I’m working on a spooky adventure, and I’m wanting to include a hag. The hag will be terrorizing a small town, and will have caused a plague of werewolves, as well as corrupting a respected doctor into making flesh golems.
She also has been (indirectly) causing a general sense of mass hysteria in the town, driving townsfolk to violence.
What I need help with is how the players will discover the presence of the hag (how do they know a hag is behind it?)
I played an adventure not long ago that only hinted to a mysterious woman who had shown up to town. The town's head had become enamored with her and began making uncharacteristically detrimental decisions concerning the townsfolk. The players knew something wasn't right about this woman, but nothing was apparent to go off of. As the adventure crested, they found out the truth. Spoilers hidden.
Once the doors slam, read or paraphrase the following:
As soon as you hear the doors slam shut from behind, a great gust of wind blasts the room around you; sending dust, paper and curtains flying around the room. Piles of rotting corpses litter the creaky wooden floor.
Then you see him, on the ceiling, a shell of a man, shriveled, tortured and used. His body and arms semi molded into the blackened muck that replicates a ceiling. Slimy black vines creep through his flesh pinning him to the ceiling, as the ends of the vines expand into drooling suckers that feed from his life force.
A glow of green hue emanates from his chest where a green emerald spews out evil energies into the mansion distributing the feed to all areas of the living building. The most potent looking of these green energies flows directly into a lifeless body slumped with its head flung back over a wooden chair.
Once the heroes move to investigate further, or attempt to leave the room, read or paraphrase the following:
The body snaps its head back from over the chair and back into position. You recognize her from the apparitions of the manor. It is the dark adviser Gertrude. She grins wide and evil, then cackles a haunting laugh as her features grow long and haggard. Her skin turns midnight blue and her pupils turn the red of the 9 hells. She attacks!
This is Gertrude, she is an ancient Night Hag (MM. pg. 178), and has been feeding off the necrotic energies for a millennia.
I was reading through volo's guide,hags section seeing if something came up.
It did, sorta. What if ... the hag had a flaw, an allergy. I am thinking copper the same material as the coins on the eyes of the ritually buried dead.
Essentially if the players find out hags are allergic to copper either by research, or by accident, well there you go... the hag can be exposed, but it will cost... a pretty penny!!!lol
Conversely the players could discover something about copper at the scene of the crime, and bring that detail to... the town sage, the ***** caravan, inspector clouseau who ever.
@Gigaflop, haha I like where you’re going with that. But, I kinda like the iron token thread mentioned under the Annis Hag as well. Essentially an Annis Hag can turn three of her teeth into iron tokens and hand them out to any creature so said creature can commune with the hag and do her bidding.
It be easy to fit that in your story line @dasmon511 ..three villagers whispering to themselves, acting funny, doing weird things. Your PC would simply interacte with one of the three and likely find out about the hag. Although, it would be funny if one of your PCs were to pickpocket a villager, find the iron coin, then fall under the hags influence.. traitor in your parties midst, like Betryal at House on the Hill.
But, that’s an Annis Hag... specific to a Night Hag, you could actually have the Hag give the party a quest. Night hags have two magical items.. a heartstone and a soulbag. Maybe she loses one, turns herself into a pretty woman, and approaches the party for aid in recovering the Magic item. You could have her blame a good NPC for stealing it, when in reality he took it to prevent her from destroying the village. If your party steals it back from the good NPC and gives it to the hag, then that could initiate the carnage.
I would definitely set up the encounter around the Hag's Nightmare Haunting ability.
First thing you'd want to do is introduce the townsfolk as superstitious and suspicious, just looking for an excuse to blame someone or something for their misfortunes and take out their aggression on it/them. Make the party be on tiptoes when asking questions or digging into their investigations to pry out some answers but also not implicate themselves as black magic practicioners.
Introduce the Nightmare Haunting ability as a sickness to an important NPC - the local Baron's daughter, the good Sheriff, a high end merchant, etc. As soon as the players enter town and are recognized as adventurers, someone mentions that there's a huge bounty on whomever can spare the dying NPC. You might have to customize the plot hook to your party, but once they've taken the bait and arrive at the NPC's bedside give the players a chance to diagnose them.
This is where you'll set up two plot points that will pay off later:
1)introduce the Hag in disguise who will be a recurring NPC
2)The symptoms of the disease
Now, the party's cursory examination reveals that this NPC is on death's door and pretty much everybody has given up hope for a cure. Some investigating will reveal that this is not the first death to the 'disease', the townspeople have heard folktales about the sickness from years and years ago but it has never taken this many lives this quickly. Throw in some flavor details like there is no pattern to the victims, they come from all walks of life at all ages and this unpredictability makes Busk the cow herder certain that it's another ploy by his neighbor Huck to steal his farmland.
Once the players rest for the night, interrupt it with a ringing bell stating that the important NPC has died. The town is gathered in the square and there is a massive state of paranoia beginning to foster as everyone is beginning to realize that THEY could be next.
After the crowd disperses and the party finishes their rest, one unlucky bastard at your table (roll for it, have the players roll and pick the lowest, choose the character you hate the most, up to you) has awful nightmares and begins displaying the first level of symptoms.
This will put a fire under your party's feet as there is now a ticking clock over one player's head counting down to 0. Here's where you throw in the werewolf incursion, and give them action for placation but sprinkle in some red herring leads pointing to the doctor.
Have the flesh golem stuff ready to unload at any point if the party investigates too hard too early, but plan for something grandiose if they don't; like the final werewolf boss fight is a mile out of town on a cliff and as they make their way back from their victory they can see the town going up in flames from the golem attack and an alarm bell ringing in the distance.
Once the party puts down the mad doctor, let them catch their breath and celebrate and have the Hag in disguise try and draw the afflicted player away from the others to steal their soul more directly.
Here is where I'd take heavy inspiration from my favorite horror movie in designing the encounter; specifically in how the Hag approaches the afflicted player and what her play for their soul is going to be. Maybe they will capture and crucify the afflicted player on a cross in the town square Bloodborne style while stirring the town into an angry mob that aggresses the rest of the party. The party will have to decide on how to engage the mob and the afflicted player could have a chance to roleplay their way out of the situation or come up with a clever solution.
Sorry for the essay, I had a few thoughts that kind of kept going haha
Hey all,
I’m working on a spooky adventure, and I’m wanting to include a hag. The hag will be terrorizing a small town, and will have caused a plague of werewolves, as well as corrupting a respected doctor into making flesh golems.
She also has been (indirectly) causing a general sense of mass hysteria in the town, driving townsfolk to violence.
What I need help with is how the players will discover the presence of the hag (how do they know a hag is behind it?)
It’s a Night hag if that makes a difference.
I played an adventure not long ago that only hinted to a mysterious woman who had shown up to town. The town's head had become enamored with her and began making uncharacteristically detrimental decisions concerning the townsfolk. The players knew something wasn't right about this woman, but nothing was apparent to go off of. As the adventure crested, they found out the truth. Spoilers hidden.
To take an excerpt from "The Haunt":
I was reading through volo's guide,hags section seeing if something came up.
It did, sorta. What if ... the hag had a flaw, an allergy. I am thinking copper the same material as the coins on the eyes of the ritually buried dead.
Essentially if the players find out hags are allergic to copper either by research, or by accident, well there you go... the hag can be exposed, but it will cost... a pretty penny!!!lol
Conversely the players could discover something about copper at the scene of the crime, and bring that detail to... the town sage, the ***** caravan, inspector clouseau who ever.
Good luck
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
@Gigaflop, haha I like where you’re going with that. But, I kinda like the iron token thread mentioned under the Annis Hag as well. Essentially an Annis Hag can turn three of her teeth into iron tokens and hand them out to any creature so said creature can commune with the hag and do her bidding.
It be easy to fit that in your story line @dasmon511 ..three villagers whispering to themselves, acting funny, doing weird things. Your PC would simply interacte with one of the three and likely find out about the hag. Although, it would be funny if one of your PCs were to pickpocket a villager, find the iron coin, then fall under the hags influence.. traitor in your parties midst, like Betryal at House on the Hill.
But, that’s an Annis Hag... specific to a Night Hag, you could actually have the Hag give the party a quest. Night hags have two magical items.. a heartstone and a soulbag. Maybe she loses one, turns herself into a pretty woman, and approaches the party for aid in recovering the Magic item. You could have her blame a good NPC for stealing it, when in reality he took it to prevent her from destroying the village. If your party steals it back from the good NPC and gives it to the hag, then that could initiate the carnage.
Good luck, let us know what you decide!
I would definitely set up the encounter around the Hag's Nightmare Haunting ability.
First thing you'd want to do is introduce the townsfolk as superstitious and suspicious, just looking for an excuse to blame someone or something for their misfortunes and take out their aggression on it/them. Make the party be on tiptoes when asking questions or digging into their investigations to pry out some answers but also not implicate themselves as black magic practicioners.
Introduce the Nightmare Haunting ability as a sickness to an important NPC - the local Baron's daughter, the good Sheriff, a high end merchant, etc. As soon as the players enter town and are recognized as adventurers, someone mentions that there's a huge bounty on whomever can spare the dying NPC. You might have to customize the plot hook to your party, but once they've taken the bait and arrive at the NPC's bedside give the players a chance to diagnose them.
This is where you'll set up two plot points that will pay off later:
1)introduce the Hag in disguise who will be a recurring NPC
2)The symptoms of the disease
Now, the party's cursory examination reveals that this NPC is on death's door and pretty much everybody has given up hope for a cure. Some investigating will reveal that this is not the first death to the 'disease', the townspeople have heard folktales about the sickness from years and years ago but it has never taken this many lives this quickly. Throw in some flavor details like there is no pattern to the victims, they come from all walks of life at all ages and this unpredictability makes Busk the cow herder certain that it's another ploy by his neighbor Huck to steal his farmland.
Once the players rest for the night, interrupt it with a ringing bell stating that the important NPC has died. The town is gathered in the square and there is a massive state of paranoia beginning to foster as everyone is beginning to realize that THEY could be next.
After the crowd disperses and the party finishes their rest, one unlucky bastard at your table (roll for it, have the players roll and pick the lowest, choose the character you hate the most, up to you) has awful nightmares and begins displaying the first level of symptoms.
This will put a fire under your party's feet as there is now a ticking clock over one player's head counting down to 0. Here's where you throw in the werewolf incursion, and give them action for placation but sprinkle in some red herring leads pointing to the doctor.
Have the flesh golem stuff ready to unload at any point if the party investigates too hard too early, but plan for something grandiose if they don't; like the final werewolf boss fight is a mile out of town on a cliff and as they make their way back from their victory they can see the town going up in flames from the golem attack and an alarm bell ringing in the distance.
Once the party puts down the mad doctor, let them catch their breath and celebrate and have the Hag in disguise try and draw the afflicted player away from the others to steal their soul more directly.
Here is where I'd take heavy inspiration from my favorite horror movie in designing the encounter; specifically in how the Hag approaches the afflicted player and what her play for their soul is going to be. Maybe they will capture and crucify the afflicted player on a cross in the town square Bloodborne style while stirring the town into an angry mob that aggresses the rest of the party. The party will have to decide on how to engage the mob and the afflicted player could have a chance to roleplay their way out of the situation or come up with a clever solution.
Sorry for the essay, I had a few thoughts that kind of kept going haha
@Avalonicous thats awesome, well thought thought out!