Innate Spellcasting. The hag’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (12th level caster, spell save DC 17, spell attack bonus +9). She can innately cast the following spells:
At will: chaos bolt, infestation, prestidigitation
3/day each: disguise self (including the form of a Medium humanoid), fog cloud, hex
Hag Covens. When hags must work together, they form covens, in spite of their selfish natures. A coven is made up of hags of any type, all of whom are equals within the group. However, each of the hags continues to desire more personal power.
A coven consists of three hags so that any arguments between two hags can be settled by the third. If more than three hags ever come together, as might happen if two covens come into conflict, the result is usually chaos.
Shared Spellcasting. While all three members of a hag coven are connected to one another, they can each cast the following spells from the wizard’s spell list but must share the spell slots among themselves:
1st level (4 slots): detect magic, identify, silent image
2nd level (3 slots): hold person, invisibility, locate object
3rd level (3 slots): bestow curse, counterspell, lightning bolt
4th level (3 slots): arcane eye, locate creature, phantasmal killer, polymorph
5th level (2 slots): scrying, legend lore
6th level (1 slot): eyebite
Rituals: augury, detect magic, identify
For casting these spells, each hag is a 12th-level spellcaster that uses Intelligence as her spellcasting ability. The spell save DC is 12 + the hag’s Intelligence modifier, and the spell attack bonus is 4 + the hag’s Intelligence modifier.
Cackling Sheila Tearwrangler has a spell save DC of 16, and the spell attack bonus is 8.
Multiattack. The hag makes three attacks: one with her bite and two with her claws.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +12 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d6 + 8) piercing damage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +12 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d6 + 8) slashing damage.
Crushing Hug. Melee Weapon Attack: +12 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 39 (9d6 + 8) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 20) if it is a Large or smaller creature. Until the grapple ends, the target takes 39 (9d6 + 8) bludgeoning damage at the start of each of the hag’s turns. The hag can’t make attacks while grappling a creature in this way.
The hag can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. The hag regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Claw Attack. The hag makes one Claw attack.
Move. The hag moves up to its speed.
Annis Spell. The hag casts one of her at will spells or one of her thrice a day spells.
Lower Coven Spell. The hag casts one of her coven spells of level 3 or lower.
Higher Coven Spell (Costs 2 Actions). The hag casts one of her coven spells of level 4 or higher.
Crushing Hug (Costs 3 Actions). The hag makes her Crushing Hug.
Description
Annis hags lair in mountains or hills. Despite being hunchbacked and hump-shouldered, they are the largest and most physically imposing of their kind, standing eight feet tall.
Tormenting the Weak. Although annis hags can easily tear a grown man apart, they love hunting children, preferring their flesh above all others. They use the flayed skin of such victims to make supple leather, and a hag’s lair often shows the signs of this industry.
Annis hags leave tokens of their cruelty at the edges of forests and other areas they claim. In this way, they provoke fear and paranoia in nearby villages and settlements. To an annis hag, nothing is sweeter than turning a vibrant community into a place paralyzed with terror, where folk never venture out at night, strangers are met with suspicion and anger, and parents warn their children to “be good, or the annis will get you.”
Child Corrupter. When an annis feels especially cruel, she disguises herself as a kindly-looking elderly woman, approaches a child in a remote place, and gives it an iron token that it can use to confide in her. Over time, “Granny” convinces the child that it’s okay to have bad thoughts and do bad deeds — starting with breaking things or wandering outside without permission, then graduating to pushing someone down the stairs or setting a house on fire. Sooner or later, the child’s family and community become terrified of the “bad seed” and must face the awful decision of whether the child should be punished or exiled.
Tribe Mother. Much in the way that they befriend children in order to corrupt them, annis hags have a tendency for adopting a group of [Tooltip Not Found], [Tooltip Not Found], or other loutish creatures, ruling them through brute strength, verbal abuse, and superstition.
IRON TOKEN
An annis hag can pull out one of her iron teeth or nails and spend 1 minute shaping and polishing it into the form of a coin, a ring, or a tiny mirror. Thereafter, any creature that holds this iron token can have a whispered conversation with the hag, provided the creature and the hag are on the same plane of existence and within 10 miles of each other. The holder of the token can hear only the hag’s voice, not those of any other creatures or any ambient noise around the hag. Similarly, the hag can hear the holder of the token and not the noise around it.
A hag can have up to three iron tokens active at one time. As an action, she can discern the direction and approximate distance to all of her active tokens. She can instantaneously deactivate any of her tokens at any distance (no action required), whereupon the token retains its current form but loses its magical properties.
Lair and Lair Actions
Lair Actions
On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the hag can take a lair action to cause one of the following effects, but can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:
- Until initiative count 20 on the next round, the hag can pass through solid walls, doors, ceilings, and floors as if the surfaces weren’t there.
- The hag targets any number of doors and windows that she can see, causing each one to either open or close as she wishes. Closed doors can be magically locked (requiring a successful DC 20 Strength check to force open) until she chooses to make them unlocked, or until she uses this lair action again to open them.
- The hag creates a thick cloud of caustic black smoke that fills a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point she can see within 120 feet her. The cloud lasts until initiative count 20 on the next round. Creatures and objects in or behind the smoke are heavily obscured. A creature that enters the cloud for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there takes 10 (3d6) acid damage.
Regional Effects
A hag’s foul nature slowly suffuses the environment around her lair, twisting it to evil.
Any regional effect that requires a creature to make a saving throw uses the save DC of the hag’s most powerful ability. These effects either end immediately if the hag dies or abandons the lair, or take up to 2d10 days to fade away.
The region within 1 mile of a grandmother hag’s lair is warped by the creature’s fell magic, which creates one or more of the following effects:
- Birds, rodents, snakes, spiders, or toads (or some other creatures appropriate to the hag) are found in great profusion.
- Beasts that have an Intelligence score of 2 or lower are charmed by the hag and directed to be aggressive toward intruders in the area.
- Strange carved figurines, twig fetishes, or rag dolls magically appear in trees.
- The gravel stones on a safe-looking path, road, or trails occasionally become sharp for 100-foot intervals. Walking on these areas is like walking on caltrops.
- Small avalanches of rock intermittently fall, blocking a path or burying intruders. A buried creature is restrained and has to hold its breath until it is dug out.
- Strange laughter, sounding like that of children or the hag herself, occasionally pierces the silence.
- Small cairns appear along the route of travelers, containing anything from mysterious bones to nothing at all. These cairns might be haunted by skeletons, specters, or hostile fey.
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