Hey I am a newer dm, I run some official modules, did a homebrew oneshot, and now starting a homebrew mystery campaign. I am going to have 5 players, all diverse classes, pretty well balanced.
It is all going to be set in a single village where weird things start to happen. My inspo for it is Scooby doo mystery inc tv series and gravity falls. The baddies are a hag coven, that want to make people terrified, and possibly go mad. There will be one haunt hag (pointy hat homebrew) living in the village, a green hag in the swamps, and a night hag living in an abandoned temple. Now my dilemma is. Should I just make the hag coven the bbeg? OR. I had a crazy idea. what if all the weird things happening are because the night hag i s manipulating the dreams of a beholder (maybe with a special artefact). Is it even doable? or is a beholder too strong for it? I want to have a consequence for killing the hags, because my players often just kill without thinking. Any advice?
The players should be around level 9 or 10 by the time they confront the coven.
Some of the monsters I will have during the campaign: headless horsemen (black knight with a nightmare), werewolf, ghosts, banshees, shadows, killer plants, lizardfolk shaman, giant spiders, a doppelganger, swamp monster kind, false hydra during the final buildup (the hags bring it to the village as a final attempt), etc.
VGR has a literal headless horseman called the dullahan.
manipulating beholder dreams is totally in the power of even a mortal spellcaster(dream spell). a COVEN of THREE ancient and powerful fey creatures who dedicated their immemorial lives to magic? they can do that and SO. MUTCH. MORE.
1. casts dream on the beholder
2. casts sleep around the clock to keep it asleep
3. stands gaurd
the hags are the BBEGs, the beholder their weapon. they could keep it trapped in a crystal globe so they think its an oversized crystal ball(or maybe the hags are giant), then, when the hags are dead, beholder breaks out. but spares them. they freed it, after all.
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Alignment: Lawful Evil
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As an afterthought also: since you're the DM, some things can just work because you say they work, mechanics be danged. The rules found in the Player's Handbook are simply that: rules for players. Monsters and to a greater extent, big boss bad guys, are expected to work differently and tap into powers unavailable to the protagonists.
I like Matt Coville's explanation of this that goes something like "in the player Handbook, there is no spell called 'create mummy', so where did all these mummies come from?"
So, if you need the hags to have a ritual that influences a captive beholder's dreams, then they can just do that. Just like how the three main bad guys in Baldur's Gate 3 don't have any mechanical abilities based on the game rules to control the elder brain, but they do have abilities granted to them by the narrative in the form of their amulets, that allow them to.
The basic idea is that hags can do anything but it's a good idea to make it dependent on a rare and irreplaceable spell ingredient for example. It works particularly well if the ingredient is symbolically associated with what they are trying to do it or it's opposite. So think of things relate to truth, lies, dreams, sight, nightmare or similar things. For example:
Spiders that make dream catcher like webs over the eyes of a beholder. Spiders are often associated with stories and dreams
The hags made the beholder a crown telling him he would be a king but instead only doing so in his dreams. The crown could be made of roses that look pretty but have sharp thorns. (some hags do something similar in infernal machine rebuild). Crowns are associated with power and leadership so using them to enslave is an inversion/perversion of the symbol
The hags managed to get their hands on a dream eater. Possibly extracted from the nightmares of a child ( maybe one with sorcerer potential) and now being transferred to the beholder. Children are associated with dreams and nightmares
The hags managed to get the beholder addicted to dream pies or a drug made of lotus flowers. The dream pies could be made of children ( like in COS) or another rare ingredient.
VGR has a literal headless horseman called the dullahan.
manipulating beholder dreams is totally in the power of even a mortal spellcaster(dream spell). a COVEN of THREE ancient and powerful fey creatures who dedicated their immemorial lives to magic? they can do that and SO. MUTCH. MORE.
1. casts dream on the beholder
2. casts sleep around the clock to keep it asleep
3. stands gaurd
the hags are the BBEGs, the beholder their weapon. they could keep it trapped in a crystal globe so they think its an oversized crystal ball(or maybe the hags are giant), then, when the hags are dead, beholder breaks out. but spares them. they freed it, after all.
While I agree with most of the above, I think that the Beholder would try making the players its minions. That's how Beholders are, after all.
Thanks for the help! Life happened, so we only played a couple of times since october unfortunately :( Now they are starting to explore the background of the mysterious happenings, so I want to flesh out everything, so everything is (mostly) full proof, haha. I did not see your reply originally, but yes, pointy hats video is the one which solidified me in my hag coven idea. I am actually using his haunt hag as the village apothecary, who "helps" our heroes.
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Hey I am a newer dm, I run some official modules, did a homebrew oneshot, and now starting a homebrew mystery campaign. I am going to have 5 players, all diverse classes, pretty well balanced.
It is all going to be set in a single village where weird things start to happen. My inspo for it is Scooby doo mystery inc tv series and gravity falls. The baddies are a hag coven, that want to make people terrified, and possibly go mad. There will be one haunt hag (pointy hat homebrew) living in the village, a green hag in the swamps, and a night hag living in an abandoned temple. Now my dilemma is. Should I just make the hag coven the bbeg? OR. I had a crazy idea. what if all the weird things happening are because the night hag i s manipulating the dreams of a beholder (maybe with a special artefact). Is it even doable? or is a beholder too strong for it? I want to have a consequence for killing the hags, because my players often just kill without thinking. Any advice?
The players should be around level 9 or 10 by the time they confront the coven.
Some of the monsters I will have during the campaign: headless horsemen (black knight with a nightmare), werewolf, ghosts, banshees, shadows, killer plants, lizardfolk shaman, giant spiders, a doppelganger, swamp monster kind, false hydra during the final buildup (the hags bring it to the village as a final attempt), etc.
VGR has a literal headless horseman called the dullahan.
manipulating beholder dreams is totally in the power of even a mortal spellcaster(dream spell). a COVEN of THREE ancient and powerful fey creatures who dedicated their immemorial lives to magic? they can do that and SO. MUTCH. MORE.
1. casts dream on the beholder
2. casts sleep around the clock to keep it asleep
3. stands gaurd
the hags are the BBEGs, the beholder their weapon. they could keep it trapped in a crystal globe so they think its an oversized crystal ball(or maybe the hags are giant), then, when the hags are dead, beholder breaks out. but spares them. they freed it, after all.
Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Niice! Thanks for the help! I will definitly check out the Dullahan!
As an afterthought also: since you're the DM, some things can just work because you say they work, mechanics be danged. The rules found in the Player's Handbook are simply that: rules for players. Monsters and to a greater extent, big boss bad guys, are expected to work differently and tap into powers unavailable to the protagonists.
I like Matt Coville's explanation of this that goes something like "in the player Handbook, there is no spell called 'create mummy', so where did all these mummies come from?"
So, if you need the hags to have a ritual that influences a captive beholder's dreams, then they can just do that. Just like how the three main bad guys in Baldur's Gate 3 don't have any mechanical abilities based on the game rules to control the elder brain, but they do have abilities granted to them by the narrative in the form of their amulets, that allow them to.
The idea reminds me of this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgwgOoey7QA
It's about homebrew hags that feed off emotion and includes a hag the feeds off fear.
You may also want to take inspiration from the weird magic section of Volo's
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/vgtm/monster-lore#WeirdMagic
The basic idea is that hags can do anything but it's a good idea to make it dependent on a rare and irreplaceable spell ingredient for example. It works particularly well if the ingredient is symbolically associated with what they are trying to do it or it's opposite. So think of things relate to truth, lies, dreams, sight, nightmare or similar things. For example:
While I agree with most of the above, I think that the Beholder would try making the players its minions. That's how Beholders are, after all.
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Thanks for the help! Life happened, so we only played a couple of times since october unfortunately :( Now they are starting to explore the background of the mysterious happenings, so I want to flesh out everything, so everything is (mostly) full proof, haha. I did not see your reply originally, but yes, pointy hats video is the one which solidified me in my hag coven idea. I am actually using his haunt hag as the village apothecary, who "helps" our heroes.