Hello! I'm running a game for my buddies, and I've come to a point where I'd like some input. I've had the group fight their way to a ruined mountain top. They've been fighting devils and demons all they way up and are pretty bloodied right now. At the top, which they are very close, I have a Beefed up night hag. It's something that if they were to fight in their current state, they'd very likely die which is ok. I'm not going to give them plot armor if they are going to attack a greater hag at 30%. However, I want to run a scenario where the night hag offers them pacts where they have no room to deny because they are very weak. What are some good cursed trades I can pull for the group? Powers for souls? Sacrificing their NPCs for escape? Cursed weapon gifts? Maybe they pledge indentured service to do evil acts? Party is lvl 5 Barbarian ,Sorcerer, Rogue, Ranger. I have them with 14 redshirt NPCs and 3 VIP NPCs.
A pledge of favors, 5 of them, that the Night Hag can cash in on at any time is where I'd put my money, gives you tons of plot hooks down the way where the party gets contacted by the Hag's minions and told that she wants them to do something evil (maybe bring a newborn baby to location in the woods and leave it...for....reasons) and the party then has to do the act and live with the guilt, or scheme their way out of it. Ultimately it should lead them back into confrontation with the Night Hag where they can finally vanquish her :D
Maybe even have the Hag send away all the NPCs (maybe leave a VIP or two) so she can get down to 'brass tacks' with the group. I think the idea of favors is a good one, but what would the costs be if they renege on the contract? Souls cast into limbo? Maybe she will hold the lives of others over the heads of the adventurers if they are noble. Perhaps the hag will take a portion of their lives and only return a piece each time they do one of her tasks?
I know somewhere I remember Hags don't typically work together (covens being a rarity) perhaps there are some rivals she wishes to be rid of. If the Players fail, meh no skin off the hags back but if they succeed it helps her. Maybe one of the targets is the leader of some other monstrous group, unbeknownst to the players this power vacuum they create might lead the way for someone more willing to work under the Hags banner as it were. I think favors that don't directly or better yet don't obviously help her would be good starters to... ease... them into their new relationship.
You mentioned cursed items, perhaps she wants the to recover some nasty items of some sort. Again I think maybe with this it would not be entirely about the item itself but perhaps about the enemies they would have to kill to obtain the item. Heck even if they are wild goose chase favors just to keep the players out of her hair while she is setting up something bigger (maybe she is making her own coven) thus setting it up for another big showdown of sorts.
The one thing I would watch out for is I know my players particularly dislike the fight that they are supposed to lose. I do not know yours but it is something to consider with how you approach the initial confrontation.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Failing that, it depends on the kind of hag you're using. Hags don't form covens very often, but they rarely act openly against one another as well. A Hag is also not going to flare up a big "I'm evil" sign unless they're already tormenting some village the PC's were sent from. If you're going to enter into a deal with one, I would make sure the party has something the Hag might really want if it gets brought up, that way a deal has a chance of being a little more fair for the PC's.
Also, Chris Perkins and Matt Sernett did a Lore You Should Know piece about hags that's up on youtube. I'd check it out, since its pretty good place to start out with when dealing with hags. The discussion starts at 13:26.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Invoke a ritual that makes her able to see through their eyes. Promise her a 2 firstborn children, it need not be their own. Get her daughter adopted into a noble household (she turns into a night hag at 13). "Amulet of protection"- cursed, gives the user a sea hag's Horrific Appearance, which in turn does kind of protect them.
Heroes don't tend to repond well to 'join or die' situations. I've made the mistake often enough to know that trying to force any kind of deal on a character with death as the only alternative makes them feel like their agency is being impinged upon. If you look up the available lore on Hags, they do like to make cursed deals and so on, but they're more likely to tempt, bully and cajole than use brute force. If there's any way to make it look less like an ultimatum, I think it might go a lot smoother. People love ideas if they think they were the one that had it, for instance. If the hag can use her wiles to insinuate a deal might be possible to make 'all these problems just go away, so we can all go about our business in peace', some bright spark usually jumps in to suggest making a deal.
They are not only creepy, but they adventurers have no idea what most of them actually entail. They could be harmless, or they could be giving her some kind of power over her.
The hag takes a phial of blood and a few hairs from each character and says she'll be calling when she needs something doing. You can play her as a wild card later when you want to stir things up.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Go to a particular orphanage and see to all the little girls there be fed, clothed, and well taken care of.
You can either have all, some, or none of the children be Hag offspring, that it will drive the PCs crazy to figure out what to do is payment for the Hag already.
They might kill innocent children, or unleash a multiple of Hags into the world, either way, the Hag wins.
Look at what the player/characters really want. Then have the hag offering that.... with a cursed, unknown, twist to it. To make that work you do have to play her as pretending to be weak and tries to bargain for her life. Instead of showing that she could easily wipe the heroes out. I'm sure the Nighthag is playing some games with a nearby settlement/city. Doing nightly visits in someone's dream. Trying to corrupt that individual into doing some chaotic stuff to destabilize the city and prime it for something else.
My firbolg player wanted to be a gnome. So I offered a ring that lets him gradually transform into a gnome... but he doesn't yet know the downsides of that cursed ring.
A Kenku wanted to be able to speak, instead of mimic, so he got a necklace that let him speak. However the language he speaks is random every day and during that day he can only communicate in that language. It can lead to frustration trying to communicate with others. It can also be very useful if a document has to be understood and he happens to know that language on that day. Trying to inform the others about what he read has to wait a while though :P
The druid got a mind****. The hag proclaimed that the druid was her daughter. Reason the druid;s mother died is because the druid killed her on birth. The druid of the community then managed to cast a ritual to make the druid player's character be "normal". Which also happened to be the truth and lead to interesting roleplay and what the player would do with that heritage.
One of the NPCs/VIPs suddenly falls prone. The night hag has cast herself forward ethereally and pulled the soul of the person away. Not powerfully enough to fully disconnect it from the body and store it her bag of souls, but enough to remotely hold it hostage.
The night hag then speaks through the unconscious body of the person with a modified voice. In order for this person to be returned to their body, they must uncover and activate a number of crystals around the area. The first 1 or 2 will be in wilderness but will get closer to villages as the move on. The crystals are soul stealing crystals. Could mark unease with the PC's as they activate more. Also as they activate more, the Hag gains more hostages from random people.
Eventually the might want to go back to stop the soul stealing, finding the way now barred by a few ghost/spirits/something like that.
The hag could also take more hostages from the party's followers than 1, but it plays off the soul stealing vibe of Night hags. She could lie (or not) that the power is needed to defeat a coven of different hags which are known to be causing some havoc in a a nearby region (playing on ignoring the lesser evil for the greater good)
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Hello! I'm running a game for my buddies, and I've come to a point where I'd like some input. I've had the group fight their way to a ruined mountain top. They've been fighting devils and demons all they way up and are pretty bloodied right now. At the top, which they are very close, I have a Beefed up night hag. It's something that if they were to fight in their current state, they'd very likely die which is ok. I'm not going to give them plot armor if they are going to attack a greater hag at 30%. However, I want to run a scenario where the night hag offers them pacts where they have no room to deny because they are very weak. What are some good cursed trades I can pull for the group? Powers for souls? Sacrificing their NPCs for escape? Cursed weapon gifts? Maybe they pledge indentured service to do evil acts? Party is lvl 5 Barbarian ,Sorcerer, Rogue, Ranger. I have them with 14 redshirt NPCs and 3 VIP NPCs.
A pledge of favors, 5 of them, that the Night Hag can cash in on at any time is where I'd put my money, gives you tons of plot hooks down the way where the party gets contacted by the Hag's minions and told that she wants them to do something evil (maybe bring a newborn baby to location in the woods and leave it...for....reasons) and the party then has to do the act and live with the guilt, or scheme their way out of it. Ultimately it should lead them back into confrontation with the Night Hag where they can finally vanquish her :D
Maybe even have the Hag send away all the NPCs (maybe leave a VIP or two) so she can get down to 'brass tacks' with the group. I think the idea of favors is a good one, but what would the costs be if they renege on the contract? Souls cast into limbo? Maybe she will hold the lives of others over the heads of the adventurers if they are noble. Perhaps the hag will take a portion of their lives and only return a piece each time they do one of her tasks?
I know somewhere I remember Hags don't typically work together (covens being a rarity) perhaps there are some rivals she wishes to be rid of. If the Players fail, meh no skin off the hags back but if they succeed it helps her. Maybe one of the targets is the leader of some other monstrous group, unbeknownst to the players this power vacuum they create might lead the way for someone more willing to work under the Hags banner as it were. I think favors that don't directly or better yet don't obviously help her would be good starters to... ease... them into their new relationship.
You mentioned cursed items, perhaps she wants the to recover some nasty items of some sort. Again I think maybe with this it would not be entirely about the item itself but perhaps about the enemies they would have to kill to obtain the item. Heck even if they are wild goose chase favors just to keep the players out of her hair while she is setting up something bigger (maybe she is making her own coven) thus setting it up for another big showdown of sorts.
The one thing I would watch out for is I know my players particularly dislike the fight that they are supposed to lose. I do not know yours but it is something to consider with how you approach the initial confrontation.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Volo's section on hags if your friend.
Failing that, it depends on the kind of hag you're using. Hags don't form covens very often, but they rarely act openly against one another as well. A Hag is also not going to flare up a big
"I'm evil" sign unless they're already tormenting some village the PC's were sent from. If you're going to enter into a deal with one, I would make sure the party has something the Hag might really want if it gets brought up, that way a deal has a chance of being a little more fair for the PC's.
Also, Chris Perkins and Matt Sernett did a Lore You Should Know piece about hags that's up on youtube. I'd check it out, since its pretty good place to start out with when dealing with hags. The discussion starts at 13:26.
In a similar vein I have been watching the WebDM videos one of which had hags as a focus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg_cJgr8LSY
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Invoke a ritual that makes her able to see through their eyes. Promise her a 2 firstborn children, it need not be their own. Get her daughter adopted into a noble household (she turns into a night hag at 13). "Amulet of protection"- cursed, gives the user a sea hag's Horrific Appearance, which in turn does kind of protect them.
Heroes don't tend to repond well to 'join or die' situations. I've made the mistake often enough to know that trying to force any kind of deal on a character with death as the only alternative makes them feel like their agency is being impinged upon. If you look up the available lore on Hags, they do like to make cursed deals and so on, but they're more likely to tempt, bully and cajole than use brute force. If there's any way to make it look less like an ultimatum, I think it might go a lot smoother. People love ideas if they think they were the one that had it, for instance. If the hag can use her wiles to insinuate a deal might be possible to make 'all these problems just go away, so we can all go about our business in peace', some bright spark usually jumps in to suggest making a deal.
Twitter - @deathbybadger
DMsguild products: including Mother Haggles Lost & Found & The City of Eyes.
I really enjoyed the alternate costs for the hag Jenny in Adventure League during the Barovia season.
http://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/ALDMGv4_print.pdf#page=7
They are not only creepy, but they adventurers have no idea what most of them actually entail. They could be harmless, or they could be giving her some kind of power over her.
The hag takes a phial of blood and a few hairs from each character and says she'll be calling when she needs something doing. You can play her as a wild card later when you want to stir things up.
burn a wicker effigy, don't mind the screaming...
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
A lot of PC’s will fight to the death. But if itks the life of someone else at stake, they usually cut a deal. That is, if they’re good.
Go to a particular orphanage and see to all the little girls there be fed, clothed, and well taken care of.
You can either have all, some, or none of the children be Hag offspring, that it will drive the PCs crazy to figure out what to do is payment for the Hag already.
They might kill innocent children, or unleash a multiple of Hags into the world, either way, the Hag wins.
(see Monstrous Motherhood)
More Interesting Lock Picking Rules
Look at what the player/characters really want. Then have the hag offering that.... with a cursed, unknown, twist to it. To make that work you do have to play her as pretending to be weak and tries to bargain for her life. Instead of showing that she could easily wipe the heroes out. I'm sure the Nighthag is playing some games with a nearby settlement/city. Doing nightly visits in someone's dream. Trying to corrupt that individual into doing some chaotic stuff to destabilize the city and prime it for something else.
My firbolg player wanted to be a gnome. So I offered a ring that lets him gradually transform into a gnome... but he doesn't yet know the downsides of that cursed ring.
A Kenku wanted to be able to speak, instead of mimic, so he got a necklace that let him speak. However the language he speaks is random every day and during that day he can only communicate in that language. It can lead to frustration trying to communicate with others. It can also be very useful if a document has to be understood and he happens to know that language on that day. Trying to inform the others about what he read has to wait a while though :P
The druid got a mind****. The hag proclaimed that the druid was her daughter. Reason the druid;s mother died is because the druid killed her on birth. The druid of the community then managed to cast a ritual to make the druid player's character be "normal". Which also happened to be the truth and lead to interesting roleplay and what the player would do with that heritage.
During the party's travels:
One of the NPCs/VIPs suddenly falls prone. The night hag has cast herself forward ethereally and pulled the soul of the person away. Not powerfully enough to fully disconnect it from the body and store it her bag of souls, but enough to remotely hold it hostage.
The night hag then speaks through the unconscious body of the person with a modified voice. In order for this person to be returned to their body, they must uncover and activate a number of crystals around the area. The first 1 or 2 will be in wilderness but will get closer to villages as the move on. The crystals are soul stealing crystals. Could mark unease with the PC's as they activate more. Also as they activate more, the Hag gains more hostages from random people.
Eventually the might want to go back to stop the soul stealing, finding the way now barred by a few ghost/spirits/something like that.
The hag could also take more hostages from the party's followers than 1, but it plays off the soul stealing vibe of Night hags. She could lie (or not) that the power is needed to defeat a coven of different hags which are known to be causing some havoc in a a nearby region (playing on ignoring the lesser evil for the greater good)