands a bunch of dopey charmed goblins and familurs come out to put the party in comforte. Mesageing there feet and making up a bed for them. But if ever the party tryes to think about the quest, the kind old grandmother snaps back angry about how its dandrous and you should just stay with me. Slowly the happyness become over baring and shes using magic to keep them from leaving as the house twists and moves. When the party escapes they find that what felt like a cupple houers in there turned out to be 3 days.
I’m reminded of a villainess in comics known as Mother May I (or something like that). I don’t remember the name well but I remember them being used during an episode on the old Teen Titans cartoon. In fact, I believe the new version used them in the background of an episode for comedy relief.
@@mentalrebllion1270 Yeah, Mother Mae Eye! A wacky witch parody villain who uses hypnosis to get "naughty children" to behave. Of course, her idea of behaving properly is going out to rob banks for her. She's a fun villain.
A sorrow hag who feeds off sadness, embellishing their victims out insecurities and losses to make them endlessly depressed. Maybe a hag that posses as a therapist, gathering clients whom she digs into their sadnesses to feed, often putting more bad ideas in their heads Or on the flipside, Maybe a hag that runs a funeral home, who sets up beautiful ceremonies to help families grieve en mass, getting her full for long periods of time, knowing that nature e itself will relieve more while also giving family a way to greave in a healthy way.
I am just starting my first campaign as a dm. And I would probably not have thought of hags for it. But after watching this I am planning to implement all of the variants into the world. Thanks for the great ideas!
I absolutely adore this take on hags. Hags were already one of if not my MOST favorite D&d monster and your homebrew feels so perfectly in line with their existing lore that I shall instantly adopt it. Thank you!
How about an Ire Hag: She feeds off of anger, wrath, hatred, etc. She would turn relationships sour, feed into people's prejudices, sow seeds of discord. However, to feed off her victims, she must keep them alive and just on the brink of conflict, never over it.
you're videos are so goated!! I've been tryna run a campaign for years now were I basically ignore all lore from d&d and just use the game features and your videos are so good at getting my gears churning
I’m really, really enjoying your D&D videos, they’re so creative! I think you’re doing a great job with these and I’m very grateful for the content you’re offering. Nice work, looking forward for more!
I've been musing on this concept for a while now but... here comes Pointy Hat doing the creative work for us ♡ thank you, im honestly in awe at this channel
In our curse of strahd campaign my friend and I made our backstory that we were raised by a hag who killed our mother and decided to keep us and raise us in the forest as a Druid and ranger. We called her granny and had many fond memory’s of her silly hag antics. (Hexblood origin) it was very fun to play morally ambiguous adult children of a hag. We ended up becoming vampires and turning our whole party in the final fight with strahd.
I JUST HAD AN IDEA: A HAG COVEN COMPOSED OF A GENTLE HAG, A HAUNT HAG AND A WARLOCK TIED TO THEM (according to Volo's Guide, sometimes, Hags will ask a particularly interesting or powerful mortal, male or female, to join their coven). It's definitely an unusual or special circumstance, but I can see it in the case of wanting to open a really prestigious Haunted House attraction in a theme park, or so make a town the "Horror Capital of the Country", something tourists come from all over to see. The Warlock, being a mortal (let's say this is a gnome woman named Ulugwin), handles the customers, transactions/budget and keeps the peace between the needs of the Gentle Hang (let's call her Auntie Hilda Goodfellow) and the Haunt Hag (Granny Olga Bugeyes). Meanwhile, Olga handles the actual haunted house (including staffing and maintenance), and Hilda handles the pre- and post-game of the visitors, making sure that everyone leaves the venue with a smile and a desire to not just return, but also spread the news. Ulugwin has contracted the help of both Hilda and Olga because she wants to build a fortune to support her 7 children (Ulugwin always wanted a large family) and their families. She doesn't have a *huge* use for the magic she gains, but she nonetheless works hard to maintain the functionality and profitability of their coven so that Hilda and Olga (who are diametrically opposed in nature and have an active rivalry going on) don't just leave. Poor woman is like the one friend caught in the middle that everyone tries to turn to their side of the argument lol. The players, if they get involved, would be pulled towards multiple sides; Hilda would be trying to turn them to see her side and that she's the better hag with the more important part in the business (rewarding them with happiness or magic), Olga would be doing the same, and Ulugwin would be tasking the party to make her two business partners and friends see that they're equally important in this business they would have only been able to build together.
Your videos are just fantastic. Hags are GREAT. Love to have one hanging around in the world, they tend to make everything so interesting. Specially because you can tempt players with their weirdly magi lures. My favourite NPC on a campaign I used to run was a forest hag who granted wishes (of course with heavy strings attached). The party was deathly afraid of her, but always ended up asking her for council, tips, or even boons.
Wow really impressed with this Dungeons and Dragons series! Your DnD creations are really awesome! I really dig how you have homebrewed these fey folk into really interesting and dynamic characters. Will definitely check out the stuff you have made. Awesome vid once more!
How about a kind of "miracle hag" that feeds off of desperation? They may even play into some of the hag stereotypes because that way only the people who truly have no other options would seek them out... meaning this girlboss can charge as much as she wants for her services. Miracle hags tend to either live in very isolated locations for desperate "clients" to seek out, or set themselves up as a town fixture, like a healer or midwife, with the caveat that they'll only do their job when things are at their bleakest. Some more underhanded Miracle Hags may even secretly make a problem worse in order to get a bigger emotional payoff when villagers ask her to step in...
I've had this idea in my head for a long time for a Hag type that offers incredible power for a price. That price is memories; the more important and powerful the memory, the greater the boon, but beware: you might sacrifice your entire self for godlike power, wandering a world you can't relate to with power you don't remember the purpose of.
I just caught myself saying out loud to myself "I love Pointy Hat." Just wanted to let you know! Amazing ideas, illustrations, entertainment and execution! I love your free homebrew too! 😁
I like the idea of a partnership of a gentle hag and a fear hag running a drug den. The drugs are addictive and in the moment oh so sweet and joyful. But what they see in the trips...
In my world, a group of hags made an orphanage/adventuring academy, that churned out lv 3 adventurers. These could be rival adventurers, shopkeepers, courteseans, etc. And when their adventurers died, the hags became stronger according to how much justice they spread in the world for the oppressed. Are Goblins treated as pests and their rights disregarded? Their champion needs to fight for them.
The idea of different hags that feed off different emotions is a splendid idea! It gives them so much depth while retaining the idea of the hag as this tricky fey creature. Not to be trusted but capable of bargaining with. It reminds me of this time when I introduced a hag as an arc-villain, and a player asked if there was some way of investigating if they, the party and the community they were building, had offended the hag. ANd, by RAW, I replied that hags didn't need a reason to make other creatures miserable. He was disappointed but I didn't know what else to do. It was an Agnes hag, by the way.
Loved it. I was having a tough time picking and making an npc for a campaign and this came out in time probably going with a gentle hag but thanks for the ideas.
I guess I hadn't subscribed to you when this video came out, since I try not to miss any of your content and hadn't watched this yet. I was just thinking about adding a hag to my campaign that wasn't a completely evil being and searching for inspiration when I came across this video. It must be my lucky day, since the whole point of the video is the exact thing I was looking for. Love the channel, you put out incredible content, thanks for everything!
The correct form is "Innamorata" with two N. It does not means "female lover", that would be "amante" (which happens to be one of the very few italian gender neutral term), but that's mostly used for women in an illecit affair. Innamorata means "enamoured" or "a woman/girl who is in love with someone/something".
I really like this format you're using where you've outlined creative new ways to think about DnD options. Excellent ideas, and I look forward to more stuff.
Man, this reminds me of the Unexpectables. Monty did a great job as DM putting twists just like this into her setting. I can very much recall hags coming up, never as being explicitly good, but as ranging from evil to neutral. The neutral ones were the most fun, especially when the party basically got to trade with one for magical bits, bobs and potions. Her hags were still distinctly alien and other and very clearly out for their own ends, but that didn't necessarily mean they had to make people suffer to do it. I'm glad you (and apparently the community at large) are trying to do more with hags.
Heck yeah Hags! One of my favorite DnD creatures if not my favs directly. And yes, covens are amongst the best freaking things in the game, and I usually let them do some magical things that are not spells per se, but more like weird rule-soft fey magic. I'm often inclined to make them very distinct from one another, and not necessarily evil, but cruel and twisted for sure, obssessed with learning, mischief and showing people the "weakness/evills" of things considered beautiful. Like stern, cynical grandmothers that believe they know better, that all beings need to be tested to grow or earn their happiness, and hate the value given to beauty and innocence over cunning or maturity. Anyways I LOVE your idea for hags feeding on different emotions, very fitting for fey (especialmente me gustaron las celestinas jeje) and reminds me of my head canon that hags were originally the Archetype of Fairy Godmothers, but after some kind of betrayal or such they became as they are. LOVED THE VIDEO, sorry for the huge comment 😅
100% agree w you Hags are easily my favorite monster in DND. I love the way their moral system works, and a well made fight (or just interaction) with one can be some of the most fun experiences
I’m imagining a good-aligned Haunt Hag who doesn’t actually want to hurt her victims, and when one of them is injured or has a panic attack she’s just like “Yea, no, I’m stopping this whole thing” and appears from the fog to help calm the situation with peppermint and apologies.
pretty sure that if someone was to have a panic attack the haunt hag, no matter the alignment, would get more energy from that one person than a bunch of people combined and never help them
If the Fear Hag runs, say a haunted house and is kind/good alinged, I'd imagine they would help. People come in to be frightened all the time, and they don't want to hurt people, scare them, give them fright, but truly hurt them or drive them to horrid state? I'd imagine not, however some Huant hags would probably do that
@@willreshkin7241that's kinda dumb, alignment means their actions follow certain principles. thus I'd see a good aligned haunt hag who despite gaining a lot from a panic attack would definitely try to calm them down, as being good often means going after the betterment of others over the betterment of oneself (to an extent), but a neutral/evil one would rather keep them there for a while/indefinitely, depends
Nice work. Using a relationship with a court hag as a basis for a narcissistic player character would be an interesting concept to explore. Same goes for gentle hags and depression.
How is it that no one thought of making a Hag like Flemeth, from Dragon age? She is neither good nor bad, she is above morality and her interests or ideals are unknown to others most of the time. And yet she ends up helping the protagonists or guiding them on their way! For a small price, of course, which then ends up showing its true nature and becoming part of a larger plan. I like to think that there could be Hags like her, more maternal and mysterious than boringly evil.
Imagine a Hag setting up a therapists office for former/current adventurers and feeding off them venting their misery, rather than wasting effort causing it
Pointy hat, the D&D hag (CN): Often confused for a beholder, this hag usually helps DMs (both new and old) with putting new monsters in their campaign. Usually seen as a benevolent spirit, this hag feeds on the TPKs it has caused with the monsters she introduced into the campaign. This hag forgoes any form of conventional beauty and decides to appear in the form of a... pointy hat. It is rumoured that some daring DMs who have pleged their soul to it have their campaign running indefinitely. It has also been described by [input famous adventurer] that this specific hag has the ability to make her victim (not only DMs, also hapless adventurers) go "meta", the victim sees what his reality is comprised of (dice, papers, stat blocks) and loses any trace of sanity. The few instances a Pointy Hat lair had been found, it resembled more a chaotic room, filled with books, haphazardly strewn around, some seemed even to lead to extradimensional planes of existance... Did I do it well?
Gday. Great work. I just found your channel today, Madly downloading. I have been DMing for 30+ years and still finding inspiration from your work. Awesome stuff.
I wanted to use the Coven Upbringing from An Elf and an Orc had a little baby but I didn’t want my character to be evil. This is brilliant thank you so much Antonio!
Fun fact! When a witch is banned from a coven they are referred to as a warlock. Some people mistake warlock as the word for male witches, but no matter who you are you would be called a witch
Oh those are some nice ideas! I'll have to get around making statblocks for the court and pillow hags, as those two will for sure get use in my homebrewed campaign! Thank you for the other two statblocks provided !
I remember watching your channel for the first time and thinking, holy shit I can’t wait to see all of this really experienced creator’s content!!! And realizing you were new to the scene absolutely blew me away, love your stuff, always have, rewatching this video was super fun :)
This video was really amazing. I am currently running a campaign with a coven of hags set as the main antagonist including a human wizard. One of the things that the players will find out when they go back home is that this wizard has gone so far in his desire to Control every aspect of the city that he's Literally driven the population out. So the concept of a court hag being the person who drove him to this extent is an amazing idea especially since she is now regretting her alliance with him as he basically destroyed the entire city. So thanks a lot for the idea
I am currently building a Fey Enchanted, Farie Tale, little more serious Shrek or MTG's Eldraine campaign, and these HAGS ARE AWESOME! I have been thinking of using a good hag or perceived as good for a while and these fit perfectly. Your work is amazing. The devil contract video is also amazing!
I gotta say, I loved this video, always nice to pop through and check out these ideas again. But, after watching this again I've gotten an idea for what I hope could be a very fun Hag Coven. An entire human city ruled over by 3 different kinds of hags, all feeding on different emotions. A Court Hag deals with the nobles, making sure each is trying to one up the other. While a Gentle Hag pleases the majority of the populace, keeping them under easy influence. And finally, a Haunt Hag as an enforcer for those who won't bow down to the other two, relishing in terrifying thieves, would be investigators, or parties of heroes!
man, i've been writing a horror/dark fairytake campaign and your hags look tailor-made for it. all your stuff is amazing, can't wait to impose your videos on my dnd group
hags have always been one of my fav additions to any game and this inspired me to create some hags of my own and I'm just so hyped!! thanks mate! cheers to your good work and creativity
![Diggy Graves - Red Vineyard [Official Lyric Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8Ro085T0mnQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Thought on Court Hag: Have them have multiple victims at once, always playing one against another- that way the ambition is always there, letting their pawns want to dethrone each other. The hag just has to make sure they're not caught double-dealing, but really... "The new duke? Oh, I know some things about him. Things you could use to become the next duke..."
The court hag is such an interesting concept, especially if she is an advisor to a ruler... or maybe, a mentor figure for an inspired adventurer? Perhaps suggesting that they go on numerous quests without end, to constantly feed on the adventurer's personal ambitions.
Littlefinger vibes. I dig this idea.
His hags are remarkably similar to the Warhammer Chaos gods.
The most obvious one is the Court Hag. That's literally just Tzeentch.
The Gentle Hag is pretty much Slaanesh. Unless we say that's an extreme of what the pillow hag is, in that case the Gentle Hag could be Nurgle. The Fear Hag doesn't seem to have a murder fetish so can't really be said to be a Khorne parallel though...
Damn thats evil i love it.
It could also be a neutral or good twist with an academy teacher/advisor making the students reach their full potential with competition! She doesnt need to exploit them so much since the academy allways has more people coming!
I bet there's a Court Hag behind all of Shakespeare's bloodiest tragedies!
Wait if Hags can feed on emotion, what about an Angry Hag that is the leader of a raiding barbarian horde that just feeds off rage and is swole af. I find it both hilarious and terrifying that a buff grandma is leading a band of Conans rampaging through the country
That sounds AMAZING
Also they can feed off their own rage boosts ,to give them a perma-boost in power; so they would be TERRIFYING in a fight
SNU-SNU!!!!!
war hags
Welcome to Annis Hag.
An Angry Hag that leads a rebellion, feeling on the people's hatred over the government would also be really interesting
Describing the feywild as a "Tinkerbell themed frat house" is probably my favorite thing ever
I actually played a warlock who was raised by a hag, I called her baba, She was basically my adopted grandmother and she called me her little meat pie.
Thank God I had a DM who is very open minded
Baba!??!
@@shhinysilver1720 Baba means grandma in Slavic languages, plus Baba Yaga is a slavic myth which hags are based on
@@bludek89 yea, was this warlock raised by THE baba yaga?
@@shhinysilver1720 He didn't say it was her specifically, only that he called her baba(grandma), in DnD Baba Yaga is "mother of all witches", a mage and an archfey. I dont know if his DM would allow him to be raised by her, only some random hag
I created a goblin warlock who had a hag patron but the game didn't materialize and I have been so disappointed ever since. I want her to be a protective and affectionate hag too!
Dude now I’m imagining a coven with ambition hags and gentle hags as a sort of mafia in the big city… I love your ideas and content!
I love this idea so much..!
Wonder if ambition hags would actually use their contracts/powers on the other hags to get them to work harder/be better.... ~And same goes for pillow hags making matches for other hags-~ But what about haunt hags? Mafia is /pretty/ scary, so maybe for intimidation tactics, they would have a haunt hag to scare someone into submission, and their influence over them grows the more paranoid the other person gets?
Legit the second he started talking about the gentle hag I thought... welp we found our drug dealers.
whats worse than a mafia? A grandma mafia!!!
@@icarue993 A Grandmafia!
Imagine if a haunt had was there too I'll be terrifying the ambition the false happiness and the fear God the grand Mafia terrified
The Gentil Hag sounds like a really cool metaphor for addiction and it’s very cool. Not sure if it was intentional but i love it.
Waldea White (Hagenberg) and her army of meth-zombies is definitely a fun image :)
Sounds like tiktop to me. A shallow immediat good feeling that leaves you sad and empty later.
@@sportyeight7769 incredibly true, couldn't agree more.
Omskbird is a hag?
Grandma Couchlock
In a new campaign, I've been teasing a power-hungry monarch as an antagonist. A court hag helps out with a lot of the motivations!! Thanks!
I'm glad it helped!!
@@pointyhatstudios I'm considering doing something with a court hag too. Gonna need to work on some abilities for her though; only thing coming to mind would be the obvious compulsions and maybe Disguise Self.
On my last session, we had a hag as our Warlock's patron. She fed on pain and suffering, and that was her contract for power - but our Warlock was Good aligned.. so our Warlock was obsessed with punishing the evil, even more severe and obsessive than Paladins lol I'm thankful my DM enjoys subverting tropes and changing things from time to time.
Step 1: Be a Druid
Step 2: Cast Summon fey at 8th/9th level
Step 3: Get 3 Sea Hags, make them a conven
Step 4: Enjoy as the Spooky Water grandmas destroy your enemies
The creatures that appear from Summon Fey have their own stat block and aren't technically hags, even if upcast.
Step 0: Talk to DM about using homebrew spells
@@elbruces it's conjure fey, not summon.
@@androgenius_alisa
I'm referring to the 3rd level spell in "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything."
That's not how summon Fey works. I think you meant Conjure Fey.
I can imagine a Fear Hag running a Halloween theme park. Haunted houses, roller coasters, you name it. They will have plenty of fear to feed on because people will come over WILLINGLY.
That is a little too perfect. Maybe its a hag that was tired of adventurers ruining their set up, and decided for a more "legal" approach.
But if you want a plot, you need to add some kind of drama.
Maybe the hag is gathering power to do some real evil. Maybe she is getting a little bit too powerful, and people are starting to die out of fear. Or maybe, she is the good guy, and something evil is lurking in her theme park, and had asked the adventurers for help.
I now I just have to know where to put this on my map....
@@ikari66662 wait. Someone is actually using my idea? Huh, so that’s what it feels like.
A Haunt Hag and a Gentle Hag could team up and create a fantasy amusement park full of thrill rides, a haunted house, games, shows and delicious food. Rake in wagonloads of gold while getting them tasty emotions.
@@gonzalobarragan8076 "YES, I'm a hag! The hag who hired you lot! There's something *killing* my source of fear, and I have ledgers to complete and ideas to come up with for scaring my VIP returning customers!"
An idea that I don't see often enough with emotivores (like hags) is that when they "feed" on emotions, those emotions are well...consumed in the people who produce them. I think one way to flip the script on hags is to use that variant, so when they come to a town and encounter a bunch of downtrodden but relatively happy people, they immediately assume it is the hag at the edge of the village that is causing it. When in fact the hag is lessening the people's suffering by literally eating their unhappiness.
From there the PC's could be left with trying to find a new hag (if they slay the old one) or to take on the much harder path of actually fixing all the things that made the villagers so unhappy in the first place.
I mean, that depends how one defines unhappiness. Lke is it sory or a lack of happiness, because that's a different?
..... Twist that up and have a local tyrant paying a Comfort Hag or even a [I just made this up] Rage Hag to keep the people he's conquered content and complacent, unable to muster up the anger to rebel against him.
I love this idea as a spin on the "feeds off emotions" piece. I feel like the conventional kind of hag (feeds off emotions w/o destroying them) and this kind of hag would play off of each other really well. Like a fear-eating hag could remove people's hesitation, leaving them more vulnerable to the manipulations of an ambition-sustaining hag.
Now I'm just picturing an almost Nurgle-esque situation where a Hag's influence puts people in an utterly miserable life situation but due to them feeding on said misery they never seem able to get out of it and in fact may cause a downward spiral as they are kept content with progressively worsening health and livelihood.
That is the first time I've heard it as "emotivore"
I've always called it pathovore
I started to think of a "Pun Hag" who feeds off of annoyance and exasperation rather than just misery. She seems like a sweet old grandma at first but then she makes a really bad dad joke and you're like "ughhhhh" and then you see the twinkle in her eye. That would be really fun with your players as well since that kind of thing carries over into real life and your players will feel as annoyed as their characters would be!
Also, I really love these videos! Keep it up!
Anytime a player at the table groans, she gains a Hit Die?
sounds like i am her ULTIMATE NEMESIS... because i love puns. i'd have to hang out with her for a really long time to start getting annoyed. but i love this idea.
Im thinking of Peeves from Harry Potter and it sounds so cool
oh gawd.. I'm a Pun Hag 😅
I think you just turned my mother into a hag
The pillow hag concept is hilarious. Their source of power is shipping, and they won't take no for an answer.
Gods of Love in Greek mythology in a nutshell :
Shipper, I don't like them
A hag in the disguise of a Matchmaker for a town, village, or outskirts of. Empowered by romance and feeds off that love. But she makes no exceptions and will destroy families, marriages, and more if she can deliver on the deal of someone's affections. Building false promises of love and devotion through a lust tonic, a spiked wine, or sweets enchanted by wild fey magic. Whether the love is true or not, suffering or flourishing. The Matchmaker is empowered but always tugs the strings in her favor...
So basically Aphrodite?
Pillow hags be like “I WILL SHIP REYLO AND YOU CANNOT STOP ME”
I think one interesting way to use these kinds of hags is to have them be a template you can put on the already existing hags. Since most hags that already exist are typically tied to an environment (ie. Sea Hags), changing the emotion they feed on and giving them new abilities associated with that emotion could be very fascinating. For example, having a Bheur Hag that has a Gentle Hag’s appetite and abilities. It could create an isolated winter resort, where patrons are kept from leaving by harsh winter storms she summons.
That's a brilliant idea
You know, i've seen this in DAO. The Sloth Demon there is just the kind of guy to do this, but he does not even need the weather conditions, since people are stuck in his illusion. Being a side quest, it's still one of my personal favourites in the game.
Youre telling me i can make a year round haunted house in my games and justify it?? Hecc yeah!
I love the ambition hag. From a different perspective she is helpful, the person in your life that you need to push you past your artificial limits and help you achieve greatness. Always supportive, maneuvering to get you more, your biggest hype man. Is she evil? or your bff? Even if you know her intentions, maybe you go along with it anyway. Love that kind of moral dilemma in a game. So well done. Loving your videos!
Yep, it honestly an intresting dynamic and could have an encounter like this
The party go into a rapidily growing city state that has been growing in height and power through cunning diplomacy, trade, and infrastructure projects. This growing height was brought on by a highly ambitious duke supported by a Court Hag, with the party encountering a family member or close friend of the Duke, another Noble. This Noble tells the party about the eventual fall caused by burn out brought by Court Hags, and asks them to help their family member/friend. The party goes and try to do this, as to help the Duke, but turns out the Duke and Court Hag are extremely close friends, with the Duke helping Hag best they can. This could bring an intresting moral dilema, that can be quire fun to explore, digging into fourt intruge, as party chooses to help the fmailt/friend to save the Duke, or side with the Duke and Court Hag, who think the family/firend is trying to depose the Duke.
The Gentle Hag is certainly an interesting take on the concept, flipping the usual "wicked witch" theme of the standard hag for essentially showing how a Fairy Godmother could work in an antagonistic role (without just going for the Shrek style parody route of course).
-And I totally didn't arrive at that train of thought just because the fantasy novel I'm working on has a Fairy Godmother as the main villain with a similar MO to your Gentle Hags-
Gentle hag is Ursula
The Brujas from Ravenloft are Chaotic Good hags.
This actually reminds me of a character backstory idea I had for a Pathfinder character
The character is a Changeling (in Pathfinder Changelings are the always-female daughters of hags) whose mother was a Green Hag and whose father was a would-be victim of hers who figured out she was a hag and decided he still loved her. Yes, it is a cheesy power of love thing. Yes, they are both very loving parents.
The Court Hag is amazing. Fits perfectly as the secret villain character.
Even worst, you going up against the Court Hag literally plays into its own plans, feeding it with your ambition to stop her (or him, who knows?). The feeling when your benefactor, the one who has helped you get more skills and items, is the one you need to stop.
Wonderful stuff!
So, according to official lore and folklore, Hags are always women. However, in 3e there was something called a Hagspawn, which is the son of a Hag and a Human man. They were incredibly strong physically, but lacked the magical abilities of their mothers.
Court hags are literally every Chinese tiger mom (moms of emperors)
Trans hag moment
@@brianroberts783Unless hag transformed into some kind of beautiful woman I sincerely pity the father.
Dnd lore male hags dont have magic powers and theyre not technically hags
a gentle hag could just be a grandma figure, but she feeds you cookies, cakes and biscuits... and if you're not happy, she'll find a new recipe, and a new recipe with crack cocaine in it
gran will get you begging for sweet treats, but only gran's cookies make you feel the special warmth and love you need to get through the day
The idea of Hags being identified by there need to feed on emotions is a very interesting take, while further explaining their isolation from other fey. While humanoids can produce emotions over and over again, fey are literal embodiments of strong emotions. A Haunt Hag can feed on the terror of humanoids with repercussion, but spending time around a Meenlock would probably drain the life out of the creature.
Guess it depends though. Emtion feeding may make them too much like mind flayers...
@@CountDVB I'd separate them as feeding on the actual grey matter of the brain. Gaining the knowledge of the person is just a bonus.
@@CountDVB Mind Flayers feel like they're always going for body horror in canon, so them just feeding on energy rather than the physical brain feels like a bit of a half measure.
@@LupineShadowOmega Well that's if they are just feeding on either, in the lore I think it's supposed to be that strong emotion is like a spice for the meal that is the actual brain matter. Though if you wanted to add more body horror without the brain eating, you could make it so that mind flayers like to change their victims in a way to suit whatever particular emotion the Flayer favors.
@@thepopulargirl1784 The flavor bit is fine, that just means that they can discern the tastes of the chemicals in the brain, which seems both horrific and something to savor their meal that a eldritch horror race of monsters would do. Adds flavor to them as antagonists.
My problem though, is with the emotional energy bit, because it seems like a half measure in a species of creature that actively eats the brains of sapient beings.
As for the changing their victims bit, eh. They're already part mad scientist. Mindflayers specifically run "medical and scientific" experiments on their captives. I don't think you really need to reinforce that in canon. Basically they play really well as the body horror of eldritch monsters that can turn you into an eldritch monster or tear you apart, but also aliens that want to abduct and experiment on people.
imagine: a theme park in the feywild where a coven of hags has designed every ride to feed them. Fear hag running a haunted house, pillow hag running a love predictor or fortune teller of love type-deal, etc.
I can imagine a crafting war raging between a Gentle Hag and a Haunt Hag. One tries to turn entire town into spa, other tries to give it Nightmare Before Christmas vibe. The real villain is a Court Hag that feeds on ambitions of both.
OH MY PELOR, THAT IS GENIUS!
And a Pillow Hag is helplessly trying to get the Gentle and Haunt Hags to stop fighting and realize they actually like each other. Can even be who calls the party for help!
I've been binging on your videos lately and I have to say thank you for inspiring me so much! Your ideas and enthusiasm have pushed me through the threshold of campaign creation
Dude I love the fear hags, it's such a cool idea! The idea of feeding on fear being evil because fear is seen as negative emotion being juxtaposed against the fear hags being probably the least likely to do harm is really interesting. They could even be used as a trial for a character to prove their worth or something of the like and take a good or neutral alignment because they see it as their job to force mortals to face their fears to become stronger. But maybe that's breaking too far from the rules of DnD.
Plot twist: it was never against d&d. The first d&d setting, Mystara, had 3 witches in the region of Norwold to constantly test the PCs and, if they found them whorty, even help them with some advice.
@@MadAtreides1 but witches aren’t/weren’t the same as a hag in 1st Ed. or 2nd Ed. Witches can be any alignment. Hags have to be chaotic evil to be called a hag.
This video was very interesting with its ideas though.
I love how out of them all she is actually the best one to interact with even though fear sucks
Of the 4 hags (happiness, ambition, love, fear) the fear hag is probably the safest to deal with, she will probably just open a "haunted house" on the edge of town that people would actually pay to enter, the other 3 will definitely mess up your life. (Happiness causing apathy, ambition causing burnout or potentially illegal actions, and love forcing you into unhealthy relationships.)
Testing with fear? Got me thinking about that scene from the David Lynch Dune movie.
Put your hand in the box....
I will not fear, fear is the mind killer...
I kinda like the idea of a player character that was raised by hag in the Feywild. Perhaps found as an orphaned or lost baby, the hag took you in to feed on your powerful emotions or simply use you as an ingredient of a nasty brew. But with time and proximity it grew fond of the child and raised it as their own. Eventually the coven found out of its existence and therefore the hag conducted a ritual to send the now older kid into another plane. The kid would never their true parent or the coven who would love to destroy them.
In my friends world, Hags are created when a witch/druid is killed (ex: burned at the stake) for perceived wickedness. And due to the peoples belief that the witch is wicked and monsterous, they becomes so as a hag. The hag retains the personality and memories of the witch, but of course become more jaded due to their mistreatment and murder.
One of my characters is a Witches Apprentice to a hag coven, mainly the matriarch of the coven.
Imagine a court Hag helping with a relationship, like a villain of a romance story 🤔 then she basically makes a prince to go out with every single princess in a kingdom, but leave them obsessed with him and this would cause the other kingdoms to have no suitors to their princesses other than that prince and once the kings were dead, the prince would become a polimonarch of multiple queens
I feel like a few Pillow Hags would want in on that situation real quick
@@Master_E444 Let them fight
*Kaiju-like sound of hag fighting*
@@Feu_Ghost Grandma Fight! Grandma Fight! Grandma Fight!
Pillow Hag: "Agy, I see you've been coming on business, I think we need to havw a talk"
The potential line of succession of that kingdom sounds nightmarish.
Wow, the gentle hag is waay scarier in practice than a fear hag, funnily enough. Great work! I really wanna use these
This channel and D&D shorts have been so useful for ideas and plot hooks in my games, i just love this content
I'm definetely using a haunt hag next session, fits so well with the enchanted forest my players are currently on
As a Celtic mythology person and lover of fae folklore, memes be memes.
Also as such a person, I am OBSESSED with your homebrew hags! The Gentle Hag in particular is *such* a good example of how the fae, in their whimsical antics, are *incredibly* dangerous to mortals. 14/10. Absolutely incredible. (She also reminds me of how Macha is characterized in Song of the Sea, which is a huge plus.)
Someone who loves hags as much as I do! You're the best!
For people who just realized they are awesome, here's some hag strategies:
1) The people the hag wants to suffer aren't the party, or even related to the party. She is even very happy to unambiguously help the party by giving them that magic item they need if they "only deliver this letter to someone in the place you're going anyway". A letter that results in a double murder in the street in broad daylight because of whatever was written there. How many times will the party do her little chores?
2) The people the hag wants to see suffer are the enemies of the party or agents of the BBEG. Another affable hag or coven whose goals actually align with the party, but whose methods may not align at all! After 20 sessions of helping the party, that backstab is going to be really exciting...
3) The hag is seen as a necessary evil by the allies of the party. The oracle hags extract a terrible price from all who go to their swamp hut, but their divinations are never, ever wrong. Easy for the PCs to ignore until their favorite NPC was last seen heading for the swamp to get the answer the PCs need to foil the BBEG's grand plan.
Have fun! Hags are AMAZING!
what if the one(s) the Hag wants to suffer are the people running the very same thingy the party's going to stop. Like, what if the Hag wants a cult the heroes are going after to suffer, or even a particularly annoying Lich. Heck, this one's just generally got a thing for really petty reasons for villains to help the protagonists. "He borrowed my mixing bowl 50 years ago and still hasn't given it back! Worse yet, he always pretends not to be home even though I CAN SEE THE LIGHT IN YOUR WINDOWS, CHARLES"
@deathstinger13 that sounds like an awesome encounter, and perhaps an unlikely ally?
@@oldmankatan7383 definitely, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And there are plenty of reasons, both substantial and petty, that would cause a Hag to want an arbitrary group to suffer. Maybe they stole from the Hag. Maybe they Tresspassed? Maybe they bake really good cookies and the smell is constantly irritating the hag, tempting her to break her diet?
I‘m playing a hexblood in a campaign, that might eventually turn into a hag a century or two down the line and now I kinda wanna have her turn into a pillow hag or a gentle hag… or a version based on thirst for knowledge that makes people go full Doctor Faustus and throw all ethics aside for obscure lore and knowledge
the ambitions hag can and should be found in other areas of society that are fueled by ambitions: Schools & Universities being such places.
Imagine an Ambition hag as the headmistress or head guidance counselor of an illustrious school of mages or sciences, feeding off the excess ambitions of the students who go there to push themselves in the arcane and scientific arts. Further fueling their ambitions by pushing them to work on increasingly daunting assignments and goals, or pushing students who would usually know their limits into sliding further and further into ruin as their ambitions to succeed eat them alive as they continuously fail, never learning when to give up.
and maybe a coven is struck with a pillow hag getting the students to bonding and bonking and a fear hag as head teacher making incredibly fearsome guidlines required for exams or graduation in general! hell that previously stated bonking could be a feedback loop where students get so enraptured in their romance they neglect schooling until the burden of exams gives them whiplash and they get scared for days, weeks, or even months...
or it was all an anxiety hag
@@jemm113 She would be terrifying. A headmistress that is always pushing everyone to be better, but also feeding off of all their ambitions and hardwork...she'd be godlike in power and no one would ever have to know.
She doesn't even have to make deals, she makes the rules and everyone just has to follow.
And adding the other hags just make this school a horror show and again none of them are even using their hag given abilities, they're just fearsome social engineers and that should be way scarier to a group of adventurers.
@@jemm113 I could see a coven of Ambition Hags being party patrons, always urging adventurers to greater and greater heights. Also as warlock patrons as well.
@@jemm113 This entire ecosystem brings me so much joy
Where can I find the hexblood?
I like the idea of a genuinely 100% good and sympathetic hag who still feeds on agony but gets it by giving people the happiest, most fulfilling lives that she can then feeding on the grief of the loved ones at their funeral. And by consuming the grief she helps the mourners process the loss and move forward in a positive way while still carrying the memory of the loved one.
Personally, I like the idea of The PC being raised by a hag and the hag developing a parental attachment to the child and have the child gaining some sort of desire for heroics whilst growing up. The Hag parent can be supportive of their child's heroics whilst also taking delight in just watching their kid just ruin and foil all the efforts of other baddies. TLDR sadist granny laughs as her kids/grandkids kick the shit outa BBGs.
*When the heavily injured party approaches the villan and their personal gaurd for a fight*
Hagma: "YOU GOT THIS DEARY!"
The kid: "Wait, Nana what are you doing here?!? And why are you on top of the tower!?!?"
Hagma: "Watching you kick the shit out of that fucker! Also your aunts and uncles are watching theough the hag eye so don't forget to say hello! However that can wait, you have that asshole to beat up with your friends! And I think I got somthing just to help! Kick their shit in dear!"
Hagma: *proceeds to heal the party*
The party: "...."
The kid: "Thabks Nana!"
Hagma: "Your welcome kiddo! And after this, don't forget to swing by, Hallow's Eve is coming soon! And you still haven't introduced your friends to the family!"
The kid: "Sounds good Nana, and we will!"
Party member: "...So that's your Nana?!?!"
I love the idea of a benevolent Haunt Hag. As some others have said in here, they could preside over a rite of passage for a nearby community. They could offer revelation and self-knowledge and the growth of courage through the lens of fear. They’d also likely make excellent tellers/authors of scary stories.
Hey so first off love this. I have always found the concept of a always evil species boring and upsetting on some level, and often changed it in my games. These hag variants are neat and I would be tempted to say a Hag may even have some control over what she feeds on and feeding on it over time turns her into a specific hag type.
However something I wanted to share for fun was a Hag I ran in one of my games.
She had a not so unique name, Auntie Nevermore. In setting she was a hag who when she found out what her species did to have children chose never to do so, even though she loved kids and families, she swore she would never be a mother, hence her chosen name.
In game the players met her when they were solving a murder mystery to help a npc's sister who had been framed for a murder. Auntie Nevermore was present and did do some Hag things, collecting parts of bodies for spells and the like, but she was a red herring, ultimately innocent of the crime, and even aware of some facts that could help point to the real killer if the players did not accuse her.
The players managed to spot she was a red herring and that her presence in the region was actually to look for a old hunter of fey and punish him for some wrong doings, she was effectively under a deal to get payback for another fey.
Now Auntie Nevermore was a large hag, tall and a bit gaunt, standing a full 12 feet tall but often hunched over with faded blue skin. The player who went to speak with her played a good natured if not the smarted Goliath with blue skin who stood about 8 feet tall. In their talk Auntie Nevermore not only found him to be a good sort she found amusing, but learned the Goliath had no parents and a rough childhood.
What came next was one of my fave things. She adopted him. Now Auntie Nevermore was still a Hag and still caused suffering she just tried to aim it at folks who "deserved" it, and often she couldn't tell something she was doing was creepy, but she declared the Goliath to be her nephew, and became a npc who appeared sometimes, paying a visit to her sweet nephew, bringing him strange and questionable gifts.
And in one part of the story even helping the party out with knowing about a Hag Coven that was coming for them, using her knowledge to give them both warnings and advice on how to survive it.
Auntie Nevermore still stands as one of my favorite times I used a Hag in the game :) and I think more people should play with different ways to use em.
Coming back to the OG times. I remember when you uploaded the first video bro! Keep up the great work.
I wasn't too fond of the idea of hags as an interesting antagonist but after this video, I'm just flooded with Hag themed adventure ideas.
Gentle hags feel like a personification of addiction to me. And that is incredibly cool as a concept, dayum.
The whole good and evil thing, I feel, should be tossed out the window with fey. These are primal beings that are about as alien as a being of their respective multiverse can be and not be considered an outsider. The mindset of any fey should be a terrifying place for mortals, leaving all who approach them at least vaguely unnerved even as they are captivated. Even supposedly "good" fey should give you that creepy feeling of something not quite right. Uncanny valley, but mentally. It isn't human appearance they mimic but human thought and emotion. And this should be most obvious with hags. Not ugly in the traditional sense but in the emotional. They are all that is twisted and perverse. That inner ugliness making what could have been appealing features horrifying to behold. Thus even if they are trying to help they are doing so from a perspective so foul that their actions will cause harm. And no fey does anything for free. There is always a price. And they may not be upfront about what it is bit rather use word games to hide their intentions and encourage agreement of terms based on double meaning.
Alignment as a whole is a system that must be revised as.. one who is Chaotic Evil in one society may be the most lawful good in other societies.
I love this take. The fey are all about unnerving extremes of emotion. Mortals have ups and downs, but they always return to neutral. But fey don't do that - they always return to a high level of emotion, or a pattern of behavior that will elicit a specific emotion. I like that uncanny valley concept a lot. They shouldn't feel like mortals - they're almost like embodied concepts.
@@zachsilby4569 That's not the alignment system. The alignment system is a universal constant that is primal within the universe. It is not tied to concepts of mortal societies.
@@yagamifire7861 let me use an example: the Obiryth are chaotic evil for anyone interested, but the Obiryth themselves view their actions simply as a means to terraform the multiverse to better resemble their original home: it's hardly chaotic, and from their own perspective likely not evil if they see other races akin to how humans see insects and viruses.
From objective point of view: yes, actions of the Obiryth cause much harm and evil, and destroy the existing order of the multiverse. But the Obiryth themselves would see their actions not as destroying order, but as creating a new order out of what they perceive as alien chaos.
@@matthewbibby8921 In the conversations I have had on the subject, the biggest problem isn't that "people would see Lizardfolk as evil, because they eat people" it is the people who insist that alignment is "objective"
Are Lizardfolk objectively evil because they will eat the corpse of a human? No, that is stupid on multiple levels. The least of which is that then raises the question of why humans aren't evil for eating cows. (Oh, it is because cows are animals not people? Well, what about the fact that plenty of races in DnD can talk to cows and explore their feelings and thoughts.)
They are evil because they will attack and kill people for their gods or over territory? Again, humanity says hi.
To get to the level of objective evil, you would have to be something beyond thought, it would have to be ingrained in your very DNA to do horrific acts for the joy of doing them... like a rabid animal? But, animals aren't evil. The fact that they cannot make a choice is literally called out for why they are unaligned.
So, to be innately evil, you have to be evil to the point that you have no choice... at which point why aren't you unaligned?
I don't think (most) people want to remove the differences between races, but I do think they want to remove this idea that we can "objectively" judge races based on those differences.
I know you said that the Fear Hag is the least dangerous, but now I'm imagining some Magnus Archive shenanigans with a fear hag at the center who does kill their victims at the end as a climax to the victim's fear.
They could still maim and kill but they do it sparingly to feed on the fear of the all the witnesses. Kill one so that they can feed on the other 9
Was Angela a hag???
"fill every corner of your adventures and backstories with hags... OR ELSE" so are you a haunt hag? or a content hag? hmm...
both 😌
@@pointyhatstudios hauntent hag
This gave me the inspiration for a Hag who's entire deal is running off confusion. They mess with victims in subtle ways at first- misplacing keys and stealing grocery lists, but as they tend to hang around, a brain fog starts to envelop the people around them, to the point where people's executive functioning starts to suffer and they begin to lose their ability to keep track of basic tasks. She will set up shop nearby offering a service that supposedly helps the mind- a tea shop, masseuse, or as a therapist in more developed locales, but all serves an end of making people more and more dependent on her to avoid falling into a mental haze.
Hags are easily one of the most top tier monsters in all of D&D, with so much rich lore and potential behind them that anyone who can't see it is a fool. Well done on adding 4 new types to the roster of amazing creatures, and with sheets to boot!
always cool coming back to videos and seeing how much the person has changed, a lot more confident now!
Considering to have my Undead Patron be a powerful Haunt Hag who became a Lich so she can live longer to inspire fear to generations. "Scaring over 4 Billion!" is her true goal as a powerful Hag Patron. As a part of the pact, the Fear caused from Form of Dread is collected within a talisman the Haunt Hag gives to the warlock, allowing her to feed at a distance.
This is the third video of yours that I have watched and I am absolutely blown away at how much material you've given me to surprise players with! This is seriously really good content for brainstorming
Call me old fashioned but i like all hags being evil BUT i did add to my setting their counter parts (or how "hags" were in old folk lore) crones which are nicer hags who just chill outside towns and help out whoever comes to them and punish whoever wrongs them or their town. Usually i keep them as Hexbloods who managed to not succumb and become full hags or some hags who were born... wrong? and didn't become evil like the rest. To hags these are the deformed children who they'd really want to murder. That way i keep my old fashioned hags while having "good hags" as a surprise factor for unsuspecting players.
Side note: I do even have wizened ones which are the male counter part, but i am not sure how to flesh them out.... for now.
I have a quirky trio of witch sisters in my campaign, basically a coven except they're hexblood, all with contrasting concepts. One is quiet, contemplative and wise, one is snarky, shy and intelligent, and the third is bubbly, charming and physically strong. (One of my players described her as Pippi Longstocking with adhd). At the end of the day they are basically Good hags. My players LOVE them.
@@JockenN and I loved it as well from reading it ^_^
Hear me out, a young dragon that is being "advised" by a court hag. Bolstering him while growing more powerful in process, the dragon not *quite* aware of it.
Or a dragon that was raised by a fear hag, and she uses him to scare people. Gaining power for herself, but the dragon is unaware of it, seeing her only as an adoptive mother.
Both bolstering their respective dragons and granting themselves life spans to stay with them to continue the process by absorbing all the energy mixed with draconic presence.
I don't think I'd use them both in a campaign but either one would be pretty cool to pull off once.
I love the idea of the Gentle hag. Just imagen the party has been travaling for days now when all of a suden the bard gets a smell of the most delisious pie hes ever smelt coming from a neer by cabben. A sweet old lady answers the door and hand waves away anny concern, befor feeding them this delisious pie with a healthy scoop of ive creem. With a clap of her Hands a bunch of dopey charmed goblins and familurs come out to put the party in comforte. Mesageing there feet and making up a bed for them.
But if ever the party tryes to think about the quest, the kind old grandmother snaps back angry about how its dandrous and you should just stay with me. Slowly the happyness become over baring and shes using magic to keep them from leaving as the house twists and moves. When the party escapes they find that what felt like a cupple houers in there turned out to be 3 days.
I’m reminded of a villainess in comics known as Mother May I (or something like that). I don’t remember the name well but I remember them being used during an episode on the old Teen Titans cartoon. In fact, I believe the new version used them in the background of an episode for comedy relief.
@@mentalrebllion1270 Yeah, Mother Mae Eye! A wacky witch parody villain who uses hypnosis to get "naughty children" to behave. Of course, her idea of behaving properly is going out to rob banks for her. She's a fun villain.
A sorrow hag who feeds off sadness, embellishing their victims out insecurities and losses to make them endlessly depressed.
Maybe a hag that posses as a therapist, gathering clients whom she digs into their sadnesses to feed, often putting more bad ideas in their heads
Or on the flipside, Maybe a hag that runs a funeral home, who sets up beautiful ceremonies to help families grieve en mass, getting her full for long periods of time, knowing that nature e itself will relieve more while also giving family a way to greave in a healthy way.
I am just starting my first campaign as a dm. And I would probably not have thought of hags for it. But after watching this I am planning to implement all of the variants into the world. Thanks for the great ideas!
So how was it or are you still doing it?
I absolutely adore this take on hags. Hags were already one of if not my MOST favorite D&d monster and your homebrew feels so perfectly in line with their existing lore that I shall instantly adopt it. Thank you!
How about an Ire Hag: She feeds off of anger, wrath, hatred, etc. She would turn relationships sour, feed into people's prejudices, sow seeds of discord.
However, to feed off her victims, she must keep them alive and just on the brink of conflict, never over it.
That is creative
you're videos are so goated!! I've been tryna run a campaign for years now were I basically ignore all lore from d&d and just use the game features and your videos are so good at getting my gears churning
I’m really, really enjoying your D&D videos, they’re so creative! I think you’re doing a great job with these and I’m very grateful for the content you’re offering. Nice work, looking forward for more!
the amount of creativity and effort you put into these videos is staggering and inspiring, thank you and keep up the great work
I've been musing on this concept for a while now but... here comes Pointy Hat doing the creative work for us ♡ thank you, im honestly in awe at this channel
In our curse of strahd campaign my friend and I made our backstory that we were raised by a hag who killed our mother and decided to keep us and raise us in the forest as a Druid and ranger. We called her granny and had many fond memory’s of her silly hag antics. (Hexblood origin) it was very fun to play morally ambiguous adult children of a hag. We ended up becoming vampires and turning our whole party in the final fight with strahd.
I JUST HAD AN IDEA: A HAG COVEN COMPOSED OF A GENTLE HAG, A HAUNT HAG AND A WARLOCK TIED TO THEM (according to Volo's Guide, sometimes, Hags will ask a particularly interesting or powerful mortal, male or female, to join their coven). It's definitely an unusual or special circumstance, but I can see it in the case of wanting to open a really prestigious Haunted House attraction in a theme park, or so make a town the "Horror Capital of the Country", something tourists come from all over to see. The Warlock, being a mortal (let's say this is a gnome woman named Ulugwin), handles the customers, transactions/budget and keeps the peace between the needs of the Gentle Hang (let's call her Auntie Hilda Goodfellow) and the Haunt Hag (Granny Olga Bugeyes). Meanwhile, Olga handles the actual haunted house (including staffing and maintenance), and Hilda handles the pre- and post-game of the visitors, making sure that everyone leaves the venue with a smile and a desire to not just return, but also spread the news. Ulugwin has contracted the help of both Hilda and Olga because she wants to build a fortune to support her 7 children (Ulugwin always wanted a large family) and their families. She doesn't have a *huge* use for the magic she gains, but she nonetheless works hard to maintain the functionality and profitability of their coven so that Hilda and Olga (who are diametrically opposed in nature and have an active rivalry going on) don't just leave. Poor woman is like the one friend caught in the middle that everyone tries to turn to their side of the argument lol.
The players, if they get involved, would be pulled towards multiple sides; Hilda would be trying to turn them to see her side and that she's the better hag with the more important part in the business (rewarding them with happiness or magic), Olga would be doing the same, and Ulugwin would be tasking the party to make her two business partners and friends see that they're equally important in this business they would have only been able to build together.
Your videos are just fantastic. Hags are GREAT. Love to have one hanging around in the world, they tend to make everything so interesting. Specially because you can tempt players with their weirdly magi lures. My favourite NPC on a campaign I used to run was a forest hag who granted wishes (of course with heavy strings attached). The party was deathly afraid of her, but always ended up asking her for council, tips, or even boons.
Wow really impressed with this Dungeons and Dragons series! Your DnD creations are really awesome! I really dig how you have homebrewed these fey folk into really interesting and dynamic characters. Will definitely check out the stuff you have made. Awesome vid once more!
How about a kind of "miracle hag" that feeds off of desperation? They may even play into some of the hag stereotypes because that way only the people who truly have no other options would seek them out... meaning this girlboss can charge as much as she wants for her services.
Miracle hags tend to either live in very isolated locations for desperate "clients" to seek out, or set themselves up as a town fixture, like a healer or midwife, with the caveat that they'll only do their job when things are at their bleakest. Some more underhanded Miracle Hags may even secretly make a problem worse in order to get a bigger emotional payoff when villagers ask her to step in...
Wonderful idea. Good name too.
I've had this idea in my head for a long time for a Hag type that offers incredible power for a price. That price is memories; the more important and powerful the memory, the greater the boon, but beware: you might sacrifice your entire self for godlike power, wandering a world you can't relate to with power you don't remember the purpose of.
That's an incredible premise!
Antonio man, in the last few weeks I binged your vids. As a still fresh DM (about to hit 2 years playing DND) it's such a great resource & inspiration
I just caught myself saying out loud to myself "I love Pointy Hat." Just wanted to let you know! Amazing ideas, illustrations, entertainment and execution! I love your free homebrew too! 😁
I like the idea of a partnership of a gentle hag and a fear hag running a drug den. The drugs are addictive and in the moment oh so sweet and joyful. But what they see in the trips...
In my world, a group of hags made an orphanage/adventuring academy, that churned out lv 3 adventurers. These could be rival adventurers, shopkeepers, courteseans, etc. And when their adventurers died, the hags became stronger according to how much justice they spread in the world for the oppressed. Are Goblins treated as pests and their rights disregarded? Their champion needs to fight for them.
Based coven
The idea of different hags that feed off different emotions is a splendid idea! It gives them so much depth while retaining the idea of the hag as this tricky fey creature. Not to be trusted but capable of bargaining with.
It reminds me of this time when I introduced a hag as an arc-villain, and a player asked if there was some way of investigating if they, the party and the community they were building, had offended the hag. ANd, by RAW, I replied that hags didn't need a reason to make other creatures miserable. He was disappointed but I didn't know what else to do.
It was an Agnes hag, by the way.
Loved it. I was having a tough time picking and making an npc for a campaign and this came out in time probably going with a gentle hag but thanks for the ideas.
I guess I hadn't subscribed to you when this video came out, since I try not to miss any of your content and hadn't watched this yet. I was just thinking about adding a hag to my campaign that wasn't a completely evil being and searching for inspiration when I came across this video. It must be my lucky day, since the whole point of the video is the exact thing I was looking for. Love the channel, you put out incredible content, thanks for everything!
I love the idea of the Pillow Hags, they should also be known as an "Inamorata". It means "a female lover".
Completely off topic, but: your username and icon are the stuff of legend.
The correct form is "Innamorata" with two N. It does not means "female lover", that would be "amante" (which happens to be one of the very few italian gender neutral term), but that's mostly used for women in an illecit affair. Innamorata means "enamoured" or "a woman/girl who is in love with someone/something".
If they can disguise themselves in a mortal population, they would be known as the local matchmaker or gossipy busybody.
I really like this format you're using where you've outlined creative new ways to think about DnD options. Excellent ideas, and I look forward to more stuff.
I like the concept of hags being able to feed of different emotions, this is really well thought
Man, this reminds me of the Unexpectables. Monty did a great job as DM putting twists just like this into her setting. I can very much recall hags coming up, never as being explicitly good, but as ranging from evil to neutral. The neutral ones were the most fun, especially when the party basically got to trade with one for magical bits, bobs and potions. Her hags were still distinctly alien and other and very clearly out for their own ends, but that didn't necessarily mean they had to make people suffer to do it. I'm glad you (and apparently the community at large) are trying to do more with hags.
I can't wait to live out my long lasting hag dreams
You must continue. Looking forward to future hours of binging these. Already rewatched you’re entire catalogue.
Heck yeah Hags! One of my favorite DnD creatures if not my favs directly. And yes, covens are amongst the best freaking things in the game, and I usually let them do some magical things that are not spells per se, but more like weird rule-soft fey magic.
I'm often inclined to make them very distinct from one another, and not necessarily evil, but cruel and twisted for sure, obssessed with learning, mischief and showing people the "weakness/evills" of things considered beautiful. Like stern, cynical grandmothers that believe they know better, that all beings need to be tested to grow or earn their happiness, and hate the value given to beauty and innocence over cunning or maturity.
Anyways I LOVE your idea for hags feeding on different emotions, very fitting for fey (especialmente me gustaron las celestinas jeje) and reminds me of my head canon that hags were originally the Archetype of Fairy Godmothers, but after some kind of betrayal or such they became as they are. LOVED THE VIDEO, sorry for the huge comment 😅
100% agree w you Hags are easily my favorite monster in DND. I love the way their moral system works, and a well made fight (or just interaction) with one can be some of the most fun experiences
I’m imagining a good-aligned Haunt Hag who doesn’t actually want to hurt her victims, and when one of them is injured or has a panic attack she’s just like “Yea, no, I’m stopping this whole thing” and appears from the fog to help calm the situation with peppermint and apologies.
The Scary Godmother?
@@DBArtsCreators the scary godmother 1000000%
pretty sure that if someone was to have a panic attack the haunt hag, no matter the alignment, would get more energy from that one person than a bunch of people combined and never help them
If the Fear Hag runs, say a haunted house and is kind/good alinged, I'd imagine they would help. People come in to be frightened all the time, and they don't want to hurt people, scare them, give them fright, but truly hurt them or drive them to horrid state? I'd imagine not, however some Huant hags would probably do that
@@willreshkin7241that's kinda dumb, alignment means their actions follow certain principles. thus I'd see a good aligned haunt hag who despite gaining a lot from a panic attack would definitely try to calm them down, as being good often means going after the betterment of others over the betterment of oneself (to an extent), but a neutral/evil one would rather keep them there for a while/indefinitely, depends
Nice work. Using a relationship with a court hag as a basis for a narcissistic player character would be an interesting concept to explore. Same goes for gentle hags and depression.
How is it that no one thought of making a Hag like Flemeth, from Dragon age? She is neither good nor bad, she is above morality and her interests or ideals are unknown to others most of the time. And yet she ends up helping the protagonists or guiding them on their way! For a small price, of course, which then ends up showing its true nature and becoming part of a larger plan.
I like to think that there could be Hags like her, more maternal and mysterious than boringly evil.
Imagine a Hag setting up a therapists office for former/current adventurers and feeding off them venting their misery, rather than wasting effort causing it
Pointy hat, the D&D hag (CN): Often confused for a beholder, this hag usually helps DMs (both new and old) with putting new monsters in their campaign. Usually seen as a benevolent spirit, this hag feeds on the TPKs it has caused with the monsters she introduced into the campaign. This hag forgoes any form of conventional beauty and decides to appear in the form of a... pointy hat. It is rumoured that some daring DMs who have pleged their soul to it have their campaign running indefinitely. It has also been described by [input famous adventurer] that this specific hag has the ability to make her victim (not only DMs, also hapless adventurers) go "meta", the victim sees what his reality is comprised of (dice, papers, stat blocks) and loses any trace of sanity.
The few instances a Pointy Hat lair had been found, it resembled more a chaotic room, filled with books, haphazardly strewn around, some seemed even to lead to extradimensional planes of existance...
Did I do it well?
Gday. Great work. I just found your channel today, Madly downloading. I have been DMing for 30+ years and still finding inspiration from your work. Awesome stuff.
Fellow DM here, very thought provoking video. Looking forward to seeing more from you. I dig your avatar also.
I wanted to use the Coven Upbringing from An Elf and an Orc had a little baby but I didn’t want my character to be evil. This is brilliant thank you so much Antonio!
Fun fact! When a witch is banned from a coven they are referred to as a warlock. Some people mistake warlock as the word for male witches, but no matter who you are you would be called a witch
Oh those are some nice ideas! I'll have to get around making statblocks for the court and pillow hags, as those two will for sure get use in my homebrewed campaign! Thank you for the other two statblocks provided !
I remember watching your channel for the first time and thinking, holy shit I can’t wait to see all of this really experienced creator’s content!!! And realizing you were new to the scene absolutely blew me away, love your stuff, always have, rewatching this video was super fun :)
I have been devouring your content, although I don't love D&D itself, it's amazing!
This video was really amazing. I am currently running a campaign with a coven of hags set as the main antagonist including a human wizard. One of the things that the players will find out when they go back home is that this wizard has gone so far in his desire to Control every aspect of the city that he's Literally driven the population out. So the concept of a court hag being the person who drove him to this extent is an amazing idea especially since she is now regretting her alliance with him as he basically destroyed the entire city. So thanks a lot for the idea
I am currently building a Fey Enchanted, Farie Tale, little more serious Shrek or MTG's Eldraine campaign, and these HAGS ARE AWESOME! I have been thinking of using a good hag or perceived as good for a while and these fit perfectly. Your work is amazing. The devil contract video is also amazing!
I gotta say, I loved this video, always nice to pop through and check out these ideas again.
But, after watching this again I've gotten an idea for what I hope could be a very fun Hag Coven. An entire human city ruled over by 3 different kinds of hags, all feeding on different emotions. A Court Hag deals with the nobles, making sure each is trying to one up the other. While a Gentle Hag pleases the majority of the populace, keeping them under easy influence. And finally, a Haunt Hag as an enforcer for those who won't bow down to the other two, relishing in terrifying thieves, would be investigators, or parties of heroes!
man, i've been writing a horror/dark fairytake campaign and your hags look tailor-made for it. all your stuff is amazing, can't wait to impose your videos on my dnd group
you're a genius
i've never played dnd but i LOVE watching dnd content and you're definitely my favourite now
hags have always been one of my fav additions to any game and this inspired me to create some hags of my own and I'm just so hyped!! thanks mate! cheers to your good work and creativity
Amazing video! I'm running my own campaign soon and ideas like this really help me build a fun and creative world! Keep up the great work!
The humor in this video is top tier. Even if you have no idea what they’re talking about you’ll still have a great time.